The 20-Point Platform was a set of principles revealed by Kim Il Sung through a radio speech on 23 March 1946 that became the basis for governance for the future Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The 20-Point Platform was published during the time when Kim Il Sung was chairman of the Provisional People’s Committee of North Korea, a provisional government in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula often considered as a North Korean proto-state.

 

KIM IL SUNG

20-POINT PLATFORM

March 23, 1946

We insist that the democratic government we will create should surely realize the following platform.

1. Completely purge all remnants of the former Japanese imperialist rule in the political and economic life in Korea.

2. Open a merciless struggle against reactionary and anti-democratic elements within the country, and absolutely prohibit activities by fascist and anti-democratic parties, groups and individuals.

3. Guarantee the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and faith to all people. Guarantee the condition for the free activities of democratic political parties, working associations, peasant associations, and other democratic social organizations.

4. Have the entire Korean people possess the duty and the right to organize people’s committees, the unified local administrative institutions, through elections based on a universal, direct, equal and secret ballot.

5. Guarantee equal rights to all citizens regardless of gender, faith and possession of property.

6. Insist on the inviolability of residence and person, and the lawful guarantee of property and personal possessions of citizens.

7. Abolish of all legal and judicial institutions used during the time of the former Japanese imperialist rule and also influenced by it, and elect people’s judicial institutions on democratic principles and guarantee of equal rights under the law for all citizens.

8. Develop industries, farms, transportation and commerce for increasing the well-being of the people.

9. Nationalize large enterprises, transport institutions, banks, mines and forests.

10. Allow and encourage freedom in private handicraft and commerce.

11. Confiscate land from Japanese persons, Japanese nationals, traitors, and landowners who practice tenant farming and the scrapping of the tenant farming system, and make all confiscated land into properties of peasants free of charge. Have the state manage all irrigation facilities free of charge.

12. Struggle against speculators and loan sharks by enacting market prices for daily necessities.

13. Enact a single and fair tax system, and implement a progressive income tax system.

14. Implement an 8-hour work system for workers and office clerks, and regulate minimum wages. Prohibit work for males below the age of 13, and implement a 6-hour work system for males aged 13 to 16.

15. Implement life insurance for workers and office clerks, and implement an insurance system for workers and enterprises.

16. Implement a universal compulsory education system, and extensively expand primary schools, middle schools, high schools and universities under state management. Reform the people’s education system in accordance to the democratic system of the state.

17. Actively develop the national culture, science and art, and expand the number of theaters, libraries, radio broadcasting stations and movie theaters.

18. Extensively install special schools for cultivating the talent being required in all sectors of state institutions and people’s economy.

19. Encourage people and enterprises engaged in science and art, and give aid to them.

20. Expand the number of state hospitals, eradicate infectious diseases, and treat poor people for free.