How Does the Juche idea Consider the Concept of the Popular Masses?

Answer to the Question by Millen Ryubomirov Illiev, a Member of the Bulgarian Study Group of the Juche Idea:

How does the Juche idea consider the concept of the popular masses?

The popular masses mean a social collective combined with commonness of independent demands and creative activities with the main stress on the working people.

The word, the popular masses, assumes class character in a class society.

In the capitalist society popular masses are included by several classes and strata of people such as workers, farmers, working intellectuals struggling for independence.

In the socialist society all people are turned into the socialist working people and people of all strata are members of the popular masses.

The word, the popular masses, reflects the social and class relationship, but it is not a mere class concept. The main criterion of distinguishing a member of the popular masses is not what social and class origin he has but what sort of idea he has. Everyone with the idea of serving the working people, the idea of socialism and the idea of loving the country, the people and the nation can be a member of the popular masses.

On the contrary anyone who infringes upon the people’s interests with a reactionary idea cannot be a member of the popular masses although he is a worker and a peasant or he is of their origin.