Kim Jong-il was appointed to the party's Politburo (and its Presidium), Secretariat and the Central Military Commission at the 6th Congress in October 1980,[10] which formalized his role as heir apparent.[6] He led their military beginning in 1990,[11] and had a 14-year grooming period before he became North Korea's ruler.[2] Kim Jong-il had a sister, Kim Kyung-hee, who was North Korea's first female four-star general[12] and married to Jang Sung-taek, who was the second most powerful person in North Korea before his December 2013 execution for corruption.[13] Kim Jong-il had four partners,[13] and at least five children with three of them.[14] His third son, Kim Jong-un, succeeded him.[13] Scholar Virginie Grzelczyk wrote that the Kim Dynasty represented "one of the last bastions of totalitarianism as well as perhaps 'the first Communist Dynasty'".[15]