Konstantin Asmolov | Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Today we mark the anniversary of the end of the Korean War, one of the most devastating wars of the second half of the twentieth century. Although the conflicts in Africa during the 1990s may have exceeded the Korean War in terms of human casualties, the scale of structural destruction and the threat of nuclear weapons use during the Korean War remain without parallel.
The memory of the Korean War as a conflict that left an unhealed wound on the Korean Peninsula in the form of the country’s enduring division must not be forgotten. However, this memory must also be accurate. Unfortunately, in Russia (and not only in Russia), the image of the Korean War has been shaped rather inaccurately, with the South Korean interpretation of events dominating public discourse while overlooking a number of facts that are inconvenient for Seoul.
For this reason, my presentation is intended to remind the audience of several events without which a proper understanding of what took place on the Korean Peninsula remains incomplete.
The War Before the War
Although the official date marking the beginning of the conflict is 25 June 1950, trench warfare along the 38th Parallel had in fact already been underway for a year and a half following the establishment of the DPRK and the Republic of Korea.
The intensity of the fighting was considerable: on average, three armed clashes occurred every day over the course of eighteen months. This level of hostilities was comparable to the trench warfare of the First World War or the Russian-Ukrainian conflict prior to the beginning of the Special Military Operation. These were not isolated skirmishes but large-scale engagements involving forces as large as battalion-sized units, supported by aircraft and artillery.
Although this subject is rarely discussed, even historians who are critical of communism acknowledge that the majority of these clashes were initiated by the South. In this way, Syngman Rhee sought to portray himself as the victim and attract greater American attention, fully aware that his army was incapable of defeating its opponent and could do little more than inflict suffering upon civilians before retreating.
The outbreak of the Korean War undoubtedly escalated the conflict. However, describing it as a sudden communist attack against a peaceful South Korea is historically inaccurate.
The South Korean Government Developed Plans for an Offensive War
There is considerable evidence indicating that South Korea also planned offensive military operations against North Korea.
Among this evidence are documents captured by North Korean forces during their first occupation of Seoul, as well as testimony from a number of senior South Korean officials who remained in the city.
Even if these materials are dismissed as North Korean propaganda, it is impossible to ignore Syngman Rhee’s correspondence with American lobbyists, in which he sought permission to launch an attack against the DPRK, together with other evidence showing that South Korea devoted little effort to constructing defensive fortifications.
One particularly noteworthy example comes from the analysis conducted by Russian historian Aleksei Isaev regarding the destruction of North Korean tanks. He concluded that most North Korean tanks were destroyed by American aircraft, whereas under normal battlefield conditions tanks are usually destroyed by minefields or anti-tank artillery. According to his analysis, this occurred because South Korean forces had failed to establish defensive obstacles such as minefields capable of slowing the advance of North Korean armored units.
War Crimes Committed by South Korean Armed Forces and Paramilitary Units
It is impossible to overlook the scale of war crimes committed by both the South Korean military and various paramilitary organizations against the civilian population.
The documented number of victims attributed to the South Korean side is approximately twice as large as that attributed to the North.
During the presidency of the liberal South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. Its investigations reclassified the origins of numerous mass graves, including one widely known as the “Korean Katyn.” These burial sites contained the remains of civilians, many bearing evidence of torture.
The Commission concluded that these crimes had not been committed by the North Korean army but rather by the political gangs and paramilitary groups mentioned above, which operated outside the direct command of American forces and therefore acted largely at their own discretion.
It was these so-called “public order units” that carried out the massacre in Sinchon County, where as many as one-third of the local population was killed, while victims were subjected to forms of torture reminiscent of the Middle Ages.
In addition to the bloody suppression of the leftist uprising on Jeju Island—which partly overlapped chronologically with the Korean War—it is also necessary to mention the destruction of the so-called Bodo League. This organization consisted of former leftists who had supposedly “repented” and “reformed,” yet were nevertheless regarded as potential collaborators with the enemy and exterminated in numbers exceeding one hundred thousand people.
Nor should we forget the carpet bombing campaigns, the extensive use of napalm by the United States military, and the destruction of refugee columns under the pretext that enemy infiltrators might be hiding among them.
Syngman Rhee’s Opposition to the Armistice
It should be emphasized that when peace negotiations began with the assistance of the Soviet Union, South Korea remained the only participant that continued obstructing the negotiations until the very end.
This included both the release of prisoners of war who refused repatriation and a series of false-flag provocations, including incidents involving “unidentified snipers” and “unidentified aircraft,” which were intended to sabotage the negotiations.
As a result, the United States even considered organizing a military coup against Syngman Rhee under the so-called Operation Everready. Ultimately, however, a conditional compromise was reached: the Armistice Agreement was signed, but unlike the United Nations Command, the South Korean government refused to sign it.
Subsequently, the Mutual Defense Treaty concluded in the autumn of 1953 effectively subordinated the armed forces of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations Command in order to prevent Syngman Rhee—or one of his successors—from initiating another war that would compel the United States to fight “at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and against the wrong enemy.“
Escalation of the Conflict
Throughout the Korean War, the escalation of the conflict originated exclusively from the southern side.
North Korea’s allies made every possible effort to prevent further escalation. Soviet fighter pilots and anti-aircraft units were assigned a limited combat mission focused on protecting strategic facilities within North Korea and China. Meanwhile, the Chinese People’s Volunteers were, in reality, regular divisions of the People’s Liberation Army, allowing China to participate in the war without issuing a formal declaration of war.
After the entry of the Chinese People’s Volunteers dealt a severe blow to General Douglas MacArthur’s ambitions, he proposed not only the use of nuclear weapons but also the opening of a second front against China and the involvement of the Nationalist (Kuomintang) forces in the conflict. Such actions could have transformed the Korean War into a large-scale nuclear conflict.
MacArthur’s presidential ambitions were considerable. His authority as the “Proconsul of the East” effectively made him an independent ruler, and President Harry Truman had to make significant efforts to restrain these ambitions.
Many of these events were discussed in Soviet history textbooks. However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the situation changed, and the South Korean interpretation gradually came to be regarded as the dominant narrative. Yet that narrative contains many deliberate omissions and distortions, which the present paper seeks to address.