Kim Il Sung Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Return to Korea === [[File:Soviet military advisers attending North Korean mass event.jpg|thumb|Kim attending a mass event with members of the [[Soviet Civil Administration]], Pyongyang, October 1945]] The Soviet Union declared [[SovietโJapanese War|war on Japan]] on 8 August 1945, and the Red Army entered Pyongyang on 24 August 1945. Stalin had instructed [[Lavrentiy Beria]] to recommend a communist leader for the [[Military occupations by the Soviet Union|Soviet-occupied territories]] and Beria met Kim several times before recommending him to Stalin.<ref name="dailynk.com"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ysfine.com/wisdom/wk01.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130528043524/http://ysfine.com/wisdom/wk01.html|url-status=dead|title=Wisdom of Korea|archive-date=28 May 2013|website=ysfine.com}}</ref><ref name="scmp.com">{{cite web|last=O'Neill|first=Mark|url=http://www.scmp.com/article/727755/kim-il-sungs-secret-history |title=Kim Il-sung's secret history|work=South China Morning Post|date=17 October 2010 |access-date=15 April 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227095258/http://www.scmp.com/article/727755/kim-il-sungs-secret-history |archive-date=27 February 2014 }}</ref> Kim arrived in the Korean port of [[Wonsan]] on 19 September 1945 after 26 years in exile.<ref name="Martin2004"/>{{rp|51}} According to Leonid Vassin, an officer with the Soviet [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]], Kim was essentially "created from zero". For one, his Korean was marginal at best; he only had eight years of formal education, all of it in Chinese. He needed considerable coaching to read a speech (which the MVD prepared for him) at a Communist Party congress three days after he arrived.<ref name="Rogue">{{cite book |author=Jasper Becker |url=https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck |title=Rogue Regime : Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea |date=2005 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-803810-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck/page/44 44] |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|50}} [[File:28.08.1946 Labour Party North Korea.jpg|thumb|right|Kim Il Sung (center) and [[Kim Tu-bong]] (second from the right) at the joint meeting of the [[New People's Party of Korea|New People's Party]] and the [[Workers' Party of North Korea]] in Pyongyang, 28 August 1946]] In December 1945, the Soviets installed Kim as first secretary of the [[North Korean Branch Bureau]] of the [[Communist Party of Korea]].<ref name="Martin2004"/>{{rp|56}} Originally, the Soviets preferred [[Cho Man-sik]] to lead a [[popular front]] government, but Cho refused to support a UN-backed trusteeship and clashed with Kim.<ref name="Armstrong2013">{{cite book|last=Armstrong|first=Charles|date=2013|title=The North Korean Revolution, 1945โ1950|publisher=Cornell University Press}}</ref> General [[Terentii Shtykov]], who led the Soviet occupation of northern Korea, supported Kim over [[Pak Hon-yong]] to lead the [[People's Committee of North Korea|Provisional People's Committee for North Korea]] on 8 February 1946.<ref name=LankovArticle>{{cite news|last=Lankov |first=Andrei |date=25 January 2012 |title=Terenti Shtykov: the other ruler of nascent N. Korea |url=https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/01/363_103451.html |newspaper=[[The Korea Times]] |access-date=14 April 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150417010008/http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/01/363_103451.html |archive-date=17 April 2015 }}</ref> As chairman of the committee, Kim was "the top Korean administrative leader in the North," though he was still ''de facto'' subordinate to General Shtykov until the Chinese intervention in the Korean War.<ref name="scmp.com"/><ref name="Martin2004"/>{{rp|56}}<ref name=LankovArticle/> On 1 March 1946, while giving a speech to commemorate an anniversary of the [[March 1st Movement]], a member of the anti-communist terrorist group the [[White Shirts Society]] attempted to assassinate Kim by lobbing a grenade at his podium. However, Soviet military officer [[Yakov Novichenko]] grabbed the grenade and absorbed the blast with his body, leaving Kim and other bystanders unharmed.<ref>{{Citation |last=Lankov |first=Andrei Nikolaevich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8yupvBRohJ4C |title=From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945โ1960 |date=2002 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-3117-5 |language=en|pages=24โ25}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Young |first=Benjamin R. |date=12 December 2013 |title=Meet the man who saved Kim Il Sung's life |url=https://www.nknews.org/2013/12/meet-the-man-who-saved-kim-il-sungs-life/ |access-date=8 May 2023 |website=[[NK News]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Jung |first=Byung Joon |title=ํ์คํ ์์ด๊ณผ ๊น์ผ์ฑ ์์ด์๋โํ๋จ ๊ฑด์ค์ ์ข์ ๋ 'ํด๋ฐฉํฉ๊ธ์๋'์ ๋ฐฑ์์ฌ |url=https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002752849 |work=์ญ์ฌ๋นํ [Critical Review of History] |volume=136 |pages=342โ388 |year=2021 |trans-title=Assassination of Hyun Junhyuk and Assassination Attempt on Kim Ilsung: โThe Frustrated Golden Daysโ of Pyongnam Korean Committee for the Preparation of the Re-establishment of the State and the Origin of White Shirts Society |access-date=21 May 2023 |publisher=์ญ์ฌ๋ฌธ์ ์ฐ๊ตฌ์ [The Institute for Korean Historical Studies] |language=ko |issn=1227-3627}}</ref> To solidify his control, Kim established the [[Korean People's Army]] (KPA), aligned with the Communist Party, and he recruited a cadre of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and later against [[National Revolutionary Army|Nationalist Chinese]] troops.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/irp/world/rok/nis-docs/defense02.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306013620/http://fas.org/irp/world/rok/nis-docs/defense02.htm|url-status=dead|title=Defense|archive-date=6 March 2016}}</ref> Using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed a large army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare. Prior to Kim's invasion of the South in 1950, which triggered the Korean War, Stalin equipped the KPA with modern, Soviet-built medium tanks, trucks, artillery, and small arms. Kim also formed an air force, equipped at first with Soviet-built propeller-driven fighters and attack aircraft. Later, North Korean pilot candidates were sent to the Soviet Union and China to train in [[Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15|MiG-15]] jet aircraft at secret bases.<ref>Blair, Clay, ''The Forgotten War: America in Korea'', [[Naval Institute Press]] (2003).</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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