Songun is the "military-first" policy of North Korea, prioritizing the Korean People's Army in the affairs of state and allocation of resources. "Military-first" as a principle guides political and economic life in North Korea, with "military-first politics" dominating the political system; "a line of military-first economic construction" acting as an economic system; and "military-first ideology" serving as the guiding ideology. Songun elevates the Korean People's Army within North Korea as an organization and as a state function, granting it the primary position in the North Korean government and society. It guides domestic policy and international interactions. It is the framework for the government, designating the military as the "supreme repository of power". The government grants the Korean People's Army the highest economic and resource-allocation priority and positions it as the model for society to emulate. Songun is also the ideological concept behind a shift in policies since 1994 which emphasize the people's military over all other aspects of state and society. History The roots of can be traced back to Kim Il-sung's guerilla activities against the Japanese during the 1930s. During this time, Kim Il-sung came to believe that a nation's independence, sovereignty, and prosperity were dependent on the existence of an organized and well-armed fighting force. The "four military lines" () policy implemented by Kim Il-sung in 1962 was a precursor to . The policy aimed to arm the entire population, fortify the state, educate every soldier to become a party cadre, and modernize the military. did not appear as an official government policy until after Kim Il-sung's death in 1994. In the wake of his first visit to a military unit in 1995, Kim Jong-il, the son of Kim Il-sung, introduced as "a revolutionary idea of attaching great importance to the army" and "a politics emphasizing the perfect unity and the single-hearted unity of the party, army and the people, and the role of the army as the vanguards". This was a shift from the government's previous guiding policy, Kim Il-sung's . According to the North Korean government, Kim Jong-il's inspiration for came from a visit with his father to the Seoul 105th Guards Armored Division headquarters in Pyongyang on 25 August 1960. 25 August is now a national holiday, the Day of Songun. A 1997 editorial published in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea, stated, "Never before have the status and role