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.