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In the first half of the 20th century, the Korean revolution was a complicated revolution which had to settle the inextricably intertwined national and class contradictions under the socio-economic conditions of a colonial, semi-feudal society, and an arduous revolution which had to be waged while fighting against the Japanese imperialists without any home front or the support of any regular army.

Such situation required the Korean revolution to have a new guiding ideology that suits it.

President Kim Il Sung, who embarked on the road of revolution in his teens, kept thinking and studying in order to create a new guiding ideology, regarding as a spiritual source the idea of “Aim High”, which he inherited from his father Kim Hyong Jik, an outstanding leader of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement of Korea, and as his maxim the idea of “The people are god”.

While carving out the genuine path of revolution to fight by going among the masses of the people and relying on them with a belief in their strength, he discovered the truth that masters of the revolution are the masses and that one can emerge victorious in the revolutionary struggle only when one goes among them and educates, organizes and mobilizes them.

In those days, the early Korean communists and nationalists tried to achieve the independence of their country by relying on outside forces, only indulging in factional strife, instead of thinking of carrying out revolution by their own efforts.

Drawing a serious lesson from this, he took the road of independence and creation to decide all the problems arising in the Korean revolution on the basis of one’s faith and judgment and solve them in conformity with the specific reality and situation of the revolution. In the course of this he discovered the truth that the revolution should be made according to one’s own conviction by taking responsibility for it, not with other’s approval or according to other’s instructions, and that all the problems arising in the revolution should be solved in an independent and creative way. 

In his historic report at the meeting of leading personnel of the Young Communist League and the Anti-Imperialist Youth League held in June 1930, he advanced the original revolutionary idea, the Juche idea, that the struggle against imperialism and colonialism should be waged vigorously and all the problems arising in the revolution should be solved independently in conformity with one’s actual conditions and on one’s own responsibility.

The Juche idea is, in a nutshell, an idea that the masses of the people are the masters and motive force of the revolution and construction.

With the creation of the Juche idea, the Korean people came to have their guiding ideology for the first time in history, the Korean revolution could advance guided by its own ideology and the revolutionary peoples of the world could turn out in the struggle to shape their destiny by relying on this idea.

The Korean revolution has long been able to emerge victorious since the creation of this idea, as it has been advanced to suit the specific conditions of the country with a belief in the strength of its people and in reliance on them, not others.

Today, the Juche idea has been developed into Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism which constitutes the eternal guiding ideology of the Korean revolution.