Kim family (North Korea)

The Kim family, also known as the Kim dynasty or the Mount Paektu bloodline in the ideological discourse of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), is a three-generation lineage of North Korean leadership, descending from the country's founder and first leader, Kim Il Sung. The patriarch came to rule the north in 1948, after the end of Japanese rule split the region in 1945. He began the Korean War in 1950, in a failed attempt to reunify the Korean Peninsula. In the 1980s, Kim Il Sung developed a cult of personality closely tied to the North Korean state philosophy of Juche. Following his death in 1994, Kim Il Sung's role as supreme leader was passed on to his son Kim Jong Il, and then to his grandson Kim Jong Un. All three men have served as leaders of the WPK and have exercised absolute control over North Korea since the state's establishment in 1948. The North Korean government denies that there is a personality cult surrounding the Kim family, describing the people's devotion to the family as a personal manifestation of support for their nation's leadership. The Kim family has been described as a de facto absolute monarchy or hereditary dictatorship. The Kim family has ruled North Korea since 1948 for three generations, and still little about the family is publicly confirmed. Kim Il Sung rebelled against Japanese rule over Korea in the 1930s, which led to his exile in the Soviet Union. Korea was divided after the Japanese surrender in World War II in 1945. Kim came to lead the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea (a Soviet-backed provisional government), becoming the first premier of its new government, the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (commonly known as North Korea), in 1948. Hoping to reunify the peninsula, on 25 June 1950 the North Korean KPA crossed the 38th Parallel, sparking the Korean War, which ended in stalemate in 1953. Kim developed a personality cult over his nearly 46-year leadership which extended to his family, including his mother Kang Pan-sok (known as the "mother of Korea"), his brother Kim Yong-ju ("the revolutionary fighter") and his first wife Kim Jong-suk (the "mother of the revolution").