Many people in the world think money is everything. But there is something that cannot be bought or exchanged with money. It is noble ideology and spirit.
President Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) regarded noble ideology and spirit as the most precious wealth of revolutionaries.
For him, money and material wealth are meaningful only for the people’s welfare. He never linked money or wealth with his life.
Although he devoted his all to the victory of the Korean revolution and the cause of global independence shouldering the heavy burden of state affairs, he refused all the proposals of the officials to raise his salary.
The following story is a good example. In November 1993, a meeting for accounting and income distribution was held at the Wonhwa Cooperative Farm, Phyongwon County, South Phyongan Province.
The meeting adopted a resolution on presenting 102 485 won to Kim Il Sung who was an honorary member of the farm. It was the sum of the savings of the share of Kim Il Sung who had worked for the farm since the time of the cooperativization of socialist agriculture after the Korean war (1950-1953). He had striven to boost the farm since the day when he had sowed seeds together with the farmers during the war. It was an expression of their gratitude for his devoted efforts.
But Kim Il Sung ensured that tractors, trucks and farming machines were purchased with the money for the farm.
There is the International Friendship Exhibition House in Mt Myohyang, which is famous for its superb scenic beauty.
Displayed there are numerous precious gifts presented to President Kim Il Sung by party leaders, personages, organizations and institutes of various countries of the world.
President Kim Il Sung never thought that the gifts were for him alone. He said that all the gifts for him belonged to the country, not to him and so they must be displayed in the exhibition house.
In general, politicians do not make public the gifts they received. Regarding them as an expression of their personalities and dignity, they keep and use them for themselves. It is common that they make them a source of pride in their personalities even when they show them to others.
But President Kim Il Sung turned all the gifts presented to him into the wealth of the country and the people which will be handed down generation after generation.