Heroic Corps founder who evolved from anarchist bombings to DPRK cabinet, lone figure spanning the Korean revolutionary spectrum
On first meeting Kim Ik-sang in Beijing, Kim Won-bong told him: 'Freedom is won by our strength and our blood… We must be the first to shed it.' Kim Ik-sang joined the Heroic Corps on the spot and weeks later walked into the Japanese Government-General building in Seoul and threw a bomb.
Anarchist militant who founded the Heroic Corps (Ŭiyŏltan) in 1919 and led a six-year campaign of bombings and assassinations against Japanese colonial authorities. After military training at the Whampoa Academy, he founded the Korean National Revolutionary Party (1935) to build a united front, commanded the Korean Volunteer Corps, and later joined the Provisional Government as Deputy Commander of the Korean Liberation Army and Minister of Military Affairs. Following liberation he pursued left-right cooperation, but after Yeo Un-hyeong's assassination he joined the 1948 North-South talks and remained in the DPRK as State Inspection Commissioner and Minister of Labor until his purge in 1958. His trajectory, from anarchist bombings to united-front politics to DPRK cabinet, makes him the only figure to span the entire Korean revolutionary spectrum.
Career timeline
- 1919Founded the Heroic Corps, became its leader (Ŭibaek)
- 1926Enrolled in Whampoa Military Academy, 4th class
- 1935Founded the Korean National Revolutionary Party
- 1938Organized the Korean Volunteer Corps, became commander
- 1944Minister of Military Affairs, Provisional Govt.; Deputy Commander, Korean Liberation Army
- 1948State Inspection Commissioner, DPRK
- 1952Minister of Labor, DPRK
- 1957Vice Chairman, SPA Standing Committee
Korean revolutionary military leader who fought alongside Kim Il Sung in the Manchurian anti-Japanese guerrillas
Kim Il Sung kept a small safe in his office throughout his life. When Kim Jong Il opened it after his father's death in 1994, he found only one photograph inside — a faded picture of Kim Il Sung with Kim Chaek.
Beginning with the Korean Communist Party and Chinese Communist Party in 1920s Manchuria, he committed himself to armed anti-Japanese struggle and rose to command guerrilla operations in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army alongside Kim Il Sung and Choe Yong-gon, the three known as the 'Manchurian partisan troika.' After returning to Korea in 1945, he became Kim Il Sung's closest comrade, leading the creation of the North Korean branch of the Communist Party and orchestrating the campaign to install Kim as paramount leader. When the DPRK was founded in 1948, he became its first Deputy Premier and Minister of Industry, directing postwar industrial reconstruction. He commanded Korean People's Army forces at the front during the Korean War and died of exhaustion in January 1951; the DPRK posthumously named a city, a university, and a steel complex after him.
Career timeline
- 1927Joined the Korean Communist Party; arrested and imprisoned in the Kando Communist Party incident
- 1930Joined the Chinese Communist Party; Secretary of the Dongjing District Committee
- 1933–1940Political commissar of the 3rd Route Army, Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army; Secretary of the North Manchuria Provincial Committee
- 1942–1945Political commissar, 3rd Battalion, 88th Special Brigade, Soviet Far East
- 1945–1946Led creation of the North Korean Branch of the Communist Party; first president of Pyongyang Academy
- 1946–1948Vice-chairman of the North Korean People's Committee; Political Committee member of the Workers' Party of North Korea
- 1948–1951Deputy Premier and Minister of Industry, concurrently Deputy Minister of National Defence
- 1950–1951Frontline commander of the Korean People's Army during the Korean War
The only Korean to complete the Long March, Eighth Route Army artillery commander who led the Korean Volunteer Army and the Yan'an faction
Of some thirty Koreans who set out on the Long March, Mu Chong alone survived to reach Yan'an.
He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1925 and became the only Korean to complete the Long March, rising to artillery commander of the Eighth Route Army. In northern China he organized the Korean Independence Alliance and the Korean Volunteer Army, serving as its commander-in-chief and emerging as the military leader of the Yan'an faction. After liberation he returned to North Korea, serving as KPA artillery commander and II Corps commander during the Korean War, but lost his power struggle with Kim Il Sung and was purged in December 1950 on charges of battlefield failure and murder. His downfall signalled the elimination of the Yan'an faction.
Career timeline
- 1925Joined the Chinese Communist Party
- 1934–1935Participated in the Red Army's Long March
- 1937–1940Artillery Commander, Eighth Route Army
- 1942Commander-in-Chief, Korean Volunteer Army
- 1946Second Secretary, Workers' Party of North Korea
- 1948Deputy Minister of National Defence, KPA 2nd Command
- 1950Commander, KPA II Corps
Anti-Japanese guerrilla fighter on Mt. Paektu, posthumously revered as one of the 'Three Generals'
One day while the unit marched, five or six enemies rose from the reeds and aimed at the General. Comrade Kim Jong-suk shielded him with her own body and shot down an enemy with her revolver.
Kim Jong-suk was a women's guerrilla commander in the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army who fought in the anti-Japanese armed struggle under Kim Il Sung, but she is remembered less for her wartime deeds than for her posthumous veneration as the 'Woman General of Mt. Paektu,' the maternal anchor of the 'Three Generals' Paektu bloodline mythology. As Kim Il Sung's wife and Kim Jong Il's mother, she helped found the Korean Democratic Women's Union after liberation and died in childbirth in 1949.
Career timeline
- 1935Joined the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army
- 1936Personal guard to Kim Il Sung; women's unit commander, Singalpa unit
- 1937Fought in the Battle of Pochonbo; joined the Chinese Communist Party
- 1937–1938Expanded revolutionary organizations in Sinpa, Pungsan, and Tanchon areas
- 1940Married Kim Il Sung; relocated to the Soviet Union
- 1945Returned to Pyongyang after liberation
- 1946–1949Co-founded the Korean Democratic Women's Union; women's movement work
