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The DPRK people will soon celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The WPK has followed the untrodden path for 80 years, bearing such legendary appellations as the great party, the Juche-type revolutionary party, the ever-victorious and iron-willed party, the most experienced and seasoned political general staff, the genuine people’s party and the motherly party, in which the uniformity and continuity of leadership have been perfectly ensured decade after decade. The long journey made by the WPK was the unprecedented path of pioneering a road unknown in history and building a new world that humans have never seen and the continuation of hard fights against the outnumbering formidable enemies who staked their fate on the counter-revolution. The editorial board ofThe Pyongyang Times introduces in chronological order the precious experience gained and immortal exploits performed by the WPK from the days 80 years ago when the cause of the party founding was achieved under the outstanding leadership of President Kim Il Sung, through the glorious years when it shined as a model of the revolutionary party building in the world under the care of Chairman Kim Jong Il, to the great era of Kim Jong Un when the golden age of strengthening the whole party has been ushered in. Independence is the main spirit that runs through the whole course of the struggle to prepare for the founding of a party during the anti-Japanese revolutionary war. Comrade Kim Il Sung had already seen through the serious defects and limitations in the early communist movement in Korea in his teens and formed the Down-with-Imperialism Union, a new-type political organization with the ideal of anti-imperialism, independence and sovereignty, thus providing the glorious foundations of the WPK. Later, he put forward the Juche-oriented and scientific line of party founding that fully suited the actual conditions of the Korean revolution, formed the Society of RallyingComrades, the first party organization, and, on the basis of it, established the Party Committee of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, the actual central leadership organ which organized and guided the party organizations that spread out like blood vessels across the country. At the time when history had recorded only the concepts of bourgeois revolution and socialist revolution in the category of revolution, the President gave a surprising formulation that the Korean revolution was the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal democratic revolution in its character and advanced the line of founding the party by forming the basic party organizations first and expanding and strengthening them, not by proclaiming the party central committee first. It was a new discovery in the history of the world revolutionary movement. The Juche idea, the eternal guiding ideology of the WPK, was created in the course of pioneering the revolution with an unflagging independent stand. The hard-core members of the party were trained in the flames of the bloody anti-Japanese war to liberate the lost country, the mass foundation of the party was firmly laid in all parts of the country in the course of forming the basic party organizations and expanding and strengthening them, and perfect preparations were made for party founding in the 20 years of the anti-Japanese revolution. The liberated country, however, greeted General Kim Il Sung with a pile of more complicated and acute problems which was on a par with the armed struggle. The most serious difficulty was that revolutionaries and theorists of all types who styled themselves communists got together from across the country and abroad to build parties of their own and were bent on extending their factions. It was very dangerous in that it might lead to the break-up of the communist movement and the frustration of the centralized party founding efforts. If this serious political situation was not rectified, the terrible blunder of the communist movement in the early 1920s, when it made a mess of the revolution with factional strife and scramble for hegemony, might be repeated. Therefore, the General chose to form a unified party central committee by rallying all the revolutionary forces in the country though he could found the party with only the anti-Japanese war veterans who were tempered, tested and firmly prepared organizationally and ideologically in the flames of the war. Whereas the first step to party founding of the genuine Korean revolutionaries demanded brilliant wisdom beyond human intelligence and an independent path, unity was the mountain they had to climb in the liberated country, the vital prerequisite for accomplishing the cause of party founding. Cherishing the noble view that unity precisely means revolution and vice versa, he warmly embraced everyone who had tried to join the revolution with untiring perseverance and broad magnanimity without asking about their past. He showed warm paternal affection without prejudice when sincerity was needed for unity and made bold decisions without hesitation whatever they cost when extraordinary political courage and decision were necessary. He could have successfully settled all problems without trouble by relying on the legendary authority and reputation of him all the Koreans revered and followed as God. But he introduced his real name to the revolutionaries in the homeland on the day when the party central leadership body was formed and the party founding congress was successfully closed. Under such great guidance, the Juche-type revolutionary party, the WPK, was founded. The essence of the WPK’s original ideals and spirit is the people-first principle. For President Kim Il Sung, the people were not the necessary beings for the revolution, but the cause, motive and essence of the revolution. It was his political creed that the revolutionary struggle is, in essence, to attain the independence of the masses of the people, and to achieve this lofty aim the party should become the bright beacon, the vanguard that fights bravely without flinching from making sacrifices and the devoted mother. Committed to this noble ideal, the President closely rallied the broad segments of people around the Party from the days of party founding.