In the previous century, the Korean people achieved great victories in the two revolutionary wars against the aggressors.

Under the difficult conditions without any state backing or support from a regular army, Korea’s revolutionary fighters, under the command of President Kim Il Sung , rose up in a heroic resistance to repulse the Japanese imperialist aggressors who occupied their country by force of arms (1905-1945).

The one-million-strong Japanese Kwantung army likened the Korean guerrillas to “a drop in the ocean,” but the latter captured weapons from the aggressors to arm themselves and made weapons by their own efforts.

The enthusiasm of the Korean guerrillas to liberate their country grew stronger even under constant threats from biting cold, starvation, arduous march and fierce battles and, at the same time, the anti-Japanese struggle of the Korean people mounted as the days went by. The general offensive of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army for national liberation, an all-people uprising combined with it, and joint operations behind the enemy lines made the Japanese imperialists declare their unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945.

The Korean people, who became the masters of their country after national liberation, stepped up the building of a new, democratic Korea. However, their creative efforts for building a happy life had to undergo grim trials again, owing to an armed invasion by the imperialist aggressors in June 1950.

They frustrated the numerical, military and technical edge of the aggressors, who mobilized huge troops of its own and its allied forces, by means of their spiritual and moral supremacy, fighting bravely against them. The soldiers of the Korean People’s Army became human bombs to destroy the enemy’s tanks and warships and blocked the enemy pillboxes with their bodies to make breakthroughs for the victory of their units. The people in the rear defended their factories and villages, while ensuring wartime production.

The unparalleled bravery and mass heroism displayed by the Korean people who sacrificed their lives without hesitation in defence of their home villages and their motherland made it possible for them to create a miracle, unprecedented in history, in achieving victory in the war. More than 600 DPRK Heroes were produced in the days of the war. Fireworks were set off in the sky over the country on July 27, 1953, in celebration of victory in the war.

As for this, the world people highly praised the Korean people as a heroic people, and Korea as a heroic country.

The Korean people performed heroic feats also in the postwar reconstruction and several stages of socialist construction.

They speeded up rehabilitation of devastated streets, villages and industrial establishments on the ruins of war, though the imperialists claimed that Korea would not stand on its own feet in a hundred years. They brought about collective innovations in production and ushered in a golden age of socialist construction under the uplifted slogan “One for all and all for one!”

Jin Ung Won, workteam leader of the then Kangson Steel Plant, Kil Hwak Sil, workteam leader of the then Pyongyang Silk Mill, Ri Sin Ja, motivational worker at a workteam of the then Rihyon Cooperative in Sungho County, South Phyongan Province, and many other people who worked with devotion for the country and people, society and the collective became heroes in those days.

Although the enemies persisted in their aggressive and provocative moves against the DPRK, the Korean people defended the gains of the revolution and effected an uninterrupted upswing in socialist construction, holding aloft the slogan “Let us all live and struggle like heroes!”

Even under such worst conditions as the destiny of their country was at stake due to the imperialists’ schemes to isolate and stifle them and the successive natural disasters, they laid lasting foundations for building a thriving country by giving full play to the indomitable mental strength in firmly defending socialism in support of the Songun-based leadership of Chairman Kim Jong Il .

The Korean people, who learned to live, deal with enemies and difficulties and defend their dignity and rights on their own in the protracted and harsh environment unprecedented in history, have hardened their faith and will.

Last year alone, in the circumstances of the world health crisis, they consistently ensured a thoroughgoing stable situation in infectious disease prevention, maintaining the conscious unity of all the people in the effort, and built more than 20 000 new splendid houses in different parts of the country in the struggle for recovering from natural disasters.

The road ahead of the Korean people, who are continuously working fresh miracles and innovations in socialist construction in support of the leadership of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un , will always be adorned with proud, heroic victories.