The term "Arduous March", or "The March of Suffering" became a metaphor for the famine following a state propaganda campaign in 1993. The Rodong Sinmun urged the North Korean citizenry to invoke the memory of a fable from Kim Il-sung's time as a commander of a small group of anti-Japanese guerrilla fighters. The story, referred to as the Arduous March, is described as "fighting against thousands of enemies in 20 degrees below zero, braving through a heavy snowfall and starvation, the red flag fluttering in front of the rank."[10]