Kim Il Sung

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Lore & Background

Kim Il Sung was born Kim Song Ju on 15 April 1912 in a small village near Pyongyang, then called Heijō under Japanese rule. He grew up in a family of Presbyterian Christians active in the anti-Japanese independence movement; his maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister and his father was a church elder who participated in the 1919 March First Movement. The family fled to Manchuria in 1919 to escape Japanese repression. As a teenager, Kim became a communist, joining the Chinese Communist Party in 1931 after northeast China fell under Japanese occupation. He fought in various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups led by the CCP, and in 1942 was assigned to the Soviet Red Army, remaining in the Soviet Union until 1945. Following Japan’s surrender in World War II, the Soviet Union installed him as the leader of North Korea and head of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In 1950 he authorized the invasion of South Korea, triggering the Korean War, which ended in a 1953 ceasefire. Under his rule, North Korea became a totalitarian, socialist, personalist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy. He developed the ideology of Juche, emphasizing independence, self-sustenance, self-defense, and Korean nationalism, breaking from orthodox Marxism–Leninism. North Korea initially had a slightly higher standard of living than the South in the 1960s, but by the 1970s the South’s economy boomed while the North’s stagnated and collapsed. Despite a policy of self-reliance, North Korea relied on Soviet and Eastern Bloc aid until the Soviet Union’s 1991 dissolution, which contributed to widespread famine in 1994. Kim outlived Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, serving through six South Korean and ten U.S. presidents. He established an extensive personality cult as the “Great Leader” and designated his son Kim Jong Il as his successor at the 6th WPK Congress in 1980, founding the Kim dynasty. He died on 8 July 1994 and was posthumously declared Eternal President.

Reader's Guide

Kim Il Sung had a son named Kim Pyong Il (born 10 August 1954) with his second wife, Kim Song-ae. This son was named after an older half-brother, Kim Man-il (also known as Shura Kim), born in Vyatskoye in 1944, who allegedly drowned in Pyongyang in 1947. Kim Pyong Il graduated from Kim Il Sung University with a major in economics and later attended Kim Il Sung Military University, after which he was appointed a battalion commander. In the 1970s, Kim Pyong Il was known as a womaniser who threw raucous parties where attendees sometimes shouted, 'Long live Kim Pyong Il!'. Kim Jong Il reported this to Kim Il Sung, who was reportedly infuriated, causing Kim Pyong Il to fall out of favour while Kim Jong Il strengthened his position. Kim Il Sung died in 1994; Kim Pyong Il attended his funeral with his wife, but North Korean television broadcasts deleted their images.

Did You Know?

• Kim Il Sung had a son named Kim Pyong Il (born 10 August 1954) with his second wife, Kim Song-ae, who was his former secretary.
• Another son, also named Kim Pyong Il but known as Shura Kim, was born in Vyatskoye in 1944 and allegedly drowned in Pyongyang in 1947.
• Kim Il Sung was reportedly infuriated when Kim Jong Il reported that Kim Pyong Il's party attendees shouted 'Long live Kim Pyong Il!' in the 1970s.
• Kim Pyong Il attended Kim Il Sung's funeral in 1994 with his wife, but North Korean television broadcasts deleted their images.

The First Son's Fall from Grace

Kim Pyong Il entered the world on 10 August 1954 as the son of North Korea's founding leader and his secretary, Kim Song-ae. His name carried a haunting weight: it belonged to an older brother, born in Vyatskoye in 1944 and known as Shura Kim, who allegedly drowned in Pyongyang waters in 1947. Growing up alongside a younger brother, Yong-il, and an older half-sister, Kyong-hui, Pyong Il pursued economics at Kim Il Sung University before training at the military academy and earning a battalion command. Yet his true defining struggle was personal. In the 1970s, he became known for wild parties and a reputation as a womaniser, with guests at his gatherings reportedly chanting his name. His half-brother Kim Jong Il saw in those cheers a direct challenge to the father's carefully constructed cult of personality and reported the behavior upward. Kim Il Sung was reportedly furious. From that moment, Pyong Il's standing collapsed while Jong Il's consolidated. By 1982, Pyong Il married Kim Sun-kum, a woman tied to the Ministry of Public Security, and the couple went on to have a son and a daughter.

Four Decades on the Diplomatic Periphery

In 1979, Pyong Il was dispatched to Yugoslavia, the first stop in what would become a four-decade rotation through European capitals. The stated purpose was diplomatic service, but the underlying logic was clear: keeping the disgraced son away from Pyongyang's political machinery. He was elevated to ambassador in Hungary in 1988, only to be shuffled to Bulgaria the following year after Budapest opened ties with Seoul. A posting in Finland followed, but when Pyongyang shuttered that embassy in 1998 to cut costs and reduce defection risk, Pyong Il found himself in Poland. His arrival was awkward; nine months passed before he formally presented credentials to the Polish president. He lingered nonetheless, and his children, Kim In-kang and Kim Eun-song, enrolled at Polish universities. In Warsaw's diplomatic circles he was a near-invisible figure, surfacing only at the occasional function hosted by the Algerian, Russian, or Syrian embassies. In 2015 he was reassigned to the Czech Republic, where he served until stepping down in late 2019. By January 2020, a former ministry official, Ju Won Chol, had taken his place.

A Face That Never Left the Radar

Despite four decades abroad, Pyong Il never escaped the attention of his government. His physical resemblance to his father made him a persistent, if quiet, concern for Pyongyang's security apparatus. Reports indicated he was monitored by both North and South Korean intelligence services. Yet unlike his half-nephew Kim Jong-nam, who courted Japanese journalists before his 2017 assassination in Kuala Lumpur, Pyong Il maintained a deliberate low profile. His interactions with the homeland were sparse and fraught. In 1994 he attended his father's funeral alongside his wife, but state television excised their images from the broadcast. When Kim Jong Il died in December 2011, Pyong Il was in Poland and did not attend the funeral. A July 2011 visit to Pyongyang sparked speculation ranging from a simple trip to see his ailing mother to claims of house arrest. In July 2015 he returned briefly for an ambassadors' conference where he met Kim Jong Un, and in June 2019 he made another short trip, reportedly for medical treatment. Each appearance underscored how carefully his movements were managed.

The Longest Exile Comes Home

For forty years, Pyong Il's life was defined by absence from the country that had cast him out. After leaving Pyongyang in 1979, he never again made his home there, drifting through Belgrade, Budapest, Sofia, Helsinki, Warsaw, and Prague in a succession of postings that kept him perpetually on the margins of his own nation's story. His final chapter as a diplomat closed in November 2019, when he stepped down from his role as ambassador to the Czech Republic and boarded a flight back to the peninsula. The return was, by any measure, extraordinary: a man who had not set foot in North Korea as a resident since he was twenty-five was walking its streets again at sixty-five. The political calculus behind his homecoming remains opaque. He had already met the current leader, Kim Jong Un, at a 2015 conference, and his 2019 medical visit suggested a degree of official tolerance. Whatever the terms of his reintegration, the fact that the state permitted his return after four decades of enforced distance speaks to a shifting, if still cautious, relationship between the government and the one surviving son of its founding father.