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Description
These three works by Kim Jong Il, grappling with the problem of why socialism fell, mainly in the revisionist countries of the USSR and Eastern Europe, and how to avoid it in Korea, are worthy of discussion and this is the reason for reprinting them. He analyses that socialism fell because those countries gave up the superstructure, ideological and cultural work; that is, they believed social relations and productive forces would do this work by themselves. They, therefore, allowed the party and state to degenerate while turning to revisionism and collaborating with the imperialists after the death of Stalin. The unwavering faith in socialism displayed here amidst the bourgeois-imperialist offensive against it is the main thing, including his comments on the importance of the Pyongyang Declaration, which called on all communists to defend the revolution. The third work, “Abuses of Socialism are Intolerable”, presents a defence against the claims commonly made against socialism by way of accusing it of barbarity and crimes against humanity. The sections “The Validity of the General Line of Our Party Concerning the Construction of Socialism and Communism” and “The Basic Principles of the Building of a Juche Revolutionary Party” work out the line that needs to be carried out to further the revolution in Korean conditions and prevent counter-revolution.
There are some odd, and in our view, incorrect formulations, such as the claims that Marxism itself was at fault for the fall of socialism and that it has “historical limitations” in the building of socialism by way of being outmoded; or that the state will not wither away; or that each socialist country should have its own guiding ideology and not all countries one universal ideology.
But nevertheless, in the introduction Comrade Hardial Bains says that these works clearly state that socialism was not disproven as the bourgeoisie and the revisionists claim, but temporarily defeated, in retreat. The trend of our epoch is objectively towards socialism — “All roads lead to communism!”