BECOME PILLARS SUPPORTING
A PROSPEROUS FUTURE KOREA
Congratulatory Speech at the Joint National Meeting of the Korean Children’s Union Organizations Held in Celebration of the 66th Anniversary of Its Founding
June 6, Juche 101 (2012)

Foreign Languages Publishing House DPR Korea
Juche 110 (2021)

Dear members of the Korean Children’s Union across the country,
Dear delegates to the Joint National Meeting held in celebration of the 66th anniversary of the founding of the KCU,
I am very happy and pleased today to see you, our proud KCU delegates, who have come from various parts of the country, from as far afield as Jongilbong Secondary School at the foot of Mt. Paektu and Chodo Secondary School on the front line of the country, and other model KCU members.
When I see your dignified appearances and dear faces, I feel as if I am seeing your friends and teachers, your parents, brothers and sisters who saw you off on your journey to Pyongyang.
I extend warm congratulations to you delegates and other KCU members across the country, who are greeting the KCU founding anniversary amid the great concern and blessing of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Korean people in this hope-filled period when the dawn of a thriving socialist country is breaking.
My warm greetings also go to your teachers and parents who are striving to bring you up as excellent persons.
June 6 is a special holiday not only for the KCU, but also for our Party and all our people.
Nowhere else in the world are there schoolchildren like our KCU members, the several million of whom, with red neckerchiefs around their necks, are all rallied behind their organization and are growing up to be dependable masters of the future.
Our KCU members boundlessly love the benevolent Party and their motherland that embrace them and are bringing them up; they are studying diligently, living in high spirits and exalting the honour of their country by dint of their outstanding talents.
To our Party and country, you dear KCU members are
treasures more valuable than billions of tons of gold, and represent our hope and our future.
In the past, our dependable KCU members carried forward the revolutionary traditions of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps and, flying proudly the flag of the KCU, fought bravely for their motherland and people and performed many laudable deeds.
The children’s vanguard and child guerrillas were born in our country, and the heroic deeds performed by our KCU members such as defending the portraits of their leaders and saving forests from fire even at the sacrifice of their lives have never been seen anywhere else in the world.
Our KCU members are patriots who have donated Sonyon (children’s) tanks, aircraft and ships to the Korean People’s Army and contributed to socialist construction and the development of their country’s economy.
In the days of the Arduous March they overcame the trials, displaying patriotism as they zealously studied and briskly conducted such socio-political activities as schools assisting military units.
Former KCU members have now become heroes and labour innovators who are held dear and respected by people across the country, or officials responsible for major national affairs. They are here today to congratulate the KCU members of the new generation.
Our Party and people regard it as a source of great pleasure and pride to have such an excellent children’s organization, and a bright, promising future is in store for Songun Korea with this large contingent of young revolutionaries numbering millions.
Today the KCU, nurtured in the benevolent embrace of the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il who were endowed with boundless affection for children, the future of the nation, has developed into a powerful organization of successors
to the revolution that is demonstrating its dignity to the world.
Every trace on the path traversed by the KCU is associated with the warm care of the Generalissimos, who put forward new slogans for it in keeping with the progress of the revolution and guided its work at every step in order to train its members into true sons and daughters who are infinitely loyal to the Party and their socialist motherland.
Our Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were ever-victorious, iron-willed commanders who left the enemy shaking with fear; yet to the schoolchildren, they were benevolent fathers who loved them dearly and cared for their learning in every detail.
They made it an eternal policy of the DPRK to give free education to the children across the country and supply them with new school uniforms–the first such policy in the world; they had splendid palaces and camps built for them in the best locations in the country and were always anxious to provide them with better things.
The world knows no such leaders as our great Generalissimos who, calling children the kings of the country, ensured that caring for them was the most important of the affairs of the Party and state, and devoted their whole lives to the good of the children.
The KCU is truly the glorious Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il organization of children, which developed under their warm care, and membership of this organization is a source of great pride and glory for KCU members.
Dear KCU members,
You are successors to the Songun revolution and masters of the future.
The future of Korea is yours, and in your faces we see the future of the country.
Our Party is determined to hand down to you a thriving socialist country that will be the greatest in the world.
The prosperous and powerful Korea you will be in charge of will be a country where laughter fills every home, where everyone is living in harmony and which is the strongest in the world.
It is you who will take charge of this great country and make it even better.
KCU members should always remember the great trust in and care for them shown by the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and, just as sunflowers turn towards the sun, make positive efforts to learn from the glorious childhood of the Generalissimos. You should steadfastly carry on the line of the revolution, flying the flags bearing the immortal smiling images of the Generalissimos in front of the KCU flag.
The KCU is the dependable reserve of the KPA and the youth league, which are the vanguard of the Songun revolution in carrying out the cause of our Party.
KCU members should become genuine young revolutionaries and the vanguard in the Songun era who defend the Party to the death, just as Kim Ki Song and Kim Kum Sun, heroic members of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps, did and the child guerrillas did during the Fatherland Liberation War, and they should advance straight ahead along the road indicated by the Party.
What is important for KCU members at present is to prepare themselves as able revolutionaries who are knowledgeable, morally sound and physically strong, and pillars of a thriving Korea.
The future of a thriving Korea will be represented first in their academic records.
In our country, where now space rockets are launched and CNC machines produced in large quantities and which will be at the forefront of development in the future, schoolchildren with poor academic records are good for nothing and cannot keep up with the country’s progress.
Schoolchildren should hold high the slogan, “Learn for a thriving Korea,” and study zealously without idling even a moment.
The ranks of the KCU should produce inventors and scientists who will distinguish themselves worldwide with their great achievements.
Schoolchildren should, in a spirit of patriotism, study well, observe socialist ethics, love their organizations, collective and fellows, respect their teachers and elders, take an active part in sport and do-good-deeds movements, and thus become model KCU members.
It is in the KCU that people experience a political life for the first time in their lives.
The red KCU neckerchief has been inherited from the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps and is also a part of the red flag of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
KCU members, bearing in mind that the honour of Party membership and the gold medal of Hero start from the red neckerchief and badge of the KCU, should take part in an organizational life voluntarily and sincerely.
They should acquire the habit of treasuring their organizations, taking a voluntary and active part in an organizational life and implementing without fail the tasks assigned by their sub-branch organizations.
Standing behind them are their KCU school instructors and their class teachers–their KCU sub-branch instructors–who are their most intimate mentors and the protectors of their political integrity.
Our Party places great trust in the KCU school instructors and its sub-branch teachers.
It hopes that they will follow in the footsteps of the instructors of the Anti-Japanese Children’s Corps and take care of and love
our priceless KCU members like parents, becoming the roots and genuine teachers that bring their talents into full bloom and lead them to a genuine life.
Our Party and the government of our Republic, true to the noble spirit of the great Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il of loving the rising generations, will give top priority to work with them over all other affairs, and make every effort to bring our beloved KCU members up as the happiest children in the world and excellent pillars of Songun Korea.
Dear KCU members across the country,
I once again extend warm congratulations to you as you celebrate your holiday, June 6, amid the blessing of our Party and people.
I once again offer warm greetings to your teachers and parents who are devoting themselves to a brighter future for our powerful country, our socialist motherland.
May a bright future be with you, rising generations of
Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea!