Kim il sung official biography of ronald

(1912-1994)

Synopsis

Kim Il-sung was born on April 15, 1912, in Mangyondae, near Pyongyang, Korea, and went on to become a guerrilla fighter against Japanese occupation.

Kim also fought with the Soviet army during World War II and returned to his home region to become premier of North Korea, soon setting in motion the Korean War. He was elected country president in 1972, and held the position until his death on July 8, 1994.

Background

Kim Il-sung was born Kim Song-ju in Mangyondae, near Pyongyang, the present-day capital of North Korea, on April 15, 1912.

His parents took the family to Manchuria in the 1920s to flee the Japanese occupation of Korea. During the 1930s, Kim, who mastered Chinese, would become a Korean freedom fighter, working against the Japanese and taking the name Il-sung in honor of a famed guerilla fighter.

Kim eventually relocated to the Soviet Union for special training, where he joined the country's Communist Party.

Kim remained in the Sov