People say that the Russian people suffer from homesickness more than other nations.

I had never been to other countries. So, I at first opened my eyes wide with fascinations of the country, but after a week my heart began to burn with yearning. It may be homesickness.

Returning home is the only way for curing homesickness.

I came back to my country after visiting the DPRK, but I can not feel that I am back.

Homesickness makes my heart feel pain. Moscow today is different from the past. I often feel as if I suffered from a nightmare which I can neither be free from nor get rid of.

Not only I but millions of fellow countrymen have homesickness.

The talk made public by Chairman Kim Jong Il, wise leader of the DPRK helped me to get rid of my homesickness.

In December 1995 when I was about to leave Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il’s talk Respecting the Forerunners of the Revolution Is a Noble Moral Obligation of Revolutionaries was carried on the DPRK newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

Thinking it as a medicine, I was absorbed in reading the talk. I compared many paragraphs of the talk with the present and past realities of Russia when I came back home.

Essence of the talk is to respect veterans and keep maintaining the tradition.

Thus, I decided to write an editorial on newspaper Veteran.

In his talk, Kim Jong Il said.

“For the heirs to the revolution to respect their revolutionary predecessors–the forerunners who dedicated their lives to the revolution and left a great heritage behind them–can be said to be a noble expression of revolutionary morality.”

Readers, judge how big my feeling was when I read Kim Jong Il’s talk.

It is not accident that I began my story with homesickness.

We were received by Kim Jong Il three times for many hours. (I had been to the DPRK for medical treatment with D. T. Yazov, the former USSR marshal.)

Kim Jong Il said that although disasters and pains suffered by the Russian people were bitter, they were as same as a medicine and that the medicine would be efficient in reviving their activeness and consciousness of national independence and encouraging and instigating them to the liberation struggle.

In my opinion, our labour and consciousness are the light of hope in darkness that enables us to get rid of homesickness.

I think it is suitable for me to point out that self-reliance is the key to all successes made in the DPRK’s socialist construction.

It is the basic thesis of the Juche-oriented doctrine authored by President Kim Il Sung, the leader of the DPRK people.

The DPRK, a small country, advances steadily along the road of creation, astonishing the whole world with its pluck and achievements.

A great change was brought about in a short span of time.

It is because the Juche idea is applied in practice.

I will not appeal others to live according to the Juche theory.

The Juche doctrine itself teaches the need to live one’s own way according to given conditions.

It is time for Russia to wake up.

(This article was carried on Russian newpaper Veteran No. 4 in January 1996 by V. Karpov, the USSR hero and writer.)