KIM JONG SUK BIOGRAPHY Kim Jong Suk‟s native home in Hoeryong Kim Jong Suk posing with Kim Il Sung in the days of the anti-Japanese armed struggle Kim Jong Suk with Kim Il Sung and their son Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Suk attending the graduation ceremony of the second term of the Central Military Academy No. 1 with Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Suk casting a ballot at a people‟s power organ election The Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery FOREWORD Kim Jong Suk was an indomitable revolutionary fighter and an anti-Japanese war heroine. She dedicated herself heart and soul to the cause of national liberation and the victory of the revolution. She protected the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung at the risk of her own life and ensured that the Korean revolution advanced victoriously under his leadership. With her uncommon intelligence, unbreakable will and outstanding ability to lead people, she assisted Kim Il Sung in winning the great war against the Japanese aggressors, and made a pre-eminent con- tribution to the building of a new country. Kim Jong Suk was a revolutionary paragon of love for her comrades and the people, the spirit of devoted service for them, and thrift and simplicity. In the years of raging battle against the Japanese, she brought up Kim Jong Il to carry forward the Juche revolutionary cause pioneered by Kim Il Sung. For her noble ideology and her imperishable revolutionary achievements for the country and the people, Kim Jong Suk will live eternally in the minds of the Korean people as Kim Il Sung‟s bodyguard, as an anti-Japanese war heroine, as a pre-eminent political worker and as a great mother of the revolution. Her name shines brilliantly in the modern history of Korea. On the 85th anniversary of her birth, we are proud to publish “Kim Jong Suk, Biography”. December Juche 91 (2002) CONTENTS 1. GROWING UP AMID HARDSHIPS Childhood The First Step of Struggle 2. YOUNG VANGUARD Leader of the Children‟s Corps With the Art Troupe Standard-Bearer in the Guerrilla Zone Her Wish Is Realized At Chechangzi 3. WOMAN GENERAL OF PAEKTU Joining the KPRA In Maanshan Spring in Manjiang Her Distinguished Services in Fusong The Secret Camp on Mt. Paektu 4. IN THE ENEMY AREAS In Taoquanli “The Sinpha Route” The Special Envoy A Letter from Prison 5. IN THE TEETH OF GRIM TRIALS Let Not the Deaths of Comrades-in-Arms Be in Vain To Meet Again the Fighters in the Homeland The Qingfeng Secret Camp Song of Victory over Musan 6. IN THE AREAS NORTHEAST OF MT. PAEKTU The New Theatre of War on the Bank of the Tuman River Uniforms During the Large-Unit Circling Operations Becoming a Human Fortress and Shield 7. THE CONVICTION OF VICTORY In the Wake of the Xiaohaerbaling Conference Greeting the Spring in a Foreign Land At the Paektusan Secret Camp Again The Birth of Kim Jong Il, Son of Mt. Paektu 8. IN ANTICIPATION OF THE FINAL CAMPAIGN Military and Political Training in the Training Base Famous Crack Shot The Final Campaign 9. TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO HOMELAND In the Liberated Homeland Jubilation at Mangyongdae 10. ALERT AS EVER Always a Bodyguard Immortal Paean 11. FOR THE REHABILITATION OF THE COUNTRY In Support of the Line Advanced by Kim Il Sung Taking the Lead in the General Ideological Mobilization Movement for Nation Building To Solve the Women‟s Question Let Us Give the Younger Generation a Good Education Immortal Contributions to Army Building Primary Concern for Korea‟s Reunification 12. LOFTY FEELINGS OF OBLIGATION AND AFFECTION With the Bereaved Children of the Revolutionary Martyrs Noble Virtue 13. BRINGING UP HER SON AS KIM IL SUNG‟S SUCCESSOR Rearing Young Kim Jong Il as the Son of Mt. Paektu Though He Was the Son of Kim Il Sung 1. GROWING UP AMID HARDSHIPS CHILDHOOD Kim Jong Suk was born of peasant parents, Kim Chun San and O Ssi, at Osan-dong, Hoeryong Sub-county, Hoeryong County, (now Tongmyong-dong, Hoeryong City), North Hamgyong Province, on December 24, Juche 61 (1917). Her family had moved from place to place, being mistreated and exploited by landowners. In 1895, in her grandfather‟s time, they had set- tled down in Hoeryong. Here, too, they had to live in poverty as share-croppers. After her grandfather‟s death, they became worse off, under the burden of increasing debts, because her father, the pillar of the family, was frequently away from home working for the independence movement. Just before Kim Jong Suk was born, the family, unable to pay back its debts, lost its share-cropping land and its thatched cottage was pulled down. They had to live in a room in another family‟s house on Osan Hill. After passing the winter in the borrowed room, her father built a lean-to that adjoined the room. Kim Jong Suk was born in the lean-to. The Japanese imperialists, who had occupied Korea, resorted to military rule, shooting, burning or burying innocent Koreans alive. The Koreans suffered all these atrocities, and the whole country was reduced to a prison. The people‟s wailing over the loss of national sovereignty reverberated everywhere, and the blood of Koreans soaked their own land. The Korean people stood up to fight against the Japanese. In these years of national suffering, Kim Jong Suk‟s family also fought bravely against the Japanese aggressors, for the country and the people. Her grandfather had participated in a peasant uprising against Korea‟s feudal rulers, but the patriotic cause failed, and he died in 1908. Her father was engaged in the independence movement against the Japanese for many years, crossing and recrossing the Tuman River (that flows between Korea and China—Tr.). The patriot died in a foreign land in 1929. Her mother helped her husband in his patriotic struggle, bringing up her children to be patriots and revolutionaries. She was killed by Japanese “punitive” troops in July 1932. Kim Jong Suk‟s elder brother Kim Ki Jun was an efficient underground operative. He was killed by the enemy in 1934 while fighting to carry out Kim Il Sung‟s Juche-oriented revolutionary line. Her younger brother Kim Ki Song was a member of the Children‟s Corps (CC), and was also unfailingly loyal to Kim Il Sung. The young revolutionary fighter laid down his life in the struggle for the country‟s liberation. This patriotic and revolutionary family background motivated Kim Jong Suk from her early years to grow up into a great revolutionary. Her early years were spent in Hoeryong. Although the town had long been known as a scenic place, she had no opportunity to romp and play. She had to learn to pick herbs, glean and weed with a hoe, the handle of which was stained with her mother‟s sweat, not how to play housekeeping. Her mother, despite her poverty, always taught her children respect for morals. From her childhood, Kim Jong Suk gave thought more to the welfare of her parents and brothers, and her neighbours than to herself. Once, while fetching water from a well for her mother working in a field, she tripped over a stone and broke the earthenware jar, which her mother had brought with her as part of her dowry. A few days later, she called at the local kiln, which hired village women for temporary work and paid them with earthenware jars. Kim Jong Suk, however, was too young to get a job there. Regretfully turning away, she saw that one of the women working there had a crying baby on her back. Feeling pity for the woman, she took the baby from its mother and cared for it till noon. When the work was over, the shop-owner gave a few earthenware vessels to each of the women. The baby‟s mother came over to Kim Jong Suk, thanked her sincerely, and offered her an earthenware jar. The small jar is still preserved in the kitchen of her old home in Hoeryong. Unable to pay back the accumulated debts, Kim Jong Suk‟s family was forced to give up share-cropping. To make matters worse, the police harassed her family frequently because of her father who was working for the independence of the country. Deprived of their livelihood in the homeland, her family crossed the Tuman River into China in the spring of 1922. Aboard the ferry, Kim Jong Suk gazed in tears at her dear hometown as it faded into the distance. In recollection of the sad event, she said in later years: “I never lost the memory of my hometown after I left it. At every moment of joy or sorrow, fighting under the General‟s command, I thought of my hometown Hoeryong. When on a march or in battle, I felt a little easier, but whenever I looked up at the moon shining on the camp in the forest, the trees, grass and pebbles of Hoeryong swam before my eyes.” Her family took up residence at Beigou, Yanji County, Northeast China. They moved into a deserted hut, and began share-cropping once more. All the family worked hard, but they could not keep the wolf from the door. Although they were poverty-stricken, as they had been in Hoeryong, they always lived in harmony. All her neighbours respected this family, the members of which were hard working and good-natured. Kim Jong Suk, though still a child, worked in the field with her mother and her elder brother by day, and made thread from flax and wove cloth at night by the light of a pine torch.