The Myth of Kim Il-sung's Revolutionary Army (Part I)♧

My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer and scholar who has written a couple of books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                         North Korean historians claim that Kim Il-sung led a powerful and massive guerrilla army against the Japanese, and had secret guerrilla camps established in northern Korea where he staged a revolt against Japanese rule. Kim eventually defeated the Japanese, but then the Americans came in and occupied the southern part of the country. Never happened. Before I say anything about what did happen, I should point out some important reasons why Kim Il-sung could not have done what is claimed he accomplished. First, how the Korean Communists could have maintained secret military bases in Japanese-occupied Korea without the Japanese knowing is pure fantasy. The Japanese decades before had defeated all of the Righteous Army guerrilla groups by 1907, and hence the Japanese were familiar with not only the land that the Righteous Army had fought from, but the Japanese created a vast network of spies, police informants and political files to keep track of the entire Korean population. Second, with this in mind, how could Kim Il-sung establish guerrilla bases in Korea at all? In order to exist, they would have needed housing, medical care, a steady food supply, a means of recruitment, and finally be able to obtain weapons. How could the Korean Communist guerrillas do all of this without the Japanese knowing about it? The Japanese secret police, the kempeitai, had spies everywhere and they most certainly could have tracked where there was any guerrilla activity. One other important detail to keep in mind is that from 1919 to 1945, there were no major revolts in Korea (there was the Gwangju Student Revolt in 1929, but even this had little impact on the rest of Korea). So Kim Il-sung leading an army into Korea to liberate it from the Japanese is a total myth.