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some American armed forces retreating before the troops of his junior ally, Stalin ordered Vyshinsky to propose instead terms that the Americans would surely reject. In the same vein, Stalin replied to Zhou (document #49) that it was not yet time “for China to show all its cards, while Seoul is still not liberated," and advised him to adopt the more cunning strategy of requesting US and UN opinions on conditions for an armistice. When the UN group presented its proposal on 11 January 1951, Zhou again turned to Stalin for "advice and consultation” (document #52), and in accordance with Stalin's recommendation the PRC rejected the UN proposal.

Stalin's telegram to Mao Zedong on 5 June 1951 (document #65) reveals the new attitude toward the war that Stalin adopted after Chinese successes on the battlefield removed the threat of an American advance toward Chinese and Soviet borders. He informed Mao that he agreed that "the war in Korea should not be speeded up, since a drawn out war, in the first place, gives the possibility to the Chinese troops to study contemporary warfare on the field of battle and in the second place shakes up the Truman regime in America and harms the military prestige of Anglo-American troops." We have no record of Mao's reaction to Stalin's enthusiasm for this costly "learning experience" for China and one may imagine that the Chinese leadership may have been less enthusiastic about the massive casualties suffered in Korea, which ran to many hundreds of thousands by the end of the war. At the same time, however, Mao's correspondence with Stalin indicates that the Chinese leader was in fact willing to continue the war until he obtained from the United States terms he considered acceptable. Russian records of Mao's correspondence with Stalin thus lend support to Chen Jian's argument that Mao Zedong intervened in Korea primarily in order to reassert China's place in the international order and to revive revolutionary momentum within China. 12

Despite Stalin's interest in continuing the war in Korea, the serious losses suffered by Chinese and North Korean troops in their failed offensives of April and May 1951 forced the communist allies to consider opening negotiations with the UN command. On June 5 Soviet Ambassador to the UN Jacob Malik informed the American diplomat George F. Kennan that "the Soviet govern

ment wanted peace and wanted a peaceful solution of the Korean question at the earliest possible moment" and advised the United States "to get in touch with the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists in this matter."13 A few days later Kim Il Sung and Gao Gang, a Chinese leader with close ties to the Soviet Union, went to Moscow to discuss the situation with Stalin (documents #67, 6972). Mao Zedong considered it advisable to open negotiations with the UN command because for the next two months the Chinese and North Koreans would have to occupy a defensive position (documents #73, 74, 76). defensive position (documents #73, 74, 76). If the Chinese and North Korean forces could avoid facing an enemy offensive during this period, by August they would be strong enough to launch their own new offensive.

Stalin agreed with Mao that armistice negotiations were desirable at that time (see document #69) and instructed Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations to take the appropriate initiative. 14 This evidence suggests that the "hawks" within the Truman Administration who opposed opening negotiations in Korea on the grounds that the enemy was only trying to buy time to build up its forces were, in fact, correct. From Mao's assessment of the condition of the Chinese and North Korean troops in the summer of 1951, it appears that if the UN forces had pushed their advantage in June and July 1951, before the Chinese had time to dig fortifications, they may well have advanced the line of the front, and hence the eventual border between the two Koreas. After August 1951 the CPV and PLA were sufficiently well dug in that the war remained a stalemate.

An examination of Chinese and North Korean strategy during the armistice negotiations, which lasted from July 1951 to July 1953, is beyond the scope of this essay, though the Presidential Archive documents provide extensive evidence on this subject. I will note only that it appears that while Mao Zedong opened negotiations in 1951 primarily in order to buy time to reinforce his position on the battlefield, his communications with Stalin in July and August 1951 (documents #84-88) suggest that if he had been able to secure satisfactory terms in the negotiations, he may have been willing to conclude an armistice. However, the documents reveal that Stalin consistently took a "hard line" toward the negotiations, advising Mao that since the Americans had an even

greater need to conclude an armistice, the Chinese and North Koreans should "continue to pursue a hard line, not showing haste and not displaying interest in a rapid end to the negotiations" (document #95).

The evidence presented below suggests that as the fighting dragged on through 1952, the North Koreans became increasingly desirous of ending the war (documents #102, 106). The Chinese approach to the war, however, seems to have been contradictory. On the one hand, Mao Zedong was clearly anxious to avoid undermining the prestige of the PRC by accepting unfavorable armistice terms (document #108). As Zhou Enlai explained to Stalin in a conversation in Moscow on 20 August 1952 (the transcript of which is published elsewhere in this issue of the Bulletin), the Chinese leadership felt that as a matter of principle it could not yield to the Americans on the issue of repatriation of POWS. Zhou also reported to Stalin that Mao believed that the war in Korea was advantageous to China because it kept the United States from preparing for a new world war. Specifically, by fighting the Americans in Korea, China was helping to delay the next world war by 15-20 years. On the other hand, however, Zhou stated toward the end of this conversation that if America makes some sort of compromise on the POW issue, the communist side should accept it.

We need additional records from China in order to determine more clearly the Chinese leadership's thinking regarding the war in Korea during the long months of armistice negotiations. However, from an internal report on the Korean War written by the Soviet Foreign Ministry in 1966 (published in Issue 3 [Fall 1993] of the Bulletin), it appears that by the time of Stalin's death in March 1953, Beijing was eager to bring the war to an end. According to this report, during conversations held while Zhou Enlai was in Moscow for Stalin's funeral, the PRC foreign minister "urgently proposed that the Soviet side assist the speeding up of an armistice." As the tortuously worded USSR Council of Ministers resolution of 19 March 1953 (document #112) reveals, ending the war in Korea was also a high priority for the post-Stalin leadership in Moscow; in the midst of the great anxiety and confusion following Stalin's death, the new leadership drafted and approved this major foreign policy decision in only two weeks. The evidence thus suggests that Stalin's desire to

continue the war in Korea was a major factor in the prolongation of the war; immediately after his death the three communist allies took decisive steps to reach an armistice agreement.

The

The timing of the Council of Ministers' resolution also suggests that it was Stalin's death rather than U.S. threats to use nuclear weapons that finally brought a breakthrough in the armistice negotiations. Eisenhower Administration later asserted that it finally broke the stalemate at Panmunjom by virtue of its "unmistakable warning" to Beijing that it would use nuclear weapons against China if an armistice were not reached—a claim that had great influence on American strategic thinking after 1953.15 However, Eisenhower's threats to use nuclear weapons were made in May 1953, two months after the Soviet government resolved to bring the war to an end. The Russian documents thus provide important new evidence for the debate over "nuclear diplomacy."16

The final two documents presented below provide intriguing information about Mao Zedong's attitude toward the Korean War and the effect the war had on his relations with Moscow. In a discussion with Soviet officials in Beijing on 28 July 1953 (document #114), Mao was remarkably bellicose, speaking of the war as though it had been a great victory for China. He even commented that "from a purely military point of view it would not be bad to continue to strike the Americans for approximately another year." Mao may have been mainly posturing before the Russians, part of a larger effort to redefine his relations with Moscow following the death of Stalin; the Soviet documents need to be combined with the new Chinese sources before one can draw firm conclusions about Mao's thinking. It is clear, however, as the excerpt from a conversation with the Soviet ambassador in Beijing in April 1956 (document #115) suggests, that the Korean War profoundly affected relations between the PRC and the USSR. Stalin desperately wanted Mao Zedong to pull his chestnuts out of the fire in Korea, but the PRC's stunning success against the formidable American foe, combined with Moscow's tightfistedness toward its ally, made the communist government in Beijing much less willing to tolerate subsequent Soviet demands.

As is apparent from the documents pre

sented below and the others from this collection published in this issue, the documents declassified by the Presidential Archive greatly expand our knowledge of the Korean War and of Soviet foreign policy in general in the late Stalin years, particularly Soviet relations with the new communist government in China. It will be some time before these new sources can be adequately analyzed and integrated with documentary and memoir evidence from other countries. In the meantime, readers may wish to consult the following recent publications using other new sources from China and Russia in order to place this new evidence in a broader context: Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Thomas Christensen, "Threats, Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao's Korean War Telegrams," International Security 17:1 (Summer 1992), 122-54; Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Michael Hunt, "Beijing and the Korean Crisis, June 1950-June 1951," Political Science Quarterly 107: 3 (Fall 1992), 453-78; William Stueck, The Korean War, An International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); and Zhang Shu Guang, Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950-1953 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1995).

1. Photocopies of these documents have been deposited at the National Security Archive in Washington DC, located in The Gelman Library (7th fl.), George Washington University, 2130 H St. NW, Washington, DC 20037 (tel.: (202) 994-7000). The National Security Archive, a non-governmental organization devoted to facilitating increased access to declassified records on international relations, is open to all researchers. Copies of this collection will also be available at Columbia University.

2. "New Findings on the Korean War," CWIHP Bulletin 3 (Fall 1993), 1, 14-18; and "To Attack or Not to Attack? Stalin, Kim Il Sung and the Prelude to War," CWIHP Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995), 1,2-9; and “The Soviet Role in the Early Phase of the Korean War: New Documentary Evidence," The Journal of AmericanEast Asian Relations 2:4 (Winter 1993), 425-458. 3. See Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis, and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 149.

4. Although Kim Il Sung secured Mao's approval before launching the attack on South Korea, he did not inform Mao of the specific plan for the invasion or the

timing of the attack. The North Korean leadership informed Beijing about the military operation only on June 27, after the KPA had already occupied Seoul. See Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 134.

5. Members of the Russian declassification committee for Korean War documents have reported that further records regarding the preparations for the military offensive against South Korea in the spring of 1950 are not in the Presidential Archive and have not been located.

6. Khrushchev recorded that when he asked Stalin about this "incomprehensible" order, the Soviet leader replied sharply: "It's too dangerous to keep our advisers there. They might be taken prisoner. We don't want there to be evidence for accusing us of taking part in this business. It's Kim Il Sung's affair." See Nikita Khrushchev (Strobe Talbott, ed.), Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1970), 370. 7. Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War, 135141.

8. See Meirion and Susie Harries, Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization of Japan (London: Hamish Hamilton; Heinemann, 1989), 228-42.

9. This contradicts the widespread conclusion that the DPRK air force had been eliminated in the first weeks of the war. DPRK air units ceased to operate over North Korea after the first few weeks of the war, but it appears from this report that at least a portion of the air force was withdrawn to Manchuria. For a discussion of the role of the North Korean air force, see, e.g., Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 255.

10. I am grateful to Mark O'Neill, who is writing a dissertation on the Soviet air force in the Korean War based on records from the General Staff archive, for assistance in interpreting the documents on military operations.

11. Gen. Georgii Lobov, who commanded the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps in Korea, stated in an interview in 1991 that approximately 70,000 Soviet pilots, technicians and gunners served in the corps over the course of the war. See "Blank Spots in History: In the Skies Over North Korea," JPRS Report, JPRS-UAC-91-004, p. 3.

12. Chen Jian, China's Road to the Korean War, 211223.

13. Kennan to Matthews, 5 June 1951, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1951, vol. 7 (pt.1), pp. 507-511.

14. See Malik's address over the UN radio network on 23 June 1951, ibid., 546-547.

15. James Sheply, "How Dulles Averted War," Life, 16 January 1956, 70-72; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1963), 179180.

16. For discussion of the debate over the utility of nuclear threats in the Korean War see Roger Dingman, "Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War," International Security 13:3 (Winter 1988/89),50-91; and Rosemary Foot, "Nuclear Coercion and the Ending of the Korean Conflict," International Security 13:3 (Winter 1988/89), 92-112.

NOTE ON TRANSLATION: In translating these documents I have retained the style of the Russian texts, which in most cases is the cumbersome, indirect, bureaucratic prose characteristic of official Soviet documents. The telegrams from Mao Zedong to Stalin in 1951 and 1952 are written in particularly poor Russian; I have kept as much to the original text as possible while still rendering the prose intelligible. The numbers of the ciphered telegrams are given when they are legible, but in many cases the "DECLASSIFIED" stamp obscured the number of the telegram. Personal names and place names are given in the standard English spelling wherever possible; otherwise they are transliterated from the Russian. An index of abbreviations and identifications of the most important persons mentioned are provided after the documents. Dates are given in the Russian manner: day, month, year. Note on archival citations: Those documents that were provided by the Russian Government to South Korea have a citation to the Russian Foreign Ministry archives (AVPRF) as well as to the Russian Presidential Archive (APRF); both archives are located in Moscow.-K.W.

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On 30 January I had a meeting with Comrade Kim Il Sung, in accordance with your order. After referring to the conversation that took place on January 17 during the lunch at [North Korean Foreign Minister] Pak Hon Yong's, I relayed precisely the contents of the first point of your orders.

Kim Il Sung received my report with great satisfaction. Your agreement to receive him and your readiness to assist him in this matter made an especially strong impression. Kim Il Sung, apparently wishing once more to reassure himself, asked me if this means that it is possible to meet with Comrade Stalin on this question. I answered that from this communication it follows that Comrade Stalin is ready to receive you. Kim Il Sung further stated that he will prepare

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On 4 February I had a meeting with Kim Il Sung at his request. During the meeting Kim Il Sung raised the following questions:

1. Can they adopt a central committee decision about issuing a loan, about which he earlier asked my advice[?] They have already calculated the loan at 2 billion won. They have already prepared an example of a bond. He asked agreement to send their representatives to Moscow with draft bonds in order to formulate orders for these bonds. I answered that I had communicated Kim Il Sung's request to Moscow, but had still not received an answer.

2. Kim Il Sung asked my advice about whether they can proceed toward forming three additional infantry divisions, so that the total number of the army will be brought to ten divisions. I answered that this question is large and serious, that before adopting a decision you must think through whether you have the necessary material resources for this. I also need time to think through this question before I give you advice on this

measure.

3. Kim Il Sung asked me if he can appeal

to Comrade Stalin with a request to use in 1950 the credit the Soviet government had allocated for 1951. With this credit they would like to buy in the Soviet Union arms for the three infantry divisions they intend to form. I answered that I will report this question to my government.

4. Kim Il Sung further communicated that they intend to call a session of the Supreme People's Assembly for February 25 with the following agenda:

1. Regarding the budget for 1950. 2. Regarding the criminal code. 3. Regarding the results of the fulfillment of the national economic plan in 1949. They still do not have a firm decision regarding whether to raise the three questions.

Kim Il Sung reported that he had commissioned Pak Hon Yong to write a request to the Soviet government about sending a group of textile workers to the Soviet Union in order to prepare them to work on the Soviet equipment that is arriving. I answered that as soon as I receive his letter I will report it to my government.

I ask your orders about what to answer Kim Il Sung regarding the first three questions raised by him [as reported] in this telegram.

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I transmit the text of a note received from the chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the DPRK:

"The Cabinet of Ministers of the Korean People's Democratic Republic reports to you about the following:

In 1950 the Korean People's Democratic Republic, in order to strengthen the people's army and to fully equip it with arms, ammunition and technical equipment, asked the Soviet government to send to Korea military-technical equipment in the amount of 120-150 million rubles, in accordance with an application made earlier to the Government of the USSR.

The Korean People's Democratic Republic correspondingly will deliver to the

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following:

In connection with the agreement of the Government of the USSR to allocate to Korea in 1950 a portion of the credit for 1951 in the amount of 70,700,000 rubles, the Government of the Korean People's Democratic Republic would like to acquire with this sum arms, ammunition and military-technical equipment for the Korean People's Army in the amounts indicated in the attached [list]. The Government of the Korean People's Democratic Republic hopes that the Government of the USSR, understanding well the needs of the young Korean Republic, will complete the delivery of all the special goods in the shortest period.

Kim Il Sung

Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Korean People's Democratic Republic

A copy of the note was transmitted by me to the trade representative of the USSR in Korea. I will send the original note by diplomatic post. The arms and military equipment indicated in the attached [list] will go to the formation of 3 divisions.

16.III.50 SHTYKOV

attached is a seven page list, divided into sections for artillery armaments, ammunition, [illegible], engineering equipment, military-medical equipment, and military aviation supplies.

[Source: APRF, Listy 133-140, fond and opis not given]

8. 18 March 1950, message, Stalin to Kim Il Sung (via Shtykov)

PYONGYANG

To SHTYKOV

Transmit to Kim Il Sung the following answer from Comrade Stalin:

"First. I received your communication of March 4 about agreement to send the indicated amount of lead to the Soviet Union. I thank you for the assistance. As concerns the equipment and materials you request, and also the specialists in lead industry, the Soviet Government has resolved to fully satisfy your request.

Second. I have also received your proposal of 9 March about the delivery to you of arms, ammunition and technical equipment for the people's army of Korea. The Soviet government has decided also to satisfy fully this request of yours.

With respect I. STALIN".

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In accordance with your order on March 20I had a meeting with Kim Il Sung, at which [DPRK Foreign Minister] Pak Hon Yong was present. During the meeting I transmitted to Kim the text of the telegram of Comrade Stalin.

During this meeting Kim asked me to transmit to Comrade Stalin his request that he, together with Pak Hon Yong, would like have a meeting with Comrade Stalin at the beginning of April.

They want to make the trip to Moscow and the meeting with Comrade Stalin unofficially, in the manner as [it was done] in 1945.

Kim Il Sung said further that they are completing the preparation of all materials for the trip and intend to raise the following questions at the meeting with Comrade Stalin:

1. About the path and methods of unification of the south and the north of the country.

2. About the prospects for the economic development of the country.

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3. Also possibly several party questions. about the following: I ask your order.

21.III.50 SHTYKOV

[Source: APRF, Listy 143-144, Fond and Opis not given; and AVPRF, Fond 059a, Opis 5a, Delo 3, Papka 11, Listy 94-95]

10. 24 March 1950, ciphered telegram, Shtykov to Vyshinsky re meeting with Kim Il Sung

Ciphered telegram. Strictly secret.
From Pyongyang.
To Vyshinsky.

On March 24 I visited Kim Il Sung and communicated to him that Comrade Stalin has agreed to receive him and [Foreign Minister] Pak Hon Yong.

Kim Il Sung plans to leave Korea for Moscow on March 30 of this year. I consider it advisable to arrange a special plane for

1. A report to Kim Il Sung was received from the ambassador of the DPRK in the Chinese People's Republic Li Zhou-yuan in which he reports about a meeting between Mao Zedong and Li Zhou-yuan that took place in Beijing at the end of March 1950.

In the conversation between Mao Zedong and Li Zhou-yuan, at the initiative of the latter, the question of a meeting between Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong was discussed.

Mao Zedong responded positively to the question of a meeting with Kim Il Sung and selected the end of April or the beginning of May of this year as the approximate time for this meeting.

Mao Zedong connected the proposed meeting with the question of the unification of Korea, indicating in this regard that if there is a concrete plan for the unification of Korea, then the meeting should be organized secretly [not openly], but if there is not yet

such a plan for unification of Korea, then the meeting with Kim Il Sung can be conducted officially.

Li Zhou-yuan has not given a concrete answer to the question of the time and form of the meeting, referring to the fact that Kim Il Sung is presently undergoing medical treatment. [Ed. note: Kim was making a secret visit to Moscow.] Further, Mao said in the conversation with Li Zhou-yuan that if a third world war begins, Korea will not escape participation in it, therefore the Korean People's Democratic Republic should prepare its armed forces.

In the conversation with Li Zhou-yuan, Mao Zedong expressed the wish to develop wider trade between the Chinese People's Republic and the DPRK.

2. Kim Ch'aek has reported that Kim Dar Sen, the leader of the partisan detachments in the south of Korea whom the southern press and radio have repeatedly officially reported as killed in battles with punitive units of the South Korean army, arrived in Pyongyang from South Korea on April 3. Kim Dar Sen came to North Korea to report about the position of the partisan movement in South Korea and to receive orders on this question.

Kim Ch'aek asked me to transmit the above indicated questions to Kim Il Sung through Comrade Shtykov.

10.IV.50. [A.] IGNATIEV

[Source: APRF, Listy 148-149, Fond and Opis not given; and AVPRF, Fond 059a, Opis 5a, Delo 3, Papka 11, Listy 98-99]

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