Kim Il Sung: A life to remember

Myongsin Mun addresses the meeting

By New Worker Correspondent

FRIENDS of Korea met at London’s historic Marx House last Saturday to celebrate the centenary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung with a panel of speakers who have all visited Democratic Korea over the years.

 Kim Il Sung founded the communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese colonialism, defeated the might of US-led imperialism in the Korean War and led the drive to build the modern, socialist republic that exists today in the north of the divided peninsula.

Kim Il Sung advanced and developed Marxist philosophy throughout his long and active life – a theme taken up by the panel, which included Michael Chant of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Dr Hugh Goodacre, John McCleod of the Socialist Labour Party, Dermot Hudson from the UK Korean Friendship Association and Myongsin Mun from the embassy of the DPR Korea in London.

Working people will be marking the centenary with celebrations throughout Korea and across the world said Friends of Korea chair Andy Brooks, welcoming the cultural programme that followed, which included a short film from Democratic Korea and Korean music. Hugh Goodacre and Myongsin Mun both gave rousing renditions of the Song of General Kim Il Sung while the young daughter of a DPRK diplomat delivered a piano rendition of the classic song written just after liberation in 1946.

Others performed more modern Korean pieces finally ending with a spirited rendition of James Connolly’s We only want the Earth led by contemporary composer Hugh Shrapnel.

 The Friends of Korea committee consists of the New Communist Party of Britain, Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Socialist Labour Party, European Regional Society for the Study of the Juché Idea and the UK Korean Friendship Association. The committee organises friendship meetings throughout the year in London, which are publicised by the supporting movements and on the Friends of Korea blog.