Part 4 - DW63 DB101 001 004

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4 the nobility of life, to study the history of Ireland, to study our rights as well as our duties; time to develop men and women for the coming crisis, so that they might take advantage of it when it came." Another aspect of the Juche Idea of crucial importance to us is that of independence - specifically that the revolutionary organisations, particularly those created by the oppressed peoples themselves, must hold fast to an independent stand. As dear Comrade Kim Jong Il points out, "If the revolution and construction are to be carried out as required by the Juche Idea, Chajusong must be maintained and realised." All progressive struggles against this state have had to be waged on the basis of independence. For example, throughout the miners' strike, the strikers had to resist the straightjacket of the labour aristocracy who, in the words of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung, are reared by the capitalists "to disorganise the ranks of the working class movement." More particularly, this struggle finds its sharpest and most concrete expression in the struggles of nationally oppressed nations, peoples and communities. The most outstanding example is the Irish Republican Movement which has developed into the most powerful revolutionary movement in Western Europe precisely by tenaciously defending its own independence. By contrast, those forces in Ireland that have taken to flunkeyism, or not based their work on going deep among the Irish people educating and organising them, have either become an irrelevance or, as in the case of the notorious "Irish Workers' Party" - so-called, have degenerated into agents of imperialism. The Irish Republican Movement is a genuinely revolutionary movement that epitomises and grasps the truth of dear Comrade Kim Jong Il's teaching that, "Without the sense of national pride that one's nation is inferior to none, without the pride and honour of the revolutionary people, it would be impossible to live up to one's conviction in an independent manner, uphold national independence and dignity and emerge victorious in the difficult revolutionary struggle. A nation with a strong sense of national dignity and revolutionary pride is unconquerable, but a nation without this attribute is powerless. The peoples of small countries who have long suffered oppression by foreign forces need so much the more the sense of national dignity and revolutionary pride." Other organisations and movements that have preserved their revolutionary integrity, deepened their links with the masses and expanded their fighting ranks precisely by defending their independence include the Scottish and Welsh Republicans and black organisations such as the Indian Workers' Association (GB) and the Bangladesh Workers' Association. These organisations, which firmly uphold Chajusong, know their communities, their problems, revolutionary traditions, and methods of struggle far better than the British left ever can. Their existence is in marked contrast to those of some other forces that go in for national nihilism, or who have allowed themselves to be sucked into the "race relations industry", or who have been made to dance to the baton of this or that British left organisation. Their sorry plight is aptly characterised by the dear leader Comrade Kim Jong Il as follows: "If one is inclined to be servile, one would be in the habit of grovelling before others and following them: if others take to revisionism, one would follow suit; and if others adopt dogmatism, one would act likewise. As the leader said, if a person falls into flunkeyism, he would become a fool; if a nation is servile to big powers, the country would go to ruin; and if a party is subservient to big powers, it would make a mess of the revolution and construction." Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il has further clarified the concept of independence of the organisations of the nationally oppressed by his development of revolutionary theory on the national question with regard to national minorities in the imperialist heartlands. Using the example of overseas Koreans, he pointed out, "As regards our overseas brothers, they are Koreans who come from the same stock as us and who originally lived in the same territory, speaking the same language. They were forced to leave their beloved home- steads; either they had to go abroad to find a means of living, unable to endure Japanese imperialist colonial rule and harsh exploitation and oppression by landlords and capitalists, or they were dragged to foreign countries as compulsorily drafted labour, or as conscripts. So how can one say that they are not of the Korean nation? It goes without saying that they legitimately belong to the Korean nation." None of the above should be confused with narrow nationalism. On the contrary, it is by upholding independence that the basis is created for genuine and consistent internationalism. As dear Comrade Kim Jong Il points out, "Chajusong is not in conflict with internationalism but is the basis of its strengthening. Just as the world revolution is inconceivable without the revolution in one's own country, internationalism divorced from Chajusong cannot exist. As a matter of principle, internationalist solidarity must be based on freedom of choice and equality. Only when it is founded on Chajusong will internationalist solidarity become based on free choice and equality and become genuine and durable." Organisations such as Sinn Fein, the Bangladesh Workers' Association and the Indian Workers' Association show the link between upholding their independence and internationalism with every fibre of their being and struggle. These are organisations that never fail to support other oppressed people in struggle, and their cadres concretely unite with and lead working people in their struggles wherever they may find themselves. One important example is the trade union work of the Indian Workers' Association which spearheaded the unionisation of the workers in the foundries of the West Midlands in the 1950s and 1960s, and has now taken up the difficult task of organising the textile workers in the small sweatshops. It has always been the case that workers from the oppressed nationalities have played a vanguard role in the struggle of the working class in this country. Of Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor, James Connolly commented, "He was one of the first of that long list of Irish fighters in Great Britain whose unselfish sacrifices have gone to make a record for an 'English' labour movement." He also pointed out that "Working class Irish exiles were present and active in the ranks of militant labour out of all proportion to the ratio they bore to the population at large. And always they were the advanced, the -least compromising, the most irreconcilable in the movement." The great Irish leaders James Connolly and Jim Larkin were also, of course, prominent leaders of the working class movement in England and Scotland, and indeed in the United States of America. The first Communist MP to sit in the House of Commons - representing Battersea North - was an Indian comrade, Shapurji Saklatvala who made the cause of Indian freedom well known in Britain. The founder of the Indian Workers' Association, Shaheed Udham Singh, is a glorious revolutionary martyr of the Indian people who was hanged after his execution in Caxton Hall of the imperialist butcher General Dwyer who was responsible for the Amritsar Massacre in 1919. Defiant to the last, as he was being sentenced, he shouted slogans denouncing British imperialism, making the judge's remarks inaudible. He was also a delegate to the Camden Trades Council here in north London. The late General Secretary of the IWA, Comrade Jagmohan Joshi, tirelessly 5

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