The War in Korea (1950)

From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Towards the end of June war broke out in Korea and was promptly followed by the armed intervention of America, Britain and other Powers, against the Russian-trained and equipped North Korean armies. No event of the post-war years has so forcibly exposed the illusion of abolishing war through the United Nations; and those who look beneath the wordy smokescreen put up by the opposing sides can see in this conflict the naked brutality of capitalism and the vindication of the Socialist case.

Korea, once independent, but long a coveted prize in the rival ambitions of Russia, China and Japan, was annexed by Japan in 1910 and remained a Japanese colony until 1945. On the surrender of Japan in that year it was occupied by Russia and America on the understanding that it would in five years be restored to full independence. The Russian sphere of influence in the north, larger in area but much smaller in population, contains the principal industries, while the American sphere is primarily agricultural. The two occupying armies left in 1948 and 1949 but already the Southern Government feared invasion from the North and in November 1948 applied to the United Nations for the American troops to remain. Frontier incidents soon occurred between North and South and a United Nations Commission Report in September, 1949 blamed both Governments for "Military posturing on both sides of the frontier.” The Report recognised that a basic cause of the country’s difficulties was the “world-wide antagonism between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A.”; it placed on record the general belief of the Korean population that those two Powers “ are responsible for the present plight of the country.”

According to a Special Correspondent of the Times an important factor in the attitude of the peasants towards the Northern and Southern Governments is that whereas in the North "the Russians put into effect a measure of land redistribution, without consulting the owners of property or tolerating their objections” the "rather corrupt” South Korean Government, ignoring American suggestions of similar measures in their territory. "failed through jealousies and sectional interests to meet the needs of the peasantry.” (Times. 6th July, 1950).

The main interest of the Powers in Korea arises from its geographical position. The special correspondent of the Times wrote: —

“Korea's unhappy history can, to a large extent he explained by her strategical importance The chief port in the South. Pusan, is only 120 miles from Japan. Its most north-easterly point is within 100 miles of Vladivostock. The Japanese used to refer to it as a ‘dagger pointed at the heart of Japan,' which it could be, although in fact Korea has always been more in evidence as a bridgehead of Japanese penetration of the Asiatic mainland."

If America, now the occupying Power in Japan, fears a Korea under Russian influence it is not surprising that the Chinese and Russian Governments equally regard the American intervention as directed against them, especially as, simultaneously with intervention in Korea the American Government declared its intention of protecting the remnants of General Chiang Kai-shek’s forces on the Chinese island of Formosa against attack from Communist controlled China. A reporter of the Evening Standard (1st July, 1950) put the Chinese Government’s point of view:—“The Chinese Communists’ determination to capture Formosa can only be understood in terms of their conviction that the United States intends to use Formosa as a base for invading China.”

When we turn to the statements of the Governments and parties justifying their attitude on the Korean war we see on all sides how high-sounding pacific sentiments can serve as a cover for the determination to wage war where capitalist interests are at stake. They are all against war, but . . . The American and British Governments are in the war because, so they say, unless they stop Russian aggression now a third world war is inevitable. “By accepting this fresh challenge he had every hope that a world war could be averted. That was the only way to preserve peace.” (Mr. Herbert Morrison speaking at Manchester. Times, 3rd July, 1950). To which the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Gromyko, retorts:—“The U.S. Government . . . demonstrated that, far from seeking to consolidate peace, it is on the contrary, an enemy of peace . . . The U.S. Government . . .  is gradually impelling the country step by step towards open war.” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).

So both sides are prepared to wage a small war because each affects to believe that the other side is preparing for a larger one.

Both sides use in their justification legalistic arguments about whether this war is a properly accredited United Nations war. The American-British side stands by a vote of the United Nations Security Council though American action actually preceded the vote; and Russia says it is all illegal because she was absent from the meeting. The only point of all such arguments is the implication that, if properly blessed by the United Nations, a war is not a war. And indeed the Egyptian Minister of State, Dr. Hamed Zaki, says so. He declared that “the events in Korea, he thought, amounted simply to international measures for peace and could not be regarded as a war.” (Daily Telegraph, 4th July, 1950). Nevertheless while his Government approves the United Nations action against aggression in Korea it declined to share in the action because it claims to be wrongfully deprived of United Nations aid against the aggression of Britain in continuing to maintain armed forces on Egyptian territory at the Suez Canal.

Both sides hide behind the plea that the other side started it, a plea that cannot be disproved because both Korean Governments had at some time in the past two years been responsible for frontier aggression and warlike threats. So if we are to accept that a United Nations war is not a war we are also asked to accept that it is quite all right for the “friends of peace” to wage war and refrain from any action to stop it provided that they believe the other side started hostilities.

The armies on both sides are conscripts and nobody thought it necessary to consult them or the Korean workers and peasants on the question whether they want to go to war.

Mr. Gromyko, seemingly in difficulties to explain how it happened that the North Koreans (who he alleges are the innocent victims of South Korean aggression) were, within a few days, advancing in force 50 miles or more into South Korea, has to fall back on the argument that this is a “civil war” and therefore the United Nations should keep out. He discovers, as a precedent, the American Civil War of 1861-5, and says:—“When attacked by the South, the armed forces of the North States did not, as is known, limit themselves to defence of their own territory. They transferred military operations to the territory of the Southern States . . .” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).

So, according to the Russian Government, which has just given its official blessing to the Peace Appeal of the Communist sponsored “World Peace Congress,” it is quite in order for peace lovers to go in for a war provided it can be legally defined as “Civil War” and though it may, like the American civil war, cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

In taking the American Civil War as his example Mr. Gromyko was closer to reality than perhaps he appreciates. He described that war as an example of a “Struggle waged by the peoples for national unity and for democratic rights.” If he had not been so anxious to find a precedent awkward for the American Government to answer he might have recalled that it was the Northern States' victory in that war that laid the foundation for the modern American capitalist-imperialism. All the so-called national unity movements, including the Russian have had similar causes and lead to similar capitalist-imperialist results.

From both sides there is the customary nauseating propaganda about the loftiness of their aims. According to the Daily Mail (3rd July, 1950), it is a war between good and evil. Quoting a declaration by the Bishop of Rochester about the need “to fight Godless materialism with aggressive evangelism ” the Mail, had the following in a leading article: —

“In those six words he summed up the reason for the war in Korea. In every war the Right is on your side—whoever you may be—and the Wrong on the other. But this is different . . . We are engaged in a fight of Christian civilisation against Communist materialism; against terror and darkness and the degradation of men and women; against slave labour and forced famine.”

Not to be beaten, the Daily Worker the following day (4th July, 1950), published the declaration of the North Korean Government that theirs is a “holy war for the freedom, unity and independence of their native land.” Forgetting the excuse that their participation in the war was supposed to be merely resistance against frontier violations by the South Koreans the North Korean Government, after describing the speedy victorious advance of its armies, goes on to declare that they will continue “liberating” South Korea and “will intensify their struggle.”

The Socialist Party of Great Britain asserts that this war, like all modern wars, is provoked by the economic rivalries that are inherent in capitalism and of which all the powers are guilty whether it be under the openly capitalist government of U.S.A. or the capitalism of Britain and Russia administered by Labour and Communist Governments. While the capitalist struggle for markets, raw materials and strategic points goes on it is idle to believe that war can be abolished. The United Nations and the muddled-headed anti-war declarations of bodies of so-called lovers of peace are equally futile to stop it.

The S.P.G.B. has often been told by its opponents that, notwithstanding basic differences of aims and principles, we should be willing to co-operate with the “friends of peace,” the Labour Party and the Communists and should support the United Nations organisation. The Korean war shows how impossible and useless such co-operation would be. What would they have us do? Should we “preserve peace” by supporting United Nations war in Korea? Should we help the Labour Party “to stop war” when almost all of the Labour M.P.’s have given their endorsement to participation in this war ? Should we endorse the sanctimonious peace propaganda of the Communist Party which consists in fact of demanding action to stop American-British intervention so that Russia’s North Korean allies can have a clear field in their war against the South?

They are all, in theory, the friends of peace and all in practice will wage war for the respective capitalist interests they support.

When, on 5th July, the policy of the British Labour Government was debated in Parliament there were just two Labour M.P.’s who took a different line. They called it backing a “socialist” policy; but what did it consist of? Their amendment demanded that the British Government should withdraw from intervention and should “repudiate all commitments which involve on our part any obligations to maintain the present division of the nations of the world into two powerful and dangerously poised hostile groups, and to declare in conformity with the Government’s socialist principles our determination to give every encouragement to all peoples aspiring for freedom and self-government.”

The movers of this are Labour M.P.’s and as such fully committed to the Labour Party programme of administering British capitalism in a capitalist world. They have accepted British capitalism, and its export drive to capture foreign markets from rival Powers, but want it to pursue a “socialist” policy! They think that one capitalist Power can escape from capitalism by standing aside from rival groups. This was indeed Mr. Attlee’s own policy five years ago but it is as non-Socialist and as impracticable now as it was then. They might just as well suggest that Korea could escape from being a pawn in the struggle of rival Great Powers merely by saying that it wants to be left alone.

A Socialist policy can only be pursued by a Socialist party which bases its principles on the necessity of international Socialist action by the workers of the world against capitalism everywhere, whether it be in America, Britain, Russia or in the smaller countries like Korea. Only a party built up on Socialist principles can have a Socialist policy. Only a party of Socialists can consistently oppose war, and in that struggle the socialist movement will receive no aid from the war-making false friends of peace. 

Edgar Hardcastle