How Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule?

The military occupation of Korea by the Japanese imperialists, which lasted from 1905 to 1945, reduced its people to colonial slavery.

The nation was saved from this miserable lot by Kim Il Sung(1912-1994), who is now held up as the eternal leader of the Korean people.

He was still in his teens when he set out on a road to achieve national liberation under the banner of anti-Japanese imperialism.

Throughout the subsequent two-decade-long bloody struggle against the formidable enemy, he was steadfast in his belief: The masters of the Korean revolution are the Korean people themselves, and they should all rise up in unity to defeat the Japanese imperialists and liberate the country.

Thanks to his protean guerrilla tactics, the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army dealt a heavy blow to the enemy in battles, and all the people joined in the fight, looking up to the brilliant commander as the lodestar of national liberation.

Eighty years from the day of Korea’s liberation (August 15, 1945), the Korean people look back on the peerless hero’s immortal exploits.

Great Leader’s Long Journey Marks Centenary

A century ago Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) embarked on a 250-mile journey to a neighbouring country. In January 1925 he in his teens set out on the journey with a firm resolve to win back the country’s independence from Japan.

At the time the Korean people were subjected to harsh colonial slavery under the Japanese military occupation of their country (1905-1945).

For more than half of his journey he had to go through almost uninhabited mountainous areas where beasts of prey often prowled about even in full daylight, plus blizzards, severe cold and untrodden snow-covered paths in forests. But he braved all challenges on his own.

Ten days or so later, he reached the bank of the Amnok River bordered by northeast China. 

He recalled that he had then got truly painful psychological experience. He was obsessed by the uncertainty of whether he would ever cross the river back to his homeland once he bade farewell to it. He picked up a pebble from the river bank as he wished to take anything that could be a token and memento of his homeland and to keep it as a treasure.

He walked slowly towards the opposite side of the river singing quietly the Song of the Amnok River:

On the first of March 1919

I crossed the Amnok River.

The day will come round every year

I’ll return when my work is done.

Blue waters of Amnok, my homeland,

Wait the day I return to you.

I crossed to attain our dearest wish

I’ll return when we have won.

“I thought: My dear Korea, I am leaving you. I know I cannot live even for a moment away from you, but I am crossing the Amnok to win you back. Across this river is a foreign land, but I will not forget you, even in there. Wait for me, my Korea,” he wrote in his reminiscences With the Century. He said that was what he had in mind as he headed for the foreign land.

With his path full of uncertainty, he was firmly determined to beat down Japanese imperialism and win back his country.

Afterwards, he launched a 20-year-long arduous revolutionary struggle against Japan.

On October 17, 1926, he formed the Down-with-Imperialism Union (DIU) with anti-imperialism throughout the world as its ultimate goal, and built the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army as regular armed forces on April 25, 1932, inspiring the Korean people to turn out for the anti-Japanese resistance.

He led the anti-Japanese revolutionary war through thick and thin to achieve the historic cause of Korea’s liberation on August 15, 1945—all this without the backing of a state and support from a regular army.

This meant that the resolve made by a teenager twenty years ago came true.

His 250-mile journey came to be etched in the history of modern Korea.

The Korean people still commemorate the event, calling it 1 000-ri (250-mile) journey for national liberation. The journey was memorialized by the Arch of Triumph, a landmark structure in the capital city of Pyongyang. The years “1925” and “1945” are inscribed on the upper parts of its two first-floor walls. Statues of Kim Il Sung and monuments were also built in different places in the route of the journey in tribute to his trek. Every year local schoolchildren take part in the study tour along the course of the journey.

Kim Il Sung’s note on his instructions on the operations for the final offensive to liberate the country

Documents of the Japanese imperialists on the formation of all-people resistance organizations in different regions

KPRA soldiers making full preparations to cope with the great event of national liberation

Vanquished Japanese imperialists

Historic Liberation Born of Spirit of Independence

On August 15, 1945 the Korean people put an end to the 40-odd-year military occupation by the Japanese imperialists and liberated their country. This was a great victory won by the staunch spirit of independence of the Korean people. The spirit was provided by Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), their eternal leader.

Setting out on the road for the sacred cause of Korea’s liberation in his teens, Kim Il Sung discovered in the early years of his revolutionary struggle the profound truth that man is the master of his destiny and he has the ability to carve out his own destiny. This is the Juche idea recognized by the international community today as the idea of independence.

Under the banner of the Juche idea, Kim Il Sung hewed out a new path quite different from those pursued by the preceding generations, a unique path of believing in and relying on the people.

In June 1930 he indicated the path of the Korean revolution based on the idea of independence. In December 1931 he put forward the idea that the armed enemy should be countered with arms and the line of accomplishing the cause of Korea’s liberation by waging anti-Japanese armed struggle mainly in the form of guerrilla warfare. On April 25, 1932, he founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, the first revolutionary armed force of the Korean people, and organized and led the anti-Japanese war.

The Korean guerrillas had no state backing or support from a regular army and therefore they had to wage a life-and-death fight against the formidable Japanese imperialists. It was an arduous struggle unprecedented in the world history of revolutionary wars. However, they solved everything by their own efforts―ammunition, weapons, food and clothing and so on. They built arsenals in the forests to make bombs, and tailored military uniforms by making sewing-machine needles with steel wire.

The Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland founded in May 1936 was, after all, a pan-national united front body formed according to Kim Il Sung’s transparent spirit of independence to liberate the country by the efforts of the Korean nation itself. With the formation of the association, the Korean people were united as one irrespective of the difference in ideology, political view, class and religious belief, and their struggle for the country’s liberation developed into a nationwide sacred enterprise.

In the joint struggle of the peoples of Korea, Soviet Union and China to wipe out the Japanese imperialists, too, Kim Il Sung set forth a reasonable proposal to form international allied forces proceeding from his steadfast independent stand. He also made sure thorough preparations were made to proactively greet the great event of national liberation.

Based on such full preparations, he issued on August 9, 1945 an order to launch the final offensive operations for Korea’s liberation. Thanks to the rapid advance of the KPRA and the operations behind enemy lines by armed uprising groups across the country, Korea was finally liberated.

Benevolent Liberator of Korea

The military occupation of Korea by the Japanese imperialists from 1905 to 1945 caused indelible sufferings to the Korean people.

During the occupation the Japanese imperialists plundered Korea of its precious cultural relics and resources such as gold, silver, copper and other nonferrous metals, coal, timber, grains, livestock and all other things. They tried to obliterate even its language and forced Koreans to change their names in Japanese style. This met with a soaring indignation and vehement protest of the Korean people. But they mercilessly put down the resistance of the Korean people with arms. The barbarous sabre-rattling of the Japanese imperialists who committed massacre and arson everywhere in Korea reduced the country to a living hell.

In this period of national agony, Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) inspired the Korean people with a hope of national resurrection.

He embarked on the road of revolution in his teens to win back his country. He formed a revolutionary organization called the Down-with-Imperialism Union with young like-minded people of a new generation in October 1926 and advanced the line of armed struggle against the Japanese imperialists in December 1931.

He founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army in April 1932, and dealt telling blows to the Japanese imperialists with his ever-changing art of warfare and tactics in northeast China and the northern mountainous border areas of Korea for over ten years.

In June 1937 a large unit of the KPRA led by him made a surprise attack on Pochonbo in the northern frontier of Korea. He made a rallying speech before the locals, which inspired the Korean people with confidence in national liberation. With the battle as an occasion, his name became a token of hope and admiration among the Korean people.

He made full preparations to liberate the country through an all-people armed uprising in tandem with the general offensive of the KPRA and issued an order for general offensive for national liberation on August 9, 1945.

The KPRA units broke through the “impregnable” areas along the Tuman River. Some units landed in Korea from the sea in cooperation with the Soviet army and advanced into the homeland while liberating the areas under occupation. Simultaneously with the KPRA’s general offensive, the people from all walks of life rose against the Japanese, supporting the advance of the KPRA in every way.

At long last Japan declared its unconditional surrender on August 15. This marked an end to the Japanese military occupation of Korea for more than 40 years, and the Korean people greeted the day of national liberation.

Kim Il Sung was the benevolent liberator who opened the way to a new life for the Korean nation and provided them with a happy life.