The Workers’ Party of Korea celebrated its 79th founding anniversary with splendour on October 10.

Though the WPK was founded 79 years ago, its historical roots can be said to go back about 100 years.

Its historical roots are the Down-with-Imperialism Union (DIU) which was formed on October 17 1926.

After the Japanese imperialists occupied Korea militarily, the Korean people waged a fierce national liberation movement, but their every effort was doomed to failure and setback.

The cause lay in the ideological and leadership limitations of bourgeois nationalists and communists of the early years who styled themselves the leaders of the movement. Obsessed with sycophancy and national nihilism, they were hell-bent on factional strife and scramble for hegemony, while advocating different isms and doctrines in disregard of the people’s zeal and the urgent demand of the revolution, and incited the masses to reckless struggles without any correct guiding ideology and scientific strategy and tactics.

Typical examples are the March First Popular Uprising and June 10 Independence Movement which stained the Korea with blood.

One of the main causes of failure in the popular uprising was the idea of big-power worship of bourgeois nationalists, whereas the root cause of failure in the independence movement was the factional behaviour of the early communists.

At this juncture, the DIU was formed as the first genuine communist revolutionary organization of Korea.

It was a pure and genuine political organism of a new type created in the throes of history by young people of the new generations aspiring after socialism and communism for realizing national liberation and class emancipation under the ideal of the anti-imperialist, independence and sovereignty.

The immediate task of the DIU was to defeat Japanese imperialism and achieve Korea’s liberation and independence, and its ultimate goal was to build socialism and communism in Korea and, furthermore, to destroy all imperialism and build communism throughout the world.

The members of the DIU were clean and pure young people of a new generation, not those who had joined any factional group or had been in an organization in exile.

President Kim Il Sung founded the DIU.

Though he was a teenager at that time, he continued to speculate and search and conduct political activities to pioneer a new road for the Korean revolution, different from that of the preceding campaigners, thereby forming a genuine revolutionary organization of a new type.

The DIU was developed into the Anti-Imperialist Youth League and the Communist Youth League of Korea later. The Korean People’s Revolutionary Army was organized with young communists who were trained there as hardcore members and waged the anti-Japanese armed struggle, thus finally achieving the historic cause of national liberation.

The programme of the DIU served as the basis of the programme of the WPK after liberation, the principle of independence set forth by the DIU became the principle of party building and activities, and the revolutionaries of the new generation trained by the DIU became the backbone for founding the Party.