Women Revolutionaries of First Generation of DPR Korea Born of Revolutionary Spirit of Paektu

President Kim Il Sung said:

"The Korean women began to write their new history on the ground with their blood rather than a pen."

The revolutionary spirit of Paektu is the great spirit of Korea created during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle.

The victorious advance of the sacred Korean revolution is unthinkable apart from the revolutionary spirit of Paektu.

The course of the victorious advance of the Korean revolution also records women revolutionaries of the first generation of DPR Korea born of the revolutionary spirit of Paektu.

In his reminiscences "With the Century", the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung said, "I should say that during the Battle of the Fusong County Town in August 1936, my C.P. was saved by the heroic efforts of the women soldiers, who checked the enemy at the col. If they had failed to contain the enemy, we would have been unable to climb the hill to forestall the enemy."

Many women revolutionaries, who regarded the great leader as the whole destiny of the country and nation and as the whole of their life and found the greatest glory and happiness of a revolutionary in safeguarding the leader, are still remembered.

Choe Hui Suk was a woman fighter who bravely fought to defend her revolutionary faith and principles to the last moment. After arresting her, the enemy put her to indescribable brutal tortures and even gouged her eyes out. But she shouted, "I have no eyes now. But I can still see victory in the revolution," striking terror into the enemy's hearts.

An Sun Hwa's last moment also makes us recollect her revolutionary principles. If she obediently answered the questions of the enemy, she could have saved her life. She, however, refused to do. Despite the awful pains from large oak stakes penetrating her chest and stomach, she shouted, "Long Live the Korean Revolution!" and "Long Live the Liberation of Women!" with her last strength.

Eight members of a sewing unit of the guerrilla army active in northern Manchuria, while fighting against the enemy that was closing in on them, threw themselves into a deep river before they could be captured. Seven young women fighters encircled by the enemy committed suicide by drowning themselves into a river.

Pak Rok Gum, the first commander of the women's company of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, Ri Kye Sun, who fought undauntedly against the enemy to her last moment, Jang Chol Gu, who is still called a cook for the Headquarters of the KPRA, Ma Kuk Hwa, younger sister of Ma Tong Hui, and his wife Kim Yong Gum, and all the other women fighters, who devotedly fought for the liberation of the country, are still remembered as the flowers of the anti-Japanese revolution, the women revolutionaries of the first generation of the Korean revolution.

During a visit to the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on Jujak Peak of Mt Taesong, President Kim Il Sung asked how many women were there among the fighters buried there. Being told that such women numbered more than ten, he said that was as it should be and recalled the women with deep emotion, adding that they all deserved to have their monuments set up and epitaphs inscribed on the monuments.

The women, who had regarded it as their fate to live, merely caring for their husbands and children within families, bravely jumped into the current of the revolution and performed heroic feats in the sacred war for national liberation together with the men.

Thanks to the leadership of the President who trained women into flowers of the revolution, indomitable soldiers, in the flames of the anti-Japanese revolution, the women fighters could glorify their life as paragons of Korean women and as typical of the struggle for the emancipation of humanity. The President led women to push forward one of the two wheels of the revolution and showed great love and benevolence for them, paying close attention to problems in their living. They thus could develop into reliable indomitable revolutionaries who embody the revolutionary spirit of Paektu.

He said, "My assertion that women push forward one wheel of the revolution is not an abstract notion. It is based on the history of the bloody revolutionary struggle against the Japanese and on my own actual experiences as a direct participant in the emancipation of Korean women, as well as an eyewitness to their struggle.

By inheriting the tradition of the women revolutionaries of the first generation of the anti-Japanese revolution who embodied the revolutionary spirit of Paektu created by him in the flames of the anti-Japanese war and established the brilliant history and tradition of the Korean women's movement, our women are now proudly pushing forward one of the two wheels of the revolution as dignified Korean women in ushering in a new era of overall national prosperity under the guidance of General Secretary Kim Jong Un.