The ARF, the first anti-Japanese national united front in Korea, was an underground revolutionary organization, represented by patriotic-minded people of broad strata.

In the mid-1930s, the prevailing situation urgently called for launching the movement for forming the anti-Japanese national united front at a new stage.

To cope with it, President Kim Il Sung convened a meeting in Nanhutou to advance a policy on organizing a standing body for forming the united front across the country.

Under the difficult conditions riddled with arduous marches and battles, he personally worked out the programme, rules and inaugural declaration of the association.

He declared the foundation of the ARF in Donggang meeting on May 5, Juche 25 (1936).

Its foundation paved a way to invigorate the united front movement on a nationwide scale in keeping with the anti-Japanese armed struggle.

It also served as a basis for closely rallying all patriotic-minded people around Kim Il Sung to provide a driving force in liberating Korea from the Japanese colonial rule.

The Association developed in a short period to be a pan-national organization involving hundreds of thousands of people across Korea and in northeast China and Japan, making a big contribution to attaining national liberation.