The Korean People’s Army was founded on February 8, 1948 as the DPRK’s revolutionary regular armed forces.

On the historic day, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung gave a speech, titled On the Occasion of the Founding of the Korean People’s Army , in which he said: Though our People’s Army is established today as the regular army of democratic Korea, it is, in reality, an army long rooted in the past. It is a glorious army inheriting the revolutionary traditions of anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare, invaluable battle experience and indomitable patriotic spirit.

In the early years of the last century, the Korean people were robbed of their country by the Japanese imperialists and lived in misery as members of a ruined nation.

With the firm belief in the immutable truth that the only way to win back the country was to hold arms in hand, Kim Il Sung founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, the country’s first revolutionary armed forces, on April 25, 1932.

He led the KPRA to victory in the anti-Japanese war. Soon after achieving the great historic cause of national liberation on August 15, 1945, he wisely led the work for establishing the Party and power and founding revolutionary regular armed forces.

In his speech On Founding the Party, State and Armed Forces in the Liberated Homeland delivered to the military and political cadres on August 20 that year, he clarified the need to found a strong army capable of safeguarding the country and the gains of the revolution in order for the country to become a fully independent and sovereign state.

He paid close attention also to organizing the units of services and arms needed for building the regular armed forces. He ensured that the Pyongyang Institute, the Central Security Officers School, the Security Officers Training Centre and other bases for training military and political cadres were established, and that the anti-Japanese fighters were dispatched to different parts of the country to found parent units of various services and arms. He often visited the institute and training centre to take warm care of the students’ study and life and personally gave lectures to them, paying special attention to their military education and combat training.

As a result, units of arms and corps, including the air corps, maritime security corps, the artillery, tankmen’s corps, sappers’ corps and communications corps, were formed, and the Juche-oriented defence industry was established to lay the material foundation for building the regular armed forces.

The founding of the KPA was a historic event proclaiming the birth of the revolutionary armed forces which reliably guarantee the existence and development of the country and the happiness of the people.

Sim Chol Yong