KIM IL SUNG
LET US FIGHT ON STAUNCHLY
FOR
THE LIBERATION OF THE
FATHERLAND
Speech Addressed to the
People of Pochonbo
June 4, 1937
Fellow countrymen,
brothers and sisters,
We are combatants of the
Korean People’s Revolutionary Army
fighting against Japanese imperialism for
the restoration of the fatherland and the
liberation of the people.
We are very glad to be
having this memorable meeting with you
dear fellow countrymen at home, on a
victorious battlefield where we have
crushed the Japanese imperialist
aggressors.
On behalf of the KPRA I
wish to convey our warm thanks to you and
to the patriotic people at home who have
given active material and moral support
and encouragement to us, the revolutionary
army.
Dear fellow countrymen,
Today the Japanese
imperialist robbers have enmeshed the
whole of our three-thousand-ri land in a web of army
units, gendarmerie and police and rigged
up various evil laws; they brutally
arrest, imprison and murder countless
patriots and are forcing our people to
remain disgracefully submissive as slaves.
The crafty Japanese
imperialists are trying to drum the “soul
of Japan”
into our people by clamouring “Japan and
Korea
are one” and the Japanese and the Koreans
come of the same descent,” the aim being
to break the lofty national spirit of our
people. They are even attempting to
trample underfoot and wipe out our
beautiful language and our national
culture with its 5.000-year old history.
The Japanese imperialist
robbers are further intensifying the
exploitation and plunder of our people,
and are seizing all our national wealth.
The Japanese imperialist villains have
stretched their grim predatory hands as
far as the remote mountain villages here,
plundering all our precious forest
resources. They are bleeding you white by
working you like beasts of burden in all
kinds of drudgery. They even keep you from
farming on fire-fields as you please.
Because of this, you are maintaining a
bare existence on roots and bark, you are
poorly dressed in coarse flax, and leading
a wretched life in tumbledown mud huts.
Further stepping up their
moves of late for invading China
proper, the Japanese imperialist robbers
are hell-bent on the fascist suppression
and looting of our people.
Indeed, with the whole
country devastated and turned into a land
of darkness, into a hell on earth, the
very life of our nation is now at stake.
Dear fellow countrymen,
Where there is a tyrant, a
struggle will always break out. The ardent
youths and patriots of our country have
turned out resolutely in the solemn
anti-Japanese war to crush the Japanese
imperialists’ tyranny.
The KPRA has fought
valiantly with arms in hand for six to
seven years in Korea and
in the wild plains of Manchuria against
the Japanese imperialist invaders in order
to work out the salvation of our nation
and to achieve the liberation of the
fatherland. Our revolutionary army has
beaten the enemy everywhere and dealt a
serious political and military blow to the
Japanese imperialists’ colonial ruling
system, thereby giving a ray of hope to
our people who are living in humiliation
bowed down with the sorrow of
statelessness.
Our strength is increasing
and the revolutionary forces of the world,
too, are growing powerful. The support of
progressive people the world over for our
struggle is also mounting. We will achieve
the historic cause of national liberation
without fail and win Final victory.
Alarmed by the bold and
fearless operations and great military
achievements of the gallant combatants of
our revolutionary army who are forging
ahead despite all difficulties, the
Japanese imperialist aggressors are making
desperate efforts to “subdue” the KPRA
and. of late, are frantically building up
the frontier guard line in a foolhardy
attempt to hinder our revolutionary army’s
advance into the homeland. The enemy is
even spreading the absurd, fictitious
story that he has “completely wiped out”
the KPRA.
Dear brothers and sisters,
although the Japanese imperialists are manoeuvring in tins frenzied manner,
the KPRA is holding its own as ever,
demonstrating its might to the whole
world.
In its latest thrust into
the homeland the KPRA broke through the
frontier guard line. the much vaunted “iron wall”
of the Japanese imperialists. A few days
ago in the Musan area it showered Fire of
revenge upon the enemy right and left and
today here at Pochonbo it has fully demonstrated
the indomitable fighting spirit and lofty
mettle of our nation.
Our revolutionary army has
just attacked the Japanese imperialists’
repressive agencies and ruling
establishments such as the police
substation and the sub-county
administration office and finished off the
Japanese imperialist aggressors installed
there, the bitter enemies of our people
who had been imposing all sorts of hard
toil and miseries upon you.
Brothers and sisters, look
at the flames over there. Those raging
flames show that the enemy is doomed.
Those flames show the whole world that our
nation is not dead but alive, and that if
we fight against the Japanese imperialist
plunderers we can win. Those flames will
shine like a ray of hope in the hearts of
our people suffering from maltreatment and
hunger, and will spread throughout our
three-thousand-r/ land like a torch of
struggle.
The Korean people are not
of the “same descent” as the Japanese
imperialist villains, and we do not
acknowledge the idea noisily propagandized
by them that “Japan and
Korea
are one”.
We, the KPRA, will tighten
our grip on our weapons of revenge and
liberate our 23 million fellow countrymen
suffering from hunger and poverty,
ignorance and darkness. We will liberate
our fatherland come what may, and
establish a people’s country free from
oppression and exploitation on the land of
the independent fatherland.
Dear fellow countrymen,
liberation of the fatherland is the vital demand of the
Korean people today.
Instead of merely sitting
and sighing over our grievous and bitter
lot under the colonial rule of Japanese
imperialism, let us all unite ever more
firmly under the banner of the
anti-Japanese national united front and
rise as one man in the lofty struggle to
defeat the aggressor, Japanese
imperialism, and achieve the great cause
of national liberation. Struggle is the
only way to existence, to national
regeneration.
You should overcome all
difficulties, unite and cooperate with
each other with the utmost sincerity and
enthusiasm, and make an all-out effort in
the solemn anti-Japanese war for the
independence of Korea-
Those who have strength should contribute
strength, those who have knowledge should
offer knowledge, those who have money should
donate money.
By various forms of
struggle you should completely frustrate
all the anti-popular moves of the
Governor-General of Korea, the bloodsucker
that lives on the blood of our people.
You should demonstrate the
indomitable spirit of the Korean people.
To do this, you should smash the false
propaganda of the Japanese imperialist
aggressors to smithereens and defend our
language, spoken and written, and uphold
our national spirit to the last.
With great national
pride and the unwavering confidence that
as long as there is an ever-victorious
KPRA our country will attain
independence without fail. you should give material and
moral support to the KPRA and fight on
without yielding. Let us make those flames
rage furiously over the whole of our
three-thousand-ri land.
Fellow countrymen,
brothers and sisters.
The final victory belongs
to us who are fighting for the liberation
of the fatherland.
Let us all advance
vigorously, looking forward to the day
when we will meet again in our liberated
country, loudly hailing our national
independence, and live in happiness.
Long live the independence
of Korea!
Long live the revolution
of Korea!