The “1 000-ri journey for national liberation” is the historical journey President Kim Il Sung covered, with a firm determination to liberate the country deprived by Japanese imperialists at any cost, from Mangyongdae--his birthplace to Badaogou, Changbaixian in the northeastern area of China from January 22 to February 3, 1925.
The history of ever-victorious revolutionary activities of the President who is the founder of the Juche idea and Songun idea and has led to victory the Korean revolution and the cause of global independence began from this “1 000-ri journey for national liberation” he took when he was 13 years old.
Early in his life President Kim Il Sung obtained from his father the idea of “Aim High” (a revolutionary outlook on life that one must feel genuine pride and happiness of life in the struggle for the country and nation and an indomitable revolutionary spirit that one must win back the independence of the country at all costs by struggling from generation to generation). In the course of studying in the homeland, true to his father’s intention that a man born in Korea must have a good knowledge of Korea, he witnessed tragic realities of Korea which groaned under the colonial rule of Japanese imperialists, and possessed a high ambition and iron-will to repossess the country and nation deprived by the Japanese imperialists.
One day President Kim Il Sung received the news that his father had been arrested again by Japanese police while waging anti-Japanese national liberation struggle. He left Mangyongdae to embark on the 1 000-ri journey with a firm determination that he would defeat the Japanese imperialists who were the enemy of his father, his family and the Korean nation and repossess the lost country and nation.
The journey was indeed arduous one on which he had to make his way through virgin snow in the primitive forest by himself, surmounting bitter cold and blizzard of January (January in Korea is the coldest month in winter.)
President Kim Il Sung arrived at Amnok-River in the northern part of Korea on February 3, 1925, 13 days after he left his native place, Mangyondae. He looked back and back, with a bitter grief in his heart, the mountains and streams of the homeland to which he was going to say good-bye. That day he took a pledge that he would defeat Japanese imperialist gangsters and return into the embrace of the motherland at any cost, although he was forced to leave motherland now with a bitter grief in his heart.
After the liberation of the country, remembering that day he said to the following effect. …I crossed the Amnok-River when I was 13 years old with a grim resolve not to return home before Korea had become independent. At that time as I sang “The Song of the River Amnok, I wondered when I would be able to tread this land again, when I would return to this land where I grew up and where my forefathers’ graves lay. Young as I was, I could not repress my sorrow at this thought….
“1 000-ri journey for national liberation” made by President Kim Il Sung with a great aspiration for the revolution was a glorious journey of struggle connected to the national liberation.
In October the year after he made “1 000-ri journey for national liberation”, he formed the Down-with-Imperialism Union--the first revolutionary organization of Juche-type in Korea, and thus he made a solemn declaration of the start of the Korean revolution to the world. And he formed various revolutionary organizations to cultivate youth revolutionaries of new generation and opened up the path to independent development of the Korean revolution.
For the purpose of keeping his pledge he took during the “1 000-ri journey for national liberation”, the great President Kim Il Sung took up arms of revolution with two pistols handed over by his father as an asset and led to victory the great anti-Japanese war. He liberated the country and built a people-centered socialist society dignified with independence on the land where backwardness and poverty had prevailed.
President Kim Il Sung devoted his whole life from the historical days of “1 000-ri journey for national liberation” after leaving his old home at Mangyondae to perform immortal exploits for the times and revolution, the country and people. His revolutionary cause, the ever-victorious cause is today brilliantly inherited by the great leader Kim Jong Il.
Leader Kim Jong Il initiated study tour for the students and children on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the journey made by President Kim Il Sung to learn after the “1 000-ri journey for national liberation”.
Leader Kim Jong Il ensured that the Youth League organize the study tour as its traditional work and that bronze statues of President Kim Il Sung in his childhood and youthful days be erected on the major study tour routes so as to add brilliance for all eternity to 1 000-ri journey undertaken by the President.
He enabled the youth and students to deeply grasp glorious revolutionary history and immortal exploits of President Kim Il Sung associated with the “1 000-ri journey for national liberation” and have a practical experience of thrilling realities through the study tour.
He enabled the members of the study tour party to train their bodies, minds and strong will through crossing steep mountains and experiencing violent rain, wind and snowstorm, thus being prepared as reliable reserves of revolution that are able to get through any difficulties and trials.
This year marks the 84th anniversary of “1 000-ri journey for national liberation” made by President Kim Il Sung and the 34th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il’ s initiating of the study tour. Today the Korean people make a dynamic advance full of determination that they will glorify this year as a year of a new revolutionary upswing in which they will make a historic leap forward on all fronts in the building of a great, prosperous and powerful nation.
