Kim Il Sung Condensed Biography
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Kim Il Sung Condensed Biography Foreign Languages Publishing House Pyongyang, Korea Juche 90 (2001) ON PUBLISHING THE CONDENSED BIOGRAPHY OF KIM IL SUNG The revolutionary career of Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the eternal President of the Democratic People’ Republic of Korea and the father of socialist Korea, was a noble life of a gifted ideologist and theoretician, an outstanding politician, an unexcelled military strategist, an exemplar of leadership and a benevolent father of the people, a life that flowed together with the current of the 20th century. Having embarked on the road of the revolution in his teens, Kim Il Sung led the unprecedentedly difficult and complicated Korean revolution to a brilliant victory until he was in his eighties, achieving the liberation of the country, building a most beneficial, people-centred socialism in Korea and rendering distinguished service to the development of the world revolution. For the immortal exploits he performed for the times and history in his effort to consummate the revolutionary cause of Juche and the cause of global independence, he will always live in the hearts of mankind as the sun of Juche. In order to further exalt and hand down to posterity the brilliant revolutionary life and immortal revolutionary exploits of Kim Il Sung, a peerless great man and genius of the revolution and construction, the Party History Institute of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea publishes this book by supplementing the previous edition. July Juche 90 (2001) CONTENTS 1. April 1912—December 1931………………………………………4 2. December 1931—February 1936………………………………….35 3. February 1936—August 1940…………………………………….66 4. August 1940—August 1945……………………………………...100 5. August 1945—February 1947……………………………………122 6. February 1947—June 1950………………………………………151 7. June 1950—July 1953……………………………………………177 8. July 1953—December 1960……………………………………...201 9. January 1961—November 1970………………………………….235 10. November 1970—October 1980………………………………...265 11. October 1980—December 1989………………………………...290 12. January 1990—July 1994……………………………………….319 1 1 APRIL 1912—DECEMBER 1931 Kim Il Sung was born in Mangyongdae, Pyongyang City, on April 15, Juche 1 (1912)1. All the members of Kim Il Sung’s family were revolutionaries who fought valorously for the sovereignty and independence of the country, and for the freedom and happiness of the people. Kim Ung U, his great-grandfather, was a patriot who stood in the van of the fight to sink the General Sherman, an armed marauding US merchant vessel, in 1866. Kim Po Hyon, his grandfather, and Ri Po Ik, his grandmother, backed all their sons and grandsons, whom they had offered to the revolutionary struggle, and fought, remaining faithful to their national principles and unyielding to the cruel repression and persecution of the Japanese imperialists. Kim Hyong Jik (July 10, 1894—June 5, 1926), his father, was an outstanding leader of the anti-Japanese national liberation movement in Korea who devoted his whole life to the liberation of the country and to the freedom and emancipation of the people. He held the idea of Jiwon (Aim High—Tr.) as his motto and launched out on the path of revolution in his early days. On March 23, 1917 he formed the Korean National Association, an anti-Japanese underground revolutionary organization, which was the largest of its kind in scale and had the firmest anti-imperialist independent stand, as well as having a strong mass foundation among all the organizations formed by Korean patriots at home and abroad in those days and led it. Kim Hyong Jik played the role of a pioneer in switching the anti- Japanese national liberation movement of the Korean people from a nationalist movement to a communist movement, to meet the requirements of the changing situation in the wake of the March First Popular Uprising in 1919. 2 Kang Pan Sok (April 21, 1892—July 31, 1932), his mother, was a prominent leader of the Korean communist women’s movement who devoted her whole life to the struggle for the victory of the Korean revolution and for the social emancipation of women. Kim Hyong Gwon, his uncle, and Kim Chol Ju, his younger brother, were also ardent communist revolutionary fighters who fought staunchly in the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle in their early days. Moreover, Kang Ton Uk, his maternal grandfather, and Kang Jin Sok, his maternal uncle, were also ardent patriots and indefatigable anti- Japanese fighters. Kim Il Sung’s family members regarded love of their country, nation and people as the family tradition. They considered it to be their family philosophy that one could not live without humanity even though one could live without money. Working as tenant farmers from generation to generation, his family eked out a scant living, but they had an ardent sense of patriotism, a strong appreciation of justice and a lofty human spirit. Therefore, they enjoyed respect from other people as “a poor but honest family with absolute faithfulness to a just cause”. His father named him Song Ju, hoping that he would become the pillar of the country. From his childhood Kim Il Sung had striking features and was endowed with unusual intelligence and a spirit of inquiry, great magnanimity, strong will, a lively nature, clear judgement and exceptional memory. He was growing up when Korea was going through the bitterest period of its national suffering, with its people having been reduced to colonial slaves, deprived of their country at the hands of the Japanese imperialists. Kim Il Sung acquired the traits and qualities of a great revolutionary thanks to the revolutionary influence of his parents, his tireless stud and inquiry, and his witnessing and experience of contradictory social phenomena, as well as in the practical struggle against the Japanese imperialists. Kim Il Sung spent his childhood in Mangyongdae and Ponghwa-ri. In those days he heard from his parents about his country, with its beautiful mountains and limpid rivers, and the resourceful and brave 3 Korean nation with a long history of 5,000 years and a brilliant culture, about the Korean people and the renowned patriotic generals who had fought dauntlessly against the feudal ruling circles and foreign invaders, as well as about the history of Korea’s ruin and about the brutal colonial rule of the Japanese imperialists and their chauvinistic arrogance, and the harsh exploitation inflicted by the landowners and capitalists. In the course of this, he cultivated love for his country and nation. In the autumn of 1917 he witnessed the dignified attitude of his father who awed the Japanese imperialists even while he was arrested by them in Ponghwa-ri, Kangdong County, on a charge of being involved with the Korean National Association; and he saw the fortitude of his mother, who fearlessly resisted the Japanese policemen who brutally raided and searched their house. Then, in the summer of the next year, when he had gone to Pyongyang prison to meet his father, he saw the strong demeanor of his father, who did not abandon his revolutionary mettle, firmly enduring the atrocious torture of the Japanese imperialist aggressors. This hardened his hatred against the predatory Japanese imperialists as well as his indomitable revolutionary spirit. The nationwide March First Popular Uprising, which broke out in 1919, was an important turning point which infused the indomitable will of the Korean people and the image of their resourcefulness deep in the young heart of Kim Il Sung. Young as he was, he went with the demonstrators from Mangyongdae to the Pothong Gate. Seeing the brutalities of the Japanese imperialists, who killed empty-handed demonstrators in cold blood with bayonets, as well as the dignified spirit of the masses, who encountered them without yielding to them in the least, he keenly felt that the Japanese imperialist aggressors were the sworn enemy of the Korean people and that the strength of the masses was inexhaustible. After his father was released from prison, Kim Il Sung spent his boyhood moving frequently to various areas of Korea and China with his parents, who were engaged in revolutionary activities. In the autumn of 1919 he left Mangyongdae, his native village, for Junggang, with his parents. After staying there for some time, he crossed the Amnok River to Linjiang, China. After studying Chinese for over half a year there, he entered Linjiang Primary School in the spring of 1920. In the summer of the next year he moved to Badaogou, 4 Changbai County, and was enrolled in a four-year Chinese primary school. Kim Il Sung gained a good command of Chinese because he had learned it at an early age and studied at a Chinese school, thanks to his father’s farsightedness. This made a great contribution to his waging a joint anti-Japanese struggle with the Chinese people later on. Having graduated from Badaogou Primary School with honours at the beginning of 1923, Kim Il Sung returned to his homeland upholding the lofty idea of his father that, in order to make revolution, he should know the actual situation in his own country well. He left Badaogou on March 16, and crossed Mt. Oga via Wolthan. Then he walked to Kaechon, passing through Hwaphyong, Huksu, Kanggye, Songgan, Jonchon, Koin, Chongun, Huichon, Hyangsan and Kujang. He took a train at Kaechon and arrived in Mangyongdae, his native place, on March 29. The journey of 250 miles he made from Badaogou to Mangyongdae was a “250-mile journey of learning” which enabled him to learn about his homeland and his fellow countrymen. After returning to his homeland, Kim Il Sung stayed in his mother’s maiden home in Chilgol and studied hard in the fifth year of Changdok School (a six-year private school).