North Korea, Kim Il-Sung is still worshiped as a god and is still officially president despite his death in 1994. The founder of this communist country is the grandfather of the current ruler Kim Jong-Un. North Korea is therefore the only communist country to have a dynastic succession. How did the northern part of Korea fall into the hands of the Kim Dynasty? The answer: through enormous terror, a self-devised ideology and with outside help. Kim Il-Sung was born in Korea in 1912 but grew up in Manchuria. His name at that time was Kim Song-ju. In 1931 he joined the Chinese Communist Party. During the early years of the later founder of North Korea, Korea and Chinese Manchuria were occupied by Japan. We are talking about the early 1930s. Kim quickly became a notorious guerrilla fighter against the Japanese occupier and changed his name to Kim Il-Sung, which means a star. Apparently he had no shortage of self-confidence early on.
Ruthless
Kim was ruthless. Later North Korean propaganda spoke of a Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In reality he was infamous, even among the poor farmers. He unceremoniously applied violence to those who did not comply with his demands. Cut off ears, limbs and even heads were part of his repertoire.
Red army
In the mid-1930s he had a three hundred man army that was part of the Chinese communist army. In 1941 he and his gang joined Stalin’s Red Soviet Army. This army would eventually drive the Japanese back behind the 38th parallel, which to this day is still the dividing line between North and South Korea. Kim’s propaganda would later claim that he had driven the Japanese occupiers out of North Korea.
Head of government
Because the Soviets did not trust the Korean communists and Kim had proven his loyalty to the Red Army, Stalin appointed him head of the temporary North Korean government in 1945. North Korea was officially called the northern zone. Korea was officially still one country. In 1948, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) were finally established. Kim Il-sung became Prime Minister of North Korea and party leader of the Korean Workers’ Party.
He immediately appointed his extremely loyal fighters to all important posts. He also carried out purges in the same year. Mostly local communists were accused of collaborating with the Japanese. These unfortunate people were put to death or put in prison camps with their entire families. Until Stalin’s death in 1953, Kim completely followed the line of the Soviet dictator. The Soviets therefore let him have his way.
Cold War conflict
Kim is also responsible for the most intractable Cold War conflict. The later Eternal President believed that the entire peninsula, including South Korea, should become communist. In June 1950 he therefore started a war by entering South Korea with his army. The battle was not decided and an armistice was concluded three years later. It persists to this day. Both sides strictly guard the demarcation zone (demarcation line) agreed in 53 at the 38th parallel. Kim had not achieved anything at all with his action, but a million people had died.
Opposition
After this losing battle, there was some opposition to Kim. A coup d’état failed in 1953 and in 1956 party members criticized Kim’s governing style during a people’s congress. That would be too Stalinist. However, Kim managed to hold her ground. His critics fled to China or were unceremoniously executed. The beloved leader was then fully in charge of his country again.
Juche
Until the 1960s, North Korea was not doing badly economically. Kim visited state farms and factories to get workers to work harder. He wanted to create the new communist man. For this purpose, the Great Leader had devised his own philosophy: Juche. ‘the people’s revolution is for the people and the masses must be led by a Great Leader’. Later it became: ‘The Great Leader is like a ‘father figure’ to the people and leads the people who must obediently follow the Great Leader.’ Kim came up with this philosophy because both Russia and China distanced themselves from him and he ran into economic problems. Mao, the Chinese leader at the time, thought Kim was a fat, luxuriously living fake communist.
War machine
Kim’s power increasingly relied on his military. His country collapsed economically. Due to the enormous expenditure on defense, he plunged the North Koreans into deep poverty. North Korea became a war machine. Not only young men became soldiers. Women, children and the elderly also learned to use weapons. Kim had bomb shelters built everywhere and brainwashed the population with trumped-up threats from ‘the capitalist enemy’.
Bliss and Satisfaction Troops
In 1972 the ‘Ster took another step towards power. He had himself elected president and therefore no longer needed the Workers’ Party. The few opponents disappeared into the prison camps as usual. The immense poverty of the population did not prevent Kim from living in great luxury. This way, Kim and his son had permanent access to Bliss and Satisfaction Troops of thousands of selected beautiful North Korean girls aged 15 to 22. His people ate grass and baked tree bark.
Nuclear weapons
Son Kim Jong-Il was officially appointed successor in 1980. This playboy was not popular, but critics had already been purged during the 1970s. Relations with the Russians and Chinese had improved again and with Russian help Kim built a nuclear reactor. In 1989 he bluffed that his country could also make nuclear weapons.
In the early 1990s, the North Korean economy completely collapsed: in addition to the fall of communism in Russia and declining trade with China, the country also had to deal with crop failures.
Kim Jong Il
Kim became terminally ill, which was of course hidden from the people, and handed over leadership to his son Kim Jong-Il in 1993. In 1994, The Sun of the Nation died of a heart attack. The North Koreans cried hysterically for three days. Those who did not cry hard enough faced punishment. According to the North Korean news, even nature was upset and the birds were sad. Kim Il-Sung was appointed Eternal President of the Republic.
Kim Jong Un
Kim Jong Il died in 2011. The son. From 1994 onwards he ruled like his father and maintained his hungry state. To this day, North Koreans believe that they could be invaded by the capitalist enemy at any moment and still worship the Beloved Great Leader every day. Kim Jong-Un has been the new leader since 2011. It is still too early to judge his leadership.