Riding the Red Horse (40 page)

Stalin and the Korean War

Stalin felt misgivings when the Chinese civil war resumed in 1946. He supported the CCP in flagrant contravention of the 1945 Sino-Soviet Treaty.
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But, he did not desire a complete Communist victory, which would call into question Soviet gains in China. Instead, he sought a divided, weaker China, and therefore urged the CCP to accept a mediated settlement and to restrain its offensives. The CCP rejected these ideas and soon gained control of the Chinese mainland. The United States, meanwhile, facilitated the CCP victory by withholding vital support from the KMT. Truman calculated that a unified Communist China was preferable to a China divided as Germany and Korea had been.

As Stalin feared, the victorious CCP immediately began to challenge the provisions of the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty.
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Worse yet from his perspective, the CCP also sought diplomatic recognition from the United States. Mao was pro-Soviet but did not want complete isolation from the United States. The key issue was Taiwan. The PLA had only very weak naval and air power, and required Soviet assistance to take the island. Stalin attempted to trade this assistance for CCP acquiescence to the Soviet position in northern China. Mao responded with a threat to recognize “a certain capitalist country”, which Stalin took to mean the United States. Stalin then decided to precipitate war in Korea, with the USSR remaining aloof, in order to ensure that China remained dependent on him and at odds with America.

While Mao and Stalin met in Moscow in December 1949, the Americans did their best to forestall a Sino-Soviet alliance. Truman and Acheson proposed to withdraw U.S. military support from the Nationalists and accept a Communist seizure of Taiwan. Moreover, they contemplated a neutral Japan, with strong economic ties to China. This would have created a powerful Sino-Japanese bloc independent of both Washington and Moscow. The well-known Acheson speech of January 1950, which excluded South Korea and Taiwan from America’s Pacific “defensive perimeter,” was part of the effort to prompt Mao to reject an alliance with Moscow. These desperate, indirect American efforts to communicate a “better deal” to Mao failed completely. The Chinese and Soviets signed a thirty-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance on February 14, 1950. Undoubtedly, however, the frantic American signals cemented Stalin’s determination to foment war between the United States and China.

In the alliance negotiations, Stalin wished to avoid any commitment to come to China’s aid in the event of war with the United States. Mao wanted to make Soviet involvement automatic. Stalin prevailed. Under the treaty, only a formal American declaration of war on China required the USSR to render direct military assistance to China. Stalin believed such a declaration was most unlikely, and in fact it did not occur.

The first step in maneuvering the United States and China into conflict was to withdraw the Soviet representative from the United Nations. The Soviets withdrew in January 1950 on the pretext that they would not participate in Security Council meetings so long as the Nationalists controlled China’s seat. The Soviet absence meant that when war broke out in June, the Americans could freely mobilize the UN for intervention in Korea without fear of a Soviet veto. The Soviets did not return until August, when UN intervention was a fait accompli. In order to increase tension between Mao and the West, Stalin also urged Mao to seize Hong Kong, which he did not do, and to recognize Ho Chi Minh as the ruler of North Vietnam, which he did.

The next step was to induce China to return the Korean forces that fought in the Chinese Civil War. Stalin orchestrated this North Korean request while Mao was in Moscow, and thus could not refuse. The 50,000 to 70,000 veteran North Korean troops transferred from China between February and May spearheaded the invasion of the South in June.

Many observers believe Mao gave Stalin a “green light” for North Korea to attack. In fact, Mao wished to delay such an attack until the PLA had conquered Taiwan. Stalin agreed to provide the means to invade Taiwan, but his goal in doing so was to prevent Mao from attempting a rapid conquest of the island. A successful invasion might allow Mao to reconcile his differences with America and avoid intervention in Korea. Happily for Stalin, both China and North Korea needed Soviet aid before they could attack, and thus he controlled who went first. In the spring of 1950, the Soviets accelerated aid to North Korea, and dragged their feet on aid to China. Notably, Soviet aid went by sea to North Korea, instead of by land across China, in order to deny China exact knowledge of North Korean readiness for war.

Mao knew he could not wait for Stalin to supply the equipment he needed; he had to invade Taiwan before war began in Korea. The conquest of Hainan in April led Mao to believe invasion of Taiwan was feasible using a flotilla of wooden junks. He concentrated 156,000 troops across the strait from Taiwan in preparation for an assault in late June. He assumed that the Americans would not intervene, not knowing that they had changed their strategy and were no longer willing to abandon the island.

In the spring of 1950, the Truman administration decided to confront world communism more energetically. From 1945 to 1950, American military power had atrophied. The strategy document NSC-68, approved in April 1950, envisaged a program of rearmament and the strengthening of positions on the Eurasian periphery – i.e., containment. The document magnified the growing Soviet threat – which was by no means non-existent – in order to justify this rearmament. To magnify the threat further, Washington abandoned its futile efforts to divide Moscow and Peking, and instead treated the two as a unified, aggressive Sino-Soviet bloc. To generate the necessary political support for rearmament, Truman accepted—indeed, facilitated—war with North Korea and China, while avoiding war with the USSR. In this respect, American and Soviet strategy moved in parallel. Stalin wanted the American and Chinese tigers to fight, and Truman wanted to fight the Chinese tiger but not the Soviet one.

Paradoxically, the new strategy required leaving South Korea vulnerable to attack. Washington wished the Communists to strike first, so that the United States could mobilize itself and the “free world” to contain Communist aggression. If North Korea did not attack, then funding the rearmament proposed in NSC-68 would be much more difficult. The United States definitely understood that North Korea planned to attack, thanks to intelligence gathered on Soviet supply shipments and Communist troop movements, but took no action to strengthen the South. Instead, Washington refused to provide even unambiguously defensive weapons to the South such as anti-tank guns or mines. Washington publicly conveyed disinterest in South Korea’s fate, and ignored pleas for additional military assistance to counter the growing threat from the North. South Korea was, in short, a tethered goat.

America wanted the North Koreans to attack, but did not want them to conquer the South and create a fait accompli. Therefore, in May and June, the United States prepared its strategic reserves for deployment to Korea in accordance with war plan SL-17, which was written long before the war broke out. SL-17 assumed a retreat to Pusan. This port at the southern end of the peninsula was the only place where reinforcements could arrive. After a buildup there, U.S. forces would break out in conjunction with an amphibious assault at Inchon. From June to September 1950, the war unfolded just as this pre-war plan prescribed.

The immediate American reaction to the North Korean attack was cautious. Quite unexpectedly, the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) seized Seoul and then stopped for a week. Halting the NKPA on the Han River would not lead to the lengthy conflict or generate the sense of emergency that the administration desired in order to implement NSC-68. Therefore, Truman did not immediately commit American ground troops. Instead, he focused on building a coalition in the UN, supplying the South Korean Army, and preventing a Chinese assault on Taiwan. Tragically, the South Korean Army, expecting American ground troops to arrive within days, stood fast on the Han and consequently suffered larger losses than if they had made a fighting retreat to Pusan. Only when the NKPA crossed the Han and began driving on Pusan—and after the UN authorized intervention—did Truman commit American ground troops.

Unbeknownst to Washington at the time, Stalin also did not want North Korea to conquer the South. North Korean victory would, of course, improve the Soviet position in Asia, but would frustrate his plan to embroil China and the United States in conflict. Sino-American conflict was the optimum outcome, and this required North Korea’s attack to fail. The Soviets could all but guarantee failure because they devised the war plan, had advisors embedded in the NKPA, and controlled North Korea’s supply of weapons, ammunition, and equipment.

To end the war quickly, before America intervened, the NKPA should have driven directly down the east coast and seized the ports of Pohang and Pusan. This was well within NKPA capabilities. Yet the original Soviet-authored plan did not call for this. Failing this, after the capture of Seoul the NKPA should have concentrated their forces for a single powerful thrust straight across the country from Seoul to Taejon to Taegu to Pusan. But the North Koreans did not do this either. At Soviet direction, the NKPA dispersed its forces and advanced on multiple axes, each of which was weaker and slower than a single thrust would have been. Much of the effort was directed in a southwesterly direction—towards Kunsan and Kwangju—that is, away from Pusan rather than toward it. These dispersions of effort gave the United States time to reinforce Pusan, exactly as Stalin desired. The Soviets further limited the rate of North Korean advance by refusing to provide bridging equipment or anti-aircraft guns, forcing the NKPA to improvise its river crossings and leaving it vulnerable to interdiction. Finally, the Soviets made no threatening moves against Europe or Iran that might have inhibited American intervention in Korea.

The outbreak of war and the American pledge to protect Taiwan stunned Mao. Mao desperately sought to avoid fighting America, which would destroy his chances of taking a middle position between Washington and Moscow. He vainly tried to involve Moscow in the conflict. Yet Stalin stood aside, and urged China to enter the war even before the North Korean offensive had run its course. Mao timed his entry into the war carefully. Total North Korean victory would create a unified, pro-Soviet Korea. Total North Korean defeat would create a unified, pro-American Korea. Neither outcome was acceptable. If war with America was unavoidable, the best outcome for Mao was a pro-Chinese North Korean buffer state. To this end, he had to reduce Soviet influence. This required defeat for the NKPA, the cornerstone of that influence.

The Chinese deployed 250,000 troops to the Korean border immediately after the war began, but bided their time. Despite Stalin’s entreaties, China declined four opportunities to enter the war at potentially decisive moments: in time to attack the Pusan perimeter before major U.S. reinforcements arrived; in time to defend the North Korean rear before the amphibious assault at Inchon; in time to contest the U.S. attack on Seoul after Inchon; or, in time to hold a short defensive line across North Korea. The first action would have ensured NKPA victory, while the other three would have allowed the NKPA to avoid defeat. All four would have preserved Soviet domination of North Korea.

In August, Mao attempted to arrange a settlement with Washington on the basis of a return to the status quo antebellum in Korea, withdrawal of American protection for Taiwan, and Chinese entry into the UN. This was a last-ditch effort to implement his pre-war strategy and avoid war with the United States. Mao asked for too much, and in any event, Truman was uninterested in diplomatic initiatives that might impede the counterstroke at Inchon.

The American announcement that they intended to unify Korea greatly alarmed the Chinese. Peking repeatedly warned Washington that a march north would precipitate Chinese intervention. Truman sought to deter Chinese intervention before Inchon, because this might thwart the landing. After Inchon, he actually sought to compel Chinese intervention (though he still wished to avoid Soviet intervention). Again, Soviet strategy paralleled U.S. strategy. Stalin, too, wished to push China into conflict with America while avoiding Soviet involvement.

The Chinese recognized that Inchon was the proper place for an amphibious assault, and that September 15 was the right time, due to the high tide. Still, they declined to intervene even though doing so might have deterred MacArthur from landing or saved the NKPA from destruction. Stalin, not desiring either outcome, did not press China to intervene at this time, nor provide additional tanks or aircraft so that the NKPA could take Pusan. Indeed, Stalin ordered the unreinforced NKPA to make a suicidal attack on the Pusan perimeter against superior Allied forces with overwhelming firepower in fortified positions. His objective was to ensure that Inchon would succeed, and thus China would have to intervene.

After Inchon, Truman sought to provoke Chinese intervention in order to demonstrate that the West faced a unified Communist bloc engaged in armed aggression. For this reason, he ignored repeated warnings that China would attack if UN troops advanced into North Korea. He also made a number of initiatives designed to isolate China diplomatically and strengthen the U.S.-led alliance. Truman’s decision to conclude a peace treaty with Japan, his exclusion of Peking from the UN, and the announcement that the Allies intended to create a unified Korea under UN auspices unmistakably signaled that he was no longer interested in rapprochement with Mao.

In order to provoke Chinese intervention after Inchon, Stalin began pressuring Kim Il Sung to request Chinese troops, and resumed pressuring Mao to send them. Kim, whose army was disintegrating, begged for help from both Mao and Stalin. Stalin chose this critical moment to take a week’s “vacation” – which allowed him to avoid replying to Kim while dealing with Mao. Mao strove to bring Stalin into the war with him, demanding that the USSR provide combat air support for any Chinese troops in Korea. As the two Communist dictators negotiated, UN troops advanced, and the specter of a unified, pro-American Korea drew closer. Mao hinted that China would not intervene if Stalin did not provide combat air support. Stalin refused, calculating that a pro-American Korea was much more unacceptable to Mao than to him. In consolation, Stalin promised to provide Soviet air support in Korea several months after Chinese forces began fighting. He never fulfilled this promise, and probably never intended to do so. Eventually he permitted Soviet pilots based in Manchuria to defend North Korean airspace just south of the Yalu River, but nowhere near the front lines. The PLA was thus exposed to the full force of Allied airpower.