Methods Suitable to the Actual Situation

Leader Kim Jong Il said:

The revolutionary movement demands solving all problems in conformity with the changes and development in the reality and the specific conditions of the country.

Methods suitable to actual conditions have two contents.

One is to solve all problems according to the constantly changing and developing conditions and the other is to solve all problems according to specific situation of the country.

These methods have two contents because the revolution and construction take place in different circumstances and conditions.

The era in which revolution and construction take place is not fixed but constantly changes and develops. So the conditions of the age in which revolution and construction take place are not the same.

In order to make the revolution and construction well, the people in each country should calculate the changing conditions and on that basis solve all problems. This is the same as that the style of living differs according to the change of seasons.

The revolution and construction of each country take place in different conditions and circumstances.

Revolution and construction take place with a nation state as a unit.

Each country has different history and different levels of economic development and geographical conditions and different levels of consciousness, psychology, custom and mode of life.

This being the case, there cannot be universal formula for all countries.

This requires the methods suitable to actual situation.

What is necessary to make revolution and construction according to the situation?

For this end, it is firstly necessary to correctly calculate the subjective and objective conditions of one’s revolution and define policies, strategy and tactics according to them.

As mentioned before, to make the revolution and construction, it is important to map out policies, strategy and tactics. The secret of mapping them out is to correctly calculate subjective and objective conditions of one’s revolution.

Each country has different subjective and objective conditions such as revolutionary situation, socio-economic situation, the relations of forces between friend and foe, the degree of preparedness of the people and other factors necessary for victory in the revolution. If a country fails to correctly calculate these conditions, it cannot map out correct policies, making mistakes in the revolution and construction. Therefore, in order to make the revolution and construction well, it is important to concretely calculate the subjective and objective conditions of the revolution and on this basis map out policies, strategy and tactics. This is the first process in making the revolution and construction according to the actual situation.

In calculating these conditions, prior attention should be directed to the preparedness of the internal revolutionary forces. That is because the decisive factor for victory in revolution is internal factor, the internal revolutionary force not objective condition.

Of course, revolution and construction cannot neglect influences of objective conditions. But revolution cannot win if one fails to prepare the internal revolutionary forces, absolutizing objective conditions.

In the DPRK, after the war, some people went against the transformation of rural economy into socialist one, claiming that it is impossible before industrialization. That is because until that time it was a formula that socialist transformation of the form of economy is possible only on the basis of industrialization.

In the last three-year wartime, Korean rural economy was totally destroyed, farmers’ life deteriorated, so cooperativization was required and the internal forces were prepared to fulfill it. President Kim Il Sung looked into this reality and took original way of rural cooperativization to transform the form of economy before technical transformation.

Thanks to this policy, the DPRK fulfilled such arduous and enormous social change in a short span of 4-5 years.

This is an example of mapping out correct policies, strategy and tactics to push ahead with the revolution and construction after correctly calculating subjective and objective conditions of the revolution and putting stress on the internal forces.

In order to make the revolution according to the actual situation, it is also necessary to take correct attitude towards the existing theory.

The existing theory is based on revolutionary practice of the past historical period. It therefore cannot be applied to the revolution and construction in new historical conditions.

The medicine that was effective in the past may have no effect today.

That is because man’s physiological conditions or his reacting quality may vary.

So is the case of the revolution and construction. The historical conditions of the revolution and construction became different, so the former method may not work. It is therefore important to take correct attitude towards the existing theory, in order to make revolution and construction according to the actual situation.

What attitude should be taken, then?

While approaching the existing theory, it is important to think what requirement it reflects and on what premise it was evolved, and then apply it according to one’s situation.

Ideology and theory are evolved reflecting the requirement of the times under premises of revolutionary practice. For instance, Marxism was evolved reflecting the requirement of the historical period in which the working class that emerged as an independent political force in the developed European capitalist countries rose in the struggle against exploitation and oppression of capital.

Leninism was evolved under the premise of Russia, the backward capitalist country reflecting the requirement of the revolutionary period of imperialism and the proletariat.

Ideology and theory are evolved like this. Therefore, it is necessary to concretely analyze historical conditions in which they come, in order to know whether it is possible to apply them or not and if so how to apply them.

What is important in guiding revolution and construction is not existing theory but concrete reality of the country.

The question is not whether a thing is suitable to the existing theory or not but whether it is suitable to the situation of the country.

It is important to apply creatively what is significant even today among the existing theories. It is wrong to think what was effective yesterday is effective today. This thinking method is not suitable to the creative character of the revolutionary struggle.

In order to make the revolution and construction suitable to the actual situation, it is also necessary to find out new principle and ways according to new historical conditions and specific situations of the country.

With the development of revolution and construction, new problems are continuously raised. Since the revolution is the struggle to create the new abolishing the old, it is inevitable that new problems are constantly raised.

For instance, in the worldwide scale there raise many problems such as how to restore the frustrated socialist movement after the end of cold war, how to prepare revolutionary forces under the condition in which the number of physical workers decreases and the number of intellectuals increases along with the development of information industry and how to cope with the “globalization” moves by the vicious imperialists.

This being the situation, the people in each country should find out principle and ways to solve newly raised problems proceeding from the concrete situation in order to continuously develop revolution and construction.

In order to make the revolution and construction according to the actual situation, it is also necessary to approach other’s experience in a critical and creative way.

Other’s experience is important in the revolution and construction.

Experience helps to make the revolution and construction better. It is clear fact that experience shows easier and faster way.

Revolution and construction take place with a country as a unit, and each country creates different experience. Therefore, the party and people in each country demand and refer to other’s experience.

But other’s experience is created in the specific condition of that country.

Therefore, other’s good experience cannot be quite suitable to one’s country.

Among other’s experience, there are necessary and favorable one to one’s country and not so, and there are those that suit to one’s country and not so. It is therefore necessary to approach other’s experience in a critical and creative way.

What, then, does this mean?

Normally, people taste food and when it tastes good they eat and when not good they do not take it.

So is the case with the revolution and construction.

It is necessary to accept what are useful and reject what are useless among the foreign experience.

But is it good to accept foreign experience as a whole when they are useful? No.

When accepting foreign experience, it is important to take attitude of reshaping them according to one’s situation instead of swallowing them as they are.

It is necessary to refer to foreign things but it is better to refer to one’s own experience if possible.

As one’s own experience reflects one’s situation, it is useful for one’s revolution and construction. And the experience of a country reflects the demand of the people in that country so they can easily accept it.

But it does not mean to reject foreign experience. It is wrong to both blindly imitate foreign things and to be unwilling to learn from others. The question is what attitude one should take towards the foreign experience.

The Juche idea is against dogmatic attitude of blindly worshiping foreign experience without independence and accepting the foreign things that do not suit to one’s situation as a whole.

Dogmatism is the attitude of applying universal proposition as it is or mechanically imitating others without considering one’s specific situation.

Dogmatism makes it impossible to map out correct policies that suit to the requirement of the developing revolution and the demand of the people, eventually failing in the revolution and construction.

Therefore, the people in each country should fight against wrong attitude of accepting foreign experience in an uncritical and dogmatic way.

The method of solving all problems according to one’s situation by applying creativity is the scientific and revolutionary method of making the revolution and construction successfully against flunkeyism and dogmatism.