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PROFILE - KIM IL SUNGKim Il Sung was born on April 15, 1912 in South Pyongan Province in today's North Korea, which was then under Japanese occupation, to a Christian family. Kim Il Sung's maternal grandfather was a pastor and both his parents were active members of their church. When Kim Il Sung was 8 years old, his family moved north to Manchuria in Northeast China. At 17, Kim Il Sung joined a Chinese Communist organization and began to fight against the occupying Japanese army. At 28, Kim Il Sung escaped into the Soviet Union when the Japanese army chased him and a few hundred men out of China. The Soviets trained Kim Il Sung and made him a Captain in the Red Army. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Stalin sent Kim Il Sung into the Korean peninsula and built him an army with Soviet arms. In 1948, Kim Il Sung became the Stalin-anointed Prime Minister of North Korea. In 1950, Kim Il Sung's communist army invaded the democratic South Korea and spent the next year advancing and retreating twice against the US-led United Nations force. For the subsequent two years, Kim Il Sung's army settled into a trench war more or less along the pre-war border at 38th parallel. When the Korean War ended in 1953, Kim Il Sung rebuilt North Korea as a communist state, using the Soviet Union as a model. Kim Il Sung, however, was disappointed that Stalin hadn't come to his aid when he was retreating during the war, and cozied up to the Chinese, who had sent in its army to rescue him. When China experimented with its disaterous Cultural Revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, Kim Il Sung cozied back to the Soviet Union. And when the Soviet Union later disintegrated, Kim Il Sung was back in the Chinese corner. Kim Il Sung's was married twice. His first wife died in 1947 while giving birth, and he married his second wife in 1962. Kim Il Sung fathered at least 9 children, including some who were illegitimate. In 1994, Kim Il Sung died of a heart attack at 82 years of age. After a period of mourning that lasted 3 years, Kim Jong Il made his father the President of North Korea "for eternity". Kim Il Sung's body is embalmed in a massive mausoleum in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. |