Kim Il Sung

Kim Il Sung, born Kim Song Ju in 1912, fought in the Soviet-backed anti-Japanese guerrilla movement before Moscow installed him as leader of North Korea in 1948, and he ruled as premier and then president until his death on 8 July 1994. His government built one of history's most complete personality cults, requiring citizens to display his portrait in their homes and study his collected works, and when he died his son Kim Jong Il inherited power, making him the first communist head of state to found a hereditary dynasty. Under the songbun system his government created, families were sorted into loyalty classes that fixed their access to food, education and work for generations, and political prisoners together with their extended families were sent to labor camps where, according to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry, hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation, forced labor, torture and execution over five decades. Kim advanced Juche, the doctrine of self-reliance, as his own ideological creation from 1955 onward, and the state used it to justify almost fifty years of his absolute personal rule.