The Kremlin's mistake

Moscow did not expect such a reaction from the United States on Korea

Tomorrow marks exactly 60 years since the Korean War began, which claimed the lives of more than 5 million people. It would seem that only recently the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in World War II. But their interests began to collide. And some still believe that the Korean War is a continuation of this clash of interests. But in reality, it was Pyongyang and Seoul who were eager to fight, and the USSR and the USA, rather, not so much.

After the emergence of two states on the Korean Peninsula in 1948, border incidents between them, sometimes with the use of aviation and artillery, continued for about a year and a half every day. But on June 25, 1950, the North Korean army launched a decisive offensive, and the conflict turned into a large-scale war, aggravated by the intervention of external forces.

The war lasted three years, but neither side managed to achieve an advantage and unite the two states under their control into a single whole. On the contrary, the conflict cemented the division of the peninsula and became the basis for a difficult situation that continues to this day. And the course and results of that war still cause disputes between representatives of different historical schools, in which bias often interferes with an objective perception of the state of affairs.

In Soviet times, the official version was that it was the South that attacked the North. And in later times, when the ideological vector changed radically, the Korean War began to be interpreted as “Stalin’s war,” unleashed by him to “communize Asia.” Supporters of this point of view believe that Moscow decided everything, and Pyongyang was only an obedient executor of its will.

But that's not true. North Korean leader Kim Il Sung spent a lot of time and nerves to gain Joseph Stalin's approval. And this despite the fact that the USSR Ambassador to the DPRK Terenty Shtykov supported him and sent more than fifty notes to Moscow, in which he pointed out provocations from the South Korean side and the inevitability of their spillover into a conflict on a larger scale.

Nevertheless, until a certain time, the Kremlin’s position was clear: do not give the go-ahead to war, neither large-scale nor limited. On September 24, 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks assessed the plan for a pre-emptive strike and liberation of the South as inappropriate. It was explicitly stated that “an offensive that is not properly prepared can turn into protracted military operations that not only will not lead to the defeat of the enemy, but will also create significant political and economic difficulties.”

On January 19, 1950, Shtykov reported to Moscow about a conversation with Kim Il Sung, in which he talked for a long time about how he “does not sleep at night, thinking about reunification.” Stalin consulted with the Chinese leader Mao Zedong and on January 30, 1950, cabled the ambassador: “Kim Il Sung must understand that such a big deal regarding South Korea, which he wants to undertake, needs a lot of preparation. The matter must be organized in such a way that there is not too much risk. If he wants to talk to me about this matter, then I will be ready to receive him and talk to him. Give all this to Kim Il Sung and tell him that I am ready to help him in this matter.”

In April 1950, Kim Il Sung came to Moscow and tried to convince Stalin that everything was ready for the invasion. But Stalin advised further discussion of the issue “with the Chinese comrades,” and only at the beginning of May a telegram for Mao Zedong was sent to the Soviet ambassador in Beijing. Its text is often quoted in abridged form, but is given here in full: “Comrade. Mao Zedong! In a conversation with Korean comrades, Filippov (Stalin's pseudonym - Ed. ) and his friends expressed the opinion that, due to the changed international situation, they agreed with the Koreans' proposal to begin unification. At the same time, it was agreed that the issue should be finally resolved by the Chinese and Korean comrades jointly, and if the Chinese comrades disagree, the solution to the issue should be postponed until a new discussion. Your Korean comrades can tell you the details of the conversation.”

It turns out that Moscow did not put pressure on Pyongyang at all. At first, she completely rejected the DPRK's proposals, then expressed her readiness to help, but indicated that she would give the go-ahead if Beijing supported the initiative, and only then agreed to the invasion, taking into account the changed situation.

What has changed in the situation? Usually, the reasons for the change of course are the speech of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in which he “moved” Korea outside the US defense perimeter. They also take into account that by that time the People's Republic of China had been formed, and the Soviet Union had created its own nuclear weapons. The USSR acquired the atomic bomb in August 1949, and the decision to invade was made almost nine months later.

China, however, has just emerged from a long civil war. So, in fact, a significant part of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party believed that it was necessary to primarily concentrate on restoring the country, and not waste energy and resources on external fronts. Perhaps the decisive role was played by a factor that seemed so obvious to the author that it was therefore not taken into account. The Soviet Union of the 50s was an “ideocratic” state in which decisions were made not only for reasons of political rationality, but also due to compliance with certain dogmas. And just as the logic and politics of the West dictated the strategy of countering communist expansion, the formal logic of the Kremlin did not give the right to ignore the “revolutionary situation” in the South.

Park Hong Yong, the leader of the South Korean communists, at that time the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK and the second person in the North Korean leadership, emphasized precisely this: “A revolutionary situation has developed in the South, and as soon as the offensive of the People’s Army begins, powerful popular uprisings will take place there, the Seoul the authorities will be paralyzed and agree to unification.” In a conversation with Stalin, he talked about 200 thousand communists in the South who were just waiting for a signal.

There were reasons to think so. The scale of leftist resistance to the Syngman Rhee regime in 1948-1949 was comparable to the scale of anti-Japanese resistance in Korea at the beginning of the twentieth century. But by 1950 this activity had already begun to decline. This was less visible from the outside than from the inside, and representatives of North Korea could easily shock with figures and facts that indicated that the unification of the country would be easy. By the way, there is an opinion that the main lobbyist for the war was not Kim Il Sung, but Park Hong Yong. He was older, had experience working in the Comintern, and in many ways considered himself the head of the Korean communist movement, but his base and cadres “remained in the South.” If the country were united, his position in the factional struggle within the Labor Party would be significantly strengthened.

And when Pak Hon Yong was repressed after the war, many believed that, among other things, he was reminded that these 200 thousand communists never appeared. All the North Koreans' plans were designed for a blitzkrieg, and after the capture of Seoul they waited a week for the uprising to begin. But it did not begin, and the war had to be continued against the backdrop of the increasing involvement of the United States and its allies in the conflict.

The fact that the Americans would intervene in the war was by no means as obvious in the spring and summer of 1950 as it seems to us now. From an analysis of the international situation at that time, completely different conclusions could be drawn. Not long before, the United States “lost” the much more strategically important China, but did not enter the war on the side of its old ally Chiang Kai-shek, and Syngman Rhee had an even more odious reputation in the eyes of the United States. So the likelihood that they would stand up for him seemed very small. The fact that Korea was removed from the defense perimeter of those countries that the United States promised to protect was also easy to interpret as a sign of America's future non-interference in Korean affairs.

In addition, by the beginning of the Korean War, one could find many places in the world where the “communist threat” could develop into a military invasion. West Berlin, where there was a serious crisis in 1949. Greece, where a three-year civil war between communists and royalists has just ended. Confrontation in Turkey or Iran. All these points seemed much hotter than Korea. As a result, in Moscow, as Russian expert on Korea Anatoly Torkunov writes, “they came to the conclusion that the communists would be welcomed in South Korea, and the United States, as in the case of China, would accept defeat.”

Now one can only guess whether Moscow would have supported Pyongyang’s decision if the Kremlin had known for sure that the popular masses of the South would not support the invasion, and Washington would perceive it as a challenge that must certainly be resisted. Perhaps events would have developed differently, although the tension would not have gone away. In addition, South Korea, led by Syngman Rhee, also actively tried to obtain US approval for aggression. But be that as it may, the prehistory of the Korean War is perceived by us today as a tragedy of mistakes and ambitions, when, due to insufficient knowledge or personal interest, one thing was expected, but something completely different turned out.

Konstantin ASMOLOV, leading researcher at the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences