Kim Il-sung was the Premier of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and Supreme Commander of the North Korean Army during the Korean War. Kim Il-sung fought the Japanese in Manchuria from 1932 to 1941. His support of Soviet authorities secured his political control of North Korea prior to the Korean War. The invasion of South Korea by North Korea was initiated by Soviet backers but it was also Kim Il-sung’s wish to unite his country. In 1972, Kim became constitutional President of North Korea and he introduced a new idea – self-reliance. Kim Il-sung died in 1994 and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il. Kim Il-sung retains the title ‘Eternal President’ and his birthday is celebrated as a public holiday.
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Peng served as an army officer for 43 years. He lost his parents when he was nine years old and worked as a coal miner until he was 16. He was accepted into the Hunan Military Academy. He then changed sides, joining the Communist Party in 1927. An army commander during the communist’s ‘long march’, Peng later commanded guerrilla forces behind Japanese lines. After the Japanese surrendered, Peng commanded the 1st Chinese Army until the communists won the revolution in 1949. In 1950, Peng led the 310,000-strong People’s Volunteer Army in its intervention in the Korean War. Peng nevertheless retained command of Chinese forces in Korea until the end of the war. After the war Peng was arrested during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. He was placed under house arrest, tortured and sometimes publicly beaten at rallies designed to humiliate him. Peng died in 1974.
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Mao Zedong was very important to the Chinese involvement in the Korean War. Mao, a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, became Chairman of the People’s Republic of China after leading the party to victory in the Chinese revolution. Mao ordered Chinese military intervention in the Korean War in October 1950 when United Nations troops invaded North Korea. He feared China’s exposure to foreign invasion should North Korea be defeated and occupied. He saw intervention as a necessity to protect his revolution. While the Chinese intervention failed to unify Korea under Kim Il-sung, it did force the UN to abandon its hope to unify the country under southern leadership and demonstrated China’s power to the world. After the Korean War Mao helped fund the reconstruction of North Korea. In 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, leading to widespread economic and political ruin. Mao’s death in 1976 left an economically depressed China.
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Joseph Stalin was General Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party from 1922 to 1953 and Soviet Premier from 1941 to 1953. He allied with the United States of America against Hitler’s Germany in World War II. At the 1945 Yalta Conference Stalin readily agreed to temporarily split Korea into North and South, but soon he fell out with the United States and Britain over other aspects of the post-WWII political settlement. This began the Cold War.
Stalin was reluctant to risk a war with the United States by supporting a North Korean invasion of South Korea. He now had a powerful ally in the north Asia region. Stalin met Kim Il-sung in Moscow (the capital of Russia) in late 1949 and agreed to provide technical and financial aid for the invasion. He also provided Soviet military personnel. After the tide of events turned with the United Nations, Stalin distanced himself from the war though he opposed any peace settlement. His death in 1953 removed a major obstacle to ending the war. |