By Kim Ryong Jin
Rodong Sinmun

The spirit of national self-respect is the motive power which has put the dignity and position of the country and people onto the highest status unprecedented in the 5 000-year-long national history and a revolutionary spirit which should be cherished in our minds as an eternal lifeline and be displayed.

The national self-respect is a lifeline for us which should never be sold or abandoned despite getting on the brink of death.

It is the noble truth proved by the long history of Korean revolution characterized with epoch-making victory and renovation.

The Korean revolution is recorded as the most arduous and complicated, but ever-victorious one in the history of the world movement for socialism.

The Korean people accomplished the historic cause of national liberation after fighting against the gangster-like Japanese imperialists under the banner for independence with one's own efforts upheld by President Kim Il Sung, defeated the aggressors, who boasted of being the "strongest" in the world, and built a socialist country independent in politics, self-sufficient in economy and self-reliant in national defence on the debris of war with their own efforts. In the period of the arduous march, they put the dignity and tremendous national power of the DPRK onto the highest level by dint of self-reliance despite all kinds of challenges and ordeals, not yielding themselves to the hostile forces for their mercy.

If they failed to have the spirit of national self-respect, the name of the country would have been eclipsed long ago and they would have met a miserable fate of modern-day slaves to be played into the hands of the imperialists and dominationists.

To give up the national self-respect means losing everything as well as state and people.

(KCNA - October 19, 2019)