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Kim Yong-Ju

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Kim Yong-Ju
Kim Yong-Ju
Kim Yong-Ju in the 2000s
Birth: 1920
Taedong County, North Korea
Death: December 2021
North Korea
Age: 101 years
Country: North KoreaPRK
Centenarian

Kim Yong-Ju [Korean: 김영주] (21 September 1920 – 13 December 2021) was a North Korean centenarian.

Biography[]

Kim Yong-ju was born in Taedong County in 1920, eight years after his elder brother Kim Il-sung. When Kim was three years old, his family moved to southern Manchuria.

After graduating from the economics department at the Moscow State University in 1945, Kim Yong-ju joined the Workers' Party of Korea.

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.

By 1970, when he was elected WPK Politburo member, Kim Yong-ju was widely believed to be Kim Il-sung's most likely successor. 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.

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. This played to Kim Jong-il's advantage: Kim Yong-ju was more and more marginalized, his key allies Kim To-man (director of propaganda) and Pak 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.

Kim Yong-ju completely disappeared from the limelight until 1993, when he was called back to Pyongyang by Kim Il-sung to serve as one of the Vice Presidents, but only a ceremonial position. Kim Yong-ju was appointed Honorary Vice-President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly in 1998. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of Kim Jong-il. He was also a recipient of the Order of Kim Il-sung and the title Hero of the Republic.

His death in Pyongyang was announced by state media on 15 December 2021. He outlived almost exactly 10 years longer than his nephew and former rival Kim Jong Il, who died on 17 December 2011.

References[]

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