T.F. Shtykov – the first Soviet ambassador to the DPRK: on the question of the role of the personal factor in the history of the failure of the North Korean offensive in 1950

the article analyzes the historical role of Colonel General T.F. Shtykov, who served as the USSR Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the DPRK in 1948-1950: on the eve and at the beginning of the Korean War of 1950-1953, he actually played the role of a key link in political communication between I.V. Stalin and Kim Il Sung and, in this regard, played an important role in unleashing this military conflict. The author focuses on the problem of T.F. Shtykov’s personal responsibility for a number of serious military-strategic miscalculations that predetermined the defeat of the DPRK in 1950, and, above all, the underestimation of the threat posed by the Inchon landing operation carried out by the Americans deep in the rear of the North Korean communist forces. At the same time, according to the author, the blame for the failure of the North Korean offensive also falls on Stalin himself, for whose contradictory policies in Korea his subordinates paid. The article introduces into scientific circulation materials from the State Archive of Documents of the Modern History of the Kaluga Region (GADNIKO) documents from the personal file of T.F. Shtykov, left after his forced stay in the position of deputy chairman of the Executive Committee of the Kaluga Regional Council as a result of demotion and reduction in rank – these sources allow us to confirm a number of facts from the biography of the first USSR ambassador to North Korea.

T.F. Shtykov, I.V. Stalin, formation of the DPRK, Korean War 1950-1953, Inchon landing operation