[d] Kim assumed leadership during a period of catastrophic economic crisis amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union, on which it was heavily dependent for trade in food and other supplies, which brought a famine.

On 19 December 2011, the North Korean government announced that he had died two days earlier, whereupon his third son, Kim Jong Un, was promoted to a senior position in the ruling WPK and succeeded him.

North Korean media also began referring to Kim as "the General" (장군 Changgun), similar to his father's posthumous designation as "the [eternal] President".

[15] Kim's official biography states he was born in a secret military camp on Paektu Mountain (Korean: 백두산밀영고향집; Paektusan Miryeong Gohyang jip) in Korea under Japanese rule on 16 February 1942.

[21][22] This is contested by foreign academics, who believe he is more likely to have received his early education in the People's Republic of China as a precaution to ensure his safety during the Korean War.

He was active in the Korean Children's Union and the Democratic Youth League of North Korea (DYL), taking part in study groups of Marxist political theory and other literature.

[e] Kim Jong Il himself announced that he was up to the task and thus begun his influential career in North Korean filmmaking,[34] during which he made significant efforts to further intensify the personality cult of his father and attach himself to it.

[35] Defector Hwang Jang Yop wrote in his memoirs,[41] [By early 1973] the power of the Central Committee of the Party was slowly being handed over to Kim Jong Il.

In other words, since Kim Il Sung lacked a modern sense of politics and was steeped in pre-modern thinking, he came up with the absurd idea of handing the country over to his son.

Kim Il Sung's policy of Juche (self-reliance) cut the country off from almost all external trade, even with its traditional partners, the Soviet Union and China.

In contrast, Kim Jong Il demanded absolute obedience and agreement from his ministers and party officials with no advice or compromise, and he viewed any slight deviation from his thinking as a sign of disloyalty.

According to Hwang, Kim Jong Il personally directed even minor details of state affairs, such as the size of houses for party secretaries and the delivery of gifts to his subordinates.

[72] An unsuccessful devaluation of the North Korean won in 2009, initiated or approved by Kim personally,[62] caused brief economic chaos and uncovered the vulnerability of the country's societal fabric in the face of crisis.

[92] In an August 2008 issue of the Japanese newsweekly Shūkan Gendai, Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura, an authority on the Korean Peninsula,[93] claimed that Kim died of diabetes in late 2003 and had been replaced in public appearances by one or more stand-ins previously employed to protect him from assassination attempts.

[93] On 9 September 2008, various sources reported that after he did not show up that day for a military parade celebrating North Korea's 60th anniversary, United States intelligence agencies believed Kim might be "gravely ill" after having suffered a stroke.

In late August North Korea's official news agency reported the government would "consider soon a step to restore the nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon to their original state as strongly requested by its relevant institutions".

[96] The New York Times reported on 9 September that Kim was "very ill and most likely suffered a stroke a few weeks ago, but United States intelligence authorities do not think his death is imminent".

[97] The BBC noted that the North Korean government denied these reports, stating that Kim's health problems were "not serious enough to threaten his life",[98][99] although they did confirm that he had suffered a stroke on 15 August.

[100] Japan's Kyodo News agency reported on 14 September, that "Kim collapsed on 14 August due to stroke or a cerebral hemorrhage, and that Beijing dispatched five military doctors at the request of Pyongyang.

[102] On 19 October, North Korea reportedly ordered its diplomats to stay near their embassies to await "an important message", according to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, setting off renewed speculation about the health of the ailing leader.

[104] The New York Times reported that Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, on 28 October 2008, stated in a parliamentary session that Kim had been hospitalized: "His condition is not so good.

Shown with his usual bouffant hairstyle, with his trademark sunglasses and a white winter parka, Kim stood in front of trees with autumn foliage and a red-and-white banner.

[112] In November 2008, Japan's TBS TV network reported that Kim had suffered a second stroke in October, which "affected the movement of his left arm and leg and also his ability to speak".

[116] Kim's three sons and his brother-in-law, along with O Kuk Ryol, an army general, had been noted as possible successors, but the North Korean government had for a time been wholly silent on this matter.

[126] In May 2010, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell told South Korean officials that Kim had only three years to live, according to medical information that had been compiled.

[134][135][136] According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), during his death a fierce snowstorm "paused" and "the sky glowed red above the sacred Mount Paektu" and the ice on a famous lake also cracked so loud that it seemed to "shake the Heavens and the Earth".

[140] In February 2012, on what would have been his 71st birthday, Kim was posthumously made Dae Wonsu (usually translated as Generalissimo, literally Grand Marshal), the nation's top military rank.

[141] Also in February 2012, the North Korean government created the Order of Kim Jong Il in his honor and awarded it to 132 individuals for services in building a "thriving socialist nation" and for increasing defense capabilities.

[166] Although Kim enjoyed many foreign forms of entertainment, according to former bodyguard Lee Young Kuk, he refused to consume any food or drink not produced in North Korea, with the exception of wine from France.

The report, compiled by Frederick L. Coolidge and Daniel L. Segal (with the assistance of a South Korean psychiatrist considered an expert on Kim's behavior), concluded that the "big six" group of personality disorders shared by dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypal) were also shared by Kim – coinciding primarily with the profile of Saddam Hussein.