Word: sung
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...revolution: Mangyondae, an idyllic spot southwest of Pyongyang. The family had settled there after Kim's great- grandfather, a tenant farmer, was assigned by his rich landlord to keep up the owner's family graves. Those plots have been replaced by shrines to the genius of Kim Il Sung, as much of Kim's youth has been replaced by legend. At the age of 17, for example, he was supposedly teaching fourth-graders the basic doctrines of Marx and dialectical materialism. Little is said about his family's move to Manchuria, which was then occupied, like Korea, by Japan...
...Sung got his chance to refashion himself when he fled Manchuria for the Soviet Union in 1939 or 1940, as the Japanese Imperial Army was trouncing the Chinese guerrillas. He was assigned to the Khabarovsk Infantry Officers School and given a captain's commission along with command of the Soviet-led ethnic Korean battalion. In Khabarovsk he married Kim Chong Suk, who had joined Kim Il Sung's guerrillas in 1935 and had followed him into exile. After the Soviets entered the war in 1945 and occupied Japan's northeast Asian territories, Kim and 66 fellow officers were sent...
Conventional wisdom blames either Moscow or Washington for turning Korea into the first hot conflict of the cold war. Kim Il Sung, however, had reason to want such a war. He had always preached that war was the only way to unify the peninsula and drive out the U.S.-backed regime of Syngman Rhee in Seoul. Furthermore, it would bolster his stature against other Korean communists who were urging different ways to unite the country...
...Sung survived to purge his government of his enemies with a brutality he would exercise throughout his rule. The security apparatus he established is among the most sweeping in the world; it classifies the population in three categories: loyal, waverers and hostile elements. According to a recent Amnesty International report, there are "tens of thousands" of dissidents and Kim's political enemies in concentration camps. Untold numbers have been executed...
North Korean ruler Kim Il Sung died of a heart attack at age 82. The world's most durable communist leader, he had ruled his country since 1948. His death came just as U.S. and North Korean negotiators were meeting in Geneva to resume discussions over North Korea's nuclear program. Kim's heir apparent is his son Kim Jong Il, 53, known as "Dear Leader...