Kim Il Sung (In power: 1948 – 1994)
There are many despotic leaders in history. However, few have matched the ability to turn an entire nation into a devoted personality cult like former North Korean dictator, Kim Il Sung, did. He was born as Kim Song Ju in April 1912 near Pyongyang. His parents soon fled to Manchuria to escape Japanese rule that had annexed the entire Korean peninsula in 1910. It was here that he became exposed to Marxist ideology as a student. In the 1930s, Kim joined the anti-Japanese resistance movement based in Manchuria and carried out guerilla activities against the Japanese army. It was during this period that Soviet leadership took notice of him.
At the end of World War II, the peninsula of Korea was divided at the 38th parallel. The south came under the stewardship of the United States while the north fell under Soviet influence. In 1948, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (the official name for North Korea) was founded with Kim Il Sung placed at its head. Kim disliked the partitioning of the country and initiated a plan for reunification by force when North Korea invaded the south in June 1950. After three bloody years of war which ended in an armistice, over two million Koreans (on both sides) were killed.
After the war, Kim would continue to consolidate his control over the population of the north through propaganda, reeducation camps, and spy networks. He introduced his own personal ideology called juche, which roughly means self-reliance, to the country. Externally, he continued to rail against U.S. imperialism through organized demonstrations and even through military action, like the 1968 seizure of a U.S. Navy intelligence ship and her crew off the coast of North Korea. Kim Il Sung also pursued a program to develop nuclear weapons. A program whose legacy continues to the present day. Kim died in July 1994. He was succeeded by one of his sons, Kim Jong-Il, thereby continuing the family dynasty.