Dear Leader: The Life and Legacy of Kim Jong-il

Early Life

Kim Jong-il was born in 1941 in the Russian village of Vyatskoye. In the years to come, his birthplace would become a secret from the people of North Korea. Acknowledging he was born in Russia would undermine his entire regime.

North Korean propaganda has always created incredible myths. It’s said when Kim Jong-il was born, a glacier on the lake on Mount Paektu cracked. A double rainbow appeared in the sky. A new star appeared in the heavens.

Paul French, East Asia analyst and author of North Korea: State of Paranoia

In 1945, when Kim Jong-il was still a toddler, his father, Kim Il-Sung, took control of the newly founded North Korea. He led the communist Korean Workers' Party, which was strongly supported by Stalin and the Soviet Union.

The Workers’ Party relied heavily on propaganda, and it wasn’t long until they focused their attention on the young Kim Jong-il. They began portraying him as a messianic child, claiming he learned to walk at three weeks old and started talking at just eight weeks. 

Behind the scenes, however, Kim Jong-il’s early life was marred by tragedy. When he was five, his brother died. At six, his mother passed away during childbirth. His father, who was busy running this new country, had little time for Kim Jong-il.

The King of Propaganda

In 1966, Kim Jong-il was given a role in North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department. He was entrusted with a vital task: spreading the myth that his father was a living god. 

Kim Jong-il was instrumental in creating a highly systematic personality cult which has little, if any, parallels in world history.

Andrei Lankov, Director of NK News and a leading expert on North Korea

According to his narrative, Kim Il-Sung was a messiah who won the Korean War and liberated the North. He commissioned statues and paintings of his father and ordered them to be displayed throughout the country.  

Kim Jong-il's propaganda efforts also extended to filmmaking. He developed a passionate interest in cinema and saw its potential as a powerful tool for indoctrination. Soon, he became the director of the Motion Picture and Arts Division. Under his leadership, North Korea began producing a staggering 60 films per year. In a shocking move to bolster his film industry, Kim orchestrated the 1978 kidnapping of South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang-ok and actress Choi Eun-hee, forcing them to make propaganda films for North Korea for eight years before their escape.

Dear Leader

In 1994, after his father’s death, Kim Jong-il rose to power as North Korea’s leader. His job was a difficult one from the start. Shut off from the rest of the world, famine struck the nation. Without international aid, one million people died during the 1990s. At the same time, the economies of neighbouring countries—Japan and South Korea—were flourishing. Kim Jong-il devised rather sinister tactics to understand how they were doing it. He began kidnapping foreign citizens and questioning them in North Korea. He also began cracking down on news channels, making sure any messages delivered over the airwaves were pro-North Korean. The advent of the internet also caused him some headaches, but he was quick to crack down on it, too. Access was limited to an internal intranet that the intelligence service could monitor around the clock.

A Man of the People?

When Kim Jong-il toured the country, he made sure he was seen wearing modest clothes and claimed he lived on a single ball of rice a day. But it was all a show. 

In reality, Kim Jong-il's lavish lifestyle stood in stark contrast to the poverty of his people. He indulged in imported Rothmans cigarettes, high-end cars, and expensive cognac. Envoys flew around the world, sourcing the finest foods for him. Black Caviar was flown in from Iran, craft beer from Czechoslovakia, and fresh fruit from Malaysia. In 2001, on a train trip to Moscow, a Russian envoy travelling with Kim claimed fresh lobsters were flown to the train daily. Kim ate these delicacies with silver chopsticks and washed them down with champagne. 

His opulent lifestyle highlighted the vast disconnect between the ruling elite and the struggling masses in North Korea.

Nuclear Arms

After years of famine, Kim Jong-il realised that the people may rise against him if he didn’t help. So, he devised a way of getting someone else to pay to keep the North Korean people alive—he was going to blackmail the West into giving them food.

Kim Jong-il was building the world’s fourth-largest army. He was also developing nuclear weapons in secret, though he made sure the West knew exactly what he was up to. He leaked information about the nuclear programme and conducted visible missile tests. Sometimes, he even instructed his soldiers to start minor shootouts near the border with South Korea—just to raise the level of tension. News outlets around the world responded with panicked headlines: North Korea was on the brink of war.

Then, Kim diffused the situations he himself had created. He stood his soldiers down and paused missile tests. The world sighed in relief and agreed to grant Kim the concessions he was after. While billions were spent on the army and the nuclear arsenal, the North Korean people were terrified and hungry, surviving on international handouts.

A Reign Comes to an End

In 2008, Kim disappeared for ten months without explanation. He was a notorious party animal, known to be a heavy drinker and smoker by those close to him. Did his penchant for excess have something to do with his disappearance? It seemed so—when he finally reappeared in society, he looked frail and bewildered.

For the next three years, Kim spent most of his time holed up in his luxury, fortified compound. There, in private, far from the prying eyes of the international media, his health declined. Then, on December 17th, 2011, a surprising announcement was made. Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s Dear Leader, had died.

Many in the West hoped his death would mark a turning point in North Korea’s history; a hope that grew when it was announced that his son, Kim Jong-Un, who had been educated in the West, would replace him. However, as the world would soon discover, the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and the Kim dynasty continues to rule North Korea with an iron fist to this day.