Chapter 37 On the issue of sending volunteers to North Korea to participate in the war[1]

(October 2, 1950) 1. We decided to use the name of the Volunteer Army to send a part of the troops to North Korea to fight against the troops of the United States and its running dog Syngman Rhee[2] to aid the North Korean comrades.We believe it is necessary to do so.Because if the whole of Korea is occupied by the Americans and the Korean revolutionary forces suffer a fundamental defeat, the American aggressors will become more rampant, which will be detrimental to the entire East. 2. We believe that since we have decided to send Chinese troops to North Korea to fight against the Americans, first, we must be able to solve the problem, that is, we must prepare to annihilate and drive out the invading troops of the United States and other countries in North Korea; second, since the Chinese troops are in North Korea If we fight with the U.S. military in the territory (although we use the name of the Volunteer Army), we must prepare for the United States to declare a state of war with China, and we must prepare for the United States to at least use its air force to bomb many large cities and industrial bases in China, and use its navy to attack coastal areas. zone.

3. Of these two issues, the first is whether the Chinese military can annihilate the US military in North Korea and effectively resolve the North Korean issue.As long as our army can annihilate the U.S. Army in North Korea, mainly its Eighth Army (a veteran U.S. military force), the seriousness of the second problem (the declaration of war between the U.S. and China) still exists, but, The situation then became favorable to both the revolutionary front and China.That is to say, since the North Korean issue ended in fact with the victory over the U.S. military (it may not have ended formally, and the U.S. may not recognize North Korea’s victory for quite a long period of time), then even if the U.S. has already negotiated with China If we fight openly, the scale of this war may not be very large, and the duration will not be very long.We believe that the most unfavorable situation is that the Chinese army cannot wipe out a large number of American troops in North Korea. The bourgeoisie and other sections of the people are dissatisfied with us (they are very afraid of war).

4. Under the current circumstances, we have decided to dispatch twelve divisions (five or six divisions are not enough) to South Manchuria[3] on October 15[4], located in appropriate areas of North Korea (not must go to the 38th parallel [5]), while fighting against the enemy who dared to attack north of the 38th parallel, the first period was only a defensive battle, annihilating small groups of enemies, and clarifying the situation in all aspects; while waiting for the arrival of Soviet weapons, and Equip our army, and then cooperate with the North Korean comrades to launch a counterattack to annihilate the US invading army.

5. According to the information we know, an American army (two infantry divisions and one mechanized division), including tank guns and anti-aircraft guns, has a total of 1,500 guns with calibers ranging from 7 cm to 24 cm. One of our corps (three divisions) has only thirty-six such guns.The enemy has air supremacy, and the air force we started training had more than 300 aircraft available for combat until February 1951.Therefore, our army is still not sure of annihilating an American army at a time.Now that we have decided to fight the Americans, we should be prepared that when the U.S. High Command concentrates one of its corps to fight our army on the battlefield of a campaign, our army will be able to have four times the enemy's strength (that is, with our army) against one of the enemy's four armies) and one and a half to two times the enemy's firepower (that is, use 2,200 to 3,000 guns of various types with a caliber of 7 cm or more against the enemy's 1,500 guns of the same caliber. cannons) to wipe out an enemy corps cleanly and completely with confidence.

6. In addition to the 12 divisions mentioned above, we are also mobilizing 24 divisions from the south of the Yangtze River and the Shaanxi-Gansu region to the Longhai, Jinpu, and Beining[6] lines as the second and third batches of aid to North Korea. The batch of troops is expected to be used gradually in the spring and summer of next year according to the situation at that time. Published according to Mao Zedong's manuscript. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is an excerpt from Mao Zedong's telegram to Stalin.This telegram was not sent.

[2] Syngman Rhee was the president of South Korea at that time. [3] South Manchuria refers to the Zhuanghe, Dandong, Tonghua, Linjiang, Qingyuan and Liaozhong areas in the southwest of Shenyang to the east of the Shenyang-Dalian railway line. [4] Later, it was changed to dispatch on October 19th. [5] At the end of the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to use the 38th parallel north latitude on the Korean territory as a temporary demarcation line for military operations against Japan and the scope of surrender. This line is commonly known as the "38th Parallel". ".

[6] Jinpu Line refers to the railway from Tianjin to Pukou, a section of today's Beijing-Shanghai Line.The Beining Line refers to the railway from Beijing to Shenyang, a section of the Beijing-Harbin Line.