Kim Yong Un | Leading Researcher at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This conference is dedicated to the 73rd anniversary of the end of the military phase of the Korean War of 1950–1953, which marked the failure of the aggression of U.S. imperialism, having mobilized the armed forces of its satellites, and brought victory over that aggression through the heroic Korean People’s Army in alliance with the Chinese People’s Volunteers, with the participation of Soviet military pilots and the military-material support of the Soviet Union.
But who is still blamed for the outbreak of that war? When South Korea or the United States and its satellites accuse the DPRK and the USSR, this is politically and ideologically understandable, because it is convenient for them to shift the blame for this monstrous war—which claimed the lives of more than 10 percent of the entire Korean population (including 21 percent of the population of the DPRK and about 8 percent of the Republic of Korea)—onto the DPRK and the USSR, personally onto Kim Il Sung and J. V. Stalin.
In 2008, the university textbook History of Russia from Ancient Times to the Present Day, edited by A. N. Sakharov (A. N. Sakharov, A. N. Bokhanov, V. A. Shestakov; Moscow: Prospekt, 2008, Vol. 2, p. 678), stated that “The troops of the DPRK crossed the 38th parallel and soon extended their control over the territory of the South.”
The author of that textbook—a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences—died seven years ago, and therefore I will not mention his name.
Here is another textbook, this time devoted to Korea, written by three Doctors of Historical Sciences, one of whom is now an academician, while the other two have since passed away. It is a substantial university textbook both in terms of volume and the sources used.
The textbook states in considerable detail that both the South and the North were preparing for war and that both were assisted by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The textbook cites the following encrypted telegram from Stalin addressed to Mao Zedong:
“Comrade Mao Zedong! During the conversation with the Korean comrades, Filippov (Stalin’s pseudonym—Editor’s note) and his friends expressed the opinion that, in view of the changed international situation, they agreed with the proposal to proceed with reunification. At the same time, it was stipulated that the matter should be finally resolved jointly by the Chinese and Korean comrades, and that if the Chinese comrades disagreed, the decision should be postponed until further discussion. The Korean comrades can tell you the details of the conversation.”
The textbook’s authors then write:
“This concise document makes it possible to draw a number of far-reaching conclusions and assessments: first, Stalin did not wish to bear sole responsibility for unleashing the war on the peninsula and sought to share it, at least partially, with Beijing and Pyongyang; second, in the Kremlin’s assessment, the global strategic balance was steadily shifting in favor of world socialism (following the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and the first successful field test of the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb later that same year); third, the Soviet leadership at that time considered peaceful and non-violent options for Korean reunification to be without prospects.”
I would like to draw your attention to the authors’ words concerning the responsibility of Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang for “unleashing the war on the Korean Peninsula.”
The textbook then reaches the following conclusion:
“The Korean War, being one of the most significant manifestations of the intensification of the Cold War, exerted a destructive influence for a prolonged period on the overall situation in Northeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region… All the principal participants in the war (both official and unofficial) found themselves confronted with political and diplomatic problems that were difficult to resolve. Soviet-American relations deteriorated sharply and for a long time. Paradoxically, the Korean War also introduced serious discord into relations between Moscow and Beijing. The war generated tensions within the Soviet-Chinese alliance. The People’s Republic of China, following the Korean War, found itself in severe international isolation for many years (until the mid-1970s). On October 1, 1953, the Treaty of Mutual Security between the United States and the Republic of Korea was concluded (although, strictly speaking, it was called the Mutual Defense Treaty—K.Y.), under which American troops were stationed on South Korean territory, thereby effectively blocking the prospects for inter-Korean dialogue. The Soviet Union likewise found itself in an equally difficult political and diplomatic situation. Being compelled to support the DPRK not only economically but also politically and strategically almost unconditionally, the Kremlin was deprived for many years of the opportunity to establish direct mutually beneficial economic and political relations with the Republic of Korea.”
What follows from these judgments of the textbook’s authors? It ultimately turns out that, according to them, it was the DPRK, the PRC, and the USSR that unleashed the Korean War for the purpose of reunification. They also suffered enormous losses. For example, China found itself in severe international isolation for many years. According to the logic of the textbook’s authors, if China had not helped the North, would it have enjoyed excellent relations with the United States and avoided international isolation?
Incidentally, the United States had refused to grant the People’s Republic of China the permanent seat on the UN Security Council and had opposed its admission to the United Nations even before the outbreak of the Korean War. The very fact that the Communist Party ruled China and that China had chosen the socialist path was the reason for the hostile attitude of the United States and the entire Western world toward the PRC.
Furthermore, had China not provided assistance, the DPRK would have been destroyed as a state, and American troops under the control of Syngman Rhee would have appeared on the borders of both the PRC and the USSR with Korea. Would that really have been beneficial for China and the Soviet Union? And did the authors of the textbook ever think about the fate of the people of North Korea, who had chosen socialism?
Who today remembers the German Democratic Republic after it was absorbed by West Germany?
The authors also argue that the Korean War enabled the United States to conclude a treaty with South Korea and “station troops on its territory, which in turn practically blocked the prospects for inter-Korean dialogue.”
I would like to remind you that the Armistice Agreement explicitly stipulated that, within six months of the armistice, the signatory parties were obligated to resolve the issue of withdrawing all foreign troops from Korean territory and to prohibit the supply of weapons to the Korean states that were more advanced or greater in quantity than those they possessed at the time of the armistice.
The Mutual Defense Treaty, in violation of the Armistice Agreement, was agreed upon only one week after the armistice was signed—that is, on August 3 (the Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27; the treaty was initialed by the foreign ministers of the Republic of Korea and the United States on August 8 and formally signed on October 1).
Thus, the United States accomplished what it had long sought to achieve, even before the Korean War began.
Incidentally, just the day before yesterday, on June 22, Gerald Celente, Editor-in-Chief of the American magazine Trend Journal, stated directly in an interview with Russian journalist Valentin Bogdanov in the United States that it was the United States that started both the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Nor should we forget that it is the constitutional duty of every President of South Korea to absorb the DPRK and create a unified Korea. This follows from Article 3 of the Constitution (Article 4 in the 1948 Constitution).
Therefore, no matter how attractive the rhetoric of South Korean presidents regarding reunification may sound, they envision it only as the absorption of the DPRK through its elimination.
It is no coincidence that in 2012 President Lee Myung-bak spoke of creating an even greater Republic of Korea, and this thesis was later repeated by the ill-fated President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The authors also maintain that Russia was deprived for many years of the opportunity to establish direct, mutually beneficial economic and political relations with South Korea.
But which South Korea do the authors have in mind?
From 1948 to 1987, the country was ruled by military and political dictators. Moreover, until the early 1980s South Korea remained an underdeveloped country. It only reached the level of a middle-income country toward the end of the 1980s.
What, then, would relations with the military anti-communist regimes of that country have offered the Soviet Union?
Did the authors even understand that, at the time the textbook was published, a South Korean citizen could have contact with a person from a socialist country or with a communist—whether an active member or a former one—only with prior authorization from the South Korean intelligence service?
There was such a case in 1998.
In Beijing, someone knocked on the hotel room door of a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea who had served four terms, chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee, and was Vice President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The legislator opened the door and found a man from the DPRK with whom he had met in Moscow in June 1989, during a meeting between Kim Young-sam, then leader of the South Korean party, and Ho Dam, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea for Inter-Korean Affairs. The visitor had been a member of Ho Dam’s entourage.
The legislator recognized him, invited him into the room, and they talked over coffee.
As required, he subsequently reported the conversation to the appropriate authorities and submitted a written record of it.
Nevertheless, criminal proceedings were initiated against him for having contact with a North Korean without prior authorization from the intelligence service.
The case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office, where he endured lengthy interrogations—prosecutorial questioning in South Korea normally lasts at least eight to ten hours from the outset. For reference, when the wife of former President Roh Moo-hyun was summoned to the prosecutor’s office in 2009, her interrogation lasted fourteen hours.
Only after two years did he finally avoid punishment.
We are not speaking of an ordinary citizen, but of a legislator vested with extensive authority.
Had he not been a member of parliament, he would have been imprisoned for violating the National Security Act.
Three weeks ago, I attended a lecture delivered by the Minister of Unification of the Republic of Korea.
As an important democratic measure introduced by the current government, he stated that a law would soon come into force under which a South Korean citizen would no longer be prosecuted for any contact—even a brief conversation—with a North Korean or a communist if it occurred without prior authorization from the intelligence service, provided that the citizen reported the meeting afterward to the relevant authorities.
Now I return to my assessment of the character and nature of the Korean War.
Both sides were preparing for war.
Therefore, the Korean War began as a civil war.
It remained a civil war for exactly one day. Then, owing to the intervention of the United States, followed by that of its satellites under the flag of the United Nations, it became an international conflict—one in which, in fact, no country, and certainly not the United Nations, had any right to intervene, since neither the DPRK nor the Republic of Korea was a member of the United Nations.
Moreover, the arrival of foreign troops from countries sharing no common border with either Korean state, and especially their invasion of the territory of the DPRK, transformed the war into a foreign intervention against the DPRK.
The Chinese People’s Volunteers began assisting the DPRK only after that foreign intervention, as did the Soviet pilots. (Let me remind you that the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps, operating as part of the Chinese Air Force, was established only in November—that is, a month and a half after U.S. troops and their satellites had invaded the territory of the DPRK.)
When American forces reached the PRC border along the Yalu River and bombed the bridge at the city of Sinuiju connecting the DPRK and the PRC (part of that bridge still remains unrepaired today), what were the Chinese supposed to do—simply accept it?
And what was the Soviet Union supposed to do? Stand by indifferently while the Americans reduced the entire territory of the DPRK to ashes and annihilated its population?
In connection with the events of that war, I have a question for all participants in today’s conference:
What is your attitude toward Russia’s Special Military Operation against the Ukrainian Nazi regime?
Should Russia have waited until the criminal Nazi junta in Ukraine exterminated all the inhabitants of Donbas simply because they speak Russian?
The new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Drapatyi, declared the people of Donbas to be criminals and freeloaders who must be re-educated.
He also described the people of Russia as a nation that has no right to exist.
This is not merely primitive Russophobia; it is genuine Nazism.
Neither the United Nations nor “enlightened” Western Europe has condemned such a Nazi statement.
This is entirely understandable, because Nazism is a product of imperialism, and as long as imperialism exists—that is, capitalism in its highest stage—Nazism will continually re-emerge.
Financial capital will defend its position by any means, including Nazism and fascism.
Therefore, I would propose that the World Anti-Imperialist Platform be described not merely as anti-imperialist, but also as anti-fascist and anti-colonial, because the extreme racism and brutality of Nazism were nurtured during the colonial era.
It is no coincidence that fascist organizations first emerged and reached their greatest development in countries that possessed colonies.
