President Kim Il Sung put forward the original revolutionary philosophy that "the people is the state, the rear and the regular army" in the early days of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle and sounded the roar of guns declaring an all-people war of resistance. After the liberation of the country, he established an all-people and all-nation defense system with the regular revolutionary armed forces as its core.

He addressed himself with all his heart and soul to the organization of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards, defining it as the most rational form of civilian armed force for arming the entire people.

He visited the Phyongwon area to hear the people's views on the plan to arm the entire people and took measures to build military and political training bases in the areas of Kangso and Ryonggang, braving midwinter cold and others. Thanks to his guidance for strengthening and developing the people's defense forces, the Worker-Peasant Red Guards was formed on January 14, Juche 48 (1959).

The Worker-Peasant Red Guards, inheriting the tradition of the anti-Japanese struggle, has recorded lots of heroic feats in the history of the country over the past 50 years.

Keenly conscious of the truth that the people themselves should defend their Republic, the cradle of happiness, with arms in their hands, the Korean people grasped the idea of arms and Juche-oriented method of war of the Workers' Party of Korea and trained themselves to acquire marksmanship of never missing the target, though they found their days so full with production and construction, holding aloft the militant slogan "Rifle in one hand and hammer or sickle in the other!"

No wonder the members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards smashed at every step the enemy's reckless moves to unleash a new war and laid a solid foundation for the building of a prosperous and powerful nation in the flames of creation and innovation in revolutionary soldier spirit, standing side by side with the People's Army for defense of the motherland, even in the grimmest days of the "Arduous March" and the forced march.

Now the people's defense forces of Korea are giving fuller scope to the might of the DPRK as a military power, having grown to be invincible fighting ranks in which the commanding system of General Secretary Kim Jong Il and the revolutionary military morale have been established.