[Translator's Note: The Chinese Communist Party leadership made the decision to enter the Korean War in October 1950. For several years, scholars have relied upon Chinese documents available since the late 1980s to discuss the process by which Beijing made that decision. Among these documents, one of the most crucial was a telegram Mao Zedong purportedly sent to Stalin on 2 October 1950, in which the CCP chairman informed the Soviet leader that Beijing had decided "to send a portion of our troops, under the name of Volunteers, to Korea, assisting the Korean comrades to fight the troops of the United States and its running dog Syngman Rhee."
        With the opening of Russian archives in recent years, however, a sharply different version of Mao's 2 October 1950 message to Stalin has emerged, according to which Mao related that because dispatching Chinese troops to Korea "may entail extremely serious consequences," many CCP leaders believed China should "show caution" about entering the conflict, and consequently Beijing had tentatively decided against entering the war.
        How did such a sharp discrepancy between the Chinese and Soviet versions of this communication occur?  Which (if either) is correct? What really happened in Beijing and between Beijing and Moscow in October 1950? In the previous issue of the CWIHP Bulletin (Winter 1995/1996), which first published the Russian version of the disputed telegram, Russian scholar Alexandre Mansourov questioned the accuracy and even authenticity of the Chinese version. Debate continued in January 1996 at a conference on "New Evidence on the Cold War in Asia" organized by CWIHP and hosted by Hong Kong University.  In this article, specially prepared for the Bulletin, a participant in that conference, Chinese historian Shen Zhihua, presents the results of his investigation in Beijing concerning the Chinese version of Mao's telegram and addresses Mansourov's question. An earlier version appeared in spring 1996 in the Beijing publication Dangshi yanjiu ziliao (Party History Research Materials.--C.J.]

        As I have argued elsewhere,¹ China's decision to enter the Korean War was based primarily on crucial national security (as opposed to ideological) considerations. After conflict on the peninsula broke out into large-scale war in June 1950, and especially when the military situation turned from North Korea's favor to disfavor that autumn, the attitudes of China and the Soviet Union toward the Korean situation underwent profound changes, causing their policies to diverge.. While the Soviet Union became increasingly cautious about engaging in Korea (at one point, Moscow even considered abandoning the North Korean communist regime to defeat), China began to adopt a strategy of positive defense, a strategy which would eventually lead to its entry into the war. The Chinese leaders' primary concern was how to guarantee stable development for the People's Republic of China, which had only come into existence the previous fall after an exhausting civil war. However, if necessary, the Chinese leaders did not fear entering a direct military confrontation with the United States, the number one power in the world, under the banner of "resisting America and assisting Korea, defending our home and our nation."

        As is by now well known, China's final decision to enter the war was reached in the first three weeks of October 1950, after the successful U.S.-U.N. landing at Inchon put the North Korean regime in danger of imminent collapse. On 28 September 1950, the (North) Korean Labor Party politburo decided to solicit support. On September 29 and 30, Kim Il-song and Pak Hon-yong sent two urgent letters to, respectively, Stalin and Mao Zedong, requesting direct Soviet and Chinese military support.² Stalin immediately kicked the ball to the Chinese. In a telegram to Mao Zedong on October 1, Stalin urged the Chinese to "move at least five to six divisions toward the 38th parallel at once," without mentioning what Moscow would do to support the North Koreans.³ At the most crucial moment of the Korean War, Mao and his comrades in Beijing had to decide if they would take on the main responsibility and burden for rescuing North Korea.

        How did the Chinese leaders respond to Stalin's and Kim Il-song's requests to dispatch Chinese troops to Korea? Because of the recent emergence of two sharply different versions of Mao Zedong's telegram to Stalin dated 2 October 1950, this has become an issue under serious debate among Chinese and foreign scholars.