On August 15, 1945 the Korean people put an end to the 40-odd-year military occupation by the Japanese imperialists and liberated their country. This was a great victory won by the staunch spirit of independence of the Korean people. The spirit was provided by Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), their eternal leader.
Setting out on the road for the sacred cause of Korea’s liberation in his teens, Kim Il Sung discovered in the early years of his revolutionary struggle the profound truth that man is the master of his destiny and he has the ability to carve out his own destiny. This is the Juche idea recognized by the international community today as the idea of independence. 
Under the banner of the Juche idea, Kim Il Sung hewed out a new path quite different from those pursued by the preceding generations, a unique path of believing in and relying on the people.
In June 1930 he indicated the path of the Korean revolution based on the idea of independence. In December 1931 he put forward the idea that the armed enemy should be countered with arms and the line of accomplishing the cause of Korea’s liberation by waging anti-Japanese armed struggle mainly in the form of guerrilla warfare. On April 25, 1932, he founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, the first revolutionary armed force of the Korean people, and organized and led the anti-Japanese war.
The Korean guerrillas had no state backing or support from a regular army and therefore they had to wage a life-and-death fight against the formidable Japanese imperialists. It was an arduous struggle unprecedented in the world history of revolutionary wars. However, they solved everything by their own efforts¯ammunition, weapons, food and clothing and so on. They built arsenals in the forests to make bombs, and tailored military uniforms by making sewing-machine needles with steel wire.
The Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland founded in May 1936 was, after all, a pan-national united front body formed according to Kim Il Sung’s transparent spirit of independence to liberate the country by the efforts of the Korean nation itself. With the formation of the association, the Korean people were united as one irrespective of the difference in ideology, political view, class and religious belief, and their struggle for the country’s liberation developed into a nationwide sacred enterprise.
In the joint struggle of the peoples of Korea, Soviet Union and China to wipe out the Japanese imperialists, too, Kim Il Sung set forth a reasonable proposal to form international allied forces proceeding from his steadfast independent stand. He also made sure thorough preparations were made to proactively greet the great event of national liberation.
Based on such full preparations, he issued on August 9, 1945 an order to launch the final offensive operations for Korea’s liberation. Thanks to the rapid advance of the KPRA and the operations behind enemy lines by armed uprising groups across the country, Korea was finally liberated.