Politics

The great legend about the victory brought about in the unprecedentedly fierce Fatherland Liberation War in the 1950s was not just a military miracle startling the world.

When the military miracle of the 20th century was being created on the front, the Kunjari spirit of workers in the munitions industry was born in the rear, and mass movements were briskly conducted in all parts of the DPRK.

In response to the militant call of President Kim Il Sung for intensifying the drive for increased production even in the wartime conditions to meet the demands for war supplies and daily necessities at the front and the rear, the working class of the DPRK conducted a mass emulation movement throughout the war.

The enemy’s brutal bombings and shellings destroyed production facilities and many young and middle-aged people went to fight on the front, making everything difficult. But the workers in different parts of the country extended their working hours, regarding the production tasks of those who went to the front as their own share, and launched a movement for producing two or three times their norms. During the first ten days of the war, workers of more than 8 600 workteams at industrial establishments and mines across the country took part in the movement and worked overtime for more than 900 000 hours.

Different forms of mass movements were launched in succession in different sectors of the national economy, including the front shock brigade movement, front workteam movement and youth workteam movement, adding vitality to the advance and leap forward in the overall national economy despite the severe wartime conditions.

As a result of the drive for increased wartime production conducted as a mass emulation movement, many factories and enterprises raised the production levels over 1.5 times at the outset of the war as compared to those before the war and accomplished the two-year national economic plan ahead of schedule.

The workers of the DPRK fully displayed their indomitable spirit in the struggle for quickly rebuilding and readjusting the economy which had been severely destroyed by the enemy’s brutal atrocities, alongside the counteroffensive of the Korean People’s Army.

In the first half of 1951, many industrial foundations were restored or put into operation, including 20 mines, 14 iron and steel works, 12 cement and brick factories and 15 state-run textile and hosiery factories.

The economic plan for the first half of 1951 was successfully carried out ahead of schedule amid the flames of the mass emulation movement for increased production conducted in all sectors of the national economy.

Thanks to the courageous emulation drive for increased production conducted by the Korean workers, the total industrial output value and commodity turnover of the country increased every year even under wartime conditions, and the national economic plan for 1953 was overfulfilled every month and every quarter till July when the war ended.

The emulation movement for increased wartime production reflecting the persevering spirit of overcoming difficulties and the mettle of dynamic creation and innovation of the working class was a powerful driving force that brought earlier the day of great victory in the war.

The Korean working class, who contributed to the victory in the war through wartime production, took on the historic tasks of postwar reconstruction and socialist construction and performed immortal feats in building a socialist state independent in politics, self-supporting in the economy and self-reliant in defence by opening up the era of Chollima in this country which the enemies claimed to be unable to rise up even in a hundred years.