How far do you agree that the Revisionist Views (of the causes of the Korean war) is the most accurate?

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Anna Thompson

How far do you agree that the Revisionist Views (of the causes of the Korean war) is the most accurate?

By 1950 the Korean War threatened to escalate a local war in a major international conflict. Since then there has been a constant debate on the invasion the south had the North. They argue if the invasion was a product of the communist bloc which was newly strengthened by china, and if it was attempting to spread its power. The question, what actually was the real cause of the Korean War is discussed by many historians and their views. These include Traditional, Revisionist, The local/international approaches and the significance of domestic products of Truman’s foreign policy. Even though there are many approaches to the causes of the Korean war, The revisionist remains one the most accurate along with the traditional view.

Revisionist view of the Korean war is different to those of the traditional and local approaches. They say argue that the Korean war was because of  expansionist and aggressive actions by the forces of the world communism, ( as traditional views believe). Historian Kathryn Weathersby shows Stalin as being too cautious to risk escalation of conflict with the USA. This is backed up with some evidence from Khrushchev, who had memoirs which stated that Kim II sung, had informed Stalin of his decision but Stalin replied and said he should think it over.  This shows some accuracy too the view, they confirm that Stalin was too take elsewhere his foreign policy and he wasn't planning on spreading world revolution and he gave his agreement, shortly after the Korean war resulted in violence.  This view is also backed  in 'To attack or Not to attack', and the prelude to war. Again it argues that Stalin played the role of facilitator rather than originator if the war. Stalin didn't want an invasion to take place and he did all he could to avoid this. However the revisionists sway too him being in favour of communism in April 1950. This was mainly because he was worried what was about to happen, he concluded the south Korean regime was determined to launch an attack on the north sooner or later and it was important to forestall this aggression. Therefore the revisionists continued too discuss Stalin's true intentions.

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The Approach named traditional also has some accuracy to an extent. Instead they argue that the Korean war was for the protection of ideas from democracy against the spread of communism from the north. This links back to the accuracy of the revisionist view as in 1950 they both believe that Stalin was too spread world communism into Korea. However the ignore the harsh undemocratic regime of Synam Rhee in the south. He was hardly a model of freedom and democracy. However they overlooked this because of his communist credentials. America were very keen to become involved with the ...

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