“Let us live not merely for today but for tomorrow!”

This showed the view on life of Chairman Kim Jong Il.

He suggested the slogan in the latter half of the 1990s when the country faced a multitude of severe hardships and difficulties due to the collapse of socialism in East European countries and successive natural disasters, coupled with the death of President Kim Il Sung and wicked anti-DPRK pressure moves of the hostile forces.

At such a hard time when the people all over world thought it would be a miracle for Korean socialism to survive, the Chairman was confident not only about the defence of socialist Korea but also about the rosy future of a thriving country and nation, directing great energies and devotion to laying the solid foundations for it.

He, who had already realized the great power exerted by the indomitable spiritual strength of the people, paid primary attention to inspiring people, builders of a powerful socialist country, so as to give the fullest play to their inexhaustible spiritual strength.

He authored many works, in which he elucidated the ideological and spiritual features people have to possess including the high sense of national pride, the spirit of self-reliance, love for the future, spirit of devotion to it and others, and gave definite answers to all problems that arise in enlisting them properly. He also ensured that a socialist emulation drive was staged fiercely across the country and gave pep talks to the working people who made innovative achievements so that the elated public enthusiasm continued to run high.

Field inspection played an important part in his leadership.

He always found himself among the people in the enlivened workplaces to hear their opinion, discuss state affairs with them and teach them how to make a leap forward and innovations in their jobs. During the hard times he gave on-the-spot guidance more frequently than ever before.

In the new century his field inspection numbered 100 on an annual average, sometimes nearly 160 times a year. On the intensive on-site guidance tour, called a “mid-summer forced march” and “forced march against blizzard”, he earnestly instructed his people to lead the world by relying on their own efforts, technology and resources.

He saw that more large power stations relying on the abundant hydropower resources of the country were built to increase the generation of electric power, energy that powers the economy, and visited the construction site of the Huichon Power Station several times in the face of heavy snowstorm in the northern highland. He also inspected many metal and chemical factories across the country again and again to ensure that Juche iron, fertilizer and fibre were produced in large quantities.

Viewing science and technology as an important pillar supporting a socialist power together with politics and military, he disbursed almost all the money the country had for the application of CNC system at the time when every penny was worth a thousand pieces of gold and kindled the flames of a campaign to break through the cutting edge throughout the country.

According to his instruction to closely combine production with science and technology in line with the requirements of the new century and make a leap forward with science and technology as the key to success and under his leadership for the nationwide efforts to this end, industrial establishments across the country dynamically pushed ahead with projects to modernize their machinery and other equipment and production processes and the country’s economy was boosted a level higher in scientific and technical terms.

A sea change also took place in agriculture and livestock farming.

After planning a grand project for rezoning all farmland into standard-sized plots for mechanized farming, he ensured that an example of land rezoning was set in Kangwon Province to be followed by the whole country. At the same time, he pushed ahead with projects to realign orchards of fruit farms across the country into large sizes and introduce dwarf apple and other varieties of fruit trees of high productivity so as to radically increase fruit harvest.

The policy on scientific livestock farming set forth by the Chairman brought about a drastic change and gave a boost to productivity in livestock farming bases.

Today the solid foundations of the independent national economy, powerful science and technology and precious fighting experience provided by the Chairman with great efforts serve as the priceless asset for the country to make rapid progress uninterruptedly even under the harsh economic blockade and sanctions imposed by outside forces.