People's Volunteer Army

The (Chinese) People's Volunteer Army was the armed expatriate volunteer forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the PVA were actually transferred from the People's Liberation Army (the official name of the Chinese armed forces) under orders of Mao Zedong, the PVA was separately constituted in order to prevent an official war with the United States. The PVA entered Korea on October 19, 1950, and completely withdrew by October 1958. The nominal commander and political commissar of the PVA was Peng Dehuai before the ceasefire agreement in 1953, although both Chen Geng and Deng Hua served as acting commander and commissar after April 1952 due to Peng's illness. The initial (October 25 – November 5, 1950) units in the PVA included 38th, 39th, 40th, 42nd, 50th, 66th Corps totaling 250,000 men, and eventually about 3 million Chinese civilian and military personnel served in Korea by July 1953.