The date of 27 July marks another anniversary of the cessation, but not the conclusion, of the Korean War of 1950–53.
A Civil War, Not ‘Stalin’s War’
Although the Korean War is often referred to as ‘Stalin’s war,’ it was in fact a civil war, and this goes a long way towards explaining the high level of war crimes that accompanied it. The conflict was internationalised fairly early on, first on the southern side and later on the northern, but it would be a mistake to perceive it as a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union, even despite the fact that the Korean War was the only conflict in the realms of which Soviet and American pilots looked at one another through their gunsights.
It is important to recall that until the spring of 1950, Moscow categorically rejected North Korea’s plans for the forcible reunification of the country. In the autumn of 1949, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) turned down the proposals of the kind, despite the support they enjoyed from the DPRK leadership and the Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang, Terentii Shtykov. The USSR’s position changed only after the North Korean leadership convinced Moscow that a ‘revolutionary situation’ existed in the South. Pyongyang promised a swift blitzkrieg: following the defeat of the South Korean army and the capture of Seoul, 200,000 local communists were to launch a nationwide uprising. The instigator of these plans was not so much Kim Il-sung as the leader of the South Korean communists, Pak Hon-yong. It is likely that he counted on using military success to strengthen his own position and to oust Kim Il-sung from power – something that later culminated in the organisation of a conspiracy.
The Pre-War Conflict
Although the official start date of the war is considered to be 25 June 1950, military action along the 38th parallel had in fact been under way for some time. For a year and a half, up to three armed clashes per day took place there – an intensity comparable to the positional warfare of the First World War. These were not minor skirmishes but full-scale battles involving companies and battalions, with artillery and air support. It is worth pinpointing that even historians critical of the communist regime acknowledge that the initiator of the majority of these clashes was the South Korean side. Syngman Rhee was intent on provoking a conflict in order to present himself as a victim and secure direct US military intervention, being well aware of his army’s inability to conduct effective combat operations. Thus, the interpretation of the outbreak of the Korean War as a ‘sudden attack by the communists on peaceful South Korea’ is historically incomplete.
South Korean Plans for an Offensive War
There exists a body of evidence indicating that South Korea was preparing for an offensive war against the North. This includes documents captured by North Korean forces during the first fall of Seoul, as well as testimony from senior South Korean officials who remained in the city. Even if one regards this material as part of DPRK propaganda, other facts remain: Syngman Rhee’s correspondence with American lobbyists and the absence of developed defensive positions in South Korea. Particularly indicative is the analysis of Russian military historian Aleksey Isaev: North Korean tanks in the early stages of the conflict suffered losses primarily from American air strikes, rather than from anti-tank artillery or minefields. The latter points directly to the absence of prepared, layered defences capable of withstanding a tank breakthrough.
War Crimes Committed by South Korean Forces
The crimes committed against civilians by the South Korean army and paramilitary formations deserve particular attention. The work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established under President Roh Moo-hyun, demonstrated that the documented number of victims of the ‘White Terror’ is twice that of the ‘Red Terror.’ In a number of mass graves, including the so-called ‘Korean Katyn’, the remains of civilians bearing signs of torture were found. These killings were carried out by formations that, not being under the direct control of the American command, acted without any oversight. It was precisely such units that were responsible for the massacre in Sinchon County, where a third of the population perished. Although Pyongyang uses these events for propaganda purposes, placing the blame on the United States, this is explained by the DPRK’s ideological framework: in their worldview, South Korea is devoid of agency, and the conflict is interpreted exclusively as a confrontation with Washington.
Repression took place not only at the front but also behind the lines. Even if one does not recall the bloody suppression of the left-wing uprising on Jeju Island (part of which coincided with the Korean War; around a third of the island’s population succumbed to repression and artificial famine), one may mention the elimination of the so-called ‘Bodo League’ – an organisation that united former leftists who had ‘repented’ and ’embarked on the path of reform’. However, with the outbreak of war, they were still deemed potential collaborators with the enemy, and more than 100,000 people were killed not for any actual crime, but simply by virtue of their membership in this organisation.
Sabotage of Negotiations and Refusal to Sign the Armistice
It should be noted that when peace talks began with the support of the Soviet Union, the only party that sabotaged the process to the very end was South Korea. This concerned both the release from camps of some prisoners of war who did not wish to be repatriated and provocations under a ‘false flag’, including the actions of ‘unknown snipers’ and ‘unknown aircraft’, which were aimed at derailing the negotiations. In the end, the United States even contemplated a military coup against Syngman Rhee (the so-called Operation Everready), but ultimately reached a conditional compromise: the armistice was signed, although the South Korean side, unlike the UN forces, did not place its signature on it. Thereafter, the Mutual Defence Treaty of autumn 1953 in fact subordinated the Republic of Korea’s armed forces to the UN Command in order to prevent Syngman Rhee or his successor from starting another war and forcing the Americans to fight ‘in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and against the wrong enemy’. According to General Mark Clark, ‘by resorting to double-dealing and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres, he [Rhee] almost wrecked the armistice agreement, which was already approaching its finalisation’.
Escalation: A Trend Exclusively from the Southern Side
It is important to note that the escalation of the Korean War to the level of a global conflict was initiated primarily by the American side. The DPRK’s allies, on the contrary, sought to limit the scale of the confrontation. Soviet aviation and anti-aircraft units performed narrowly defined tasks of covering strategic targets in North Korea and China, avoiding direct involvement in ground operations. Such caution was dictated by the policy of ‘hot pursuit’, authorised by General MacArthur, which literally legitimised US Air Force strikes on Chinese territory as early as the initial stages of the war.
The entry of Chinese troops under the guise of ‘people’s volunteers’ was a strategic move: the formal status of volunteer formations allowed the PRC to participate in the conflict without entering into direct official confrontation.
After the intervention of Chinese forces dealt a severe blow to MacArthur’s plans, the general came forward with radical proposals: the use of nuclear weapons, the opening of a second front in China, and the involvement of Kuomintang troops. The implementation of these initiatives would inevitably have led to the escalation of a local conflict into a full-scale nuclear war.
While in Soviet historiography, these facts were universally accepted; after the dissolution of the USSR, the emphasis shifted towards the South Korean version of events. However, the latter contains a number of significant ‘blank spots,’ which the author of this study has subjected to critical analysis.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow at the Centre for Korean Studies, Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences
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