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SEMINAR ON THE JUCHE IDEA Address all communications to: Mosquito Press (SJI) 27A, Old Gloucester St. London WC1N 3XX Participants' Bulletin No.2. March 5th 1985. Forward along the path of Connollyism and the Juche Idea Selections from the works of James Connolly and the dear leadrr Comrade Kim Jong Il. The masses are the masters of revolution. The question of leadership method in revolutionary theory. Ireland's Republican leaders as embodiers of Irish patriotism and internationalism. A nation with a strong sense of national dignity and revolutionary pride is unconquerable. The working class is the most independent class. Ireland a nation. The working class party is the general staff of the revolution. Factionalism and flunkeyism. Waiting with folded arms for all conditions to ripen is tantamount to refusing to make a revolution. Founding the party independently. Revolutionary wardare. Counter the imperialist war of aggression with the war of liberation. Internationalism.

FORWARD ALONG THE PATH OF CONNOLLYISM AND THE JUCHE IDEA! Selections from the works of James Connolly and the dear leader Comrade Kim Jong Il. THE MASSES ARE THE MASTERS OF REVOLUTION The masses of the people are the masters of revolution and construction and the decisive factor in transforming nature and developing society. ... It is the masses that want the revolution and construction, and it is also the masses that carry them out. (OJI 15) The revolution is a struggle to meet the masses' desire for independence by enlisting their strength. It is a struggle of the masses to free themselves. (OJI 5) The masses are masters and the motive force of the revolution and possessors of inexhaustible creative talents and strength, Only when one depends on their creative talents and strength, will one be able to understand the objective world correctly, solve all problems to suit the reality, and transform nature and society successfully. (OJI 29) The will and fighting power of people demonstrated in the revolutionary movement are also determined by their ideological consciousness. The level of the willpower and strength demonstrated by the people is determined by their ideology. Only those who have a firm consciousness of independence will be able to take an indomitable attitude towards the revolution, actively participate in it with a strong will, and struggle to the end, overcoming all difficulties and trials. (OJI 33) O'Donovan Rossa represents to us a revolutionary movement the least aristocratic and the most plebeian that ever raised itself to national dignity in Ireland. It was a movement that resting upon the masses of people in Ireland, and drawing its inspirations from the hearts of that people, was successful in inspiring its followers with such a belief in their own ability to conquer and master the future, that it nerved them to conspire for a revolt against the British Empire at a time when that Empire was at peace with all the world. The mere conception of such a struggle, the stark naked fact that such a project was ever even mooted, in itself stamps as heroes all who cherished and suffered for it. (July 31 1915) Our fight of last year was not for added wages and reduction of hours; it was for an opportunity of building up in our midst men and women, a chance to develop nobility and grandeur of character for men and women, a time to realise 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. (Sept 5 1914) The Irish Transport and General Worker's Union ... found the labourers of Ireland on their knees, and has striven to raise them to the erect position of manhood; it found them with all the vices of slavery in their souls, and it strove to eradicate these vices and replace them with some of the virtues of free men; it found them with no other weapons of defence than the arts of the liar, the lickspittle, and the toady, and it combined them and taught them to abhor those arts and rely proudly on the defensive power of combination; it, in short, found a class in whom seven centuries of social outlawry had added fresh degradations upon the burden it bore as the members of a nation suffering from the cumulative effects of seven centuries of national bondage, and out of this class ... has created an army of intelligent self-reliant men, abhoring the old arts of the toady, the lickspittle, and the crawler and trusting alone to the disciplined use of their power to labour or to withdraw their labour to assert and maintain their right as men. 1

The Irish Transport and General Workers' Union found that before its advent the working class of Dublin had been taught by all the educational agencies of the country, by all the social influences of their masters, that this world was created for the special benefit of the various sections of the master class, that kings and lords and capitalists were of value; that even flunkeys, toadies, lickspittles and poodle dogs had an honoured place in the scheme of the universe, but that there was neither honour, credit, nor consideration to the man or woman who toils to maintain them all. (Aug 30 1913) These labourers dared to straighten their bent backs, and looking in the faces of their rulers and employers dared to express the will to be free. (Nov 18 1914) Labour in Ireland tends to become more and more self-reliant, and in its self-reliance it discovers its strength. Out of such strong self-reliance it develops a magnetism, which will draw to it more and more support from all the adherents of all the causes which in their entirety make for a regenerated Ireland. (Dec 1915) None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what is a fetter. (Dec 1915) The only true prophets are they who carve out the future which they announce. (Dec 1915) THE QUESTION OF LEADERSHIP METHOD IN REVOLUTIONARY THEORY All revolutionary movements are conscious movements. A revolutionary movement begins with awakening people to an advanced idea and emerges victorious on the strength of the masses of the people who are armed with the advanced idea. (OJI 31) The communists who struggle for the freedom and happiness of the people, lead the revolution to victory and fulfil their noble mission by awakening people ideologically and making them conscious and encouraging them to undertake the struggle of their own accord. (OJI 35) Kimilsungism raised the new question of the method of leadership in the revolutionary theory of the working class and elucidated it in a comprehensive way. The question of the leadership method holds an independent place, both theoretically and practically, in the revolutionary struggle of the working class. ... This revolutionary cause would be victoriously achieved only when a correct leadership method, together with a correct guiding idea and theory, is applied. ... In the revolutionary theory of the working class this question was never systematised as an independent theory before. Kimilsungism's important service is that it provided a new elucidation of the theory on the leadership method and systematised it as an independent element. (OCU 4-5) What is important in establishing the Party's monolithic ideological system is to imbue the whole Party with the leader's idea. The leader is the embodier of the organisational will of the whole Party and his idea is precisely the guiding ideology of the Party. The ideological oneness of the Party is realised only on the basis of the leader's idea. (WPK 21) The leader is the centre of the party's unity and cohesion. The strength of its unity and cohesion depends on how firmly the entire membership is united behind the leader. ... 2

Our Party is so strong because of its great unity and cohesion based on the Juche idea and centring on the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung. (OJI 24-5) An epoch, to be truly revolutionary, must have a dominating number of men with the revolutionary spirit -- ready to dare all, and take all risks for the sake of their ideals. (Nov 13 1915) It is not the will of the majority which ultimately prevails; that which ultimately prevails is the ideal of the noblest of each generation. Happy indeed that race and generation in which the ideal of the noblest and the will of the majority unite. (March 18 1916) There are times in history when we realise that it is easier to convert a multitude than it ordinarily is to convert an individual; when indeed ideas seem to seize upon the masses as contra-distinguished by ordinary times when individuals slowly seize ideas. The propagandist toils on for decades in seeming failure and ignominy, when suddenly some great event takes place in accord with the principles he has been advocating, and immediately he finds that the seed he has been sowing is springing up in plants that are covering the earth. (Feb 9 1914) IRELAND'S REPUBLICAN LEADERS AS EMBODIERS OF IRISH PATRIOTISM AND INTERNATIONALISM Wolf Tone was abreast of the revolutionary thought of his day, as are the Socialist Republicans of our day. He saw clearly, as we see, that a dominion as rooted in any country as British dominion in Ireland can only be dislodged by a revolutionary impulse in line with the development of the entire epoch. ... He, by voice and pen, inculcated the republican principles of the French Revolution and counselled his countrymen to embark the national movement on the crest of that revolutionary wave. ... High up in the topmost niches of the temple a liberated human race will erect to the heroes and martyrs who have watered the tree of liberty with the blood of their body and the sweat of their intellect, ... a grateful Irish people will carve the name of our precursor, Theobald Wolfe Tone. (Aug 13 1898) We are told to imitate Wolfe Tone, but the greatness of Wolfe Tone lay in the fact that he imitated nobody. The needs of his time called for a man able to shake from his mind the intellectual fetters of the past, and to unite in his own person the hopes of the new revolutionary faith and the ancient aspirations of an oppressed people. (Aug 5 1899) In Ireland at that time there were not only two nations divided into Catholics and non-Catholics, but each of those two nations in turn was divided into other two, the rich and the poor. ... The times were propitious for a union of the two democracies of Ireland. ... To accomplish this union and make it a living force in the life of the nation, there was required the activity of a revolutionist with statesmanship enough to find a common point upon which the two elements could unite, and some great event dramatic enough in its character to arrest the attention of all and fire them with a common feeling. The first, the man, revolutionist and statesman, was found in the person of Theobald Wolfe Tone, and the second, the event, in the French Revolution. (Nov 1910) All students who have investigated the matter are as one in conceding that Emmet's conspiracy was more of a working class character than its predecessors... Such were the domestic materials upon which the conspiracy of Emmet rested -- working class elements fired with the hope of political and social emancipation. Abroad he sought alliance with the French Republic -- the incarnation of the political, social, and religious unrest and revolution of the age, and in Great Britain he formed alliance with the 'Sassenach' reformers who were conspiring to overthrow the English monarchy. ... 3

Even some of the more sympathetic of his panegyrists do not seem to realise that they dim his glory when they represent him as the victim of a protest against an injustice local to Ireland instead of as an Irish apostle of a world-wide movement for liberty, equality and fraternity. Yet this latter was indeed the character and position of Emmet, and as such the democracy of the future will revere him. ... He believed in the brotherhood of the oppressed and in the community of free nations, and died for his ideal. (Nov 1910) (On William Thompson:) Fervent Celtic enthusiasts are fond of claiming, and the researches of our days seem to bear out the claim, that Irish missionaries were the first to rekindle the lamp of learning in Europe, and dispel the intell- ectual darkness following the downfall of the Roman Empire; may we not also take pride in the fact that an Irishman also was the first to pierce the worse than Egyptian darkness of capitalist barbarism and point out to the toilers the conditions of their enslavement, and the essential pre-requisites of their emancipation? (Nov 1913) Eventually the Government seized upon the really dangerous man — the man who had foith of injustice deeply enough rooted to wish to destroy it at all costs, the man who had faith enough in the masses to trust a revolutionary outbreak to their native impulses, and who possessed the faculty of combining thought with action, John Mitchel. With his arrest the people looked for immediate revolution, so did the Government, so did Mitchel himself. All were disappointed. John Mitchel was carried off to penal servitude. ... The working class of Dublin and most of the towns were clamouring for their leaders to give the words for a rising; in many places in the country the peasants were acting spontaneously. ... The Young Ireland chiefs who had so fervently declaimed about the revolution were utterly incapable of accepting it when at last it presented itself to them. (Nov 1910) So wrote Mitchel when, burning with a holy hatred of tyranny, he poured the vitriol of his scorn upon all the pedants who strutted around him, pedants who were as scrupulous in polishing a phrase for a lecture as a sword for a parade — and incapable of advancing beyond either. (Nov 1910) Fintan Lalor, like all the really dangerous revolutionists in Ireland, advocated his principles as part of the creed of the democracy of the world, and not merely as applicable only to the incidents of the struggle in Ireland against England. (Nov 1910) Just as '98 was an Irish expression of the tendencies embodied in the First French Revolution, as '48 throbbed in sympathy with the democratic and social upheavals on the Continent of Europe and England, so Fenianism was a responsive throb in the Irish heart to those pulsations in the heart of the European working class which elsewhere produced the International Working Men's Association. (Nov 1910) The movements of Ireland for freedom could not and cannot be divorced from the world-wide upward movements of the world's democracy. (July 12 1913) A NATION WITH A STRONG SENSE OF NATIONAL DIGNITY AND REVOLUTIONARY PRIDE IS UNCONQUERABLE In order to establish Juche in thinking, it is necessary to possess a high sense of national dignity and revolutionary pride. 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. (OJI 38) 4

The socialist does not cease to love his country when he tries to make that country the common property of its people; he rather shows a greater love of country than is shown by those who wish to perpetuate a system which makes the great majority of the people of a country exiles and outcasts, living by sufferance of capitalists and landlords in their native land. (Aug 1910) To me, therefore, the socialist of another country is a fellow-patriot, as the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy. I regard each nation as the possessor of a definite contribution to the common stock of civilisation, and I regard the capitalist class of each nation as being the logical and natural enemy of the national culture which constitutes that definite contribution. Therefore, the stronger I am in my affection for national tradition, literature, language, and sympathies, the more firmly rooted I am in my opposition to that capitalist class which in its soulless lust for power and gold would bray the nations as in a mortar. (Aug 15 1914) Is it not well and fitting that we of the working class should fight for the freedom of the nation from foreign rule, as the first requisite for the free development of the national powers needed for our class? It is so fitting. Therefore on Sunday, April 16th, 1916, the green flag of Ireland will be solemnly hoisted over Liberty Hall as the symbol of our faith in freedom, and as a token to all the world that the working class of Dublin stands for the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of a separate and distinct nationality. (April 8 1916) IRELAND A NATION Defending Chajusong is an absolute requirement of man as a social being and his inalienable fundamental right. It is natural that man who regards Chajusong as his life and soul , combats any encroachment on his Chajusong. (OJI 23) This Ireland of ours is a nation distinct and apart from all others, and capable of working out its own destiny and living its own life. (Oct 31 1914) The small conquered nations of Europe have in a thousand ways fought to propagate the idea of nationality, to emphasise the value of small nations and their special contributions to civilisation. (Sept 26 1914) In this hour of her trial Ireland cannot afford to sacrifice any one of the things the world has accepted as peculiarly Irish. She must hold to her highest thoughts, and cleave to her noblest sentiments. Her sons and daughters must hold life itself as of little value when weighed against the preservation of even the least important work of her separate individuality as a nation. Therefore we honour St. Patrick's Day (and its allied legend of the shamrock) because in it we see the spiritual conception of the separate identity of the Irish race - an ideal of unity in diversity, of diversity not conflicting with unity. (March 18 1916) The Irish Citizen Army in its constitution pledges its members to fight for a Republican Freedom for Ireland. Its members are, therefore, of the number who believe that at the call of duty they may have to lay down their lives for Ireland, and have so trained themselves that at the worst the laying down of their lives shall constitute the starting point of another glorious tradition -- a tradition that will keep alive the soul of the nation. We are, therefore, present to honour O'Donovan Rossa by right of our faith in the separate destiny of our country, and our faith in the ability of the Irish workers to achieve that destiny. (July 1915) 6

However it may be for others, for us of the Citizen Army there is but one ideal an Ireland ruled, and owned, by Irish men and women, sovereign and independent from the centre to the sea, and flying its own flag outward over all the oceans. (Oct 30 1915) We can only hope to carry our flag to victory by securing the aid of all those workers everywhere who desire to see an effective force carrying the green flag of an Irish regiment whilst unconditionally under the red flag of the proletarian army. (July 4 1914) The Irish Volunteers of our time have that great quality the want of which betrayed their predecessors. That quality is: complete faith in their own country, complete confidence in her destiny to be a nation, and complete reliance upon the power of Ireland to survive all the shocks an adverse fate may bring upon her. (Jan 8 1916) We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe. Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence, in any one generation of Irishmen, of even a respectable minority, ready to die to affirm that truth, makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irish men and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were ready to affirm that truth, and to attest it with their lives if need be. (May 9 1916) THE WORKING CLASS PARTY IS THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE REVOLUTION The working-class party is the general staff of the revolution, and the leader of the working class is the foremost leader of the revolution. How the masses are awakened to consciousness and organised in a revolutionary way, and how they perform their revolutionary duties and historical mission, depend on whether or not they are given correct leadership by the party and the leader. (OJI 18) Only such a party that strikes its roots deep among the masses and enjoys their support and trust and that knows how to organise and mobilise them, can demonstrate an invincible might and discharge its mission as the General Staff of the revolution and the political leader of the popular masses. (WPK 26) The forces of our enemies were united and wielded with all the precision and relentlessness with which the general staff of an army would wield the battalions and brigades which formed the component parts of that army, but the battalions and brigades of the army of labour when engaged in battle had no efficient general staff to guide and direct the whole army to the salvation of its individual units; and, worse still, had none of that esprit-de-corps which on the military battle- field would make the desertion of any section to its fate an unthinkable course to the officers of the divisions not engaged. (Feb 9 1914) 7

FACTIONALISM AND FLUNKEYISM What is important for a working-class party in establishing Juche is to eradicate flunkeyism and dogmatism. (WPK 19) The nationalists and self-styled Marxists followed the evil practices of flunkeyism and factional strife which had resulted in the country's ruin in the past. They did not try to carry out the revolution by their own initiative but dreamed of achieving independence by depending on foreign forces. At that time, those who were allegedly engaged in the communist movement formed their own party groups and called frequently at the Comintern to gain its recognition. And they endeavoured to imitate mechanically established theories and experience of others, without taking into consideration the historical conditions and specific realities in our country where a colonial and semi- feudal society was in existence. In this way, flunkeyism and dogmatism were very serious obstacles in the way of revolution. (OJI 6) Party organisations should fully acquaint all cadres and their members with our Party's experience of the anti-factional struggle. This will enable them always to have a sharp Party and class outlook and uncompromisingly combat against all unsound elements which undermine the Party's unity and cohesion. (OJI 36) Flunkeyism is an attitude peculiar to slaves serving and worshipping big powers and developed countries, and an attitude of nihilism which means looking down upon one's own country and nation and despising them. ... 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. (OJI 40) He has set Irishman against Irishman, brothers against brothers, has broken up family ties and the ties of community, and been the ready agent of every evil thing that sought to darken the national soul and sully the character of the race. He is the incarnation and flowering of the results upon Irish character of seven centuries of slavery. (June 12 1915) Our Irish parties at Westminster are, and must ever be, in the position of political hucksters seeking a good price for the votes they offer as wares. Their 'independence' is only the fraudulent cloak with which they strive to cover their venality and lack of spirit. (May 3 1913) Every succeeding year has seen the Parnellite party become more and more conservative and reactionary. To-day, in direct opposition to the policy of their great leader, we find the Parnellite chiefs seeking every opportunity to hob-nob with the representatives of Irish landlordism; hailing their feeblest utterances upon a financial question as the brightest scintillations of wisdom; and not scrupling to tell at Cambridge an audience, composed of the young fledglings of English aristocracy, that the realisation of Ireland's independence was neither possible nor nor desirable. Followers of Parnell they are indeed, but they follow at such a respectable distance they have lost sight not only of the leader but of his principles. (Oct 8 1898) ... The working class unity of the first days of the Dublin fight was sacrificed in the interests of sectional officialism. ... All England and Scotland rose to it; working class officialdom and working class rank and file alike responded to the call of inspiration; it would have raised us all upward and onward towards our common emancipation. But sectionalism, intrigues and old-time jealousies damned us in the hour of victory, and officialdom was the first to fall to 8

the tempter. And so we Irish workers must go down into Hell, bow our backs to the lash of the slave driver, let our hearts be seared by the iron of his hatred, and instead of the sacramental wafer of brotherhood and common scarifice, eat the dust of defeat and betrayal. (Feb 9 1914) My career has been unique in many things. In this last it is so also: Men have been driven out of Ireland by the British Government, and by the landlords, but I am the first driven forth by the 'socialists'. (Aug 1903) My socialist friends on the Continent will never understand why I am here. They will forget I am an Irishman. (May 1916) WAITING WITH FOLDED ARMS FOR ALL CONDITIONS TO RIPEN IS TANTAMOUNT TO REFUSING TO MAKE A REVOLUTION The revolution can be pushed forward only by the active struggle of the revolutionaries and the popular masses. Fundamentally speaking, a revolution does not always break out when all the necessary conditions exist, nor is it carried out always in favourable circumstances. Waiting with folded arms for all conditions to ripen is tantamount to refusing to make a revolution. (OJI 34) One hundred and nineteen years ago the freedom of Ireland lay in the power of one man to grasp, had he but had the decision of character necessary to cause him to act. ... One hundred and nineteen years ago. And again Ireland looks across the sea, and perhaps those across the sea look over to Ireland, and wonder. ... Christmas week, 1796; Christmas week, 1915 -- still hesitating. (Dec 25 1915) The United Irishmen waited too long, the Young Irelanders waited too long, the Fenians waited too long. This is the opinion of every student of history worthy of the name. But who dare censure these brave men and women? Assuredly not the men and women of our generation. To us also a great opportunity has come. Have we been wise? The future alone can tell. In these days of March let us remember that generations, like individuals, will find their ultimate justification or condemnation not in what they accomplished but rather in what they aspired and dared to attempt to accomplish. The generation or the individual that is stricken down in the attempt to achieve a high and holy thing is itself therefore high and holy. By aspiring to reach a height the generation or the individual places its soul unassailably upon that height, even should its body be trampled in the mud at its base. Upon what height or in what sunless depth of corruption has this generation placed its soul? (March 11, 1916) If we don't carry this off, Nora, the only thing left for us to do is to hide our heads in shame and pray to God to send an earthquake or a tidal wave and hide us under the waters. It would be such a disgrace to our generation. (Easter Sunday, April 23 1916) Don't be too disappointed, Nora. We shall rise again! (May 12 1916) FOUNDING THE PARTY INDEPENDENTLY The revolution in each country should be carried out responsibly by its own people, the masters, in an independent manner, and in a creative way suitable to its specific conditions. (OJI 6) The most important aspect of the policy of party founding advanced at this meeting was to establish a party independently. Holding fast to Chajusong is the intrinsic demand of the communist movement. 9