the outbreak of the korean war: then and now
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THE OUTBREAK OF THE KOREAN
WAR: THEN AND NOW
05/11/04
Research Assignment
Chris Haynes
0029115
Introduction
On June 25, 1950, the army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)
crossed the 38th parallel to invade South Korea. While there had been sporadic fighting
along the ceasefire line between North and South Korean forces, this move by the DPRK
was the casus belli for the Korean War.
The war lasted from 1950 to 1953 and over one million Koreans, Chinese, Americans,
Canadians and Europeans were killed in the fighting. The line that had been drawn by the
Allies of World War Two marked both a separation of the people of the Korean peninsula
but also of ideologies. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) took into its aegis
the northern half, and the Americans the southern half; and both were quick to apply their
ideologies, of communism and capitalism respectively, to their protectorates.
Upon the war’s outbreak, a national Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, voiced the
apparent element of surprise in the West that accompanied the invasion. Much
speculation was made about Soviet involvement. Since 1950, however, other evidence
has come to light. The newspaper articles from June 26, 1950 prompt my asking several
questions. This paper attempts to answer two of these questions. What was Russia’s role
in the invasion of South Korea? And what was China’s role? As can be expected, there
are to this day competing theories about the extent of both Soviet and Chinese
involvement and I could not profess to be in a position to ascertain these facts. This paper
also aims to discover the changes in perspective since the termination of the war on the
causes of the war and the actions and reactions to it from some of the parties with a stake
in the war’s outcome. These parties include Mr Stalin, Chairman Mao, Mr Kim, President
Truman and General MacArthur. This paper’s objectives are fulfilled in three sections:
the historical backdrop, or context in which the outbreak of the Korean War took place;
the newspapers and their reactions to the incursion, the actions taken within two days of it
and the biases and speculation surrounding it; and the section on history unearthed, as I
show some of the previously available and more recent evidence not addressed by the
news articles that has lent itself to modern theories explaining the causes and levels of
involvement of different actors in the war.
The historical backdrop
The height of the Korean War is considered by many to be the height of the Cold War.
The McCarthy Trials had begun in February of 1950 to root out subversive communist
elements from all walks of American life. Coupled with the North Korean invasion, this
witchhunt sent anti Communist hysteria in the US to boiling point. The previous
September, the USSR had tested their first atomic bomb. Iosef Stalin had tested the
West’s commitment to West Berlin by instituting the Berlin Blockade. With American
foreign policy playing defence, the Communist world was rapidly expanding across
Europe and Asia.
The Soviet Union had made satellites of Poland, Bulgaria and Rumania, and
was working on Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Greece…. Yugoslavia…. The
fire of communism seemed to be rising everywhere…. A Communist
rebellion flourished in the Philippines. The British were fighting in Malaya to
put down Communists; in Indochina the Vietminh revolution was led by Ho
Chi Minh…. [A]nd the Russians were creating a North Korean People’s
Republic.” (Hoyt, 52)
General George Marshall had been in China since the end of World War Two, working to
mediate talks between the US friendly Nationalist Party and the opposing Communist
Party. However, “American political and military involvement in China reached a low
ebb” in March 1947, and “Chiang Kaishek was doing everything that General Marshall
had advised him not to do.” (50) China, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, completed
the transition to Communism in 1949. Stalin and Mao had renewed and ratified the
Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. (Goncharov et al., 76) On the
other side of the Yellow Sea, in 1947, a UN commission was established to see that
Korean people retained the independence granted them by the UN at the end of World
War Two by uniting the country and observing that the election process was democratic.
When it completed its mandate in 1948, it found that the country had not been united but
that democratic elections had taken place in South Korea, which was known as the
Republic of Korea (ROK) and later recognised as a UN member state. (Yoo, 183-6) The
North was not. When the North attacked, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the
American occupation forces in Japan, was ordered by the White House to mobilise troops
to resist the DPRK.
The newspapers and their reactions
Newspapers tend to confirm Tolstoy’s comment that the origins of major events seem
simpler to those close to them than they do to those living several years after. (Goncharov
et al., vii) If newspapers simultaneously represent and shape the opinions of the people,
the Globe and Mail in 1950 is likely no exception.
One notices, certainly in retrospect if not at the time, the loaded language used in these
articles. The word “Red,” for instance, is used frequently. While it appears to be simply a
abbreviated way to write Communist, the fact that it was used so derogatorily in the US
Congress (Hoyt, 53) and elsewhere implies that it is a way of differentiating the
publication’s views from those whom it labels. I also do not know if Red connotes Soviet
and its use suspicions of backing from Moscow.
When the US wrote up a UN Security Council resolution ordering a ceasefire in the
peninsula, most members of the Council1 voiced agreement with Trygve Lie that North
Korea had initiated the conflict and that this breach of the peace was a threat to the entire
world. (Globe and Mail, 2) The articles provide further information that lead to my noting
two intriguing points. First, among the countries that agreed with the US was China. But
did China not play a role in initiating the conflict? The newspapers say little about the
possibility that China was involved, and that it is probably the USSR who is the instigator
of this conflict. The USSR, the Globe and Mail reports experts as saying, made this move
to test the reaction of the US concomitantly in Asia and in Europe with the amassing of
Bulgarian troops in the Yugoslav border. (2) Who was (more) to blame, China, the USSR
or the DPRK? Second, if the USSR was testing the waters, surely it was not in the mood
for another world war. Assuming this argument’s validity, it is interesting that the Globe
and Mail also reflects in its audience the fears that another world war was looming. It
compares the assault on the ROK as similar to those of Hitler and seems unconvinced by
official reports that there was no evidence “of Communist plans to take military action on
any broad international scale, and officials were most careful not to discuss the Korean
outbreak as the beginning of a third world war.” (2) I believe the reasoning for presenting
the situation as a potential world war is either a) timeless news media sensationalism; b) a
reflection of the alarm so many felt knowing that war (which could have been nuclear)
could come at any time; or c) a rallying cry to support the West and its allies in defeating
the Communist threat. As if backing up this last possibility, the Globe and Mail printed
an article in which Tchi Chang-yun, South Korean foreign minister to Britain at the time,
had highly rhetorical, highly urgent words for the ROK’s allies in Europe and North
America. (8)
History unearthed
The news articles do not take into account the history of the past few years in their
judgements of the causes of the outbreak; and thus, there are many questions that arise.
Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung all had plans for the expansion of their influence and
Communist regimes. Who played what part in opening the conflict? Even at the end of
1949, Stalin and Mao both knew that Kim was planning to attack the south. They just did
not know when or how. So how could they have helped out? Over the years there have
been several different perspectives seeking to explain the outcome of the conflict, from
those who believe that domestic and Cold War affairs and how they played out in Korea
contributed the most to the conflict, to those who believe that Kim’s contacts with Stalin
and Mao played the biggest role. The literature on the subject lends itself to the latter
view.
Kim had been a captain in the Korean battalion of the Soviet Khabarovsk Infantry
Officers School, and his battalion was intended to be the future Korean People’s Army.
He shared his dream of a united Korea with his fellows, not through a peaceful
unification but an armed one. (Goncharov et al., 131) By the time the USSR had control
of North Korea, Kim, the puppet, was able to use Stalin like Stalin used Kim. The Soviet
army’s 120,000 troops stationed in North Korea left when the Communists created the
DPRK in September, 1948, but gave all their military hardware to the Korean People’s
Army. (133) Stalin was not inclined to sanction an all out assault on the south because he
was afraid of direct conflict with the US. He told Kim to “strike them” but was not very
clear on that point. (135) Until a few months prior to the start of the war, China had few
formal talks with the DPRK. (134)
Stalin had a reputation of bullying the Chinese. For example, the “Additional Agreement”
to the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, Stalin demanded broad
concessions on the part of the Chinese with few of his own. Mao felt “extremely
dissatisfied with the document.” (123) Stalin told Kim that, if Kim got into any trouble in
Korea, he would have to ask Mao for help. He knew that Mao would assent and that,
because of Mao’s passionate drive to seize Formosa, he would be the target of blame for
Kim’s actions. Stalin, the infamous manipulator of men, made it look like Mao was the
main backer of Kim’s plan to unite Korea. (145)
The Truman Administration’s policy towards Asia comes into play at this point. Stalin
seemed convinced that the US would intervene; or at least, that it was not worth his while
to risk that eventuality. North Korean officials, on the other hand, were “absolutely
certain” that the US would not intervene. They claimed to base this conviction on the
nonintervention of the US into the Chinese Civil War. They had, in the eyes of the North
Koreans at least, sat back, wringing their hands. A Korean Civil War would be a
comparative nonevent. (141-2) The decision makers of the Truman Administration failed
to acknowledge the threat that China posed them and were weak on acting on it. Chinese
officials said it would enter the war if the US moved north. When it did enter the war, it
moved slowly and let the US gain ground in North Korea. However, pretending to be
weak was a tactic they knew the US would fall for. (Hoyt, 135-6) Truman and MacArthur
both had reputations—the former for being soft on Communism, a reputation easily won
in a majority Republican Congress (53) and well deserved judging by the reactionary way
his administration dealt with the spread of Communism in Europe and Russia (52;
Kaufman, 45); the latter as seeing the world as Red and Red, White and Blue. MacArthur
was at odds with the administration over its foreign policy. (46) After the UN forces,
under his command, had been backed into a veritable corner in Pusan, MacArthur drew
up plans to not only defeat the North Koreans in South Korea but to destroy the DPRK
utterly. His ideology, that Communism everywhere was a mere Muscovite tributary, was
becoming popular before and became far more widespread after the outbreak of the
Korean War, most likely affecting media sources such as the Globe and Mail who were
either swayed by MacArthur (and his contemporaries)’s argument, or who were unwilling
to show anything but polarising rhetoric against the communist world. The Chinese saw
him as the enemy, as he saw them. Their differences were irreconcilable, and MacArthur
would see the Korean War won at any cost. (Hoyt, 71-74)
Conclusion
In my simple analysis of the outbreak of the Korean War I have explained, to some
extent, the involvement of the major powers and the newspapers’ reactions to the start of
the war. I have tried to capture the mood at the time and the shift new information
revealed to those who sought it after the fact. It has taken the passage of time and the
cooling of anti Communist passions, fears and rhetoric found more than ever during the
height of the Cold War to uncover some of the causes of the war that the newspapers did
not tell us at the time. The reasons each of the major players, Stalin, Mao, Kim, Truman
and MacArthur, did what they did lend themselves to a fuller explanation for the outbreak
of the war. The perspectives given in the Globe and Mail articles seem to reflect the fear
of Communism of the time but provide quickly conceived, reactionary perspectives rather
than the highly researched materials in the secondary literature.
NOTES
1. Yugoslavia abstained from voting on the US drafted resolution and called instead
for a fact finding mission to determine which side was at fault. The USSR had boycotted
the Council since January in protest at the West’s refusal to acknowledge the People’s
Republic of China.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Globe and Mail, June 26, 1950.
Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis and Xue Litai: Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao
and the Korean War. 1993, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.
Hoyt, Edwin P.: The Day the Chinese Attacked: Korea, 1950: the story of the failure of
America’s China policy. 1990, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York.
Kaufman, Burton I.: The Korean War: challenges in crisis, credibility and command.
1986, Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Yoo, Tae-Ho: The Korean War and the United Nations: a legal and diplomatic historical
study. 1965, Librairie Desbarax, Louvain.
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