Kim Yong-ju

Kim Yong-ju (Chosŏn'gŭl: 김영주; born 1920) is a North Korean politician and the younger brother of the country's former supreme leader Kim Il-sung. He currently holds a ceremonial position as Honorary Vice President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, North Korea's parliament.

Biography

Kim Yong-ju was born to Kim Hyŏng-jik and Kang Pan-sŏk in Mangyŏngdae in 1920, 8 years after his elder brother Kim Il-sung.

After studying economics at the Moscow State University,^[1] where he also took a deep interest in philosophy,^[2] Kim Yong-ju joined the Workers' Party of Korea. His rise through the party's echelons was fast: from the 1950s to the 1960s he was chief cadre (1954), vice-director (1957) and finally director (1960) of the WPK Organization and Guidance Department, and he was appointed member of the WPK Central Committee at the Party's 4th Congress in 1961. In 1966 he was promoted to Organizing Secretary of the WPK Central Committee.

In 1967, he proposed to his brother the "Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System" (whose first principle was: "We must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung"), which were published only in 1974.^[3]

By 1970, when he was elected Politburo member, Kim Yong-ju was widely believed to be Kim Il-sung's most likely successor.^[4] He was also elected to the top Central People's Committee and the SPA Presidium in 1972. However, at the same time Kim Il-sung started grooming his own son Kim Jong-il to be his designated successor, and a power struggle erupted.^[2]

It was the period when the WPK was focusing ideologically on Kim Il-sung's Juche; while Kim Jong-il actively stood for this process, Kim Yong-ju, having studied in Russia, supported a more classical view of Marxism and was not fond of the extensive personality cult built around his brother.^[2] This played to Kim Jong-il's advantage: Kim Yong-ju was more and more marginalized, his key allies Kim Do-man (director of propaganda) and Park Yong-guk (director of international liaison) were removed, and he himself was finally attacked by Kim Il-sung. After a Central Committee plenum in February 1974, Kim Jong-il was granted the position of heir apparent and Kim Yong-ju was demoted to vice-premier.^[2] In 1975 he was also sent to Jagang Province under house arrest.

Kim Yong-ju completely disappeared from limelight until 1993, when he was called back to Pyongyang by Kim Il-sung to serve as a powerless vice-president of the DPRK. After the post of President of the DPRK was awarded eternally to Kim Il-sung, Kim Yong-ju was appointed honorary vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly in 1998, a post he currently holds.

References