The Korean War
Readings:
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...what I saw Americans doing in Korea shook me to my heels. I suppose all my life I’ve been listening to propaganda about America being a civilised nation and some of this must have sunk in. Somehow, I never quite thought of Americans doing exactly what the Nazis did until I saw it with my own eyes.” — Alan Winnington, “I Saw the Truth in Korea” |
A mother with her baby wanders through the wreckage of Pyongyang after one of hundreds of bombing campaigns by the U.S. Air Force in Korea, which leveled cities and killed 20% of the population, according to Air Force General Curtis LeMay.
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A declassified U.S. Army file photograph from the July 1950 Daejeon Massacre, in which thousands of people were summarily executed near the beginning of the war, reported on by Alan Winnington in his pamphlet “I Saw The Truth In Korea”
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Korean People's Army POWs being led to a prison camp in the south of Korea
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Kim Il Sung delivers a speech at a mass rally held to celebrate the establishment of the provisional people's committee in the north of Korea in February 1946. Americans immediately suppressed the People’s Committees in the south upon their arrival, while the committees flourished in the north.
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The city of Yongbyon, like many North Korean cities, was reduced to rubble in the Korean War.
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Workers rebuilding Pyongyang after the Korean War, during which the majority of the city was razed to the ground by American bombing.
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“The Korean masses are imbued with an idea - they have taken the power into their own hands, and they are going to liberate their country from foreign aggressors and their puppets. They know the mockery that imperialists make of the principle of national self-determination. They know from bitter experience that imperialists would never leave them alone to work out their own destinies, but would remain to perpetuate the shackles of the feudal order and to bind them to misery and endless exploitation. Therefore, in their fighting, they are determined, they are resolute, because they are struggling for their own good earth.” — Soong Ching Ling, “What the Korean People’s Struggle Means to Asia” |
The Korean People's Army and Chinese People's Volunteer Army celebrate a victory against U.S. imperialism during the Korean War.
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The Vietnam War
Readings:
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“You can bomb the Vietnamese and Korean people underground, but you cannot bomb them back into the ‘Stone Age.’ You cannot bomb out of existence those solid technical, intellectual and moral qualities they have acquired during the years of building and living under socialism.” — Wilfred Burchett, Again Korea |
Map of US bombing during the Vietnam War; each black dot represents a 1000 lb bomb.
Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh visit the Vietnam - North Korea Friendship Cooperative in Xuan La, Tay Ho District, Hanoi in November of 1964.
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Pupils from Trung Vuong secondary school wish Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh happy birthday on May 19, 1956.
Children are welcomed by Ho Chi Minh on Mid-Autumn Festival at the Presidential Palace in 1961.
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Prime Minister Pham Van Dong welcomes Comrade Fidel Castro who visited the liberated zone in southern Vietnam's Quang Tri Province (September 15, 1973).
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"As long as there are rivers and mountains, and as long as there are men, once the aggressors are defeated, we shall build a Vietnam that is 10 times more beautiful.” - Ho Chi Minh
