Kim Jong-il (1941 - 2011) was the leader of North Korea from the death of his father Kim Il-sung in 1994 until his own death in 2011. [1] His rule was marked by the famine of the mid-1990s, in which hundreds of thousands and by some estimates far more people died, by a vast system of political prison camps, and by the development of a nuclear weapons programme that produced the country's first test in 2006. [2] He established a hereditary dictatorship that passed to his son Kim Jong-un.
Origins and rise
Kim Jong-il was born on 16 February 1941 in the village of Vyatskoye near Khabarovsk in the Soviet Union, where his father Kim Il-sung was serving in a Soviet-sponsored brigade of Korean exiles. [1] North Korean official accounts instead placed his birth in 1942 at a guerrilla camp on Mount Paektu, accompanied by supernatural portents, one of many claims forming the state's manufactured hagiography.
He graduated from Kim Il-sung University in 1964 and entered the apparatus of the Workers' Party of Korea. He took charge of the party's propaganda and agitation department, supervising the film and theatre industries and codifying his father's cult. [3] He was designated successor at a party congress in 1980 and accumulated senior military and party positions through the decade.
Rule
Kim Il-sung died in July 1994, and Kim Jong-il assumed effective control, though the presidency remained permanently assigned to his deceased father; he governed as chairman of the National Defence Commission and party general secretary. [1]
His accession coincided with the collapse of Soviet subsidies, catastrophic floods and the failure of the collective agricultural system. The resulting famine, known in North Korea by the euphemism the Arduous March, killed an estimated several hundred thousand to over a million people between 1994 and 1998 while the state continued to prioritise military spending and restricted international access for relief agencies. [2]
He formalised the doctrine of songun, or military-first politics, which placed the armed forces at the centre of national life and resource allocation. Internally, the regime maintained a network of political prison camps holding tens of thousands of people; a United Nations commission of inquiry later documented systematic imprisonment, torture, starvation, forced abortion and execution carried out under his rule and described them as crimes against humanity. [4]
Foreign relations and nuclear programme
Under Kim Jong-il North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 after the breakdown of the 1994 Agreed Framework, expelled international inspectors and conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006, followed by a second in 2009. [2] Long-range missile tests over the same period drew United Nations sanctions.
He held a summit with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea in 2000, part of the southern government's Sunshine Policy, and a second with Roh Moo-hyun in 2007. Six-party talks on the nuclear programme produced agreements that were repeatedly abandoned. [3]
Cult of personality and death
State media presented Kim Jong-il as the Dear Leader, attributing to him extraordinary achievements in every field. Access to foreign media was criminalised, and the songbun system classified citizens by perceived political loyalty. [1]
Kim was reported to have suffered a stroke in 2008, after which his third son Kim Jong-un was promoted rapidly through party and military ranks. He died on 17 December 2011, officially of a heart attack, and was succeeded by Kim Jong-un. [3]
He was posthumously declared Eternal General Secretary of the Workers' Party. His rule left North Korea internationally isolated, chronically short of food and energy, and governed by a dynastic system without parallel among modern states. [4]
