Introduction 1. Stalin: From Yalta to the Far East 2. Korea – The Evolution of Soviet Postwar Policy 3. China – Twists and Turns of Soviet Postwar Policy 4. Paving Mao’s Road to Moscow 5. Mao’s Trip to Moscow 6. Stalin Reverses His Korea Policy 7. North Korea Crosses the 38th Parallel 8. China Decides: "Whatever the Sacrifice Necessary" 9. A New Stage in Sino-Soviet Cooperation
Author Shen Zhihua is professor of history at East China Normal University and Director of the Cold War History Studies Center on the Shanghai campus. He is also an adjunct professor of history at Peking University. He is author of several books on the cold war in Chinese.
Translator and Editor Neil Silver is a retired U.S. diplomat who worked in, on and around China. He served in embassies in Beijing, Tokyo, and Moscow, including as Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs in Beijing and Tokyo, and, in the State Department, worked on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian affairs.
"Shen has been at the forefront of Cold War studies in China, where
he founded the Center for Cold War Studies at the East China Normal
University in Shanghai in 2000. Through his painstaking and
indefatigable efforts, he has pushed the frontier of our knowledge
of China’s role in the Korean War further than anybody else. Now,
thanks to Neil Silver’s excellent translation, Shen’s seminal work
on the Korean War has been made available to non-Chinese-speaking
readers." - Qiang Zhai, University in Montgomery, China Review
International"A translation of a study published a decade ago in
Chinese, provides a useful reminder of the continuing utility of
old fashioned approaches, as well as their limitations… Through a
meticulous reconstruction of the available evidence on what Soviet,
Chinese, and North Korean diplomats and decision-makers said to
each other, Chinese scholar Shen Zhihua provides a vivid account of
the origins and course of the Korean War from the Communist side,
especially the period before the commencement of armistice
negotiations in July 1951." - Dr. William W. Stueck, Department of
History , The University of Georgia, U.S.A., in e-International
Relations, 2012
"Shen Zhihua is one of China’s foremost Cold War historians, [known
for his] unusually dispassionate and archive-based treatment of a
politically sensitive episode in China’s modern history, its
so-called 'War to Resist America and Assist Korea.' Now, thanks to
translator Neil Silver, a retired US diplomat, Shen’s illuminating
writings on the Korean War are accessible to readers in English.
Drawing on Soviet archives, Shen reconstructs the mind of Joseph
Stalin as he plotted a course that put "Greater Russia’s" national
security interests first, but did so in the language of Communist
internationalism and solidarity. Even more fascinating is Shen’s
attempt to explain Mao Zedong’s attitude toward Stalin and
strategic thinking behind joining the North Koreans in their fight
against the US. Explaining Beijing, Shen is on even surer footing,
and thinner ice, due to his combing of Chinese diplomatic sources.
Shen’s boldest thesis is that Stalin gave Kim Il Sung a green light
to invade South Korea out of frustration that the Soviet Union had
to give up control of an ice-free Pacific port in the Sino-Soviet
Treaty of 1950 — in other words, that the Korean War was indirectly
caused by Communist China’s ability to negotiate with the Soviets
as equals! Stalin expected the Chinese to back up the North Koreans
if the US sent troops — exactly as ended up happening." - John
Delury, Department of International Studies, Yonsei [Seoul]
University, in Global Asia: A Journal of the East Asian Foundation,
December 2012"Shen’s narrative underscores the agency and choices
of Beijing, and this realization, in turn, enables today’s
[Chinese] readers to question the dominant narrative, and to find
historical roots for a non-Communist China that has been emerging
since the 1990s. In this sense, this book can be read not just as a
historical inquiry, but also as a contemporary expression of an
intellectual struggle to reframe history in order to make sense of
China’s changing society, today. Perhaps, this explains why the
book has attracted a large readership in China, selling
approximately 100,000 legal and illegal copies since the
publication of the Chinese version. This book, then, is not just
for historians of the Korean War and Sino-Soviet relations in the
1950s, but for contemporary China-watchers observing and analyzing
today’s China." Masuda Hajimu, National University of Singapore, in
the "Journal of American-East Asian Relations" 19 (2012) 3-4. "The
publication of Shen Zhihua’s Mao, Stalin and the Korean War marks a
significant advance in English-language literature on the Korean
War.... [Shen] provides a much fuller picture of Beijing’s decision
to intervene than scholars have previously been able to
construct.... Neil Silver’s highly readable translation ...
includes a useful introductory essay by Yang Kuisong of Beijing
University, who takes issue with some of Shen’s conclusions
regarding Stalin’s motives for starting the war. With regard to
China’s decision to intervene, however, Yang concludes that Shen’s
account is "convincing, logical, dramatic, and on target". Indeed,
this path-breaking book is both fascinating and essential reading
for all scholars interested in the recent history of Northeast
Asia." - Kathryn Weathersby, H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews, April
2013“[Shen Zhihua’s] analysis of the making of the Sino-Soviet
alliance – and the author is one of the world’s foremost
authorities on the subject – is insightful and quite detailed....
[T]his is one of the analytically strongest and most-well
researched books on the ... Korean War.... [The translator’s]
valuable contribution to the internationalization of such
outstanding scholarship will certainly win appreciation [among]
historians of China’s foreign relations and the global Cold War.” -
Sergey Radchenko, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, in H-Diplo
Roundtable, June 2013 "Shen has produced a very valuable book. He
is particularly good at placing these evenings in their Sino-Soviet
contexy. His conclusions are based on a large number of archival
sources, both Russian and Chinese, and his copious use of block
quotes will be a major attraction for those looking for a good
textbook for advanced-level students. Neil Silver has also produced
a clear and crisp translation, which ,aes this a very readable
book. I, for one, will certainly be using it for teaching." -
Steven Casey, London School of Economics, in Diplomacy and
Statecraft
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