Mao: The Unknown Story

^†In late 1950 a top French government adviser in Indochina (Jean Sainteny) summed up the thinking of the French commanding general there, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, in these words: “that the Russians are looking for one billion human beings, human beings from Asia, a sort of human livestock, to get them to fight the West.” The same thought had occurred earlier to US Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. Questioning the head of the US Military Advisory Group to the Chinese Nationalists, Major General Barr, in March 1949, Lodge asked: “Do you think the Russians can regiment those Chinese … and make them a military asset outside the borders of China, and use them in Europe or … somewhere else?” After an interjection by Senator Alexander Wiley (“Genghis Khan was a Chinese, was he not?”), Barr replied: “… could the Russians organize a Chinese division and take it over to Germany or in that area … I am afraid that idea would appeal to some of the Chinese Communists.”

35. MAO MILKS THE KOREAN WAR (1950–53 AGE 56–59)

WHEN CHINESE troops went into Korea in October 1950, the North Koreans were on the run. Two months later, Mao’s army had pushed the UN out of North Korea and restored Kim Il Sung’s dictatorship. But Kim was now militarily powerless, with his depleted 75,000-man army outnumbered 6:1 by the 450,000 troops Mao had in Korea. On 7 December, the day after the Chinese recovered Kim’s capital, Pyongyang, Kim ceded command to the Chinese. The Chinese commander Peng De-huai cabled Mao that Kim had “agreed … not to intervene in the future in matters of military command.” Peng was made the head of a joint Chinese — Korean HQ. Mao had taken over Kim’s war.

Peng wanted to stop north of the 38th Parallel, the original boundary between North and South Korea, but Mao refused. Peng pleaded that his supply lines were over-extended, leaving them seriously exposed to US bombing: “our troops are unable to receive supplies of food, ammunition, shoes, oil or salt … The main problem is no air cover, and no guaranteed railway transport; the moment we repair them, they are bombed again …” Mao insisted. He was determined not to stop fighting until he had squeezed the utmost out of Stalin. “Must cross the 38th Parallel,” he ordered Peng on 13 December. Early in January 1951 the Chinese took Seoul, the Southern capital, eventually pushing about 100 km south of the Parallel.

Chinese military successes greatly boosted Mao’s standing with Stalin, who sent extraordinarily enthusiastic congratulations, which he had not done for Mao’s triumph in taking China. Stalin particularly remarked that the victories had been won “against American troops.”

Mao had dealt an enormous psychological blow to the USA. On 15 December 1950, Truman went on radio to declare a State of National Emergency, something that did not happen in either World War II or the Vietnam War. Using almost apocalyptic language, he told the American people: “Our homes, our Nation … are in great danger.” The Chinese by then had already driven the Americans back some 200 km in a matter of weeks, in appalling conditions, with sub-zero temperatures compounded by icy winds. Secretary of State Dean Acheson described the reverse as the “worst defeat” for US forces in a century.

The Chinese won their victories at horrendous cost to their own men. Peng told Mao on 19 December:

The temperature has dropped to minus 30 degrees centigrade. The troops are very run down, their feet are incapacitated by frostbite, and they have to sleep in the open … Most troops have not received coats and padded shoes. Their padded jackets and blankets have been burned out by napalm. Many soldiers are still wearing thin cotton shoes, and some are even bare-foot …

“Unimaginable losses may happen,” Peng warned. Mao’s logistics manager told the Russians on 2 January 1951 that whole units had died from cold. Many “Volunteers” developed night blindness from lack of nutrition. HQ’s answer was: Gather pine needles to make soup. Eat live tadpoles to provide some vitamins and protein.

The Chinese fought with “human wave tactics” (ren-hai zhan-shu), using the only advantage they had — superiority in numbers. The British actor Michael Caine, who was drafted into the war, told us he had gone into it feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family. But the experience left him permanently repelled. Chinese soldiers charged in one wave after another, to exhaust Western bullets. He could not help thinking: If they don’t care about the lives of their own people, how can I expect them to care about me?