The Significance of the Workers’ Party of Korea
in the Advances of the Korean People

Kim Jong Il, General Secretary
of the WPK in perpetuity

On June 19, the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) celebrate the 49th anniversary of the start of work by Kim Jong Il at the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).

The date of June 19, 1964, is regarded by the Korean people as of special significance in the development of the WPK. President Kim Il Sung had begun the work to found a new party after signalling the fresh start of the Korean revolution with the formation of the Down with Imperialism Union as a youth. The revolutionary movement grew in struggle against Japanese imperialism. At the time this struggle was crowned with victory, the WPK was founded.

The significance of Kim Jong Il’s work with the Central Committee, the WPK points out, is that, as well as carrying out outstanding work in building the party, Kim Jong Il developed it into a Juche-oriented revolutionary party. This has meant that it has led the Korean revolution guided by its concrete conditions and not through a dogmatic rendering of its problems.

Kim Jong Il himself wrote, “Our Party is a new type of revolutionary party of the working class guided by the Juche idea.” He stressed that when revolutionary principles are maintained, then “the socialist cause will make progress in the face of any difficulty and ordeal, but that when they are abandoned the socialist cause will deteriorate and collapse”. Among these principles is the preservation of the Party’s class character, that it was founded as a working class party from the start, and that it has to be strengthened on this basis. Kim Jong Il said, “Our Party is a mass-based political party the core of which consists of the vanguard fighters of the working class and behind which the excellent progressive workers, farmers and working intellectuals are organised.” Furthermore, “The working class and its party have no demands and interests other than those of the people, and the mission of the working class party is precisely to defend and meet the demands and interests of the masses.”

One of the crucial contributions of Kim Jong Il’s leadership has been the summing up that if the army is weak, then the country can be deprived of its sovereignty. This is the significance of saying that he made sure that all party work was oriented to the implementation of the Songun revolutionary line.

The legacy of Kim Jong Il is being carried forward by Kim Jong Un, first secretary of the WPK. He is held in high esteem as central to the leadership and unity of the WPK.

This line of march has enabled the WPK to sum up the experience of the Korean people in building a prosperous and peaceful Korea, making great strides in the face of the imperialist embargo. It is certain that under the leadership of the WPK, the Korean people will continue to safeguard their independence and sovereignty.

Along with the imposition of privatisation and “budget constraints”, “efficiency” and the like on the NHS comes the ideological assault to back up the anti-social offensive on the health service.

One of its features is the creation of suspicion through innuendo. This has the aim of trying to undermine the unity of health workers, divide health workers from health professionals, divide the organised workers from health campaigners and so on.

There has for some time been an ideological offensive against health workers seeking to lay the blame for lack of patient care at their feet. It reached fever pitch with the case of the Mid Staffs NHS Trust. And neither has the issue ended, as it is reported that the police are looking into several hundred cases of patient neglect. The fact is, as the Francis Report pointed out amongst other things, that cutting back on staffing levels, and in general the pursuit of financial considerations above clinical considerations, has led directly to the lowering of the standard of patient care. Many have pointed out that with such financial considerations, cutbacks and closures, an increase in the number of deaths has been inevitable. The nursing staff have been put in an impossible situation.

Indeed, the assault is not confined to the health service, but extends to education, to all public services and to society in general. In other words, while these services are put in the service of paying the rich by the government, the offensive comes down from the top of negating the human factor and social consciousness. A bullying atmosphere pervades, where fighting for the rights of individuals, of collectives and for the public good is considered grounds for punitive measures. In fact, in Thatcherite terms, the ideological offensive is built on the premise that there is not only no such thing as society, but no such thing as collectives with common interests. And of course it is individuals who bear the brunt. They are encouraged to think in terms of being isolated individuals, who are in competition with all the other isolated individuals who make up their colleagues. If they do not accept the offensive and attacks on the conditions of work, then so much the worse for them. In other words, far from being valued for showing responsibility in a very difficult environment, working people in health and education are being made scapegoats for the effects of the anti-social offensive.

It is in this context that a furore is being made about an alleged £2m being spent by hospitals on more than 50 “gagging orders” since 2008 which it is alleged ban staff from speaking out. Tory MP Steve Barclay has publicised these figures following a Freedom of Information Act request. Hence, it is alleged, the culture of the NHS has to change. In reality, what lies behind the figures is less sensational, but nevertheless also discloses the ongoing attacks on health workers.

When there is a contractual dispute and the NHS employer agrees, with the support of the employee’s union for example, to make a payment, then the employer will often ask for a clause where the employee agrees not to pursue the matter legally. Sometimes the union will prepare the agreement together with their solicitors. It is a negotiation that is made between union and the NHS employer in order that the employee will get the payment they are seeking without a legal process which would be costly to both sides, but particularly damaging for the employee.

In fact, most compromise agreements can still be challenged legally in any case. But the gist of the agreement is not even that in return for compensation, the employee agrees not to speak out about the injustice from the employer. It is rather that the employee agrees not to take the case further. Indeed, the alleged use of “gagging orders” that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt referred to in March in compromise agreements to the tune of £15m that he wants to ban is very largely a complete fiction.

So not only are the imputations of the sensationalised reports false, but one might ask what else might be in store through the raising of this issue. Is the NHS preparing to ditch such negotiations, for example, or even pursue criminal proceedings against such an employee, especially those that are at present subject to disciplinary hearings, for example? All kinds of skulduggery is being practised in the health and education services to try and victimise the health worker or teacher, for example, in the aim of imposing the dictate of the government’s anti-social offensive throughout society.

However, it is also the case that health workers, teachers and lecturers, are affirming their rights, and getting further organised on the basis that an injury to one is an injury to all. The slogan All for One and One for All is coming into its own. The opposition to the neo-liberal agenda from the working class and people is growing, and the watchword is to resist and get further organised!

On June 6, Foreign Secretary William Hague made a statement to Parliament regarding the out of court settlement made by the government in respect of the claims for compensation made by thousands of elderly Kenyans. On behalf of the government, Hague acknowledged that Kenyans were “subject to torture and other forms of ill treatment at the hands of the colonial administration” in the 1950s, and he added that “the British government sincerely regrets that these abuses took place, and that they marred Kenya’s progress towards independence. Torture and ill treatment are abhorrent violations of human dignity, which we unreservedly condemn.” In the course of his statement, Hague announced that some 5,228 claimants would each receive compensation payments of £2,600.

Commentators have been quick to point out that the present government and its predecessors have done everything possible to deny that they had any responsibility for crimes committed during the colonial period or for making any reparation. The case itself has dragged on since 2009 and some of the original claimants have since died. The government still refuses to accept any liability and refuses to acknowledge claims from the descendants of those, now deceased, who were brutally tortured, raped and castrated in the concentration camps established in Kenya in the 1950s. It can be concluded that the government’s conduct in this case is greatly at variance with its hypocritical boast that “the promotion and protection of human rights is at the heart of UK foreign policy”.

Although the weight of evidence and the tenacity of the Kenyan claimants have forced the government to seek a settlement, it cannot be concluded that the judicial system has favoured the case for reparations. Indeed the courts refused to accept that what Hague referred to as “the liabilities of the colonial administration” could be transferred to the present government. In a separate case only last year, the courts refused to even sanction a public hearing into the massacre of twenty-four villages in Malaya by the British army in 1948. Once again, successive governments have also resolutely opposed an enquiry or reparations for this atrocity.

What was most noticeable about Hague’s statement, however, was any recognition that the imposition of colonial rule and the denial of self-determination constituted crimes that required appropriate reparation. Nor was their any recognition of the heroic struggle against these crimes waged by the people of Kenya. To judge from Hague's statement, torture and ill-treatment were unfortunate aberrations that just occurred “in difficult and dangerous circumstances”, and he was quick to commend those members of the “colonial services” who “contributed to establishing the institutions that underpin Kenya today”. What emerges therefore is not only a defence of colonial rule but of that unequal relationship that still binds Kenya to Britain today. Indeed according to Hague the ability to recognise the errors of the past and “to build the strongest possible foundation for cooperation and friendship in the future are both hallmarks of our democracy”.

In fact, the continuing colonialist outlook and intervention and refusing to break from the past and make reparation for it exhibit a complete denial of democracy for the majority both in Britain and abroad.

The government continues to promote “our democracy” or “British values” as the justification not only for past crimes but also for its continuing intervention around the world. It poses as the champion of “democracy” but its actions show that it remains the sworn enemy of everything that is just and in the interests of the people, whether in Britain or elsewhere. The government must be condemned for its defence of the indefensible, for its colonialist logic and refusal to make reparation for the crimes of the past, as well as for its continuing interference and the carrying out of new crimes around the world.