Originally posted by Boroda
TahGut: again, you have sources only from one side. After reading some correspondence between Soviet Foreign Ministry (not Stalin!) and Kim Ir Sen I came to a conclusion that USSR was against that war.
Funny how you point to sources from the "other" side as if nobody would actually take the time to look them up to call roadkill.
Well, I looked them up and call roadkill.
Here is a fascinating website that documents and translates direct communiques between North Korea and the USSR during the period 1949 to 1950. Let's look at some of the findings.
First, to answer your assertion that a North Korean attack came as the result of South Korean aggression (LOL!), the paper has this to say:
It is interesting that the Soviet ambassador confirms the
interception of South Korean attack orders but notes that no attack occurred. Other documents in this collection show that through June 1950, North Korean leaders repeatedly claimed to have intercepted offensive orders from the South, even though the attacks did not materialize. Some of these interceptions could well have been genuine, since South Korean leaders in the months before the war often expressed their desire and intention to reunify the country through military means. However, if Stalin had made an attack from the South a necessary precondition for a North Korean military action, the steady stream of such reports is more easily understood.
So let's see... Stalin denies initial North Korean requests for permission to invade South Korea unless they are attacked, and out of the woodwork come dozens of reports of impending South Korean attacks that never materialize. Shocker! I wonder why South Korea would "suddenly" become an aggressor state to North Korea when aggression was the one pretext required by Stalin for invading them. Put two and two together, Boroda.
Next we find that:
Document #3 also suggests that by 11 September 1949,
following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea in June,
Stalin had warmed to the idea of a military campaign in Korea, at
least on a limited scale.
So as early as 1949, the USSR warmed to the idea of military conflict to reunite the Korean peninsula. Why was Stalin opposed to a war of aggression right away? Well, because recently declassified communiques between North Korean and Soviet officials show that:
Document #5, the Politburo decision of 24 September 1949, confirmed the response Shtykov was ordered to make to Kim Il Sung’s reply for an offensive military action. One should note that the Soviet leadership did not question the goal of bringing the rest of Korea under DPRK control; the issue was only whether the attempt to do so would bring disadvantageous results.
In other words, Stalin was in favor of a North Korean offensive so long as it would come at little cost to the USSR or its interests in the region.
I'm curious, Boroda, how you could possibly read such evidence and conclude to the contrary that the USSR supported a North Korean invasion of the South. Seems to me like you're selectively picking and choosing what you read with the expectation that nobody here will take the time to check your facts. Now, I fully expect a response from you explaining that the website I posted misinterprets/translates the first person communiques, or how it's hopelessly mired in Western biases. I expect no less.
-- Todd/Leviathn
