Course brilliant with the spirit of defending the leader with lives

April 25 is the anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army.

More than seventy years of the KPA is a victorious and glorious history of defending the leader with lives.

The KPA held up the banner of defending the leader with lives from the initial days of its founding.

During the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle (early 1930s-mid-1940s), soldiers of the Korean Revolutionary Army, the predecessor of the KPA, put up the slogan, “Let us defend the headquarters of revolution with our lives!; ” the “headquarters of revolution” meant General Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Suk, who is praised as an anti-Japanese heroine, defended General Kim Il Sung with her body as a shield in several battles including the one in Dashahe in summer of 1940, and her merits take special position in the history of army building. Among the anti-Japanese fighters there are numerous loyalists such as Lee Kwon-haeng who shielded the General with his own body from the enemy bullet, and Ma Dong-hui who died by cutting his tongue himself for the safety of the headquarters when he was arrested by the enemy. During the “Arduous March” from December 1938 to March 1939, the most difficult period in the anti-Japanese armed struggle, the 7^th regiment led by O Jung-hup decoyed the enemy by disguising itself as the headquarters, and when the enemy did not pursue it, the regiment would go back to strike the enemy in order to prevent them from pursuing the headquarters.

The anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters, the first generation of the KPA, held up the banner of defending the leader with their lives, for they had the firm faith that the victory of revolution could not be thought of apart from the leader, who was the brain and heart of revolution, and that the most important mission and sacred duty of the revolutionary army was to defend the leader with their lives. This faith was the nucleus of the ideological and spiritual power of the KPRA, and the important factor in defeating the strong Japanese imperialists to accomplish the cause of national liberation.

The spirit of defending the leader with lives created by the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters became a valuable tradition of the KPA that had developed into a regular army after national liberation (August 1945).

During the Fatherland Liberation War (Korean War from 1950 to 1953) against the armed invasion of the United States, the People’s Army soldiers fought against the enemy with the slogan, “For the Party and the Leader!” with the faith that the motherland was the embrace of the motherland. Going for a life-and-death battle and blocking the enemy’s gun muzzle with the body, they shouted, “Long live General Kim Il Sung!” the mercenaries of the US could be no match for those men of strong spirit. Therefore, the newly-born north Korea miraculously defeated the US which boasted of its being the “strongest” in the world, not knowing a defeat after its founding.

After the war, the spirit of defending the leader with lives was the invariable essential quality of the KPA. When the situation was complicated at home and abroad, the KPA officers and men raised the slogan, “Let us defend the Party Central Committee headed by respected Comrade Kim Il Sung at the cost our lives!”

As it had the army filled with the spirit of defending the leader with lives, socialist Korea is strong. This is the secret of how socialist Korea stood firm in the political earthquakes of the world when socialism collapsed in several countries as their armies stood for “neutrality” and even worse, turned its rifles at the leadership of the state.

In the Songun era opened up by leader Kim Jong Il the spirit of defending the leader with lives reached a higher stage. In the latter half of the 1990s, the north Korean people had undergone the “Arduous March” to defend socialism under the severest hardships, which was reminiscent of the hardest event during the past anti-Japanese armed struggle. At that time, the KPA officers and men held up the slogan, “Defend the supreme headquarters of the revolution headed by great Comrade Kim Jong Il at the cost our lives!” in the People’s Army units, the “O Jung-hup 7^th Regiment Movement” was carried on to follow the examples of the fighters who had highly displayed the spirit of defending the leader with lives in the past. The heroes on the Songun era such as Kil Yong-jo who died at a heroic death with his burning plane for the safety of the supreme headquarters were produced. That the KPA defends the leader with lives does not mean only the defense of personal safety of the leader. It contains the defense of the leader’s political authority at the cost their lives and implementation of the leader’s thought and intention.

During the anti-Japanese armed struggle, the KPRA soldiers had an absolute belief in the ideology of General Kim Il Sung, and supported his leadership with loyalty. It has become a precious example for the KPA officers and men. In the postwar years, the seditious elements lurking in the army opposed the idea of “a-match-for-a hundred-foes” put forward by President Kim Il Sung. The KPA soldiers parted from them ideologically and engraved the slogan of “a-match-for-a hundred-foes” on a natural rock, thus displaying the strong faith of the People’s Army that defended the leader’s ideological and leadership authority with their lives.

True to General Kim Il Sung’s instruction that nothing is impossible when one is determined, the KPRA soldiers made the “Yanji bomb” with empty hands to fight the enemy, and at the times of bloody and fierce battles, they carried out his orders in time to prepare the foods and make the military uniforms during the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle. During the Fatherland Liberation War, the KPA soldiers displayed the peerless self-sacrifice and mass heroism to carry out the General’s operation idea and order. As indicated by the arrow drawn on the operational map, they made a forced march beyond imagination overnight to cut off the enemy’s retreat so they could surround and annihilate the “invincible division” of the US. Upholding his instruction not to yield an inch of the land to the enemy, they defended the heights of the country at the cost of their lives.

Today, the KPA is carrying out the instruction of leader Kim Jong Il to increase the fighting efficiency, and making miraculous achievements in building a great prosperous powerful nation. The slogan, “Let us undertake both national defense and socialist construction!” implies their do-or-die spirit of loyally upholding the leader’s Songun politics and thoroughly implementing his idea and intention. Now a large-scale land realignment has been realized which befits a great prosperous powerful nation and will be faultless even in the distant future, and modern factories and monumental edifices that meet the demand of the new century are built one after another. This is the expression of the KPA soldiers’ spirit of implementing the ideas and orders of the leader at the cost of their lives.