Kim Il-sung
Founding leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (1912–1994) who ruled North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death. He launched the Korean War in 1950, developed the Juche ideology of self-reliance, and built a pervasive personality cult whose posthumous deification persists in North Korea today.
Kim Il-sung's significance lies in the consequences of the movement and rule associated with Supreme Leader of North Korea: ideology, repression, victims, mass violence, and the collapse of democratic or pluralist safeguards. The page should be read as a historical warning, not as validation of office prestige or state authority.
Details
- birth year
- 1912
- death year
- 1994
- editorial frame
- historical_atrocity
- monetization allowed
- false
- office
- Supreme Leader of North Korea
- historical status
- deceased_historical
This profile uses curated historical sections and source-backed metadata. Auto-generated leader framing, quick-fact synthesis, and monetized modules are disabled for sensitive historical figures.
Overview
Kim Il-sung (born Kim Song-ju, 1912–1994) was the founding leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), governing from its establishment in 1948 until his death — the longest-ruling Communist leader in history. Born near Pyongyang under Japanese colonial rule, he fought Japanese forces as a guerrilla commander in Manchuria in the 1930s and was installed by the Soviet occupation forces as the leader of the Korean provisional government after World War II.