Kim Il Sung Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Korean War === {{main|Korean War}} [[File:Kim Il-sung signed for Korean Armistice Agreement.jpg|thumb|right|Kim signs the [[Korean Armistice Agreement]]]] Archival material suggests<ref name="weathersby432">Weathersby, Kathryn, "The Soviet Role in the Early Phase of the Korean War", ''The Journal of American-East Asian Relations'' 2, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 432</ref><ref name="goncharov">Goncharov, Sergei N., Lewis, John W. and Xue Litai, ''Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War'' (1993)</ref><ref name="mansourov94107">Mansourov, Aleksandr Y., ''Stalin, Mao, Kim, and China's Decision to Enter the Korean War, 16 September – 15 October 1950: New Evidence from the Russian Archives'', Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issues 6–7 (Winter 1995/1996): 94–107</ref> that North Korea's decision to invade South Korea was Kim's initiative, not a Soviet one. Evidence suggests that [[Soviet intelligence]], through its espionage sources in the US government and British [[Secret Intelligence Service|SIS]], had obtained information on the limitations of US atomic bomb stockpiles as well as defense program cuts, leading Stalin to conclude that the [[Harry S. Truman|Truman]] administration would not intervene in Korea.<ref>Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatoli, Schecter, Jerrold L., and Schecter, Leona P., ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster'', Little Brown, Boston (1994)</ref> [[China]] acquiesced only reluctantly to the idea of Korean reunification after being told by Kim that Stalin had approved the action.<ref name="weathersby432" /><ref name="goncharov" /><ref name="mansourov94107" /> The Chinese did not provide North Korea with direct military support (other than logistics channels) until United Nations troops, largely US forces, had nearly reached the [[Yalu River]] late in 1950. At the outset of the war in June and July, North Korean forces captured [[Seoul]] and occupied most of the South, save for a small section of territory in the southeast region of the South that was called the [[Battle of Pusan Perimeter|Pusan Perimeter]]. But in September, the North Koreans were driven back by the US-led counterattack that started with the UN landing in [[Incheon]], followed by a combined South Korean-US-UN offensive from the Pusan Perimeter. By October, UN forces had retaken Seoul and invaded the North to reunify the country under the South. On 19 October, US and South Korean troops captured P'yŏngyang, forcing Kim and his government to flee north, first to [[Sinuiju]] and eventually into [[Kanggye]].<ref name=mossman>{{cite book |last=Mossman |first=Billy |date=29 June 2005 |title=United States Army in the Korean War: Ebb and Flow November 1950 – July 1951|publisher=University Press of the Pacific |page=51}}</ref><ref name=sandler>{{cite book |last=Sandler |first=Stanley |date=1999 |title=The Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished |url=https://archive.org/details/koreanwarnovicto0000sand |url-access=registration |publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |page=[https://archive.org/details/koreanwarnovicto0000sand/page/108 108]}}</ref> On 25 October 1950, after sending various warnings of their intent to intervene if UN forces did not halt their advance,<ref name="Halberstam 2007">David Halberstam. Halberstam, David (25 September 2007). The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Hyperion. Kindle Edition.</ref>{{rp|23}} Chinese troops in the thousands crossed the Yalu River and entered the war as allies of the KPA. There were nevertheless tensions between Kim and the Chinese government. Kim had been warned of the likelihood of an amphibious landing at Incheon, which was ignored. There was also a sense that the North Koreans had paid little in war compared to the Chinese who had fought for their country for decades against foes with better technology.<ref name="Halberstam 2007"/>{{rp|335–336}} The UN troops were forced to withdraw and Chinese troops retook P'yŏngyang in December and Seoul in January 1951. In March, UN forces began a new offensive, retaking Seoul and advanced north once again halting at a point just north of the [[38th parallel north|38th Parallel]]. After a series of offensives and counter-offensives by both sides, followed by a grueling period of largely static [[trench warfare]] that lasted from the summer of 1951 to July 1953, the front was stabilized along what eventually became the permanent "[[Military Demarcation Line|Armistice Line]]" of 27 July 1953. Over 2.5 million people died during the Korean War.<ref>Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, [http://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Seminars/SeminarsF09/PVSEMF08/LacinaGleditschMonitoringTrendsInGlobalCombatEJP2005.pdf Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012043824/http://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Seminars/SeminarsF09/PVSEMF08/LacinaGleditschMonitoringTrendsInGlobalCombatEJP2005.pdf |date=12 October 2013 }}, European Journal of Population (2005) 21: 145–166.</ref> Chinese and Russian documents from that time reveal that Kim became increasingly desperate to establish a truce, since the likelihood that further fighting would successfully unify Korea under his rule became more remote with the UN and US presence. Kim also resented the Chinese taking over the majority of the fighting in his country, with Chinese forces stationed at the center of the front line, and the Korean People's Army being mostly restricted to the coastal flanks of the front.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/neh/interactives/timeline/data/102550.html|title=25 October 1950|website=teachingamericanhistory.org|access-date=31 March 2019|archive-date=16 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916090341/http://teachingamericanhistory.org/static/neh/interactives/timeline/data/102550.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page