Together with Korean Worker’s Party Secretary Jon Pyong-ho, senior statesman Kim Chol-man is leading North Korea’s munitions industry, the basis of the country’s economy.

In 1937, he joined Kim Il-sung’s guerillas along with Ri Ul-sol, who later took over the General Bureau of Security Guards, and Kim Ik-hyon, who took over the People’s Security Guards. After Korea’s 1945 liberation from Japanese rule, he served as senior colonel of the 10th Division and was later promoted to major general in 1955 and lieutenant general in 1962. In 1964, he was made strategy director of the People’s Defense Bureau. The next year, he became commander of the 2nd Corps and went on to serve as deputy commander-in-chief of the People’s Army and commander-in-chief.

Though he was in danger after a 1969 purge of militarists, he survived the crisis unscathed. In the 1980 convention of the Korean Workers’ Party, he was named a cadre candidate of the political bureau of the party’s Central Committee’s and a cadre of the Military Committee. In 1998, he was named general and head of the munitions and mobilization bureau and a year afterwards, supervised military finances as chairman of the 2nd Economic Committee.

Known as a stout and rough-edged man, Kim is known to still suffer from physical wounds from the Korean War.