People who should have them because of their achievements. I will start with dr. Alan millett. There are three of them. One who served his country, a retired colonel in the marine corps reserve. Another is a prolific author, a war to be won, and semper fidelis, and a third volume in preparation as we speak. A one volume history of the war in korea coming out next year. He says at that point, that is all anyone can take on the war in korea. But a prolific and awardwinning author. And of course, the educator. 37 years at the ohio state university. And now at the university of new orleans. 1010, last time i checked, michigan state. [laughter] in that time, he has turned out an army of wonderful students. They have become serious scholars in their own rights and you can almost tell them that when you meet them by the breath dth of their education and their work ethic. Our second speaker, hans van de ven, teaches chinese history at cambridge university, and is a one of the leading authorities on history of 19thcentury china. We should stipulate, we do not bring you here unless you are one of the, or the authority on the topic. He is the author of numerous awardwinning books from a friend to comrade, the formation of the communist party. War and nationalism in china, 1925 to 1945. Breaking with the past, the maritime customs service, the global origins of modernity in china. His edited work the battle for china on the sino japanese war 1937 to 1945, is essential reading. I have a copy of it at home. I know i am not the only one. His newest book a china at war, will be forthcoming this summer. He is a publishing and scholarly machine. Lets begin by introducing dr. Millett. [applause] dr. Millett anything to take my space off the street. [laughter] thank you. I think the audience should know that dr. Citino is a brilliant toition to the history the World War Ii Museum and i must mention he is an ohio state graduate. [laughter] [applause] dr. Millett i find that encouraging. I want all of you to think back to a movie that has nothing to do with korea. Butch cassidy and the sundance kid. If you are in one of my classes i would probably have to explain what that movie is about and who paul newman and Robert Redford were. But you can be comforted by the fact that i do not think i have to do that for this audience. You will recall at the peak of the movie, sundance and butch are pursued by a gang of vigilantes or peace officers. They are in fact, pinkertons. But they do not know that. They continue to ask themselves as they rush through the american west, who are those guys . Who are those guys . Well, we are going to ask the question in the korean concept, answer the question in the korean concept, who is that man . Kim ilsung and a new korea. The chaos of the surrendered liberation of korea in 1945, the same question bedeviled americans and koreans that in october of 1945 view to three viewed three soviet generals accompanied by two koreans, pyongyang, and had a political rally explaining the goals of soviet occupation. They were there to introduce these two korean gentleman that were expected to govern pyongyang and govern all of northern korea and perhaps all of korea. One of them was well known to the crowd. In ancient i hesitate to use that word because i am getting pretty ancient myself, but an elderly man was known to everybody. The spiritual leader of the Christian Community, he had been a resistance leader for the japanese, but the other man confused the crowd. People began to murmur. [speaking foreign language] who is that guy . I hope nobody out there speaks korean. [laughter] that was close enough. Recognizedt they him. A rebellious student who grew up in a village outside pyongyang. He had been expelled at the age of 17 after eight years of schooling. He had disappeared in 1929. The russians called him kim ilsung. Who is this guy . No one knew. We need to go back to the division of korea in august of 1945. In the cairo meeting of 1943, the allies promised to restore korean sovereignty, independence, which had been lost in 1910 when korea had been annexed by japan as part of the spoils of war of the russiajapanese war. Liberation in 1945 meant Different Things to the allies. To the americans, it was an opportunity to come to korea to fulfill a promise to liberate korea, to restore its sovereignty, eventually. The picture that i thought i had shows negotiations between the americans and the russians of the 38th parallel, setting up the terms of the occupation. The russian attitude, however, was payback to restore at least some of the damage they believed they had felt in the settlement of 19041905. The russian behavior in what is now north korea, was pretty awful. Not in the sense that it killed they killed a lot of northern koreans, but they pillaged the entire northern sector, which they occupied above the 38th parallel. One would expect a certain amount of exaggeration from refugees who fled the northern occupation zone. But we have a very detailed observations made by an oss team in pyongyang on an american mission. There were reports of what russians were doing, they were exhaustive. They were taking human reparations from north korea, treating the North Koreans like they were japanese. They were not too kind to manchurians elsewhere. They needed some cooperation. And they found it. They included their chosen one, that is a bad pun. [laughter] dr. Millett who is that guy . In the meeting with the soviet generals whose names are forgettable, but for the record, i will tell you. This group who were responsible for the russian occupation, when looting was going on were looking for koreans they could find that were cooperative. One was supposed to pacify the christians. The question was, who would control the people outside the Christian Community . Pyongyang was a hotbed of christian activity. That is the picture we really wanted. Communist came and four groups, all claiming legitimacy in terms of succeeding the russians and governments of north korea. One group or soviet koreans. They had lived in the soviet union for two or three generations, spoke russian better than they did korean. They rejected bureaucrats and people who had come in with the occupation. These were many of the members of the red army. Also, the south korean labour party, which had been reformed, had been wiped out six times by the japanese. But it reformed again under unattractive, honest, an attractive, honest, revolutionary name and they had set up liaisons with the group in pyongyang, looking for a unification of korea under a Domestic Group of communists. Then there were very large numbers of koreans who had early members of the communist party in china. They had risen to important positions within the party and in the peopled liberation army. Peoples liberation army. There was a political, spiritual leader, and another that was a general in the Peoples Liberation army. One was very legendary, he led the advanced guard on the long so legendary, they forgot his march. Family name was kim. We have accounts of when he appeared, he is not in this picture. I will explain who they are. And last, there was a group that had been guerrillas in manchuria, fighting the japanese since the early 1930s. The new guy, who is that man . Was part of this faction and kim ilsung, a name borrowed from another resistance leader, there was an earlier kim ilsung not related to the eventual premiere of north korea. But he was in a kind of retirement, not entirely clear what happened to him. By the other kim taking his like it basically is saying my name is bob, or changing your name to robin hood. You have to have a great Freedom Fighter name. So is why he became kindle kim. This is a picture of the hardcore of the faction. The firstadmiring submachine gun. I will tell you who they are. On your left is one of the most effective leaders of north korea, who later became the minister of defense, a much bigger record than kim ilsung as a guerrilla leader in manchuria. Next to him is also a very abled military leader. And then kim ilsung, and a general kong. Kong by the as king americans, who renamed people in ways that seemed to denigrate their status, not really a good idea. This group, along with others, had real credentials as antijapanese fighters. In the early 1930s, and opposition to the japanese control of manchuria, the Chinese Communists particularly organized an antijapanese united army organized in the northwest, meaning manchuria, to carry on partisan operations. The Sixth Division of the second army, which was chinesedominated, included an officer named kim ilsung. Do not be misled by the title. The sixth army at its maximum size had about 200 partisans. But they did conduct one meaningful raid in northern korea in 1937. It was there that kim ilsung built the myth of his career as a great antijapanese resistance leader. In 1941, the japanese had a Guerrilla Campaign that destroyed most of the northeast antijapanese united army and kim ilsung, with six men come across the border into the soviet union. The original force had been a 15,000, which gives you some idea of japanese efficiency. Many of the survivors passed on to china proper and became part of the Chinese Communist forces in the yunnan province. Kim ilsung sold himself to the russians, a true marxist. Someone who was interested in collaboration with the soviets, somebody who is interested in establishing a communist state in korea. The soviets created an organization, those 88 special independent sniper brigades, that had about 600 members, 100 were koreans. It was a chinesekorean force. Kim ilsung became a Company Commander in the brigade. I believe he was favored because he spoke chinese. When he had been a student in the pyongyang area, he attended irregularly a school in chinese and a school in korean that was run by presbyterians. Kim ilsungs parents were, in fact, both christians. There are missionary families today in korea that can go to pyongyang because they had Never Associated themselves with the southern regime. And they play upon the kim familys christian influences in the early years. When kim ilsung returned to korea in september of 1945, he came a month after the soviet occupation. He was not a liberator. He came, basically, to pacify fellow koreans. , they came toes help the soviet police and army keep the koreans under control while the russians looted the country. By october, however, moscow had decided there was perhaps a purpose for stopping the looting of north korea and creating some kind of Political Base that would allow them to influence unification of korea on communist terms. It appears as if kim ilsung had made a couple of omissions in manchuria that he was party to this planning. But the people that were most effective, to a large degree, where people far more active and far more military. One of the really interesting accounts we have of this period was from a korean expat, now deceased. He was a russian interpreter. His family had not lived in korea for three generations. He grew up in kazakhstan. And he disliked kim ilsung from the very start and became chief of operations for the korean peoples army. His pictures of kim are not attractive. He had some of the problems of hygiene and Mental Health and other things that characterized him. Kim ilsungs favorite person was Joseph Stalin. He tried to model himself after stalin in his personal life and political life, as well. The largest challenge that kim ilsung had to face before 1950 was in fact an insurgency, started by the southern communists in south korea. Well, i am not a real believer in powerpoint, for obvious reasons. Let me draw a picture for you. The communists in south korea did everything they could to prevent the establishment of an independent south korea. First of all, by blocking the creation of south koreas r. O. C. Government, and attempting to subvert it. Kim ilsung at first, knowing he could not control this movement, did not quite ignore it because he uses south korea as a haven for southern communist rule to flee from the south. But he did not intervene for almost a year. In about the winter of 1949, particularly, units of the north korean army and Border Police began to assist the southern guerillas and staging raids in the south. What he discovered, the war fed his larger purposes. Which were, eliminating his opponents in north korea, and then building a force, a public commitment in the invasion of south korea, which came in june of 1950. The big lesson i think he learned too well, here he is conferring with his chinese ally, was that war serves the purposes of his regime. And one hardly can argue with that because by the time the armistice occurred in 1953 he had a very firm grip on north korea and then purged his potential opponents. So who is this guy . You see him in this picture next to a Chinese Expeditionary force commander. You notice kim ilsung seems to be well fed. [laughter] there is a marvelous passage in a transcript that shows a conversation between him and josef stalin in 1949. Stalin goes on and on about the fact the last time he saw him, which would have been the summer of 1946, kim ilsung was skinny. Stalin said, things must not be too bad in north korea, since you seem to have put on a great deal of weight since i saw you last. This picture shows certainly a contrast of chinese commanders in their peasant garb. And the north korean officers who look like part of the soviet army, and in fact, many of them had been. Nobody really knew who this guy was. It turned out we are still dealing with his family dynasty. And whether we know him or not, it is clear enough that he was a victor in the war that followed world war ii. Thank you very much. [applause] dr. Van de ven good afternoon, everybody. I first of all would like to thank nick for inviting me a second time here. It has been absolutely wonderful so far. I also want to thank them for organizing everything, it went very smoothly. I was listening yesterday to David Kennedy and he spoke very elegantly about the surprising rise to superstar status during world war ii. As a historian i will try to explain today, just as a Remarkable Development in world war ii was the emergence from a very defeated army in 1937, to one that held the fate of china in its hands in 1947. This is a story that would have no immediate consequence, but one we still live with today. To do so, i will focus on the campaign in manchuria, which lasted from may until october 1948. And this was the decisive engagement of the chinese civil war. Following the nationalist defeat, others were to follow. Including a campaign of 1948 until january of 1949. These were the last vestiges of chinese control. The laotian campaign was thatck to the nationalist their morale collapsed and never recovered. Today we begin by providing an overview of the campaign and i will seek to answer the question, how did communists manage to emerge with forces , train them, and build momentum to achieve a victory that changed the fate of china . And something i will argue in my cache and it might surprise a few people, the thinking of a great chinese theoretician of war had a significant role,. One point to make at the outset, made in the introduction, the distinction between chinas war against japan and the national communist civil war from 1945 to 1949, is in many ways, a postwar construction. Even the word world war ii is a postwar construction. As one of my cambridge colleagues pointed out, it was only in 1947 that the british decided they had just been fighting the Second World War. I think that is an important thing to keep in mind. When allied leaders declared world war ii over, when japan and germany fell in 1945, they articulated less a reality than that was hard to make stick on the ground in europe, as well as asia. There are these highly Organization Units in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world. In both areas of the world, a huge amount of violence took place after 1945, in which many millions of people would die. China is an example of that. When world war ii began in china in 1937, the nationalist and communist formed a united front, ending the civil war that had preceded it. The two sides did cooperate, at times. The united front held for the duration of the war, nominally. By 1939, friction began to outweigh cooperation. Armed clashes involving tens of positions happened from 1940 to 1941. After it became clear that allies would become victorious, both sides positioned themselves as they could with the civil war was expected to follow after the fall of japan. After the japanese offensive in drove them out of much of china, 1944 allowing the communist forces to grow and influx into these areas in the wake of the japanese, and putting them in a poor position. The communists did not take power in china at this point. Not because of nationalist strength, but because the japanese decided it was now in their interest to support the nationalist. Believing that they were the best hope for preventing a communist takeover of the country, which would bring a revival of japanese trade. Japanese forces therefore helped nationalists recover control over coastal china. The irony, of course, since they had lost so much blood and treasure over the preceding eight years and trying to defeat exactly the same people. U. S. Forces also helped the nationalists. U. S. Marines were in a shanghai. And many of you will have memories of this. U. S. Marines occupied shanghai, and an important port city. The aim less to ensure a nationalist victory but to facilitate the repatriation of all Japanese Forces and then withdraw, so as to bring the boys home. Those were two important aspects of u. S. Occupation of japan. China was seen as a basket case and the u. S. Was determined to stay out of a nationalist communist war. In august, they withdrew asian officers from nationalist forces. The soviets also decided their interests were best served by reining in the Chinese Communists because they had been occupying the last days of the war and secured important concessions from the nationalists in a final soviet treaty, that also concluded before the fall of japan. It blocked in north china, the communist retreated into manchuria, which is a peninsula between