Opinion

August 15 1945 was a significant day for the Korean people.

It was the day when a fundamental turn was brought about in the destiny of the Korean people and in the accomplishment of the cause of independence for mankind.

Until then, the movement for national liberation in many colonial countries had taken place in the form of petition, demonstration, uprising and riot, and it had been recognized that the cause of national liberation for the peoples of colonial and dependent countries could be realized only with the help of the working class of the suzerain state.

But all these forms of struggle could not deal a decisive blow to the imperialists armed to the teeth, and no one brought independence to the peoples of the colonies.

It was Kim Il Sung who put an end to such forms.

In Kalun in 1930, he solemnly stated that the Korean people are masters of the Korean revolution and it was important to take the firm standpoint and attitude that masters of the Korean revolution are the Korean people and the Korean revolution should by all means be carried out by the Korean people themselves in a way suited to the actual conditions of their country.

At a meeting held in Mingyuegou in December 1931, he said that the time came when everyone should come out, weapons in hand, in the sacred war to liberate their country and pointed to the need to mobilize all the patriotic forces opposed to Japanese imperialism in the armed struggle, irrespective of differences in property status, ranks, partisanship and religious creed.

The will to switch the anti-Japanese national liberation movement to an armed struggle, the highest stage of the movement, was affirmed in Kalun, and the anti-Japanese war to annihilate the Japanese imperialists was formally declared in Mingyuegou under the slogan “Oppose arms with arms, and oppose counterrevolutionary violence with revolutionary violence!”

The national liberation war in colonial Korea which combined the armed struggle of the Koreans’ own standing armed forces and the all-people resistance was Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary line and his plan for the operation for liberating the country.

The plan and line put an end to the Japanese imperialists' 40-odd year-long military rule over Korea and accomplished the historic cause of national liberation.

The victory of the Korean people proved that an organized armed struggle is the most powerful method of struggle and struggle of the highest form to defeat the imperialists' counterrevolutionary violence by one’s own efforts and win victory in the national-liberation revolution.

After the Second World War, many colonial countries regarded the anti-Japanese revolutionary war of the Korean people as a model and turned out in the armed struggle for their independence and freedom. By waging the armed struggle by their own efforts, they achieved independence and embarked on the road of building a new society.

At the time when the DPRK was founded, independent states numbered only some 20 in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But in the 1950s, nearly ten countries joined the ranks of independent states.

The 1960s was a period when the spirit of sovereign independence grew stronger than in any other decades.

The World Cultural Conference held in Cuba in January 1968 with progressive persons of culture from over 70 countries in attendance adopted a document titled "The Korean people's anti-Japanese armed struggle organized and waged under the direct leadership of Comrade Kim Il Sung" in reverence for the President who ushered in a new era of winning victory in the national-liberation revolution by one’s own efforts. The document proved that the experience from the anti-Japanese armed struggle organized and led by the President is a universal experience and theory of the national-liberation struggle in colonies.

In the 1970s, too, not a few countries won national independence and a new era of independence was heralded in which the oppressed people in colonial countries, who had been regarded only as objects of history, took their destiny into their own hands and carved it out by their own efforts.

The exploits of President Kim Il Sung, who made a distinguished contribution to the accomplishment of the cause of independence for humankind by setting a world-historic example for the national-liberation war and ushered in a new era of independence, will shine forever.