By Jack Kim
(Reuters) - North Korea marked a founding anniversary of its ruling Workers' Party with a celebratory concert and banquet, and leader Kim Jong Un called for renewed training of all workers into revolutionaries espousing communism, state media said on Friday.
The events on the 79th anniversary on Thursday were relatively low-key affairs compared with some years in the past when North Korea held large military parades showcasing its latest weaponry and with visits by high-ranking Chinese officials.
Kim lauded the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) as the longest-ruling party in the world that overcame unprecedented hardship to devote all its strength in building a powerful nation that has thwarted threats from outside forces.
In a lengthy commemorative message published in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, Kim said North Korea faces challenges both from within and outside, and said the party must take the lead in achieving a revolutionary communist victory.
"Workers must train themselves ideologically and cultivate party discipline in the midst of an inferno of criticism and struggle," he said.
"The success of the work of growing workers into true communist revolutionaries who espouse the founding ideology and spirit depends largely on the role of the party organization."
Kim attended a performance at the Central Cadres Training School of the party and a banquet that was filled with the "joy of the participants greeting the significant day marking the ruling history of 79 years," official KCNA news agency said.
A state media photograph showed Kim arriving at the banquet with his daughter, with a Russian Aurus limousine in the backdrop, likely one of the cars that Russian President Vladimir Putin had given Kim as gifts.
Russian ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matsegora was mentioned prominently as a guest of Kim, highlighting the dramatically elevated ties between the two countries.
Official media made no mention of Chinese attendance. On Thursday KCNA published a short dispatch that the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee had sent a floral basket.