Kim Jong-il death: Kim Jong-un named 'supreme leader' of North Korea - Telegraph.co.uk

The new leader himself, dressed in sombre black, presided over events in the centre of the balcony. Mr Kim did not address the crowd, but that omission followed the example of his late father, who only ever made one public pronouncement – when, during a military parade, he blurted out: "Long live the glorious Korean People's Army!"

The ceremony took place in front of the of the Grand People's Study House, a huge building which supposedly houses a library of 30 million volumes. Chang Song-taek, vice chairman of the National Defence Commission and widely believed to be the power behind the throne, was also present, along with his wife, Kim Kyong-hui, who is the new leader's aunt.

The late dictator received a salute fired by a battery of eight artillery pieces – a relatively modest tribute by the standards of North Korea's 1.1 million-strong army. Three minutes of silence, after which car horns and engine whistles sounded across the country, ended the event.

Experts said the aim was to cement an appearance of stability and unity. "If you look at this funeral and memorial process, it is a means to show a people who cannot revolt the unity of their political leadership," said Kim Byung-ki, a security expert at Korea University in Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Other commentators were infuriated by the two-day spectacle. "It is a painful thing to watch this outpouring of emotion for someone who has been one of the most terrible despots of the 20th and 21st centuries," said Tim Peters, a Seoul-based American missionary who assists North Korean defectors in China and South Korea. "It is completely incongruous with reality."

The Kim family rule the world's most closed and insular state, allowing no apparent dissent and maintaining a small arsenal of nuclear weapons to guarantee their dominance. They have imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people in labour and re-education camps.

Kim Jong-il, who ruled from 1994 until this year, oversaw the ruin of North Korea's economy, the destitution of its peasantry and mass starvation that killed an estimated two million people.