Workers Party of Korea celebrated in London

by New Worker correspondent

Leslie Larkum and Michael Chant

Comrades from several different organisations came together last Saturday in South London to celebrate the formation of the Workers Party of Korea on October 10th  at a social organised by the Friends of Korea.

Youg Ho Thae, minister at the DPRK embassy, explained the history of the formation of the Workers Party of Korea, which was directly descended from the Down With Imperialism Union by the young, patriotic student leader Kim Il Sung in October 1926.

During the anti-Japanese war there was a communist party cell in each guerrilla unit. It was only practically possible to establish the Communist Party of North Korea after the North was liberated in 1945.

After the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 country Kim il Sung raised the question of forming a unified communist movement, and following the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in September 1948 the communist parties of north and south came together to form the Workers Party of Korea on  October 10 that year.

Comrade Thae pointed out that “since World War 2 the country which had used chemical weapons more than any other is the US, which has the largest stockpile of these weapons in the world. Even now, tens of thousands of children are being born in Vietnam with terrible deformities”.

He added that the deadline for the US to eliminate these weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention was this year, “but now Washington has said this would not be possible for another 10 or 12 years”.

Speaking on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Michael Chant told the meeting that the Korean communists led by Kim Il Sung had worked to solve the problems faced by the Korean people step by step, and made the people the decision-makers.

The formation of the Workers Party of Korea by Kim Il Sung as the mass party of the Korean people, he said, “has enabled the people to unite with one will to develop the country”.

Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association recalled that the song used as the anthem of the Korean People’s Army, the Red Flag, was written by a British socialist, and that as a song identified with the DPRK it is still illegal to sing it in south Korea.

He said “the Workers Party of Korea is surging forward under the banner of Songun leadership of dear respected leaders Kim Jong Il”, with new housing and leisure facilities and long-range rockets”.

The Workers Party of Korea is continuing the struggles against dogmatism, factionalism, revisionism and “raising the banner of socialism high in Korea and in Asia”, he said.

Bringing greetings from the NCP, Theo Russell said 10th  October  was an important day for communists the world over, when “a new party of the toiling masses was formed on Korean soil, the Workers Party of Korea”.

He said the party had made unique contributions to the international movement: the Juche idea which had unleashed the enormous creative energy of the masses, and the concept of self-reliance and the Songun army first policy, which are admired by small nations around the world attempting to resist imperialist bullying and diktat.

The meeting was followed by music provided by Michael Chant and Lesley Larkum, who performed Let us love our motherland, Arirang, and the national anthem of the DPRK on the violin and keyboard.