Peng Dehuai - The Korean War

The Korean War

North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. After receiving its endorsement from the United Nations, the United States landed its first troops in Korea on September 15. On October 1, the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, UN forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea. There was some disagreement within China's leadership about how to react to the American push to the Chinese border: Mao and Zhou wanted direct military intervention, while most Chinese leaders believed that China should not enter the war unless China was directly attacked. Lin Biao was Mao's first choice to lead the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) into Korea, but Lin refused, citing his bad health.

Mao then sought the support of Peng, who had not yet taken a strong position, to lead the PVA. Peng flew to Beijing from Xi'an (where he was still administering northwest China and directing the incorporation of Xinjiang into the PRC), and arrived on October 4. Peng listened to both sides of the debate, and on October 5 decided to support Mao. Peng's support for Mao's position changed the atmosphere of the meeting, and most leaders changed their positions to support a direct Chinese intervention in the Korean War. On October 5 Peng was named the Commander and the Commissar of the People's Volunteer Army and held both titles until the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. Mao directed China's general strategy, and Zhou was appointed general commander, coordinating Peng's forces with the Soviet and North Korean governments, and the rest of the Chinese government. Over the next week, Peng established a headquarters in Shenyang, and prepared his invasion strategy with his officers.

After Zhou and Lin negotiated Stalin's approval, Peng attended a conference in Beijing with Mao, Zhou, and Gao Gang on October 18, and they ordered the first wave of Chinese soldiers—in total more than 260,000 men—to cross into Korea on the night of October 19. On October 25 the PVA had its first confrontation with UN troops at Onjong and Unsan, and pushed the UN forces south of the Chongchon River by November 4 in the aftermath of First Phase Campaign. From November 24 to December 24, Peng directed 380,000 PVA troops to confront UN forces in the Second Phase Campaign, and he successfully recovered the area north of the thirty-eighth parallel. Despite his personal reservations, Peng then began an ambitious campaign to take the area south of the 38th parallel in order to fulfill Mao's political objectives for the war. About 230,000 Chinese soldiers crossed into South Korean territory on December 31 and captured Seoul as part of the Third Phase Campaign, but were forced to evacuate it with heavy losses on March 14, 1951 as the UN forces counterattacked during the course of Fourth Phase Campaign. Peng launched a final Fifth Phase Campaign from April 22 – June 10 to retake Seoul with 548,000 Chinese troops, but it failed, and the Korean War came to a standstill just above the 38th parallel. In the evaluation of Korean War historian Roy Edger Appleman, Peng's performances in the war were unremarkable in terms of military talents despite his aggressiveness and leadership skills. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards claimed that Peng's successful campaigns, from October–December 1950, were fought under Mao's direction, but that his unsuccessful campaigns, from January–May 1951, were organized by Peng against Mao's instructions. Modern scholars reject this interpretation, and credit Peng with both the successes and failures of the war.

PVA casualties during the first 12 months of the Korean War, from October 1950 to October 1951, were heavy. Soviet material support was slight; and, because the only available means to transport supplies into Korea for the first year of the war was a force of 700,000 labourers, all available supplies were light and limited. The UN forces also had complete air superiority. These logistic constraints later caused 45,000 Chinese soldiers to freeze to death between November 27 and December 12, 1950, due to inadequate winter clothing. China's insufficient artillery, armor, and air support meant that Peng was forced to rely heavily on human wave tactics until the summer of 1951: stealthy fireteams attacked in column against weak points in enemy defenses, hoping that surprise, attrition and perseverance would break the enemy lines. Participants even drank large quantities of Kaoliang in order to improve their courage. Some of the worst Chinese battle losses occurred during the Second and the Fifth Phase Campaign: up to 40 percent of all Chinese forces in Korea were rendered combat ineffective between November 25 and December 24, 1950, and about 12 Chinese divisions were lost in during April 22 – June 10, 1951. All in all, over a million Chinese soldiers became casualties during the course of the war. Peng justified the PVA's high casualty rate by his almost religions belief in the cause of communism and the Communist Party, and his belief that the ends of the conflict justified the means. Some accounts even claimed that Peng invented the human wave tactic under the name "short attack" in order to exploit his manpower advantage.

In November 19, 1951, Zhou called a conference in Shenyang to discuss improvements to China's logistical network, but these did little to directly resolve China's supply problems. Peng visited Beijing several times over the next several months to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. By the winter of 1951–52, Peng became convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On February 24, 1952, the Central Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government. Peng also became a zealous supporter of the Three-anti Campaign due to his belief that corruption and waste were the main causes of the PVA's hardship.

Truce talks began on July 10, 1951, but proceeded slowly. Peng was recalled back to China in April 1952 due to a head tumor, and Chen Geng and Deng Hua later assumed Peng's responsibilities in the PVA. On July 27, 1953, Peng personally signed the Armistice agreement in Panmunjom, ending the Korean War. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on July 31, Kim Il Sung awarded Peng his second North Korean "National Flag" Order of Merit, First Class (the first had been awarded to Peng in 1951), and awarded Peng the title of "Hero of the Korean Democratic People's Republic". Peng also received a hero's welcome in Tiananmen Square on August 11. Chinese troops remained in North Korea until 1958.

Peng's experiences in the Korean War strongly affected his outlook over the next decade. The heavy losses sustained during the first year of the war convinced him that the Chinese army needed to change by introducing modern equipment and standards of professionalism, and by developing new tactics more suited to modern conventional warfare. He came to believed strongly that military training should never be reduced in favour of political indoctrination, and that military commanders should enjoy seniority over commissars. Because the only communist country fully prepared for modern technical warfare was the Soviet Union, Peng grew to see the Soviet Red Army as a model for the development of China's PLA. These perspectives, and Peng's long-held conviction that the primary role of the Communist Party was to improve the welfare of the common people, were contrary to Mao's political goals, contributing to their eventual conflict in the late 1950s.