Korea's Victory in the War against Japan

August 15 is a day of special importance in Korea's history. On 15th August, 1945, Japan's military occupation of Korea came to an end, resulting in latter's liberation. In other words, this was the day when the Korean People's Revolutionary Army won victory in the war against Japanese imperialists.

Then what is the reason for the victory?

The first reason is the KPRA's ideological and mental superiority and its adroit strategy and tactics.

When he launched an anti-Japanese armed struggle under the banner of the Juche idea, General Kim Il Sung, commander of the KPRA, believed that the army's idea and mental superiority would be decisive of the victory or defeat in the war. From the first days of the war he paid primary attention to making his army a group of persons strong in ideology and faith and led them to give the fullest play to heroic mettle in the sacred national liberation war.

The anti-Japanese armed struggle produced many examples illustrating how strong the KPRA's soldiers were in ideology and faith. One of them blocked an enemy pillbox with his own body to open the way for his unit to charge and the other cut his own tongue amidst the enemy's torture to maintain his revolutionary principles. There was also a woman fighter who, though deprived of  her eyes through enemy's torture, shouted "I can see victory in the revolution!" just before her execution.

General Kim Il Sung paid great efforts to strengthening the KPRA into an army which was superior in terms of strategy and tactics.

During the anti-Japanese armed struggle he created a variety of guerrilla tactics-harassment operations behind enemy lines, tactic of provoking in the east and attacking in the west, "telescope tactic" of induing enemy units to fight each other, concentration and dispersion of force, concentrated attack by a large unit and surprise attack by small units, swift manoeuvre, tactic of allurement and ambush and circuit tactic.

Repeatedly hassled by the subtle tactics of the Korea's guerrilla army, the enemy complained that they were nowhere to be seen in their army's books on military arts or tactics.

The second reason is the unity between the guerrillas and the people and the spirit of self-reliance.

Kim Il Sung defined the slogan "As fish cannot live without water, so guerrillas cannot live without people" as the mode of existence and principle of activities of the guerrilla army. When his army dropped in at a village, he always shared sweats and bitters with the villagers, saying he was also a son of the people-sometimes chopping firewood and other times fetching water for villagers.

All the officers and men of the KPRA associated the value of their existence with the people.

The trait of army-people unity was a factor that enabled the Korean guerrillas to emerge victorious in the fight even without any support from abroad.

Commander Kim Il Sung encouraged his men to resolve all the problems arising in the guerrilla war by themselves, upholding the slogan of accomplishing the Korean revolution by their own efforts. The Korean guerrillas repaired weapons of various types and manufactured the Yongil bomb and wooden guns by themselves in the arsenals in forest. The spirit of self-reliance ushered in a new age of creating something from nothing in the Korean people's history of struggle for national independence and it constituted a major spiritual factor in accomplishing the great cause of victory in their war against Japan.

Kim Il Sung's exploits of defeating formidable Japanese imperialism under arduous conditions in a 15-year-long bloody guerrilla war and accomplishing the cause of Korea's national liberation will shine for ever in history.