Opinion

The first revolutionary armed force of Korea was founded on April 25 1932.

Kim Il Sung who set out on the road of revolution with a lofty intention to liberate his country in his early teens put forward an original line of waging an armed struggle and founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army, first revolutionary armed force of Korea, in the forests of Antu, Northeast China.

Although it was a small troop of some 100 fighters, it was the genuine army of the Korean people formed with workers, peasants and patriotic youths who hated the Japanese aggressors and their stooges and loved their country and people, and a Juche-type revolutionary armed force guided by the Juche idea propounded by their Commander Kim Il Sung.

Its founding was a grand momentous event that declared the death-defying resistance against the imperialists under the banner of achieving national liberation and independence by national efforts and a landmark event which heralded a new era of the Juche revolution relying on powerful revolutionary armed forces.

It was also a heroic deed that announced to the whole world the staunch anti-imperialist revolutionary idea to fight with arms against those who attempt to hurt the dignity and violate the sovereignty of the Korean nation and the indomitable will of the Korean revolutionaries to achieve the freedom and liberty of the people and victory in the revolution at all cost by their own strength.

It was much beyond imagination that the AJPGA declared the revolutionary war against the one million troops armed to the teeth, the military force of Japan which styled itself “leader” of Asia.

This notwithstanding, the Korean guerrilla army won battles against them by overpowering their numerical and technical upper hand by dint of the politico-ideological and strategic and tactical edge.

In March 1934 it was reorganized into the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army which gradually extended the theatre of war to the homeland.

The KPRA actively applied protean and adroit arts and tactics of guerrilla warfare, which are still told as legends, in numerous battles that are etched in the history of the anti-Japanese armed struggle, including the Battle of Pochonbo which terrified the Japanese imperialists and instilled confidence in national liberation in the Korean people.

It created the great revolutionary spirit in the course of accomplishing the cause of national liberation.

Its members were faced with unimaginable difficulties and trials including starvation, biting cold and deadly contagious diseases, with neither state backing nor support from a regular army. However, they established the tradition of single-hearted unity, the great foundation of the revolution, as they displayed absolute loyalty to their Commander.

 They made Yongil bombs from scratch and military uniforms by their own efforts in primitive forests by giving full play to the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and overcame a mountain of difficulties in the indomitable fighting spirit of achieving the historic cause of national liberation no matter how often they might have to die.

The revolutionary spirit of Paektu created and fully embodied by the KPRA was succeeded by the Korean People’s Army, regular revolutionary armed forces founded in less than three years after liberation, and has served as the spiritual source of all victories recorded in the 70-odd-year history of the revolutionary struggle of the Korean people after national liberation.

Despite the lapse of over 90 years after the founding of the KPRA, the Korean people will reliably carry forward the tradition started by their first Juche-type revolutionary armed force and successfully accomplish the revolutionary cause of Juche.