Before the Security Council met that Sunday, Yakov Malik, the Soviet ambassador to the UN, cabled Moscow to ask for instructions. Stalin then phoned Andrei Gromyko, a veteran diplomat and deputy minister of foreign affairs. Gromyko said that the ministry had prepared a statement about Korea and that Malik should be at the UN to veto any action proposed.21
Later on Gromyko recalled that Stalin never let his emotions rule him—except in this one case. This statement is belied by Stalin’s determination that Malik would be absent from the Security Council when it met again on Tuesday, June 27. The Soviet ambassador was not there to stop a UN resolution that called on members to “furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.” The Truman administration decided to send troops. They would fight under American command but fly the UN flag. Gromyko had warned about this turn of events, and even so Malik was still not at the Security Council on July 7 and 31 to veto the resolutions supporting armed intervention.22
For years historians thought that Stalin made a “mistake,” was “ham-fisted,” “stupid” or “stubborn,” to keep his ambassador away from the UN. In fact, the Soviet leader acted with cold rationality, for as we have just seen, he had planned the war in Korea and explicitly gave his approval for the attack.
He wanted war, but certainly not one that involved the USSR directly. The conflict officially would be waged by the North Koreans against the United Nations, and if there were complications, also by the Chinese. More than two dozen nations contributed to the UN forces, but more than half the troops came from the United States. The Soviet goal was to get the Americans “entangled” in hostilities that would “squander” their “military prestige and moral authority.” That was what Stalin said in an August 27 note to one of his Eastern European comrades, and he also admitted that the USSR had deliberately abstained from attending the Security Council meetings. The longer the struggle in Korea lasted, the better, he thought, because it “would distract the United States from Europe,” where a third world war would be “postponed” and there would be “time to consolidate socialism.”23 Granted, the USSR had some economic and security interests in Korea and in China, but for Stalin, as nearly always, the decisive factors were politics and ideology.24
The northern invaders drove the defenders relentlessly back into the South until by August they clung to defensive positions in front of the port city of Pusan. It looked like they were about to be pushed into the sea. However, the UN still had complete control of the air and every day landed more supplies and fresh troops. There would be no speedy victory for the invaders and no revolutionary uprising in the South.
General Douglas MacArthur opted for a Hollywood-style counterattack, a daring amphibious assault well up the western shore of the peninsula and two hundred miles from Pusan. On September 15, despite not having a beach for an easy landing, 70,000 troops began going ashore at Inchon and took the city in a day. Within two weeks, they cut off the North Korean forces stuck in the South. MacArthur favored a “hot pursuit” of enemy troops who fled back over the 38th parallel, and everyone in Washington agreed. The new mission was to destroy the North Korean armed forces, but under no circumstances to track them down if it meant crossing the border into either neighboring China or the USSR.25
On September 29, Kim and South Korean Communist leader Pak Hon-yong wrote to Stalin and pleaded for Soviet support to counter the efforts of “hostile forces” about to cross the 38th parallel into North Korea. “Dear Comrade Stalin,” the note stated, “we are determined to overcome all the difficulties facing us so that Korea will not be a colony and a military springboard of the U.S. imperialists. We will fight for the independence, democracy and happiness of our people to the last drop of blood.”26 Already in July, the Kremlin leader had mentioned the likely need for the Chinese to send troops into the area to help out, and now in October he asked Mao to send five or six divisions immediately to cover the retreat.27 The Chinese leader decided that it was his turn to play politics and gave the startling answer: “Having thought this over thoroughly, we now consider that such actions may entail extremely serious consequences,” including war with the United States.28
Stalin admitted in a hair-raising reply that even though the Americans were not yet ready for “a big war,” they could be drawn in. That would cause the USSR to follow and, because of its assistance pact, China as well. In other words, World War III was a possibility. “Should we fear this? In my opinion, we should not, because together we will be stronger than the USA and England, while the other European capitalist states, without Germany which is unable to provide any assistance to the United States now, do not present a serious military force.”29
Mao agreed to send up to nine divisions, even though he said he lacked sufficient air cover and artillery and pleaded for Soviet assistance. His preference was to have a four-to-one advantage in human forces and a three-to-one superiority in technical equipment. The Chinese troops would prepare and be sent in “after some time.” His strategy was “to give the Americans a chance to advance deeper to the North.”30
That did not sound like a particularly firm commitment, and on October 12, Stalin ordered Kim to begin retreating. The very next day, however, Mao wrote to say that “regardless of the insufficient armament of the Chinese troops,” they would “render military assistance to the Korean comrades.”31 On October 18, when the Chinese Politburo conferred about the decision, Mao showed it a cable from Stalin: “The Old Man” (starik)—that is, Stalin—said “we have to act,” and no one dared speak against it.32
Stalin and especially Mao disguised their decisive roles so well that generations of historians claimed that China was merely reactive and entered the battle only to defend its physical security after the UN forces crossed the 38th parallel.33 The war was blamed on the United States and South Korea. In fact, the USSR had given Kim Il Sung the green light to invade the South as far back as January 1950.34 The USSR would provide essential war matériel under the table. Mao and the Chinese began preparations to get involved in August, more than a month before the Inchon landing and UN counterattack. The goal was to go beyond merely defending the North Korean border, to win a glorious victory by driving UN forces off the Korean peninsula. Without Soviet aid, the Chinese and North Korean troops would have been unable to continue their fight. What bothered Mao and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was that the USSR insisted on payment for the supplies. In Chinese eyes, the Soviets’ “stinginess” showed them up as not “genuine Communist internationalists,” and such behavior served to heighten Mao’s sense of moral superiority.35
After MacArthur’s daring and successful attack at Inchon in September 1950, the UN forces marshaled at the 38th parallel and readied their advance. Although the United States did not want to escalate the war, Washington aimed to negotiate from a position of strength. General MacArthur was champing at the bit and yearned to conduct an “end-the-war” offensive.
What he did not know was that China had decided to capitalize on the crisis in Korea. Mao was using anti-American slogans to mobilize support for his new regime, and although he dithered about getting air cover and arms before committing, he never doubted that Red Chinese troops were going to North Korea. He hoped that success in the war would energize his drive to consolidate Communism in China, and in fact, during the conflict, nationwide propaganda campaigns penetrated “almost every area of Chinese society.” They also sought to make the Chinese model of revolution the one adopted by other Asian leaders like Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot in Cambodia.36