People's Volunteer Army (PVA)

Origin of the Name

When the CCP Central Committee decided on intervention, the force was initially drafted as the "Support Army" (支援軍). Huang Yanpei, a vice-premier of the Government Administration Council, warned that "support army" might be read internationally as a Chinese declaration of war on the United States. In the order Mao Zedong signed on 8 October 1950 as chairman of the Central People's Government Revolutionary Military Council, he changed "支援軍" (Support Army) to "志願軍" (Volunteer Army). Recent scholarship, however, shows that Premier Zhou Enlai had already used the phrase "volunteer army clothing" and "volunteer army flags" in a draft report on 7 July 1950, indicating the shift was not Huang's suggestion alone.

Scale and Command

The initial force numbered 250,000. Over the course of the war some three million Chinese military and civilian personnel served in Korea. The PVA's commander and political commissar was Peng Dehuai; after April 1952, owing to Peng's illness, Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as acting commanders. The force answered to China's Central Military Commission and was not under Korean command.

Tacit Acceptance and Withdrawal

The "volunteer" designation initially deceived UN intelligence but was soon seen for what it was: regular PLA formations. The UN Command nevertheless accepted the fiction to keep the war confined to the Korean peninsula. The armistice of 27 July 1953 was signed by the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers on one side and the United Nations Command on the other. All PVA troops withdrew by October 1958; the CPV delegation to the Military Armistice Commission remained at Panmunjom until it was recalled on 15 December 1994.