Korean People's Army self-reliant people's armed force of Juche- special article by Dr Dermot Hudson

           
                                                             

The 25th of April is the 88th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People's Army (KPA)as the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army by the great leader President KIM IL SUNG . Of course the regular revolutionary armed forces were founded on the 8th of February 1948 in Korea but the lineage of the Korean People's Army goes back to the days of the anti-Japanese armed struggle led by President
KIM IL SUNG so the 25th of April is the day of the foundation of the revolutionary armed forces of Korea .
 It was on the 25th of April in Antu, Manchuria (many Koreans had gone to Manchuria after Japanese rule in Korea ) that President KIM IL SUNG announced the formation of the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army(AJPGA) to the world saying "The AJPGA is made up of the workers, peasants and young patriots who oppose the Japanese imperialists and their stooges and love their country and people; it is a revolutionary armed force which will dedicate itself to protecting the interests of the people.
  The aim and mission of the people’s guerrilla army is to overthrow the colonial rule of Japanese imperialism in Korea and bring national independence and social emancipation to the Korean people."
  This was a powerful declaration that the Korean people now had their own independent revolutionary armed force , an armed of the proletariat and the peasants .
  The AJPGA became the Korean People's Revolutionary Army in March 1934 and after liberation formed the backbone of the standing regular armed forces when they were formed in February 1948.
   The revolutionary people's armed forces  were based on Juche and self-reliance . The AJPGA led by comrade KIM IL SUNG did not have a state to support them nor a rear base so they fought in the spirit of self-reliance . They seized weapons from the Japanese aggressors or manufactured their own . Some hoped that the Soviet Union, the first socialist state, would supply them with a hand-grenade factory but this never materialised so they made their own hand-grenades the 'Yongil bomb .
    After liberation in 1945 President KIM IL SUNG took steps to set up an independent defence industry .  It was at Pyongchon that the new Juche Korea under the leadership of the great leader President KIM IL SUNG established its independent munitions industry . At first some great power chauvinists in a certain country told Korea that they should not establish its own armed forces nor have its own munitions industry. President KIM IL SUNG also insisted that the DPRK should not simply assemble weapons made by another country but should produce its own weapons .
                                           

 In the 1960s President KIM IL SUNG was keenly aware that that the DPRK could not rely on big powers for its defence and pushed ahead with the line of building an independent defence industry . This line was continued by Chairman KIM JONG IL who turned the DPRK into a strategic state .

                                   

  Marshal KIM JONG UN has paid great attention to increasing the self-reliant defence capabilities of the Korean People's Army as he put forward the line of developing the the economy and nuclear force in parallel and led it to victorious conclusion . Under his leadership the KPA became the proud possessors of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
                                             

  Today under the leadership of its supreme commander respected Marshal KIM JONG UN the KPA is the self-reliant people's armed force of Juche standing guard over the great achievements of Juche socialism and the independence of People's Korea as well as world peace.
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea
Chairman UK Korean Friendship Association
President Association for the Study of Songun Politics UK.
Chairman British Solidarity Committee for Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula.