the same time, Mao enumerated various technical and numerical weakness that would hamper a military struggle against the Americans and made clear that Beijing would rely on Moscow for multi-faceted support, including air covera hint of the hard bargaining ahead, beginning with the forthcoming secret trip of Zhou (who attended this meeting) and Lin Biao to talk with Stalin personally. Regarding timing and strategy, Mao already had conceived the plan that would end in a stunning (if temporary) success-letting the Americans advance more deeply into North Korea, extending their supply lines, before the Chinese would level a damaging blow, which is what occurred in late November-December as the

eager to end the conflict as well, despite Zhou Enlai's insistence to Stalin in a meeting on 20 August 1952 that Mao favored a continuation of the war. 14 Yet, in any case, Stalin's admonition to stick to a hard line in the Panmunjom talks precluded any real progress-brushing aside the suffering of his allies, he told Zhou that the "North Koreans have lost nothing" other than casualties, and enthused that the war was "getting on America's nerves.”15

In the conversation presented here, Stalin closely, and at times sharply, questioned the visiting North Korean and Chinese officials on the progress of the fighting, and showed particular interest in the combat qualities of the American

Americans were pushed all the way back to the 38th parallel.

Roshchin's report of his conversation with Mao does not entirely dispel the uncertainty over whether Stalin's message influenced China's ultimate decision to enter the war. Mao, evidently, had already come down strongly in favor of doing so, and hearing Stalin's ardent plea must only have confirmed his view that China's involvement was necessary for the good of the Sino-Soviet alliance on which he had risked so much as well as for the other advantages he could perceive from rebuffing the Americans-both to help consolidate the revolution against potential domestic enemies, as Chen Jian has argued13, and to head off a long-term security threat from an ascendant U.S. military presence on the border with Manchuria. It is still not clear, however, whether he had already prevailed upon the Politburo to endorse his course of active intervention in Korea, in which case Stalin's message was superfluous, or whether Mao was able to use this fresh evidence of strong Kremlin desire for Chinese entry to convince remaining holdouts of the necessity for this course of action. Only full contemporaneous notes or minutes of the CCP Politburo session could conclusively resolve the issue.

Jumping ahead to the latter stages of the war, Document No. 8 presents the Soviet record of Stalin's 4 September 1952 conversation with visiting North Korean leader Kim Il Sung and Chinese military commander Peng Dehuai. At the time, the Panmunjom negotiations between the warring sides begun the previous summer remained stalemated, especially over the issue of the mandatory repatriation of communist POWs, and fighting continued with the two enemy armies dug in on a front close to the 38th parallel, to which the USSouth Korean forces had been driven back following Beijing's massive intervention in late 1950. By this point, previously released Russian documents make clear, the North Koreans were tiring of the war, particularly the heavy toll inflicted by American aerial bombardment, and probably the Chinese were

soldiers. Kim Il Sung and Peng Dehuai, the commander of the "Chinese People's Volunteers" in Korea, had been summoned to Moscow in the midst of a series of conversations between Stalin and Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in order to give the Soviet leader a clearer picture of how Pyongyang and Beijing viewed the military situation, particularly in light of Zhou's statements that North Korean morale was faltering. 16 Stalin immediately interrogated his guests on this point, extracting an affirmation that the mood was "good" and the military situation "favorable" and only then the rather significant qualification-"if you do not include the bombing." Obviously trying to buck up the North Koreans, who complain of being "grossly undersupplied," Stalin tries to meet their requests for additional support, but then homes in on the question of whether a divergence exists between Pyongyang and Beijing over how to handle the negotiations with the Americans. After Kim minimizes the dispute (while admitting he and the Chinese desire an armistice "as soon as possible"), Stalin offers some tactical advice on the prisoner issue, mostly to gain the upper hand in international opinion, but then shifts the question to something that seems closer to his heart-how do the Americans rate in combat? In his earlier talk with Zhou Enlai, Stalin had disparaged the US soldiers as "weak," "merchants... obsessed with buying and selling." Now he probes for further details, wondering whether they fight "with inspiration, with skill, or with numerical superiority"-almost as if he were sizing them up as potential adversaries in a World War III showdown he knew he had the power to ignite, and must often have imagined. Near the end of the conversation, Stalin turns the conversation in a more critical direction, letting an associate ask some skeptical questions about optimistic battlefield reporting, needling Peng Dehuai as to whether Chinese pilots were "afraid" to engage in combat operations without Soviet guidance, and condescendingly lecturing General Peng to institute a "system of rewards and decorations" in the "anar

chist-like" Chinese army. One suspects that the Chinese commander left the meeting with gritted teeth. In sum, it is a document that not only offers further insight into Stalin's mindset during his final year, but additional justification for the observation that he was happy to fight the Korean War to the last North Korean or Chinese, even as he carefully sheltered the USSR from direct clashes with the Americans.

Once Stalin died, in March 1953, both Soviet and Chinese leaders immediately agreed on the need to liquidate the conflict even at the price of making concessions on the prisoner issue.18 The final armistice was not signed, however, until 27 July 1953, after some final maneuvers by both sides, including Syngman Rhee's sudden release on June 18 of more than 25,000 North Korean POWs without notifying Washington, a move that threatened to torpedo a potential deal and exacerbated growing US irritation with Rhee." Document No. 9, a cable from Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov to the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing for transmission to Chinese leaders, offers some insight into the comparatively mild communist response to these events, and to Moscow's perception of the increasingly tense US-South Korean relationship. Already consumed with both internal and external crises in the wake of Stalin's demise—including, in past weeks, an uprising in East Germany and the arrest of Lavrenty Beriathe Kremlin evinced little interest in reigniting the Korean conflagration. Instead, it applauded a draft Chinese-North Korean communication to the head of the U.S. delegation at Panmunjom that, while "[a]rgumentative and occasionally bordering on being insulting," agreed to continue the armistice talks. Molotov's message also complimented Beijing for not falling into Rhee's trap, allegedly set in cahoots with aggressive U.S. "ruling circles," of using provocative actions to undermine the armistice talks; instead, the moderate Sino-North Korean position had helped isolate the Americans and the Rhee "clique" in world public opinion and frustrated bellicose American designs both abroad and at home. Encouraging the Chinese not to be diverted from the path to the armistice, even as it launched a last mini-offensive, the Soviets added a warning that Kim Il Sung should not attend the final signing ceremony (he didn't) due to the danger that he might fall victim to the "dangerous tricks" of the Seoul regime a harbinger of the mutual ill-will and distrust that would characterize both the signing at Panmunjom and the tense military standoff that would ensue for more than half a century, the last frontier on the globe where the Cold War never really ended.

James G. Hershberg is Associate Professor at George Washington University and editor of the CWIHP Book Series (Stanford University Press/ Woodrow Wilson Center Press); Vladislav M. Zubok is Associate Professor at Temple University.

DOCUMENT No. 1

Telegram from Soviet Ambassador in Pyongyang Terentii Shtykov to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky (for Stalin), 30 May 1950

CIPHERED TELEGRAM 30 May 1950

Top secret

Distribution: .1 - Stalin

2.- Stalin

3. - Molotov

4. - Malenkov 5. - Beria

6.- Mikoyan

7- Kaganovich

8 - Bulganin

9 - Vyshinsky 10- Gromyko

From Pyongyang, No. 16030, received at 13: 40, 30 May 1950.

16033 16044

Special no. 408-410

SPECIAL, OUT OF ORDER

To Vyshinsky (for the Instantsia [Stalin])

On 29 May I had a meeting with Kim Il Sung at his request. In the beginning of the conversation Kim Il Sung informed me that the armaments and ammunition he had requested during his stay in Moscow had largely arrived. The armaments have been sent to the newly formed divisions and by 1 June all the arms will be distributed among soldiers. Then he informed that he toured the new divisions, familiarized himself with the military preparations and believed that the divisions would be in full combat readiness by the end of June.

Kim Il Sung said that the head of [the North Korean] general staff completed at his request the principled decision for the offensive. The scheme of this decision was reported to him jointly by the head of the General Staff and the adviser General Vassilyev. He approved the decision and the choice of directions of the main offensive during the campaign. He asked me to meet, together with him, with the head of the General Staff and the adviser General Vassilyev, so that we could look at this decision together. I avoided such a joint meeting by saying that I could see the adopted decision at General Vassilyev's.

Kim Il Sung then said that they are wrapping up on the organizational issues on the Army by 1 June. The Navy is somewhat lagging behind, since it has not received from the [Soviet] Union one trailer and one large destroyer [bolshoi okhotnik]. The crews of these ships have been manned, but cannot be trained in the absence of the ships. [Kim Il Sung]

Let our advisers go to the front headquarters and into army groups in civilian uniforms as correspondents of "Pravda" in the required numbers.

You will be personally responsible before the Soviet Government that they would not be taken prisoners.

FYN SI [Stalin]

Typed in 3 copies:

NO. 1 - for Stalin

No. 2 - for Stalin

No. 3- for Bulganin

Typist Budanova 8 July 1950, 19:35

Correct: head of dispatch of 4th Division 8 Department of the GSSA.

Colonel Gonchar.

leadership. Cde. MATVEEV was sent to Korea not for transmitting summaries on the events in Korea, which we kept receiving anyway. Until now he has not yet presented to Moscow [authorities] his detailed assessment of the military situation in Korea, not to mention any suggestions or advice that may flow out of this situation. Thereby he makes it more difficult for us to take this or that decision on Korean matters. Cde. MATVEEV does little to assist the Korean leadership which is revealed by the fact that the Korean leadership still lacks any plan of defense of the republic along the 38th parallel and Northbound, and does not have a plan of withdrawal of troops from South Korea.

Keep these directions in mind in your subsequent activities in Korea.

Immediately visit KIM IL SUNG and PAK HON YONG and tell them the following:

First. Will the enemy advance to the North of the 38th parallel? We should base ourselves in this question on the worst-case scenario, that is, that the enemy will try to capture North Korea. Therefore one should without delay mobilize all forces and prevent the enemy from crossing the 38th parallel, that is, to be prepared to fight the enemy to the North of the 38th parallel.

We should not underestimate the strength and capabilities of the Korean republic in the matters of organizing defense. There is a big potential and resources for mobilization in the Korean North. Under the present difficult circumstances one should at any cost and in the shortest possible time resolve the task of creating combat-ready armed forces, both through reinforcement of the existing troops as well as through formation of new ones. We will fully supply all these troops