Kim Il (politician)

Kim Il (김일; 20 March 1910 – 9 March 1984)[1] was a North Korean politician who was Premier from 28 December 1972 to 19 April 1976.[2]

In this Korean name, the family name is Kim.
This article is about the Premier of North Korea. For the founder of North Korea, see Kim Il-sung.

Kim Il
김일
First Vice President of North Korea
In office
1 May 1976 – 9 March 1984
PresidentKim Il-sung
2nd Premier of North Korea
In office
28 December 1972 – 19 April 1976
LeaderKim Il-sung
Preceded byKim Il-sung
Succeeded byPak Song-chol
Personal details
Born(1910-03-20)20 March 1910
Hamgyong, Protectorate of Korea
Died9 March 1984(1984-03-09) (aged 73)
Kim Il
Chosŏn'gŭl
김일
Hancha
Revised RomanizationGim Il
McCune–ReischauerKim Il

Biography

Kim was born on 20 March 1910, in Hamgyong Province to a poor family of peasants.[1][3] Kim joined the underground Communist Party in 1932 and fought the Japanese occupation from 1935.[2][1] After the liberation of Korea in 1945, he served as secretary of the Party Committee of Pyongan Province. He was appointed to different important military posts since 1946.[4]After the Democratic People's Republic of Korea proclaimed independence in 1948, he served on the Politburo of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). In 1954, he became the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in the North Korean Cabinet instead of Pak Mun-gyu. He was then appointed his country's First Vice Premier in 1956.[2] Kim was elected a delegate to the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) in 1948, 1957, and 1962.[5] By 1970, he was the highest-ranking member of WPK after Kim Il-sung and Choe Yong-gon.[6]

In 1966, Kim Il-sung did not deliver his trademark New Year's address. The real reason is unknown,[7] but North Korean media has suggested that it was because of his care for Kim Il. According to the story, Kim Il was preliminary diagnosed with cancer on 31 December 1965. Worried, Kim Il-sung could not focus on his speech and instead took the measures to send Kim Il to "a country developed in medical science and technology to get accurate diagnosis", which was negative.[8]

In the 1960s, Kim furthered the North Korean position of independence from both the Soviet Union and China in the Sino-Soviet split. He tried to persuade Romania to stay out of Comecon like North Korea.[9] Kim also took part in the negotiations of trade and defense pacts with the Soviet Union. By March 1967, he declared the conclusion of economic and military agreements with Moscow.[10] He was named Premier in 1972 after Kim Il-sung gave up his premiership to become the President of North Korea. Kim Il was Premier until his resignation on 30 April 1976, due to failing health.[2]

Kim immediately became the Vice President, appointed by the SPA on 30 April.[1] His appointment was renewed on 15 December 1977. He served until his death in 1984,[11][12][13] alongside Pak Sung-chul, also Vice President.[3]

Kim was elected to the Presidium of the Politburo of the WPK at the 6th WPK Congress in 1980.[14] At the Congress, Kim Il-sung had proposed Korean reunification under a "Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo", but only if the South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan was ousted.[15] When Chun responded in his New Year's speech of 1981, asking Kim Il-sung to visit the South instead, Kim Il stepped in to denounce the South Korean administration and to call for all of Kim Il-sung's demands to be met before any dialogue could take place.[16] Kim Il issued a statement, saying: "This is nothing but a foolish burlesque designed to whitewash [Chun's] dirty nation-splitting nature and gain public favor with the 'presidential election' at hand... As we have already announced clearly, Chun Doo Hwan is not a man worthy for us to do anything with... [The proposal is] a foolish act of a rogue who does not know where his place is."[17] Kim said:

In the light of the present complicated North-South relations... it is clear to everyone that a possible time for general elections is far off, and moreover it is not logical to hold general elections according to principles of national self-determination and democratic procedure while leaving foreign troops and maintaining the military fascist system in South Koreaas they are. As for the formation of a Consultative Conference for National Reunification with those who represent the will of the people, it can only be regarded as mere empty talk under the present state of harsh repression where the conscientious people who speak for the demands of the popular masses are all cast into prison and their political activities banned by law in South Korea.... The US troops must be withdrawn from South Korea, democratization carried out there and the anti-communist confrontation policy brought to an end.

We are ready to meet the present South Korea rulers even tomorrow, if they show their new start by their deeds, by removing these obstacles blocking the way of national reunification. In that case the reunification consultative body to be organized may take any form-be it a conference for promotion of national reunification or a consultative council for national unification, we will not be nervous about its name. We only hold that the authorities of the North and the South and representatives of different parties and groupings and of all strata at home and abroad should participate in it, and that all reunification proposals to be raised, including the proposal for the establishment of the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo, and immediate questions for developing North-South relations in the interests of national reunification should be discussed.[18]

Three weeks later, Kim Il, in the capacity of Chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland,[19][20] demanded that a conference of 50 people representing the North and 50 the South should be organized. The proposal included the names of the desired Southern representatives, who included prominent politicians of parties banned in South Korea in 1980, but none from its ruling party.[18]

Kim spent much of 1982 receiving medical treatment in Romania.[1] Even after his reappearance in 1983, his health remained poor as evidenced by him missing numerous ceremonial gatherings.[21] He died on 9 March 1984, aged 73.[1] He was awarded a state funeral presided over by a 69-strong funeral committee.[3] His death is said to have marked the end of the period of dominance of the "old guard" of political leaders who were with Kim Il-sung before he ascended to power.[22] He had been reportedly critical of Kim Il-sung's son, Kim Jong-il.[22] Nevertheless, KCNA called him the "closest and finest revolutionary comrade-in-arms" of Kim Il-sung and his death "a painful, big loss to our party and people".[3]

Works
  • Kim Il (1964). "On the People's Economic Development Plan for 1968 for Carrying on More Succesfully [sic] Economic Construction and Defence Upbuilding, in Face of the Obtaining Situation". Korea Today. (Supplement). No. 145. OCLC 122429262.
  • — (1970). "Speech by First Vice-Premier Kim Il [Speeches at the Pyongyang Rally Marking the 'Day of Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism" (June 25, 1970)]". People of Asia: Unite and Drive the U.S. Agressors Out of Asia!. Peking: Foreign Languages Press. pp. 33–51. OCLC 204899.
  • — (1974). On the Summing Up of the Implementation of the "Theses on the Socialist Rural Question in Our Country" Set Forth by the Respected and Beloved Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and the Future Tasks: Report. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 8344966.
  • Kim Il; et al. (1981). Twenty-year-long Anti-Japanese Revolution Under the Red Sunrays: June 1926 – August 1931. 1. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 873742698.
  • —; et al. (1982). Twenty-year-long Anti-Japanese Revolution Under the Red Sunrays: September 1931 – February 1936. 2. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 914716941.
  • —; et al. (1984). Twenty-year-long Anti-Japanese Revolution Under the Red Sunrays: February 1936 – October 1938. 3. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 923269976.
  • —; et al. (1986). Twenty-year-long Anti-Japanese Revolution Under the Red Sunrays: November 1938 – August 1940. 4. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 812696881.
  • —; et al. (1988). Twenty-year-long Anti-Japanese Revolution Under the Red Sunrays: August 1940 – August 1945. 5. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 812696872.

References
  1. "Kim Il of North Korea, A Vice President, Dies". The New York Times. Associated Press. 11 March 1984. Archived from the original on 14 May 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2014.
  2. Lentz, Harris M. (2014). "Kim Il". Heads of States and Governments Since 1945. Oxon: Routledge. p. 481. ISBN 978-1-134-26490-2.
  3. "North Korean vice president dies". UPI. 9 March 1984. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  4. "Kim Il". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). The Gale Group, Inc. 1970–1979. Retrieved 5 February 2021 – via TheFreeDictionary.com.
  5. Suh, Dae-Sook (1981). Korean Communism, 1945–1980: A Reference Guide to the Political System. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. ISBN 978-0-8248-0740-5.
  6. Journal of Korean Affairs. 1–2. Silver Spring: Research Institute on Korean Affairs. 1971. p. 6. ISSN 0047-2522.
  7. Lankov, Andrei (5 January 2015). "Kim's New Year's speech reveals economic priorities". NK News. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  8. "Anecdotes about President Kim Il Sung". KCNA. 30 April 2002. Archived from the original on 24 November 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  9. Mateeva 2020, p. 14.
  10. Bulletin. Munich: Institute for the Study of the USSR. 1968. p. 5. OCLC 1101999947.
  11. Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments. Washington, DC: CIA. January 1976. hdl:2027/osu.32435024020000. OCLC 44347462. CR CS 76-001.
  12. Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments. Washington, DC: CIA. January 1984. hdl:/2027/osu.32435024019861. OCLC 44347462. CR CS 84-001.
  13. Banks, Arthur S. (1981). Political Handbook of the World, 1981. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-07-003629-1.
  14. Kim, Ilpyong J. (2003). Historical Dictionary of North Korea. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8108-4331-8.
  15. United States presidential delegation to the inauguration of the president of the Republic of Korea 1981, p. 23.
  16. United States presidential delegation to the inauguration of the president of the Republic of Korea 1981, p. 24.
  17. "North Korea Scorns Offer, By South For Visits". The New York Times. UPI. 20 January 1981. p. A-11. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  18. "Oct 1982 -Unsuccessful Talks on Reunification between North and South Korea -Subsequent South Korea Proposals for Discussions rejected by North Korea" (PDF). Keesing's Record of World Events. Keesing's Worldwide, LLC. 1931–2006. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  19. "North Korea Proposes Parley on Reunification". The New York Times. Reuters. 11 February 1982. Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  20. "Modern Korean History Portal: Timeline: 1981". Wilson Center Digital Archive. History and Public Policy Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  21. Wise, Donald (1985). Asia 1984 Yearbook. Hongkong: Far Eastern Economic Review. p. 169. ISBN 978-962-7010-17-3.
  22. The Far East and Australasia 2003 (34th ed.). London: Europa Publications. 2002. p. 654. ISBN 978-1-85743-133-9.

Works cited


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