Politics

August 15 1945 is the day when Korea was liberated from the military occupation by Japanese imperialism.

The national liberation was a historic victory which was achieved as a result of the anti-Japanese war waged through an all-people resistance with the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA) as the hard core.

It is unthinkable apart from the leadership of General Kim Il Sung, the legendary hero of the anti-Japanese war and peerless patriot.

From the early years when he set out on the road of liberating the country, he firmly maintained the stand that the Korean people are the masters of the Korean revolution and the Korean revolution should be carried out by the Korean people themselves to suit the specific conditions of the country.

He formed the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, a permanent revolutionary armed force, steadily expanded and strengthened its ranks and laid the solid foundation for rallying the broad masses under the banner of anti-Japanese struggle, strengthening the mass basis of the Korean revolution and putting up an all-people resistance.

In order to expand the organizational network in the homeland, Manchuria and Japan, he dispatched many guerrillas as political workers and encouraged the masses to join the all-people resistance against the Japanese imperialists by enhancing their consciousness and sense of organization.

The Korean people, who had bitterly experienced the pain of losing their country and ruthless suppression by the Japanese imperialists, joined the revolutionary organizations and actively turned out for the anti-Japanese struggle.

They sent their sons and daughters without hesitation to join the guerrilla army and supplied it with cloths, foods and other necessities, though they were dressed in rags and suffered from hunger.

General Kim Il Sung organized the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland embracing broad patriotic forces from all social strata in May 1936 and expanded its organizations.

Under his wise leadership, the all-people resistance force grew rapidly.

In 1942 the Japanese imperialists confessed that the anti-Japanese underground organizations in the homeland they detected numbered over 180 and the organized force over 500 000, claiming that the overwhelming majority of political offenders believed in Japan’s defeat and planned to get in touch with General Kim Il Sung and stage an armed revolt under his command.

General Kim Il Sung advanced the three-point line of national liberation at the time when the final decisive battle for national liberation was being prepared. The line was designed to deal a crushing blow to the Japanese imperialist aggressor army with the general offensive of the KPRA, stage an all-people uprising in various places in response to the general offensive of the KPRA and conduct a combined operation in the rear of all-people resistance organizations in combination with the general offensive of the KPRA.

On August 9 1945, on the order of General Kim Il Sung to start the final offensive for national liberation, the KPRA launched a general offensive and many all-people resistance organizations turned out for the fight all at once throughout the country.

The Japanese imperialists suffered a decisive blow from the fierce attack of the KPRA units and active all-people resistance and declared their unconditional surrender on August 15 1945, a week after the start of the anti-Japanese military operations.