Pyongyang, October 13 (KCNA) -- October 14 is the day when President Kim Il Sung delivered a historic speech at a Pyongyang mass rally held to welcome his triumphant return to the homeland.

In the speech he called upon all the Korean people to unite closely and build a prosperous independent and sovereign state.

Earlier, the President advanced a unique idea of great national unity. He fully applied it to liberating the country and building a new society.

One day before the formation of the Down-with-Imperialism Union on October 17, Juche 15 (1926) he told young revolutionaries that the masses should be rallied around the organization after its formation to liberate the country with their strength.

At a meeting held in Huide County in November Juche 19 (1930), he said the Korean people could win the independence of the country only through their concerted effort. He called upon those with strength to give their strength, those with knowledge to contribute their knowledge and those with money to donate their money so as to pool wisdom and efforts of the 20 million Korean people.

The President's idea of great national unity led to the foundation of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland, a permanent anti-Japanese national united front and a strong underground revolutionary organization, in May 1936.

Its inaugural declaration written by him says that only when 20 million Koreans turn out in the sacred struggle for liberating the country, true to the ten-point programme of the association, can they surely win the independence of Korea.

A valuable experience and tradition of great national unity were provided in the struggle for liberating the country by mobilizing all the anti-Japanese patriotic forces under the leadership of the President.

After the country's liberation from the Japanese colonial rule, he convened a historic April joint conference of representatives of political parties and public organizations in the south and north of Korea to prevent the division of the country sought by the U.S. imperialists and their instruments.

He also put forward reasonable proposals and took many steps to achieve national unity and provide conditions favorable for the country's reunification in every period and stage of the developing revolution.

In the 1970s he made a breakthrough in the deadlocked dialogue and negotiations between the north and the south and had the July 4 joint statement based on the three principles of national reunification adopted between the two sides.

He offered a proposal for founding the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo and the ten-point programme of the great unity of the whole nation in the 1980s and 1990s.

It is a strong will of the Korean people to achieve national unity and reunification in line with the President's idea, feats, rich experience and tradition.