The U. S. S. R. did not limit its aid to arms. Lieutenant General Vasilev and a group of Soviet military instructors arrived at Pyongyang in 1949 to train NKPA staff and line officers for offensive warfare. About 3,000 promising NKPA candidates were sent to Soviet schools that year for courses in such specialties as artillery, air and tank tactics.
Of the original 14 NKPA divisions, the first 6 were composed largely of well trained troops. The 12th Division, like the 5th and 6th, consisted of Korean veterans of the Chinese civil war. Constabulary troops made up the 8th and 9th, while the 7th, 13th, 14th, and 15th Infantry Divisions and the 10th Mechanized Infantry Division were formed of conscripted trainees for the most part.[28]
[28] FECOM, ATIS, _History of the North Korean Army_, _op. cit._, 52–75.
The picture grows confused in the spring of 1950, with 8 new divisions being organized in 5 months. Many of the recently drafted men received only the most sketchy training; and some of the older units were weakened by drawing off well trained men to stiffen the new outfits. All accounts agree, however, that the NKPA leaders anticipated an effort of only a few days, ending with the destruction of the ROK army. This was not an unreasonable assumption, since a swarm of NKPA spies had brought back accurate reports of unpreparedness. Not only was the Republic of Korea weak militarily, but a bad economic situation had been made worse by increased population due to immigration.
Altogether, Pyongyang could put nearly 100,000 fairly well-trained and armed troops in the field, with about half of that number in reserve as replacements, occupation troops or constabulary. But the problem of man power did not worry Communists who were not squeamish about violations of international law. For the aggressors planned to make war nourish war by conscripting both soldiers and laborers in invaded regions of the Republic of Korea. It was an old Asiatic custom.
With few exceptions, the North Korean war leaders proved to be willing and able instruments of policies formulated in Moscow. Kim Il Sung, the prime minister and commander in chief, was an imposter named Kim Sung Chu who made a bid for popular support by taking the name of a dead Korean resistance hero. As a youth he had fled from Korea and joined the Communist party in Manchuria. There he distinguished himself in guerrilla operations against the Japanese. In 1938, after rising to the stature of a corps commander, he met military reverses and found a refuge in Soviet territory. Legend has it that he attended a Soviet military academy and took part in the battle of Stalingrad. However this may be, he returned to Korea in August 1945 as a 35-year-old captain in the Soviet army of occupation.[29]