p. 162. Newly available documents leave no doubt that it was Dubček, not Kádár, who initiated the meeting.

348 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The Tatra Mountains, running along the Polish-Slovakian border in the central Carpathians, were a favorite vacation and hunting site for Czechoslovak leaders and their Warsaw Pact counterparts.

349TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Enterprise-based disciplinary bodies and quasi-judicial organs were set up during the first few years of the Soviet regime. Despite significant modifications over the years, these bodies retained their main function of enforcing the regime's strict labor codes. Under Khrushchev, reliance on the workplace disciplinary organs and Comrades' Courts (tovarishcheskie sudy) steadily increased, but the system was scaled back in the 1960s after Soviet legal specialists demonstrated that the expansion of it was leading to flagrant abuses and illegal rulings. Even so, the workers' councils were still formally empowered to discipline errant workers – powers that came in handy on occasions like this when the regime wanted to prevent or, if necessary, punish any deviations from the official line. For an overview of the disciplinary system from the Soviet perspective, see Yurii Il'inskii, Sudyat sami: Tovarishcheskii sud za rabotoi (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Znanie, 1964).

350TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: One of the chief goals of the enterprised-based disciplinary bodies, as indicated here, was to foster a milieu in which ordinary citizens would participate affirmatively in Communist rituals and promote the draconian enforcement of official strictures.

351 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Viktor Shevchenko had been first secretary of the oblast party committee since December 1964 and a member of the UkrCP Central Committee since February 1966.

352 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Miroslav Zikmund was a prominent Czech writer and commentator on international affairs. He coauthored many books with Jiří Hanzelka, another highly respected writer who was a signatory of the "2,000 Words" manifesto and an ardent proponent of drastic reform. Their books were popular not only in Czechoslovakia, but also in many foreign countries, including the Soviet Union. Several of Zikmund's and Hanzelka's works were translated into Russian, English, German, and other languages. For a representative sample of their output in Czech, see Afrika snu a skutečnosti (Prague: Orbis, 1955); Tam za rekou je Argentina (Prague: Orbis, 1956); Obrácený půlměsíc (Prague: Nakladatelství Politické Literatury, 1961); and Cejlon – raj bez andělů, 2nd ed. (Prague: Svoboda, 1991). See also a collection of some of their other essays in Zvláštní zpráva (Prague: Lidové nakladatelství, 1990).

353 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: A lengthy, top-secret report compiled by the Soviet KGB in October 1968 noted that the "Brno" underground radio station was one of at least 35 such facilities that were operating unhindered in Czechoslovakia during the first week after the invasion. "O deyatel'nosti kontrrevolyutsionnogo podpol'ya v Chekhoslovakii,” report from A. Sakharovskii, head of the KGB's 1st Main Directorate, October 1968 (Top Secret/Special Dossier), in RGANI, F. 4, Op. 21, D. 32, Ll. 99-157. Even after these transmitters were discovered, many continued to function for several days longer.

354TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Zhenya is the diminutive for the first name of the well-known Soviet poet and publicist Evgenii Evtushenko. Unlike the great dissident Andrei Sakharov and a number of other Soviet human rights activists (including a small group who were beaten and arrested after staging a demonstration in Red Square to protest the Soviet invasion), Evtushenko failed to speak out against the intervention in Czechoslovakia.

355 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Zikmund is referring here to Jiří

Hanzelka, using the Ukrainian version of his given name and adding a patronymic.

356TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The Satu Mare and Maramureş counties of Romania are both in northern Transylvania, adjacent to Ukraine's Transcarpathian Oblast. The Suceava county is in northern Bukovina, abutting Ukraine's Chernivtsi Oblast (which itself was formerly northern Bukovina). Tulcea is in the easternmost portion of Romania along the Danube delta in northern Dobruja, just across the border from the Ukrainian city of Izmail. It is worth noting that in February 1968, Romania had adopted a new territorial-administrative system, which replaced the old structure of 16 regions and 150 districts with a simpler arrangement of 39 counties (judete). The new Satu Mare and Maramureș counties ended up with somewhat lower percentages of ethnic Hungarians under their jurisdictions than the old Satu Mare and Maramureș regions had. 35TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: On this topic, see the various items cited in my annotation to Document No. 13 above.

358TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Iosif Uglar had been first secretary of the RCP's Maramureş regional committee since January 1959. He was also a member of the RCP Central Committee.

359TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: In an emergency speech to the Romanian nation on 21 August 1968, Ceauşescu announced that "we have today decided to set up armed Patriotic Guards" that will give “our people their own armed units to protect their peaceful labor and the independence and sovereignty of our socialist homeland." The wording of this announcement was somewhat misleading. An entity known as the Patriotic Guards had in fact existed in Romania since November 1956, when it was set up by a party decree to help cope with the spillover from the Hungarian revolution. Until 1968, however, the Guards were little more than a paper organization. Their functions were limited mainly to the safeguarding of heavy industrial areas. What Ceauşescu meant in his 21 August speech is not that he would create Patriotic Guards, but that he was mobilizing and fleshing out units that had long been dormant. See Major-General Constantin Antoniu et al., Armată Republicii Socialiste România: Sinteză Social-Politică și Militară (Bucharest: Editura Militară, 1978), pp. 141-167. From 1968 on, the role of the Patriotic Guards sharply increased. As Romanian military strategy and doctrine shifted increasingly from largescale offensive operations (à la the Warsaw Pact) to territorial defense, the Patriotic Guards became the preeminent force responsible for front-line defense and mountain warfare. When fully mobilized, the Patriotic Guards consisted of some 900,000 troops, most of which were prepared to fight in mountainous terrain. The regular Romanian army was much smaller.

360 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Gheorghe Blaj had been a secretary in the RCP's Maramureş regional committee since December 1961.

361 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This pledge repeats, almost word for word, a statement in Ceauşescu's speech of 21 August 1968 (discussed below).

362TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Emil Bobu had been the first secretary of the RCP's Suceava regional committee since July 1967. He also was a member of the RCP Central Committee.

363 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The basic Romanian position was outlined not only in Ceauşescu's speech of 21 August (see next annotation), but also in a communique issued jointly by the RCP Central Committee and the Romanian government that same day. See "Comunicat," Scînteia (Bucharest), 22 August 1968, p. 1. The communique expressed “great alarm” at the “flagrant violation of the national sovereignty of a fraternal, socialist, free, and independent state, an action that contravenes all the principles on which relations between socialist countries are based as well as universally

recognized norms of international law." The statement called for the immediate withdrawal of the Soviet and East European troops to "allow the Czechoslovak people to handle their internal affairs themselves, without any outside interference.”

364TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Volodymyr Galla had been a department chief in the UkrCP's Transcarpathian Oblast committee since July 1965. Sandor Kállái had been a secretary of the MSZMP's Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Megyei regional committee since June 1964. The Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg Megyei region in northeast Hungary, based around Nyíregyháza, is contiguous with Subcarpathian Ruthenia in Ukraine. Kállái's surname is slightly mistransliterated in the document, but has been corrected here.

365 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This refers to Ceauşescu's famous "balcony speech,” on 21 August 1968, just hours after Soviet troops had begun moving en masse into Czechoslovakia. From a balcony at the RCP Central Committee headquarters in downtown Bucharest, Ceauşescu denounced the Soviet Union for having "flagrantly violated the freedom and independence of another state," and he described the invasion as “a colossal error and a grave danger to peace in Europe and to the fate of socialism around the world." Ceauşescu vowed that Romania would take all necessary steps to defend its own sovereignty and territorial integrity: "It has been said that in Czechoslovakia there was a danger of counterrevolution. Perhaps tomorrow they will claim that our meeting here has reflected counterrevolutionary trends. If that should be the case, we warn all of them that the entire Romanian people will never permit anyone to infringe on the territory of our homeland." Cited from "Cuvîntul tovarășului Nicolae Ceauşescu,” Scînteia (Bucharest), 22 August 1968, p. 1. Although Ceauşescu gradually toned down his criticisms of the Soviet invasion over the next several days, his balcony speech on 21 August brought him great acclaim for his defiance of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia.

366 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: During a visit to Czechoslovakia on 15-17 August 1968, Ceaușescu publicly hailed the Prague Spring and denied that counterrevolutionary forces were active in the ČSSR. He also signed a new treaty of friendship and cooperation with Czechoslovakia even though he had declined to conclude such an agreement with the Soviet Union. (The new Soviet-Romanian treaty was not signed until 1970, after a good deal more negotiation and bickering.) Ceauşescu's trip to Czechoslovakia came just a few days after the Yugoslav president, Josip Broz Tito, finished a "working visit" of his own to Prague. During that visit, on 9-11 August, Tito was greeted by jubilant, overflowing crowds. A similar welcome was extended to Ceauşescu. For a sample of the coverage of Ceauşescu's visit, see "Rumunská stranická a státní delegace v Praze: N. Ceauşescu srdečne uvítan v naši zemí,” Rudé právo (Prague), 16 August 1968, p. 1; "Încheierea viyitei în Republica Socialistă Cehoslovacă a delegației Române de partid și de stat condusă de tovarășul Nicolae Ceauşescu," Scînteia (Bucharest), 18 August 1968, pp. 1, 5; “O nouă pagină în cronica relațiilor frățești RomânoCehoslovace," Scînteia (Bucharest), 17 August 1968, pp. 1-2; "Înterviul acordat de tovarășul Nicolae Ceauşescu televiyiunii din Praga," Scînteia (Bucharest), 17 August 1968, p. 3; "Entuziastul miting de la uzinele ‘Avia' din Praga,” Scînteia (Bucharest), 17 August 1968, pp. 1-2; "Solemnitatea semnării Tratatului de prietenie, colaborare şi asistență mutuală,” Scînteia (Bucharest), 17 August 1968, p. 3; and "Conferința de presă a tovarășului Nicolae Ceauşescu,” Scînteia (Bucharest), 17 August 1968, p. 3. The KSČ's attempts to play down the two visits seemed to have no effect on the extravagant public displays. Although both Tito and Ceauşescu urged caution upon Dubček and sought to avoid any provocative remarks during their stays (despite prodding by some Czechoslovak journalists), the dominant impression left from both trips was

the spontaneous adulation that the Czechoslovak people had displayed toward two foreign leaders who had successfully defied Moscow in the past. (This was certainly the impression that most Soviet officials had; see, for example, the top-secret reports "Zapis' besedy s sekretarem Ispolnitel'nogo komiteta TSK SKYu, M. Todorovichem," Cable No. 380 from I. A. Benediktov, Soviet ambassador in Yugoslavia, to K. F. Katushev and K. V. Rusakov, 14 August 1968, in RGANI, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 279, Ll. 20-23; and "Zapis' besedy s general'nym sekretarem TSK RKP N. Chaushesku, 19 avgusta 1968 goda," Cable No. 842 from A. V. Basov, Soviet ambassador in Romania, 20 August 1968, in RGANI, F. 5, Op. 60, D. 339, LI. 47-52. Many other evaluations expressing similar sentiments can be found in the same files.) This outpouring of popular enthusiasm - the country's apparent "yearning for its own Tito," as Literární listy put it - spawned new rumors about a possible alliance among Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Those rumors, as in the past, were quickly denied by the leaders of all three countries, but hard-line officials elsewhere in Eastern Europe, particularly Walter Ulbricht, seized on the rumors as “proof” of their earlier warnings that a "Little Entente" was being formed to "sever Czechoslovakia from the Soviet Union and from the whole socialist commonwealth."

367 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a misprint in the document. It should read Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, which is adjacent to the Satu Mares region in Romania.

368TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is not entirely accurate. Because Dubček was unable to mollify Soviet displeasure over the internal changes in Czechoslovakia, he strove to reassure Moscow about the firmness of Czechoslovakia's commitment to the Warsaw Pact and the "socialist commonwealth." Looking back to the events of 1956 in Hungary, Dubček and other Czechoslovak officials had concluded that by upholding Czechoslovakia's membership in the Warsaw Pact and maintaining Party control over the reform process, they could carry out far-reaching domestic changes without provoking Soviet military intervention. (See Dubček's comments about this matter in Hope Dies Last, pp. 178-179.) Their judgment in this instance was probably erroneous even in the case of Hungary, inasmuch as the first Soviet intervention in 1956 and the decision to intervene a second time actually predated Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. Whether valid or not, however, the "lesson" that KSČ officials drew from the 1956 crisis that internal reform would be tolerated so long as membership in the Warsaw Pact and CMEA was never questioned - induced them to make frequent references to the “unbreakable” friendship and alliance between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. As domestic liberalization gathered pace, Dubček continued to issue repeated expressions of solidarity with Moscow and to pledge that Soviet interests would be safeguarded under all circumstances. In the end, all these assurances came to naught.

369 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Scrawled across the upper left of the document is a note dated 21 September 1968 indicating that the memorandum was distributed to Shelest and the KGB directorate.

370TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: See the notations in Shelest's diary pertaining to this incident in Excerpt No. 4 in my article in CWIHP Bulletin No. 10.

371 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: All the points here refer to perquisites enjoyed by Communist Party leaders and the nomenklatura (senior party and state officials at all levels).

372TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Nothing has been omitted in between Points 3 and 5. The poorly typed leaflet does not include a Point 4.

373TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Student unrest was widespread in 1968 not only in these countries, but in numerous others, includ

ing Italy, West Germany, the United States, Poland, and – perhaps most of all – Mexico, where troops opened fire on a demonstration in Tlatelolco, leaving hundreds dead or wounded. For discussions and comparisons of most of these cases, see the relevant chapters in Fink, Junker, and Gassert, eds., 1968: The World Transformed.

374TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Gustáv Husák played a key role in the Slovak Communist Party during World War II and was instrumental in the Communist takeover in Slovakia in 1947-1948, but he fell victim to the high-level purges carried out by Klement Gottwald in the early 1950s and was imprisoned in 1951 on charges of "bourgeois nationalism.” He was later rehabilitated and reemerged as a key figure in the KSS. Through much of the Prague Spring, Husák had been a proponent of moderate reform (and in particular a restructuring of Czech-Slovak relations), but after the Soviet-led invasion he shifted steadily toward a hardline, anti-reformist position. Under Soviet auspices in April 1969, he replaced Dubček as First Secretary of the KSČ. Soviet leaders had backed Husák for this post mainly because they believed he would be more acceptable to the Czechoslovak population than would some of the other prospective candidates, who were widely seen in Czechoslovakia as little more than Soviet puppets. Husák consolidated his power at a KSČ Central Committee plenum in September 1969 (a month before this visit to Kyiv), ushering in a period of harsh “normalization." He remained the party leader until 1987.

375 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: To extirpate the remnants of the Prague Spring, the new KSČ leaders authorized the head of the KSČ CC's Control and Auditing Commission, Miloš Jakeš, to oversee a large-scale purge. Hundreds of thousands of pro-reform members of the KSČ were expelled from the party and, in many cases, deprived of meaningful jobs. Many also found that their children faced exclusion or expulsion from higher education and promising career paths. The repercussions from this purge were felt for the next 20 years. See Jakeš's brief first-hand account (which seeks to defend his own unsavory role) in his recent memoir, Dva roky Generálním tajemníkem (Prague: Regulus, 1996), pp. 54-66.

376TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Reformist sentiment spread into the KSČ's Higher Party School and numerous other institutes of higher education in Czechoslovakia throughout the Prague Spring. A harsh crackdown on reform-minded faculty at these schools had taken place in the mid-1960s under Novotný's auspices. The historian Milan Hübl, who had consistently spoken out in support of sweeping reform, was a particular target of Novotný's anti-reformist backlash in late 1963 and 1964. Hübl and two of his colleagues at the Higher Party School, Zdeněk Jičínský and Karel Kouba, were removed from their posts, and both Hübl and another dissident historian, Ján Mlynárik, were personally denounced by Novotný in May 1964. Several other historians at the Higher Party School were transferred to different assignments, and the historical faculty as a whole came under sharp criticism from the KSČ Presidium in 1964. In 1968, however, the reformers were back in favor. Not only was Milan Hübl restored to his post at the Higher Party | School, but he was also appointed rector. Other important changes of personnel occurred at several universities (including Charles University), at the Institute for the History of Socialism (formerly known as the Institute for the History of the KSČ), at the KSČ's official publishing house, and at a number of research centers affiliated with the Academy of Sciences, including the Institute for the History of the European Socialist Countries and the Institute of Czechoslovak Literature. Proposals for sweeping reform of the academic system and research facilities were actively discussed and refined in the spring and summer of 1968. Many leading scholars at the KSČ's schools and institutes, at the universities, and at the Academy of Sciences institutes were prominently involved in the

broader attempts to press ahead with comprehensive political reform. By writing commentaries in the press, giving public lectures, helping out with the drafting of the Action Program and the preparation of documents for the Fourteenth KSČ Congress, signing proreform appeals and petitions, serving as members of various commissions (on rehabilitations, historical reassessments, federalization, and economic reform), and writing speeches for key party and state officials, a large number of scholars made enthusiastic contributions to the Prague Spring. This was particularly evident in the Czech lands, but it was also true in Slovakia. Husak's comments here reflect his awareness that the initial “normalization" had only partly diminished the groundswell of reformist sentiment that emerged at party schools and other higher education facilities in 1968. A more rigorous purge soon followed.

377TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Husák is referring here to the numerous fissures that emerged in the Communist world as a result of the Soviet-led invasion. Within the Warsaw Pact itself, Albania used the invasion as an opportunity to withdraw formally from the alliance. (Albania had ceased to be a de facto member of the Warsaw Pact as far back as 1961, but had not yet formally pulled out.) Another Pact member, Romania, refused to take part in the invasion and promptly condemned it. Although Romania's defiance rapidly ebbed in late 1968 and 1969, Romanian policy never came fully back into line with the policies of the other Warsaw Pact states. Outside the Pact, the invasion was denounced by China (which was only six months away from its own military clashes with the Soviet Union on the Ussuri River) and even caused a good deal of disquiet in Cuba (though Cuban leader Fidel Castro ultimately decided to offer public support for the Soviet action). Equally important, the invasion led to a momentous rift among non-ruling Communist parties. Many of the West European Communist parties, especially the Italian and Spanish, had watched Dubček's reform program with great sympathy and hope. The violent suppression of the Prague Spring aroused open and vehement opposition to the Soviet Union within these parties and stimulated the rise of what became known as "Eurocommunism." The defection of most of the major West European Communist parties from the Soviet orbit was nearly as important in its long-term consequences as the earlier splits with Yugoslavia and China, and far more important than the break with Albania. The emergence of Eurocommunism mitigated potential Soviet influence in Western Europe and significantly altered the complexion of West European politics. More important, the Eurocommunist alternative – an alternative that, unlike the Prague Spring, could not be subdued by Soviet tanks - became a potentially attractive, and thereby disruptive, element in Eastern Europe. 378TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: On the reaction of the Italian Communist Party to the Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, see Joan Barth Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: From Togliatti to Berlinguer (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 137-169; Donald L. M. Blackmer and Annie Kriegel, The International Role of the Communist Parties of Italy and France, Studies in International Affairs No. 33 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1975); and George R. Urban, ed., Eurocommunism: Its Roots and Future in Italy and Elsewhere (New York: Universe Books, 1978).

379TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The Vasyl’kivs'kyi region (raion) of Kyiv oblast is to the southwest of the Kyiv metropolitan area, adjacent to the Kievo-Svyatoshnyns'kyi raion in which Kyiv itself is located. Kodaky is located almost precisely in the center of Vasyl'kivs'kyi raion.

M

ore than five decades after combat ceased in the summer of 1953, the Korean War continues to animate scholarly interest both for its historical importance and its ongoing political relevance. More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, tensions persist between the U.S. government and the communist regime in Pyongyang, now ruled by the reclusive son, Kim Jong Il, of the man who led North Korea at the time of the June 1950 thrust across the 38th parallel. Of all the major events of the Cold War, the Korean War has also been among those to benefit most expansively from the opening of communist sources. Beginning in the late 1980s, Chinese materials began to emerge through neibu (internal) publications of biographies and documentary compilations of materials of leaders such as Mao Zedong. And since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian archives have coughed up treasure troves of documents, many of which have appeared in English translation through the Cold War International History Project's Bulletins and Working Papers.

The documents presented below emerged from the collection at the U.S. Library of Congress of papers of the late Soviet/Russian historian Dmitri Volkogonov which were transferred to Washington following his death in 1995. As Volkogonov had enjoyed privileged access to Moscow archives while writing his biographies and profiles of Lenin, Stalin, and other Soviet leaders, his papers contained thousands of pages of photocopies of archival documents on a wide range of subjects spanning the entire history of the USSR. The Korean War documents translated here were among those included in materials from the Russian Presidential Archives (known formally as the Archive of the President, Russian Federation, or APRF), which the Library of Congress only opened in January 2000, after the rest of the collection.2

The first two documents, from late May 1950, further illuminate the secret coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow in the final weeks leading up to the North Korean attack across the 38th parallel on 24 June. In Document No. 1, the Soviet ambassador, Terentii Shtykov, relates a 29 May conversation with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung regarding preparations for the offensive against the south that Stalin had authorized during Kim's secret trip to Moscow earlier that spring. In addition to reporting on the arrival of promised Soviet military and economic aid and urgently requesting more, Kim displays his eagerness to attack, insisting that combat readiness would be sufficient by the end of June❘ even though Soviet military advisers had suggested waiting until the troop concentrations and detailed planning had pro

gressed further. Sensing his "mood," Shtykov endorses Kim's timetable, as well as his urgent requests for medical supplies and automobile gasoline-requests which Stalin, in Document No. 2, immediately vows to fulfill. More portentously, Stalin also generally accepts Shtykov's views, indicating approval of Kim's arguments that military preparations justify launching the assault on the south by the end of June.3 The third document, a coded 8 July 1950 telegraph from Stalin (using the nom de guerre Fyn Si) to Shtykov, gives some insight into the vozhd's sternness and how nervewracking it could be to work for him. By early July, the North Korean offensive had succeeded in driving the South Korean military out of Seoul and far south of the 38th parallel, but not everything has gone according to plan the people in the south had failed to rise up against the Syngman Rhee regime, as Kim had foreseen (or at least hoped1), and the United States under President Harry S. Truman had intervened militarily, contrary to Kim's promises to Stalin that the war could be won quickly before Washington could make a difference. Nevertheless, the North seemed clearly to be winning the war-so it must have been jarring for Shtykov to receive a harshly-worded message from his tyrannical boss accusing him of having behaved "incorrectly" for promising Pyongyang Soviet advisers without permission, adding sarcastically that he should remember that he represents the USSR, not Korea. The promised advisors, Stalin adds rather blithely, could visit the front in civilian clothes disguised as "Pravda" reporters, but Shtykov would be held "personally responsible before the Soviet Government" if they were taken prisoner an ominous phrase that must have made the ambassador gulp with terror."

Documents No.4 through No. 7 add further detail to one of the most crucial moments in the Korean War to be exposed by the opening of communist sources the maneuvering between Stalin and Mao Zedong in October 1950 as U.S.-led forces crossed the 38th parallel following the successful Inchon landing in mid-September, Kim Il Sung's forces retreated in disarray and his regime teetered on the brink of collapse, and his Soviet and Chinese patrons pondered how to react, in frantic consultations that ultimately produced China's decision to enter the war." In Document No. 4, Stalin cables his chief political and military representatives in Pyongyang on 1 October 1950 in response to messages relating the increasingly dire straits of the North Korean forces as they were driven back across the 38th parallel, as well as a desperate appeal from Kim for direct Soviet intervention to save his regime." Once again, he sharply criticizes his underlings, blaming them for "erroneous" behavior by dodging

Kim's questions and failing to offer coherent or effective advice and thereby fostering "uncertainty" in the Korean leadership. Exhorting them to provide "firm leadership," Stalin (unrealistically, given the situation on the ground) demands that they establish defenses along the 38th parallel to prevent further American advance and even go on the offensive by organizing “guerrilla warfare” in the south behind enemy lines.

At the end of his message, Stalin alludes to the possibility of Chinese "volunteers" coming to North Korea's rescue, and notes that a response to Kim's appeal for Soviet armed support would be forthcoming in a few days. As previously released documents show, the Soviet leader hoped, and had reason to anticipate, that Beijing would provide the needed forces, and sent a message to the Chinese leadership that same day-1 October 1950-suggesting that China send at least five or six divisions of "volunteers" to Korea and confidently predicting that "our Korean friends" would be "glad" when they learned of Beijing's action. However, much to the surprise and consternation of the Soviet ambassador in Beijing, and then of Stalin himself, Mao had demurred, responding on October 2 that China had tentatively opted not to enter the conflict. His reasons included the U.S. advantage in military equipment, China's weakened internal condition following decades of civil strife, and the danger that a clash with America could drag the Soviets into the fray, triggering World War III. While speaking of the need for caution and the regrettable possibility that the North Korean comrades might have to convert their struggle into a partisan war, Mao left the door ajar by noting that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo had not yet taken a final decision on the matter."

Mao's startling message set the stage for one of the most dramatic documents yet to emerge from the communist archives-Stalin's strongly-worded response arguing that China should enter the Korean War, and brushing aside concerns about the risks of igniting a world war with the confident assertion—“Should we fear this?”—that the Soviets and Chinese together were stronger than the Americans and British, and if war were inevitable, better it happen now, before a rearmed Germany and Japan could contribute to the Western military alliance. Stalin also argued that Beijing could secure a broad range of advantages by entering the war and defeating the Americans, not just by precluding Washington's use of Korea as a “springboard” to threaten China but also by causing the Americans to make concessions with regard to Japan and Taiwan.

The CWIHP Bulletin published the first evidence of this momentous message from Stalin to Mao in early 1996-but at the time, it was only available in the form of an extended quotation in a message dispatched from Stalin to Kim on 7 October 1950, thereby leaving uncertain precisely when that message had been delivered to Mao and whether the version Stalin gave Kim had been complete or accurate. 10 This ambiguity, in turn, contributed to confusion over what role, if any, Stalin's forceful message had played in pressuring, or convincing, the split Chinese Communist Party leadership to reverse the tentatively negative position toward military inter

vention contained in Mao's aforementioned 2 October 1950 message to Stalin, and instead shift towards a commitment to enter the war. Chinese sources, while making clear that Mao had overcome serious divisions to convince the CCP Politburo to endorse in principle the idea of sending military forces to Korea, did not clarify precisely when the group endorsed that decision which it formally if secretly ratified on 8 October 1950 putting Peng Dehuai in charge of the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) and informing Kim of this moveand whether the decision preceded or followed the reception of Stalin's letter."

Documents No. 5 and No. 6 offer new evidence on the text and timing of Stalin's letter. In Volkogonov's materials from the APFR, a draft of the letter was found and is reproduced here with Stalin's handwritten insertions in italics. There is no marking to indicate how the earlier text had been produced, but it bears Stalin's imprint so clearly that one must suspect that it had been dictated to an aide, and then reviewed for further changes. A copy of the final message was also found, and this adds a small but interesting section which Stalin omitted when he quoted the communication afterward in his own cable to Kim Il Sung. That portion dealt with China's domestic affairs, in which Stalin alluded to Mao's prior citation, in his 2 October message, of his people's longing for peace and likely discontent if plans for peaceful reconstruction were ruined as factors in the CCP leadership's reluctance to join the war in Korea against the Americans. While politely acknowledging that Chinese leaders knew the situation better, Stalin hinted at a derisive view of Beijing's position its communist virility, as it were-if it let "malcontents" and "bourgeois parties" prevent it from fulfilling its revolutionary duty. More to the point, the implication of weakness and inability to perform added to the pressure on Mao to live up to Stalin's standards as a loyal ally, less than a year after the signing of the February 1950 Sino-Soviet treaty. (Mao would later say that Stalin suspected him of being a second Tito and only trusted him after he intervened in Korea. 2) Stalin also expressed readiness to receive Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao at his dacha on the Black Sea to discuss the whole matter face-to-face.

In addition to resolving questions about the text of Stalin's message, the documents finally clarify the matter of timing. A handwritten notation on the final version indicates that it was dispatched from Stalin's Black Sea retreat by highfrequency phone to comrade Nikolai Bulganin in Moscow at 11 p.m. on 5 October. And document No. 7, a ciphered cable from Soviet ambassador in Beijing N.V. Roshchin, dated 7 October, reports that he delivered Stalin's message to Mao at 10:30 p.m., Beijing time, on 6 October 1950. In a meeting that lasted past midnight, Roshchin read Stalin's message-he may not have provided the written text, which would explain its apparent absence from Chinese archives-and heard Mao express full agreement with Stalin's analysis of the international situation, including the danger of joint war against the United States, and evident enthusiasm for Chinese military involvement in Korea, with even more forces than Stalin had proposed—at least nine divisions rather than five or six. At