The self-defense militia force plays a very important strategic role in the great anti-U.S. national salvation struggle.
Dear comrades, at present our people’s armed forces are, together with the entire people, shouldering the historic and extremely great task of defeating the U.S. aggressors to safeguard the socialist north, liberate the south, and achieve national reunification. In view of the situation of our country--a small country with a population of 31 million which has just begun to develop its economy--defeating the U.S. aggressors would be a wonderful achievement.
The Americans are the ringleaders of the imperialists. They are extremely reactionary and cruel and have the richest and most powerful economic potentials in the imperialist camp. However, faced with the heroic Vietnamese people armed with Marxism-Leninism, the U.S. imperialists are merely aggressors who can be completely defeated and will certainly be defeated by our people.
The recent great successes of our people in both the north and south demonstrated more clearly the peerless strength of the people’s war and further revealed the grandiose truth: In the present era, any people, even though small, if they are resolved to rise united and fight to liberate themselves and defend their fatherland, if they are provided with a correct revolutionary line, and if they know how to develop the strength of the people’s war, will be fully able to defeat and will surely defeat any aggressors, including the U.S. imperialists. The realities on the battlefield have forced even the U.S. aggressors to admit that they have made mistakes and experienced setbacks and that they must cope with a large revolutionary army composed of combatants that are most skillful and experienced in the people’s war.
Our people’s great achievements have contributed to solving many extremely important strategic problems in the anti-U.S. national liberation movement of the world’s peoples in general. When the U.S. imperialists began sending their large expeditionary forces to invade our country, some of our friends expressed concern over whether the Vietnamese people’s liberation war could defeat the aggressive war waged by a modern army such as that of the U.S. imperialists.
Now the progressive people throughout the world are convinced that the Vietnamese people will certainly be victorious and that the U.S. imperialists will certainly be defeated. The U.S. imperialists will certainly be defeated because the war conducted by them is an unjust aggressive war and because they are unable to cope with the people’s war of the Vietnamese people. The enormous successes achieved by our people have answered the following questions: In a people’s war against an aggressive enemy who possesses great economic and military potentials, powerful material and technical strength, and large quantities of modern weapons and instruments as does the U.S. imperialists’ army, is the organization of the revolutionary armed forces into three categories of troops still appropriate?
Does the self-defense militia force still play a strategic role?
Reality permits us to assert that in our people’s great anti-U.S. national salvation undertaking the three categories of troops still represent the most appropriate pattern for organization of the armed forces to wage people’s war, and that the self-defense militia force still plays an extremely important strategic role. The self-defense militia, together with the other patriotic armed forces of the Vietnamese people, defeated the Japanese fascists and drove the French colonialists out of the country. Today, with all types of weapons in their hands, including primitive and modern weapons, the self-defense militia force still plays an extremely important role in our people’s sacred resistance against the U.S. imperialists. These realities are emerging in both parts of our country.
A--The great successes of the people’s war in the south have confirmed the strategic position of guerrilla warfare and the extremely important strategic role of the self-defense militia in the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance.
During the past 12 years our southern compatriots have continuously defeated all aggressive schemes of the U.S. imperialists. The U.S. aggressors have suffered continuous defeats. The more troops and weapons they introduce into the south the more serious the defeats they suffer. At present our 14 million compatriots in the south are defeating more than 1 million American, puppet, and satellite troops. This is a great struggle that is unprecedented in the history of our country.
With the strength of the entire people our southern compatriots will surely defeat the U.S. imperialists completely, because our people have intense patriotism, a tradition of undaunted struggle, a steel-like determination to defeat the aggressors no matter who they may be, and at the same time they follow correct and creative revolutionary and military lines and have had rich experiences in revolutionary struggle. Therefore, our people have succeeded in and will succeed in overcoming all difficulties in order to move forward and achieve final successes.
At present our people in the south are waging a great people’s war for the independence and unification of the fatherland. This people’s war has coordinated very closely armed struggle with political struggle and guerrilla warfare with conventional warfare. The development of the people’s war in the south is an eloquent reality that justifies the strategic position of guerrilla warfare in the anti-U.S. national salvation struggle.
As in previous armed struggles against the Japanese fascists and French imperialists, at present guerilla warfare in the south has taken shape and become a basis for conventional warfare. For conventional warfare it will score great victories in the task of liberating the south from the ruling yoke of the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys. Guerrilla warfare was born out of and has developed from the revolutionary struggle movement of the masses, which have used violence to oppose the U.S. imperialists’ new-style colonialism.
Guerrilla warfare in the south has achieved new creative progress, greatly contributed to continuously frustrating the U.S. imperialists’ strategic plots, and assumed an extremely important strategic position in armed struggle and in the revolutionary struggle in general.
To speak of the strategic position of guerrilla warfare also means to speak of the strategic role of the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, for the latter are core forces for conducting guerrilla warfare. With the new progress of guerrilla warfare, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have shown that they have acquired new ability and new fighting strength.
(1) The self-defense and guerrilla units have effectively supported the southern people’s general uprising, thus contributing to frustrating the U.S. imperialists’ plot to rule the south with the traditional schemes of new-style colonialism.
Between 1954 and 1959 the U.S. imperialists used the economic and military assistance policy to set up a lackey fascist administration in an attempt to turn the south into a new-style colony and military base.
After years of fierce political struggle and after enduring innumerable sacrifices under Ngo Dinh Diem’s extremely cruel regime, our southern compatriots resolutely rose up to conduct an uprising in the rural areas. It was during this general uprising that the motto “Combination of political struggle with armed struggle” was applied and that guerrilla warfare was born, developed, and played the role of effectively supporting the masses in rising up, and used revolutionary violence to crush the yoke of enemy control, topple the enemy administration, and regain for the people administration at the basic level.
From the outset, though, the self-defense and guerrilla units were small and inadequately equipped. Owing to their indomitable will and deep hatred for the enemy, they fought valiantly, eliminated hooligans, repressed collaborators, exterminated dishonest people, fought the enemy, and helped encourage and urge the uprising movement to move forward through the large rural areas.
The great success of the uprising marked the disastrous failure of the U.S. imperialists in their initial strategic plot to use Ngo Dinh Diem’s lackey administration to annihilate the revolutionary forces and to repress the southern compatriots’ revolutionary movement. Following this the political situation in the south changed, and thus favorable conditions were created for the vigorous development of the people’s war.
(2) Together with the liberation forces and people, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces defeated the U.S. imperialists while the latter were using the strategy of the special war to invade the south. Since 1960, to cope with the southern compatriots’ revolutionary movement and to check the danger of disintegration of the puppet armed forces and administration, the U.S. imperialists have waged a special war in the south. However, they cannot avoid being disastrously defeated.
Under the NFLSV banner, our southern compatriots have waged a true people’s war to oppose the U.S. imperialists’ special war. Guerrilla warfare, which has increasingly developed everywhere, has, together with the masses’ revolutionary movement, followed the motto “Combination of political struggle with armed struggle,” made political, military, and troop-proselyting spearheads, and continuously attacked the enemy.
Limited guerrilla warfare has developed throughout the south, supporting the masses in rising up to destroy strategic hamlets, in continuing local uprisings, and in building many liberated areas. It has vigorously supported the political struggle movement in the cities and driven the puppet armed forces and administration into a seriously and permanently critical situation. Also in this period, the regional units and the main-force units have swiftly matured.
Guerrilla warfare has closely associated with conventional warfare, fulfilling the strategic task of wearing down and annihilating enemy strength, and further driving the puppet armed forces toward dangerous collapse.
Self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have fought independently of or in coordination with main-force and regional units. They have spelled doom for the enemy’s “helicopter borne” and “armored-vehicle borne” tactics, served as the hard core for all the people to fight the aggressors, and contributed to stepping up the movement to arm all the people. As a result, in the south, from the mountains and jungles to the deltas and coastal areas, there are militia and guerrilla forces; from male and female youths to old people and children, all of them have engaged in killing the enemy. The political struggle and the troop-proselyting task have been further stepped up.
Together with the liberation troops and the people, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have basically frustrated the enemy’s “special war” tactics. They created a strong and reliable strategic position for the people’s war in the south before the U.S. expeditionary troops were sent in. This is the continuously active position and the overall offensive position of the South Vietnamese revolution.
(3) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have maintained an extremely important strategic role in the fight against the U.S. imperialists’ limited war. Faced with the basic failure of the “special war” strategy, the U.S. imperialists hurriedly sent in expeditionary troops on a large scale to invade the south. However, the U.S. imperialists have introduced troops into the south while the puppet Saigon armed forces and administration were in a losing position, but while our armed forces and people were in a winning position. Our people’s armed forces have developed and occupied combat positions on all battlefields and have maintained a reliable combat network from the mountains and jungles to the deltas and from the rural areas to the areas close to cities. The main-force units and the regional units have been the masters of various important strategic areas. The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have developed vigorously in quantity and quality.
At present the people‘s war in the south has reached a far higher level than previously. Guerrilla warfare continues to vigorously support the masses’ political struggle, serves as a base for conventional warfare, and will, together with conventional warfare, defeat the enemy’s dry-season strategic counteroffensive. Guerrilla warfare has made progress in accordance with the characteristics of the three zones--mountain areas, deltas, and cities--and has satisfactorily fulfilled the strategic task of wearing down and annihilating enemy strength, thus contributing to a situation in which the U.S. imperialists are bogged down to their necks, confused in strategy, and suffering a tactical crisis. The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have shown that they have a great fighting ability and have scored brilliant feats of arms, and have shown themselves worthy of their extremely important strategic role.
(4) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, together with the people, have established American-annihilating belts around American bases. They constitute the people’s war’s extremely flexible form of encirclement which has not only gnawed at the enemy’s vitality, made him lose his appetite, and disturbed his sleep, but also positively spoiled the U.S. aggressors’ spreading ”ink spot” tactics, and created favorable conditions for the Liberation Armed Forces to step up their activities and annihilate the enemy’s military forces. As a result, the U.S. aggressors have been compelled to assign an important part of their military forces to defensive tasks, and, therefore, have not been able to concentrate substantial mobile forces.
(5) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, together with the main-force units, regional troops, and the people, have foiled the enemy’s “rural pacification” plan. The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, together with the people, have defeated the U.S.-puppet company-sized and battalion-sized mopup operations by armed struggle coupled with political struggle, and by the three-pronged-- political, military, and military proselyting--offensive. In large-scale mopup operations in which the enemy used dozens of battalions, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, together with the people, fought valiantly to erode the enemy’s strength and annihilate him, positively fought the enemy through political struggle and military proselyting and, at the same time, served as the eyes and ears for providing the Liberation Armed Forces with information about the enemy, coordinated combat with the Liberation Armed Forces, and created conditions for Liberation Armed Forces to fight big battles and win great victories. In many localities, such as Long An, Ben Tre, Cu Chi, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, and so forth, the self-defense militia forces and regional troops have defeated brigade-sized and division-sized mopup operations conducted by the Americans and puppets.
Being the basic-level armed forces which have always clung to the people and land, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have made a great contribution to defeating the U.S.-puppet “rural pacification” scheme, protecting the people‘s lives and property, protecting production, and preserving the economic and military potentials of the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance. This constitutes an extremely great achievement of strategic significance, because one of the U.S. imperialists’ strategic objectives is to “pacify the rural areas” and to build and consolidate the puppet administration in order to realize their neo-colonialism.
(6) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have coordinated with the regular and local forces in attacking and counterattacking the enemy, thus contributing to the protection and enlargement of the liberated areas. At the same time, they have joined the masses of people in face-to-face political struggle against the enemy in the rural areas as well as in the cities.
In the areas bordering enemy lines, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have operated independently or in coordination with the regular and local forces in continuously attacking the enemy, in strongly attacking the enemy’s important positions, in penetrating deeply enemy lines, in continually assisting the masses in destroying “strategic hamlets,” in winning over the people, and in enlarging the liberated areas. When the enemy attacked our liberated areas, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces joined the regular and local forces and the people in launching counterattacks during which they fought the enemy day and night, strove to wear down or annihilate enemy strength in order to destroy enemy troops morale and disintegrate enemy military ranks, defeated all enemy attacks, and maintained the liberated areas.
The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have also served as a nucleus for the movement among the people to fight spies and saboteurs. They have stepped up antiaircraft defense and the prevention of enemy bombardment and toxic gas spraying by firing at enemy planes which also carried poisonous chemicals, to destroy crops, and by building shelters, trenches, and so forth, in order to insure relative security for the people.
In the rural areas as well as in the cities, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have effectively coordinated with the masses of people in face-to-face political struggle against the enemy to force him to give up his attacks on our liberated areas, to pay indemnities for the damage caused by him, and to satisfy the demands for a better life and for democratic rights. Moreover, even in the present local war the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces continue to have a major effect in the violent struggles of the people, to associate the political struggle with the armed struggle, to carry out partial uprisings, and to overthrow the basic enemy institutions in order to win power for the people. In this respect, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have played an increasingly important role.
(7) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have, together with the local forces and people, built combat villages and hamlets in the mountainous areas and in the delta and formed them into coordinated combat networks in which villages and hamlets are linked to one another and have invented many new tactics for the people’s war. With such networks of combat villages and hamlets, guerrilla warfare has contributed to creating a broad and continuous offensive position for us. Relying on combat villages and hamlets, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces and the regular and local forces and the people can attack and counterattack the enemy in order to wear down or destroy his military strength during his mopup operations and to defend villages and the people’s lives. Combat villages and hamlets have become special fortresses of the people’s war; they have created conditions for our armed forces and people for attacking not only enemy infantry troops, but also enemy armored vehicles and aircraft.
(8) The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have joined the local forces in strongly attacking enemy rear bases and important routes and in attacking the enemy right in the cities. With creative tactics, the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces have attacked and destroyed enemy logistic bases, airfields, ports, and warehouses, have launched surprise attacks on his firepower bases, have destroyed enemy military headquarters, have damaged or destroyed important communication lines, and have stepped up armed activities right in large and small cities. These military activities have caused heavy losses to the enemy, led him into transportation and supply difficulties, caused the morale of U.S. and rebel troops to sink more and more deeply, and forced the enemy to scatter his troops and concentrate his increasingly greater military strength on defensive tasks. These activities have been a strong support for the political struggle movement of the people in the enemy-controlled areas, especially in the cities, and have created favorable conditions for the liberation troops to destroy the enemy’s important military forces.
(9) The militia, self-defense, and guerrilla forces have used all types of weapons--rudimentary and modern--to undermine and annihilate much of the enemy potential:
With their high fighting determination and their rich experiences accrued during scores of years of struggle against the French and Japanese, the South Vietnam militia, self-defense, and guerrilla combatants have fully exploited the power of primitive weapons, such as sharpened bamboo sticks, bamboo antlers, old-model rifles, and zip guns, with which they have dealt very accurate blows at the U.S. and puppet troops and obtained very high combat efficiency. Based on the collective intellect of the people, the self-defense and guerrilla combatants have improved their rudimentary weapons, invented new types of pitfalls, and laid mine and grenade traps very cleverly, sowing panic among the enemy.
In addition, the southern militia, self-defense and guerrilla combatants have shown both valor and creativeness during the struggle against the modernly equipped troops of aggression of the U.S. imperialists. In many areas, the militia, self-defense, and guerrilla combatants have been equipped with modern or relatively modern weapons including those seized from the enemy; they have used handcarried guns and recoiless guns to destroy enemy tanks and armored craft; they have used mines to attack enemy helicopters; and they have used ordinary rifles or light and heavy machineguns to down the enemy helicopters and jetplanes. Because of their absolute political and spiritual supremacy, the Vietnamese militia and self-defense combatants, though having only rudimentary weapons, can vanquish the U.S. and puppet troops; once equipped with modern weapons, they fight even more skillfully and can annihilate many more U.S. and puppet troops.
(10) The militia, self-defense, and guerrilla combatants in the south have invented many clever forms and aspects of fighting peculiar to the guerrilla warfare.
The new development in the military art is one of the outstanding characteristics of the people’s war in the south. Based on the wonderful fighting art of the Liberation Armed Forces, the self-defense and guerrilla combatants in the south have relied firmly on the people and, in conjunction with the people, invented extremely creative and unique fighting methods. The characteristic of these fighting methods is the association of valor with creativeness and the use of available equipment and weapons--both primitive and modern--to apply the principle of employing few to vanquish many and to attack the weakest and most unguarded points of the enemy in order to inflict extremely heavy losses on them.
Due to these fighting methods, the militias in the south have annihilated U.S. and puppet troops of the squad and platoon size and this has been rather common. In a certain area, a small guerrilla team annihilated a whole U.S. company. During an antiraid drive, militias destroyed hundreds of enemy armored vehicles, downed their aircraft by scores, and burned millions of liters of gasoline and thousands of tons of ammunition. Militias have scored numerous achievements in annihilating evil agents and the ringleading reactionaries among the “pacification” teams, destroying the whole of an enemy battalion command while posts with the help of the fifth column, combining armed and political struggles, and destroying many “strategic hamlets” at a stretch and even the enemy oppressive position right in cities. Because of these fighting methods, guerrilla warfare has attained ever increasing combat power.
As a result of this progress, guerrilla warfare in the south has driven the enemy into a difficult position and forced him to resist everywhere. Stretched out thinly, the large enemy armed forces have become small, and despite their mobile means, they have been tied down, their strength has been worn down, and their morale has become tense. Under these circumstances, the liberation forces’ concentrated units will have more and more opportunities to deal the enemy strong blows and to destroy his important military forces. Due to this, the more troops and weapons the Americans send in to invade the south, the more shameful defeats they will suffer.
The people’s war, of which one of the basic forms is guerrilla warfare, is an extremely mysterious subject for the U.S. imperialists and is driving them crazy, because they are unable to solve the problem of shortage of troops. According to the estimates of high-ranking U.S. officers, it is necessary to have a 25 to 1 military superiority in order to be able to cope with the people’s war. Through its escalation steps and repeated defeats and due to the fact that he has encountered many difficulties and nurtured illusions about the effect of his weapons and technique, the enemy thought that this ratio could be reduced to 10 to 1 or 5 to 1 on the basis of providing additional up-to-date weapons and mobile means. However, up to now, the shortage of troops continues to be a critical problem for the Americans.
At present, though the Americans and puppets have more than a million troops, they still cannot reverse the situation that is increasingly unfavorable for them and do not know how to drive back the liberation troops, not to speak of annihilating the latter, and to subdue the southern people. The Americans are caught in a dilemma and do not know how many more troops they must send in to meet the requirements--500,000 or 700,000 troops.
The U.S. aggressors cannot find any fantastic measures to escape from this dilemma in order to avoid final defeat, because they must cope with an entire people who are resolutely fighting them and we have the Liberation Armed Forces composed of three categories of troops. We have main-force units and regional units. Although fewer than a million men, our main-force units and regional units have a very great fighting strength. We also have millions of militiamen and militia-women who have valiantly and skillfully killed the enemy. We also have a movement to arm all the people, a movement in which all the people fight to kill the enemy: the 14 million patriotic southern compatriots are 14 million combatants. This is the invincible strength of the people’s war and of the guerrilla warfare; this is the certainly victorious strength of the heroic southern armed forces and people.
(Editor’s note: The concluding portion of this item was broadcast by Hanoi at 1330 GMT 7 April 1967)
From the aforementioned realities we can draw the following important conclusions:
1--In our people’s anti-U.S. national salvation resistance against the U.S. imperialists’ neocolonialist aggressive war to liberate the south, guerrilla war plays a very great strategic role.
Since the moment our people’s revolutionary struggle advanced from political struggle to a new level--associating political struggle with armed struggle and developing them into a large people’s struggle through the various phases of general uprisings and through defeating the enemy’s special war and initially defeating his local war--guerrilla war on the southern battlefield has developed strongly and widely and has had an increasingly great strategic role and effect.
Faced with the new demands of the resistance, southern people are endeavoring to step up political and armed struggles and to step up regular and guerrilla wars. It is obvious that developing guerrilla war to an increasingly high level is one of the main duties of our people in bringing the resistance to final victory. The highly developed guerrilla war on the southern battlefield must fully satisfy the following basic requirements:
a--Guerrilla war is one of the basic formulas of the revolutionary struggle in our country, associating the armed struggle and political struggle of the masses in the closest way, associating uprisings with revolutionary struggle, carrying out local uprisings where the enemy is the weakest, overthrowing his government, seizing power for the people, and developing the offensive power of the revolutionary war from rural to urban areas, thus making important contributions to advancing the resistance to final victory.
b--Guerrilla war is one of the two basic forms of the people’s war in the military field. It is responsible for decimating a large number of enemy units, exterminating enemy troops by small units, attacking enemy rear bases, cutting his communication lines, destroying his leading organs, attacking his political and economic centers, and attacking the enemy in rural as well as urban areas and in the forests as well as in the delta and coastal areas, thus forcing enemy troops to fight back everywhere, exhausting their strength, and lowering their morale.
The objective of our southern people’s resistance is the American and puppet troops. Along with attacking the U.S. troops, the guerrilla war must pay attention to attacking the puppet troops, associating combat with military proselyting, exterminating and disintegrating the puppet troops, exterminating the leading collaborators and cruel agents, and weakening and overthrowing the puppet government.
c--Guerrilla war is responsible for foiling all mopup and pacification plots of the enemy, thwarting all his plots aimed at destroying our liberated areas, protecting the compatriots’ lives and properties, protecting production, defending and enlarging the liberated areas, and basically defeating one of the important goals of the U.S. imperialists’ neocolonialism: winning over the people and consolidating the puppet force and government, thus creating conditions for us to make our political and armed forces grow constantly bigger and stronger.
d--Guerrilla war has the duty to collaborate efficiently with the regular war and create conditions for the latter to develop in itself. It is necessary to take advantage of the victories of the regular war to cause the guerrilla and political struggle movement of our people to make new steps forward. The association between guerrilla war and regular war is one of the fundamental laws of the people’s war in our country. It has the effect of stepping up the development of both the armed struggle and political struggle to the maximum and achieving great victories for the revolution.
e--Generally speaking, guerrilla war is responsible for carrying out the task of wearing out the enemy strategically, protecting the people’s forces, weakening the puppet forces and government at their very bases, containing and encircling the enemy forces, forcing them to sink increasingly deeply into a state of defense and dispersion, and seriously weakening the mobility and combativity of the enemy forces. Guerrilla war must make important contributions to consolidating and developing our initiative spirit on all battlefields and stepping up the continuously offensive state of the people‘s war. Cooperating closely and helping each other, guerilla war and regular war and armed struggle and political struggle have the decisive effect of leading our people’s resistance to final victory.
2--The self-defense militia and guerrilla forces form a very important strategic force in the revolutionary struggle in general as well as in the armed struggle in particular in the liberation of the south from the rule of the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys.
The realities of each phase of the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance prove that the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces form a very important strategic force in the revolutionary struggle in general as well as in the armed struggle in particular. The self-defense militia force, the guerrilla force, and the local force are the main forces for waging guerrilla war.
Therefore, as the NFLSV and the Southern Liberation Armed Forces Command have advocated, to develop the guerrilla war to a higher level and to step up the political and armed struggles, in the field of reinforcement of the armed forces one of the main tasks obviously is to build the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces into an exceptionally strong and powerful force along with reinforcing the regular and local forces.
a--It is necessary to develop the self-defense militia and guerrilla forces to the maximum in the quantitative field so that there are militia members everywhere in the south, from the delta and coastal areas to the forests, mountains, and cities; so that every one regardless of age and sex can participate in the extermination of the enemy. Strongly developing the militia force in the quantitative field is a very important demand which the people’s war in the south is fully able to satisfy because our southern compatriots are very patriotic, strongly hate the enemy, and are united to struggle to the end for the independence and unification of the fatherland and because the southern people’s political force is enlarged and reinforced daily. To reinforce the militia force, it is necessary to pay special attention to the important areas: around the enemy’s barracks, in and around big cities, airfields, and the enemy’s logistic bases, along the strategic communication lines in the important coastal areas. It is necessary to keep a firm control on the militia and guerrilla forces.
b--Along with greatly increasing the number of self-defense militia and guerrilla forces, it is necessary to consolidate them and improve their quality in all fields: political, ideological, organizational, technical, tactical, and equipment. To improve the quality of militiamen, first of all it is necessary to heighten their political and ideological levels. It is necessary to raise to a high level their patriotism, their hatred for the enemy, and their firm determination to defeat the U.S. aggressors and their lackeys, liberate the south, defend the north, and unify the country. It is necessary to develop revolutionary heroism among militiamen and make heroic actions and heroes blossom continuously in the guerrilla warfare movement.
c--It is necessary to further improve the militia’s organization and equipment. It is necessary to consider the requirements of concrete combat tasks and the situation and characteristics of each region--the mountains, the delta, and the cities--in the political, economic, demographic, topographic, and other fields to establish a suitable organization for the militia force. As far as equipment is concerned, it is necessary to step up the development of primitive weapons and continue to improve these weapons. At the same time we must endeavor to develop our capacity of supplying the militia with relatively modern weapons—including modern weapons taken from the enemy.
d--It is necessary to teach self-defense militiamen and guerrillas revolutionary duties and military duties and further improve their fighting ability. Providing militiamen with military training is a very important task. It is necessary to continuously heighten militiamen’s technical and tactical levels and develop to the maximum the best methods for fighting the enemy with all weapons available. Special attention must be paid to fighting methods which require only a small force to defeat an enemy, who is more numerous and equipped with more powerful weapons, and inflict heavy losses on him.
e--It is necessary to continuously reinforce the body of cadres. It is necessary to clearly realize the very important role of cadres to achieve the greatest success in training, improving, and cultivating them and making their body increasingly strong in number and quality. It is necessary to boldly promote to the ranks of cadres outstanding, courageous, and resourceful combatants who have been tested in combat and who have accumulated many experiences. Special attention must be paid to promoting outstanding militiawomen. It is necessary to constantly improve cadres, especially basic cadres, thus enabling them to satisfactorily fulfill all the tasks of leadership, command, and unit management.
f--Attention must be paid to recapitulating the experiences of the progressive cadres and developing their effects. This task not only influences the development of guerrilla warfare, but also greatly contributes to further enriching the content of Vietnamese military art.
If a strong and powerful self-defense militia force and a guerrilla force is built and if guerrilla warfare is greatly accelerated, as described above, the people’s war in the south will have one of the necessary conditions for achieving complete victory.
B--The great victories of the people’s war in the north against the U.S. imperialists’ war of destruction demonstrate the very great strategic role of the self-defense militia force in the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance.
During the past two years our northern troops and people have been defeating the U.S. imperialists’ war of destruction, waged mainly by their air force and navy. To date over 1,600 U.S. planes have been downed, many U.S. pilots have been killed or captured, and many U.S. warships have been sunk or damaged. It is true that the U.S. aggressors have created for us a number of difficulties and inflicted on us some damage. However, our people have become more and more united and have increasingly heightened their firm determination to defend the north, liberate the south, and advance toward national unification.
Despite development of the war, our people’s economic and cultural life has been stabilized. All production activities in the north are being maintained. Northern compatriots continue striving to fulfill the responsibilities of the great rear to the great front, the south. In these great victories the contributions of the self-defense militia force are very significant. The recent victories of the north are victories of the people’s war over the war of destruction of the U.S. imperialists. In all fields--combat, production, the insuring of communication and transport, serving the front, serving as the reserve force, and so forth--the self-defense militia force has displayed its rich potential and proved itself worthy of its strategic role in this great revolutionary undertaking.
(1) Self-defense militiamen have fought courageously to down U.S. planes, capture U.S. pilots, and exterminate enemy raiders. The success of the self-defense militiamen in downing U.S. planes with infantry rifles is an everlasting meritorious military service.
The first man on earth who used a rifle to down a modern U.S. jet was a Vietnamese self-defense militiaman. This honor embellished the tradition of heroism of our troops and people. Northern self-defense militiamen have downed over 100 U.S. planes of various types. Of these 22 were downed by self-defense militiamen of the Third Military Zone and 77 by self-defense militiamen of the Fourth Military Zone. Self-defense militiamen in Quang Binh Province have downed 28 U.S. planes. In the northwestern and Viet Bac zones ethnic minority self-defense militiamen have also downed U.S. planes, thus positively contributing to the common victories of all the people.
U.S. pilots are filled with fear each time they have to make piratical flights over the north. If they fly at low altitude they will be fired upon by the self-defense militiamen. They have complained that “each rifle bullet has the same effect as a hammerlike blow” at their planes. If they fly at high altitude to avoid the self-defense militiamen’s ring of fire, they cannot hit their targets accurately and can easily be downed by antiaircraft artillery or missiles. Thus the mere fact that self-defense militiamen dare shoot at U.S. planes has the important effect of limiting destruction by the enemy air force.
Almost all U.S. pilots who have parachuted to earth in the north have been captured alive by self-defense militiamen and militiawomen. Militiamen of villages V and Q in the Fourth Military Zone collaborated with regular troops in fighting against enemy warships and capturing alive U.S. pilots who parachuted down at sea. The self-defense militiamen’s achievements in exterminating enemy rangers are praiseworthy. All attacks against enemy rangers have been undertaken by self-defense militiamen and people’s armed policemen. In the Fourth Military Zone militiawoman Ho Thi Duong captured alive enemy rangers with her bare hands. Militiaman Truong Phap of Quang Binh Province, along with his comrades, fought to his last breath to defeat the sabotage plots of a group of enemy rangers who had landed from the sea.
(2) Self-defense militiamen have enthusiastically served the regular troops in combat: Self-defense militiamen in various military zones have contributed millions of workdays to the construction of combat sites for antiaircraft artillery, missiles, coastal batteries, and the building of airfields, warehouses, and so forth. While the regulars fight against enemy planes and warships, self-defense militiamen and militiawomen heroically fulfilled the task of transporting ammunition and cleaning guns, and when required even played the role of artillerymen. Self-defense militiamen have enthusiastically helped the regulars satisfactorily carry out the postcombat tasks and quickly and secretly change the battle site. Self-defense militiamen have made positive contributions to each feat of arms of the regulars.
(3) The self-defense militia forces have cooperated with the people’s security forces in firmly maintaining order and security in localities: In a situation in which the country is at war, the maintenance of order and security in localities is very important. The self-defense militia forces, together with the people’s security forces, have discovered and repressed the reactionaries in time, stepped up the task of guarding against spies and countering enemy espionage and psychological warfare, and made achievements in protecting the party and government, insuring security for the people, and maintaining order and security in localities.
(4) The self-defense militia forces have made great achievements in fulfilling the people’s air defense task: We must clearly realize that our people have been successful in countering the U.S. aggressors’ war of destruction because our armed forces have vigorously fought the enemy and because our people’s air defense task has been fulfilled. Fulfillment of the people’s air defense task has been of great significance in protecting the people’s lives and property and in keeping losses at a minimum. The self-defense militia forces are mainly the core forces for fulfilling the people’s air defense task. The self-defense militiamen and militiawomen have fulfilled the task of spotting enemy aircraft, sounding alerts, and digging trenches and pits.
Throughout the north there are now thousands of kilometers of communications trenches and tens of millions of other trenches and pits of various types. The militiamen and militiawomen have discovered and disarmed enemy bombs and shells and taken the lead in rescuing victims and protecting the goods and warehouses of the state and the people. It can be said that our people’s air defense task has been satisfactorily fulfilled because of the presence of the self-defense militia forces, which are used as the core forces.
(5) The self-defense militia forces have greatly contributed to insuring communications and transportation: The self-defense militia forces have valiantly fought to protect bridges and roads, deactivate time bombs, fill bomb craters, build detours, camouflage vehicles, save vehicles and goods, build an illumination system for air raid defense along lines of communication, unload and transport goods, and so forth. As a result, we have not wasted manpower and materiel and we have constantly insured good communications and transport. The self-defense militia forces have accumulated many experiences in the performance of combat and other tasks.
Many localities have organized militia units to perform the engineering task of saving and repairing bridges and roads. In some localities the militia forces have by themselves built 20-meter-long bridges. Some localities have also extensively trained the people in engineering techniques.
(6) The self-defense militia forces are the core forces in the movement to build combat villages: To satisfactorily build combat villages many problems must be solved. One of the most important of these problems is that of having strong self-defense militia forces. Under the leadership of the village party chapter and relying on cooperatives, self-defense militiamen in various localities have engaged in study to heighten their political, ideological, technical, and tactical understanding and combat preparedness.
In various provinces, including Thanh Hoa, Haiphong, and Hung Yen, the self-defense militia forces, combining economy with national defense, have joined the people in modifying the terrain, building combat fortifications, planting millions of clusters of bamboo and evergreen trees, and digging irrigation canals in accordance with each locality’s combat projects and socialist rural construction plans. These achievements are of great military significance, because combat villages are a unique form of people’s war in our country. Combat villages are not only important for opposing the war of destruction but also for making preparations to counter the enemy’s limited war.
(7) The self-defense militia forces are the shock forces in production and the consolidation of cooperatives: From the outset some localities have been afraid that the building of self-defense militia forces and combat villages, which requires a great amount of manpower and material, would affect production. This is not true. The localities which have good chi bo and strong self-defense militia forces have high revolutionary vigor. These localities have not only succeeded in building strong, steady combat villages, but they have also been able to increase production and consolidate cooperatives.
The most difficult and complicated production tasks have been voluntarily fulfilled by self-defense militiamen. Self-defense militiamen have actively engaged in improving cooperative management and have taken the lead in caring for ricefields, improving techniques, insuring intensive cultivation, increasing output, and so forth. Almost all the good self-defense militia combatants are at the same time good in production. The slogans “Hammer in one hand, rifle in the other” and “Plow in one hand, rifle in the other” show the very important position of the self-defense militia forces on these two fronts.
(8) The self-defense militia forces have satisfactorily fulfilled the role of the reserve force. Under the leadership of our party and forged through realistic combat and production, the self-defense militia forces have matured swiftly and steadily, satisfactorily fulfilled the task of the reserve force, provided the frontline with replacements, and created every favorable condition for the expansion and development of main-force units.
We have always had strong reserve forces without having to mobilize many people and take them away from production. These forces consist mainly of the large self-defense militia forces. They have fulfilled the requirement of providing all battlefields with whatever men or armed service personnel are required. If the battlefields need combatants they will have combatants, and if they need cadres they will have cadres, especially at the basic level. Never before have our armed forces had such favorable conditions for swiftly expanding and developing.
The self-defense militia forces in all military regions have a great number of combatants who have been trained to become gunners of various types and comrades who excel in the use of engineering techniques and can be used as on-the-spot replacements in various antiaircraft units. Many militiamen have directly engaged in fighting aircraft in Quang Binh, Vinh Linh, Ham Rong, Nam Ha, and elsewhere and have acquired great experience in using modern weapons. This is an inexhaustible source of replacement of combatants and cadres in our armed forces.
As a result of the outstanding achievements of the self-defense militia forces, we can clearly see that the self-defense militia forces have very great latent capabilities in various fields, not only for the fulfillment of the immediate task of countering the war of destruction but also for frustrating all aggressive plots of the U.S. aggressors, including any rash attempt of the latter to expand the limited war to the northern part of our country. We have such a valuable self-defense militia force because we have a heroic party and people and the correct creative lines of people’s war. The outstanding achievements of each well-developed and strong self-defense militia unit result from the leadership of party committees and chapters of all echelons at the basic level and from the people’s wholehearted assistance and care.
In short, we can conclude: The self-defense militia forces have played an extremely important strategic role in the great anti-U.S. national salvation struggle of our people. In assessing this role, we use as a basis the successes of self-defense militia forces in the actual war in both the south and north and the Marxist military lines of our party, the nature of people’s war, the views of our party on the role of the masses in the evolution of history, and the characteristics of people’s war in our country.
We must correctly realize the strategic role of the self-defense militia forces, understand more thoroughly the task, method of organization, and trend of building of the self-defense militia forces, and incessantly heighten our sense of responsibility and our struggle in order to build the self-defense militia forces into an increasingly mature and strong armed forces so as to meet the new requirements of the anti-U.S. national salvation struggle.