Yuri Irsenovich Kim (1941 – 2011) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary and first Prime Minister of the Soviet Union from 1980 to his death in 2011. Ethnically Korean, Kim's father was communist partisan Kim il-Sung, who was killed in the Korean Unification War. Some sources indicate that the elder Kim was due to be selected as leader of the Korean Communist Party before his death. After his father's death, the younger Kim and his family resided alternately in Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. Kim's childhood was disrupted by Soviet Civil War, during which his mother was killed. After his mother's death, Kim and his brother Shura were raised by their uncle Kim Jeong-ju, who moved with them to Moscow. The Kim brothers received extensive education as their uncle was a professor of economics at Moscow State University. Kim Jeong-ju was blacklisted by the MGB and arrested in 1955. He was never seen again. After his disappearance, the Kim brothers joined the Red Army. Yuri attended the Frunze Military Academy and became an officer. He was stationed in East Germany for several years before being sent to Mongolia as punishment for disobeying an officer. In 1964, he was transferred to the staff of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the great war hero, which began his political ascent.
Zhukov came to rely on Kim and appointed him as his liaison to the Politburo. By 1968, Kim had ingratiated himself with Alexei Kosygin and joined his attempt to displace Nikita Khrushchev. Kim was rewarded by being appointed to the Presidium. In 1970, he was appointed Minister of Defence. Using his new power, he began eliminating opponents, particularly those in the Ministry of State Security. Kim weakened the security forces and had them supplanted with his own men from Army Intelligence. Kim accumulated power as Kosygin began to be abandoned by his allies. The onset of economic troubles doomed the aging Kosygin, and in 1980 Kim pressured him to resign and succeeded him as General Secretary and Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
The new premier was highly suspect to both party members and the Soviet people, partially due to his ethnicity, and also because of his reputation for brutality. Some feared the return of Stalin in Kim. With the assistance of his brother Shura, Kim engaged in a purge of disloyal element in the party, especially those who had supported Kosygin's domestic reforms. The Kims also disbanded the MGB and state security agencies and reformed them into the new KGB, which Shura was appointed head of. The brothers now possessed great centralized power not seen since the days of Stalin and Beria. Although Kim rolled back Kosygin's domestic reforms, he continued his policy of rapprochement with the west and the United States. Kim signed de-nuclearization agreements with Presidents Hogan and Byrne, and withdrew support for the Italian Communists as bloodshed heightened in that country. However, he continued to support communists in Africa and South America, and fostered a close personal relationship with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
As he took office, Kim sensed that the structure of the Soviet Union was faltering. He blamed this largely on corrupt bureaucrats at all levels of the party, and ordered multiple purges of these bureaucrats. His efforts, while highly criticized for their overly broad nature, succeeded in clearing the party of the most corrupt officials. However, in many instances they were replaced by incompetent people whose sole qualification was their loyalty to Kim. Kim also had tensions with his Deputy Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who had been selected to maintain support of reformist elements. Kim suspected Gorbachev was plotting to depose him by promising reform initiatives. Kim attempted to circumvent this by introducing some limited reforms himself. However, this did little to resolve internal tensions. Additionally, there were growing signs of separatism in the Baltics and Caucasus regions. Kim stunned the nation and the world by promulgating the 1985 constitution, the first significant change since the 1951 constitution. Kim reorganized power in the positions of Prime Minister, intended for himself, and separated state institutions from military control. Additionally, the office of President was created, which would ostensibly uphold this arrangement and restrain an individual such as Kim. However, it was Gorbachev who became the first president, his price for supporting Kim in establishing the new constitution.
By becoming the first Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, Kim made a grand show of liberalizing the Soviet Union and promised things such as freedom of speech and press, loosening authoritarian restrictions that had been a fixture of Soviet policy for decades. He even spoke of closer relations with capitalist western nations. However, Kim had little intention on following through on his bold declarations. Instead, Kim announced the changes in order to draw out opposition from the hardline factions of the party. In 1987, hardliners attempted a coup to restore the old order. Kim allowed the coup to proceed and did not retaliate. Instead, Gorbachev was forced to suppress the coup in order to preserve his own positions and the new reforms which he had fought for. In doing so, Gorbachev enabled the military to return to power. This shifted the balance of power back to Kim and allowed him to seize power from Gorbachev again.
Kim did not backtrack as much as expected. He did allow limited liberalization in the Soviet Union, which remaining hardliners continued to oppose as surrender to capitalism. However, Kim greatly feared that the Soviet Union, and by extension himself, would be toppled by internal or external forces without these changes. He doubled down on these views after the failure of Arab socialism in the aftermath of Nasser's death, and the failure of the Chinese Communists to win the first elections after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo. Kim allowed the formation of an opposition party led by Boris Yeltsin, which became known as the Union Party, and the peaceful secession of the Baltic states. As Kim was feted by the western political establishment, he was denounced at home as the murderer of communism, and by international observers as an authoritarian who continued to conduct human rights abuses.
Friendliness with the west and especially the United States was disrupted by the start of the Netanyahu administration, as the new president's foreign policy threatened to undermine the fragile state of Middle Eastern peace. As America entered the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, Kim decided to support the Arabs once again. Soft support soon became hard support as the Red Army was deployed directly. This marked the first direct shooting war between the United States and Soviet Union. However, the war became an embarrassment for unprepared Soviet troops and proved unpopular within the Soviet Union. Kim decided to go to the United Nations to fight for peace. The United States, which had entered the war without most of their allies, was stunned when the Soviets formed a large coalition for peace that ended up including the Commonwealth and China. The United States was forced to withdraw and initiate the peace process. The diplomatic masterclass was an international triumph for Kim, who had managed to rally the world against the United States standing alone in an unpopular military enterprise. Public opinion around the world was favorable toward the Soviet Union, even among American allies and with anti-war segments of the United States.
However, within the Soviet Union, what it proved was that the Prime Minister was susceptible to public pressure. A protest movement sprung across the Soviet Union demanding further democracy in what was known as the Pink Revolution (pink being softer than red, and the revolution being soft in nature, not a violent overthrow). Kim acquiesced to the demands and established the 2001 constitution. In the subsequent election, Kim stood as leader of the Communist Party, which won 70% of seats. Thus, he was retained as Prime Minister. However, the ultimate power of Kim and the Party was destroyed with the flood of votes for opposition parties. The Communist Party won in the 2005 elections as well, but their majority declined.
In the last stage of his leadership, Kim fended off leadership challenges and survived the further division of the Communist Party, as members splintered from both ends to form new parties. Although Kim had granted democracy, he had failed to address living conditions in the Soviet Union, and the mid-2000s recession prompted more protesting and marked the beginning of a long period of civil unrest. Even as he became nationally unpopular, Kim retained power solely through his ability to control the internal mechanics of Moscow politics. The 2009 elections were the final blow to Kim's power. The Communist Party was returned with a plurality, while opposition parties like the Liberal Unionist Party and the National Motherland Front gained. In his last years, Kim was unable to stop sectarian and ethnic violence and the rise of insurgent militias. By 2011, he was expected to resign when he suddenly died on a state visit to Finland.
Although his brother and lifelong deputy Shura succeeded him as Chairman of the Party, Foreign Minister Lukashenko was selected to be Prime Minister by the parliamentary party. Lukashenko attempted to use Kim's death as a moment of patriotic fervor, interring his predecessor in the Lenin and Stalin Mausoleum in an effort to consecrate him as the "third great leader." However, these feelings simply did not exist. Lukashenko's government would be toppled in a few short months. Ironically, Kim's death allowed a reprieve from the troubles roiling the nation, as many were certain they would be able to gain power from the elections after his death.
Kim was a complex figure in death, admired for granting democracy and liberalization and protecting the rights of ethnic minorities early in his tenure, but also disdained for his brutal purges in his rise to power, long time suppression of free speech, and various human rights abuses conducted during the period of military dominance. Mostly he was remembered for his complete ineffectiveness at the end of his years. Internationally, he was respected for making peace in the Middle East and withstanding American arrogance, but also remembered for his acts of brutality. Kim was survived by his five children, three of whom are involved in Soviet politics today.