Kim Hong-il (general)
Kim Hong-il (23 September 1898 – 8 August 1980) was a Korean independence activist and a general of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Korean War, who later became a diplomat and politician in South Korea. Born in North Pyongan, he did his early schooling in China and Korea, and had a brief career as a teacher before his connections with the nascent Korean independence movement led to his imprisonment. He fled into exile in China in 1918, and served in the Kuomintang's National Revolutionary Army from 1926 to 1948, following which he moved to the newly-independent South Korea to join the Republic of Korea Army. He commanded South Korea's I Corps during the first year of the Korean War, and was then sent to Taipei as South Korea's ambassador to the Republic of China, which by then had retreated to Taiwan. His assignment there ultimately lasted nine years. He returned to South Korea in 1960 following the April Revolution which ended the rule of Syngman Rhee, and served briefly as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Park Chung-hee junta. He ran for the National Assembly, first unsuccessfully in 1960 and 1963, and was then elected in 1967 and became a major figure in the opposition New Democratic Party.
Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea
The post was replaced at the October 1966 2nd Conference by the General Secretary of the Central Committee; through this office, Kim Il-sung became the formal head of the party's Secretariat. After Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, the post was vacant for three years. On 8 October 1997, Kim Jong-il was appointed to the new office of General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea in a joint announcement by the Central Committee (CC) and the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Workers' Party of Korea: "[The CC and the CMC] pronounce comrade Kim Jong-il as general secretary of the party, based upon the wishes of the entire People's Army, people, and the members of the party." At the 3rd Conference, the party charter was amended to require the general secretary to concurrently chair the Central Military Commission. When Kim Jong-il died the WPK left the post of General Secretary vacant at the 4th Conference, making him "Eternal General Secretary". Kim Jong-un was elected to the office of First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, which was established to "represent and lead the whole party as its head and materialize the ideas and lines of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il." At the 7th WPK Congress the office of First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea was abolished, and replaced by the office of Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea.