Kim Il Sung educated at Jilin Yuwen High School
Communist and guerrilla activities
In October 1926, Kim founded the Down-with-Imperialism Union. He attended Whasung Military Academy in 1926, but finding the academy's training methods outdated, quit in 1927. He then attended Yuwen Middle School in China's Jilin province until 1930, when he rejected the feudal traditions of older-generation Koreans and became interested in communist ideologies. Kim's formal education ended when the police arrested and jailed him for his subversive activities. At seventeen, Kim had become the youngest member of an underground Marxist organization with fewer than twenty members, led by Hŏ So, who belonged to the South Manchurian Communist Youth Association. The police discovered the group three weeks after it formed in 1929, and jailed Kim for several months.: 52 : 7 In 1931, Kim joined the Chinese Communist Party—the Communist Party of Korea had been founded in 1925, but had been thrown out of the Comintern in the early 1930s for being too nationalist. He joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China. Feelings against the Japanese ran high in Manchuria, but as of May 1930 the Japanese had not yet occupied Manchuria. On 30 May 1930, a spontaneous violent uprising in eastern Manchuria arose in which peasants attacked some local villages in the name of resisting "Japanese aggression." The authorities easily suppressed this unplanned, reckless and unfocused uprising. Because of the attack, the Japanese began to plan an occupation of Manchuria. In a speech Kim allegedly made before a meeting of Young Communist League delegates on 20 May 1931 in Yenchi County in Manchuria, he warned the delegates against such unplanned uprisings as the 30 May 1930 uprising in eastern Manchuria.Four months later, on 18 September 1931, the "Mukden Incident" occurred, in which a relatively weak dynamite explosive charge went off near a Japanese railroad in the town of Mukden in Manchuria. Although no damage occurred, the Japanese used the incident as an excuse to send armed forces into Manchuria and to appoint a puppet government. In 1935, Kim became a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, a guerrilla group led by the Chinese Communist Party. Kim was appointed the same year to serve as political commissar for the 3rd detachment of the second division, consisting of around 160 soldiers.: 53  Here Kim met the man who would become his mentor as a communist, Wei Zhengmin, Kim's immediate superior officer, who served at the time as chairman of the Political Committee of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. Wei reported directly to Kang Sheng, a high-ranking party member close to Mao Zedong in Yan'an, until Wei's death on 8 March 1941.: 8–10 Kim's actions during the Minsaengdan incident helped solidify his leadership. Chinese communists operating in Manchuria had become suspicious that any Korean could secretly be a member of the pro-Japanese and anti-communist Minsaengdan. A purge resulted: over 1,000 Koreans were expelled from the Communist Party of China, including Kim (who was arrested in late 1933 and exonerated in early 1934), and 500 were killed. Kim Il Sung's memoirs - and those of the guerillas who fought alongside him – cite Kim's seizing and burning the suspect files of the Purge Committee as key to solidifying his leadership. After the destruction of the suspect files and the rehabilitation of suspects, those who had fled the purge rallied around Kim. As historian Suzy Kim summarizes, Kim Il Sung "emerged from the purge as a definitive leader, not only for the bold move but also for his compassion."In 1935, Kim took the name Kim Ill Sung, meaning "Kim become the sun".: 30  Kim was appointed commander of the 6th division in 1937, at the age of 24, controlling a few hundred men in a group that came to be known as "Kim Il Sung's division". On 4 June 1937, he led 200 guerillas in a raid on Poch'onbo, destroying the local government offices and setting fire to a Japanese police station and post office. The success of the raid demonstrated Kim's talents as a military leader. Even more significant than the military success itself was the political coordination and organization between the guerillas and the Korean Fatherland Restoration Association, an anti-Japanese united front group based in Manchuria. These accomplishment would grant Kim some measure of fame among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies would later exploit it as a great victory for Korea.
For their part, the Japanese regarded Kim as one of the most effective and popular Korean guerrilla leaders.: 160–161  He appeared on Japanese wanted lists as the "Tiger". The Japanese "Maeda Unit" was sent to hunt him in February 1940. Later in 1940, the Japanese kidnapped a woman named Kim Hye-sun, believed to have been Kim Il Sung's first wife. After using her as a hostage to try to convince the Korean guerrillas to surrender, she was killed. Kim was appointed commander of the 2nd operational region for the 1st Army, but by the end of 1940 he was the only 1st Army leader still alive. Pursued by Japanese troops, Kim and what remained of his army escaped by crossing the Amur River into the Soviet Union.: 53–54  Kim was sent to a camp at Vyatskoye near Khabarovsk, where the Soviets retrained the Korean communist guerrillas. In August 1942, Kim and his army were assigned to a special unit known as the 88th Separate Rifle Brigade, which belonged to the Soviet Red Army. Kim's immediate superior was Zhou Baozhong. Kim became a Major in the Soviet Red Army: 50  and served in it until the end of World War II in 1945.
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