The Truth that Teaches the Preciousness of the Fatherland-the Sovereignty of a Nation Lost in a Moment, Recovered in a Thousand Years

President Kim Il Sung said:

"That the sovereignty of a nation lost in a moment could only be recovered in a thousand years was an important lesson I had learned during the 20years of the revolution against the Japanese. I mean that it is easy to lose a country, but difficult to win it back. It is a grim reality of the world that it takes decades or even centuries to restore a country which was lost in an instant."

In early July, Juche 77(1988), the officials prepared a short art performance for President Kim Il Sung, who was continuing his guidance to the far parts of the country without any rest on returning from the visit to foreign countries. Appreciating this performance, he asked them about the composer of the last song.

Actually, the words of the song had been reviewed and given the final touch into perfection by Chairman Kim Jong Il. Missing the President who was on the visit to other countries, the soldiers had written and sung this song. Chairman Kim Jong Il highly appreciated its content and told them to prepare a performance with this song for the President.

When told about it by one of the officials, the President just walked along the garden in a deep thought. Then he asked the officials if any of them had ever heard that the sovereignty of a nation lost in a moment could only be recovered in a thousand years. He continued to say that the 40 years it took to win back the lost country and the 20 years it took him to regain his native home seemed too long.

The Japanese imperialists fabricated the "Ulsa Five-Point Treaty" on the 17th of November 1905, extorting our sovereignty, and on the 22nd of August 1910, they forced "Annexation of Korea by Japan". Since then our nation with a long history of 5 000 years was trampled underfoot by the Japanese imperialists and our people fell to slavish status of colony.

During his short stay of 2 years in his homeland after he had walked a "250-mile-journey for learning" from China, he deeply realized the wretchedness of the country under the Japanese colonial rule and saw the strong and unbreakable dignity and will to liberate the country in the people, who stood up in opposition to the Japanese imperialism. At the age of 14, he left his hometown, Mangyongdae, with the firm determination that he would never return home before the country's liberation. He embarked on the way of struggling to liberate our country from the Japanese imperialists' occupation.

Since then he devoted all of his efforts to the anti-Japanese war for the liberation of the country overcoming numerous arduous and harsh ordeals beyond the wildest imagination.

It was not all pleasure and success in the struggles. He had to experience those caustic sorrows and pains of the passing-away of his parents and the loss of his beloved comrades, the heartbreaking woe of "Hyesan Incident", and all kinds of hardships and trials beyond the endurance of human beings like the anti-"Minsaengdan" struggle, the two troublesome North Manchurian expeditions and "the Arduous March" from Nanpaizi to Beidadingzi.

However, he boldly overcame all these adversities and carried out over 20 years' anti-Japanese war on an alien land to annihilate the Japanese imperialists, armed to the teeth, even without any regular army or the rear base.

The road of the fatherland liberation that the President advanced for over 20 years to liberate the country deprived of by the Japanese imperialists was the road for him, for the fatherland and the people, to pace together with the destiny of the country and with the people. And it was the road of travail beyond human imagination which had been unprecedented in history and incomparable with any other periods and countries in its arduousness and complexity, and the road of bloody battles and sacrifice that demanded a dear cost.

Therefore, he wrote in his memoirs "With the Century" that a ruined nation is as good as dead, that if they do not want to be a stateless people, they must go all out to defend the country, and that in order not to end up as slaves they must make the country more prosperous and collect even one more piece of rubble to build the defences higher.

The sovereignty of a nation lost in a moment could only be recovered in a thousand years. This is the precious historical lesson that he learnt during his 20-year-long anti-Japanese revolution.

Undying revolutionary feats of President Kim Il Sung, who pushed his way through snowstorms and long bloody battles, enduring all those hardships starving and sleeping outdoors in the deep forests of Mt. Paektu for over twenty years to accomplish the historic cause of the liberation of the country, will shine forever along with our fatherland that becomes ever more powerful and prosperous under the wise leadership of the respected General Secretary.