Today , the 25th of June is the 72 nd anniversary of the start of the Korean War which is correctly known as the Fatherland Liberation War in People’s Korea because it was not a war between Koreans but between the young Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the US imperialists plus their satellite states including Britain . It was a war to defend the independence of the DPRK ,
The mainstream media and history books will falsely accuse the DPRK of starting the war and even that it ‘invaded south Korea ‘ . No one stops to think whether you can actually invade your own country .
Although the war occurred over 7 decades ago , the myths still abound . The accusation that the DPRK started the war is very much part and parcel of the demonisation of the DPRK and is used to justify both the US occupation of south Korea and even the sanctions against the DPRK because the argument is that although the DPRK is one of 8 or 9 states with nuclear weapons ,it cannot be trusted with them because of what was supposed to have happened on the 25th of June 1950. Blaming the DPRK for the war , lets US imperialism off the hook for starting a war that saw millions of civilian deaths as well as the destruction of property amounting to billions of dollars.
As we know the war broke on the 25th of June 1950 , some 72 years ago . However it can be said that it really started much earlier , from about 1947 when south Korea began making raids into the northern half of Korea . One could argue that the war began on the 8th of September 1945 when US troops landed in south Korea or even in 1866 when the US sent its pirate ship the General Sherman up the River Taedong in Pyongyang to loot and pillage.
The US, which had occupied south Korea in 1945 and created a puppet regime in south Korea, was dead against the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in September 1948 . In those days the US imperialists simply did not believe in the so-called containment of communism but in 'Rollback' .John Foster Dulles, US secretary of state was a well-known architect of this policy. Dulles had made a lot of money through dealings with the German Nazi party in the 1930s ..Dulles wrote a book called “War or Peace “ arguing for “liberating “ the socialist countries . He wrote that “We should make it clear ............ in Eastern Europe and Asia , that we do not accept the status quo ........ and eventual liberation is an essential and enduring part of our foreign policy” . In other words the aim of the US was to crush socialism by means of force whether direct military force or other kinds of force.
Internally the US banned the Communist Party and unleashed a wave of anti-communist hysteria known as McCarthyism in which even non-communist liberals were persecuted.Dissenting opinions were crushed by people being hounded out of jobs , vilified in the media and in some cases imprisoned .In the most extreme example Ethel and Julius Rosenberg , 2 US communists , were executed on trumped up espionage charges in 1953. The Rosenbergs were blamed for US defeats in the Korean War.
In south Korea the US established a puppet army under the control of a US military advisory group . The US armed and primed south Korea for a war against the DPRK . According to an official document released by the U.S. Congress, they handed over more than 145,000 rifles, some 2,000 machine guns and submachine guns, over 2,000 pieces of various calibres, 4,900 odd vehicles, 79 warships and others to the south Korean puppet army in 1949 alone. It is noticeable that the south Korean puppet navy was greatly expanded.
. The U.S. imperialists deployed most of the south Korean puppet army on the front along the 38th parallel and perpetrated armed provocations against the DPRK. In1949 the south Korean puppet army intruded into areas of the DPRK such as Mt Songak, Mt Unpha and other areas causing a lot of damage and casualties. The DPRK was attacked a total of 2 ,617 times.
On January 26th 1950 the US concluded the US-south Korea Mutual Defence Treaty. On the 14th of April 1950 a then secret directive of US National Security Council directive NSC 68 authorised the start of the Korean war.
Dulles, the architect of the US rollback policy, actually visited south Korea in June 1950 just one week before the war started . It is impossible for this to have been a coincidence . Dulles even inspected the frontline along the 38th parallel and a picture shows him looking at a map .
Dulles said to the south Korean puppet army “No strong enemy whatever would stand against you. But I hope you will strive ever harder because the day is not so far off when you’ll have to display your great might for your own sake."
Addressing the south Korean puppet “national assembly “ he said "You are not alone. You will never be alone so long as you continue to play worthily your part in the great design for the freedom of human beings.”. This was a coded message to the south Korean puppets to start the war .
After visiting south Korea Dulles stopped off in Tokyo and met with General Bradley and General Douglas McArthur as well as US defence secretary Johnson . Again this meeting cannot have been coincidental. On the 22rd of June Dulles stated, somewhat cryptically and enigmatically, “The United States will soon take some positive action “ It was evident that the meeting was to finalise the provocation of the Korean War.
The DPRK’s population was only half that of south Korea , so it would be absurd for it to try and initiate a war against south Korea . Moreover on the day the war broke out it was pointed out by a British soldier in Korea , Julian Tunstall that ‘ the Rhee army had six fully equipped divisions sitting just below or quite close to the 38th parallel ... So far it can be judged the KPA had 2 below combat strength divisions on or near the 38th the parallel’.
On the 23rd of June, south Korean puppet forces began an artillery bombardment of the areas north of the 38th parallel.
On the early morning of the 25th June the south Korean forces under the command of the American Military Advisory Group started the attack on the DPRK . The 17th regiment of the south Korean puppet army pushed forward in Taetan and Pyoksong and the First Infantry attacked in the Kaesong area . They intruded 12 kilometres into DPRK territory. The DPRK demanded they stop at once but this was ignored so the DPRK went over to the counteroffensive. It should be noted that the DPRK only launched the counter-offensive after warning south Korea to halt its attack.
On the morning of the 25th of June 650 US women and children were evacuated by the Norwegian ship the Reinford at 3am in the morning. US accounts put the war as starting at 6am so how would the US know in advance to plan the evacuation of its nationals?.
The famous American journalist John Gunther wrote his book “Riddle of McArthur” that a US staff officer in Tokyo on the 25th of June was called to the phone and came back and whispered, “A big story has just broken. The South Koreans have attacked North Korea."’
Choe Dok Sin ,former South Korean Army commander, south Korean foreign minister and South Korean ambassador to the UN stated he saw the secret order of Syngham Rhee(south Korean puppet dictator) to start the war .
Lastly , I was told an interesting story by a member of my old Communist Party of Great Britain branch in the 1980s . He had been a teacher , in fact head of an English department at a local school . He recalled how on the 26th of June he had been with a party of schoolchildren being shown around the offices of the now defunct ‘Daily Herald ‘ newspaper . At the beginning of the visit the ticker tape from international press agencies read that south Korea had attacked the DPRK but by the end of the visit , this had been changed to the DPRK attacking south Korea . An early example of how the media manipulate the news .
All the above facts show that it was not the DPRK that provoked or started the Fatherland Liberation War but the south Korean puppets egged on by their Yankee overlords.The US imperialists were hungry for profits and conquest. The US imperialists fought an unjust aggressive war against the Korean people. The US imperialists launched a war of conquest against the DPRK , a war to destroy the Juche-based people's democratic system in the DPRK as well as to destroy socialism in Asia and the world.
The Korean people led by the great revolutionary leader and national hero Marshal KIM IL SUNG, a true military strategic genius and ever-victorious iron-willed brilliant commander fought a fierce anti- imperialist, anti- US struggle against US imperialism and the allied forces of international reaction. It was a fierce class struggle against the enemies of the people. The Korean people fought a national liberation war against the Yankee imperialist invaders, a war of justice for independence and freedom and also a war to reunify the sacred motherland. The Fatherland Liberation War of the Korean people proved to be a crucible of the Songun idea.
Lastly , we must say something about Britain’s role in the war and the horrendous atrocities committed by the US imperialists . To my eternal shame, Britain sent troops to fight against the Korean people on the side of the US. Young British men were basically cannon fodder for US imperialism . It is significant that the UK found itself fighting not only on the same side as US imperialism but with Apartheid South Africa, Colombia of the death squads, fascist Greece , Haile Selaissie's Ethiopia and other very reactionary regimes against an independent , progressive ,democratic and anti-imperialist government . Thus the Korean war was a totally reactionary one that held back the liberation struggle of the Korean people and the reunification of Korea.
Indeed the British role in Korea for the past 150 years has been a most shameful one. It was Britain that secretly helped Japan to invade Korea and colonise Korea.
The government of Clement Attlee , which is praised in some quarters but was actually responsible for surrendering Britain's independence by taking the UK into NATO and also purging communists from the civil service ,was a willing accomplice in the aggression against the Korean people. Attlee sent young men to fight in Korea against the Korean People's Army commanded by the great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG. In order to pay for the cost of sending the troops to Korea, prescription charges were increased.
Among the British forces sent to the Korean front was the Royal Ulster Rifles which had suppressed the Irish people and committed many atrocities during the northern Ireland troubles. The British Army held back the reunification of Korea in the 1950s and also held back the reunification of Ireland.
The US imperialists committed horrendous atrocities in the Fatherland Liberation War . As the great leader President KIM IL SUNG said ‘Engels once called the British army the most brutal army. During the Second World War, the German fascist army surpassed the barbarism of the British army. No human brain could ever imagine more diabolic and terrible cruelty then those done by the Hitler gangsters at that time. But in Korea, the Americans have far exceeded the Hitlerites!”
The barbarity of the US imperialists during the war was beyond human description.At least 1.2 million people were killed by the US 35,383 people were murdered by the US at Sinchon -ri and 1,050 people at Susan-ri (one third of the population of the area), just to give a few examples.
I myself have visited the Sinchon museum 5 times , 3 times to the old museum and the new expanded and modernised museum twice . I have met survivors of the massacre by US troops and also participated in an international rally at Sinchon in 2013 . In 2017 I actually made a speech at Sinchon.
It was perhaps no coincidence that the founder of the US Nazi Party George Lincoln Rockwell was actually fought for the US during the Fatherand Liberation War .
So to conclude, the Fatherland Liberation War was provoked by the US imperialists as part of their plan to rollback the tide of socialism in Asia and colonise Asia . Britain played a most reactionary role as a satellite state of US imperialism . The war was characterised by mass killings and saturation bombing by the US .
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