Yes. Kim Ilsung did fight against Japan. (Whether his fight had any effect on Japan is a separate matter; I don't know history well enough to answer that.) W

Yes. Kim Ilsung did fight against Japan. (Whether his fight had any effect on Japan is a separate matter; I don't know history well enough to answer that.) While South Korea's first president Rhee Syngman was a leader of the "Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea" (which later became South Korea), he did not fight Japan in the battlefield, and his role in the independence movement was limited. Worse, after Japan surrendered he actively made friends with former traitors, assassinating political opponents and murdering people for being communist. He is almost certainly behind the assassination of Kim Gu, a right-wing leader of the independence movement and one of the most respected Korean politicians during the 20th century. History of North Korea is probably the most extreme case of a young revolutionary turning into a despot himself.