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Eternal President of the Republic
(Ceremonial (Constitution of North
Korea Amendment, 5 September 1998))
Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994)
was a Korean communist politician who led North Korea
from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He
held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and
President from 1972 to his death. He was also the
General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea.
During his tenure as leader of North Korea, he ruled
the nation with autocratic power and established an
all-pervasive cult of personality. From the mid-1960s,
he promoted his self-developed Juche variant of
communist national organisation. Along with South Korean
leader Park Chung-hee, Kim Il-sung was named one of the
top 100 Asians of the Century by Time magazine
(1999), and in the latest (2009) Library of Congress
Country Study on North Korea, he is described as
"one of the most intriguing figures of the
twentieth century", outliving Joseph Stalin by four
decades, Mao Zedong by two, and remaining in power
during the terms of office of six South Korean
presidents, nine U.S. presidents, and 21 Japanese prime
ministers.
Following his death in 1994, he was succeeded by his
son Kim Jong-il. North Korea officially refers to Kim
Il-sung as the "Great Leader" (Suryong
in Korean 수령) and he is designated in the
constitution as the country's "Eternal
President". His birthday is a public holiday in
North Korea.
Life
Early
years
Many of the early records of his life come from his
own personal accounts and official North Korean
government publications, which often conflict with
independent sources. Nevertheless, there is some
consensus on at least the basic story of his early life,
corroborated by witnesses from the period.
Kim was born to Kim Hyŏng-jik and Kang Pan-sŏk,
who gave him the name Kim Sŏng-ju, and had
two younger brothers, Ch’ŏl-chu and Yŏng-ju.
The ancestral seat of Kim's family is Chŏnju, North
Chŏlla Province, and what little that is known
about the family contends that sometime around the time
of the Korean-Japanese war of 1592–98, a direct
ancestor moved north. The claim may be understood in
light of the fact that the early Chosŏn
government’s policy of populating the north resulted
in mass resettlement of southern farmers in Phyŏngan
and Hamgyŏng regions in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. At any rate, the majority of the Chŏnju
Kim today live in North Korea, and extant Chŏnju
Kim genealogies provide spotty records.
The exact history of Kim's family is somewhat
obscure. The family was neither very poor nor
comfortably well-off, but was always a step away from
poverty. Kim was raised in a Presbyterian family; his
maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister, his
father had gone to a missionary school and was an elder
in the Presbyterian Church, and both his parents were
reportedly very active in the religious community. Kim
was an accomplished church organist. According to the
official version, Kim’s family participated in
anti-Japanese activities and in 1920 they fled to
Manchuria. The more objective view seems to be that his
family settled in Manchuria like many Koreans at the
time to escape famine. Nonetheless, Kim’s parents
apparently did play a minor role in some activist
groups, though whether their cause was missionary,
nationalist, or both is unclear.
Kim's father died in 1926, when Kim was fourteen
years old. Kim attended Yuwen Middle School in Jilin
from 1927 to 1930, where he rejected the feudal
traditions of older generation Koreans and became
interested in Communist ideologies; his formal education
ended when he was arrested and jailed for his subversive
activities. At seventeen, Kim had become the youngest
member of an underground Marxist organization with fewer
than twenty members, led by Hŏ So, who belonged to
the South Manchurian Communist Youth Association. The
police discovered the group three weeks after it was
formed in 1929, and jailed Kim for several months.
Communist
and guerrilla activities
The Communist Party of Korea had been founded in
1925, but had been thrown out of the Comintern in the
early 1930s for being too nationalist. In 1931, Kim had
joined the Communist Party of China. He joined various
anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China, and in
1935 he became a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese
United Army, a guerrilla group led by the Communist
Party of China. Kim was appointed the same year to serve
as political commissar for the 3rd detachment of the
second division, around 160 soldiers. It was here that
Kim met the man who would become his mentor as a
Communist, Wei Zhengmin, Kim’s immediate superior
officer, who was serving at the time as chairman of the
Political Committee of the Northeast Anti-Japanese
United Army. Wei reported directly to Kang Sheng, a
high-ranking party member close to Mao Zedong in Yan'an,
until Wei’s death on 8 March 1941.
Also in 1935 Kim took the name Kim Il-sung, meaning
"become the sun." The name had previously been
used by a prominent early leader of the Korean
resistance. Soviet propagandist Grigory Mekler, who
claims to have prepared Kim to lead North Korea, says
that Kim assumed this name while in the Soviet Union in
the early 1940s from a former commander who had died. On
the other hand, some Koreans simply did not believe that
Kim, in his 30s at the time of the DPRK's founding,
could have done everything that state propaganda
claimed. Historian Andrei Lankov has claimed that the
rumor Kim Il-Sung was somehow switched with the
“original” Kim is unlikely to be true. Several
witnesses knew Kim before and after his time in the
Soviet Union, including his superior, Zhou Baozhong, who
dismissed the claim of a “second” Kim in his
diaries.
Kim was appointed commander of the 6th division in
1937, at the age of 24, controlling a few hundred men in
a group that came to be known as “Kim Il Sung’s
division.” It was while he was in command of this
division that he executed a raid on Poch’onbo, on 4
June. Although Kim’s division only captured a small
Japanese-held town just across the Korean border for a
few hours, it was nonetheless considered a military
success at this time, when the guerrilla units had
experienced difficulty in capturing any enemy territory.
This accomplishment would grant Kim some measure of fame
among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies
would later exploit it as a great victory for Korea. Kim
was appointed commander of the 2nd operational region
for the 1st Army, but by the end of 1940, he was the
only 1st Army leader still alive. Pursued by Japanese
troops, Kim and what remained of his army escaped by
crossing the Amur River into the Soviet Union. Kim was
sent to a camp near Khabarovsk, where the Korean
Communist guerrillas were retrained by the Soviets. Kim
became a Captain in the Soviet Red Army and served in it
until the end of World War II.
In later years, Kim would heavily embellish his
guerrilla feats in order to build up his personality
cult. He was portrayed as a boy-conspirator who joined
the resistance at 14 and had founded a battle-ready army
at 19. North Korean students are taught that this
Kim-led army singlehandedly drove the Japanese off the
peninsula.
Return
to Korea
When the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in August
1945, it fully expected a long, drawn-out conflict.
However, much to Stalin's surprise, the Red Army churned
into Pyongyang with almost no resistance on 15 August.
Stalin realized he needed someone to head a puppet
regime. He asked Lavrenty Beria to recommend possible
candidates. Beria met Kim several times before
recommending him to Stalin. It is widely believed that
Kim was selected over several more qualified candidates
because he had no ties to the native Communist movement.
Kim arrived in North Korea on 22 August after 26
years in exile. According to Leonid Vassin, an officer
with the Soviet MVD, Kim was essentially "created
from zero." For one, his Korean was marginal at
best; he'd only had eight years of formal education, all
of it in Chinese. He needed considerable coaching to
read a speech the MVD prepared for him at a Communist
Party congress three days after he arrived. They also
systematically destroyed most of the true leaders of the
resistance who ended up north of the 38th parallel.
In September 1945, Kim was installed by the Soviets
as head of the Provisional People’s Committee. He was
not, at this time, the head of the Communist Party,
whose headquarters were in Seoul in the US-occupied
south. During his early years as leader, he assumed a
position of influence largely due to the backing of the
Korean population which was supportive of his fight
against Japanese occupation.
Kim Il-sung in 1946
One of Kim’s accomplishments was his establishment
of a professional army, the Korean People's Army
(KPA) aligned with the Communists, formed from a cadre
of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat
experience in battles against the Japanese and later
Nationalist Chinese troops. From their ranks, using
Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed a large
army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla
warfare. Before the outbreak of the Korean War, Joseph
Stalin equipped the KPA with modern heavy tanks, trucks,
artillery, and small arms. Kim also formed an air force,
equipped at first with ex-Soviet propeller-driven
fighter and attack aircraft. Later, North Korean pilot
candidates were sent to the Soviet Union and China to
train in MiG-15 jet aircraft at secret bases.
Prime
Minister of North Korea
Although original plans called for all-Korean
elections sponsored by the United Nations, in May 1948
the South declared statehood as the Republic of Korea,
and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was
proclaimed on 9 September, with Kim as premier. On 12
October, the Soviet Union declared that Kim's regime was
the only lawful government on the peninsula. The
Communist Party merged with the New People's Party to
form the Workers Party of North Korea (of which Kim was
vice-chairman). In 1949, the Workers Party of North
Korea merged with its southern counterpart to become the
Workers Party of Korea (WPK) with Kim as party chairman.
By 1949, North Korea was a full-fledged Communist
dictatorship. All parties and mass organizations were
cajoled into the Democratic Front for the Reunification
of the Fatherland, ostensibly a popular front but in
reality dominated by the Communists. Around this time,
Kim built the first of many statues of himself and began
calling himself "the Great Leader."
Leader
of North Korea
Restored as the leader of North Korea, Kim returned
to the country after war's end and immediately embarked
on a large reconstruction effort for the country
devastated by the war. He launched a five-year national
economic plan to establish a command economy, with all
industry owned by the state and all agriculture
collectivised. The nation was founded on egalitarian
principles intent on eliminating class differences and
the economy was based upon the needs of workers and
peasants. The economy was focused on heavy industry and
arms production. Both South and North Korea retained
huge armed forces to defend the 1953 Demilitarized Zone,
although no foreign troops were permanently stationed in
North Korea.
Kim's hold on power was rather shaky. To strengthen
it, he claimed that the United States deliberately
spread diseases among the North Korean population. While
Moscow and Beijing later determined that these charges
were false, they continued to help spread this rumour
for many years to come. He also conducted North Korea's
first large-scale purges in part to scare the people
into accepting this false account. Unlike Stalin's Great
Purge, these took place without even the formalities of
a trial. Victims often simply disappeared into the
growing network of prison camps.
During the late 1950s, Kim was seen as an orthodox
Communist leader, and an enthusiastic satellite of the
Soviet Union. His speeches were liberally sprinkled with
praises to Stalin. However, he sided with China during
the Sino-Soviet split, opposing the reforms brought by
Nikita Khrushchev, whom he believed was acting in
opposition to Communism. He distanced himself from the
Soviet Union, removing mention of his Red Army career
from official history, and began reforming the country
to his own radical Stalinist tastes. Kim was seen by
many in North Korea, and in some parts elsewhere in the
world, as an influential anti-revisionist leader in the
communist movement. In 1956, anti-Kim elements
encouraged by de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union
emerged within the Party to criticize Kim and demand
reforms. After a period of vacillation, Kim instituted a
purge, executing some who had been found guilty of
treason and forcing the rest into exile.
By the 1960s, Kim's relationship with the great
Communist powers in the region became difficult. Despite
his opposition to de-Stalinization, Kim never severed
his relations with the Soviets, since he found the
Chinese as unreliable allies due to the unstable state
of affairs under Mao, leaving the DPRK somewhere in
between the two sides. The Cultural Revolution, however,
prompted Kim to side with the Soviets, the decision
reinforced by the neo-Stalinist policies of Leonid
Brezhnev. This infuriated Mao and the anti-Soviet Red
Guards. As a result, the PRC immediately denounced Kim's
leadership, produced anti-Kim propaganda, and
subsequently began reconciliation with the United States
In the mid-1960s, Kim became impressed with the
efforts of Hồ Chí Minh to reunify Vietnam through
guerilla warfare and thought something similar might be
possible in Korea. Infiltration and subversion efforts
were thus greatly stepped up against US forces and the
leadership that they supported. These efforts culminated
in an attempt to storm the Blue House and assassinate
President Park Chung-hee. North Korean troops thus took
a much more aggressive stance toward US forces in and
around South Korea, engaging US Army troops in
fire-fights along the Demilitarized Zone. The 1968
capture of the crew of the spy ship USS Pueblo
was a part of this campaign.
A new constitution was proclaimed in December 1972,
under which Kim became President of North Korea. In 1980
he had decided that his son Kim Jong-il would succeed
him, and increasingly delegated the running of the
government to him. The Kim family was supported by the
army, due to Kim Il-sung’s revolutionary record and
the support of the veteran defense minister, O Chin-u.
At the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, Kim
publicly designated his son as his successor.
Later
yeas
From about this time, however, North Korea
encountered increasing economic difficulties. The
practical effect of Juche was to cut the country
off from virtually all foreign trade. The economic
reforms of Deng Xiaoping in China from 1979 onward meant
that trade with the moribund economy of North Korea held
decreasing interest for China. The collapse of communism
in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, during
1989–1991, completed North Korea's virtual isolation.
These events led to mounting economic difficulties.
North Korea repeatedly predicted that Korea would be
re-united before Kim’s 70th birthday in 1982, and
there were fears in the West that Kim would launch a new
Korean War. But by this time, the disparity in economic
and military power between the North and the South
(where the US military presence continues) made such a
venture impossible.
As he aged, starting the late 1970s, Kim developed a
growth on the back of his neck which was a calcium
deposit. Its location near his brain and spinal cord
made it inoperable. Because of its unappealing nature,
North Korean photographers always shot and filmed him
from the same slight-left angle, which became a
difficult task as the growth reached the size of a
baseball.This growth is still visible on his embalmed
body.
In early 1994, Kim began investing in nuclear power
to offset energy shortages brought on by economic
problems. This was the first of many "nuclear
crises". On 19 May 1994, Kim ordered spent fuel to
be unloaded from the already disputed nuclear research
facility in Yongbyon. Despite repeated chiding from
Western nations, Kim continued to conduct nuclear
research and carry on with the uranium enrichment
programme. In June 1994, former President Jimmy Carter
travelled to Pyongyang for talks with Kim. To the
astonishment of the United States and the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Kim agreed to stop his nuclear
research program and seemed to be embarking upon a new
opening to the West.
Death
By the early 1990s, North Korea was nearly completely
isolated from the outside world, except for limited
trade and contacts with China, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba.
Its economy was virtually bankrupt, crippled by huge
expenditures on armaments, with an agricultural sector
unable to feed its population, but state-run North
Korean media continued to lionize Kim.
On 8 July 1994, at age 82, Kim Il-sung collapsed from
a sudden heart attack. After the heart attack, Kim
Jong-il ordered the team of doctors who were constantly
at his father's side to leave, and for the country's
best doctors to be flown in from Pyongyang. After
several hours, the doctors from Pyongyang arrived, and
despite their best efforts to save him, Kim Il-sung
died. After the traditional Confucian Mourning period,
his death was declared thirty hours later.
Kim Il-sung's death caused a nationwide mourning
crisis, and a ten-day mourning period was declared by
Kim Jong-il. His funeral in Pyongyang was attended by
hundreds of thousands of people from all over North
Korea, many of whom were mourning dramatically (there
were reports that many people committed suicide or were
killed in the resulting mass mourning crushes), weeping
and crying Kim Il-sung's name during the funeral
procession. Kim Il-sung's body was placed in a public
mausoleum at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where his
preserved and embalmed body lies under a glass coffin
for viewing purposes. His head rests on a Korean-style
pillow and he is covered by the flag of the Workers
Party of Korea. Video of the funeral at Pyongyang was
broadcast on several networks, and can now be found on
various websites.
Family
life
Kim Il-sung married twice. His first wife, Kim
Jong-suk, bore him two sons and a daughter. Kim Jong-il
is his oldest son. The other son (Kim Man-il, or Shura
Kim) of this marriage died in 1947 in a swimming
accident and his wife Kim Jong-suk died at the age of 31
while giving birth to a stillborn baby girl. Kim married
Kim Sŏng-ae in 1952, and it is believed he had
three children with her: Kim Yŏng-il, Kim Kyŏng-il
and Kim Pyong-il. Kim Pyong-il was prominent in Korean
politics until he became ambassador to Hungary. Since
1998 he is ambassador to Poland.
Kim was reported to have other illegitimate children,
as he was well known for having numerous affairs and
secret relationships. They included Kim Hyŏn-nam
(born 1972, head of the Propaganda and Agitation
Department of the Workers' Party since 2002) and
Chang-hyŏn (born 1971, adopted by Kim Jong-il's
sister Kim Kyŏng-hŭi).
Kim's
name and image
There are over 500 statues of Kim Il-sung in North
Korea. The most prominent are at Kim Il-sung University,
Kim Il-sung Stadium, Kim Il-sung Square, Kim Il-sung
Bridge and the Immortal Statue of Kim Il-sung. Some
statues have been destroyed by explosions or damaged
with graffiti. Yeong Saeng ("eternal
life") monuments have been erected throughout the
country, each dedicated to the departed "Eternal
Leader", at which citizens are expected to pay
annual tribute on his official birthday or the
commemoration of his death.]
It is also traditional that North Korean newly weds,
immediately after their wedding, go to the nearest
statue of Kim Il Sung to lay flowers at his feet.
Kim Il-sung's image is prominent in places associated
with public transportation, hanging at every North
Korean train station and airport. It is also placed
prominently at the border crossings between China and
North Korea. His portrait is featured on the front of
all recent North Korean won banknotes. Thousands of
gifts to Kim Il-sung from foreign leaders are housed in
the International Friendship Exhibition.
Works
Kim Il-sung was the author of many works and they are
published in books. His works are published by the
Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House and among them
are "Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works"
and "Collection of Kim Il Sung's Selected Works".
These include new year speeches, and other speeches
delivered on different occasions. Shortly before his
death, he also published an autobiography entitled
"With the Century" in 8 volumes.
According to official North Korean sources, Kim
Il-sung was also the original writer of The Flower
Girl, a revolutionary theatrical opera, which was
made into a film adaptation in 1972.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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