Korea was seething with the joy of liberation. President Kim II Sung returned triumphantly home to an enthusiastic welcome from the people. He advanced three major tasks for the building of a party, state and armed forces in the liberated country and specific ways and means to realize them.
On October 10, Juche 34 (1945), in Pyongyang, the Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of North Korea was formed. In August Juche 35 (1946), the Communist Party merged with the New Democratic Party to form the Workers' Party of North Korea and in June Juche 38 (1949), the Workers' Parties of North and South Korea merged to develop into the Workers' Party of Korea. Now that they had the WPK, the entire Korean people came to have a guiding force which would step up considerably the struggle to build a new nation.
After liberation, people's committees were organized all over the country. On this basis, the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea (PPCNK), a new type of government, was established on February 8, Juche 35 (1946). The entire Korean people elected Comrade Kim Il Sung, the peerless patriot and national hero, Chairman of the PPCNK.
On having solved the problem of power, the Korean people began to carry out democratic reforms. So a number of democratic reforms were enforced. They were the laws on agrarian reform, on nationalization of industries, transport, communications, banks and so on, on labour, and on sex equality. At the same time various steps were taken for the democratization of judicial, educational and cultural affairs.
On February 8, Juche 37 (1948), the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, founded on April 25, Juche 21 (1932) in the flames of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, developed into the Korean People's Army, a regular army.
Within a short space of time after liberation, under the leadership of President Kim II Sung, the tasks of anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution were carried out triumphantly in north Korea. However, the Korean people's endeavour to build a unified democratic independent country was confronted with a grave difficulty.
The US authorities rejected the Korean people's fair demand for the simultaneous withdrawal of the Soviet and US armed forces from Korea and for the settlement of the Korean issue by the Koreans themselves. Without warrant they brought the Korean issue before the United Nations. They rigged up the "UN Commission on Korea". In May Juche 37 (1948), they held a separate "election" in south Korea under the supervision of the commission to manufacture the puppet government headed by Syngman Rhee. With this, the crisis of national division deepened.
In this grave situation President Kim II Sung called the Joint Conference of Representatives of Political Parties and Public Organizations in North and South Korea in April Juche 37 (1948) and in June that year the Conference of Leaders of Political Parties and Public Organizations in North and South Korea and advanced the policy of founding a unified country in the Korean peninsula without delay. This was to surmount the danger of national division and achieve the country's independence.
On August 25, Juche 37 (1948), the election of deputies to the Supreme People's Assembly was held in all parts of north and south Korea. The whole nation responded with excitement and enthusiasm. In north Korea 99.97 per cent of voters took part in the election. In south Korea 77.52 per cent of the electorate participated in the teeth of harsh reactionary repression. As a result. 572 candidates from all walks of life from the north and south of Korea were elected. Following the eminent success of the historic north-south general election, the First Session of the Supreme People's Assembly was held in Pyongyang in September Juche 37 (1948) and on September 9, the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which represented the will of the entire Korean people, was declared to the whole world.
Comrade Kim II Sung, the national hero of the Korean people, was elected Premier of the Cabinet and the Head of State of the DPRK.
Owing to the US armed invasion on June 25, Juche 49 (1950), the peaceful construction of the Korean people was temporarily halted and harsh ordeals were brought to the fatherland and people.
At the moment only 2 years past since the DPRK was founded and the Korean People's Army (KPA) was developed into a regular army. Worse still, the country's economic power was horribly fragile. The Korean people and the KPA, however, displayed unrivalled bravery, self-sacrificing spirit and mass heroism to the fullest and fought to humble the arrogant US imperialists who boasted about being the "strongest" and shattered to smithereens the myth of the US "invincibility".
On July 27, Juche 42 (1953), the US imperialists finally knelt down before the Korean people and the KPA and signed the Armistice Agreement. Accordingly, the 3-year-long Korean War ended with a great victory of the Korean people. The US imperialists mobilized a third of its ground forces, a fifth of its air force, most of its Pacific fleet, mercenaries from its 15 satellite countries, adding up to over 2 million including south Korean troops and squandered 165 billion US dollars in military spending.
The KPA killed and captured 1,567,000 including 405,000 US soldiers, destroyed and captured over 12,200 aircrafts, over 560 vessels of different kinds, 3,250 tanks and armored vehicles, 13,000 trucks, 7,695 artillery and other numerous combat equipment. It is 2.3 fold the size of losses suffered by the US in the 4-year¬long Pacific War in the period of the Second World War.
The US army had dropped an average of 18 bombs on every square kilometre of the northern half of Korea, reducing Pyongyang and other towns and villages to ashes. Indeed, the postwar situation in the country presented what seemed to be insuperable difficulties. It was hard for the people to decide what to do first and how to do it. There was a mountain of work to be done.
President Kim II Sung was firmly convinced that as long as there were the people, the territory and the Party, a new life could be built. He roused the entire people in the struggle for postwar reconstruction. The postwar reconstruction was an extremely arduous struggle since it was started when our people could hardly obtain even a brick or a gramme of cement. However, the Korean people, who had been tempered through the war and staunchly united around the leader, waged a heroic and selfless struggle. They displayed the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance to the full. They fought hard, surmounting one difficulty after another. They had to tighten their belts but they built factories, enterprises, towns and rural villages.
The Three-Year Plan for the Postwar Rehabilitation and Development of the National Economy, whose basic task was to achieve prewar levels in all spheres of the national economy, was overfulfilled by 22 per cent. As a result, the war wounds were healed and the country switched over from a period of reconstruction to a period of technological modernization.
At the beginning of the Five-Year Plan the reactionaries at home and abroad intensified their offensives against the Republic on an unprecedented scale. In these grim days. President Kim II Sung held high the revolutionary banner of the Juche idea and confidently led the Korean people on to greater progress in the building of socialism. At (he December Juche 45 (1956) Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea he advanced a militant slogan, "Let us produce more, practise economy, and overfulfil the Five-Year Plan ahead of schedule!" Shortly afterwards he visited the workers at the Kangson Steel Plant (the present Chollima Steel Complex), explained to them the country's situation and encouraged them to advance at the head of a grand march of socialist construction at the speed of Chollima, smashing passivity, conservatism, mysticism about technique.
The working class of Kangson and all other working people across the country responded to the leader's call and bravely overcame trials and difficulties which stood in the way of their advance. They crushed all the old norms and rated capacities and created new norms. They effected achievements which defied imagination, thus bringing about a great upswing in all fronts of socialist construction. Industrial production grew at the extremely high rate of 44 per cent in 1957. In the same year there was a bumper harvest.
The Chollima Movement in Korea developed amid this great advance in socialist construction. Amid the flames of the Chollima Movement the Korean working people manufactured trucks, tractors, excavators, bulldozers, 8-metre turning lathes and other modern machines and equipment. Through the let-eachmachine- tool-make-more movement they produced over 13,000 machine tools over and above the yearly plan in Juche 48 (1959). In only a few months in Juche 47 (1958) they built more than 1,000 local industry factories throughout the country. Industrial production grew at the annual average rate of 36.6 per cent. All this fully showed the heroic stamina and creative talents of the Korean people galloping forward in the speed of Chollima.