Dec. 15, 2024 Sunday  
Rodong Sinmun
DPRK's History of Self-reliance
Chollima Era of Miracle and Change

2024.12.15.


Recorded in the history of the DPRK which has developed with self-reliance is the years of the great change called the Chollima Era.

After the Fatherland Liberation War, the country was in a very difficult situation. At that time the country lacked funds, materials and manpower and the people’s living conditions were not improved.

The hostile forces were getting hell-bent on the moves to provoke a new war.

In December 1956, President Kim Il Sung convened a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and set forth the tasks for the national economic plan for 1957, the first year of the Five-Year Plan, and advanced the policy of bringing about a great revolutionary upsurge in socialist construction by overcoming the difficulties in reliance on the popular masses’ strength.

The President visited the then Kangson Steel Plant after the plenary meeting and briefed its workers on the country’s difficult situation.

Saying that we should take ten or one hundred steps forward if others do one or ten steps, he instructed that it would be good for the country if it had 10, 000 tons of rolled steel in addition next year.

True to the instructions of the President, the workers of the plant worked a miracle of producing 120, 000 tons of steel at a blooming mill with a capacity of 60, 000 tons.

The flames of the great Chollima upswing flared up in Kangson were spread to all other sectors.

The working class and agricultural workers across the country brought about a great revolutionary upsurge in socialist construction under the slogan "Charge at the speed of Chollima!"

The then Kim Chaek Iron Works produced 270, 000 tons of pig iron by equipment with a capacity of 190, 000 tons and the then Hwanghae Iron Works built a large blast furnace in less than a year.

The construction sector created the Pyongyang speed of fabricating each flat in 14 minutes.

Under the President’s leadership, our people worked great miracles and changes unprecedented in history by charging at the speed of Chollima (a legendary winged horse running 400kms a day) and thus displayed the mettle of Koreans to the world.

The Chollima Statue, erected in the capital city of Pyongyang in 1961, serves as a monument demonstrating the heroic mettle of our people in the great Chollima era and as a symbol of our country.

Rodong Sinmun