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Founding of North Korea

North Korea was formed as an independent state in 1945 (at the end of WWII) when imperial Japan, which had controlled Korea since 1910, surrendered to the Allied Forces. Unable to agree to terms of unifying Korea under shared power, the US and the Soviet Union split the country along the 38th parallel, the Soviets forming a socialist state in the North and the United States forming an anti-communist government in the South under Syngman Rhee.

In June of 1950 in an attempt to unify the country by force, North Korean president, Kim Il-sung, invaded the South, resulting in a three year conflict known as the Korean war. The war ended with a cease-fire pact and the 38th parallel was reestablished as the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

Under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, North Korea became one of the world’s most repressive Stalinist states — great purges, persecutions, and re-trainings followed in accordance with Kim’s self-proclaimed political philosophy of self-reliance known as Juche. North Korea’s borders were sealed hermetically.

North Korea became cloistered from the rest of the world until the late 1980s when failing economic policies, along with persistent drought and flooding cycles, resulted in widespread famine.

After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, the country remained in turmoil. The Soviet Union, North Korea’s main source of economic aid, had collapsed a few years before and other international reforms left North Korea even more isolated. With the rise of Kim Jong-il and the National Defense Commission becoming the centralized authority, North Korea was cemented as a military state.