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Kim Il Sung

Kim Il Sung[d][e] (/kɪm ɪlˈsʌŋ, -ˈsʊŋ/;[3] Korean: 김일성, Korean pronunciation: [kimils͈ʌŋ]; born Kim Sung Ju;[f][4] 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he led as Supreme Leader from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. Afterwards, he was declared eternal president.

Eternal President
Kim Il Sung

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Himself (as Chairman)

Kim Jong Il

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See list

Office established[a]

Office abolished[b][c]

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Kim Tu-bong

Himself (as General Secretary)

Kim Il

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Office established

Kim Il

Choe Yong-gon

Kim Jong Il

Kim Song Ju

(1912-04-15)15 April 1912
Namni, Heian'nan-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan(present-day Mangyongdae, Pyongyang, North Korea)

8 July 1994(1994-07-08) (aged 82)
Hyangsan Residence, Hyangsan County, North Pyongan Province, North Korea

Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, Pyongyang

North Korean

Workers' Party of Korea

6, including Kim Jong Il, Kim Man-il, Kim Kyong-hui and Kim Pyong Il

Kim family

  • 1941–1945
  • 1948–1994

88th Separate Rifle Brigade, Red Army

All (Supreme Commander)

김일성

Gim Il(-)seong

Kim Ilsŏng

김성주

Gim Seong(-)ju

Kim Sŏngju

He held the posts of the Premier from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) from 1949 to 1994 (titled as chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as general secretary after 1966). Coming to power after the end of Japanese rule over Korea in 1945 following Japan's surrender in World War II, he 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 July 1953. He was the third-longest serving non-royal head of state/government in the 20th century, in office for more than 45 years.


Under his leadership, North Korea was established as a totalitarian socialist personalist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy. It had very close political and economic relations with the Soviet Union. By the 1960s, North Korea had a slightly higher standard of living than the South, which was suffering from political chaos and economic crises. The situation was reversed in the 1970s, as a newly stable South Korea became an economic powerhouse which was fueled by Japanese and American investment, military aid and internal economic development, while North Korea stagnated and then declined during the same period.[5] Differences emerged between North Korea and the Soviet Union; chief among them was Kim Il Sung's philosophy of Juche, which focused on Korean nationalism and self-reliance. Despite this, the country received funds, subsidies and aid from the USSR and the Eastern Bloc until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.


The resulting loss of economic aid negatively affected the North's economy, contributing to widespread famine in 1994. During this period, North Korea also remained critical of the United States defense force'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 by over four decades and Mao Zedong by almost two decades 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 to be his successor, thus establishing the Kim dynasty.

List of international trips made by Kim Il Sung

List of things named after Kim Il Sung

""

Song of General Kim Il Sung

Residences of North Korean leaders

Communism in Korea

Korean independence movement

"From Birth to Triumphant Return to Homeland", "From Building Democratic Korea to Chollima Flight", and "From Independent National Economy to 10-Point Political Programme".

Baik Bong

Blair, Clay, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, Naval Institute Press (2003).

The Ministry Of Truth: Kim Jong Il's North Korea, Feral House, October 2007, 132 pp, 88 color photographs, ISBN 978-1-932595-27-7.

Kracht, Christian

. "Kim Il-Song of North Korea." Asian Survey. University of California Press. Vol. 7, No. 6, June 1967. doi:10.2307/2642612. JSTOR 2642612

Lee Chong-Sik

NKIDP: Crisis and Confrontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968–1969, A Critical Oral History

Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatoli, Schecter, Jerrold L., and Schecter, Leona P., Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness – A Soviet Spymaster, Little Brown, Boston (1994).

Szalontai, Balázs, Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev Era: Soviet–DPRK Relations and the Roots of North Korean Despotism, 1953–1964. Stanford: Stanford University Press; Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press (2005).

Nicolae Ceausescu's visit to Pyongyang, North Korea, in 1971

at the Wilson Center Digital Archive

"Conversations with Kim Il Sung"

at Curlie

Kim Il Sung