Kim Jong Il - Personality Cult
Since the elder Kim’s death, the cult of his personality had grown to even greater proportions. It continuesd to dominate every aspect of North Korean life. In this regard, it should be emphasized that it was and always has been the cult of Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il succeeded to power as the son of Kim Il Sung in the tradition of the Choson monarchy.
One might assume that, as his son, Kim Jong Il would be elevated to the same godlike status. However, that did not immediately seem to be the case. He is more the apostle or high priest of his father’s cult, and a very zealous one at that. As the chief beneficiary of the cult, he had every reason to maintain and promote the cult to ever higher excesses.
Kim Jong-il spent 20 years preparing for his succession to power. According to reports, it had actually been his uncle, Kim Yong-chu, his father’s younger brother, who had been the original presumptive heir to Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il was eventually able to side-line his uncle and win the confidence of his father particularly through his efforts to expand the cult of personality of Kim Il-sung. For a period of time in his career, the younger Kim’s main responsibility in the Ministry of Culture actually seems to have been the promotion of the cult. He has proven expertise in that area.
It was really in 1972 that the intensity of the cult of personality of Kim Il-sung surpassed those of Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin. DPRK citizens began to wear badges with his picture in addition to hanging his portrait on their walls. Kim Jong-il had been serving in the Party’s powerful propaganda and organization departments until he organized the Fifth Party Congress in 1970 which proclaimed Juche as the monolithic ideology of the DPRK and further enhanced his father’s cult of personality thereby setting in motion the process for his succession.
Among Kim Il Sung’s children, Kim Jong Il “was the one who got his father’s trust. He supported Kim Il Sung’s deification,” according to Hwang Jang-yop, Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) secretary for ideology. The younger Kim is credited with coining the term Kimilsungism, with its specific connotation of one-man rule, and during the 1960s and 1970s he presided over the elevation of Kim Il Sung from national hero and “Great Leader” to official deity.
It would have been far riskier for Kim Jong Il to have tried to replace his father in the people’s affections, which he was not likely to have accomplished in any case, than to co-opt his father’s cult for his own purposes. In this way, he avoided any comparison to his father in which he would inevitably be found wanting. At the same time, he capitalized on the benefits of being the son of a cult demigod, a position that no one else can challenge and that is compatible with traditional Confucian thinking, which holds high the father-son relationship of the five personal connections (ruler and subject, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife, and friend and friend) that contribute to the perfect harmony of society.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Kim Jong Il’s political power was any less than his father’s because the younger Kim was not the object of a comparable cult of personality. He was the leader of a cult society, with all the powers associated with being the leader, as distinct from the object of worship. It is doubtful that he could ever have created so intense and enduring a cult built around his persona. He was not the charismatic man his father was. He inherited total political power, which he reinforced by reinvigorating the cult worship of his father, without himself initially having the stature of his father as a demigod in what is essentially a secular religious state.
In an absolute Suryeong totalitarian society such as North Korea, the Syreong’s personal character and nature have great importance. Kim Jong Il was impatient and capricious. Sung Hye Rang, Kim Jong Il’s sister-in-law and the tutor Kim Jong Nam, his son, said, “Kim Jong Il is a very nice person when he is in good mood, but when he is in bad mood, he gets so furious that the windows shake.” Fujimoto Kenji, once Kim Jong Il’s personal cook said, “Usually he treats cadres friendly but when he gets angry he make them stand and yell at them.” Lee Young Kuk, one of Kim Jong Il’s former bodyguards describes Kim Jong Il as, “he was impatient and drank at lot of alcohol due to the family problems when he was young, That is why he has habit of completing work abruptly and in hurry.”
Some experts believed the biggest influence to formation of Kim Jong Il’s personality was the sudden death of his biological mother, Kim Jung Suk. Kim Jong Il was seven years old at the time. Doubts were raised about the cause of her sudden death. The fear of losing power of his father must have all shaped his personality in one way or the other.
In keeping with the mythologies that pervade North Korea's version of history, which is seen as crucial to the cult of personality and political control, it is claimed that Kim Jong-il was born on Mount Paektu at his father's "secret camp" in 1942 (his actual birth was in 1941 in the Soviet Union) and that his birth was heralded by a swallow, caused winter to change to spring, a star to illuminate the sky, and a double rainbow spontaneously appeared.
"In the early 1940s, three general stars appeared over Mount Paektu. The first one was the star of the legendary hero Gen. Kim Il Sung, the second one was the star of Woman Gen. Kim Jong Suk (Kim's wife), and the third, shining clearly in the middle, was the star of the Baby General. Today, this Baby General Star has emerged high in the sky as the guiding star of juche (self-reliance), shining brightly to light the path before our nation and all mankind," state-run Radio Pyongyang said in a program to mark Kim's birthday. "Baby General Star" refers to Kim Jong Il.
The "secret camp" was actually built in February 1987 as a propaganda ploy, and the myth created that Kim was born on the highest mountain on the peninsula. The mountain had been revered as sacred by all Koreans because Korea's mythical founding father, Tangun, was said to have established ancient Korea on the mountain.
By 1975 Kim Jong-il was referred to as the "party center", or in connection with his father with references to "our great suryong (supreme leader) and the party center". In 1977, the first confirmation of Kim Jong-il's succession by name was published in a booklet which designated the younger Kim as the only heir to Kim Il-sung.
Prior to 1996, Kim Jong-il forbade the erection of statues of himself and discouraged portraits. However, in 1996, schools were required to build a separate room for lectures dealing specifically with Kim Jong-il known as the Kim Jong-il Research Institute. They include a model of his birthplace. There are approximately 40,000 "research institutes" (total includes both Kim Il-Sung's and Kim Jong-il's) throughout the country.
After his death on 17 December 2011, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that layers of ice ruptured with an unprecedentedly loud crack at Chon Lake on Mount Paektu and a snowstorm with strong winds hit the area.
One essay publish by KCNA stated that he was "gifted with matchless courage and pluck, always stood in the forefront of the Korean people's struggle for triumphantly defending the country and making tremendous achievements in socialist construction."
Another KCNA essay stated "It was only Kim Jong Il who made his life shine like snow. He worked hard day and night, having uncomfortable sleep and taking rice-balls. He was the first to greet dawn like a man in his twenties. Seeing his dedication in tears, the people would ask him to stop making any more journeys along snow-covered roads in cold weather and sitting up all night. Hearing this, he said he considered it as his pleasure and his routine to do so and continued his journeys despite strong wind and snow and spent nights full of enthusiasm."
Several large-scale bronze statues were erected alongside statues of Kim Il-sung. They include a 5.7-meter (19-foot) statue of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung each riding a horse (the first large monument built after Kim Jong-il's death) and a 23-meter (75-foot) tall statue at Mansudae, Pyongyang. The government also began replacing statues of Kim Il-sung with updated versions along with new statues of Kim Jong-il beside the ones of his father in each of the provincial capitals and other sites.
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