Etched in the history of the Korean revolution are the undying exploits performed by the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung who led all people to the fight to win back their country from the Japanese imperialists so as to achieve the historic cause of national liberation on August 15, 1945.

By the mid-1930s the anti-Japanese armed struggle led by Comrade Kim Il Sung was soaring and the situation at home urgently called for bringing the anti-Japanese national united front movement to a new high.

With a deep insight into the situation at home and abroad and the requirements of the developing revolution, he set forth at the historic Nanhutou meeting a policy on expanding and strengthening the movement nationwide in keeping with the anti-Japanese armed struggle.

Some people with a poor understanding of the united front argued that it would be impossible to organize a united front body, given that there was actually no political party or legitimate organization in Korea.

He reasoned: A united front is not only formed by merging political parties and organizations. If the theory of political parties and organizations becomes absolute, it resembles dogma. We can easily form a united front, if we are backed by the masses and leadership nucleus. I believed in this case that we should rally people, be they ten or a hundred, using the identity of their purposes and aspirations as the criterion.

During arduous march and by the campfire he made untiring efforts to draft the programme, rules and inaugural declaration of the united front body to be organized.

With full preparations, he convened the Donggang meeting in May 1936 to announce the founding of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, the first anti-Japanese national united front body in Korea.

At the meeting he made a historic report, titled, “Let Us Further Expand and Develop the Anti-Japanese National United Front Movement and Take the Korean Revolution as a Whole to a New Upsurge” and pronounced the Ten-point Programme of the ARF , Inaugural Declaration of the ARF and Rules of the ARF .

The Inaugural Declaration of the ARF stipulated the main political programme and the fighting tasks to be fulfilled for national liberation and called for promptly forming organizations of the ARF everywhere in the urban and rural areas and waging a vigorous struggle to win back the country through the concerted action of the whole nation under the banner of the Ten-point Programme of the ARF.

Following the establishment of the ARF, the anti-Japanese national united front movement could develop nationwide in a more organizational and systematic way in keeping with the armed resistance, which helped mobilize all anti-Japanese forces to fight for national liberation.

Jo Myong Sun