On February 8, Juche 37 (1948), a news agency ran a feature on the first military parade of the Korean People’s Army under the title of The Korean People’s Army! Magnificent! It holds its military parade in front of Pyongyang Railway Station :

The grand march of the KPA started with a sharp sound of signal flare. Each rank moved to the tune of the march played by the grand military band full of spirit to conquer the world. … They were full of excitement of being honoured with passing Chairman Kim Il Sung . Oh, Chairman Kim Il Sung , standing high on the platform! The sound of hurrah echoed and the earth seemed to be sunk due to the stamping. Kim Il Sung raised his hand to reply to them.

Dozens of military parades, which had been held with the passage of decades and centuries since the first procession along with the founding of the regular revolutionary armed forces, dynamically demonstrated the strengthened might of the KPA.

The invincible might of the KPA was fully demonstrated through the military parade, which was splendidly held on August 15, Juche 42 (1953) on the occasion of the great victory in the Fatherland Liberation War (June 25, 1950–July 27, 1953). In the war which can be said to be confrontation between a rifle and an atomic bomb, they defended the sovereignty and dignity of their country with honour by defeating the US imperialists who had boasted of being the “strongest” in the world under the leadership of Kim Il Sung , an outstanding military strategist and ever-victorious iron-willed commander.

And the military parade in celebration of National Liberation Day in the 1950s showed an unchangeable truth that the great victory of the heroic KPA, a strong treasured sword for safeguarding the destiny of the country and the people and defending peace, will be continued decade after decade.

The military parades in the 1960s and 1970s on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Korea’s liberation, the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army were filled with the spirit of the KPA to annihilate the enemy. They smashed the reckless acts of military provocation of the enemy, especially the US imperialists’ armed spy ship Pueblo incident, the large reconnaissance plane EC-121 incident, the Panmunjom incident and others.

The prestige of our revolutionary armed forces was fully demonstrated at parades held on August 15, 1985 in celebration of the 40th anniversary of national liberation and on nationally important occasions in the 1990s.

The military parades in the new century of Juche era began with one in celebration of the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung in the presence of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un in April Juche 101 (2012). They newly showed the proud history and invincible might of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK.

In particular, the parade held on April 25 last year to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the KPRA at midnight was recorded as the one, greatest-ever and completely new and unique in its scale, form, way and content.

The welcoming ceremony, the participation of commanders and political commissars of the services and corps-level units with colours of their units and the presentation of colours of even subordinate divisions, brigades at the head of columns of the naval, air, strategic and special operations forces and frontline corps together with those of the services and corps could not be found in previous ones.

The columns of the land, naval, air and strategic forces, prototype tanks, symbolic of the strong combat power of the KPA, the artillery forces which pride themselves on being the first service of the KPA and super-large multiple rocket launchers and advanced military hardware including the new-type ICBM Hwasongpho-17 and the new-type submarine ballistic missile which represent the strategic forces of the DPRK clearly demonstrated the level of the modern character of the armed forces of the Republic and its absolute strength.

The military parades etched in the history of Juche-based army building tell iron truth that the history and tradition of the KPA which has achieved only victory and glory will continue in the future, too.

Ham Kwang Hyok