Mao: The Unknown Story

by Jung Chang

  By the 5th of October, with UN forces already pushing into the North, Stalin was showing impatience. That day he replied to Mao’s cable of the 2nd which had suggested that Mao might hold back. He reminded Mao that he, Mao, had made a commitment:

  I considered it possible to turn to You with the question of five — six Chinese volunteer divisions because I was well aware of a number of statements made by the leading Chinese comrades [i.e., you] regarding their readiness to move several armies in support of the Korean comrades …

  Stalin referred ominously to what he called “a passive wait-and-see policy,” which, he said, would cost Mao Taiwan. Mao had been using Taiwan as an argument to persuade Stalin to help him build an air force and a navy. Stalin was now telling Mao he would get neither if he stalled about his mission in Korea.

  But Mao was not really trying to opt out. He was raising his price. By the time he received Stalin’s reply, he had already appointed a commander-in-chief for the Chinese forces slated for Korea: Peng De-huai. Mao moved at his own pace. On 8 October, having ordered his troops to be redesignated as “Chinese People’s Volunteers,” he wired Kim that “we have decided to dispatch the Volunteers into Korea to help you.” He also sent Chou En-lai and Lin Biao to see Stalin about arms supplies. En route, Lin sent Mao a long cable urging him to abandon the idea of going in. The reason Mao sent Lin Biao to see Stalin when Lin was such a strong opponent of intervention, was to impress on Stalin the military difficulties facing the Chinese and thus extract the maximum out of the Master.

  Chou and Lin got to Stalin’s villa on the Black Sea on the 10th, and talked through the night until 5 in the morning. Stalin promised them “planes, artillery, tanks and other equipment.” Chou did not even negotiate a price. But out of the blue Stalin reneged about the key requirement: air cover for Chinese troops. Stalin had promised this (“a division of jet fighter planes—124 pieces for covering [Chinese] troops”) on 13 July. Now he claimed that the planes would not be ready for another two months. Without air cover, Chinese troops would be sitting ducks. Chou and Lin Biao argued that Russian air cover was essential. An impasse was reached. Stalin then wired Mao to tell him that China did not have to join the war.

  Stalin was calling Mao’s bluff by saying, as Mao put it later, “Forget it!” Mao climbed down at once. “With or without air cover from the Soviet Union,” he told Stalin, “we go in.” Mao needed the war. He wired Chou on 13 October: “We should enter the war. We must enter the war …” When Chou received the cable he buried his head in his hands. That same day Mao told the Russian ambassador that China was going in, only expressing the “hope” that Russian air cover would arrive “as soon as possible, but not later than in two months,” which was, in fact, Stalin’s own timetable.

  So it was that out of the global ambitions of the two Communist tyrants, Stalin and Mao, as well as the more local ambition of Kim, China was hurled into the inferno of the Korean War on 19 October 1950.

  Kim Il Sung later told the head of the Spanish Communist Party, Santiago Carrillo (who told us), that he had started the war — and that Mao had been far more strongly for launching it than Stalin.

  †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?

  The Chinese advance was soon halted. On 25 January 1951 the UN launched a counter-offensive, and the tide began to turn. Chinese casualties were extremely heavy. Peng went back to Peking on 21 February to tell Mao to his face about the “grave difficulties” and the “massive unnecessary casualties.” From the airport he raced to Zhongnanhai, only to find that Mao was staying out at Jade Spring Hill in his bunker. When Peng got there he was told Mao was having a siesta, but he pushed his way past the bodyguards and burst into Mao’s bedroom (practically
lèse-majesté). Mao let him say his piece, but brushed his concerns aside, and told him to expect the war to be a long one: “Don’t try to win a quick victory.”

  Mao outlined his “overall strategy” to Stalin in a cable on 1 March, which opened with the sentence: “The enemy will not leave Korea without being eliminated in great masses …” He then told Stalin that his plan was to use his bottomless reserves of manpower to exhaust the Americans. The Chinese army, he reported (which was true), had already taken “more than 100,000 casualties … and is expecting another 300,000 this year and next.” But, he told Stalin, he was replenishing the losses with 120,000 more troops, and would send a further 300,000 to replenish future losses. “To sum up,” Mao said, he was “ready to persist in a long-term war, to spend several years consuming several hundred thousand American lives, so they will back down …” Mao was reminding Stalin that he could seriously weaken America, but Stalin must help him build a first-class army and arms industry.

  MAO GOT MOVING on this fundamental objective from the moment China entered the war in October 1950. That very month, China’s navy chief was sent to Russia to ask for assistance to build up the navy. He was followed in December by a top-level air force mission, which had considerable success. On 19 February 1951, Moscow endorsed a draft agreement to start building factories in China to repair and service planes, as a large number were being damaged, and required advanced repair facilities in the theater. The Chinese plan was to convert these repair facilities to actually making aircraft. By the end of the war, China, a very poor country, had the third largest air force in the world, with more than 3,000 planes, including advanced MiGs. And factories were being built to churn out 3,600 fighter planes annually which, it was projected (over-optimistically, as it turned out), would come on stream in three to five years’ time. Discussions had even begun about manufacturing bombers.

  Immediately after the aircraft deal in early 1951—and after Stalin endorsed Mao’s plan “to spend several years consuming several hundred thousand American lives”—Mao upped the ante by asking for the blueprints for all the weapons the Chinese were using in Korea, and for Russian help to build factories to produce them, as well as the arms to equip no fewer than sixty divisions. He sent his chief of staff to Russia in May to negotiate these requests.

  Although Stalin wanted China to do his fighting for him, and was happy to sell Mao the weapons for the sixty divisions, he had no intention of endowing Mao with a full-blown arms industry, so the Chinese delegation was stonewalled in Russia for months. Mao told his chief of staff to keep on pushing, and in October the Russians reluctantly agreed to transfer the technology for producing seven kinds of small arms including machine-guns, but declined to divulge more.

  By now the war had lasted for a year, during which North Korea had been pulverized by US bombing. Kim saw that he might end up ruling over a wasteland, and possibly a shrunken one at that. He wanted an end to the war. On 3 June 1951 he went to China in secret to discuss opening negotiations with the US. As Mao was nowhere near his goal, the last thing he was interested in was stopping the war. In fact, he had just ordered Chinese troops to draw UN forces deeper into North Korea: “the farther north the better,” he said, provided it was not too near the Chinese border. Mao had hijacked the war, and was using Korea regardless of Kim’s interests.

  But, as his troops had been suffering heavy defeats, a breathing space was tactically useful for Mao, so he sent his Manchuria chief with Kim to consult with Stalin — and to press for more arms factories. Afterwards, Stalin cabled Mao, treating Kim as Mao’s satrap, to propitiate Mao, as he was turning him down on the arms factories. After talking “with your representatives from Manchuria and Korea” [sic], Stalin told Mao, “a truce is now advantageous.” This did not mean Stalin wanted to stop the war. He wanted Mao’s soldiers to inflict more damage on the US, but he saw that engaging in talks could be expedient, and seeming to show an interest in peace would help the Communists’ image. Interim ceasefire talks opened in Korea between UN and Chinese — Korean military teams on 10 July.

  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.”

  It was Mao who had made it possible for Stalin to draw this conclusion. America was losing more aircraft than it could afford militarily, and more men than the public would accept. Altogether, the US lost well over 3,000 aircraft in Korea, and could not replenish these losses fast enough to feel safe about being able to fight a two-front war simultaneously in Asia and Europe. Equally important, the US lost some 37,000 dead.

  Although the American death toll was only a small percentage of the Chinese, democratic America could not compete with totalitarian China when it came to body bags. As America headed into a presidential campaign in 1952, support in the US for continuing the war stood at only about 33 percent, and the Republican candidate, ex-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, campaigned on the slogan “I Will Go to Korea,” which was widely taken to mean ending the war.