Kim Jong Il

Kim Jong Il was a North Korean politician and dictator who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994 until his own death in 2011. Born in the far east of the Soviet Union, he rose through the Workers' Party of Korea, helped develop the Juche ideology and the cult of personality, and was designated his father's successor in 1980. He took power amid a catastrophic economic crisis and famine, ruled a repressive and totalitarian dictatorship and made the army central through his Songun (military-first) policies. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 under his rule; he promoted his third son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor.