DPRK state media reported on 29 January (Tuesday) that the 4th Meeting of Party Cell Secretaries closed. Kim Jong Un and other members of the central leadership attended. KJU’s last reported public appearance was at the opening day of the party cell secretaries meeting. KCNA reported that speakers on the second day of the meeting “were unanimous in praising the leadership feats of the peerlessly great persons of Mt. Paektu associated with their fields and units, and analyzed and reviewed achievements, experience and defects in their party work in the past” and “made pledges to glorify generation after generation the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s idea on party-building and their feats, bring about an epochal turn in the party work under the leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong Un and thus contribute to turning the party into an unbreakable integral whole with firm center of leadership and unity, a genuine mother party that is linked with the people through one blood vessel and a guiding force that leads the building of a thriving nation.”
During their visit to Pyongyang, according to KCNA, party cell secretaries visited the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces, celebrated their birthdays with a banquet and performance and visited textile mills.
Kim Jong Un delivered a keynote address at the meeting. There were no nuclear invocations or martial rhetoric, but his remarks were a direct attack on corrupt mid-level party and government officials. His full speech, according to KCNA:
I think that the report to the Conference and speeches have properly reviewed the achievements, experiences and shortcomings in the work of Party cells of the past and I would like to refer to some problems arising in enhancing the functions and role of Party cells drastically in line with the requirements of our Party and the developing revolution.
Comrades, At present our revolution has entered a new turning phase.
Our Party, army and people have been united more closely under the immortal flags bearing the beaming images of President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il and are advancing straight along the road of independence, the road of Songun and the road of socialism true to their instructions.
We have firmly had in our hands the powerful assets and the key with which to win a greater victory by having steadily defended the precious revolutionary legacies the General bequeathed to us and adding brilliance to them despite trying ordeals and hardships.
In particular, the successful launch of artificial earth satellite Kwangmyo’ngso’ng 3-2 last year was a historic event that demonstrated the inexhaustible power of the powerful Mt. Paektu nation to the whole world and a mega event that dealt a crushing blow to hostile forces trying viciously to stifle our Republic.
Now we have taken the initiative more firmly in the face-off with the imperialists and it is a matter of time to bring about a turn in the building of an economic giant and the standard of the people’s living.
We should effect a radical turn in the economic construction and the people’s livelihoods in the spirit and mettle displayed in conquering outer space and fly the red flag of victory on the peak of a thriving socialist country.
To step up the building of a thriving country, we should further strengthen the Party, the general staff and guiding force of the revolution, organizationally and ideologically, rally all the people around it closely and mobilize them effectively to carry out its policies.
It is the nature and the traditional revolutionary mode of the great party of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il that the entire Party is bound together with a single ideology and purpose and the Party and people are pushing the revolution and construction in a harmonious whole.
The President and the General developed our Party into an invincible party in which the monolithic ideological system and the monolithic leadership system have been established firmly and which has taken root deep among the people and set up a prosperous and strong socialist country by relying on the revolutionary enthusiasm and creative strength of the people united rock-hard around the Party.
The red flag of our Party in which only victory and glory have been etched and the socialist gains achieved on this land are associated with the proud history of single-hearted unity in which the leader believed in the Party members and people and the Party members and people trusted him absolutely and supported him with loyalty.
We should take the undying exploits performed by the President and the General in Party building as an eternal treasure so as to further develop our Party into a powerful, militant general staff that is knitted closely together in a single ideology and purpose and takes root deep among the people and surely build the strongest country, the people’s paradise the world looks up to, on this land on the strength of the Party-people harmonious whole.
The position and role of Party cells are very important in strengthening our Party further and speeding up the building of a thriving country in line with the requirements of a new era of the Juche-based revolution.
Party cell is a base of the Party life for the Party members, the Party’s end nerve stretched out into the masses of the people and a scouting group in carrying out the Party’s policies.
When Party cells are strong the Party will never shake in any adversity and there will be nothing we are afraid of or we can not do.
As the consolidation of Party cells is the first step and the essential thing for strengthening the whole Party, the Party Central Committee has convened the Conference of Cell Secretaries as the first meeting for improving Party work since the Fourth Conference of the Workers’ Party of Korea and regards this Conference as important as a Party congress and conference.
In order to make the Fourth Conference of Cell Secretaries of the Workers’ Party of Korea a turning point in enhancing the Party’s militant might in every way and stepping up the building of a thriving country, the participants in the Conference and the cell secretaries of the whole Party should understand the Party’s intention clearly and improve the work of Party cells radically.
The most important task facing Party cells at present is to prepare the Party members as genuine Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists and true comrades and comrades-in-arms of our Party.
Preparing all the Party members as genuine Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists is a prerequisite and decisive guarantee for developing ours into the eternal party of the President and the General and winning the final victory in the building of a thriving country and the Juche-based revolution.
Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist means the soldier and follower loyal to the President and the General, who takes Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism as his firm faith and devotes his all to victory in the Juche- based revolution under the leadership of our Party.
Party cells should hold it as the main task to prepare the Party members as genuine Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists and provide scrupulous guidance to their organizational and ideological life in the Party.
They should undertake education in Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism substantially among the Party members so as to train them soundly into ardent revolutionary fighters who are thoroughly armed with the Juche idea and the Songun idea of our Party and are equipped with the spirit of safeguarding the leadership of the revolution at the cost of their lives, firm faith in socialism and steadfast class consciousness against imperialism.
Stalwart members of the Society for Rallying Comrades, the first organization of our Party, are the exemplars from whom all the Party members should learn.
Party cells should conduct education energetically so that all the Party members venerate the Party and the leader with absolute faith and pure conscience like our Party’s first-generation members including Cha Kwang Su and Kim Hyok and carry forward the tradition of single- hearted unity steadily.
A habit of leading a voluntary Party life on the basis of a high sense of organizational duty should be established in Party cells and the Party members should be trained in the furnace of the Party’s organizational life so that they become stout revolutionaries with boundless loyalty to the Party, leader, country and people and a strong sense of organization and discipline.
Particular attention should be paid to implanting the Party members with love for the people and spirit of serving them devotedly in preparing them as true Kimilsungists-Kimjongilists.
Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is, in essence, the people-first doctrine and a person who worships the people as God and works devotedly for them is just a genuine Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist.
It is the firm determination of our Party to respect our people and devote everything to them as we hold the President and the General in high esteem.
The slogan “Everything for the people and everything by relying on them!” contains the Party’s will to fill the whole Party with love for and trust in the people.
All the officials and Party members should be genuine comrades and comrades-in-arms who steadily follow, together with our Party, the road of l ove for the people the President and the General had taken throughout their lives.
Party cells should implant their noble outlook on the people deep in the officials and Party members to make them serve and love the people like their parents, wives and children.
The Party cells to which officials belong, in particular, should take it as an important task to prepare them as the true servants of the people and enhance guidance over and control of their Party life.
From the very beginning after he founded our Party the President saw the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices manifested among officials as the most dangerous poison a working- class ruling party should guard against and ensured that a consistent struggle was waged against them.
The General put forward the slogan “We serve the people!” and devoted energy and soul to developing our Party into a motherly party serving the people faithfully, not a party that indulges in power abuse and bureaucracy.
However, whenever the Party underlined the need to eliminate the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices, Party organizations simply called meetings for criticizing ideological defects and punished some officials.
Then they did not make persevering efforts to transform officials on a revolutionary pattern.
Abuse of power and bureaucracy are not merely a matter of personal character or work style of officials, but a matter of their ideology.
When they abuse their power and work in a bureaucratic manner, officials will not merely lose their popularity among the masses and get a blot on their political integrity, but impair the Party’s authority and the prestige of socialism, which will end up leading the revolution and construction to ruin.
Today when the enemy is resorting to more vicious schemes to undermine the single-hearted unity between our Party and people, those who abuse their power and work in a bureaucratic manner are the major targets of criticism, those whom our Party should punish resolutely.
The Party Central Committee is firmly determined not simply to weed out but to root out the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices that are like the poisonous weeds sprouting on the garden of socialism centred on the masses of the people.
The campaign against power abuse and bureaucracy is a Party-wide undertaking in which all Party organizations and their members should turn out.
In order to eliminate the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices officials and cell secretaries should try hard to train themselves in a revolutionary way, and Party cells, to say nothing of the Party Central Committee, provincial, city and county Party committees and their primary organizations, should wage an intensive, principled struggle against power abuse and bureaucracy.
There are ranks in work, but there can never be members of high or low rank in the Party life and the double standards of discipline are never allowed in the Party.
Party cells should create a strict atmosphere of criticism and ideological campaign and intensify criticism from bottom up in particular to give comradely help to officials to eliminate the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices and prepare themselves as the true servants of the people.
Party cells should clearly distinguish between demands of officials and bureaucracy.
When abuse of power and bureaucratic practices are manifested among officials even in the slightest degree, they should not neglect them but wage a struggle against them promptly.
All Party cells should not be indifferent to the abuse of power and bureaucratic practices of the officials who do not belong to them but actively struggle against them; as for serious cases, they should report on them to higher Party organizations, including the Party Central Committee, before it is too late.
Another important task facing Party cells at present is to work with the masses properly so that broad segments of people establish a firm bond of kinship with our Party.
The masses are the grass-roots foothold the Party relies on and the eternal companions with whom our Party should share the destiny until the final victory will have been won in the revolution.
If the Party loses their support and trust it will lose its grass-roots basis, fail to fulfil its militant mission and in the end become unable to maintain its own existence.
If we are to defend socialism and build a thriving country amid the fierce showdown with the enemy and reunify the country, we should fully grasp the public sentiments and win over as many people as possible through efficient work with them.
As rallying broad masses of people around the Party is an important issue decisive of the destiny of the Party and revolution, an amnesty was proclaimed last year in the run-up to the 100th birthday of the President and the 70th birthday of the General.
It was ensured that most of the participants in the celebrations of the 66th anniversary of the Korean Children’s Union were the children of ordinary workers, farmers, service personnel and intellectuals, rather than those of cadres, and the children of those who committed offences against the country were not discriminated in being chosen as delegates if they were exemplary in study and organizational life of the Children’s Union.
The embrace that cares more for sick and wounded children, gives them love and affection, cures their sour wounds, helps them up and puts them forward again, instead of blaming them this is the embrace of our motherly Party.
We should train all the people to be strong in ideology and faith with great force produced by the motherly Party’s love and trust that are more powerful than nuclear weapons, thereby building rings of fortresses around the Party Central Committee.
All Party cells should work with the masses properly in keeping with our Party’s benevolent politics and all-embracing politics so that they shout “Long live the Workers’ Party!” even though they are left alone in out-of-the-way mountains.
Only then will all the people fight for the Party, the revolution and the country at the risk of their lives in a do-or-die war.
In order to conduct work with the masses effectively in line with the Party’s intention Party cells should assess the people properly in the interests of the revolution.
People have emotions and express their feelings differently according to their characters.
Party cells, guided by the General’s saying that they should know the real minds of people even though they do not know what there is in the fathomless water, should read the innermost thoughts of people and make an unbiased assessment of them.
They should not only stick to collective education but channel great efforts into individual education in educating the masses.
Party work, work with the masses, cannot be conducted with any formula or a single solution.
It is imperative to study appropriate methods of educating people of different characters and apply them to practice so as to make even one more person support the Party.
We should not indiscriminately discard people, even though they are unwilling to accept the Party’s ideas.
If so, it will result in a gradual decrease in the number of the people to be rallied around the Party.
Party cells should not cram the Party’s ideas into the heads of the masses, but educate them persuasively and perseveringly so that they would willingly accept the Party’s ideas.
It is very important to place trust in the people in winning over the masses. Political trust is followed by loyalty, but distrust produces betrayal.
As he is not a Buddhist image made of stone, man may make mistakes in his work and life and even commit unforgivable crimes.
No matter what serious mistakes or crimes he may make, and even though we find in him 99 per cent of demerits and only one per cent of merit or conscience, we should value his conscience, boldly t rust him and lead him to start with a clean slate.
People who have deep-seated mental agonies should be treated more kind-heartedly and particular attention should be paid to freeing them from worries lingering in their minds.
Only then can all the people be developed into indefatigable fighters who will only trust and follow our Party in any adversity, just like white gem that preserves its colour even if it is broken into pieces and bamboo that keeps its straightness even if it is burnt.
Our Party expects that all Party cells will become the blood vessels that link broad masses of the people with the Party with a feeling of kinship and the stones supporting the fortress of single-hearted unity.
Today when the general advance for building a thriving socialist country is gaining momentum, an important task facing Party cells is to actively mobilize the Party members and other working people to carry out the Party’s policies.
The most important revolutionary task facing our Party at present is to translate into brilliant reality the lofty wish of the General who continued super-intensity forced march energetically until the last moment of his life to bring all the benefits of socialism to our people.
In order to bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant and the standard of the people’s living, the Party organizations at all levels, Party cells in particular, should creditably play a role of the death-defying corps and scouting group in implementing the Party’s policies.
A Party cell that fails to work efficiently to carry out the Party’s policies cannot be said to be a living Party cell.
At present a great emphasis is put on establishing the monolithic leadership system in the entire Party more thoroughly; whether the Party’s monolithic leadership system is established finds concentrated expression in how the Party’s policies are implemented.
At present not a few Party cells are conducting their work in such a way as to transmit the Party’s policies and instructions to the people and exhort them to turn out for their implementation.
Then the Party’s policies, however correct they may be, cannot be carried out properly and the people’s livelihoods can never be improved.
Party cells should carry out the Party’s policies perseveringly till they pay off in the people’s livelihoods.
Now our officials hold that in order to ensure the Party’s authority it is important to publish a lot of books and intensify information work.
However, the Party’s leadership authority is not ensured by means of texts or words; it is possible only when the Party’s policies are carried out in a thoroughgoing way and people enjoy subsequent benefits.
Party cells should inspire all the Party members and officials to be a valuable foundation for translating the Party’s policies into reality with an unusual determination to sweat blood to improve the people’s living standards.
They should resolutely overcome the tendency to work like a flash in the pan in implementing the Party’s policies and carry them through to the end with unfailing efforts so that our Party’s policies prove to be effective in the people’s livelihoods.
To be the death-defying corps and scouting group in implementing the Party’s policies, Party cells should conduct organizational and political work in a progressive manner to raise a hot wind of Kim Jong Il’s patriotism to the full.
When the hearts of the people are beating vigorously with patriotism of the General who had burnt himself up like a candle for the sake of the country, there will be no difficulty we cannot surmount, nor will there be any fortress we cannot conquer.
Party cells should encourage the Party members and other working people to cherish Kim Jong Il’s patriotism in their minds and devote their heart and soul to carrying out the Party’s lines and policies, holding dear every stone and every blade of grass on this land and warming them up with their blood.
Today our Party requires creating a new spirit of the times advancing towards the world by restoring the fighting spirit in the 1970s when the drum of revolution resounded.
The creators of the spirit of the present times should naturally be produced among the officials and Party members who are the commanding personnel and vanguard fighters of the revolution.
When all the officials and Party members become a locomotive and a scout who plough their way through virgin snow in the van of their sectors and units, like those of the 1970s who had ushered in a heyday in the era of the Workers’ Party under the leadership of the General, leaps and innovations will be made in all posts and the overall affairs of the country will go smoothly.
The Party’s lines and policies can be implemented successfully when all the masses as well as Party members turn out.
Party cells should enlist Party members and the hardcore of the masses to make one person rouse ten others and ten a hundred again, and an innovation in a unit lead on to innovations in other units.
They should bring about a great innovation, a great leap forward racing against time on all fronts of building a socialist economic giant and a civilized nation by dynamically mobilizing workers, farmers, intellectuals and all other sections of people in carrying out the Party’s policies.
Special efforts should be channelled into work with young people in organizing and mobilizing the masses in implementing the Party’s policies.
Young people are vanguard fighters who have taken the lead in supporting the Party and leader in each period and stage of our revolution.
It was none other than young people who lit the torch of the great Chollima upsurge by exerting themselves with patriotism at the furnaces in Kangson in the postwar days and who wrought miracles in the Haeju-Hasong railway project.
Party cells should put forward the young people of new generation and lead them to give fullest play to their resources and gallantry to perform epoch-making heroic exploits in every field of building a thriving nation as their fathers and mothers did in their youth.
This is an age of science and technology, the age of knowledge-based economy, and the building of a prosperous country and its future are inconceivable apart from science and technology.
Party cells should render positive encouragement and sustaining assistance to scientists and technicians so that they raise the hot wind of breaking through the cutting edge as the space scientists who conquered space did.
And they should provide scrupulous Party guidance to ensure that officials, Party members and other working people find out a key to self-reliance and increased production in science and technology and that they try hard to learn advanced science and technology and solve all problems on the strength of science and technology.
By so doing, they should fan the flames of the industrial revolution in the new century and the campaign for breaking through the cutting edge, which the great General kindled, more fiercely in all sectors and units.
Cell secretaries should enhance their sense of responsibility and role in order for Party cells to discharge the heavy mission and duty they assume on behalf of the times and the revolution.
The combat efficiency of Party cells largely depends on the preparedness and role of cell secretaries.
Party cell secretaries are the point men of our Party in building it up and implementing its lines and policies.
When the cell secretaries of the whole Party become the standard-bearers of the revolution and struggle and discharge their responsibilities, Party cells will be consolidated and our revolution advance faster that much.
If Party cell secretaries are to fulfil their duty, they should be like the mother of a family.
The essence of the work of Party cell secretaries is to arouse people through efficient political work to move their hearts .
To this end, they should devote all their sincerity as mothers do to their children.
There is an impressive passage in song “The Voice of the Mother” which goes that although the voice of a mother is heard only in a family, the voice of the Party reverberates throughout the country; it is none other than cell secretaries who should ensure that the voice of the motherly Party full of love and trust resounds throughout the country.
Reflecting themselves on the song, all our cell secretaries should get closer to the minds of people like the mother of a family and rally them firmly behind the Party.
If they are to be like mothers, they should be so warm-hearted and broad-minded that everybody is willing to come to them and unbosom himself or herself.
They should always rack their brains over how to lead people along the right track and add glory to their political integrity.
They should think about the problems of their comrades and the masses before their own family affairs and devote themselves entirely to the collective as mothers would dedicate their blood, flesh and even their lives unhesitatingly to their children.
Always looking up to the beaming images of the President and the General in their minds, cell secretaries should treat people tenderly and warmly with motherly affectionate eyes, bright expression and polite manner.
Only then will people gather around them as honey bees swarm around fragrant flowers and an amicable atmosphere pervade the collective.
If they are to fulfil their duty with credit, Party cell secretaries should set examples for the masses in carrying out the revolutionary tasks.
If they put their backs into difficult tasks ahead of others and make tireless efforts to implement the Party’s policies, this is a political work more powerful than hundreds of words.
Those who take on the most dangerous and difficult undertaking ahead of others and make a breakthrough in the advance like Kim Kum Su, a former Party cell secretary of the explosive disposal squad under the Kangwon Provincial People’s Security Bureau, are genuine cell secretaries required by our Party.
Cell secretaries should not merely call upon Party members and other working people to turn out in implementing the Party’s policies but lead the masses to the struggle and exploits by setting practical examples.
If they are devoted to the Party and the revolution in the van of the masses they may rest or sleep less than others, but they should regard it as comfort, not as toil.
To fulfil their responsibilities and role, Party cell secretaries should improve their political and practical qualifications.
If they are poorly qualified, they cannot work skillfully with people and arouse them forcefully to the implementation of the Party’s policies, however great their determination and enthusiasm may be.
Cell secretaries should not try to have a say on the strength of the Party’s authority or their position but secure authority in work and trust of the masses by means of their practical abilities.
They should make an in-depth study of the works of the President and the General and Party documents to have better knowledge of the Party’s ideas, lines and policies than anybody else and get familiar with the instructions of the President and the General and the Party’s policies which are related to their sectors and units and Party work, in particular.
By making a substantial study of Party Rules and the standards of Party life they should be well acquainted with all practical matters as to the work of Party cells including the organization and guidance of Party life and the expansion of Party membership.
They should have many-sided knowledge of different fields such as politics, the military, the economy and culture and be well-informed about the situation at home and abroad.
The capability to correctly read people’s minds and move their hearts is an indispensable qualification of cell secretaries.
They should acquire proficient methods of working with the masses and be persons of versatile talents who know how to dance, sing and make a motivational speech in front of the masses.
In order to enhance the militant functions and role of Party cells as required by the developing times and revolution, it is necessary to establish the climate of attaching importance and giving positive help to them throughout the Party.
Party committees at all levels should pay close attention to building up the ranks of cell secretaries with those who are politically and ideologically staunch, popular among Party members and practically prepared and improving their qualifications.
They should transmit and disseminate Party documents and policies to cell secretaries in time, regularly inform them of the decisions and directives of higher Party organizations for their implementation and specify correct orientation of work.
In the guidance of lower organizations, Party committees at all levels should fully meet the Party’s demands that officials help and teach cell secretaries, while going down to Party cells and giving guidance to the Party life of their members.
It is also necessary to run the day of Party cell secretaries efficiently on a regular basis and widely organize short courses, discussions about experiences and the like.
For the present, the short course to be given in the wake of this Conference should be organized properly so as to give a substantial help to cell secretaries in their work.
Party cell secretaries assume heavy responsibilities and duties in the efforts to develop our Party into the glorious party of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and expedite the building of a thriving nation.
The Party Central Committee firmly believes that all the Party cell secretaries and Party officials will creditably fulfil the honourable mission and duty they assume on behalf of the Party and revolution, fully aware that they themselves hold the flag of the Chuch’e-oriented Party.
After his speech, according to KCNA, meeting participants “extended greatest glory and warmest thanks to Kim Jong Un, who has further strengthened the WPK shining with the august names and feats of the great Generalissimos, remarkably enhanced its leadership role and thus provided the undying important programme to effect a great swing in the revolution and construction” and that “letter of pledge to the WPK was adopted at the conference.”
Kim Jong Un then delivered a closing speech in which he said “the Fourth Conference of Cell Secretaries of the Workers’ Party of Korea will be etched in the history of our Party as the one that marks a milestone in strengthening the militant might of the Party to the maximum as required by a new historic age in the accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche and achieving the final victory in the building of a thriving nation” and “The revolutionary ideas of the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are a science, and doing things as told by them leads to a sure victory in whatever difficulties and trials. This is the truth proved by our revolutionary practice.” According to KCNA Kim Jong Un also said “the participants in the Conference and other cell secretaries of the whole Party should bear in their minds the spirit of the Conference and fully apply them to their work, so as to give fullest play to the vitality of the Conference in the reality of the gigantic struggle to build a thriving country” and “Fully convinced that all the participants in the Conference and other cell secretaries of the whole Party will discharge their revolutionary duties in the sacred struggle for bringing earlier the prosperous future, firmly rallied around the Party Central Committee, Kim Jong Un declared the Fourth Conference of Cell Secretaries of the WPK closed. “
![Graphic illustrating personnel changes in the senior command of the Korean People's Army [KPA] from 2007 to 2013 (Photo: M. Madden/NK Leadership Watch)](http://nkleadershipwatch.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/kpahcperschgs_220513.jpg)
