[THREAD] LIFE OF KIM IL-SUNG (1912 - 1994)

The life of President of the DPRK Kim Il-sung (born Kim Sŏng-ju) starts in 1912 Korea when it was still under Japanese rule. Just two years before his birth the country was annexed by the empire of Japan under the Japan-Korea treaty.

His father Kim Hyong-jik, was a prominent Korean freedom fighter who took part in the March 1st incident againsts Japenese colonial rule. His grandfather Bo-hyon took part in the General Sherman incident in againts the US. His mother Kang Pan-sok was a prominent Presbyterian.

Kim's family participated in anti-Japanese activities and in 1920 they fled to Manchuria. Like most Korean families, they resented the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, which began on 29 August 1910. Japanese repression of opposition was brutal.

In October 1926 Kim founded the Down-with-Imperialism Student Union. Kim attended Whasung Military Academy in 1926, but finding the academy's training methods outdated, he quit in 1927. From that time, he attended Yuwen Middle School in China's Jilin province up to 1930.

At seventeen, Kim had become the youngest member of an underground Marxist organization with fewer than twenty members. The police discovered the group three weeks after it formed in 1929, and jailed Kim for several months.

In 1931 Kim joined the Communist Party of Korea. He joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China. Feelings against the Japanese ran high in Manchuria, but as of May 1930 the Japanese had not yet occupied the Province.

On 18 September 1931, the "Mukden Incident" occurred, in which a dynamite explosive charge went off near a Japanese railroad in the town of Mukden. Although no damage occurred, the Japanese used the incident as an excuse to invade Manchuria and to appoint a puppet government.

In 1935, Kim became a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, a guerrilla group led by the Communist Party of China. Kim was appointed the same year to serve as political commissar for the 3rd detachment of the second division, consisting of around 160 soldiers.

In 1935, Kim took the name Kim Il-sung. Kim was appointed commander of the 6th division in 1937, controlling a few hundred men in a group that came to be known as "Kim Il-sung's division". While commanding this division, he won the battle of Poch’onbo, on 4 June.

This accomplishment would grant Kim some measure of fame among guerrillas. The Japanese regarded Kim as one of the most effective Korean guerrilla leaders. Pursued by Japanese troops, Kim and what remained of his army escaped by crossing the Amur river into the Soviet Union.

In August 1942, Kim and his army assigned to a special unit which belong to the Soviet Red Army. Kim became a Major in the Soviet Red Army and served in it until the end of World War II. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945, and entered Pyongyang on 24 August 1945.

Kim arrived in the Korean port of Wonsan on 19 September 1945 after 26 years in exile. In December 1945, Kim became Chairman of the North Korean branch of the CPK. To solidify his control, Kim established the Korean People's Army (KPA), aligned with the Communist Party.

In 1946 Kim Il-sung introduced reforms. Half of the arable land was redistributed, an 8-hour work day was proclaimed and all heavy industry nationalized. There were improvements in the health of the population after he nationalized healthcare and made it available to all citizens

After an incident on 25 June 1950 North Korea invaded the US occupied south. Altought the Korean People's Army reached Busan, with a UN intervention they were pushed back to the North. The US introduced indiscriminate bombing to the North, killing 25% of the population.

Altought with the help of the Chinese Volunteer Army the UN forces were pushed back to the 38th parallel, a stalemate occured. Fearing US atomic bombing of the Penninsula the DPRK and the US reached an agreement and signed an armstrice that's still in effect to this day.

The three-year war left North Korea devastated, and Kim immediately embarked on a large reconstruction effort. He launched a five-year national economic plan to establish a command economy, with all industry owned by the state and all agriculture collectivized.

In the ensuing years, Kim established himself as an independent leader of international communism. In 1956, he joined Mao in the "anti-revisionist" camp, which did not accept Nikita Khrushchev's program of de-Stalinization, yet he did not become a Maoist himself.

The 1955 "Juche speech", which stressed Korean independence and laid the fundation of Kim's original interpretation of Marxism. The last Chinese troops withdrew from the country in 1958, which is the consensus as the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent

Despite his opposition to de-Stalinization, Kim never officially severed relations with the USSR, and he did not take part in the Sino-Soviet Split. After Khrushchev was replaced by Brezhnev in 1964, Kim's relations with the Soviet Union became closer as it cooled with China.

In the 1960s, Kim became impressed with the efforts of Vietnamese Leader Ho Chi Minh to reunify Vietnam through guerrilla warfare and thought something similar might be possible in Korea. Infiltration efforts were thus greatly stepped up against US forces in South Korea.

A new constitution was proclaimed in 1972, which created an executive presidency. Kim gave up the premiership and was elected president. On 1975, North Korea adopted the metric system. And 1980, he decided that his son Kim Jong-il would succeed him.

To ensure a full succession of leadership to his son and designated successor Kim Jong-il, Kim turned over his chairmanship of North Korea's National Defense Commission to his son in 1991 and 1993. So far, the elder Kim has remained the country's president, the general-secretary.

In early 1994, Kim began investing in nuclear power to offset energy shortages brought on by economic problems. This was the first of many "nuclear crises". On 19 May 1994, Kim ordered spent fuel to be unloaded from the already disputed nuclear research facility in Yongbyon.

On the late morning of 8 July 1994, Kim Il-sung collapsed from a sudden heart attack at his residence in Hyangsan, North Pyongyan. His funeral in Pyongyang was attended by hundreds of thousands of people who were flown into the city from all over North Korea.

Kim Il-sung's birthday, "Day of the Sun", is celebrated every year as a public holiday in North Korea. The associated April Spring Friendship Art Festival gathers hundreds of artists from all over the world.

If i spent this much effort into my studies i would be a straight A student no cap...