Kim’s trip was his first official visit to Moscow after the establishment of the DPRK. His main goal was to obtain Stalin’s approval and support to use force for reunification. “Now is the best opportunity for us to take the initiative into our own hands,” he told Stalin. “Our armed forces are stronger, and in addition, we have the support of a powerful guerilla movement in the South. The population of the South, which despises the pro-American regime, will certainly help us as well.” Although Stalin did not oppose the idea on principle, he remained unconvinced that the conditions were right. American forces were still in the South, and North Korean forces were not yet strong enough. Moreover, Stalin believed that the Americans would intervene, setting the stage for a direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation that he wanted to avoid at all costs. “You should not advance south,” he told Kim. Instead, he advised patience, to wait for the South to attack first. “If the adversary has aggressive intentions, then sooner or later it will start the aggression. In response to the attack you will have a good opportunity to launch a counterattack. Then your move will be understood and supported by everyone.”1 Kim returned to P’yŏngyang disappointed but not despairing. Stalin had not categorically rejected Kim’s plan, but had merely qualified his support based on the right conditions. Kim would simply have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity.
While Kim was brooding about the future, the Chinese civil war, which had raged for almost two decades, was finally coming to an end. The war had reached a turning point by December 1947 after Nationalist forces suffered a series of disastrous defeats. “[A year earlier] our enemies were jubilant,” wrote Mao, “and the U.S. imperialists, too, danced with joy … Now [they] are gripped by pessimism.”2 Stalin began to have doubts about how he approached the Chinese situation. Writing to Yugoslav leader Milovan Djilas in early 1948, he admitted that he had erred in supporting the Nationalists and demanding Mao’s cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek. Mao, he told Djilas, had been right all along.3 A year later, as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) routed the Nationalists, Stalin made what amounted to a public apology. He told Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s second in command, that “all victors are always right … you Chinese comrades are too polite to express your complaints. We know that we have made a hindrance to you, and that you did have some complaints … We may have given you erroneous advice as the result of lacking understanding of the true situation in your country.”4
The speed of the Nationalist collapse astonished everyone. By May 1949, Chiang abandoned the mainland for the island of Formosa (Taiwan). On October 1, Mao proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen), the entrance to the Imperial Palace, and the beginning of a new era in China’s history. “The Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up,” he triumphantly declared. “[Today] we have closed our ranks and defeated both domestic and foreign oppressors through the People’s War of Liberation and the great people’s revolution, and now we are proclaiming the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation.”5 The next day the Soviet Union became the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing, severing its ties with the Nationalists. Not long thereafter, Mao began to prepare for his first visit abroad, to Moscow.
Mao urgently needed economic and technical assistance from the Soviet Union to rebuild a nation ruined by decades of war. He also needed Moscow’s military umbrella while the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) concentrated on suppressing the last pockets of internal resistance and liberating Taiwan. Stalin’s ill-treatment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had not been forgotten, however, and Mao knew that Stalin was not likely to meet his needs without some kind of quid pro quo. Months earlier Mao had explained to Anastas Mikoyan, a senior member of the Soviet Politburo sent by Stalin on a fact-finding mission, that the policy of “leaning to one side” would involve a degree of diplomatic isolation and dependence on Russia. Yet, Mao had been careful not to cast Stalin’s “help” as Chinese dependence, but in the spirit of friendship and allegiance to a common cause. “You must lean to one side,” Mao had said. “To sit on the fence is impossible. In the world, without exception, one either leans to the side of imperialism or to the side of socialism.”6 Mao was acutely aware that he had to make good on his promise to the Chinese people to establish a new, proud, and independent China, a China that had finally “stood up.” Mao was trying to maintain a delicate balance. Although he needed Soviet help, he would not allow his country to be subservient to Soviet interests and policies. The new China had to expunge the last remnants of its “century of national humiliation.”
North Korean leader Kim Il Sung (hatless, looking to the left) and Pak Hŏn-yŏng (second from the right, with glasses) are greeted by Soviet officials in Moscow, March 1949. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
The first test of Mao’s balancing act came in late 1949 when he met Stalin for the first time since the founding of the PRC. Arriving in Moscow on a bitterly cold afternoon in mid-December, his welcoming ceremony had been curtailed due to the weather, and Mao was asked to provide the Soviets with a copy of his arrival speech instead of delivering it in person at the station. The speech outlined Mao’s main objective: Soviet economic, technical, and military assistance. Mao also expected the Soviets to abrogate the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship signed with Chiang Kai-shek in August 1945 as an appendix to the Yalta accords, which most Chinese saw as a national disgrace for it gave Moscow extraterritorial rights in China.7
Mao and Stalin met on the evening of December 16. According to the Soviet version, Mao began by stating his goal of replacing the 1945 treaty with a new one. Stalin pointedly refused: “As you know, this treaty was concluded between the USSR and China as a result of the Yalta Agreement,” and therefore the terms of the treaty involved other parties (the United States and the United Kingdom) and could not be changed or abrogated without their consent. Mao and Stalin did not meet again for five days. Meanwhile, Mao waited in Stalin’s dacha a few miles outside of Moscow. He had been left alone to brood in isolation. “Since Stalin neither saw Mao nor ordered anyone else to entertain him,” Nikita Khrushchev later recalled, “no one dared to see him.”8 On December 21, Mao was invited to attend ceremonies marking Stalin’s seventieth birthday. Stalin then subsequently canceled talks that had been scheduled for two days later. Mao was furious. “I have only three tasks here,” he shouted to his bodyguard. “The first is to eat, the second is to sleep and the third is to shit!”9 Mao cabled home on January 2, 1950, that “up to now, I have had no chance to go out to speak face to face with any [of the Soviet leaders] alone.”10
This clash of wills might have gone on longer had it not been for Western press reports that the Soviets were mistreating Mao. Some even speculated that Mao was under house arrest. This prompted Stalin to send a Soviet correspondent to interview Mao. Mao indicated that he would stay in Moscow as long as it would take to get a new treaty. “The length of my sojourn in the USSR,” Mao said, “partly depends on the period in which it will be possible to settle questions of interest to the People’s Republic of China. These questions are, first and foremost, the existing Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between China and the USSR.”11 Stalin at last decided to meet Mao and to negotiate a new Sino-Soviet treaty. When Mao saw Stalin on January 22 and asked about Yalta, Stalin responded, “To hell with it. Once we have taken up the position that the treaties must be changed, we must go all the way. It is true that for us this entails certain inconveniences and we will have to struggle against the Americans. But we are already reconciled to that.”12
Several explanations have been proposed for why Stalin changed his mind. Britain’s recognition of the PRC in early January had given Stalin pause. Others—Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and Finland—followed, fueling Stalin’s paranoia that China might tilt toward the West. While congressional conservatives in the United States denounced London’s decision, many in the State Department, including Secretary of State Dean Acheson and George Kennan, who was in charge of planning, thought the United States should follow suit. Nonrecognition would simply drive the Chinese communists closer to the Soviets.
Stalin also saw that the Truman administration was backing away from Chiang Kai-shek, which signaled the possibility of U.S.-PRC relations. Acheson, Kennan, and others in the State Department thought the United States should sever ties with the corrupt Chiang regime, but Truman took an ambiguous position. Truman reaffirmed both the Cairo Declaration of December 1943 and the Potsdam Declaration of July 1945, which promised the restoration of Taiwan, formerly a Japanese colony, to “China,” but he would not formally end Washington’s commitment to Chiang. The United States, he declared, “had no desire to obtain special rights or privileges or to establish military bases on Formosa or to detach Formosa from China.” Washington would send no military aid to Chiang or continue any involvement “in the civil conflict in China.”13 Acheson’s presentation at the National Press Club on January 12, 1950, further clarified the extent and limit of U.S. interest and policy in East Asia. Acheson accused the Soviet Union of acting to annex parts of China, a “process that is complete in Outer Mongolia … and nearly complete in Manchuria.” He reconfirmed America’s hands-off policy regarding the future of Taiwan, while excluding, fatefully as it turned out, South Korea from America’s defensive perimeter in the western Pacific. Britain’s recognition of the PRC, Truman’s assurances of neutrality in China’s civil war, and Acheson’s affirmation of Washington’s hands-off policy vis-à-vis Taiwan gave Stalin the impression of an emerging relationship between China and the West and the United States in particular.14 Stalin thus had to reconsider his relationship with Mao. If the United States was willing to allow China to “liberate” Taiwan without interference, it could eventually lead to the normalization of Sino-American relations and a wedge in Sino-Soviet relations. And that was unacceptable to Stalin.15
A final consideration for Stalin was Japan. By late 1949, as the cold war intensified, the Americans had adopted a “reverse course” policy in Japan that, through economic revitalization and remilitarization, aimed to turn Japan into an anticommunist bulwark in northeast Asia. Stalin was fearful of a remilitarized Japan. “Japan still has cadres remaining,” Stalin told Mao, “and it will certainly lift itself up again, especially if Americans continue their current policy.” Mao seized on Stalin’s thoughts: “Everything that guarantees the future prosperity of our countries must be stated in the treaty of alliance and friendship, including the necessity of avoiding a repetition of Japanese aggression.”16 Both Mao and Stalin saw Japan as a serious potential threat, perhaps even greater than a threat from the United States. Russian enmity with Japan went back to the nineteenth century, and China had suffered two ruinous wars in 1894–95 and 1931–45 that were then, and remain today, fresh in the memory of the Chinese people.
On February 14, 1950, Foreign Ministers Zhou Enlai and Andrei Vyshinsky signed the “Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance” as Stalin and Mao looked on.17 The negotiations had been difficult. Stalin had balked at Mao’s request for a Soviet commitment to aid China in the event of an American attack; Stalin would agree only on the condition that a war was formally declared. Mao had also been irritated by Stalin’s demands for special privileges in Xinjiang in western China and Manchuria in the northeast. Despite these and other compromises, Mao basically obtained what he had wanted and was satisfied that he had the basis to establish a new place for China in the world, one that would instill pride in all Chinese.18 Soon after Mao’s departure, Stalin invited Kim Il Sung to Moscow.
Kim was supremely confident in the spring of 1950. North Korea was politically and economically stable, and his regime was firmly in control. He was also sure that with Soviet support he could successfully use force to reunite the peninsula. There was little doubt that the NKPA was better trained and equipped than its southern counterpart. Although Stalin had not given approval for an invasion of the South during Kim’s March-April 1949 visit, he promised to significantly increase military assistance to create a modern military force. Over four hundred Soviet advisors were authorized by January 1950. All were officers, with the majority (72 percent) being lieutenant colonels.19 The NKPA, as well as the small navy and air force, was organized, trained, and prepared for war by a far more professional and experienced cadre of advisors than the ROK armed forces, for the vast majority of the Soviet advisors were veterans of the epic battles of the eastern front in World War II.20 The NKPA’s professional capacity and battle readiness increased further in the late spring of 1950, when Mao allowed the transfer of tens of thousands of ethnic Korean veterans who had fought for him in the Chinese civil war.
Eager to start a war that was certain of a quick victory, Kim Il Sung approached Shtykov in mid-January 1950 and told him that the time had come “to take up the matter of the liberation of Korea.” He was becoming restless. “Thinking about reunification makes it impossible for me to sleep at night,” Kim confided. Shtykov noted that Kim “insists on reporting to Stalin personally to gain permission for North Korea to attack the South.”21 Stalin’s response was brief and to the point: “An operation on such a large scale demands preparation. It is necessary to organize the operation in such a way as to minimize risk. I am ready to see the man.”22 An excited Kim, along with Pak Hŏn-yŏng, who had moved to North Korea to join forces with Kim around August–September 1948, when the two separate Korean states were established, departed for Moscow on March 30. At their meeting, Stalin told them that the international environment had “sufficiently changed to permit a more active stance on the unification of Korea.” He was optimistic that the communist victory in China was an important psychological blow to the West, proving “the strength of Asian revolutionaries and shown the weakness of Asian reactionaries and their mentors in the West.” He also believed that China would help in the quest for unification. In apparent reference to the Koreans in the PLA, he told Kim, “China has at its disposal troops which can be utilized in Korea without any harm to the other needs of China.” Furthermore, the Soviet Union’s possession of the atomic bomb, successfully tested in August 1949, and its treaty alliance with China would make “the Americans even more hesitant to challenge the Communists in Asia.” Nevertheless, Stalin was still worried about the possibility of an American intervention. Kim reassured Stalin on this point. Since the “USSR and China are behind Korea and are able to help,” Kim reasoned, “the Americans will not risk a big war.” Moreover, “the attack will be swift and the war will be won in three days,” and the Americans will not have enough time to even deliberate about intervention. As for China, Kim did not want Mao’s help. “We want to rely on our own force to unify Korea,” Kim said emphatically.23
Stalin asked if there would be support in the South for such an invasion. Kim assured him that the “guerilla movement in the South has grown stronger and a major uprising can be expected.” Pak added that “200,000 party members will participate as leaders of the mass uprising.” Stalin remarked that they “should not count on direct Soviet participation in the war because the USSR had serious challenges elsewhere to cope with, especially the West.” He told Kim to secure Mao’s commitment to help as a condition for his assent to an attack. Stalin warned them, “If you should get kicked in the teeth, I shall not lift a finger. You have to ask Mao for all the help.”24 Stalin had transferred the burden of decision to Mao. He thought that regardless of the outcome, the Soviet Union would benefit. Success meant a communist Korea that expanded Russia’s “friendly” borders. A failure, conceivable only if the United States intervened, would result in Chinese assistance to North Korea and a Sino-American confrontation that would end all possibilities of a Sino-American rapprochement. This is what Stalin had feared most, and Kim’s invasion could help prevent it. Stalin had everything to gain by supporting the invasion plan and appeared to have little to lose. Still, Stalin premised his support of Kim’s war on his calculations that the United States would not intervene.
Kim went to see Mao in mid-May 1950. Rather than try to persuade him to commit to supporting the plan, Kim matter-of-factly “informed Mao of his determination to reunify his country by military means.” The war would be won quickly, Kim assured Mao, and Chinese help would not be needed. Peng Dehuai, later the commander of Chinese forces in Korea, recalled that Mao disagreed with Kim’s proposal because he thought that the Americans might intervene, but Mao could not reject it since Kim had presented it as a fait accompli approved by Stalin.25 Having just concluded the Sino-Soviet treaty, which was seen as essential for the PRC’s future, Mao felt he could not refuse. Mao also needed Stalin’s help to “liberate” Taiwan, and he could not use the argument about possible American intervention in Korea to oppose Kim’s plan since a similar argument could be used to deny Soviet support for the invasion of Taiwan. Mao, reluctantly, gave his support.26
While Kim and Stalin were meeting in April, Paul Nitze was finishing an explosive secret report on the future of America’s military and national security posture. Nitze had recently replaced George Kennan as the director of policy planning at the State Department, and over the course of the winter of 1949–50 he had produced National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC 68), which eventually became, through its proposal for military buildup and containment of communism, the American master plan for the cold war. In the document delivered to President Truman in April, Nitze and his staff introduced an ominous theme from the very beginning: “The assault on free institutions is world-wide now, and in the context of the present polarization of power, a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere … Thus unwilling our free society finds itself mortally challenged by the Soviet system.” Nuclear weapons were insufficient to thwart this ominous threat, as the Soviets were expected to achieve nuclear parity by 1954. Dramatic measures, a massive military buildup, would be required to counter the Soviet challenge. The cost would be $40 to $50 billion a year, three times the annual defense budget that Truman and the War Department had estimated for the early 1950s.27
Truman was not persuaded. NSC 68 might dramatically point out the perilous state of American security against a theoretical Soviet threat, but with midterm elections coming up in the fall of 1950, he was resistant to expanding defense expenditures when Americans still expected continuation of the peace dividend from the victory in World War II. Truman set off in May to Washington state, where he was scheduled to speak at the ceremony dedicating the Grand Coulee Dam. He did not mention during the two-week trip the possibility of a major Soviet threat or that it may require a national call to arms. On the contrary, he projected confidence and hopefulness about the global situation and America’s security. At his weekly press conference on June 1, Truman assured the American people that the world was “closer to peace than at any time in the last five years.”28 NSC 68 was politely ignored.
Stalin was encouraged by Truman’s talk about peace and prosperity. The Americans, he surmised, were simply tired of war and had also withdrawn their forces from Korea the year before. Nevertheless, with planning for the invasion rapidly moving forward, Stalin remained cautious about American intentions. Stalin rejected Kim’s request for Soviet advisors to operate ships for an amphibious assault, a request that Shtykov advised should be granted. When Shtykov conveyed another request from Kim on June 20, the eve of the attack, for Soviet advisors to be assigned to frontline combat units, Stalin admonished the ambassador. “It is necessary to remind you that you are a representative of the USSR and not of Korea,” he wrote. “Send necessary numbers of our advisors to headquarters and to army groups dressed in civilian uniforms posing as Pravda correspondents. You will be held personally responsible if any of these men were taken prisoner.”29 Stalin wanted to minimize the risk of Soviet casualties or prisoners lest it lead to a direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation in Korea.
On June 15, Shtykov informed Stalin that the operational plan, written by the Soviet advisory group, was ready. The attack would start in the early morning on Sunday, June 25 (the evening of June 24, Washington time). “At the first stage, formations and units of the NKPA will begin action on the Ongjin peninsula [on the far western end of the 38th parallel] like a local operation and then deliver the main strike along the western coast of Korea to the South,” he related.30 Key to the plan was to disguise the attack as a counteroffensive reacting to a South Korean provocation. The offensive would then spread eastward along the 38th parallel over the following days. In its overall conception, the plan was similar to Russia’s attack on Finland in 1939, which was not surprising since most senior Soviet officers in North Korea were veterans of the Finnish War. As in Korea, the Finnish plan had contained a ruse, the shelling of a Russian village near the Finnish border, Mainila, before the start of the Soviet invasion. A Soviet mobile artillery unit had been secretly deployed deep into the woods near the Soviet-Finnish border and had shelled Mainila. Soviet troops, located near Mainila, had then reported receiving Finnish artillery fire. This had become a pretext, albeit fabricated, for a general attack against Finland. General Vladimir Razhubayev, chief of the Soviet Advisory Group from early 1951 to 1953, stated that in North Korea “the People’s Central Committee was full of experts who were working on a way to pull a similar pretext off.” Shtykov himself had led a major part of the invasion force against Finland.31
As June 25 approached, Stalin received alarming news from Shtykov, who relayed an urgent message from Kim that “the Southerners have learned the details of the forthcoming advance of the NKPA.” Kim urged modification of the plan. “Instead of a local operation at the Ongjin peninsula as a prelude to the general offensive,” relayed Shtykov to Stalin, “Kim Il Sung suggests an overall attack on 25 June along the whole front line.” Stalin approved “an immediate advance along the whole front line,” but he stipulated that it still must be made to look like a counterattack.32 The stage was set for the invasion, but Stalin and Kim failed to foresee how the United States and the rest of the world would view it. The two leaders also completely failed to consider the possibility that they would be testing the effectiveness of the collective security mechanism of the newly established United Nations.