Kim Il Sung (born Kim Song Ju; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean communist revolutionary, military officer, politician, and dictator who founded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), also known as North Korea, in 1948, and led it until his death in 1994. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il and posthumously declared Eternal President. He was the third-longest serving non-royal head of state and government in the 20th century, in office for more than 45 years.
Kim was born in Japanese-ruled Korea and grew up in northeast China. During his teenage years, he became a communist and joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups, eventually joining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1931, in which year northeast China was occupied by Japan. Kim took part in several groups led by the CCP. In 1942, he was assigned to the Soviet Red Army, leading him to stay in the Soviet Union until 1945. Following the division of Korea after Japan's surrender in World War II, he was put into power by the Soviet Union in North Korea, which also installed him as the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea. Kim Il Sung authorized the invasion of South Korea in 1950, triggering an intervention in defense of South Korea by the United Nations led by the United States. Following the military stalemate in the Korean War, a ceasefire was signed in 1953.
Under Kim's leadership, North Korea was established as a totalitarian, socialist, personalist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy. It had close political and economic relations with the Soviet Union and China. By the 1960s, North Korea had a slightly higher standard of living than the South, which was suffering from political chaos and economic crises. This was reversed in the 1970s, as a newly stable South Korea became an economic powerhouse while North Korea's economy stagnated and then collapsed. Kim also broke off from orthodox Marxism–Leninism by developing the ideology of Juche, which focused on the principles of "independence, self-sustenance and self-defence" and Korean nationalism.
Despite the official policy of "self-reliance" (jaryok gaengsaeng, Korean: 자력갱생), North Korea received funds, subsidies and aid from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The resulting loss of economic aid negatively affected North Korea's economy, contributing to widespread famine in 1994. During this period, North Korea also remained critical of the United States military's presence in the region, which it considered imperialist, having seized the American ship USS Pueblo in 1968. This was part of an infiltration and subversion campaign to reunify the peninsula under North Korea's rule. Kim outlived his allies, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, by many years, and remained in power during the terms of office of six South Korean presidents and ten United States presidents. Known as the Great Leader (Suryong), he established a far-reaching personality cult which dominates domestic politics in North Korea. At the 6th WPK Congress in 1980, his oldest son, Kim Jong Il, was elected to be a Presidium member and chosen as his successor, establishing the Kim dynasty.
Kim Il Sung was born Kim Sung Ju to independence activist Kim Hyong-jik and Kang Pan Sok. Kim had two younger brothers, Kim Ch'ŏlchu and Kim Yong-ju. Kim Hyong Jik also had an adopted son Kim Ryong-ho, born in 1911. Kim Chol Ju died while fighting the Japanese and Kim Yong-ju came to be involved in the North Korean government; he was considered as an heir to his brother before he fell out of favor.
Kim's family, part of the Jeonju Kim clan, is said to have originated in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. In 1860, his great-grandfather, Kim Ŭngu, settled in the Mangyongdae neighborhood of Pyongyang. Kim was reportedly born in the small village of Mangyongdae-guyok (then called Namni) or Chilgol, near Pyongyang (then called Heijō) on 15 April 1912. According to a 1964 semi-official biography of Kim, he was born in his mother's home in Chingjong, and later grew up in Mangyongdae-guyok.
According to Kim, his family was always a step away from poverty. Kim said that he was raised by a very active Presbyterian Christian family. His maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister. His father had gone to a missionary school, and he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
In 1919, Kim Hyong-jik participated in the anti-Japanese March First Movement. Like most Korean families, Kim's family resented the Japanese occupation of Korea (which had begun on 29 August 1910). Japanese repression of Korean opposition was harsh, resulting in the arrest and detention of more than 52,000 Korean citizens in 1912 alone. This repression had forced many Korean families to flee the Korean Peninsula, and settle in Manchuria.
In May 1919, Kim Hyong-jik took Kim Sung Ju and the rest of the family to flee to China and settle in Badaogou. Nevertheless, Kim's parents, especially his mother, played a role in the anti-Japanese struggle that was sweeping the peninsula. Their exact involvement – whether their cause was missionary, nationalist, or both – is unclear.
Communist and guerrilla activities
North Korean government sources credit Kim with founding the Down-with-Imperialism Union in 1926, though most scholarly sources reject this. He attended Whasung Military Academy in 1926, but found the academy's training methods outdated and quit it in 1927. He then attended Yuwen Middle School in Jilin, China, until 1930, when he rejected the traditions of older-generation Koreans and became interested in communist ideology. Seventeen-year-old Kim became the youngest member of the Korean Communist Youth Association, an underground organization with fewer than twenty members. It was led by Hŏ So (허소; 許笑), who belonged to the South Manchurian Communist Youth Association. The police discovered the group three weeks after it formed in 1929, and jailed Kim for several months. Kim's formal education ended after his arrest and imprisonment.
He joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China, such as the Korean Revolutionary Army of the National People's Government, eventually becoming a member of the organisation committee for Fusong and Antu of the Korean Farmers' General Union in Eastern Provinces in 1930. In the same year, he became a member of the Military Political Council of the Army of the World Fire, which was established by former National People's Government member Lee Jong-nak, Feelings against the Japanese ran high in Manchuria, but as of May 1930 the Japanese had not yet occupied Manchuria. On 30 May 1930, a spontaneous violent uprising in eastern Manchuria arose in which peasants attacked some local villages in the name of resisting "Japanese aggression". The authorities easily suppressed this impromptu uprising. Because of the attack, the Japanese began to plan an occupation of Manchuria. In a speech Kim allegedly made before a meeting of Young Communist League delegates on 20 May 1931 in Yenchi County in Manchuria, he warned the delegates against such unplanned uprisings as the 30 May 1930 uprising in eastern Manchuria.
Four months later, on 18 September 1931, the Mukden incident occurred, in which a relatively weak dynamite explosive charge went off near a Japanese railroad in the town of Mukden in Manchuria. Although no damage occurred, the Japanese used the incident as an excuse to send armed forces into Manchuria and to appoint a puppet government. In 1931, Kim joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – the Communist Party of Korea had been founded in 1925, but had been thrown out of the Communist International in the early 1930s for being too nationalist. From February 1932, he worked as a propagandaist in the Chinese People's National Salvation Army after being recruited by Wang Delin. However, after the Nationalist government ordered a purge of communists, Wang expelled the entire unit of propagandaists where Kim served. Afterwards, Kim joined the CCP-created Antu partisan unit. This unit was later merged with other units to create the Wangqing Anti-Japanese Partisan Unit, with Kim becoming its commissioner.