Kim Il-sung

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	김일성
Hancha	金日成
Revised Romanization	Gim Il-seong
McCune- Reischauer	Kim Ilsŏng
Birth Name
Chosŏn'gŭl	김성주
Hancha	金 成 柱
Revised Romanization	Gim Seong-ju
McCune- Reischauer	Kim Sŏngchu
See also : Korean name

Kim Il-sung 1950

Kim Il-sung (also Kim Il Sung , Korean 김일성 , according to the old transcription Kim Ir-sen ; born as Kim Song-chu ; born April 15, 1912 in Mankeidai , then Japanese Empire , North Korea ; died July 8, 1994 in Pyongyang ) was a communist North Korean politician and the Stalinist dictator of North Korea from 1948 to 1994 . As the “Eternal President”, he is considered to be de jure head of state of North Korea even after death . In North Korean propaganda he is referred to as the "Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung" ( 위대한 수령 김일성 동지 Widaehan Suryŏng Kim Il Sŏng Tongji ).

After his death, his son Kim Jong-il became the chief ruler of North Korea. He died in 2011 and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un as head of state. Partly, therefore, is spoken of the first "communist dynasty ".

Life

Origin and childhood

Kim Il-sung's birthplace in Mangyŏngdae

Kim Il-sung was born in 1912 under the name Kim Song-chu in Mankeidai near Heijō (Pyongyang). His father Kim Hyong-sik (born July 10, 1894, † June 5, 1926) worked temporarily as a teacher, his mother Kang Ban-sok (born April 21, 1892, † July 31, 1932) was the daughter of a Protestant clergyman. Both were devout Protestants , his father was temporarily active in the mission. Kim Il-sung had two younger brothers and a sister. According to North Korean sources, his brother Kim Chol-ju died in the armed struggle against the Japanese in 1935. His brother Kim Yong-ju held high positions in North Korea at times. In December 1993 he was appointed Vice President by Kim Il-sung. All that is known about his sister Kim Den-suk is that she studied in Leningrad in the early 1950s .

Around 1920 the family, who lived in great poverty in the Chosen Province (equivalent to Korea, which was annexed to the Japanese territory ten years earlier) of the Japanese Empire, emigrated to Manchuria , which has been increasingly populated by Koreans since the 19th century . Kim completed most of his seven-year schooling here, studying Chinese and Russian . In 1927, according to official Korean sources, by August of the following year he is said to have founded an anti-Japanese youth and revolutionary farmers' association and two other organizations. This is at least not verifiable and also rather improbable because of his young age at the time. In 1933, for example, no report by the Japanese secret services pointed to the activities of Kim Il-sung. However, he joined a Marxist group and was arrested at the age of 17 after they were evicted in 1929. After his release, he joined the anti-Japanese partisan movement .

Name change

Like other guerrilla fighters he took in the 1930s, the nom de guerre "Kim Il-sung" at ( il has the meaning sun ). In some cases it was rumored that he had taken the name of another anti-Japanese guerrilla leader in order to make his fame his own. However, there is no historical evidence for the existence of this alleged other military leader. Most North Koreans knew his name and the stories of his supposed heroics early on. The name "General Kim Il-sung" laid the foundation stone for the personality cult around the North Korean leader even before the DPRK was founded .

Political activity

Kim Il-sung became political commissar in the " United Northeastern Anti-Japanese Army " in 1935 . On June 4, 1937, now as commander of the 6th Division, he led an attack against the Pochonbo police station, which is operated by people of Japanese origin, not far from the northern border of North Korea. This attack by 180 partisans of Korean origin against 30 police officers is shown on a panorama in the Pyongyang Army Museum as the “ Battle of Pochonbo ”. North Korea explains that the base of operations of General Kim Il-sung was on the Hakudō massif in the northern part of the country in the 1930s. As evidence for this, so-called “tree of slogans” are cited all over the country. On their trunks can be seen writings that are said to have originated in the period up to 1945 and which point to an anti-Japanese partisan movement and its headquarters on Hakudōsan . This evidence is doubted by Western scientists; since 1956, this area has been largely developed through 800 km of political excursion routes and monuments. There is also a summer residence of the "eternal president" there. At the end of the 1930s, the already rare advances by Korean-born partisans, who operated from Manchukuo , ceased . Until 1945 there was no fighting in Chosen.

In 1940 Kim Il-sung withdrew with other partisans to the Soviet Union because of the increased pressure from the Japanese colonial power . The exact time is not clear. In early 1941 he took part in a Red Army commander training course at the Okeanskaya Field School near Vladivostok . He then lived in the company of other emigrants of Korean origin in Khabarovsk , where many of these people had lived up to the 1930s, but who had been relocated to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by Joseph Stalin . In the village of Vyatskoye near Khabarovsk, the 88th Rifle Brigade of the Red Army was formed from partisans of Korean origin . From 1943 to 1944 he was a captain of the Red Army battalion commander in the 88th Rifle Brigade of the 2nd Far Eastern Army in the Primorye region .

Kim's son Juri, who later became Kim Jong-il , was born in the Soviet Union in 1941 . His mother, Kim Jong-suk , was also a Korean-born partisan. She was Kim Il-sung's first wife. Kim's second son Shura ( 김 수라 / 金 受 羅 ; Kim Man-il, 김만일 / 金 萬一 ) was born in Vjatskoje in 1944 and their daughter Kim Kyŏng-hŭi in Pyongyang in 1946 . Shura drowned in a pond in the garden of his father's house in Pyongyang in 1947. Kim Jong-suk died in 1949. After her death, Kim Il-sung married his second wife, Kim Song-ae , in 1952 , even though there was no formal ceremony due to the Korean War. They were married to each other until his death in 1994. Kim Il-sung had an affair with her before his first wife died. She gave birth to a daughter (Kim Kyong-jin) and two sons in 1953: Kim Pyong-il in 1954 and Kim Yong-il in 1957.

From 1944 onwards, Kim and other Korean people in Khabarovsk were promoted by the Soviet government to prepare them for a leading political role in post-war Korea. When in August 1945 North Korea was taken by Soviet units in accordance with the agreements of the Yalta Conference , Kim took the ship “Pugachev” from Vladivostok to W nachnsan in September and reached Pyongyang at the end of the month. He was initially an employee of the commander of the future North Korean capital. Since the Soviets did not see any acceptable partners in the local forces, it was decided in Moscow to set up Kim Il-sung, who is well known there, as the future ruler of northern Korea. Previously, cooperation with the local nationalists under Cho Man-sik had failed due to political differences. In addition, the Soviets found no reliable partners in the Communists who remained in Korea under Pak Hon-yong , who once had strong ties to the Communist International , which was dissolved under Stalin in 1943 .

Kim Il-sung (1946)

Kim's first public appearance in Pyongyang took place on October 14 at a rally in honor of the Soviet Army. In February 1946 he became chairman of the Provisional People's Committee. On March 1, 1946, he survived an attack initiated by the south. From 1945 Kim was head of the North Korean section of the All-Korean Communist Party. In the spring of 1946, the independent CP of North Korea was formed from this, which merged with the “New People's Party” to form the North Korean Workers' Party in the summer. Kim gave up the post of general secretary to Kim Du-bong , but remained head of the administration and was elected the first North Korean head of government on February 17, 1947. Through targeted purges in the party and administration, Kim Il-sung began to expand his power. On September 9, 1948, he proclaimed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea . He himself was elected Prime Minister of the new state. After the unification of the North and South Korean Communists to the " Korean Workers Party " he was again party chairman.

Reign

Personality cult around Kim Il-sung

The People's Republic formed a counterpoint to the west-oriented Republic of Korea , which had been brought into being by the American military administration in the south of the country as early as August 1948. In 1949 Kim was able to consolidate his power with the help of Stalin. On June 25, 1950, he attacked the militarily weak South Korea, which began the Korean War , which lasted until 1953 .

Kim was a soldier by nature, he hadn't rushed into politics, nor was he highly educated. After the war he succeeded in building a system based on the Soviet model. The veneration that was shown to him led to a personality cult . As early as the late 1940s, the term “Führer” appeared for him for the first time, a term that until then had been reserved for Lenin and Stalin within the communist movement . His pictures were soon ubiquitous, and portraits of him can be found in every house as well as on the 100 and 5000 won bills from 2002 and the 5000 won bill from 2008. His statues and portraits (bowing, flower laying) are worshiped already religious traits. The Kim family is also included in the cult. This applies not only to his son and successor Kim Jong-il, but also to his mother, Kim's first wife Kim Jong-suk, who died in 1949. It is claimed that Kim's ancestors came from a revolutionary heroic family. His great-grandfather Kim Ung-u is said to have participated in the assault on the American armed merchant ship “ General Sherman ” in 1866. In 1966 Kim Il-sung was elected general secretary of the Labor Party of Korea and in 1972 he was appointed president due to a constitutional amendment .

Kim's Chuch'e ideology places the national values ​​of self-sufficiency and independence above world communist interests and sees itself as a true continuation of Marxism . It can be seen as a Marxist nationalism that translates the millennia-old history and culture of the Korean people into a pronounced national pride. In the internal party disputes, this became evident in the persecution of internationalist-minded communists as "crawlers". The people were united by the awareness of their cultural superiority over other countries. In addition, there were unmistakable advances in economic development in the 1950s and 1960s, with one-sided preference being given to heavy industry, which was recognized by the population as a success of the system. The unrelenting unity of the Korean people and the desire to unite them under the flag of the North had a lasting impact on people's awareness. This independent course also allowed criticism of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China , but at the same time led to the country's isolation .

The North Korean leadership tries to educate the population ideologically in their favor and, with the help of jammers, prevents the reception of South Korean radio and television programs, which is also practiced by South Korea. This is evident in the country's official historiography. The biography of Kim Il-sung and his family history are largely embellished. Similar to the procedure under Stalin, information about former (treacherous) companions of the “great Führer” has been erased from history. As a result, state and party building appears to be the work of one man, Kim Il-sungs. Dissidents have been and are brutally and relentlessly persecuted in North Korea. Kim set up " re-education camps " as prisons , which primarily serve to "improve through work".

Human rights violations under Kim Il-sung

→ Main article : Human rights situation in North Korea

Succession, Death and Legacy

Kim Il-sung and Mao Zedong in October 1970.

Kim Il-sung appointed in 1991 his son Kim Jong-il to the commander of the Korean People's Army . In doing so, he laid the foundation for the world's first communist dynasty . After Kim Jong-il's death on December 17, 2011, his son Kim Jong-un is now the third generation of the family in North Korea.

On July 8, 1994, Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in his Hyangsan Chalet residence ( 39 ° 58 ′ 19.4 ″  N , 126 ° 19 ′ 17.1 ″  E ), according to North Korean sources in his study in Pyongyang . It is known from satellite images that the Hyangsan Chalet was demolished and the area planted after Kim Il-sung's death between 2004 and 2013 - the exact date is not known. Three years of mourning were ordered across the country. On July 20, Kim Jong-il was named as his successor. The "Great Leader" left a country in poverty and isolation. His birthday is a national holiday and is celebrated annually as the day of the sun . In the Kumsusan Palace in Pyongyang, which has been converted into a mausoleum , his body, which is wrapped in a flag of the Labor Party of Korea , is laid out and can be viewed there.

See also : Family Tree of the Kim Clan

The writings of Kim and their meanings

The speeches and writings of Kim Il-sung appeared in North Korea from April 1992 to January 2012 as a 100-volume complete edition under the title Complete Works of Kim Il Sung (" 김일성 전집 ") by the publishing house of the Korean Labor Party.

A 50-volume selection was published from 1979 to April 1997 under the title Kim Il Sung Works, also by the PdAK publishing house. The foreign language edition of this selection was published by the publishing house for foreign language literature . The foreign language edition of the "Kim Il Sung Works" appears in Arabic , Chinese , German , English , French , Japanese , Russian and Spanish and comprises 50 volumes with a register that covers volumes 1–35.

The publication of Kim Il-sung's memoirs With the Century was concluded in North Korea in 1998 with Volume 8. They contain the memories of Kim from the beginning of his political activities until his return to Korea in 1945. Volumes 7 and 8, which he did not immediately edit, were created on the basis of his manuscripts after his death. With the century , in addition to Korean, it also appears in Arabic, Chinese, German, English, French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

According to official North Korean information, Kim Il-sung's writings are said to have appeared in 63 languages ​​in 108 countries during his lifetime. Kim's writings have enormous, quasi-sacred significance in North Korean society. Much of what is taught at schools and universities consists of the works of Kim Il-sung. Often, entire passages have to be learned by heart. In the North Korean regime's penal camps, too - according to former camp inmate Kang Chol-hwan - prisoners have to learn parts of Kim's works by heart.

Kim Il-sung on a North Korean won banknote

German-language editions of works

• Kim Il Sung: Works (50 volumes). Pyongyang: Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature, 1980–2009.
• Kim Il Sung: Selected Works (7 of 8 volumes, Volume 3 was not published in German). Pyongyang: Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature, 1975/76/96.
• Kim Il Sung: Speeches and Essays (Volumes I / II). Frankfurt / M .: Verlag Roter Stern, 1971.
• Kim Il Sung: Selected Works . Berlin (GDR): Dietz Verlag, 1988. ISBN 3-320-01226-6 .
• Kim Il Sung: With the Century. Memories (8 volumes). Pyongyang: Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature, 1992–1998.

Since 2010 the Pyongyang Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature has published a complete German-language edition of Kim Il Sung's works , six volumes of which were published by 2012.

See also

• Mansudae major monument
• Kim Il sung Square
• Kim Il sung Square (Sinŭiju)
• Kim Il sung Stadium
• Kim Il sung University
• Song of General Kim Il-sung
• Kimilsungia

literature

North Korean literature

• Brief history of the revolutionary activity of Comrade Kim Ir Sen. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Pyongyang 1970.
• Rim Nam Su, a great man in the world. Publishing house for foreign language literature, Pyongyang 1980.
• Kim Il Sung: Streak of Life. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Pyongyang 2001.
• The story of the revolutionary work of President Kim Il Sung. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Pyongyang 2012.

International literature

• Lim Un: The Founding of a dynasty in North Korea. An authentic biography of Kim Il-song. Jiyu-sha, Tokyo 1982.
• Alfred Pfabigan : Sleepless in Pyongyang. About the failed attempt to turn a skeptical European into a member of the Great Red Family. Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 1986. ISBN 3-85447-204-8 .
• Dae-Sook Suh: Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader. Columbia University Press, New York 1988, ISBN 0-231-06572-8 .
• Adrian Buzo: The Guerrilla Dynasty. Politics And Leadership in North Korea . IB Tauris & Co, New York 1999. ISBN 1-86064-415-5 .
• Lankov, Andrei: From Stalin to Kim Il Sung. The formation of North Korea 1945-1960. New Brunswick, New Jersey 2002, ISBN 0-8135-3117-9
• Martin, Bradley K .: Under the loving care of the fatherly leader. North Korea and the Kim dynasty . New York 2004, ISBN 0-312-32221-6 .
• Andrej N. Lankov : KNDR včera i sevodnja. Neformal'naja istorija Severnoj Korei. Vostok - Zapad, Moscow 2005, ISBN 5-478-00060-4 (Russian).
• Szalontai, Balázs: Kim Il Sung in the Khrushchev era. Soviet-DPRK relations and the roots of North Korean despotism, 1953-1964. Washington DC, Stanford 2005 (= Cold war international history project series), ISBN 0-8047-5322-9 .

Web links

Commons : Kim Il-sung  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Kim Il-sung in the catalog of the German National Library
• Kim Il-sung in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Luise Rinser : North Korean travel diary , supplement to the question of the successor, 1982.
2. ^ Buzo: The Guerrilla Dynasty . P. 3.
3. ^ Korean Radio War on 6250 kHz ( Memento from December 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). radioeins.de (German).
4. ↑ Daniel Gomà: El nacimiento de la Dinastía Roja: La instauración de la sucesión hereditary en Corea del Norte (1970-1974) . In: Historia Contemporánea , ISSN  1130-2402 , No. 62 (2020), pp. 159–186, here p. 169.
5. ↑ Kim Jong Il, Where He Sleeps and Where He Works ( Memento from May 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Daily NK of March 15, 2005 (English).
6. ↑ Summary of the life of President Kim Il Sung on Naenara. Retrieved July 9, 2013.
7. ^ Curtis Melvin: Kim Il Sung's Hyangsan Palace demolished. NK News, April 24, 2014.
8. ^ Ideological and theoretical exploits of Kim Il Sung ( Memento of April 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Korean Central News Agency, July 10, 2000 (English).
9. ^ "Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works" Off Press . Korean Central News Agency, January 18, 2012 (English).
10. ^ Ideo-theoretical exploits of President Kim Il Sung ( Memento of April 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Korean Central News Agency dated June 25, 1997 (English).
11. ↑ Korea Publications Exchange Association: Catalog 2011 ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 11.9 MB).
12. ^ Directory of the "Works of Kim Il Sung", Pjongjang: Verlag für Fremdsprachige Literatur, 1991.
13. ↑ Kim Il Sung. Streak of life. Publishing house for foreign language literature, Pyongyang 2001, p. 351.

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Kim is the family name here, Il-sung is the first name.