[Reminiscences]Chapter 5 3. To Oppose Armed Force with Armed Force

3. To Oppose Armed Force with Armed Force 

Owing to the September 18 incident we were confronted with the task of starting the anti-Japanese war immediately. The time was ripe for responding with the cannonade of justice to the cannonade of injustice which had heralded a new world war.

On hearing of the invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese imperialists, all the revolutionaries came out of hiding. At the sound of the bombardment shaking the continent, the people in Manchuria generally came to their senses in the autumn of that year. The bombardment did not dishearten the people but rather awakened\and inspired them to make renewed efforts. A new fighting spirit emerged in Manchuria, which had been reduced to ashes owing to the oppression of the enemy.

We considered that a good opportunity had arisen for us to harden the masses in the struggle.

Frankly speaking, in those days all the people in Manchuria were distressed owing to their feeling of frustration caused by the failure of the uprising. If we were to take the revolution onto another stage, we had to give them confidence. However, we could not do so if we merely made appeals\and talked idly.

In\order to give the masses, who were used to failure, strength\and confidence, we had to inspire them to a new struggle\and lead the struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only a victorious struggle could save the massesrom their nightmarish inactivity. An armed struggle waged by a few farsighted people alone would not bear fruit; the masses had to be tempered through a struggle.

The outbreak of the September 18 incident afforded the people in east Manchuria the opportunity to rise in a struggle once again. The mutinous advance of the people in the homeland also gave them great impetus.

Successive tenancy disputes by the peasants\and anti-Japanese uprisings were taking place in the homeland. Typical examples of this were the tenancy disputes at the Kowon Farm of the\oriental Development Company, at the Ryongchon “Fuzi” Farm\and at the Kimje “Oki” Farm.

In the Ryongchon area the peasants’ struggle continued even after 1929. At that time the\organizations there fought well in connection with us. Many of our underground workers worked there.

More than 3,000 peasants in Yonghung\and over 2,000 peasants in Samchok started a huge uprising against the Japanese imperialists who, after the September 18 incident, were intensifying their fascist oppression\and plunder on the excuse of a “time of emergency.”

At that time we\organized a harvest struggle in Jiandao.

The struggle committees in various areas had propaganda squads\and pickets under them\and made full preparations, printing leaflets\and appeals\and formulating fighting slogans\and so on. Then they started the harvest struggle with each area under the control of a revolutionary\organization as a unit. At the beginning it was a legal, economic struggle aimed at cutting farm rents.

Some historians gave this struggle the name of “Harvest Uprising,” but I did not think this name to be appropriate. The harvest struggle was neither a copy nor a repetition of the May 30 Uprising. It was a victorious mass struggle waged according to a new tactical principle on the basis of completely getting rid of the evil ideological aftereffects of Li Li-san’s reckless Leftist action. While the factionalists had played the leading role in the May 30 Uprising, in the harvest struggle the communists of the new generation led the masses. The participants in the harvest struggle did not regard violence as their main resort. The participants in the May 30 Uprising had no scruples about committing arson\and murder, setting fire to transformer sub -stations\and educational institutions\and overthrowing all the landlords\and wealthy people. The participants in the harvest struggle, however, put forward just demands such as the three-to-seven\or four-to -six system of tenancy\and acted in an\orderly manner under the unified leadership of the struggle committee\and in concert with the neighbouring villagers.

Their demand for a cut in rent could in no way be considered unjustified in view of the circumstances of the peasants, who were on the brink of starvation. Because this demand was just, even the government of Jilin Province was obliged to proclaim that the tenancy system would be three to seven\or four to six (30-40 per cent for the landlord\and 60-70 per cent for the tenant).

Violence was never employed against those landlords who acceded peacefully to the demands of the peasants. Violence was employed against the evil landlords who stubbornly rejected the demands of the struggle committee,\and against the soldiers\and policemen who suppressed the struggle of the peasants by force of arms. In the case of the obstinate landlords who did not accede to the demands of the peasants, the participants in the struggle carried the share of the tenants—60\or 70 per cent of the crops—from the fields\or seized their granaries\and divided the grain in them among themselves.

The predatory\oriental Development financial institutions, usurers\and reactionary\organizations which assisted the Japanese imperialists in their rule, such as the “Association of Korean Residents,” were also targets of the struggle.

The following happened when I returned to Antu after leading the harvest struggle in Yanji.

Choe Tong Hwa, who had been in hiding to avoid discovery by the Japanese imperialists after the May 30 Uprising, came to see me. He was worried that the harvest struggle was gradually assuming a violent character. He was the instigator of the May 30 Uprising in Antu. Furthermore, he later disagreed with us when we defined that uprising as a blind Leftist action\and even tried to argue the matter with us. But he had suddenly changed\and was talking about the harmfulness of violence. So, I was greatly surprised.

He said:

“Comrade Song Ju, what is the matter with you? You who once denounced the May 30 Uprising as a blind Leftist act, are now using violence in a purely economic struggle. How on earth should I understand this?”

Having asked me this, he walked round me several times, his arms folded inside his sleeves. He seemed to be inwardly pleased at the thought that he had hit home.

“Sir, you seem to misunderstand something. Do you consider the ‘red violence’ advocated by you during the May 30 Uprising to be similar to that which we are employing in the harvest struggle?”

I asked him this without even thinking that I was being impolite.

Choe Tong Hwa said:

“Of course there may be a slight difference. However, violence is violence, isn’t it?”

To this I replied: “We employ violence only when there is a just reason\and when it is proper to do so. For instance, if a landlord does not obey the peasants’ demand, we seize his granary by force. When the soldiers\and policemen arrest people, we use force to release our comrades. So, should we be benevolent towards the enemy when they are suppressing our struggle by resorting to violence?”

Choe’s reply was: “I am critical of you not because I don’t know the general principle of Marxism that violence must be met with violence. What I mean is that now is not the time to answer violence with violence. The May 30 Uprising is an old story. Unfortunately our revolution is at an ebb.”

“At an ebb?”

“Yes, it’s at an ebb. It’s a period of two steps back. Even the Stolypin reactionary period was no darker than now, I believe. Didn’t you see the ease with which the Kwantung Army occupied the whole of Manchuria? Even the 300,000-strong army of Zhang Xue-liang retreated. At a time like this we must preserve the revolutionary forces instead of exposing them. If you provoke the enemy, I fear that such a tragedy as the large-scale ‘punitive operations’ which began in 1920 may recur in east Manchuria.”

Thus Choe Tong Hwa insisted on preventing the harvest strugglerom becoming a violent struggle\and on stopping the participants in the strugglerom taking up arms. He also opposed our idea for an armed struggle, claiming that the time was not ripe for it\and that undertaking it would be like building a castle on the sand.

Arguing with him was beyond my power. He was an intellectual with a clear head as well as a high level of communist consciousness. Therefore, it was hard to persuade him of the justness of my idea. He frequently quoted propositionsrom the classics to prove the justness of his assertion,\and all his remarks were logical. It was not easy to convince Choe Tong Hwa of the justness of my idea.

In the final analysis, his assertion proceededrom his view that the revolution was at an ebb. Although he saw such unfavourable omens as the wholesale armed offensive of the Japanese imperialists, the rout of Zhang Xue-liang’s troops\and the breaking up of the Independence Army, he was utterly ignorant of the violent advance of the people in the homeland\and in east Manchuria. It was without doubt a purblind man who was standing before me, a man who could not see reality even when it was clear to others.

The counterrevolutionary offensive\and the flight of some cowardly groups did not immediately mean that the revolution was at an ebb. Everything depended on the tendency of the popular masses, the motive power of the revolution.

As was the case with all the communists of the preceding generation, Choe Tong Hwa underestimated the strength of the popular masses. He could not regard the people as the motive force of the revolution,\and he underestimated their strength\and did not believe in it.

When I heard Choe Tong Hwa talking about the revolution being at an ebb, I felt the radical difference between the communists of the preceding generation\and us. In the final analysis, it can be said that all the differences between them\and us aroserom our views of the popular masses. It was precisely because of that difference that we could not combine our efforts and were like strangers, although we shared the same ideal\and aim.

I said to Choe Tong Hwa:

“You may think it paradoxical, but I consider this moment, when the popular masses are advancing violently without yielding to the aggression of the Japanese imperialists, to be a period of a great upsurge in the revolution. We have decided to awaken\and\organize the masses immediately after the harvest struggle without missing the opportunity\and thus take the anti- Japanese struggle onto a higher stage. No matter how the general trend of the times may change, my resolution will neither change nor waver.”

Choe Tong Hwa could say no more\and left in a bad temper. Although people like Choe Tong Hwa were trying to stop us

by talking about the disadvantages of revolutionary violence, we led the harvest struggle with confidence\and without deviating in the leastrom the course we had chosen.

From September to the end of 1931 over 100,000 peasants in Jiandao waged a bloody struggle, refusing to yield in the face of the cruel suppression of the Japanese soldiers\and policemen\and the reactionary warlords.

In the course of this struggle many legendary incidents displaying the heroic mettle of the Korean nation took place. The story of the battle which the people of the Kaikou area fought against the Japanese\and Manchurian soldiers\and policemen on the ice of the River Tuman during the demonstration was an inspiration to the people in Manchuria.

The story of the dramatic end of Kim Sun Hui, a woman fighter, also emerged in the flames of the harvest\and spring struggles. Kim Sun Hui was a member of the Red Guards in Yaksudong\and a member of the harvest struggle committee there.

When some “punitive troops” appeared in Yaksudong, they asked her what she had in her stomach, poking her there with the muzzles of their rifles. It was near her time.

Glaring at the Japanese soldiersrom the garrison\and policemenrom the consulate as they surrounded her, she answered, “The best that can happen is that it will be a king, the worst that can happen is that it will be like you, who have to walk the street before the outer gate.” This famous response amazed the enemy. Finally Kim Sun Hui even bit out her tongue to ensure that she would not betray the secret of the\organization. She ended her precious blooming life at the age of 22 in the flames kindled by the enemy.

The harvest struggle ended in the victory of the peasants. Through this struggle the people of east Manchuria gained confidence in victory. For the first time they realized that the victory of the struggle depended on the indomitable will of the masses themselves as well as on the method of guidance. They looked up, with their eyes full of wonder, at the young communists of the new generation who had led the harvest struggle to victory,\and they rallied closely around them.

Through the victory of the harvest struggle the masses discovered why the May 30 Uprising had failed; they also discovered that the degree of violence employed could never be the main factor deciding the results of the struggle,\and they came to believe this firmly. They all came to realize that, just as the cause of the failure of the May 30 Uprising did not lie in the fact that a small degree of violence was employed, so the factor determining the victory of the harvest struggle was not that a large degree of violence was employed. Violence was in no way omnipotent. It was merely a means to achieve an aim.

Only violence which is just, well-advised\and timely\and is used for a just purpose can promise victory for those who use it. Only such violence can make a genuine contribution to the transformation of society\and the development of history. We support only such violence.

Everything depended on how the masses were mobilized,\organized\and led. The communists of the new generation created a model in this respect. The harvest struggle was a unique struggle. In this struggle we always held the initiative\and kept the enemy on the defensive, closely linking an economic struggle with a political one\and properly combining peaceful methods with violent ones. The struggle that was waged in the spring of the following year was also such a struggle.

Through the harvest struggle the solidarity between the Korean\and Chinese peoples was strengthened\and the revolutionary ties between the Korean\and Chinese communists were consolidated.

The harvest struggle was a good occasion for awakening\and hardening the popular masses. In the course of this struggle simple\and\ordinary people grew into fighters, into revolutionaries. The revolutionary\organizations in east Manchuria were able to strengthen their ranks with many hardcore elements who had been trained in the harvest struggle. The creation of such core elements would also be of benefit in the armed struggle that would soon be launched.

The many young revolutionaries produced in the course of the harvest struggle became the backbone of the guerrilla units that were later formed in various parts of east Manchuria.

While leading the harvest struggle, I continually developed my idea on the armed struggle. The mass heroism\and indomitable fighting spirit of the people in east Manchuria that were displayed in the course of the struggle were a great encouragement to me as I sought the revolutionary line for a new stage. They instilled in me the confidence that the masses would always support\and encourage us once we took up arms\and waged a bloody battle against the Japanese imperialists.

In October 1931 when the flames of the harvest struggle were spreading to the whole of east Manchuria, I paid a brief visit to the Jongsong area in North Hamgyong Province. The aim of my visit was to meet my comrades who had been in the homeland to discuss with them the matter of an armed struggle\and to recall the political workers active in the area of the six towns in\order to give them some important tasks relating to the armed struggle. Chae Su Hang\and O Pin accompanied me to Jongsong.

Jongsong was Chae Su Hang’s home town; the home of his wife’s parents was there. His deceased parents had lived there until the end of the Ri dynasty. His great-grandfather had once worked as an adviser to the Jongsong county administration. It was immediately after the “annexation of Korea by Japan” that Chae Su Hang’s family had left the homeland to move to Jingu, Helong County.

Chae Su Hang came of age in Jiandao, but he always longed for his home town\where he had nurtured his childhood dreams. Whenever he crossed to Jongsong with me, he could not suppress his joy.

However, on that occasion he seemed very melancholy. Thinking that the waves of the harvest struggle had reached Chae Su Hang’s family, I asked him quietly:

“Comrade Chae, is it, perhaps, that your family, too, has been expropriated?”

Chae Su Hang’s family was rich. His father held the post of president of the Toksin Company,\and for this he was disliked by the people.

“What do you mean by expropriated? Before the peasants demanded, we distributed to them 70 per cent of the grain right in the field.”

“Oh, how different is the family of the county party secretary! But why do you look so sad?”

Chae said: “Some people have told me to try to persuade my father to give up his post as the company president. But my father will not agree.”

Chae Su Hang did not know that his father held the post, having been entrusted by the revolutionary\organization with it. His father could not tell him because of revolutionary discipline. Therefore, it was natural for Chae Su Hang to regret that his father would not comply with his request.

Having heard him out, I understood the reason for his feeling sick at heart. In those days there were some Leftists who were holding important positions in the higher party\organizations. They indiscriminately imposed extreme demands upon their subordinates, demands which ran counter to the interests of the revolution,\and thus put them in an awkward position. Once they went so far as to dismiss Chae Su Hangrom his post of county party secretary, charging him with the “blame” for having failed to establish his class “demarcation”rom that of his father; later they reinstated him.

I changed the topic of our conversation to that of the armed struggle in\order to remove his melancholy.

Chae Su Hang said jokingly that if we formed an army he would be the first to join it\and become a machine gunner.

“You are not fit to be a military officer. Comrade Chae, your gift is as a civil official,” I said, also smiling.

Although I had spoken jokingly, I meant what I said. I considered him to be a born political worker. I am sure if he had remained alive long enough to join the revolutionary army, he would have become a political worker at regimental\or divisional level.

When we were launching the armed struggle vigorously after founding the Guerrilla Army, he was killed at the hands of the Japanese “punitive troops” in the vicinity of Dalazi.

O Pin was famous as a sportsmanrom his days at Tonghung Middle School in Longjing. He had once even won an ox as first prize in a wrestling contest at a sports meeting in Hunchun County. He was free\and easy, cheerful\and quick.

I regarded O Pin to be the type of a military officer who would be a brave soldier of the revolutionary army. Whenever I met people, I wondered what type of work in the revolutionary army would be suitable for each of them. I acquired this habit about then. It seems that the acute situation in those days when the anti-Japanese war was impending made me this “calculating man.”

After crossing the River Tuman by boatrom the Shijianping ferry we visited the beans\selection ground of the Tonggwanjin Turyang Corporation. This corporation weighed the beans, which the Japanese imperialists had plunderedrom Manchuria, by dividing them into various grades before putting them into flax sacks\and sending them to Japan by ship.

We disguised ourselves as day labourersrom Jiandao\and talked to the workers there, while giving them a helping hand.

On hearing that we wererom Jiandao, the workers started to talk about the harvest struggle. Their view of this struggle was generally pessimistic. The workers’ view was thus; “The many uprisings that broke out in Jiandao even before the Japanese imperialists’ occupation of Manchuria ended in failure. Moreover, now that they have invaded Manchuria, will there be any chance of victory merely by waging such a struggle as the harvest struggle? In the final analysis, this struggle will without doubt meet the same destiny as the May 30 Uprising. It is useless to launch a struggle. Look! The Japanese army is winning victory after victory. On top of that, the international\organization made up of the big powers also sides with the Japanese. There is no one on whom a small\and weak nation can rely, is there?”

When I heard what the workers had to say I learned three lessons. One was that if a revolutionary were to know the public feeling well, he must always mix with the masses; another was that if he were to launch an armed struggle, he must first step up the work of awakening the masses politically\and\organizing them;\and another was that no form of struggle could succeed unless the masses fully understood its importance\and took part actively in it.

Having listened to the nihilistic\and desperate views of the workers, I felt even more keenly that the Korean communists should start an armed struggle as soon as possible\and give our nation the hope of rebirth\and the hope of independence.

That day, in the house of Choe Song Hun, chairman of the Kwangmyong village youth association, we held a meeting of the underground political workers in the homeland\and those in charge of underground\organizations\and discussed the task of the homeland revolutionary\organizations with relation to the armed struggle.

I emphasized to those attending the meeting that the sudden change in the situation following the September 18 incident, as well as the historic lesson of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement in our country, urgently demanded that we should wage an\organized armed struggle\and that launching an armed struggle was a requirement of our revolutionary struggle\and a qualitative advance in it. Then I set two major tasks, namely, the task of making full military preparations for the armed struggle\and the task of laying a firm mass foundation for it.

Those attending the meeting could not conceal their excitement at the mention of an\organized armed struggle, a very significant event; they made fiery speeches advancing creative opinions to help the formation of armed ranks.

The matter of preparing the revolutionary forces needed for\organizing\and waging an armed struggle had already been discussed\and decided upon at the Kongsudok Meeting held in May 1931. So, on the basis of this, the Kwangmyong Village Meeting discussed the practical tasks confronting the revolutionary\organizations in the homeland with something new—the armed struggle–in the imminent future. This meeting tolled the bell announcing the armed struggle for the people\and revolutionaries at home. The ready response which the revolutionaries at home expressed for the armed struggle in the course of the meeting gave me great strength.

After a day in Jongsong I returned to Jiandao\and there partedrom Chae Su Hang\and O Pin. We decided to meet in Mingyuegou again in about the middle of December\and there review the preparations for the armed struggle\and discuss in detail ways to conduct the armed struggle\and strategic\and tactical matters relating to it.

Afterwards, my whole schedule was devoted to preparations for the Mingyuegou Meeting.

At the mention of preparations for a meeting, what may first come to mind is such documents as a report\and resolution. However, in those days the preparations for a meeting meant a process of laying down the revolutionary line\and defining a strategy\and tactics. Putting an idea into writing was a secondary process.

I devoted a lot of time to a consideration of the form to be chosen for the armed struggle.

Marxist-Leninist theory emphasized the importance of an armed struggle. However, it provided no formal definition of the form in which the armed struggle should be waged. This is because there cannot be any ready-made solution which suits any era\and can be applied in any country. In seeking a form for the armed struggle, I strove also not to be guilty of dogmatism.

Having made up my mind to deepen the consultation on the armed struggle\and discuss tasks for coping with the new situation, I visited the east Manchuria special district Party committee in\order to meet Dong Chang-rong. Since we intended to found the armed forces\and start an anti- Japanese war in Manchuria, we could not ignore our cooperation with the Chinese communists.

The question of an armed struggle was also coming to the fore among the Chinese communists in Manchuria. Following the September 18 incident the Communist Party of China\and the Worker -Peasant Red Army of China addressed an appeal for the masses to be\organized in resistance against the aggression of the Japanese imperialists so as to deal a direct blow at them by force of arms.

The Korean\and Chinese communists who were aiming at the same target were confronted with the urgent task of forming an unbreakable, firm united front\and cooperating closely with\and supporting each other.

Dong Chang-rong, secretary of the special district committee, had narrowly escaped death in the “punitive operations” by the Japanese troops. I heard that he was staying in the city of Longjing\and wanted to see me.

Because it was dangerous to go to that city\where there were many secret agents, I sent word asking him to come to Mingyuegou.

However, the east Manchuria special district committee conveyed to me the news that Dong Chang-rong who was still unaware of the situation in Jiandao, had been wanderingrom place to place to inquire into the\whereabouts of the special district committee, without knowing that it had moved, in the course of which he had been caught by secret agents\and dragged off to prison. This unexpected news disappointed me. After the September 18 incident Luo Deng-xian, secretary of the Manchurian provincial party committee\and Yang Rim, secretary of the military commission under the provincial party committee, left Shenyang\and went into hiding,\and Yang Jing-yu was still in prison. So there was no one with whom I could discuss matters.

I resolved to save Dong Chang-rong\and consulted some comrades concerning a way to do so.

Ko Po Bae (Po Bae is his nickname) volunteered to save Dong Chang-rong. Being extraordinarily quick with his hands, like a conjurer, he was good at “stealing.” He could in an instant remove the fountain-penrom the pocket of the man he was talking to. Because Ko Po Bae was good at such tricks, everywhere he went there was trouble over something being “lost.”

He went to Longjing\and stole something so as to be arrested by the police. In prison he met Dong Chang-rong. There Ko Po Bae handled the policemen so skilfully that the secretary of the special district committee was released before long. Thus he was able to attend the Mingyuegou Meeting.

Around the middle of December 1931 we convened the meeting of Party\and YCL cadres in Mingyuegou. We called this meeting the “Winter Mingyuegou Meeting” for convenience.

This meeting was attended by over 40 young fighters who enjoyed the love\and reputation of the masses because of their devotion to the struggle. Among them were Cha Kwang Su, Ri Kwang, Chae Su Hang, Kim Il Hwan, Ryang Song Ryong, O Pin, O Jung Hwa, O Jung Song, Ku Pong Un, Kim Chol, Kim Jung Gwon, Kim Il Ryong, Ri Chong San, Kim Jong Ryong, Han Il Gwang\and Kim Hae San.

At Mingyuegou I tasted for the first time what they called yongchae kimchi. At supper on the day when I arrived at Mingyuegou, Ri Chong San’s family served me with kidney-bean-and-maize porridge\and yongchae kimchi. I ate them with relish. The people of Kilju\and Myongchon, North Hamgyong Province, are good at pickling that kind of kimchi. Nowadays it is served even at dinners given by the state.

At the time of the Mingyuegou Meeting, Ri Kwang caught five pheasants for us. He had hunted them, together with some activistsrom the Young Communist League, because he was sorry to see that the delegates to the meeting had been eating only maize porridge\and foxtail millet all the time.

For supper that evening Ri Chong San had noodles prepared, saying that pheasant meat was good for garnishing noodles. Rice was scarce in the area of Mingyuegou, but starch was available there.

Cha Kwang Su, who was helplessly fond of noodles, boisterously teased Ri Kwang, saying, “Hey, old manrom Wangqing, five pheasants are not enough to go round all of us, are they?” Cha Kwang Su, who sufferedrom chronic stomach trouble, used to eat very little, but among young people he would pretend to be very hungry, as if he were a great eater.

“Don’t talk so big, yourom Jilin who cannot even eat a bowl of maize porridge,” Ri Kwang retorted, jokingly. “Listen, you oaf. I’m exhausted, carrying those five pheasants on top of my load of cereal.”

Cha Kwang Su argued vehemently, saying that, because the five pheasants would not be enough to go round all of us, the delegates should be divided into two rooms\and that those in one room should be served with noodles garnished with pheasant\and those in the other room with noodles garnished with chicken.

But the delegates all objected to his idea. We saw to it that the pheasant\and chicken were mixed\and that all the delegates ate convivially in the same room. Pak Hun, a big eater, ate three bowls of noodles\and earned the nickname of “noodle lover.”

In\order to ensure the meeting’s success, we held a preliminary meeting at Ri Chong San’s house beforehand. At that meeting the agenda, the participants\and the\order of the meeting were discussed.

Then the meeting was held, lasting for 10 days. The discussion was concentrated on the problem of what form the armed struggle should take. It was only when this problem was settled that it would be possible to decide other matters, such as the form of the armed\organization\and that of the base.

Because we had no country, resistance by a regular army could not be expected. Yet conditions were not ripe for all the people to be mobilized immediately for an uprising. In these circumstances it was only natural that my mind was drawn to guerrilla warfare.

Lenin defined guerrilla warfare as an auxiliary form of the struggle which is inevitably adopted either when the mass movement has already become an uprising\or when there is a midway period between major battles in a civil war. I very much regretted that Lenin regarded guerrilla warfare as a temporary\and auxiliary form of struggle instead of regarding it as the basic form. This was because it was not regular warfare but guerrilla warfare which I was interested in at that time.

I thought a great deal about whether guerrilla warfare by a standing revolutionary armed force would suit the circumstances in our country, should we choose guerrilla warfare as the basic form of the armed struggle. In the course of this I read Sun-tzu’s Art of War18\and reread the Three Warring Kingdoms19. Among our country’s books on military science I read such books as the Military Books of the Eastern Country20\and Instructions on Military Science21.

Some people said that the\origin of guerrilla warfare dated back to the 4th century A.D. However, we did not know in what country\and how that guerrilla war was waged.

The guerrilla warfare which Marx\and Engels studied with the greatest interest was the activities of the armed units of the Russian peasants during the Franco- Russian War of 1812. The story of Denis Davidov, a partisan hero born of the Franco-Russian War,\and of General Kutuzov who skilfully commanded the combined operations of the regular units\and guerrillas, fanned my curiosity about guerrilla warfare.

The Imjin Patriotic War22 gave me many ideas concerning a definition of guerrilla warfare as the basic form of our struggle. I regarded the struggle of the volunteers who won a glorious victory in the Imjin Patriotic War as an example holding an outstanding place in the history of guerrilla warfare. I was totally fascinated by the bravery displayed\and the varied fighting methods employed by the famous generals who emergedrom among the volunteers such as Kwak Jae U, Sin Tol Sok, Kim Ung So, Jong Mun Bu, Saint Sosan, Choe Ik Hyon\and Ryu Rin Sok. The words guerrilla warfare gripped my heart with the approach of the great battle against the heavily-armed Japanese imperialists.

However, some people said that a guerrilla war could be waged only when there was a home front\or supportrom a regular army. This presented me with a problem. These preconditions laid down in the classics of Marxism-Leninism forced me to go through a complicated process of inquiry to choose the form of the armed struggle. No one could decide whether a guerrilla war would be possible, given the circumstances of Korea which had no home front\or regular army. It was a serious\and controversial issue for us.

Successive dramat