The Cleanest Race - B. R. Myers [31]
In Manchuria Kim Il Sung devoted himself wholly to the anti-Japanese struggle. By the age of sixteen he had already formed the Anti-Imperialist League and purged the Korean revolutionary movement of narrow-minded nationalists and xenophiles alike. At a conference of revolutionaries in 1930 the eighteen-year-old Kim set out his brilliant new ideology of Juche Thought, explaining that man is the master of all things, and that a revolutionary strategy for Korea must reflect the country’s unique conditions. Two years later he founded the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army. Basing his headquarters first in the Tumen River region, then on sacred Mount Paektu, he launched a series of crushing attacks on Japanese troops. After a particularly bold strike on the Korean border town of Poch’ŏnbo in 1937 the KPRA found itself under threat from a counter-offensive. Kim rescued his troops in the winter of 1938/39 by leading them on the now-legendary Arduous March along the Yalu River valley. Not once did he rest or slacken in his concern for his men, who under his brilliant leadership won every battle. In 1942 his wife Kim Chŏng-suk, a revolutionary fighter since childhood, bore the General a son. The couple named him Jong Il.
On August 9, 1945, the General led his army in a final concerted push through the enemy’s border strongholds, at the same time ordering secret fighting units to rise up across the peninsula. The Japanese held out for all of six days before falling to their knees on August 15. As the victorious army advanced southward people rushed weeping from their homes to greet its commander. Arriving at last in Pyongyang, Kim restored its ancient status as the nation’s capital by setting up his government there.
Alas, the American imperialists had already invaded the southern part of the peninsula, installing the reactionary Syngman Rhee as “president” of the new colony. On June 25, 1950 the Yankees, determined to crush Korean socialism forever, launched a surprise attack on the DPRK. Under the General’s brilliant leadership, the Korean People’s Army dealt them such a savage series of counter-blows that they retreated whence they came, finally signing an abject declaration of surrender on July 27, 1953.
In the years that followed Kim Il Sung worked day and night, waking every morning at 3 am as he rebuilt his country into a shining model of self-reliant independence. Juche Study groups sprang up around the world as foreigners sought to emulate the DPRK’s spectacular progress in all fields. But for all his many duties, the Leader found time to visit factories and farms, solving their problems at lightning speed while touching the hearts of the workers with his parental concern for their welfare. Unfortunately this selflessness took a toll on his health, and on July 8 1994 he passed away, plunging the masses into a grief such as they had never known. It was no small comfort for them, however, to know that the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il would carry on his father’s legacy.4
Although the DPRK came close to another war with the US in the last years of Kim Il Sung’s life, the resolution of this crisis is generally credited to his son, who by then had assumed command of the armed forces. Yet the summary above should not mislead anyone into thinking that the personality cult skims over the latter half of the Great Leader’s life. The problem, for my purposes at least, is that only the first half forms a linear story. The second falls apart into undated tales of