Brothers in Arms by Odd Arne Westad Read Free Book Online Page B

pushed for an attack on the South throughout 1949, and Stalin promised to "assist" him in the matter of reunifying Korea by military means already on January 30, 1950. Stalin and Kim discussed the strategic plans for the offensive at meetings in Moscow in April. But the Soviet leader may well have hoped that Mao whose agreement he instructed Kim to obtain before proceeding with the plans would turn the Korean leader down. A Chinese refusal to play along would have given Stalin a chance to back out of the Korean challenge with his revolutionary credentials intact, while chastening Mao's bothersome vigor on regional issues. But Mao could not turn down Kim's request. His personality as well as his ideology blocked such an option: Kim came to him to seek the liberation of his country one of China's traditional clients; he had Stalin's OK; and he had reasonable chances of success. Mao believed that "solely military means are required to unify Korea" and activated Chinese support for the war effort as soon as the North Koreans attacked on June 25.
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As war broke out, the Chinese had not decided how far they were willing to go to support Kim's crusade for reunification. Mao sent Chinese military and intelligence advisers to accompany the North Korean forces during their advance and helped Kim's troops to cross over to South Korea from ports on the Shandong peninsula, thereby attacking Seoul's forces in the rear. But after the massive American counterattack in mid-September, Mao hesitated. He told Stalin on October 2 that China would not send its army to fight in Korea, since such a giant intervention meant that "our entire plan for peaceful reconstruction will be completely ruined, and many people in the country will be dissatisfied." 41 It took a direct request from Stalin to Mao, as well as a series of meetings between the Soviet leader and a Chinese delegation headed by Zhou Enlai and Lin Biao in the Crimea on October 9-10, to get the Chinese to change their minds. On October 13 Mao told Ambassador Roshchin that China would send troops to Korea. 42
After the Chinese intervention began on October 19, the Soviet Union did provide substantial support for the Chinese and North Korean operations. Soviet air force units supplied air cover for the Chinese troops as they crossed the Yalu River, destroying twenty-three American planes in twelve days. Over the next two years of war, Moscow continued to provide military supplies and advisors for the Chinese war effort, enabling the PLA first to roll back and then to contain the better-equipped United Nations forces. There are still no firm figures as to the extent to which military aid to China reduced Soviet output in other areas, but judging from Soviet documents, the expenditure must have made a considerable dent in overall production. Stalin promised Mao to arm and equip ten

     

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Chinese divisions in 1951 and an average of twenty divisions per year in the years to come. Still, the Chinese rightly felt that they were bearing the brunt of the effort, with 900,000 dead or wounded by the end of the war, and Stalin's demand that China acquire the supplies on credit did not go over well in Beijing (chapter 4).
In terms of military strategy in Korea, Stalin agreed to let Mao lead the way but reserved the right to intervene as the ultimate arbiter of strategic sagacity. Except in two cases (both in 1951), Beijing followed Stalin's advice on overall strategy. On the battlefield the situation was very similar. When Soviet and Chinese military advisers disagreed as they did frequently, particularly at the start of the war the Red Army officers usually prevailed, even though it sometimes took Beijing's direct intervention to secure its envoys' agreement. Still, it is remarkable how fast the Chinese conformed to Soviet methods of fighting, even though those methods were very different from their own experience. By 1953 the cooperation between Soviet and Chinese military advisers