[MC5 comments: Here we publish notable weeds from the works of Kim Jong Il. It was one thing for Stalin to say the things that Kim Jong Il said from 1970 to 1972, but it is another thing for Kim Jong Il to say them. Why? Because Kim Jong Il had the negative experience of Tito, Khruschev and Brezhnev to learn from and he had the benefit of having struggled with Mao; yet Kim did not quite side with Mao.

When Mao said, "You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don't know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party--those in power taking the capitalist road," he could have been talking to Kim Jong Il.

The bottom line is that Kim Jong Il's works downplay the significance of Khruschev. Kim talks about old landlord and capitalist classes reviving without assessing the importance of Khruschev, someone right in the party with current access to the means of production. Today we communists do not deserve to be taken seriously unless we can see that it was the bourgeoisie in the party, a new bourgeoisie that restored capitalism--not mainly the old overthrown landlords or capitalists from the old society. To his credit, Kim Jong Il understood that family class background was not the main issue in class struggle under socialism, but he did not take the next necessary step with Mao Zedong--to see the new basis of classes under socialism.

Without understanding Khruschev, there is also no way to explain Gorbachev and Yeltsin. These people were not landlords or ex-capitalists either. For that matter, in Albania, Enver Hoxha said the same thing as Kim Jong Il, but Hoxha's successor Ramiz Alia capitulated to capitalist restoration completely and overtly. No where does Kim Jong Il in his latest volume of selected works published in English, no where does he assess Khruschev correctly. Kim Jong Il continues to bear heavy responsibility for the misfiring of the class struggle globally. The duty of historical summation and self-criticism falls first and foremost on the leaders.]

Kim Jong Il said in "On Intensifying Political and Ideological Education Among Public Security Workers," March 29, 1970, pp. 62-3:

"Some of our scholars also once proposed the absurd theory that after the establishment of the socialist system the period of transition from capitalism to socialism comes to an end and class struggle and proletarian dictatorship are not needed. The theory was criticized. The argument that the class struggle ceases or proletarian dictatorship withers away when the socialist system is established is revisionism and a Rightist tendency. There are no landlords or capitalists in socialist society, but surviving elements of them still exist and they are ambitious to revive their system of exploitation. Of course, surviving elements of the overthrown exploiting class in our society are no longer a large force on their own. However, we must not neglect the struggle against them since they bear malice against the socialist system and are easily swayed by the imperialists, who ceaselessly instigate them to counterrevolutionary manoeuvrings to undermine our system. This is clearly proved by the counterrevolutionary events that took place in some socialist countries in Eastern Europe. Public security workers must not harbour illusions about the surviving elements of the exploiting class without class consciousness, thinking that all of them have been transformed and will support socialism. It is not necessary to touch them so long as they refrain from evil doings, but we must exercise dictatorship over them if they oppose Party line and policy or infringe upon the socialist system. They must not be tolerated."

Kim Jong Il, "On Effecting a New Upsurge in Film-Making," February 15, 1971, Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 202:

"Revisionism penetrates mostly through films. Therefore, foreign films should be seen with a critical eye."

Kim Jong Il, "Let Us Struggle Resolutely to Implement the Three Principles of National Reunification," July 14, 1972, Vol. 2, pp. 377-8:

"It is clear that the enemy, taking this opportunity, will resort to every conceivable scheme to spread bourgeois ideas and establish the capitalist system in the north. It would be a mistake if you were to think that no bourgeois idea could infiltrate into our ranks and no capitalist element revive in our society because all the people in the north are armed with the revolutionary idea of our Party and solidly united around the Party. You must bear in mind that bourgeois ideas can seep through and capitalist elements come back to life if we relax and neglect ideological education for Party members and other working people, and that our revolutionary achievements may be jeopardized in the process."