Kim Il-sung

Kim Il Sung, born Kim Song Ju on 15 April 1912, was a North Korean communist revolutionary, military officer, politician, and dictator who founded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948 and ruled until his death on 8 July 1994. He was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il and later posthumously declared Eternal President. His tenure of over 45 years made him the third-longest serving non-royal head of state and government in the 20th century. Born in Japanese-ruled Korea, he grew up in northeast China, becoming a communist in his teens and joining anti-Japanese guerrilla groups. In 1931, he joined the Chinese Communist Party, and in 1942 he was assigned to the Soviet Red Army, remaining in the Soviet Union until 1945. After Japan’s surrender in World War II, the Soviet Union installed him as leader of North Korea and head of the Workers' Party of Korea. In 1950, he authorized the invasion of South Korea, triggering a United Nations-led intervention; a ceasefire was signed in 1953 after a military stalemate. Under Kim, North Korea became a totalitarian, socialist, personalist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy, maintaining close ties with the Soviet Union and China. By the 1960s, North Korea’s standard of living slightly exceeded that of a politically chaotic South Korea, but this reversed in the 1970s as South Korea boomed economically while the North stagnated and collapsed. Kim broke from orthodox Marxism–Leninism by developing an ideology centered on independence, self-sustenance, self-defense, and Korean nationalism. Despite a policy of self-reliance, North Korea relied on Soviet and Eastern Bloc aid until the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, which contributed to widespread famine in 1994. North Korea remained critical of U.S. military presence, seizing an American ship in 1968 as part of a reunification campaign. Kim outlived allies Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, serving through six South Korean presidents and ten U.S. presidents. Known as the Great Leader, he established a pervasive personality cult that still dominates domestic politics. At the 6th WPK Congress in 1980, his son Kim Jong Il was elected to the Presidium and chosen as his successor, founding the Kim dynasty.