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466px-Kim Jong il Portrait

Kim Jong-il (16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was Supreme Leader of North Korea from 8 July 1994 to 17 December 2011, succeeding Kim Il-sung and preceding Kim Jong-un.

Biography[]

Kim Jong-il was born "Yuri Irsenovich Kim" in Vyatskoye, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union on 16 February 1941, the son of Korean Red Army officer Kim Il-sung. In September 1945, upon the end of World War II, the family returned to Pyongyang in Korea, moving into a Japanese officer's former mansion. Kim was educated in North Korea and China during the Korean War and was active in communist politics as a student, and he was also educated in English in Malta during the 1970s. In 1980, he was given senior posts in the Presidium, the Military Commission, and the Workers' Party of Korea Secretariat. He became his father's heir apparent during the 1980s, and he was appointed Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army in 1991.

By 1992, he was in charge of North Korea's internal affairs, and his father's death in 1994 at the age of 82 led to Kim Jong-il becoming the new Supreme Leader. He was entirely incompetent in economic management, and severe floods, poor land management, and an isolationist policy towards foreign trade led to severe famine during the 1990s. In 1998, along with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea, Kim Jong-il pursued a "Sunshine Policy" of reconciliation with the South, but North Korea violated its agreement to halt nuclear testing. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un created a cult of personality around himself, and he imprisoned up to 200,000 political prisoners.

He strengthened the military with his Songun policies, making the army the central organizer of civil society. Kim died in 2011 at the age of 70, and he was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un.

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