Thursday, September 21, 2017

Dedicating Her Life as Guard of the Leader
The bust of Kim Jong Suk, anti-Japanese war heroine, at the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Mt Taesong in the suburbs of Pyongyang.

Every September many people visit the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Mt Taesong.
The cemetery houses the bust of Kim Jong Suk, who passed away in September 1949 at 32.

She died so early, but she is still remembered by all.

The Korean people, young and old, call her “anti-Japanese war heroine”, “mother of the revolution” and “mother of Korea”, not only because she fought bravely during the bloody anti-Japanese war, but also because she staunchly defended the ideology and line of General Kim Il Sung.

Still vivid in memory are what she shouted at a renegade, “We are soldiers of General Kim Il Sung. Who are you? You are the enemy of the revolution. Revolution will not forgive you.”

She fought against the enemy of revolution uncompromisingly without caring about her own safety, setting a brilliant example for others to follow in fighting to carry out the idea and line of the leader by keeping absolute faith with their leader.

She did not hesitate to risk her life to safeguard the General.

On display at the Korean Revolution Museum is an enamelled iron bowl with two bullet holes on it. It happened in the period of the anti-Japanese war. While in a battle, she happened to find a group of enemy moving towards the headquarters. She wasted no time to run in the opposite direction to attract the enemy who began to notice and fire at her.

When the guards of the General were very surprised to see the holes in the iron bowl which was in her backpack, she casually told them that the General’s safety was all that counted for her.

President Kim Il Sung said in his reminiscences With the Century:

“She snatched me from the jaws of death on several occasions. She was always prepared to become a shield herself to protect me from enemy fire.

“During the battle on the outskirts of Dashahe, a critical situation arose around me. A group of enemy troops were approaching me stealthily, yet I was not aware of the situation for I was commanding the battle. But for Kim Jong Suk’s help, I would have been killed. She shielded me with her own body and shot all the enemy soldiers. So I was saved miraculously. Similar things happened on several occasions.”

Many stories are told about her devotion to the safety and good health of the General.

Once she dried his clothes against her own body and gave them to him with a smile on her face which was so pale from cold. As she heard that floss-silk was bullet-proof, she gathered floss to make a padded coat for him. She also made insoles with her hair to protect his feet against freezing cold.

“The devotion with which Kim Jong Suk undertook of her own accord the thing even my mother had not done, to sacrifice herself! I thought it must have been her warm feeling towards the man Kim Il Sung, as well as her revolutionary devotion to her Commander,” he recalled.

Hers was a life fully dedicated to the President.

Even after they were married, she always revered him as her commander and the leader of the Korean people.

She called him “General” and “prime minister” even at home.

Journalists once called on her for coverage. But she refused politely, saying she was a soldier of the leader and asked them to give wider publicity to General Kim Il Sung.

The greatest feat she performed on behalf of the revolution was that she brought up young Kim Jong Il to become future leader of the Party and the country.

Even on her deathbed she asked him again and again to faithfully support the General and carry through the revolutionary cause of Juche.

Visiting her statue against the backdrop of red marbles depicting the red flag on Jujak Peak of Mt Taesong, people feel as if she earnestly requests them to accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche following Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

By Ri Sung Ik PT

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