We Will Be Boundlessly Faithful to the Sacred Mission as the Ideological Guards of the Great Workers' Party of Korea

At the watershed where victory in the historic first-year struggle for carrying through the decisions of the Ninth Congress of the Party is in sight, Rodong Sinmun greets its meaningful 81st founding anniversary.

The publication of the first issue of the Party newspaper on November 1, 1945 was an event of great significance in carrying out the cause of the Juche revolution.

On the first shore of the sacred history, the fact that our Party prepared and realized the founding of the Party newspaper with painstaking effort before anything else was the manifestation of an iron will to carry through to the end by the power of ideology the most just cause that greatly changes the destiny of this country and people.

With the founding of the organ of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), a powerful weapon leading the ideological oneness of the whole society was provided, and it became possible to advance the revolution victoriously with the powerful roar of the pen cannon.

It is the unwavering revolutionary will of today's Party newspaper collective to forever glorify the sacred tradition of having faithfully defended our Party's revolutionary cause on the first line of the Party's ideological front, embracing the truth and invincibility of our Party's revolutionary ideas with inexhaustible vitality.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said as follows.

"I believe that all the officials, reporters and editors of the Party newspaper will creditably fulfill their mission as the standard-bearers on our Party's ideological front."

The sacred path of Rodong Sinmun is a proud course in which, under the special attention and energetic guidance of the peerlessly great men, it has preserved the revolutionary character and essence purely and fulfilled its role as an excellent educator, a bold propagandist and a faithful spokesman at every period and stage of the revolution and construction.

The Great Leader, who established the precious tradition of building revolutionary publications including the March 1st Monthly in the flames of the stern anti-Japanese great war, led the founding of Chongno, the predecessor of Rodong Sinmun, without delay after founding our Party 81 years ago.

The Great Leader personally set the title of the Party newspaper, devoted sleepless days and nights to solving the problems of writing staff, printing equipment and office buildings on a bare plot no different from a military parade ground, and when the first issue was published, his sacred image rejoicing so much that our Party newspaper had come into the world is warmly cherished in our hearts even today, over 80 years later.

It was the Great Leader who had the Party newspaper office building constructed first, together with Kim Il Sung University and the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, using the patriotic rice donated by peasants right after liberation, and who bestowed great love and trust so that the Party newspaper, overflowing with vitality from its first steps, would vigorously sound the roar of the ideological and press battles.

In the days of the Fatherland Liberation War that decided the fate of the country, he gave the war correspondents of the Party newspaper credentials bearing his own handwritten name, and in the period when the struggle to establish Juche in the Party's ideological work was being vigorously waged, it was thanks to the wise leadership of the Great Leader, who energetically guided all articles of Rodong Sinmun to be filled only with the Party's revolutionary ideas and Juche ideas, that weighty and authoritative writings such as "Let Us Defend Independence" and "The Trend of History Cannot Be Reversed", which caused a great stir in the world political current of the 20th century, were published in succession, and the principle of Juche was thoroughly established in the overall editing of the newspaper.

It was the Great General who grasped Rodong Sinmun, which the Fatherly Leader personally founded and placed at the forefront of Juche journalism, as a powerful weapon for carrying out the cause of the Juche revolution and opened a new heyday in the strengthening and development of the Party newspaper.

The Great General, deeply discerning the importance of the position and role of the Party organ in organizing and mobilizing the masses for the revolutionary cause, vigorously ignited the flames of the editorial revolution and the newspaper revolution, and led the Party newspaper to creditably fulfill its mission as an ideological weapon actively contributing to the realization of the cause of modeling the whole Party and the whole society on Kimilsungism.

In particular, on April 14, 1978 and August 19, 1993, he visited the Rodong Sinmun office and set forth the principled issues and ways of carrying them out in further improving and strengthening the Party newspaper work in keeping with the demands of the development of reality, and wisely led Rodong Sinmun to always fulfill its mission and role as an excellent educator, a bold propagandist and a faithful spokesman in carrying out the Party's revolutionary cause.

The fact that the Great General inscribed the traces of his sacred guidance at the Rodong Sinmun office became a historic milestone that enabled the Party newspaper to be endlessly faithful to its proper duty of ideologically and theoretically defending the Leader's revolutionary cause and proving the scientific nature of socialism and the inevitability of its victory.

It was thanks to the great trust that, even amid such busy revolutionary guidance, he guided the articles of the Party newspaper and called the Party newspaper writers even to the road of his on-the-spot guidance, that the Party newspaper could edit and publish numerous articles pulsating with the Party's ideas and rousing the tens of millions of people to the struggle to defend socialism and build a powerful socialist country.

The leadership of the Great Leader and the Great General, which attached importance to ideology and the Party newspaper, is today firmly carried forward by the hands of the respected General Secretary, and in the new era of the Juche revolution Rodong Sinmun has risen to a higher stage of its own development.

In the new era of the Juche revolution, Rodong Sinmun has always been faithful to its mission and duty of faithfully upholding the Party's leadership with the pen.

The fact that our Party newspaper has for generations maintained and glorified the honor of being the first standard-bearer that ideologically represents the Party's ideas, lines and policies, proving with iron logic their originality, justice, scientific nature and vitality, and fills every heart of the tens of millions with sure victory, indomitable will and bold courage, firmly consolidating the socialist ideological fortress like an iron wall—this is entirely the precious fruit brought by the wise leadership of the respected General Secretary.

When the respected General Secretary greeted the new year of 2012 in tears of blood after losing the Fatherly General, he called the Party newspaper writers close to him and said that he places great importance on the Party newspaper, that the Party newspaper writers are precious treasures of our Party whom the General had painstakingly raised and put forward, and that all reporters and editors of the Rodong Sinmun office should have high pride in this and continue to strive to write good articles, thereby giving them a thousandfold strength and courage, and he also bestowed special favor so that the bright images of the Great Leader and the Great General would be enshrined first of all in the Party newspaper office building.

The warm love of the respected General Secretary, who, even amid his busy schedule as he bears the heavy responsibility of the revolution on his shoulders and devotes sleepless days and nights, pays deep attention to and meticulously guides the editing and publication work of the Party newspaper and bestows the greatest trust on the Party newspaper writers, is cherished in the hearts of the Party newspaper fighters as an inexhaustible motive force of life that will never set.

The respected General Secretary, who has the Party newspaper constantly innovate its content and form and thoroughly guarantee scientific accuracy, truthfulness, objectivity and popular character in reporting and propaganda work, has led Rodong Sinmun to vigorously ignite the flames of the newspaper revolution in keeping with the demands of the great period of upheaval and high tide of socialist construction and to be further strengthened and developed as a weapon of struggle that rouses the masses to the struggle for carrying out the Party's ideas and defending the Party's policies.

Under the wise leadership of the peerlessly great men, Rodong Sinmun has always been faithful to the absolute mission of representing the Party's ideas, stand, lines and policies and rousing the tens of millions to their thorough implementation from its founding to today, and at every period and stage of the revolution and construction it has always been a companion of our Party, breathing together with the Party and walking straight along the glorious path of carrying out the Party's cause.

The more than 80 years that the Party newspaper has walked since it took its first step at the foot of Mt. Haebang where the history of the ever-victorious Workers' Party of Korea began is a history of loyalty that has defended and upheld the ideas and cause of the Party Central at the forefront, a decade of great ideological battles that has extraordinarily heightened the spiritual power and creative power of all the people with powerful press offensives, and proud days that have recorded the heroic struggles of all generations who have performed countless miracles and exploits in the history of the prosperity and flourishing of our socialist state.

From the day in history when the first issue, which solemnly enshrined the slogan "Long Live the Wise Leader of the Nation, General Kim Il Sung!", was distributed to every corner of liberated Korea to today, the nearly 30,000 issues of Rodong Sinmun that have been published are shining as immortal records that hand down the Leader's revolutionary achievements forever and at the same time as records of our Party's sacred history and our people's proud history of struggle.

The newspapers, one issue after another, which people waited for with eager anticipation and read with joy in the vast fields and thousands of pit shafts, at construction sites and factories, and at posts where the guns of the struggle to defend the country formed a forest, were the resounding bugle calls of advance that roused the tens of millions of people onto the path of revolution led by our Party. Everywhere that bugle call ceaselessly and vigorously sounded, new Juche-type human beings armed with our Party's revolutionary ideas grew like a sea, the unity of the Party and the people became even firmer, and the triumphant roar of carrying out the Party's policies became a mighty echo that shook the land.

The important role that Rodong Sinmun has played in the different decades of the revolution, including the period of building a new country, the postwar rehabilitation construction, the establishment of the socialist system and the turbulent period of socialist construction, burning away all sorts of miscellaneous ideas such as flunkeyism, dogmatism, passivity and conservatism, is the clearest proof of the scientific nature and vitality of our Party's theory of the omnipotence of ideology and the primacy of ideology.

The struggle tasks we face today are not a reproduction of the goals set in past decades but a clear sublimation and another transformation on the unremitting revolutionary path.

What is essential and urgent in the new struggle march is not any material foundation but the patriotic fervor and extraordinary courage of all officials, Party members and citizens, and the power of ideological mobilization that makes it even greater and turns it into opening up and creation; this further highlights the grave responsibility of Rodong Sinmun as the Party's organ.

The respected General Secretary, who holds high the Juche theory of ideology as a weapon of sure victory, said in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Third Workshop for Officials in the Propaganda Sector of the Workers' Party of Korea not long ago that the path of development we have successfully pioneered so far has been opened not on the basis of any conditions or environment but entirely by the ideological resources our Party has long accumulated and the indomitable spiritual power and courage of our people, and he stressed that for the grand and vast tasks set forth by the Ninth Congress of our Party to be successfully carried out in the future as well, the mobilization of the inexhaustible ideological and spiritual power possessed by our Party and our people must be the premise and guarantee.

We are filled with solemn determination, taking the respected General Secretary's revolutionary ideas as the sole standard of thought and action and hundredfolding our ironclad faith and fighting spirit to faithfully uphold his leadership.

Rodong Sinmun is the newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea, born with the absolute mission of representing the Party's ideas, stand, lines and policies and rousing the tens of millions to their thorough implementation, and it is the organ of the great kimilsungism-kimjongilism Party.

It is the unshakable faith of the Party newspaper reporters and editors to absolutely trust and follow the respected General Secretary and to defend the Party's ideas and cause at the forefront with the pen of revolution.

The respected General Secretary is the great teacher who makes Rodong Sinmun the recorder of the history of the Workers' Party of Korea that steadfastly carries forward the ideals and spirit of the Party's founding, and makes every issue of the Party newspaper a page after page of the dignified and authoritative leadership chronicle of our Party that has carved the longest history of power, thereby raising ever higher its dignity and majesty.

Today, in the hearts of the Party newspaper reporters and editors, there overflows an ironclad oath to take the respected General Secretary's revolutionary ideas as the sole standard of thought and action and to vigorously walk the ten-thousand-li path of revolution following the General Secretary. It is the unanimous will of the Party newspaper reporters and editors to think according to the respected General Secretary's ideas and intentions even when thinking, and to match their stride to the General Secretary's revolutionary leadership even when walking.

Because the price of faith that shares the same ideology, will and footsteps with the Leader is firm, the tradition of the Party newspaper will be steadfastly carried on.

We will develop and enrich the content of ideological education that contributes to the thorough realization of the Party Central's will in keeping with the demands and style of the new era. In particular, we will fully defend the lofty authority of the respected General Secretary in every way and, with articles and editorials that convey his outstanding greatness, firmly consolidate the people's trust in the Party in every way and actively contribute to extraordinarily strengthening the political and ideological power of our state and the irresistible power of single-hearted unity.

With fresh and enriched articles and editorials, we will make the justice of our cause and the inevitability of victory, and the Party's ideas and policies, become consolidated as the faith of all the masses and be transformed into a great power to boldly rise above difficulties and trials. In keeping with today's turbulent period in which grand revolutionary projects are being carried out simultaneously, we will maximize the power of ideological bombardment so that today's advancing spirit, in which the people themselves rise up as masters of carrying out the Party's policies, brave pioneers, and creators of great transformation, will be further heightened. Like all generations that have upheld the Party's ideas and leadership with ability, we will actively display endless loyalty to the Party, fiery passion to leap even higher, high demand that knows no self-satisfaction or stagnation, and the revolutionary spirit of unstintingly devoting wisdom and energy.

Today, the reporters and editors of our Party newspaper are filled with fiery zeal to set higher goals and struggle in order to fulfill their role as forerunners in ceaselessly writing textbooks of ideological revolution that our Party's history will remember and that will be handed down forever along with our era of transformation, bearing the unshakable faith that if we do exactly as the respected General Secretary teaches, everything will be done.

Even though the years pass and generations change a hundred times, the revolutionary essence and mission of the Party newspaper are absolutely immutable.

All the reporters and editors of the Party newspaper will firmly grasp the pen of faith and be endlessly faithful to the sacred mission as ideological guards defending our Party's ideas and cause at the very forefront.