Peng Dehuai Warns Stalin That Faltering Coast Requires 100,000 Soviet Mines
By Roy Castellano ·
North Korean divisions dwindled to 3,000 men while General Peng Dehuai urged a strategic pause to prevent a reckless charge and proposed drafting 20,000 prisoners into the ranks.
In the winter of 1951, the Korean Peninsula was a geography of retreats and precarious pauses. According to a published English translation from the Cold War International History Project at the Wilson Center, General Peng Dehuai—then a key military figure and later China's Minister of National Defense—spent three days in January meeting with Premier Kim Il Sung to survey the wreckage of the North Korean military effort.
Peng’s report, forwarded by Mao Zedong to Joseph Stalin in a ciphered telegram dated January 26, 1951, reads like a cautionary briefing on the dangers of overextension. It is the record of a professional soldier attempting to impose discipline on an ally prone to delusions of grandeur.
"Adventuristic" Pursuit
By January 16, Kim Il Sung and his staff were facing a hard truth: the Korean People's Army could not pursue the retreating American and South Korean forces alone. Peng notes that attempting to do so would take on an "adventuristic character." For a war-plans analyst, that word is a red flag. It suggests a command structure tempted by the optics of victory over the reality of logistics and combat power.
Peng successfully argued for a strategic pause. He proposed a two-month period of "rest and reformation" to ensure any future forward advance was conducted "cautiously, without hurrying." While some in Kim's circle, specifically Pak Hon-yeong, initially resisted this hesitation, Peng’s "elucidation" on the risks of a hasty advance eventually won them over. Even the Soviet advisers on the ground agreed that the next operation would be decisive and required a level of preparation that the North Koreans had previously ignored.
The Suigen-Sansioku Line
Once the immediate impulse for a reckless charge was suppressed, the conversation shifted to the defensive posture of the coastline. The record details a fragmented defense plan. Five brigades—the 26th, 23rd, 24th, 63rd, and 69th—were tasked with guarding portions of the western and eastern coasts. Peng’s assessment of these units is blunt: they were to serve as "sentries," and their "combat capability is not high."
To compensate for this weakness, the alliance leaned heavily on Soviet materiel. The document notes that 1,000 sea mines and 200,000 anti-tank and other mines had been received from the USSR. The plan was to allocate 100,000 of these mines specifically for the defense of the sea coast and the protection of key ports.
Responsibility for the coast south of the "Suigen-Sansioku line" was pushed forward to the front-line units. In a move that highlights the interdependence of the communist bloc, Kim requested that the defense of the port of Riuganpo be assigned to troops from northeast China, noting that a single regiment would suffice. Mao agreed to leave one army of Chinese Volunteers in Tet-Sugen to serve as a "skeleton" for the remaining forces.
20,000 Prisoners
The most glaring vulnerability described by Peng was manpower. The North Koreans were attempting to restructure five corps, aiming for three divisions per corps. However, the existing divisions were severely understrength, numbering only 3,000 to 5,000 men. Peng’s goal was to bring these divisions up to an average of 7,000 men.
Peng proposed a pragmatic, if cold, solution: the incorporation of 20,000 South Korean prisoners of war into the ranks. The North Korean leadership rejected the proposal. Peng describes his reaction to this refusal with a fatigue common to analysts whose sound advice is ignored by political leaders: he "considered it awkward to defend it further."
This rejection occurred against a backdrop of total administrative collapse in the "liberated" regions. In Seoul, where the population had dropped from 1.5 million to roughly 1 million, Peng reports "great difficulties with food and fuel." The state could barely feed its own soldiers, leaving refugees and the unemployed with nothing.
Security had evaporated as well. Peng reports that "large gangs" had seized locations west of Kaidzio and south of Siarin. The solution was purely military: one regiment and four battalions of the People's Army were dispatched to destroy these gangs, not merely for security, but to recover "several dozen tons of food."
The Political Offensive
As the military situation stabilized into a cautious crouch, the leadership turned to subversion. Peng and Kim agreed in principle to develop a "political offensive" in areas occupied by UN forces. This involved the creation of armed detachments composed of party workers and mass organization leaders designed to "penetrate the enemy's rear" and carry out organizational work under the cover of armed units.
They discussed a combination of "legal and illegal forms of struggle," including the targeting of "reactionary elements" and the recruitment of favorable and intermediate elements to their cause. However, the document ends not with a strategy, but with a confession of uncertainty. Peng admits that it remained unclear how to actually begin the organization and implementation of these measures with the correct placement of cadres.