One day, teacher Shang Yue told the students about the struggles conducted by Lenin and Gorky. Talking about Lenin, he explained how the Soviet leader led the revolutionary struggle of the comrades outside by writing letters with milk in jail and on the extraordinary exploits he performed in the struggle for building a socialist, communist society.
Excited by the teacher`s interesting story, the students exclaimed together “Let’s learn after Lenin” and “Let’s go to the Soviet Union.”
However, President Kim Il Sung was absorbed in deep thoughts in silence at that time.
Shang Yue approached him and asked if he did not want to go to the Soviet Union. Just then all the students stopped shouting and gazed at him at once.
Kim Il Sung told him that he too wanted to study in the USSR, but without driving out the Japanese imperialists the Koreans could not build a socialist society in Korea and that the most pressing task for them at that moment was to drive out the Japs and liberate the country.
Shang Yue could feel the President’s uncommon will in his words which awakened the students to the truth on what the youth and students of Korea under colonial rule should duly learn and fight for.
In 1964, Shang Yue recalled that day as follows:
“Marshal Kim Il Sung had already kept in the bottom of his heart at that time the firm resolution to restore the lost country by waging a long and arduous struggle against the Japanese imperialists.”
