WWP sends condolences to Workers’ Party of Korea

To the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Korean people and all who side with the valiant struggle of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to defend its sovereignty against imperialism while building socialism.

Dear Comrades:

Workers World Party of the United States sends our deepest condolences on news of the death of Kim Jong Il, the supreme leader of the Korean people for 17 years.  We here in “the belly of the beast” know how diffi­cult the U.S. imperialist rulers have made it for leaders of truly sovereign countries to defend their sovereignty while pursuing the socialist path of development.

As General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defense Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Jong Il made defense of the Korean people against imperialist aggression his highest priority. And he was absolutely correct in this. Not a day has passed since the founding of the DPRK that U.S. imperialism and its collaborators have not tried, through armed aggression, economic sanctions and political subversion, to undermine the great socialist revolution that transformed the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Because of his unflinching stance, which continued the revolutionary traditions of Korea’s great ­liberator, Kim Il Sung, the DPRK has been able to withstand the ­attempts by the whole imperialist world to reimpose capitalist ­slavery under the guise of pushing ­“democracy” and a “free market.”

The present world economic crisis, a product of global capitalism in decay that is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of workers, shows that there is no future for humanity other than to uproot capitalist property relations and mobilize the masses of people for the building of socialism. This was Kim Jong Il’s life work, and we have great confidence that the revolutionary institutions he helped develop have already produced new Korean leaders to carry on his example. Long live Kim Jong Il! U.S. out of Korea! Long live the DPRK and the Korean Revolution!

From the Secretariat of the National
Committee of Workers World Party,
Larry Holmes, First Secretary
Sara Flounders
Fred Goldstein
Deirdre Griswold
Teresa Gutierrez
Monica Moorehead