Talk:Kim Il Sung

Romaja
Hi, please change Kim Il-seong and Kim Seong-ju in the Revised Romanization Korean name infoboxes to Gim Il-seong and Gim Seong-ju, because ㄱ is romanized as "g" in RR. Thanks. 24.61.83.139 (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. This is how RR strictly speaking works, even though sources following RR also habitually spell it as Kim. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:57, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * A minor historical detail, but how was the romanization of 성 as "Sung" (which does not match any of the regular Romanization systems that I'm aware of) decided upon originally? Muzilon (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:22, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * DPRK-Army-OF-12.svg

"Jin Richeng" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Jin Richeng and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 January 25 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed,Rosguill talk 15:29, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Error with children
The 'Personal life' section lists his children with Kim Song-ae as Kim Yong-il, Kim Kyong-il and Kim Pyong-il, however the infobox (and Kim Song-ae's article) list Kim Kyong-jin instead of Kim Kyong-il. NK Leadership Watch list Kim Kyong-jin (although not the one linked to as they have widely differing birth years), however that webpage gives birth years for them all (Kyong-jin 1951, Pyong-il 1954, Yong-il 1955) but then contradicts two of them later (Kyong-jin 1953, Yong-il 1957). The Kim family (North Korea) article says their children are Kim Kyong-il (1951), Kim Pyong-il (1953) and Kim Yong-il (1955) with Time magazine as a source, however Kim Pyong-il's article lists his birth year as 1954. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 18:02, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Kim Il-sung's funeral was held on 19 Jul 94, not 17 Jul
It was originally scheduled on 17 Jul, but delayed till the 19th. Sources: and  ZKang123 (talk) 03:55, 14 March 2022 (UTC)


 * ✅ Centre Left Right  ✉ 06:02, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 July 2022
I want to replace the 1950 portrait with the official portrait. Idonotwanttoleakmyipadress (talk) 15:31, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: The image would have to be uploaded, and have an acceptable license. I assume North Korea's copyright isn't compatible with Wikpedia. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:40, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Kim Il-sung's posthumous portrait is available on Wikimedia Commons, but photographs of an article's subject are preferred over drawn reproductions. Thus, this request should be declined regardless. Yue 🌙 07:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Classified CIA on Kis identity
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00809A000600270269-4.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.25.210.75 (talk) 07:28, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Unevaluated information. We've already adequately covered this issue in the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This talk page, and the article itself, does not adequately cover the topic or possibility that Kim may have in fact taken the identity of another person named Km Il Sung. Couple this CIA doc with the BBC documentary, where we hear the words of Kim Hung Suk, who came from the same village as Kim Song Ju.  When the Soviets were presenting the great and well known Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang shortly after the removal of the Japanese, they all expected to see a man in his 50's at least, not this person they already knew, known as Kim Song Ju, who was only in his early 30s.  It seems we need to explore more on this topic.  Could Kim Song Ju, before he was 18, have performed some of the exploits attributed to the famed Kim Il Sung at that time? Rockford1963 (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It’s a marginal theory that the academic consensus soundly rejects. To add more than we already have here would create a WP:UNDUE issue. JArthur1984 (talk) 19:02, 30 December 2022 (UTC)


 * hardly marginal at all. we have some sources that reject, and others that suggest or point to Kim taking the identity of an older partisan leader (such as Kim Hung Suk).  There is more that needs to be put in the article, so the reader knows it is still an unsettled issue.  Kim may have in fact taken the identity of another.  Let the reader decide. Rockford1963 (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * from Britannica.com: "After Kim’s release from prison, he joined the Korean guerrilla resistance against the Japanese occupation sometime during the 1930s and adopted the name of an earlier legendary Korean guerrilla fighter against the Japanese." Rockford1963 (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Taking someone's name (if true) is not the same as taking someone's identity. As I've said, we already cover this in the article.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:41, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Kim Jong-un which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:31, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Infobox Picture change?
Should Il-Sung's picture in the infobox be changed to the posthumous portrait of him which was released after his death? TheSupremeMoron (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * No, per MOS:IMAGEQUALITY. Kim's official posthumous portrait is an idealised, drawn picture of him. The current portrait of him in the infobox is an actual photograph taken of him while he was alive; as such a photo exists, there is no need to use a drawn picture. Yue 🌙 21:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree his posthumous portrait should be used instead. Dankluxuries (talk) 03:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And can you give a reason for your opinion or are you going to be short on details like the throwaway account that started this discussion? Yue 🌙 05:44, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep the current portrait.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

False information
By the late 1950s and during the 1960s and 1970s, North Korea enjoyed a higher standard of living than the South, which was suffering from political chaos and economic crises. This unreferenced claim is blatantly false. Northern part of Korea was richer due to being more industrialized till 1948 yes. then after this monster launched the Korean war North Korea was always poorer. Though South Korea was indeed poor in 1950s had 24% unemployment rate. 126.151.199.191 (talk) 11:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * This information is sourced.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:15, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I checked the source which is a mere circular reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Republic_of_Korea a regime which only ruled modern South Korea till 1960 to begin with. So citing this article to claim that North Korea had better living standards than the South during 1960s and 1970s as this page does is baseless. Incidentally part of the reason I am emphasizing this is because this was the same propaganda misinformation told to over 900000 people that emigrated from Japan to North Korea primarily in 1959 and 1960. 126.162.136.105 (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry 90000+ not 900000+ 126.162.136.105 (talk) 09:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Just so we are all on the same page, the sourced sentence in the article body that justifies the sentence in the lead you are disputing is:
 * By the 1960s, North Korea enjoyed a standard of living higher than the South, which was fraught with political instability and economic crises.
 * The Wikilink to the First Republic of Korea (via "fraught with political instability and economic crises") is not the source(s) being referred to by Jack. The three references at the end of the sentence are the sources, and all three authors are Professors of History with PhDs and specialisations in Korean history and politics. I find it kind of odd you are so insistent that the ROK had a better standard of living than the DPRK in the 1960s and 1970s when the existing academic scholarship says otherwise. Where are you getting your information from? Would you mind citing some sources for your claim? Yue 🌙 16:56, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi I tried reading the sources presented but couldn't access them since I need to purchase the book. Nonetheless doesn't mean that these so called PhD scholars from somewhere thousands of kilometers away have true information. For instance check out the books 朝鮮戦争ふくろうの本 or 朝鮮帰国事業 - 「壮大な拉致」か「追放」か by 中公新書. These books are in Japanese so aren't biased unlike the South Korean ones which could likely be against anything about North Korea due to politician agenda resulting from the ongoing conflict. These books also mention the crimes perpetrated by erstwhile Japanese and South Korean politicians so are neutral in the subject. I could also provide research papers published by professors in the university of Tokyo and university of Hitotsubashi that is what I did when I attempted to edit the wikipedia page last time however they weren't accepted sources by wikipedia hence my edit was debarred from being published. Any totalitarian regime be it North Korea Saudi Arabia or the taliban in Afghanistan does huge propaganda efforts whenever a foreigner a journalist visits the country that might explain why those 'professors' said that North Korea had a higher standard of living than South Korea after the Korean war. Untrue. Yes during the Japanese colonization 1910-1945 North Korea had a far higher living standard as it was way more industrialized. Totalitarian Imperial Japanese regime carried out an atomic bomb test in the coast of Hamhung in 1942 Hamhung is today a city in North Korea. 97% of ethnic Koreans in Japan have their ancestry in what is today a part of South Korea. 10% of these people were forced to move from (South) Korea to Japan by the erstwhile totalitarian regime whilst the rest fled poverty. As the southernmost part of Korea was treated as a rice producing feudal property by the totalitarian politicians produced rice for all of Korean peninsula and Kyushu (an island in Japan adjacent to Korea). This is mentioned in the book 朝鮮帰国事業 - 「壮大な拉致」か「追放」か. Then the communists were put in place in North Korea by the soviet politicians kim il sung dictator imprisoned or executed political opponents eg. Kim Chaek 'mysteriously' dying in 1950 even launched an invasion war against South Korea in 1950. During the Korean war US airforce estimates that 85% of buildings in North Korea were destroyed (from wikipedia bombing of North Korea). In spite of war crimes being perpetrated by both sides of the conflict, alot of people in North Korea fled to South Korea alongside the retreating South Korean and UN forces when North Korean military and Chinese militaries regained Pyongyang Wonsan Hamhung Pukchong Tokchon despite the heavy communist propaganda and indoctrination. This is mentioned in the book 朝鮮戦争 ふくろうの本.
 * North Korea has ALWAYS been poorer than South Korea after 1953. Just like another buffer zone 'pakistan' after it was chopped off India by jinnah and churchill in 1947 in spite of democratic election results in United India in 1946 when Karachi and Lahore were Indias richest cities 1930-1947. Both the North Korean and Pakistani military intelligence agencies are known by the world as terrorist organizations (eg. osama bin laden, North Korean abduction of foreigners) in spite of the overwhelming majority of the citizens being innocuous.
 * Incidentally, I tried reading the wikipedia page kim il sung in other language versions such as Norwegian and Japanese. Nowhere could I find that North Korea had a higher standard of living than South Korea after 1953. Though South Korea was also a dictatorship for sometime. 126.146.147.149 (talk) 05:57, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
 * We go with sources and the sources say North Korea had a higher GDP...--Jack Upland (talk) 00:59, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Known as the Great Leader (Suryong), he established
Why does the hyperlink for "Great Leader" simply link to the page for Juche? If I want to know more about this epithet, the Juche page does not help. Ed8r (talk) 00:46, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Removed link.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Romanization of birth name
This is a problem that I've noticed some time ago. His birth name is written here and in Britannica (from where the source comes from) as Kim Song Ju (김성주), although according to the North Korean romanization which is used in this article regarding him, it should actually be nevertheless written as "Kim Sung Ju", as this 성 is the same 성 as in his later name, 김일성, Kim Il Sung. What should we do with this inconsistency? And inb4 someone says that here we shouldn't stick to NK romanization, I'll remind you that not long ago the pages Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un were moved to names without hyphen per NK romanization standards. @Yue Adding you, because you're one of the frequent editors here. GreatLeader1945 (talk) 09:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Tumor is more likely a Benign Lipoma instead of Calcinosis
The tumor in question is more likely to be a benign lipoma than calcinosis. However since neither can be confirmed due to the lack of evidence, the article should refer to the tumor in question without giving a presumptive diagnosis, and remove the relative link on the calcinosis page.

(Calcinosis of the neck)

(Lipomas of the neck)

The lesion fails to have any nodular elements via pictures, and according to current sources it is round and has grown considerably over years, which mimics a lipoma more so than a calcinotic lesion.

Ferrariic (talk) 04:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)