Telegram to Stalin Regarding the Decision to Send Troops into Korea for Combat (October 2, 1950)  (1) We have decided, under the banner of the Chinese People’s Volunteers, to dispatch a portion of our armed forces into Korean territory to engage in combat against the U.S. aggressor forces and those of its puppet, Syngman Rhee[1], thereby rendering assistance to our Korean comrades. We deem this course of action necessary. For if all of Korea were to fall under American occupation and the Korean revolutionary forces were to suffer a fundamental defeat, the U.S. aggressors would grow even more rampant, which would be detrimental to the entire Eastern region.

(2) In view of our decision to commit Chinese troops to fight alongside the Koreans against the Americans, we believe that, first, we must be capable of resolving the issue—that is, we should be prepared to annihilate and drive out the U.S. and other foreign invading forces within Korea. Second, once Chinese forces are engaged in battle with U.S. troops on Korean soil (even though we are doing so under the guise of the Volunteers), we must anticipate that the United States may declare war against China and prepare ourselves accordingly. Specifically, we should be ready for the possibility that the U.S. might employ its air force to bomb many of China’s major cities and industrial centers, as well as its navy to attack coastal areas.

(3) Of these two issues, the primary one is whether the Chinese military can effectively destroy the U.S. forces in Korea and thereby bring about a decisive resolution of the Korean question. Should our forces succeed in wiping out the U.S. troops in Korea—particularly the U.S. Eighth Army, a seasoned and highly capable formation—the seriousness of the second problem (a formal U.S.-China declaration of war) would remain, but the overall situation would then become advantageous both for the revolutionary front and for China. In other words, if the Korean conflict were effectively concluded through a victory over the U.S. forces (though it might not yet be formally resolved, as the U.S. could refuse to acknowledge Korea’s triumph for quite some time), then even if war were to break out openly between the United States and China, such a conflict would likely be limited in scale and duration. The most unfavorable scenario, however, would be one in which the Chinese army fails to inflict substantial defeats upon the U.S. forces in Korea, resulting in a protracted stalemate, while the United States has already entered into open hostilities with China. This would undermine China’s ongoing economic development program and give rise to discontent among the national bourgeoisie and certain segments of the population who fear war.

(4) Under the present circumstances, we have resolved to commence the deployment, starting on October 15[3], of the twelve divisions already redeployed to southern Manchuria[2] to designated positions in northern Korea—not necessarily as far as the 38th Parallel. There, our troops will simultaneously conduct defensive operations against any enemy daring to advance north of the 38th Parallel, engaging primarily in small-scale skirmishes to eliminate isolated enemy detachments and to gather comprehensive intelligence; at the same time, they will await the arrival of Soviet-supplied arms to re-equip themselves, after which they will coordinate with their Korean allies to launch a counteroffensive aimed at destroying the U.S. aggressor forces.

(5) Based on the information at our disposal, a typical U.S. corps—comprising two infantry divisions and one mechanized division—includes, among other weapons, tanks, artillery, and anti-aircraft guns, totaling approximately 1,500 pieces of field artillery ranging in caliber from 70 mm to 240 mm. By contrast, a single Chinese division (consisting of three regiments) possesses only thirty-six such guns[4]. Moreover, the enemy enjoys air superiority, whereas the nascent Chinese air force will not have more than three hundred combat aircraft available until February 1951. Consequently, at present, our forces lack the confidence to deliver a knockout blow by completely destroying an entire U.S. corps. Nevertheless, having already committed ourselves to fighting the Americans, we must be prepared, when the U.S. command concentrates a full corps against us in a particular theater of operations, to deploy four times the enemy’s manpower (that is, four Chinese corps confronting one U.S. corps) and to wield one and a half to twice the enemy’s firepower (employing between 2,200 and 3,000 pieces of artillery of 70 mm or greater caliber to counter the adversary’s 1,500 guns of comparable calibers), thereby ensuring a clean and thorough annihilation of the enemy corps.

(6) In addition to the aforementioned twelve divisions, we are currently mobilizing twenty-four more divisions from regions south of the Yangtze River and from Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, positioning them along the Longhai, Jinpu, and Beining railways as second- and third-wave reinforcements for the Korean campaign. These units are expected to be gradually committed to action during the spring and summer months of next year, contingent upon the evolving operational conditions.

Published in Selected Military Works of Mao Zedong (Internal Edition). (With manuscript.)

Notes

[1] Syngman Rhee was then serving as President of South Korea.

[2] Southern Manchuria (Nanman) was a historical designation referring to the area east of the Shenyang–Dalian railway line, including Zhuanghe, Dandong, Tonghua, Linjiang, Qingyuan, and Liaozhong southwest of Shenyang.

[3] The date was later changed to October 19.

[4] At the time, a U.S. division possessed seventy-six 70 mm+ mortars, one hundred and twenty recoilless rifles, seventy-two howitzers, one hundred and forty-four tank guns, and sixty-four antiaircraft guns, for a total of four hundred and seventy-six pieces of artillery. A U.S. corps, comprising three such divisions, thus boasted a grand total of fourteen hundred and twenty-eight artillery pieces. By contrast, a Chinese People’s Volunteer Army corps had one hundred and twenty-six 70 mm+ mortars, thirty-six infantry guns, and thirty-six mountain guns, amounting to a combined total of one hundred and ninety-eight artillery pieces.