In the first half of the 20th century, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) embarked on the road of the revolution in his teens with a great ambition to win back his country. By waging a 15-year-long arduous anti-Japanese armed struggle without the backing of the state and support from a regular army, a struggle unprecedented in the world’s history of national liberation struggle, he liberated Korea on August 15, 1945. 
As a result, a wide road for building an independent and sovereignty state was opened before Korea.
On the then international political arena, the American-style “democracy” and Soviet-style democracy were regarded as the main political trends. However, Kim Il Sung didn’t follow the trends blindly.
We should not follow a political trend separated from the people’s interests and demands. The present stage of the Korean revolution is an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution. We, therefore, must adopt progressive democracy, which is neither Soviet-style democracy nor American-style “democracy,” but instead suitable to the specific conditions of Korea. Only after taking the road to progressive democracy will we be able to bring our people genuine freedom and happiness and achieve full independence and sovereignty for the country by closely uniting wide sections of patriotic and democratic forces. This was his stand on nation-building.
During the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle, he had built in the guerrilla bases the people’s revolutionary government that defended the people’s rights and freedom. Drawing on this experience, he put forward a line of nation-building suited to the actual conditions of the country and wisely led the efforts to implement the line. 
In the historical conditions created in Korea after its liberation, democratic reforms were an important undertaking that must be carried out without fail to implement the tasks of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution and establish a new, democratic state. 
As Kim Il Sung established a genuine people’s government and enforced democratic reforms including agrarian reform, enactment of sex equality law and nationalization of major industries, the Korean people could become masters of land, factories and the country itself, find the worth of life and lead a happy life to their heart’s content. Through democratic elections the representatives of ordinary workers and peasants were elected deputies to power organs at all levels to participate in state administration.  
Kim Il Sung firmly rallied the broad masses of the people from all social strata including workers, peasants and intellectuals and roused them to the building of a new Korea.
In the course of this, the DPRK was founded on September 9, 1948. According to the unanimous will of all the Korean people Kim Il Sung was elected head of state and premier of the Cabinet. 
He said that with the establishment of the Republic the Korean people, for the first time in their history, became a dignified people able to hew out their destiny independently as the true masters of the state and society, and the country appeared in the international arena with pride as a fully-fledged independent and sovereign state.
Under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, the founding father of the DPRK, it could develop into a people’s country in which all people live a life of freedom and equality free from all manner of exploitation and oppression and into a people-centred, powerful socialist state that is independent in politics, self-sufficient in the economy and self-reliant in defence.