– Kim Ung Chon –
(Translated by Rachel Minyoung Lee, 38north.org)
(Article in the Journal Kyongje Yongu, 2018, Volume 3)
Today, in a struggle against all types of reactionary ideological trends, our people are vigorously accelerating the construction of a powerful socialist state with the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism serving as the guiding principle.
The historical experience of our revolution vividly shows that we can steadfastly adhere to revolutionary principles and class principles and advance along the socialist path without delay only when we heighten our vigilance against bourgeois ideas and revisionism, particularly modern revisionism, and step up the struggle opposing them.
Modern revisionism is rooted in bourgeois ideas, and it was born against the backdrop of a new historical era and the prevailing situation.
Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong Il instructed as follows:
“Modern revisionism, which surfaced in the mid-1950s, caused great harm to the international communist movement for dozens of years, teaching serious lessons.” (Selected Works of Kim Jong Il, Enlarged Version, Volume 13, p. 484)
Modern revisionism originated in and spread from a number of socialist countries after World War II. In the mid-1950s, it emerged as an independent trend of thought and caused enormous harm to socialist construction.
Modern revisionism, reactionary Right opportunism that chases after socialist degeneration and a transition to capitalism by [having] the working class give up its revolutionary principles during a period of socialist construction and conform to bourgeois policies, originated in the working classes’ ruling parties.
Modern revisionism, based in the former Soviet Union, emerged as a new international trend of thought against the backdrop of a historical condition whereby socialism turned into a global system.
When Stalin was alive, Khrushchev sang the praises of him as the “Lenin of today,” “the brain and heart of the party,” “the greatest genius leader of mankind,” and the “great invincible marshal.” After his [Stalin’s] death, he [Khrushchev] seized power in the party and state through a conspiratorial method. Next, he called for the establishment of so-called “new lines,” saying that Stalin’s lines and policies must be reexamined on the pretext of how “the times have changed.”
Those “new lines” were revisionist lines.
On economic policies, he headed toward material-centric policies, ignoring political and ideological elements and one-sidedly emphasizing only material and economic elements, contradicting the essential superiority and transitional characteristics of socialist societies.
During the 20th Soviet Communist Party Congress convened in February 1956, Khrushchev set his revisionist line as the general line of foreign policy, [in the form of] “peaceful coexistence” with states with different social systems. He formalized and set forth revisionist lines that contradicted the revolutionary principles of the working class, such as a “peaceful transition” to socialism and “disarmament.”
The origin of modern revisionism has certain roots.
Under the condition where bourgeois influences and imperialists’ pressure exist, there may emerge fellows who submit to them. When such fellows appear in the international labor movement, revisionism is bound to emerge.
Those fellows who become prisoners of bourgeois influences and surrender to the pressure of imperialism can turn up in capitalist countries and also in the ruling parties of socialist countries.
There is no guarantee that revisionism will not rear its head just because one is a ruling party or a party has carried out a revolution for a long time.
The root cause of modern revisionism’s birth in the former Soviet Union’s ruling party, which had long carried out a revolution, is, first, that Khrushchev himself became a prisoner of bourgeois influences.
After climbing up to the key posts of the party and government through double-dealing crafty methods, he became weary of the next revolution, and rather than pushing forward the revolution, he was seized with the idea of enjoying idleness and pleasure with the accomplishments that had already been attained.
Khrushchev’s bourgeois ideas became stronger with his visit to the United States after he took power.
Khrushchev, who visited the United States in September 1959, was dazed by the capitalist world as he toured intercontinental ballistic rocket manufacturing companies, corn factories in the state of Iowa, steel mills, and others for 10 days. This dazzlement soon grew into a fantasy about capitalism.
When the imperialists blabbered about “ending the Cold War era” in the 1960s and made exaggerations as though they had a willingness to carry out policies of “peace” and “cooperation,” Khrushchev harbored illusions about them and clamored about “reasonable imperialism.”
The former Soviet Union Communist Party became deeply imbued with bourgeois ideas because it failed to ferret out fellows like Khrushchev, fellows who became prisoners of bourgeois influences, in a timely manner. As a result, it turned its back on revolutionary principles and headed toward a path of revisionism.
The root cause of modern revisionism’s birth is, second, surrender to the pressure of imperialism.
The imperialists perpetrated pressure against socialism even more viciously after World War II.
The imperialists manipulated various types of international economic organizations to blockade socialist countries economically. Moreover, they prohibited exports of “strategic goods” to socialist countries and stepped up control over general exported goods.
Feeling horror toward the imperialists’ nuclear blackmail, military threat, and economic blockade, Khrushchev headed toward a path of surrender. His capitulationism was clearly shown during the “Caribbean Sea crisis,” when he hurriedly withdrew the missiles and aircraft he had deployed to Cuba.
As a result, the former Soviet Union Communist Party surrendered to imperialist pressures and publicly adopted revisionism as its policy after Khrushchev took power.
The decisive factor of modern revisionism’s genesis lies in that the former Soviet Union failed to correctly set forth the leader’s successor. When the leader sets forth his successor and the successor’s leadership system is established properly can the leader’s revolutionary ideas and the leader’s cause of the revolution assimilate and develop generation after generation.
Stalin, however, failed to correctly set forth a successor. Consequently, traitors and plotters like Khrushchev appeared and viciously annihilated the leader’s achievements and blatantly advocated revisionism.
Even after Khrushchev was removed as a consequence of the failure to elect the leader’s successor correctly and establish the successor’s leadership system, the Soviet party and government were unable to escape the quagmire of revisionism created by Khrushchev for the lack of a resolute revolutionary principle and a thorough class struggle spirit.
Historical experience clearly shows that the decisive factor of modern revisionism’s genesis lies in a failure to correctly set forth the leader’s successor and properly establish his leadership system.
All party members and working people should know well the harm of modern revisionism, heighten their vigilance so that no type of reactionary ideological trends can infiltrate our interior, and actively struggle to model the entire society on Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.