Kim II Sung Biography

Kim Il-Sung was a North Korean politician and the founding president of North Korea, which he ruled from 1948 until his death in 1994. From 1948 to 1972, he was Premier, and from 1972 to 1994, he was North Korea's first leader. From 1949 to 1994, he was the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) (titled as Chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as General Secretary after 1966). After assuming control following the end of Japanese authority in 1945, he authorised the invasion of South Korea in 1950, prompting a United Nations-led intervention in defence of South Korea. On July 27, 1953, a truce was agreed upon following a military stalemate in the Korean War. With more than 45 years in power, he was the third longest-serving non-royal head of state/government in the twentieth century.

(Image Will Be Updated)

North Korea was formed as a communist state with a publicly controlled and planned economy under his leadership. The Soviet Union was a close political and economic partner. North Korea had a greater level of living in the late 1950s and the 1960s and 1970s than the South, which was mired in political and economic uncertainty. In the 1980s, the situation was reversed, with a new stable South Korea emerging as an economic powerhouse fuelled by Japanese and American investment, military help, and internal economic development, while North Korea stalled and eventually deteriorated during the same period. North Korea and the Soviet Union developed differences, the most notable of which was Kim Il-Juche Sung's philosophy, which emphasised Korean nationalism, self-reliance, and socialism. Despite this, until the fall of the USSR in 1991, the country received cash, subsidies, and aid from the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. The North's economy suffered as a result of the absence of economic aid, resulting in widespread hunger in 1994.

(Image Will Be Updated)

North Korea remained sceptical of the US military force's presence in the region during this time, which it considered imperialist, after seizing the USS Pueblo in 1968 as part of an infiltration and subversion effort to reunify the peninsula under North Korean authority. Kim outlived his allies, Joseph Stalin, by four decades and Mao Zedong by over two decades, and he ruled South Korea and the United States during the administrations of six South Korean presidents and ten US presidents. 

He built a personality cult known as the Great Leader (Suryong), which now dominates domestic politics in North Korea. His oldest son Kim Jong-il was elected to the WPK Presidium and designated to be his successor at the 6th WPK Congress in 1980. The "Day of the Sun," which commemorates Kim Il-birthday Sung's in North Korea, is a national holiday in the country. Kim Il-Sung was designated "eternal President of the Republic" in 1998, four years after his death.

Early Life

Kim's past before the creation of North Korea is shrouded in controversy, with others calling him an impostor. According to several sources, the name "Kim Il-Sung" was originally used by Kim Kyung-Cheon, a significant early leader of the Korean resistance. Kim took the moniker from a deceased previous commander, according to Soviet officer Grigory Mekler, who served with him during the Soviet occupation. According to historian Andrei Lankov, this is unlikely to be the case. Several witnesses, including his commander, Zhou Baozhong, who denied the idea of a "second" Kim in his diaries, knew Kim before and during his stint in the Soviet Union. Japanese officers from the Kwantung Army have attested to his reputation as a resistance fighter, according to historian Bruce Cumings.

(Image Will Be Updated)

While Kim's exploits were exaggerated by the personality cult that grew up around him, historians largely agree that he was a prominent guerilla leader. According to documents held by the National Archives and Records Administration, Kim was once known as Kim Sng-ju and was a nephew of Anti-Japanese General Kim Il-Sung. After his uncle's death, he adopted his uncle's name.

Kim II Sung Family Background

Kim Sung-ju was born to Kim Hyng-jik and Kang Pan-sk, who named him after his two younger brothers, Ch'l-chu (or Kim Chul-ju) and Kim Yng-ju. Kim's ancestors are claimed to have come from Jeonju in North Jeolla Province. Kim Ung-u, his great-grandfather, arrived in Mangyongdae in 1860. Kim is said to have been born on April 15, 1912, in the little town of Mangyongbong (formerly known as Namni) near Pyongyang. Kim Il-Sung was born in his mother's home in Chingjong and later grew up in Mangyongbong, according to an early semi-official biography of Kim Il-Sung released in Japan in 1964 with North Korean sponsorship.

Kim claims that his family was not penniless, but was always on the verge of becoming so. Kim stated that he was reared in a Presbyterian family, that his maternal grandfather was a Protestant preacher, that his father attended a missionary school and was a Presbyterian elder, and that his parents were very involved in the religious community. According to a North Korean government official, Kim's family was involved in anti-Japanese activities and fled to Manchuria in 1920. They resented the Japanese colonisation of the Korean peninsula, which began on August 29, 1910, as did most Korean households. Another theory is that his family moved to Manchuria to escape hunger, as did many Koreans at the time.

(Image Will Be Updated)

Nonetheless, Kim's parents, particularly Kim's mother Kang Ban Suk, were active in the peninsula's anti-Japanese battle. It's unclear whether their cause was a missionary, nationalist, or a combination of the two. Nevertheless, Japanese suppression of Korean descent was brutal, with over 52,000 Korean citizens arrested and detained in 1912. Many Korean families were forced to depart the Korean peninsula and live in Manchuria as a result of the repression.

Kim Il Sung In The Korean War

According to archival evidence, North Korea's invasion of South Korea was initiated by Kim, not by the Soviets.

According to evidence, Soviet intelligence got knowledge on the limitations of US atomic bomb stocks as well as defence programme cuts from espionage sources in the US government and the British SIS, leading Stalin to assume that the Truman administration would not intervene in Korea. After being persuaded by Kim that Stalin had approved the plan, China reluctantly agreed to the notion of Korean reunification. Until late in 1950, when UN troops, mostly US forces, were nearing the Yalu River, the Chinese did not provide direct military support to North Korea (other than through logistics channels).

North Korean soldiers conquered Seoul and occupied most of the South at the start of the war in June and July, except a small area in the southeast corner of the country known as the Pusan Perimeter. The North Koreans were pushed back in September by a US-led military offensive that began with a UN landing in Incheon and was followed by a combined South Korean-US-UN offensive from the Pusan Perimeter. By October, UN forces had recaptured Seoul and invaded the North, bringing the country back under the South's control.

P'yngyang was taken by US and South Korean troops on October 19, forcing Kim and his government to evacuate north, first to Sinuiju and then to Kanggye. Chinese troops in the thousands crossed the Yalu River on October 25, 1950, as friends of the KPA, after delivering several warnings of their plan to interfere if UN forces did not halt their advance. Despite this, Kim and the Chinese leadership had a tense relationship. Kim had been told about the possibility of an amphibious landing at Incheon, but he dismissed the warning.

(Image Will Be Updated)

Death

Kim Il-Sung died of a heart attack at his home in Hyangsan, North Pyongan, in the late morning of July 8, 1994. After his father's heart attack, Kim Jong-il ordered his father's medical team to leave and arranged for the country's best doctors to be flown in from Pyongyang. The Pyongyang medics arrived after several hours, but despite their best efforts, Kim Il-Sung died later that day at the age of 82. His death was announced thirty hours later, after the traditional Confucian mourning period. The death of Kim Il-Sung sparked widespread sadness, with Kim Jong-il declaring ten days of mourning.

His burial was held in Pyongyang on July 17, 1994, and hundreds of thousands of people were flown in from all across North Korea to attend. Kim Il-body Sung's was laid to rest in a public mausoleum at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where his preserved and embalmed body is displayed in a glass casket. His head is propped up on a traditional Korean pillow, and he is draped in the Workers' Party of Korea flag. Newsreel footage of Pyongyang's burial was carried on multiple networks and is now available on several websites.

Works

Kim Il-Sung wrote a large number of works. These include around 10,800 speeches, reports, books, treatises, and other documents, according to North Korean sources. The Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House publishes some, such as the 100-volume Complete Collection of Kim Il-Works. Sung wrote an eight-volume autobiography, With the Century, shortly before his death. Kim Il-Sung, according to official North Korean sources, was the original author of several dramas and operas. One of these, The Flower Girl, a revolutionary theatrical opera, was made into a feature film in 1972 by a local production company.

Awards

Kim Il-Sung earned 230 foreign orders, medals, and titles from 70 countries between the 1940s and his death, according to North Korean sources. The Soviet Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin (twice), the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (first class), the Bulgarian Order of Georgi Dimitrov (twice), the Togolese Order of Mono (Grand Cross), the Order of the Yugoslav Star (Great Star), the Cuban Order of José Marta (twice), the East German Order of Karl Marx (twice), the Maltese Xirka ir-Republika, the Order of the Gold Star of Nahouri in Burkina Faso, the Order of the Grand Star of Honour in Socialist Ethiopia, the Nicaraguan Augusto Cesar Sandino Order [es], the Vietnamese Gold Star Order, the Czechoslovak Order of Klement Gottwald, the Royal Order of Cambodia (Grand Cross), the National Order of Madagascar (first class, Grand Cross), the Mongolian Order of Sukhbaatar, and the Romanian orders of Sukhbaa (first class with band).

(Image Will Be Updated)