Kim Il-sung

born April 15, 1912, Man'gyŏndae, near P'yŏngyang, Korea [now in North Korea]

died July 8, 1994, P'yŏngyang

original name Kim Song Ju communist leader of North Korea from 1948 until his death in 1994. He was the nation's premier from 1948 to 1972, chairman of its dominant Korean Workers (Communist) Party from 1949, and president and head of state from 1972.

Kim was the son of parents who fled to Manchuria in 1925 to escape the Japanese rule of Korea. He joined the Korean guerrilla resistance against the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and adopted the name of an earlier legendary Korean guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. Kim was noticed by the Soviet military authorities, who sent him to the Soviet Union for military and political training.

During World War II, Kim led a Korean contingent as a major in the Soviet Red Army. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Korea was effectively divided between a Soviet-occupied northern half and a U.S.-supported southern half. At this time Kim returned with other Soviet-trained Koreans to establish a communist provisional government under Soviet auspices in what would become North Korea. He became the first premier of the newly formed Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1948. Hoping to reunify Korea by force, Kim launched an invasion of South Korea in 1950, thereby igniting the Korean War. His attempt to extend his rule there was repelled by U.S. troops and other UN forces, however, and it was only through massive Chinese support that he was able to repel a subsequent invasion of North Korea by UN forces.

After the end of the Korean War in 1953, Kim crushed the remaining domestic opposition and eliminated his last rivals for power within North Korea's Communist Party. He became his country's absolute ruler and set about transforming North Korea into an austere, militaristic, and highly regimented society devoted to the twin goals of industrialization and the reunification of the Korean Peninsula under North Korean rule. Kim introduced a philosophy of juche, or “self-reliance,” under which North Korea tried to develop its economy with little or no help from foreign countries. North Korea's state-run economy grew rapidly in the 1950s and '60s but eventually stagnated, with shortages of food occurring by the early '90s. The omnipresent personality cult sponsored by Kim was part of a highly effective propaganda system that enabled him to rule unchallenged for 46 years over one of the world's most isolated and repressive societies. In his foreign policy he cultivated close ties with both the Soviet Union and China and remained consistently hostile to South Korea and the United States.

While retaining control of the Korean Workers Party, Kim relinquished the office of premier and was elected president of North Korea in December 1972. In 1980 he raised his son Kim Chong Il to high posts in the party and the military, in effect designating the younger Kim as his heir.