Kim Il-Sung

(1912 - 1994)

Born in Japanese-occupied Korea, Kim Il-Sung grew up in Manchuria, fought with the Korean guerrilla resistance, and received military training in the Soviet Union. He returned to Soviet-occupied North Korea in 1945, and with Stalin’s support he invaded American-occupied South Korea in 1950, leading to three years of war and, after a stalemate, decades of increasing isolation for North Korea. Kim led by the philosophy of juche, his own conception of Marxist thought that emphasized self-reliance and nationalism—and allowed for the development of his own personality cult. In 1994 South Korean president Kim Young-Sam was scheduled to travel to Pyongyang for an unprecedented meeting with Kim Il-Sung, but the North Korean leader died of a heart attack before the summit could take place.