The Sino–Soviet alliance set the stage for the Korean War, the most serious crisis of the first postwar decade. At the time it was widely assumed in the West that Stalin – emboldened by the first Soviet atomic test – had directed North Korea to attack the South. Some historians have argued more recently that Stalin might not have known of North Korea’s decision to unify the country by force. The issue is a crucial one for understanding Stalin’s policy in the last years of his life, and in particular his attitude to war and peace.28
