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STALIN, MAO, KIM, AND CHINA'S DECISION TO ENTER THE KOREAN WAR, SEPTEMBER 16-OCTOBER 15, 1950:

NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE RUSSIAN ARCHIVES

article and translations by Alexandre Y. Mansourov1

At 5:45 a.m. on 15 September 1950, the 5th Marine Brigade of the X Corps commanded by Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond began its unprecedented amphibious landing onto the beaches of Inch'on. There were about 500 North Korean soldiers on Wolmido, a tiny island protecting the entry into the Inch'on harbor, another 500 at Kimpo, and about 1,500 within Inch'on. They were 2 confronted with more than 70,000 troops from the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, Holland, and the UK disembarking from more than 260 ships. The surprise of the UN attack, and the preponderant firepower and manpower of the U.S.-led forces, destroyed pockets of the dazed North Korean resistance within hours. By the next morning the 1st Marines had been able to squeeze the remnants of the Korean People's Army (KPA) out of Inch'on and had started their rapid advance towards Kimp'o and Seoul. Operation Chromite was a complete success and later labelled as "a masterpiece of amphibious ingenuity."3

a little more than a week Seoul was recaptured by the UN forces. On 1 October 1950, they crossed the 38th parallel, and began their rapid, sweeping advance northward. The KPA surrendered Pyongyang on October 19, and soon the first Republic of Korea (ROK) and U.S. battalions approached the Yalu River on the Chinese-North Korean border.

However, U.S./UN Commander Douglas MacArthur's promise to "Bring the Boys Home by Christmas" never came true. The Thanksgiving offensive proved stillborn, for it was a new enemy that the UN troops confronted in Korea from then on: 36 divisions of the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) who entered North Korea in late October-early November, supported by almost twelve wings and air defense divisions of the Soviet Air Force operating from nearby airfields in Northeast China. Recognizing new patterns in the enemy's behavior, in his special communiqué to the UN dated 28 November 1950, MacArthur called it "an entirely new war." Indeed, it was.

In the Western literature there are many

scholarly and eyewitness accounts of the preparation, implementation, and strategic and military significance of Operation Chromite, as well as the subsequent prosecution of the war by the UN forces, including the origins and aftermath of the reversal of fortunes for the UN troops in November 1950.4 In addition, in his 1960 study China Crosses the Yalu, Allen S. Whiting persuasively showed how national security concerns, as well as domestic political and economic considerations, may have led the People's Republic of China (PRC) government to decide to enter the Korean War. His preliminary conclusions were supported almost three decades later by Russell Spurr,5 who focused his research on the psychological background of the Chinese leaders' decision to provide military assistance to a friendly communist regime in Pyongyang.

$6.

Then, a wave of memoirs published in the PRC by former high-ranking Chinese officials, military leaders, and other insiders allowed scholars to reconstruct in great detail the relevant decision-making processes in Beijing and Northeast China regarding the merits of Chinese military intervention in Korea, including debates within the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and among PLA senior commanders. These works also brought to light some differences in the individual positions of Chinese leaders, including last-minute doubts, reversals, disagreements, and vacillations on the part of those involved, and analyzed the correspondence between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and their military officials, as well as other political, economic, military, and administrative events related to the war which

occurred in China in August-October 1950.7

However, what this literature still left to speculation was the Soviet side of the story. Some of the books, especially Uncertain Partners (1993), by Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, and William W. Stueck's recently-published The Korean 8 War: An International History, discuss strategic calculations which Stalin might have made at this crucial juncture of the Korean War, the course and outcome of crucial

negotiations between Stalin and Zhou Enlai on 10-11 October 1950, as well as the stillenigmatic October 1950 correspondence between Beijing and Moscow.9

But due to the unavoidable lack of hard top-level archival evidence, these accounts fell far short of being able to reconstruct in detail the attitudes and policy orientations of Stalin or other key Soviet leaders in Moscow and their representatives on the ground in Korea, nor the decision-making processes taking place inside the Kremlin immediately after the U.S. landing at Inch'on and leading up to the final Chinese decision a month later to intervene militarily in Korea. Moreover, this literature suffered from the lack of previously classified Moscow-Pyongyang toplevel correspondence, and to rely primarily on the officially authorized, at times propagandistic Chinese sources of the exchanges between the PRC and USSR leaders.

This absence of critical Soviet source materials, consequently, gave birth to a number of academic debates. First, many scholars disagree in their assessments of Soviet and Chinese intentions and motivations in Northeast Asia and the nature and parameters of their respective perceived national interests on the Korean peninsula at this stage of the war. Second, an overarching debate among historians involves a series of interrelated questions about alliance commitments between Moscow and Beijingwhat commitments were made, why and how they were reached, whether they were broken or honored, and how they affected the subsequent course of Sino-Soviet relations (a good example of this is the claim advanced in some Chinese accounts that

Stalin, in his 10-11 October 1950 meeting with Zhou, reneged on a prior commitment for the USSR to provide air support for the CPVs). This debate includes controversies related to the personal roles of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung in manipulating one another's decisions regarding the war, especially the initial decision to initiate a largescale attack against the south in June 1950 and later over China's intervention. There is also a cloud of uncertainty over the role of

Zhou Enlai as an intermediary between Stalin and Mao in managing (mismanaging?) the Sino-Soviet alliance, and the role of the Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang in the initial stages of the war, T.F. Shtykov, as an intermediary between Stalin and Kim Il Sung in the ill-fated handling of the USSRDPRK alliance.

Shortly before the 40th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, the Russian government released a new batch of previously classified documents related to the events on the Korean peninsula from 1949 to 1953, including some correspondence between Stalin and Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong, internal correspondence between the Kremlin and various Soviet government ministries involved in the prosecution of the war in Korea, and ciphered telegrams between Soviet representatives in North Korea (known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) and their respective superiors in Moscow. In total, these new primary source materials amount to well over a thousand pages and come from the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (AVPRF) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from the Military Archive at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

This article introduces and analyzes a selection of these newly declassified documents from the Russian Archives related to the period after the U.S.-UN troops' landing at Inch'on on 16 September 1950, until midOctober 1950, when the PRC decided to send its troops to Korea to save Kim Il Sung's collapsing regime. The newly released documents primarily from the APRF, offer new information and insights into how Stalin and his political representatives and military advisers in Korea; Kim Il Sung and his close associates; and Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and their personal representatives in Korea, viewed and assessed the strategic and military significance of the UN forces' landing at Inch'on, recapture of Seoul, crossing of the 38th parallel, and drive to the Yalu. These new archival materials provide researchers with a fascinating window into the internal dynamics and politics of alliance relationships among the Soviet Union, PRC, and the DPRK from the aftermath of the Inch'on landing until the Chinese crossing of the Yalu River. They present startling

new evidence on the commonalities and differences in the Soviet and Chinese world views, and their respective views on the limits of the U.S. global power and likelihood of a U.S.-led escalation of the Korean conflict, as well as on the varied significances of Korea, divided or unified, for the Soviet versus Chinese national interests. Also, the newly declassified early October 1950 correspondence between Moscow and Beijing sheds dramatic new light on intra-alliance bargaining between Stalin and Mao Zedong regarding the terms of China's entry into the Korean War, which is at variance with the traditional Chinese and Western interpretations thereof. In particular, these Russian documents raise questions about the reliability and even authenticity of Mao's telegrams of 2 and 14 October 1950 as they appear in officially authorized Chinese sources, and subsequently in scholarly literature. They subsequently in scholarly literature. They also reveal the depth of Stalin's and Mao's personal involvement and the complexity of policymaking processes in Moscow and Beijing regarding the prosecution of the Korean War, as well as how domestic political considerations and bureaucratic politics in the USSR and PRC affected their respective policy outcomes concerning military strategy and tactics. Finally, they reveal for the first time a series of decisions by the Soviet leadership to reduce the Soviet presence in Korea at that time, including three CPSU Politburo conferences (on 27 and 30 September 1950 and 5 October 1950) which considered the Chinese leadership's pronounced reluctance to accommodate Stalin's prodding of Mao to send troops to rescue the DPRK, leading to Stalin's 13 October 1950 decision to abandon North Korea and evacuate Kim Il Sung and the remnants of the KPA to Northeast China and the Soviet Far East, as well as his dramatic reversal less than twenty-four hours later upon learning of the Chinese final decision to fight.

The value of the ciphered telegrams lies in the fact that they reveal the atmosphere of mutual finger-pointing which reigned in the offices of the Soviet, North Korean, and Chinese decision-makers after the Inch'on landing. In the internal correspondence between Stalin and the Soviet political and military advisers in Korea, Stalin blamed them for all the KPA failures in the Korean campaign, whereas in his correspondence with Kim Il Sung Stalin blamed the KPA commanders for military defeats, while in

his exchange with Mao Zedong, Stalin held Kim Il Sung and his Korean generals responsible for failures at the battleground. In turn, Zhou Enlai blamed Kim Il Sung for withholding military intelligence from the Chinese and for ignoring Mao's warnings, issued as early as mid-August, about the danger of a U.S. landing at Inch'on. Kim Il Sung, in turn, blamed his commanders for insubordination, Stalin for lack of commitment, and his Soviet advisers for professional ineptitude. Reading the newly declassified Russian telegrams, it is hard not to conclude that these mutual recriminations undermined palpably the mutual trust among the leaders of these communist allies.

The ciphered telegrams also reveal the atmosphere of confusion and discord that permeated relations between the Soviet and Chinese leaders and their respective representatives and associates in Korea regarding the military-strategic significance of the Inch'on landing. Stalin considered the Inch'on landing a development of vital strategic significance, fraught with grave implications for the KPA [Document #3]. Therefore, in his ciphered telegram dated 18 September 1950, he directed that Gen. Vasiliev, the Chief Soviet Military Adviser to the KPA, and Ambassador T.F. Shtykov, the Soviet envoy to the DPRK, tell Kim Il Sung to redeploy four KPA divisions from the Naktong River front to the vicinity of Seoul. 10 Also on September 18, he ordered

Soviet Defense Minister Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky urgently to develop a plan for the Soviet Air Force to provide air cover to Pyongyang, including the transfer of several Soviet Air Force fighter squadrons with maintenance crews, radar posts, and air defense battalions from their bases in the Maritime Province of the Soviet Far East (including the strategic port city of Vladivostok) to the airfields around Pyongyang [Document #1].

In contrast with Stalin's judgment, neither Shtykov nor Vasiliev seemed to grasp, let alone forecast, the strategic importance of the U.S. troops's amphibious landing at Inch'on-as Stalin harshly admonished them in a withering message on September 27 [Document #3]. They believed it was a bluff aimed at distracting the attention of the KPA Command from the main southeastern front. Shtykov even suggested that an author of an article in the Soviet newspaper Pravda about the Inch'on landing should be brought to

trial for disinformation and panicking. In their correspondence with Stalin, they doubted the need to redeploy KPA troops from the Naktong River front to the defense of Seoul, instead favoring a strategy of exerting additional pressure on the southeastern front in order to throw the U.S. and ROK troops defending the Pusan perimeter off the cliffs into the Sea of Japan in a final great offensive. Consequently, they dragged their feet in executing Stalin's order to withdraw four KPA divisions from the Southeast to the vicinity of Seoul.

As the military situation around Seoul deteriorated due to the rapid advance of the U.S. X Corps toward the ROK capital from the west, and their recapture of Kimp'o on September 18, Stalin urgently dispatched to Korea a special mission headed by Army General Matvey Vasilievich Zakharov,11 (known by the pseudonym Matveyev), the Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Soviet Army, carried Stalin's order that Shtykov and Vasiliev tell Kim Il Sung to halt the offensive along the Pusan perimeter, to assume the defensive and pull out all his divisions from the Naktong River front and redeploy them to defend Seoul in the northeast and east. Also, he pressed Vasilevsky to step up his efforts to provide the KPA with air cover and set up an air defense system around Pyongyang (see Document #2). Finally, Stalin directed his representative in Beijing to solicit the Chinese leadership's opinion on the Korean situation and what to do about it.

On the night of September 18, Stalin received a ciphered telegram from his Ambassador to the PRC, N.V. Roshchin. 12 Roshchin informed Stalin of his meeting the same day with Zhou Enlai, with the Soviet Military Advisers Gen. Kotov and Konnov present. Zhou said that the Chinese leadership had no other information about the U.S. amphibious landing at Inch'on besides that reported in the Western newspapers and by the Pyongyang Radio. Zhou noted that, in general, the Chinese had very poor contacts with the North Korean government regarding military matters. The Chinese were aware of the North Korean demand for cadres but were absolutely in the dark about the KPA's operational plans. They had attempted to dispatch a team of senior Chinese military officers from the Northeast Frontier Forces Command to Korea to observe the military situation on the battleground, but

had not heard anything from them. 13 Zhou complained that the DPRK leaders had persistently ignored Mao Zedong's advice and predictions and, moreover, deprived the Chinese Ambassador in Pyongyang, Ni Zhiliang, of operational information about the military situation, thereby preventing him from informing his government properly in a timely fashion. As a result, Mao had only sketchy reports about the execution and consequences of the Inch'on landing.

In response to Roshchin's question about the appropriate course of action for the KPA at this juncture, Zhou recommended with some reservations Zhou recommended that, if the KPA had 100,000-men reserves in the vicinity of Seoul and Pyongyang, they could vicinity of Seoul and Pyongyang, they could and must eliminate the enemy's landing force at Inch'on. If, however, the KPA lacked such reserves, then they had to withdraw their main forces from the Naktong River front northward, leaving rear-guards behind to defend the frontline. On behalf of the PRC government, Zhou requested that the Soviet government pass to the Chinese leadership more accurate and up-to-date information on the military situation in Korea, if it possessed it itself.

On September 20, Stalin sent a ciphered telegram to Roshchin in Beijing for delivery to Zhou Enlai, responding to the latter's request for more information on the Korean situation. 14 First of all, he stressed that poor communications between the DPRK and PRC and lack of information in Beijing on the military situation in Korea was "abnormal." In Stalin's opinion, Kim Il Sung failed to provide Mao Zedong with military intelligence because of difficulties in his own communications with his Frontline Command rather than his reluctance to share this kind of information. Stalin complained that he himself received odd and belated reports he himself received odd and belated reports about the frontline situation from his Ambassador in Pyongyang (Shtykov). He asked Zhou to bear in mind that the KPA was a very young and ill-experienced army with an underdeveloped command and control system and weak cadres unable to analyze the frontline situation quickly and efficiently. He blamed the U.S. intervention for the KPA's debacle at Inch'on, emphasizing that had the KPA fought only against Syngman Rhee's troops, "it would have cleaned up Korea from the reactionary forces long time ago." Stalin argued that the tactics used by the KPA at that time-dispatching odd bat

talions and regiments to the vicinity of Inch'on and Seoul-were flawed and fraught with the possible annihilation of these units without providing any solution to the problem as a whole. He stressed that only a pullout of main forces from the southeastern front and creation of formidable lines of defense east and north of Seoul could halt the unfolding UN offensive around Seoul.

Upon receiving Stalin's message from Roshchin on September 21, Zhou expressed satisfaction that the Soviet assessment of the military situation in Korea after Inch'on matched the Chinese one. He mentioned to Roshchin that two days earlier, he had sent a cable to Chinese Ambassador Ni Zhiliang in Pyongyang with recommendations similar to those which he had given Roshchin and Soviet military advisers earlier that day. According to Zhou, the same day, Ni had a long talk with Kim Il Sung, with Pak Il'u and Pak Hon-Yong present, and, afterwards, cabled to Beijing Kim's words that "the Korean people were ready to fight a protracted war."15

In the meantime, on September 22, the 5th and 7th regiments of the 1st U.S. Marines Division approached Seoul from the northwest and northeast, while the 32nd and 17th regiments of the ROK 7th Division advanced to Seoul from southeast, preparing for the final stage of Operation Chromite: the recapture of the capital. There was a general feeling that Seoul was about to fall. On September 23, the U.S.-UN-ROK forces launched a frontal assault on Seoul; at the same time the Eighth Army's general offensive in the South, unleashed on September 16, began to bear fruit, and the KPA fell apart at the Naktong River front.

Upon arrival in Korea, General Zakharov (Matveyev) sent his first ciphered telegram to Stalin on September 26 [Document #4]. He reported that the situation of the People's Army troops on the western (Seoul) and southeastern (Pusan) fronts was grave; that the KPA's First and Second Armies faced the certain prospect of being. encircled and completely destroyed by the enemy troops; and that the U.S. Air Force dominated the air space without hinderance, wreaking havoc both within the KPA and in the rear areas. He noted that the KPA troops had suffered heavy losses, mainly from the enemy's air force, having lost almost all its tanks and much of its artillery; and that they lacked munitions and fuel, the delivery of

which was virtually halted. He stressed that the KPA's top-down command and control system was set up poorly, that wire and radio communications worked only intermittently because of the breakdowns inflicted by the enemy's air raids and due to the lack of qualified radio operators and radio station fuel, and that courier mail was almost nonexistent.

On September 25-26, Seoul became "an inferno,"16 with the U.S. Marines advancing into Seoul from the South, North, and West, and methodically destroying over 20,000 North Korean troops making a lastditch stand. According to Zakharov's ciphered telegram [Document #4], on September 25, at 19:00 hours, local time, Kim Il Sung was finally persuaded to abandon his dream of pushing the UN troops into the sea in the south. He succumbed to his Soviet advisers' urging and ordered that the Seoul Group and the Second Army Group operating in the northern part of the southeastern front assume the defensive and hold up the enemy by any means. The troops of the Second Army Group operating in the central and southern parts of the southeastern front were ordered to begin a general retreat northwestward. But the North Korean troops in the South no longer obeyed their commanders; the KPA was rapidly disintegrating. In Zakharov's judgment, at that time the North's top political and military leaders already had no idea about the predicament of the KPA troops, in particular on the southeastern front.

On September 26, the ROK 7th Division moving westward from Namsan district, after having crossed the Han River, joined hands with the U.S. 5th and 7th Marines. Although some North Korean resistance, including suicide squads attacking American tanks, continued fiercely until the afternoon of September 27, by and large the battle for Seoul was over as the night fell. According to Zakharov's ciphered telegram [Document #4], later that night, Kim Il Sung received him; DPRK Foreign Minister Pak Hon-Yong and Shtykov also attended. As a result of the conversation, Kim Il Sung decided to combine the duties of the Supreme Commanderin-Chief and Defense Minister in his own hands, to set up a Staff Office for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for command and control over troops, and to pay serious attention to the work of the rear. Zakharov

reported that the North Koreans had only just started to form six infantry divisions in the northern part of Korea, and that Kim Il Sung had issued a directive to take immediate steps to withdraw manpower from South Korea in order to use it in the formation of new divisions in North Korea and deny this opportunity to the South.

Stalin was furious. On September 27, he convened an emergency session of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the AllUnion Communist Party (bolshevik) [DocuUnion Communist Party (bolshevik) [Document #3]. This was the first in a series of CC VKR(b) Politburo meetings which considered Soviet national interests in Korea and eventually decided to minimize Soviet exposure on the peninsula. In its decision P#78/ 73, the Politburo blamed the KPA's predicament in the Seoul area and in the southeast on a series of grave mistakes made by the KPA Frontline Command, the Commands of the Army Groups and army groupings in the questions related to command and control over troops, and combat tactics. In particular, Stalin and his associates in Moscow held responsible the Soviet military advisers for these blunders. In their judgment, the Soviet military advisers had failed to implement scrupulously and in a timely fashion Stalin's order to withdraw four divisions from the central front to the Seoul area, and had displayed, moreover, strategic illiteracy and incompetence in intelligence matters. "They incompetence in intelligence matters. "They failed to grasp the strategic importance of the enemy's assault landing in Inch'on, denied the gravity of its implications... This blindness and lack of strategic experience led to the fact that they doubted the necessity of redeploying troops from the South toward redeploying troops from the South toward Seoul. At the same time, they procrastinated over the redeployment and slowed it down considerably, thereby losing a week to the enemy's enjoyment." The Politburo stated that "the assistance provided by our military advisers to the Korean Command in such paramount questions as communications, command and control over troops, organization of intelligence and combat is exceptionally weak."17 In conclusion, the Politburo decided that after the fall of Seoul the KPA's main goal should be to withdraw all its troops to North Korea and defend its own homeland by all means. It attached a list of military measures which Chief Soviet Military Adviser Vasiliev was ordered to implement in order to prevent the enemy from crossing the 38th parallel. Despite the gravity of the

charges, however, no personnel changes among the Soviet political and military advisers were made in Korea at that time.

Meanwhile, in Korea, on September 28 Kim Il Sung convened an emergency meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee Political Council (WPK CC PC), 18 Everyone present agreed that the military situation was critical and warranted extreme measures. First, in order to restore the KPA Command Structure and improve its efficiency and reliability, the Political Council approved Kim's proposal to combine the positions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (SCINC) and Minister of National Defense in his hands and to set up a General Staff for the SCINC, i.e., the measures recommended to Kim by Zakharov and Shtykov at their meeting on September 26. This was tantamount to establishing an entirely new command and control system over the KPA centered on Kim Il Sung. This decision was an obvious reflection of the fact that by September 28, Kim had already lost contact with his Defense Minister, Ch'oe Yong-gon, who was in charge of the defense of Seoul.19 Moreover, Kim and other top political leaders in Pyongyang had lost all communication with their Front Line Command and the Auxiliary Command Posts, which had been cut off from each other by

Walker's rapidly advancing Eighth Army. 20 That day, the U.S.-led UN forces enveloped both the First and Second Army Groups of the KPA, broke up the KPA's command structure, and completely destroyed its communications system. The KPA units attempting to retreat to the north from the Naktong River were pursued and destroyed. In Kim Il Sung's own words, "because of poor discipline and failure to fulfill orders," the KPA failed to pull out most of their 21 troops stuck in the south.

The WPK CC PC's second decision was to take urgent measures aimed to organize defenses along the 38th parallel, approving Kim's plan to form immediately fifteen new divisions. At that time, six new infantry divisions were already being created in South Pyongan and South Hwanghae, and South and North Hamgyong Provinces. At the same time, Kim hoped to reconstitute nine more infantry divisions from the remnants of the KPA returning from the southeastern front. 22

Finally, in the course of a fierce debate, the Political Council concurred that after the

fall of Seoul nothing would stop the UN forces from crossing the 38th parallel; that if they did cross the parallel, the remaining KPA units would not be able to render any serious resistance, and, consequently, the war would be over in a very short period of time, with the North Korean state being eliminated by the aggressive American imperialists. Unanimously, the North Korean leadership agreed to ask both allies, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, for direct military assistance. The Political Council thus discussed and approved two official letters [Document #6] addressed to Stalin and Mao Zedong, begging them to intervene directly and without delay to save the North Korean regime.

It is noteworthy that the next day, before dispatching the letter to Stalin, Kim solicited Shtykov's advice regarding its content and advisability. On the evening of September 29, following the mandate of the WPK CC Politburo, Kim for the first time officially raised to his Soviet military advisers the question of the UN forces' crossing the 38th parallel. At his meeting with Shtykov and Zakharov [Document #5], with Pak HonYong present, he asked Shtykov whether the latter thought the enemy would dare to cross the 38th parallel. Once Shtykov replied that he was not sure, Kim concurred by saying that "it was not clear to me either." Kim added, however, that "if the enemy did cross the parallel, the People's Army would not be able to form new troops and, therefore, would not be able to render any serious resistance to the enemy forces." Kim told Shtykov he wanted his advice as to how they should approach Stalin concerning their letter requesting direct Soviet military assistance. But Shtykov dodged the question, obviously to ensure that the final decision to invite Soviet troops to the defense of North Korea-and subsequent responsibility, should things go wrong-would rest with Kim Il Sung and Pak Hon-Yong themselves.23 Kim and Pak were visibly dissatisfied and upset but at the same time so "confused, lost, hopeless, and desperate," and had so much at stake at the moment, that they went ahead and asked Stalin for a total commitment, including Soviet ground troops, even without Shtykov's blessing.

It was on October 1, at 2:50 a.m., that Stalin received ciphered telegram #1351 from Shtykov, containing an official text of the letter of Kim Il Sung and Pak Hon-Yong

pleading for help [Document #6]. Actually, the letter was dated September 29. The next day, Pak Hon-Yong personally delivered it to Shtykov with an emotional plea that "at the moment of the enemy's troops crossing of the 38th parallel, we will desperately need ground troops from the Soviet Union." The letter arrived at the Eighth Department of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces on September 30, at 23:30 p.m., by wire as "very urgent," was deciphered on October 1, at 0:35 a.m., typed up at 1:45 a.m., and forwarded to Stalin to his dacha in the South at 2:50 a.m. The timing is important in this case because only after having received Kim Il Sung's plea for help did Stalin dispatch a cable to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai on October 1, at 3:00 a.m., requesting China's direct intervention in the Korean conflict.

In their letter, Kim and Pak informed Stalin about the severe consequences for the KPA of the Inch'on landing. Although still loathe to admit that Seoul had fallen, they indicated that the enemy "had the real possibility of taking over Seoul." They were certain that "with the complete occupation of Seoul, the enemy would launch a further offensive into North Korea." Kim and Pak admitted that "if the enemy were to take advantage of the situation and step up its offensive in North Korea, then we would be unable to stop the enemy by our own forces... and the U.S. aggression would succeed in the end." Nonetheless, they emphasized that they were still determined to fight on, to mobilize new troops and to prepare "for a protracted war." They argued that it was "in the USSR's national interest to prevent the U.S. advance into North Korea and the latter's transformation into a colony and military springboard of U.S. imperialism."

Finally, they begged Stalin for a "special kind of assistance," admitting that "at the moment when the enemy troops begin to cross the 38th parallel, we would desperately need direct military assistance from the ately need direct military assistance from the Soviet Union." Afraid of their plea being rejected outright and fearful that Stalin held them personally responsible for the war's disastrous turn, Kim and Pak inserted a facesaving proposition for Stalin, i.e., "if for any reason, this [direct military assistance - AM] proves to be impossible, please, assist us in lining up international volunteers' units in China and other countries of people's democracies to be used in providing military assistance to our struggle." Kim and Pak assistance to our struggle." Kim and Pak

could not be more explicit than that. Recognizing that they could not survive on their own, they were crying out for help to Stalin, their "fatherly leader," for, preferably, the Soviet cavalry to rescue the day, or, if not, to broker Mao's consent to enter the war.

In the meantime, on September 29, General MacArthur restored the Government of the Republic of Korea headed by Syngman Rhee in an emotional ceremony in the capital in Seoul. The last hope that the war could be contained at the status quo ante belli was dashed when later that day the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) approved MacArthur's plan for the conquest of North Korea, envisioning the Eighth Army advancing to Pyongyang and the Tenth Corps being withdrawn from the Inch'on-Seoul area for another amphibious landing at Wonsan. The same day, U.S. Secretary of Defense Gen. George C. Marshall sent an encouraging message to MacArthur: "We want you to feel unhampered strategically and tactically to proceed north of the 38th Parallel."25

On September 30, the Soviet Politburo conferred again on the Korean situation, in particular Zakharov's latest report on the dire military situation [Document #4]. The discussion focused on the need to avoid a direct military confrontation between the USSR and the United States and the options still available to salvage the situation in Korea, including soliciting Chinese help and opening a last-ditch diplomatic maneuvering at the United Nations. The Politburo directed that the Foreign Ministry draft a new ceasefire resolution to be submitted to the UN. Also, they decided to approve Kim Il Sung's proposals to reorganize the KPA high military command, form six new divisions, and withdraw remaining North Korean troops from the South [Document #8]. At the same time, the Politburo decided that armaments, munition, and other materials for the new divisions would be supplied to the KPA between October 5 and 20.26 Finally, the Politburo recommended that Kim ask the Chinese to dispatch truck drivers to North Korea.

It is worth noting that Stalin specifically mentioned in his instructions to Shtykov that their last recommendation should be passed to Kim Il Sung without any reference to Moscow, as if it were coming from the Soviet military advisers in the field. The probable cause for such reticence may have

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