Giving Precedence to Political Work

The ideological remoulding is not for its own sake but to train people into more powerful beings to make the revolution and construction better. It is important not only to remould ideology but also to give precedence to political work, the work to mobilize it.

Leader Kim Jong Il said:

For a successful implementation of the revolutionary tasks, political work aimed at educating and rousing the people into action, should be given priority over all other work.

In one word, political work is a work with people. In other words, it is the work of educating the people and mobilizing their ideology.

If a work is to be done, man should be moved and for this his ideology should be moved. But his ideology is not be moved of its own accord.

When one starts engine vehicle is moved. Like this, when man’s ideology is moved, he will work.

To move the ideology is the very political work.

What does it mean, then, to give precedence to political work?

It means equipping the people with party policy and arousing their revolutionary zeal before all other work so that they will demonstrate a high degree of consciousness and activity to carry out the revolutionary struggle and construction work successfully. In other words, it is to arouse high sense of zeal so that they move.

Why, then, is it necessary to give priority to political work?

That is because the success of the revolution and construction depends on how to do work with people.

It is man who makes the revolution and construction.

It is man who remakes nature and reorganizes social relations. In order to make the revolution and construction successfully, it is necessary to do the work with people, the direct agent, so as to arouse their revolutionary zeal and creative activity.

Revolution is voluntary struggle. One does not make revolution by other’s instruction or for reward, but proceeding from one’s political conviction and awareness. It is the principle to enhance voluntariness and activeness by giving priority to political work.

Another reason for giving priority to political work is because this is the requirement coming from nature of socialist system.

In exploiter society, minor exploiters are masters and seize the most of material and cultural wealth created by the people. So in such a society, the working people cannot work with high zeal and accordingly, they are forced to move only by stick or money.

But socialist society is fundamentally different from exploiter society.

Since socialist society is the one where the people are masters of state and society and where everything serves them, the people volunteer to work for society and collective. Herein lie the essential advantages of socialist system.

In the socialist society, stick or money does not move the people. Of course the socialist society does not yet win complete victory, so legal control and material incentives are necessary. But these are not the main things in this society.

The main method of moving the people in socialist society is political work, through which it is possible to push ahead with the revolution and construction by arousing their revolutionary zeal and creative activeness.

What is necessary to give priority to political work before all other works?

It is necessary to combine this work with administrative work, technical and economic work, while giving priority to political work.

Administrative work is the work done by mainly managers or chief engineers and other administrative officials in factories in planning production, distributing labor, controlling production, etc. whereas technical and economic work is the work to guide technical process and manage and renovate equipment.

It is inevitable requirement in socialist society to do administrative work, technical and economic work.

In socialist society, means of production is owned by society and production sectors and processes are closely linked. Without doing administrative and organizational work well, it is impossible to move society.

And socialism is built on the basis of modern science and technology.

The building of socialist society aims at providing the people with well-to-do life equally while working easily. Therefore, the building of socialism is based on science and technology and its process is the one to equip the national economy with modern technology.

Along with administrative work, technical and economic work should be well conducted for the successful building of socialism.

But administrative work, technical and economic work can be well made only under the condition in which political work is given priority.

It is man who operates machine, develops technique and manages the economy.

Apart from giving priority to political work, the work with people, it is impossible to achieve success in administrative, technical and economic work.

Therefore, we should adhere to the principle of giving priority to political work while combining this with administrative work, technical and economic work.

In order to give priority to this work, it is also necessary to combine political and moral incentives with material incentives while giving priority to the former.

Political and moral incentives are to politically and morally evaluate the people, awarding orders, medals, honorary titles or by introducing them in mass media, so that they display more zeal to work for society and state with high pride.

Material incentives are to evaluate the result of labor materially. In other words, they are to pay according to quantity and quality of the products and give bonus for the overproduction and new inventions.

It is important in socialist society to combine political and moral incentives with material incentives while giving priority to the former.

This is related with the characteristics of socialist society.

Socialist society is the society based on collective principle “One for all and all for one.” As the people are masters of society in socialism, they work creatively for the country and people, society and collective, helping and leading each other forward. This is the essential advantages of socialist system over capitalism and is the major factor that propels the development of the society. It is therefore necessary in this society to give priority to political and moral incentives so that the working people devote themselves for the society and collective.

Meanwhile in socialist society, there remain old ideas in the minds of the people and the productive forces are not so highly developed as to distribute as they need and there are gaps between arduous labor and easy labor, between mental and physical labor.

This being the situation, if the things are equally distributed, what will be the result? Then, they will try to take easy jobs, without doing works neatly. If so, socialist society will lose its masters, eventually collapsing. Therefore, it is important to give material incentives according to the quality and quantity of the work done.

But it is wrong to neglect political and moral incentives thinking material incentives are important. This is against the nature of socialist society. If priority is given to material incentives, egoism will be fostered in the minds of the people, making them slaves of money. If so, socialist system itself and the gains of revolution will go to ruin.

In socialist society, it is inevitably important to give priority to political and moral incentives and on that basis combine it with material incentives.

What method should be applied in political work?

Political work should be done by the method of persuasion and education.

This means to teach and awaken the people to accept certain issues by themselves.

The work to move the ideology cannot be done in other way than persuasion and education.

By the method of commanding and shouting one cannot move the people. Even though that method works, people will not make creative initiatives as they move unwillingly. Forced work cannot be done well.

Political work should be done in a diversified and fresh way.

Political work is done towards the people in different levels who are working in different conditions.

The targets of political work are workers, farmers and intellectuals. The category of workers is again divided into miners, timber men, etc. And they have different ages, sex, level of knowledge, hobbies and characters.

In this situation, political work should be made in diversified forms according to specific situation.

Political work should be made as the concern of the people.

Since this work is to educate and mobilize the masses, it cannot be done by a few people. Political work is not the work for political workers but for the broad masses.

It is the only method of making this work the concern of the people by involving them in political work to enable one to educate ten, ten a hundred and a hundred a thousand.

Political work should be done in close link with revolutionary practice.

The important purpose of political work is to successfully fulfill the revolutionary task. The political work that has nothing to do with fulfilling the revolutionary tasks and the political work that does not help the revolution and construction are useless. Therefore, the success of political work should be expressed as the practical success of the revolution and construction and should be assessed by the latter.