Mao, Stalin and the Korean War

Trilateral Communist Relations in the 1950s

Shen Zhihua, Neil Silver

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415516457
• eBook ISBN: 9781136281280
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

This book examines relations between China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, and provides an insight into Chinese thinking about the Korean War.

This volume is based on a translation of Shen Zihua's best-selling Chinese-language book, which broke the mainland Chinese taboo on publishing non-heroic accounts of the Korean War.The author combined information detailed in Soviet-era diplomatic documents (released after the collapse of the Soviet Union) with Chinese memoirs, official document collections and scholarly monographs, in order to present a non-ideological, realpolitik account of the relations, motivations and actions among three Communist actors: Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung.

This new translation represents a revisionist perspective on trilateral Communist alliance relations during the Korean War, shedding new light on the origins of the Sino-Soviet split and the rather distant relations between China and North Korea. It features a critical introduction to Shen's work and the text is based on original archival research not found in earlier books in English.

This book will be of much interest to students of Communist China, Stalinist Russia, the Korean War, Cold War Studies and International History in general.

1 Stalin

From Yalta to the Far East

Stalin played a pivotal role in two major events in East Asia in the mid-twentieth century: the formation of the Sino-Soviet alliance, which lasted in any practical sense for only a decade, and the Korean War, whose effects have long outlasted the Cold War. Stalin’s influential role derived from his leadership of the international Communist movement and the Soviet Union’s enhanced global status as a result of World War II.

In the immediate postwar years, Soviet policies toward both China and Korea aimed to foster regional stability within the Yalta system, vital, in Moscow’s view, to promoting Soviet economic interests and security goals in the Far East. In this light, Stalin’s alliance with newly communist China in February 1950 and his April 1950 green light for Kim Il-sung’s attack on South Korea (in June) constituted sharp breaks with the strategies and policies he had adopted in 1945.

Until 1950, Soviet policies toward China and Korea were not closely linked. But after Stalin decided in early 1950 that “there has been a shift in the international situation,” his policies created – in actuality if not in intent – an inherent link between his China and Korea policies. To grasp the significance of this change, we need to delve into the origin and motivation of Stalin’s early postwar policies in the Far East.

Soviet postwar foreign policy goals

With the end of World War II, twentieth-century international relations entered a new phase. The early postwar years were a time of transition, of realignments in the international political order and strategic redefinitions by all the major powers, setting the parameters for future events by channeling the course the major powers would take. Consequently, an appraisal of Stalin’s early postwar foreign policy and strategy can clarify the evolution of Soviet policy toward China and Korea, including the objective conditions and subjective motivations that led the Soviet Union and Communist China to form their alliance.

Scholars around the world have long probed Stalin’s postwar foreign policy from two different viewpoints. One view is that Stalin had an aggressively ambitious program, seeking to control and expand his spheres of influence. The other view is that Stalin resorted to moderate, cautious and defensive political countermeasures.¹ Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, scholars representing these points of view, whether traditionalists or revisionists, had virtually no access to Soviet archives; their conclusions were based mainly on analysis of public statements and actions of Soviet leaders.

Now, with Russia’s opening of its Soviet-era archives to foreign view, scholars have begun to reexamine Stalin’s postwar foreign policy. Some now believe that Stalin’s postwar behavior was eccentric and capricious, that Soviet foreign policy was aimless and freighted with inertia, and that its policies toward both Europe and the Far East were “blind” and “lacked any internal linkages.” Others believe that the political aim of Stalin’s foreign policy was simply to protect Soviet vested interests and spheres of influence, that he had no intention of fanning world revolution, that he did not want to directly confront the West and that, for a time, he thought Soviet security goals could be harmonized with the West in line with Yalta and Potsdam principles. In this view, faced with an increasingly tense situation in relations with the West, Stalin was at a loss over what to do. The Chinese Communist victory in 1949 then had a major impact on Stalin, and the new Sino-Soviet alliance in turn really stoked Soviet conflict with the United States.²

These views, however, do not fully and accurately reflect the strategic objectives of immediate postwar Soviet foreign policy. Without sketching the meandering evolution of Stalin’s foreign policy in this period, it is hard to understand the essence of Soviet foreign policy and the reasons behind shifting Soviet policies toward China and Korea.

A juggling act: peaceful coexistence, world revolution and realpolitik

Peering through the dense, roiling fog of history, we can discern three strategic aspects or levels that shaped postwar Soviet foreign policy – peaceful coexistence, world revolution and national security interests.

First was peaceful coexistence. As Stalin said after World War II:

In the most strenuous times during the war the differences in government did not prevent our two governments [the U.S. and the USSR] from joining together and vanquishing our foes. Even more so it is possible to continue this relationship in time of peace.³

This view was based on wartime cooperation, especially on the “Yalta system” forged by the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union at the summit meeting held at Yalta on the Crimean peninsula in February 1945.

The Yalta Conference shaped the postwar world order. After Germany’s surrender, the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 confirmed and amplified the results of the Yalta Conference. Based on the reach of their political and military power, the three major allied countries divided up what became the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union in the East and the United States and Great Britain in the West. Many scholars hold that Stalin was satisfied with the Yalta system, both in form and content. The structures built into this system all fit well with Russia’s traditional national security strategy of using space to buy time, i.e., creating broad buffer zones around its national perimeter to guarantee sufficient time for maneuver and preparation against possible threats.

Later Georgian Communist Party First Secretary Akaki Mgeladze and then Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told the following anecdote: After the war, a map showing the new borders of the Soviet Union was brought to Stalin’s dacha. Stalin pinned it to the wall and said to those around him:

Let’s take a look. What do we have here? In the north, everything is as it should be. Finland offended us, so we have pushed our border away from Leningrad. Poland’s coast has long been Russian territory! Now it’s ours again. Our Byelorussians now all live together, as do our Ukrainians and Moldovans. The situation in the West is normal.

As Stalin spoke, he turned and pointed to the Soviet Union’s eastern border. “What’s the situation here? The Kurils are back with us, and Sakhalin is all ours. Just look at how good things are! Lushun is ours, as is Dalian.” Stalin next drew a circle around China with his pipe. “The Changchun Railway is also ours; there’s no problem with China or Mongolia.” Then he pointed south of the Caucasus. “But I don’t like our border here.”⁴

Stalin’s tour d’horizon puts the Soviet Union’s postwar situation in good perspective.

Except for Stalin’s disappointment with the border “south of the Caucasus,” through the war and the Yalta system the Soviet Union had gained new political rights and interests. From Finland through the three Baltic states to Eastern Europe, and from the Near East to Mongolia, onto Northeastern China, and the northern part of the Korean peninsula, and to the islands north of Japan, Stalin had achieved Russia’s long-standing strategic goal of building broad national security buffer zones all around it. Therefore, Stalin, above all, needed to maintain peaceful coexistence with the Western capitalist world. Only then could he guarantee the vested interests of the Soviet Union at the lowest possible cost.

Yet, from the perspective of world revolution, the Soviet Union’s highest strategic goal, peaceful coexistence was still only a temporary goal. Stalin held that the socialist Soviet Union would inevitably eliminate the capitalist world, and, further, that this historical mission of the Soviet Union and the world proletariat could only be achieved through revolution. As Stalin put it prior to World War II,

What do all these facts show? That the stabilization of capitalism is coming to an end, that the upsurge of the mass revolutionary movement will increase with fresh vigor . . . the bourgeoisie will seek a way out through a new imperialist war . . . the proletariat, in fighting capitalist exploitation and the war danger, will seek a way out through revolution.⁵

After the war, Stalin again proposed the theory of the general crisis of capitalism, asserting that,

Marxists have declared more than once that the capitalist system of world economy harbors elements of general crises and armed conflicts and that, hence, the development of capitalism in our time proceeds not in the form of smooth and even progress but through crises and military catastrophes.⁶

Capitalist crisis leads to war, war brings on revolution and revolution upends the capitalist world; this is the logic of Stalin’s general crisis theory. In line with this world view, Soviet foreign policy should be encompassed within an overall system of world revolution, whether the world situation is characterized by peace or war. If Stalin’s theory is followed to its logical end, peaceful coexistence should be subordinated to world revolution; it is only a partial, temporary goal within the overall strategic goal of world revolution.

But Stalin’s consistent guiding principle was to put Soviet national security interests at the heart of his foreign policy and strategy. The theoretical basis for this guiding principle was Stalin’s “theory of socialism in one country.” Therefore, with respect to basic Soviet foreign policy goals – i.e., the promotion of Soviet national security interests – world revolution was merely a means or perhaps a partial and temporary goal within its external strategy. Under Lenin, the Russian Bolshevik party defined its task as international revolution, liberating all of mankind through a worldwide revolutionary upsurge, and even eliminating national borders. In actuality, however, by the time Stalin emerged supreme, Great Russian chauvinism was already deeply rooted in the Soviet Communist Party.

Before the war, when the Soviet Union was surrounded by capitalist states, Stalin held that the defense of Soviet national interests was not only the starting point for Soviet foreign policy, but also the goal of struggling proletariats and proletarian parties around the world. This belief enabled Stalin to sign the Soviet–German Non-aggression Pact, ruthlessly divide Poland, establish an “Eastern Front,” sign a Neutrality Pact with Japan, launch a war on Finland under false pretenses and ultimately dissolve the Communist International (Comintern).

Stalin believed that Soviet national interests equated with the interests of socialism and the fundamental interests of mankind. Therefore, his logic went, the interests of world revolution should be subordinated to Soviet national interests. Whether and when the people of a country should rise in revolution, and whether or not the Soviet Union should support a given national liberation movement, depended on whether or not a revolutionary movement was helpful in promoting Soviet national interests. This was Stalin’s unwavering logic.

To summarize, in Stalin’s three-dimensional structure of foreign policy aims, Soviet national security always occupied the highest place. In dealing with postwar international relations, depending on time and place, Stalin sometimes used the need for peaceful coexistence as a reason to adjust policy, and sometimes fanned world revolution for his political objectives. These moves were always temporary and changeable; his goal was to guarantee Soviet national security interests. Everything was ultimately subordinated to Soviet foreign policy aims.

From opportunistic cooperation to outright confrontation

From this starting point, Stalin’s postwar foreign policy evolved gradually from maintaining great power cooperation and limited expansionism toward stark bloc-on-bloc confrontation.

Immediately after the war, Stalin wanted to maintain the cooperative partnership that he had forged with the Western allies during the war in order to strengthen political benefits the Soviet Union had gained in the Yalta and Potsdam agreements. The passive Soviet reactions to the Greek revolution, the Chinese revolution, the communist movement in Western Europe and other issues in 1945 make this clear. Stalin maintained this foreign policy direction based on the following considerations:

First, as a result of World War II, the Soviet Union had become a political and military world power, but still faced an enormous task of recovery and development. Soviet postwar economic strength then was simply no match for the Western countries led by the United States. The reconstruction task required cooperation with the United States and other Western countries to assure the peaceful external environment needed by the Soviet Union to rebuild and expand its devastated domestic economy.

Second, Stalin’s policy of diplomatic cooperation was based on his belief that for a period after the war, there was no possibility another world war would erupt. Stalin formulated a two-tiered definition of a new world war, either one between capitalist countries or one between capitalist countries and the Soviet Union. He argued that,

[W]ar with the U.S.S.R. . . . is more dangerous to capitalism than war between capitalist countries; for whereas war between capitalist countries puts in question only the supremacy of certain capitalist countries over others, war with the U.S.S.R. must certainly put in question the existence of capitalism itself.

But the Soviet Union would not attack the capitalist countries.⁷ Under these conditions, it was crucial for the Soviet Union to continue to cooperate diplomatically with the West.

Third, the Yalta system guaranteed the Soviet Union’s postwar international position and national security interests. As Stalin saw it, the Soviet Union’s postwar spheres of influence were established through an international cooperative process with its (then) Western allies. In order to uphold the Yalta system, Soviet foreign policy must be based on cooperation with the West.

In sum, the Yalta system guaranteed the Soviet Union’s vested interests, but they could be assured only by a cooperative policy. Yet divisions were inherent in this cooperation. Latent conflict over national interests aside, there were other reasons:

First of all, owing to their differing ideologies, value systems and social systems, the Soviet Union and the Western powers stood in diametrical opposition. Their wartime alliance had been built on specific historical conditions dictated by their joint opposition to common threats. With the end of the war, their enemies were vanquished, and, therefore, the historical mission of their alliance and the reason for its existence was over.

Next, though President Roosevelt and Stalin both advocated a policy of cooperative great power global dominion, Roosevelt, having seen the drawbacks of the post-World War I Versailles agreements, sought to ensure peace and stability through organizations such as the United Nations. Roosevelt aimed to use such organizations to coordinate international affairs among the big powers. Roosevelt believed that American interests could be assured by relying on American economic power and the Open Door policy. But other Western leaders, notably Prime Minister Churchill, shared neither Roosevelt’s political power nor his innovative thinking. On issues where Roosevelt might tolerate or ignore Stalin, his successor, President Truman, and other Western leaders were drawn to oppose Stalin. Roosevelt’s death arguably darkened prospects for great power cooperation.

Finally, by contrast with the intent that underlay Roosevelt’s cooperative policy, the great power cooperation advocated by Stalin – at its core – continued the traditional international practice of distributing the spoils of war among the victors, in this case dividing up global spheres of power. In substituting the Yalta system for the prewar Versailles agreements, Stalin’s intent was to build a new world order based on shared Soviet– American world dominion.

Having been encircled for decades by the capitalist world, and seeing itself constrained and discriminated against, the Soviet Union had long nursed its lonely grievances. The rise of Russian revanchism as a result of Czarist Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), of course, fed into these feelings. As a result, Stalin’s World War II victories filled him with a new feeling of superiority. As a victor, the Soviet Union could now join in world domination. Because of this, and despite the fact that it pursued a policy of big power cooperation, the Soviet Union often showed an itch to expand, especially in places not covered by the Yalta and Potsdam agreements.

Theoretically, if the Soviet Union and the West had scrupulously abided by the principle of peaceful coexistence, even if the two sides could not share the same kind of wartime alliance relationship, they still could have at least maintained a normal cooperative relationship. However, owing to the reasons noted above, in the new postwar world order, the standpoints and viewpoints of the Soviet Union and the West were poles apart. Both sides viewed the other as rivals, and did all they could to check and harm the other side. Both sides jockeyed to strengthen their own international position and to change th...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Mao, Stalin and the Korean War
• Cold War History Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Translator’s acknowledgments and thoughts
• Introduction
• 1 Stalin: From Yalta to the Far East
• 2 Korea: The evolution of Soviet postwar policy
• 3 China: Twists and turns of Soviet postwar policy
• 4 Paving Mao’s road to Moscow
• 5 Mao’s trip to Moscow
• 6 Stalin reverses his Korea policy
• 7 North Korea crosses the 38th parallel
• 8 China decides: “Whatever the sacrifice necessary”
• 9 A new stage in Sino-Soviet cooperation
• Notes
• Selected bibliography and suggested further reading
• Index