Thursday, April 20, 2017

Banner of Struggle for Accomplishing Cause of Socialism
Reprinted From the Korean Central News Agency

Twenty-five years have passed since the Pyongyang Declaration was adopted in reflection of the firm determination of the world progressive people to champion and promote the cause of socialism.

The world socialist movement was faced with a grave obstacle in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

Socialism collapsed and capitalism revived in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries. Taking advantage of this tragic situation, the imperialists trumpeted about the “end” of socialism and beautified and embellished capitalism as a “final stage of social development” and an “ideal of humanity.” Many parties and people, aspiring after socialism around the world, suffered from ideological confusion and vacillation in the face of such realities.

At this juncture, representatives of communist and workers’ parties and other political parties of various countries visited Pyongyang to take part in the celebration events of President Kim Il Sung’s 80th birthday on April 15, 1992. They arranged bilateral or multilateral contacts and adopted the Pyongyang Declaration, titled, Let Us Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism, on April 20, 1992.

The Pyongyang Declaration affirmed that socialism is the ideal of mankind and that it is a society which repre¬sents the future of mankind and a genuine society for the people. It clarified the validity and invincibility of the cause of socialism, the tasks to be tackled in the struggle for socialism and the fundamental ways to this end.

The declaration heralded a new start of the world’s socialist movement. It brought home to the world people the truth that, in order for all the countries and nations to lead free, equal life and ensure global peace and security, they should build people-centred socialism guided by the Juche idea indicating the road of carving out the destiny of human being.

Immediately after the publication of the declaration, representatives from dozens of parties and the world’s progressive political parties aspiring after socialism, including party leaders of many countries, expressed their full support to and approval of the declaration and signed it one after another. The declaration was signed by more than 150 political parties towards the end of 1992, and the number of signatories grew to 289 in April 2012.

The past two decades have witnessed the validity and vitality of the declaration.

In the DPRK, in which socialism is regarded as the lifeblood of people, its army and people, closely united around their great leader, are stepping up the building of a powerful socialist country while smashing the imperialists’ isolation-and-stifle manoeuvres.

Greatly encouraged by the Korean people struggling for cementing and developing their socialist system under the banner of independence, the world progressives are expressing wholehearted solidarity with them and vigorously promoting the movement to revive socialism holding aloft the banner of the Pyongyang Declaration.

Vigorous struggles to rebuild revolutionary parties and revive socialism are being waged in different parts of the world. In recent years, unity and solidarity among revolutionary parties around the world have been further strengthened through international meetings, seminars and various other occasions for advancing the cause of socialism, and practical measures have been taken to check and frustrate the imperialists’ anti-socialist schemes. The progressive political parties in several Latin American countries that came into power with the active support of their peoples are launching dynamic struggles for socialism and independence against the US.

Today the number of signatories to the declaration is on the steady increase, and the world revolutionary people are extending heartfelt sympathy to it. This reality clearly proves that the socialist idea clarified in the Pyongyang Declaration is the idea which reflects the aspiration and desire of the progressive mankind.

When all the revolutionary parties and people throughout the world are united to build a new, peaceful and independent world under the banner of the Pyongyang Declaration, the cause of socialism will surely emerge victorious.

Kim Kwang Il

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