The brilliant victory in the battle of Pochonbo commanded by President Kim Il Sung was a noteworthy event that aroused all the Korean people to the anti-Japanese struggle, instilling into them the hope for national restoration and conviction that Korea is not dead but alive and its independence can be achieved on the strength of the nation itself.
After occupying Korea, the Japanese imperialists further intensified the fascist repression upon the Korean people and the economic plunder and exploitation of it in the mid-1930s. So, the country was turned into a hell and the Korean nation stood at the crossroads of life and death.
Penetrating deep into the prevailing situation, the President held the Xigang meeting on March 29-31, 1937. At the meeting he set forth a policy of advancing with large forces into the homeland to deal blows at the Japanese imperialist aggressors and inspire the Korean people with hope of national liberation. And he saw to it that units of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA) advanced into the border areas along the Rivers Tuman and Amnok to wage vigorous military activities.
Under his command, the main force of the KPRA started its advancement into the homeland on June 2, Juche 26 (1937) and attacked Pochonbo, a strategic point of the Japanese imperialists, on June 4. At 10 o’clock in the evening, the members of the KPRA made an assault on the Japanese imperialists’ ruling organs all at once and concluded the battle of Pochonbo victoriously.
After the battle of Pochonbo, the President beat down the enemy’s large unit chasing the KPRA unit with adroit tactics in Kouyushuishan and Jiansanfeng, thus displaying the invincible might of the KPRA and consolidating the successes made in the advance into the homeland.
Encouraged by the victorious battle of Pochonbo, the entire Korean nation bravely turned out in the showdown with the Japanese imperialists and the anti-Japanese national liberation movement centered on the armed struggle in Korea could enter a period of new upsurge. -0-
