Brothers in Arms (8 page)

etminh against the French in Vietnam. Korea, Mao's second priority in terms of foreign relations, was not on the agenda in any of the official talks in Moscow. On relations with the United States, Stalin recommended a moderate policy, even on the issue of Taiwan. "What is most important here is not to give the Americans a pretext to intervene," Stalin told Mao. He rejected Mao's request for Soviet "volunteer pilots or secret military detachments to speed up the conquest of Formosa" and suggested that an internal uprising would be the best way to liberate the island.

North Korean leader Kim Il Sung pushed for an attack on the South throughout 1949, and Stalin promised to "assist" him in the matter of reunifying Korea by military means already on January 30, 1950. Stalin and Kim discussed the strategic plans for the offensive at meetings in Moscow in April. But the Soviet leader may well have hoped that Mao whose agreement he instructed Kim to obtain before proceeding with the plans would turn the Korean leader down. A Chinese refusal to play along would have given Stalin a chance to back out of the Korean challenge with his revolutionary credentials intact, while chastening Mao's bothersome vigor on regional issues. But Mao could not turn down Kim's request. His personality as well as his ideology blocked such an option: Kim came to him to seek the liberation of his country one of China's traditional clients; he had Stalin's OK; and he had reasonable chances of success. Mao believed that "solely military means are required to unify Korea" and activated Chinese support for the war effort as soon as the North Koreans attacked on June 25.

In terms of military strategy in Korea, Stalin agreed to let Mao lead the way but reserved the right to intervene as the ultimate arbiter of strategic sagacity. Except in two cases (both in 1951), Beijing followed Stalin's advice on overall strategy. On the battlefield the situation was very similar. When Soviet and Chinese military advisers disagreed as they did frequently, particularly at the start of the war the Red Army officers usually prevailed, even though it sometimes took Beijing's direct intervention to secure its envoys' agreement. Still, it is remarkable how fast the Chinese conformed to Soviet methods of fighting, even though those methods were very different from their own experience. By 1953 the cooperation between Soviet and Chinese military advisers seemed rather harmonious, with the two groups often jointly imposing their decisions on grudging Korean officers.

The reaction to the news of Stalin's death in Zhongnanhai the Beijing Kremlin, which the Chinese had set up within the old Imperial City was disbelief and sorrow. For the CCP elite, Stalin was the leader of world communism who had guided the movement since the Chinese party started its climb to power. They respected and honored him, and it would take years before criticism of Stalin could be voiced openly within the party, even if the party leaders well knew, as Mao put it in 1956, that "if I had always followed Stalin's advice, I would have been dead."

way around carried tremendous symbolic significance to most Chinese. It bolstered the image of the international position of the CCP leader, especially among those who had been puzzled by Mao's hurried departure for Moscow after the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949.