President Kim Il Sung put forward the idea of giving importance to the writing brush along with the idea of giving priority to the arms in the early period of his revolutionary activities and had led the Korean revolution to victory by firmly taking the press as a powerful political and ideological weapon for propelling the revolutionary struggle.

In the latter half of the 1930s, the activities of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army (KPRA) were strengthened and the network of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland (ARF) was expanded swiftly. Much upset by this, the Japanese imperialists made every desperate effort to cut off the links between the guerrilla army and the people while stepping up the "punitive" operations against the KPRA.

To cope with it, the President initiated to found revolutionary publications, a powerful means of propaganda and agitation for quickly disseminating among millions of the masses the revolutionary idea and fight slogans at the same time, rallying them and giving them organizational and ideological training.

When he formed the ARF, he directed deep attention to the publication of its organ. As soon as the Paektusan Secret Camp was created, he saw to it that a printing shop was set up there and founded Samil Wolgan, the organ of the ARF, on December 1, Juche 25 (1936).

The Samil Wolgan, the mass politico-theoretical magazine, had its main mission to make a contribution to realizing the idea of the ARF to achieve the country's independence.

Although Samil Wolgan was launched as the organ of the ARF, it also assumed the function of the mouthpiece of the Party Committee of the KPRA and at the same time assumed and fulfilled the mission of a popular political magazine, serving the whole country and the entire nation.

The President wrote articles to the magazine amid fierce battles with the enemy.

The publication of the magazine played a great role in uniting not only the members of the KPRA but also the broad sections of people in the patriotic struggle against the Japanese imperialists and arousing them to the struggle.

Today the proud tradition of the revolutionary publications established by the President is being carried forward successfully by General Secretary Kim Jong Il.