On February 8, Juche 37 (1948) the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army that was founded during the anti-Japanese war was developed into the Korean People’s Army, a regular armed force in Korea.
Marking the day, all the service personnel and people in Korea are looking back in deep emotion the undying exploits the peerlessly great persons of Mt Paektu performed in the glorious history of the KPA.
Weapons, together with soldiers, constitute the two essentials of the armed forces. Any formidable enemy is no match for the army that is steadfast in ideology and faith and fully prepared militarily and technologically.
President Kim Il Sung attached great importance to the building of a regular revolutionary armed force in the difficult days after Korea’s liberation. He clarified that it was important in building an armed force to equip all the soldiers with state-of-the-art weapons and military hardware, and wisely led the establishment of Juche-oriented defence industry.
Still in his military uniform worn during the anti-Japanese war, he went to Phyongchon-ri in Pyongyang to select the site for the first munitions factory and instilled into the officials confidence in victory that it would be possible for them to manufacture rifles, guns and even tanks when they buckled down to it with firm determination. And when the workers and technicians at the munitions factory succeeded in producing a submachine gun by their own efforts, he visited the factory and tested the submachine gun by himself.
The defence industry the President had built its foundation from scratch, picturing the future of the country, has been consolidated under the leadership of General Kim Jong Il.
Always giving priority to the building up of the defence capabilities, the General took important measures to further develop defence industry while enforcing Songun politics in a comprehensive way.
He devoted tireless efforts to make the defence industry self-supporting, modern and IT-based in line with the requirements of the IT era in the new century, so that it could develop new military hardware needed in the modernization of the People’s Army and the arming of all the people as well as improve their performance. Thanks to his energetic leadership, the defence industry of the DPRK has developed into a self-supporting one that is capable of producing as one wishes modern weapons and powerful military hardware in larger amounts and at a higher qualitative level.
At present the defence industry of the DPRK is ushering in a new chapter of its development under the outstanding leadership of Marshal Kim Jong Un.
Under his leadership the self-supporting arsenal of the country that was launched with the Yongil bombs in the forests of Mt Paektu and the submachine gun in Phyongchon-ri is now readily manufacturing precise and powerful military hardware fully capable of coping with warfare of any type by its own efforts and technology in succession.
The respected Marshal who put forward the strategic line of simultaneously promoting economic construction and the upbuilding of the nuclear forces has energetically led the country’s defence industry and the defence science and technology to readily manufacture cutting-edge military hardware.
Great successes in the tests of the first hydrogen bomb and nuclear warhead explosion last year have placed the DPRK in the front rank of world nuclear powers and ended the history of the US imperialists’ bloody aggression and nuclear war.
The Korean People’s Army that is firmly supported by the Juche-oriented defence industry laid by the great Generalissimos and the Marshal is demonstrating to the full the dignity of the invincible revolutionary army equipped with modern means of attack and defence.