Mao: The Unknown Story

Most items were settled fairly swiftly, but Mao and Stalin turned one issue into a sticking point: the repatriation of POWs. America wanted voluntary, “non-forcible,” repatriation; Mao insisted it had to be wholesale. The UN held over 20,00 °Chinese, mainly former Nationalist troops, most of whom did not want to go back to Communist China. With the memory of handing back prisoners to Stalin at the end of World War II, many to their deaths, America rejected non-voluntary repatriation, for both humanitarian and political reasons. But Mao’s line to his negotiators was: “Not a single one is to get away!” Mao’s chilling mantra prolonged the war for a year and a half, during which hundreds of thousands of Chinese, and many more Koreans, died. Kim had been only too keen to concede, and argued that “there was no point in putting up a fight” to recover “politically unstable” ex-Nationalists. But this cut no ice with Mao, as that was not his point. Mao did not care about the POWs. He needed an issue to string out the war so that he could extract more from Stalin.

BY EARLY 1952, Kim was absolutely desperate to end the war. On 14 July 1952 he cabled Mao begging him to accept a compromise. American bombing was reducing his country to rubble. “There was nothing left to bomb,” US Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk observed. The population was declining to almost critical survival levels, with perhaps one-third of adult males killed.

Mao turned Kim down by return telegram, with the cold-blooded argument that “Rejecting the proposal of the enemy will bring only one harmful consequence — further losses for the Korean people and Chinese people’s volunteers. However …” Mao then proceeded to list the “advantages” in these human losses, such as the sufferers being “tempered and acquiring experience in the struggle against American imperialism.” He signed off menacingly by saying he would report to Stalin and then get back to Kim “upon receiving an answer.”

Without waiting for Mao to tell him what Stalin thought, Kim replied at once to say that Mao was, of course, “correct,” and that he, Kim, was determined to fight on. Kim simultaneously cabled Stalin, pathetically trying to explain his wavering.

Stalin wired Mao on the 17th with his verdict: “We consider your position in the negotiations on an armistice to be completely correct. Today we received a report from Pyongyang that comrade Kim Il Sung also agrees with your position.”

Kim was frantic, but he was powerless to stop the war in his own country. Moreover, his own fate was in peril. An ominous conversation between Stalin and Chou En-lai a month later shows that he had reason to feel insecure. After Chou said that China was preparing for “the possibility of another two to three years of war,” Stalin asked about the attitude of the Korean leaders. The meeting record runs as follows (our comments in brackets):

STALIN says that the American[s] have not frightened China. Could it be said that they have also failed to frighten Korea?

CHOU EN-LAI affirms that one could essentially say that.

STALIN: [obviously skeptically] If that is true, then it’s not too bad.

CHOU EN-LAI [picking up on Stalin’s skepticism] adds that Korea is wavering somewhat … Among certain elements of the Korean leadership one can detect a state of panic, even.

STALIN reminds that he has been already informed of these feelings through Kim Il Sung’s telegram to Mao Tse-tung.

CHOU EN-LAI confirms this.

Kim’s panic about America paled beside his fear of Mao and Stalin. American bombing could kill a large part of his population, but Stalin and Mao could depose him (something Mao in fact later plotted doing) — or worse.

So the war went on.

BY AUGUST 1952, Mao decided to push Stalin harder and nail down his twin key demands: turf and arms industries. He sent Chou to Moscow with these requests. Chou first established that Mao had done Stalin an invaluable service. At their first meeting, on 20 August, he told Stalin that Mao “believes that the continuation of the war is advantageous to us.” “Mao Tse-tung is right,” Stalin answered. “This war is getting on America’s nerves.” Echoing Mao’s dismissive comments about casualties on their own side, Stalin produced the bone-chilling remark: “The North Koreans have lost nothing, except for casualties.” “The war in Korea has shown America’s weakness,” he commented to Chou, and then said “jokingly”: “America’s primary weapons are stockings, cigarettes, and other merchandise. They want to subjugate the world, and yet they cannot subdue little Korea. No, Americans don’t know how to fight.” “Americans are not capable of waging a large-scale war at all, especially after the Korean War.”