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per No. 8 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Inter-
war. Later that question was also resolved on a
national Center for Scholars, November, 1993).
mutually acceptable basis. 1. I am indebted to a senior Korea specialist in Moscow
10. The Foreign Ministry archive contains lengthy,
who served in the Korea section of the Central
Measures undertaken by the Soviet govern-
detailed reports on political activity in South Korea sent
Committee s International Department in 1966 for a
ment after the death of Stalin in many ways
regularly from 1945-1950 by Soviet officials in North
description of the context in which this report was
facilitated the conclusion of the agreement. While
Korea to their superiors at the Foreign Ministry.
written. It is an indication of the enduring Soviet
in Moscow for Stalin s funeral, Zhou Enlai had
11. For a discussion of the evidence available to date,
concern for maintaining secrecy about the Korean War
conversations with Soviet leaders regarding the see my Working Paper, Soviet Aims in Korea and the
18 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN
Origins of the Korean War, 1945-50: New Evidence
ARCHIVES these documents have been declassified, but
From Russian Archives.
continued from page 1 that doesn t mean people should be allowed
12. Tworecently published accounts of Kim s April
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to look at them. 4 In the span of just a few
1950 visit to Beijing based on Chinese memoirs and
would have seemed utterly fanciful. Al- days, all the progress at the Central Commit-
interviews give conflicting accounts: Hao Yufan and
Zhai Zhihai, China s Decision to Enter the Korean
though the most important archives in Mos- tee archives that had been achieved since
War: History Revisited, China Quarterly 121 (March
cow are still sealed off and access to the August 1991 seemed to come undone, per-
1990), 100; and Chen Jian, The Sino-Soviet Alliance
Central Committee and Foreign Ministry haps irreparably.
and China s Entry into the Korean War, Cold War
collections is still highly problematic, the Fortunately, this adverse trend did not
International History Project Working Paper No. 1
(Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International
Russian government has made at least some greatly affect the Foreign Ministry archives,
Center for Scholars, 1991), 1, 20-21.
effort to release materials to researchers from where the degree of access for scholars con-
13. See Li Xiaobing, Wang Xi, and Chen Jian, Mao s
both Russia and abroad. When I first went to tinued gradually to expand. Although the
Dispatch of Chinese Troops to Korea: Forty-Six Tele-
the Central Committee archives and the For- main reading room at the Foreign Ministry
grams, July-October 1950, Chinese Historians 5:1
(Spring 1992), 67-68.
eign Ministry archives in 1992 I assumed I was closed temporarily in mid-1993 (a
14. For details, see Weathersby, Soviet Aims in
would have to fight constant battles to get the smaller, temporary one was then opened
Korea and the Origins of the Korean War, 1945-50:
documents I wanted. But soon after I began following complaints from researchers), this
New Evidence From Russian Archives.
15. Lieutenant-General Georgi Lobov, who com- working there, I found that the main problem was done mainly so that renovations and a
manded the 64th Corps in Korea, has estimated that
I was having was just the opposite: namely, much-needed expansion of the room could
from 1952 until the end of the war in 1953, the corps
how to cope with the thousands of pages of be completed. The clampdown at the CPSU
numbered about 26,000 personnel. Interview with G.
materials they were quite readily bringing archives may have engendered a somewhat
Lobov, Blank Spots of History: In the Skies of North
Korea, Aviatsiya i Kosmonavitka 10 (Oct. 1990), 30- me. Even after some three months of work in more cautious atmosphere at the Foreign
31, 34, in JPRS-UAC-91-003 (28 June 1991), 27-31.
those archives, the difficulty of absorbing Ministry, but the trend at the latter was still
Also see Aleksandr Smorchkov, Speak Korean in
everything remained as acute as ever. For a toward greater openness.
Battle, Komsomolskava Pravda, 9 June 1990; A.
brief while I even began to suspect that Furthermore, even at the post-1952 Cen-
Roshchin, During the Cold War on the East River,
Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, Jan. 1990, 131-39; inter- Strachey was justified in regarding igno- tral Committee archives the situation as of
view with Aleksandr Smorchkov, Moscow Interna-
rance as a scholarly virtue. mid-1993 was by no means hopeless. In the
tional Broadcast Service in Korean, 11 June 1990,
That feeling quickly dissipated, how- past, Prokopenko espoused a distinctly lib-
translated in FBIS-SOV-90-121 (22 June 1990), 9-10;
ever, when the situation at the archive con- eral view of the need to curb senseless,
and B.S. Abakumov, Sovetskie letchiki v nebe Korei,
taining the post-1952 holdings of the Central deliberately obstructive, and phony restric-
Voprosy Istorii, Jan. 1993, 129-39.
16. See, e.g., the interview with Lobov cited above.
Committee took a sharp turn for the worse in tions on supposedly classified materials,
17. James Sheply, How Dulles Averted War, Life,
the spring of 1993. The abrupt dismissal of arguing that only a small number of these
16 January 1956, 70-72; and Dwight D. Eisenhower,
one of the top archival officials, Vladimir documents genuinely contain secrets. 5 At
The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-
Chernous, in February 1993 was the first one point he even quit his job as director of
1956 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1963),
179-80. Furthermore, as Roger Dingman has shown,
sign of an impending clampdown. Chernous the USSR s Special Archive the re-
the United States had been threatening to use nuclear
had been a prominent advocate of greater pository in which captured document col-
weapons throughout the war. For discussions of this
openness in the CPSU archives. Two months lections and other highly sensitive items
debate see Roger Dingman, Atomic Diplomacy Dur-
ing the Korean War, International Security 13:3 (Win- later the director of that same Central Com- were stored because he could no longer
ter 1988/89), 50-91, and Rosemary Foot, Nuclear
mittee repository, Rem Usikov, was also put up with the extremely ignorant people
Coercion and the Ending of the Korean Conflict,
fired after being accused of laxness in en- in the Main Archival Directorate
International Security 13:3 (Winter 1988/89), 92-112.
forcing regulations on access to confidential (Glavarkhiv) who insist on keeping every-
18. For a translation of these documents see my
material. 2 Although Usikov had been a thing secret. 6 Moreover, in conversations
forthcoming article, The Soviet Union and the Korean
War: New Evidence from the Soviet Archives, in the
long-time CPSU functionary and was never with Cold War International History Project
winter 1993-94 issue of The Journal of American-East
a proponent of opening up the archives, he officials in July 1993, both Prokopenko and
Asian Relations.
had gone along if only grudgingly with other archival authorities expressed a will-
19. This figure is higher than the estimates of U.S.
the more relaxed policy that was introduced ingness to continue cooperation with for-
intelligence, according to which by June 25 the KPA
numbered between 87,500 and 99,000 men. See the
in the latter half of 1992 and early 1993.3 eign researchers and projects. Hence, even
discussion of these figures in Cumings, The Origins of
Thus, his ouster and the initial charges lodged before Prokopenko was replaced because of
the Korean War, Vol. II, 452-53.
against him were a further indicator that a health reasons by Natalia Tomilina in Sep-
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