From civil-rights lawyer of the March 1st Movement to first Chairman of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly: a progressive nationalist
When he submitted a motion of non-prosecution during the March 1st Movement trial, the Japanese courtroom erupted in protest — and the scene, reported nationwide, made Ho Hon the symbol of the anti-colonial lawyer.
One of colonial Korea's 'three great civil-rights lawyers,' he defended the 47 national representatives of the March 1st Movement and handled pro bono cases for workers and independence activists. Elected chairman of Singanhoe's Central Executive Committee in 1927, he led the united-front anti-Japanese struggle, and after liberation served as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Korea and chairman of the South Korean Workers' Party before crossing north, becoming the bridge by which Korea's independence movement passed into socialism.
Career timeline
- 1907Passed the first Korean Empire bar examination
- 1919Defended March 1st Movement leaders; President, Korean Bar Association
- 1927Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Singanhoe
- 1945Vice Chairman, Preparatory Committee; Prime Minister, People's Republic of Korea
- 1946Chairman, South Korean Workers' Party
- 1948Chairman, Supreme People's Assembly; President, Kim Il Sung University
Independence activist, linguist, and Yan'an faction leader who served as the first head of state of the DPRK
On the day the People's Assembly adopted the new DPRK flag in July 1948, Kim Tu-bong personally lowered the Taegeukgi and raised its replacement. Barely a year earlier, he had been the man passionately explaining the old flag's philosophical meaning to a skeptical Soviet general.
A Hangul linguist trained under Chu Sigyŏng who led the Korean Independence League in Yan'an. Became the DPRK's first head of state in 1948, though real power lay with Kim Il Sung. Purged and vanished in the 1958 August Faction Incident.
Career timeline
- 1908–1916Studied Hangul under Chu Sigyŏng; helped compile MalMoi dictionary
- 1919Joined March First Movement, then exiled to Shanghai provisional government
- 1920–1930sCombined communist activism with linguistic research in Shanghai
- 1942–1945Founded Korean Independence League in Yan'an; led the Yan'an faction
- 1946.02–08Chairman of the New People's Party of Korea
- 1946.08–1949.06Chairman of the Workers' Party of North Korea Central Committee
- 1948.09–1957.09Chairman of the SPA Standing Committee — first head of state of the DPRK
- 1957–1958Dismissed from all posts over August Faction Incident; disappeared
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
The founder of North Korea returned from the Soviet Far East
On 14 October 1945, more than 100,000 gathered at Pyongyang's sports ground for a rally honouring the liberating Soviet army. A Soviet general introduced 'the national hero and famous partisan leader, comrade Kim Il Sung.' Onto the podium stepped a 33-year-old — the crowd stared in disbelief, having expected a legendary guerrilla in his fifties.
After guerrilla activity against Japanese rule, he served with the Soviet Far East’s 88th Separate Rifle Brigade in the 1940s and rose to the center of power in northern Korea under Soviet occupation authorities after 1945. Having founded the DPRK in 1948, he concentrated party, state, and military power over decades.
Career timeline
- 1930sAnti-Japanese guerrilla activity in Manchuria
- 1942–1945Served with the Soviet 88th Separate Rifle Brigade
- 1945–1948Built a power base in northern Korea under Soviet occupation
- 1948–1972Premier and Workers’ Party leader
- 1961Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the USSR
- 1972–1994President of the DPRK
