Under the Banner of National Independence in the DPRK

The Korean people, under the leadership of President Kim Il Sung, defeated the Japanese imperialists and achieved their national liberation on August 15, Juche 34 (1945), holding aloft the banner of national independence.

Masters of the Korean Revolution

Kim Il Sung embarked on the road of revolution in his early years with a great ambition to win back his country deprived of by the Japanese imperialists. He held the meeting of leading personnel of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League in Kalun from June 30 to July 2, 1930, in which he stressed the need to have a firm standpoint and attitude that the Koreans are the masters of the Korean revolution and the Korean revolution, to all intents and purposes, must be carried out by the Koreans themselves.

He convened the meeting of Party and Young Communist League cadres in Mingyuegou in December 1931 and set forth a strategic policy for inspiring the whole nation to the anti-Japanese armed struggle, those who possess weapons offering weapons, those who have money donating money and those who have strength dedicating strength, and for organizing and waging the armed struggle mainly in the form of guerrilla warfare. According to this, the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army, a standing revolutionary armed force, (which was later reorganized into the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army), was founded in April 1932.

At the meeting of military and political cadres of the KPRA in Nanhutou held from February 27 to March 3, 1936, Kim Il Sung said: The masters of the Korean revolution are none other than the Korean communists. Today, it depends entirely on us whether or not our people’s anti-Japanese national liberation struggle is stepped up.

He then made clear the tasks of communists for the strengthening and development of the anti-Japanese national liberation struggle.

Later, the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland (ARF), an anti-Japanese national united front organization, was founded in May 1936. With this as a momentum, all the anti-Japanese forces were united as one to inspire them to the struggle for Korea’s liberation.

Only with Our Own Efforts

In April 1941 the Soviet Union and Japan concluded the neutrality pact. This news plunged a number of revolutionaries in Korea into despair.

In May 1941, Kim Il Sung put forward the slogan “Let us carry out the Korean revolution by our own efforts!” In June that year he held the meeting of the chiefs of the KPRA small units, political workers’ teams and revolutionary organizations at the Kanbaeksan Secret Camp, in which he stressed the need to firmly maintain the Juche-oriented attitude whatever the situation and conduct intensive ideological education in the spirit of carrying out the Korean revolution by the efforts of the Koreans themselves.

At several other meetings afterwards, he underlined the need to fully prepare the revolutionary forces with the firm faith to brave all difficulties and carry through the Korean revolution by their own efforts, and conduct the activities of the KPRA small units and groups in a more vigorous way.

On the Strength of All-people Resistance

Kim Il Sung cherished it as his unshakable will to make full preparations for mobilizing all the Koreans in the anti-Japanese resistance and liberate Korea by the efforts of the Korean nation itself.

He had already advanced the line on an all-people resistance in his early years and ensured that secret bases were built in the Rangnim and other mountain ranges which could serve as strongholds for activities, operations and logistics of the KPRA units. In the 1940s, temporary secret bases in various forms and sizes were built in the points of strategic and tactical importance in Korea for carrying out the operations for national liberation.

The KPRA soldiers and political workers dispatched to different parts of Korea formed Party, ARF and resistance organizations. Among them were such organizations with various names as the Fatherland Liberation Corps which was organized in Pyongyang, the Kim Il Sung Corps which was formed in Seoul and extended its influence all over the parts of the country and even to Japan. The resistance organizations also expanded its networks into the units of the Japanese aggressor forces.

On August 9, 1945, Kim Il Sung ordered the KPRA units to start the general offensive for national liberation. In response to the operations plan, the all-people resistance organizations annihilated the Japanese imperialists and destroyed their ruling organs in different parts of the country.

On August 15, 1945, the Japanese imperialists declared their unconditional surrender.

2020-08-08