Mao, Stalin and the Korean War

Mao, Stalin and the Korean War
Author: Shen Zhihua
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136281282

This book examines relations between China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, and provides an insight into Chinese thinking about the Korean War. This volume is based on a translation of Shen Zihua’s best-selling Chinese-language book, which broke the mainland Chinese taboo on publishing non-heroic accounts of the Korean War.The author combined information detailed in Soviet-era diplomatic documents (released after the collapse of the Soviet Union) with Chinese memoirs, official document collections and scholarly monographs, in order to present a non-ideological, realpolitik account of the relations, motivations and actions among three Communist actors: Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung. This new translation represents a revisionist perspective on trilateral Communist alliance relations during the Korean War, shedding new light on the origins of the Sino-Soviet split and the rather distant relations between China and North Korea. It features a critical introduction to Shen's work and the text is based on original archival research not found in earlier books in English. This book will be of much interest to students of Communist China, Stalinist Russia, the Korean War, Cold War Studies and International History in general.

Mao, Stalin and the Korean War

Mao, Stalin and the Korean War
Author: Zhihua Shen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2012
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415516455

This book examines relations between China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, and provides an insight into Chinese thinking about the Korean War. This volume is based on a translation of Shen Zihua's best-selling Chinese-language book, which broke the mainland Chinese taboo on publishing non-heroic accounts of the Korean War.The author combined information detailed in Soviet-era diplomatic documents (released after the collapse of the Soviet Union) with Chinese memoirs, official document collections and scholarly monographs, in order to present a non-ideological, realpolitik account of the relations, motivations and actions among three Communist actors: Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung. This new translation represents a revisionist perspective on trilateral Communist alliance relations during the Korean War, shedding new light on the origins of the Sino-Soviet split and the rather distant relations between China and North Korea. It features a critical introduction to Shen's work and the text is based on original archival research not found in earlier books in English. This book will be of much interest to students of Communist China, Stalinist Russia, the Korean War, Cold War Studies and International History in general.

Uncertain Partners

Uncertain Partners
Author: Serge? Nikolaevich Goncharov
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 438
Release: 1993
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780804721158

Using major new sources, including cables between Mao and Stalin and interviews with key actors, this book tells the inside story of the Sino-Soviet alliance and the origins of the Korean War.

Odd Man Out

Odd Man Out
Author: Richard C. Thornton
Publisher: Potomac Books
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN:

Thus, the strife between North Koreans and South Koreans was secondary, and the war itself was avoidable."--BOOK JACKET.

Fearing the Worst

Fearing the Worst
Author: Samuel F. Wells Jr.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 518
Release: 2019-11-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231549946

After World War II, the escalating tensions of the Cold War shaped the international system. Fearing the Worst explains how the Korean War fundamentally changed postwar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Samuel F. Wells Jr. examines how military and political events interacted to escalate the conflict. Decisions made by the Truman administration in the first six months of the Korean War drove both superpowers to intensify their defense buildup. American leaders feared the worst-case scenario—that Stalin was prepared to start World War III—and raced to build up strategic arms, resulting in a struggle they did not seek out or intend. Their decisions stemmed from incomplete interpretations of Soviet and Chinese goals, especially the belief that China was a Kremlin puppet. Yet Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung all had their own agendas, about which the United States lacked reliable intelligence. Drawing on newly available documents and memoirs—including previously restricted archives in Russia, China, and North Korea—Wells analyzes the key decision points that changed the course of the war. He also provides vivid profiles of the central actors as well as important but lesser known figures. Bringing together studies of military policy and diplomacy with the roles of technology, intelligence, and domestic politics in each of the principal nations, Fearing the Worst offers a new account of the Korean War and its lasting legacy.

Mao's Military Romanticism

Mao's Military Romanticism
Author: Shu Guang Zhang
Publisher:
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

"Breaks new ground in analyzing China's decision to enter the war and its subsequent struggle to hold its own against the world's most powerful nation. Should stand for some time as the standard comprehensive treatment of China in the Korean War". -- William Stueck, author of The Korean War. "Offers provocative insights into Mao's thinking about strategy, tactics, and the human costs of warfare. Highly recommended". -- John Lewis Gaddis, author of The Long Peace.

Mao's China and the Cold War

Mao's China and the Cold War
Author: Jian Chen
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807898902

This comprehensive study of China's Cold War experience reveals the crucial role Beijing played in shaping the orientation of the global Cold War and the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The success of China's Communist revolution in 1949 set the stage, Chen says. The Korean War, the Taiwan Strait crises, and the Vietnam War--all of which involved China as a central actor--represented the only major "hot" conflicts during the Cold War period, making East Asia the main battlefield of the Cold War, while creating conditions to prevent the two superpowers from engaging in a direct military showdown. Beijing's split with Moscow and rapprochement with Washington fundamentally transformed the international balance of power, argues Chen, eventually leading to the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the decline of international communism. Based on sources that include recently declassified Chinese documents, the book offers pathbreaking insights into the course and outcome of the Cold War.

A Misunderstood Friendship

A Misunderstood Friendship
Author: Zhihua Shen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2020-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231553676

Today, the People’s Republic of China is North Korea’s only ally on the world stage, a tightly knit relationship that goes back decades. Both countries portray their partnership as one of “brotherly affection” based on shared political ideals—an alliance “as tight as lips to teeth”—even though relations have deteriorated in recent years due to China’s ascendance and North Korea’s intransigence. In A Misunderstood Friendship, leading diplomatic historians Zhihua Shen and Yafeng Xia draw on previously untapped primary source materials revealing tensions and rivalries to offer a unique account of the China–North Korea relationship. They unravel the twists and turns in high-level diplomacy between China and North Korea from the late 1940s to the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Through unprecedented access to Chinese government documents, Soviet and Eastern European archives, and in-depth interviews with former Chinese diplomats and North Korean defectors, Shen and Xia reveal that the tensions that currently plague the alliance between the two countries have been present from the very beginning of the relationship. They significantly revise existing narratives of the Korean War, China’s postwar aid to North Korea, Kim Il-sung’s ideological and strategic thinking, North Korea’s relations with the Soviet Union, and the importance of the Sino-U.S. rapprochement, among other issues. A Misunderstood Friendship adds new depth to our understanding of one of the most secretive and significant relationships of the Cold War, with increasing relevance to international affairs today.

Mao

Mao
Author: Alexander V. Pantsov
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 784
Release: 2013-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451654480

"Originally published in a different version in 2007 in Russian by Molodaia Gvardiia as Mao Tzedun"--Title page verso.

Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973

Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973
Author: Danhui Li
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2018-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1498511678

In the twenty-first century, students of Cold War history are fortunate to have the fruits of several major works on the Sino-Soviet split by European and American scholars. What is lacking in English literature, however, is a book based on international documentation, especially Chinese archival documents that tell the story from the Chinese perspective. Based on archival materials from several countries—particularly China—and more than twenty years of research on the subject, two prominent Chinese historians, Danhui Li and Yafeng Xia, offer a comprehensive look at the Sino–Soviet split from 1959, when visible cracks appeared in the Sino-Soviet alliance, to 1973, when China’s foreign policy changed from an “alliance with the Soviet Union to oppose the United States” to “aligning with the United States to oppose the Soviet Union.” Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973: A New History is a reevaluation of the history of the Sino-Soviet split and offers the first comprehensive account of it from a Chinese perspective. This book, together with its prequel Mao and the Sino–Soviet Partnership, 1945–1959: A New History, is important because any changes in Sino-Soviet relations at the time affected, and to a great extent determined, the fate of the socialist bloc. More importantly, it directly impacted and transformed the international political situation during the Cold War. These two books promise to be a reevaluation of the history of the Sino-Soviet alliance from its birth to its demise. These fascinating books will be a crucial resource for all those interested in the topic and will stand as the definitive work on the Sino-Soviet alliance for years to come.