Basing ourselves on the war situation during the past two years, on the heavy defeats of the U.S. imperialists, and on the big victories of our people, we can draw the following four conclusions:
A--Our people won big victories during a very important phase of the local war strategy of the U.S. imperialists. The possibility of inflicting complete military defeat upon more than a million of U.S., puppet, and satellite troops is becoming a reality.
It can be said that the last two years are a very important phase of the local war strategy of the U.S. imperialists. They have exerted very great war efforts. During the last two years, they have massively increased their troops, boosting quickly the total of U.S. expeditionary troops in South Vietnam from 50,000 to about 500,000 men and the total of U.S., puppet, and satellite troops to over a million men. They have concentrated their troops to launch two strategic counteroffensives in South Vietnam and, at the same time, undertaken very serious escalation steps in their war of destruction against North Vietnam. They have poured an enormous quantity of modern war means into the battlefield and resorted to very cruel war measures, hoping to achieve a decisive victory and bring the war to a turning point.
But they have sustained heavy defeats. They have not only been unable to achieve a turning point toward victory, but have been forced to take a step backward toward defeat. All their strategic objectives--from searching and destroying the enemy’s regulars, pacifying the countryside, consolidating the puppet army, and stabilizing the Saigon puppet government to encircling and isolating the southern revolution--have gone bankrupt ignominiously. The strategic efficiency of U.S. troops have been reduced obviously. As for the puppet troops, they seem to be losing in combativity.
During the past two years, our people have passed through many fierce challenges and achieved many big victories, victories having a strategic meaning in both military and political fields. On the southern battlefield--a decisive battlefield--the army and people of the heroic south, under the glorious NFLSV banner, have developed the great people’s war to an unprecedentedly high level by stepping up both the military and political struggles and by continually attacking the enemy. The compatriots and liberation armed forces in the south have annihilated an important part of the U.S., puppet, and satellite military forces, developed their own military and political forces very quickly, made the balance of forces tilt in our favor day by day, further developed their initiative on the battlefield, consolidated the liberated areas, further enlarged the front for uniting all the people for the anti-U.S. national salvation struggle, isolated the U.S. aggressors and the country-selling traitors, and continuously heightened the determination of all the people to fight and win.
On the northern battlefield, our army and people under the leadership of the party, headed by respected and beloved President Ho, have successively defeated all the war escalation steps of the U.S. imperialists and inflicted heavy losses upon them, thus causing them to become more embarrassed and stalemated in their aggressive war in Vietnam. The increasingly strong and powerful socialist north has been strongly developing its role of the great rear toward the great frontline.
The victories that our people throughout the country have won during the past two years are comprehensive victories in the military and political fields. In the recent past, the U.S. imperialists have concentrated their troops on carrying out their war policy in order to invade our country. That is why our people have been forced to concentrate our troops and activities on the task of defeating the U.S. bandits on the battlefield. Our people are defeating an army of over a million U.S., puppet, and satellite troops.
This is a military victory of great significance, a heavy blow at the aggressive will of the U.S. war maniacs who are using the policy of force to subdue our people and conquer the south of our country. This great victory of our army and people is eloquent proof demonstrating the great power of the people’s war of our country, is a firm argument upon which we can base ourselves to conclude that we are fully able to completely defeat over a million U.S., puppet, and satellite troops in the military field. This ability is becoming a reality.
B--Our people’s victory is first of all the victory of the people’s warfare strategy and tactics and the victory of the anti-U.S. national salvation victory.
The victory of an armed struggle depends on many factors, the nature of the war, the comparison of forces between the two camps, the strength and quality of the armed forces, the fighting spirit of the armed forces and people, the economic and military potentials, the strategic and tactical leadership, the international assistance, and so forth.
With respect to our country, which is a small and not very populous country and which has to oppose an imperialist ring leader who has carried out a great military build-up with powerful weapons, not only must we have great determination to fight and win, but we must also know how to fight and to win, that is, we must have a good fighting method to be able to defeat the enemy.
The people’s warfare strategy and tactics, an important part of our anti-U.S. national salvation struggle, not only have developed the determination to fight and win and the latent potential of our people, but have also developed to the utmost the intelligence and stratagem of our people to defeat the enemy. Our people’s warfare strategy and tactics have succeeded in concentrating our people’s creativeness under the leadership of a correct political and military policy. Moreover, with the experiences of our ancestors in the struggle against foreign invaders in the old days and the experiences of the revolutionary wars in other countries, they brought about glorious victories in our people’s resistance against the French colonialists.
Today, our people’s war strategy and tactics have further developed in an inspiring and creative manner, have defeated the Americans and puppets in their special war strategy, and are defeating them in their limited war strategy. During the past years, our people’s war strategy and tactics have directly tested their strength with that of the strategy and tactics of the U.S. imperialists, the arch imperialists, in whom the essence of the bourgeois military doctrine is concentrated. Through challenges, our people’s war strategy and tactics have demonstrated their superiority and invincible strength, whereas the enemy’s strategy and tactics have proved to be ineffective, old, weak, and decadent along with the decadence and decline of imperialism.
Our people’s war strategy and tactics have radically upset the bourgeois military doctrine’s viewpoint on the balance of power between two sides and have driven the imperialists’ viewpoint on relying upon weapons into complete bankruptcy. Our people’s war strategy and tactics have driven the enemy into a situation in which his forces remain insufficient even though they are numerous. He is slow, even though he possesses high mobility. He fails to acquire strength, on the offensive as well as on the defensive, even though he has large numbers of aircraft, artillery pieces, and mechanized vehicles.
Besides, he has exhibited many weaknesses and pitfalls. Although the war has not yet come to an end, it is fitting to say that our people’s war strategy and tactics have defeated the Americans’ limited war strategy and tactics. The successes and invincible strength of our people’s war strategy and tactics are paving the way for greater successes in the days ahead. In a war, once one has fallen into a strategic and tactical stalemate, he can by no means ward off his final defeat even if he possesses plenty of troops, weapons, and money. This is the stalemated situation in which the U.S. imperialists find themselves.
The great successes achieved by our people have proved that our anti-U.S. salvation line is completely correct. Our anti-U.S. national salvation line reflects not only the ironlike determination of our armed forces and people, but also the fact that in adopting this line we have ourselves firmly grasped the military science of Marxism-Leninism and the art of war leadership, made a scientific analysis of our own strongpoints and weaknesses and those of the enemy and an analysis of the balance of power between both sides, correctly evaluated the enemy’s scheme, thereby setting forth a correct direction with a view to achieving success for our people’s resistance.
This line has mobilized and organized all our people and has developed the strength of our entire country to defeat the U.S. aggressors. This line has been deeply imbued with the spirit of independence and the spirit of relying mainly on our own strength, while attaching great importance to the assistance of the fraternal socialist countries and the progressive people all over the world, including the progressive American people. This line has not only held aloft the patriotic banner of our people’s struggle for independence and freedom, but has also highly demonstrated our people’s proletarian internationalist spirit, because our people’s anti-U.S. national salvation struggle is an important contribution to the common struggle for peace, national independence, democracy, and socialism waged by progressive people throughout the world.
It is for this reason that the prestige of our resistance has been increasingly enhanced and the support of the world’s peoples for our people has become more and more vigorous. No national liberation struggle in history has ever obtained as much vigorous and comprehensive sympathy and support from the world’s peoples as does our people’s anti-U.S. national salvation resistance today. The U.S. imperialists have sought by every means to weaken our resistance forces. Yet, they have failed. They have been disastrously isolated in the world. The success of the anti-U.S., national salvation line is also the glorious success of our party’s true Marxist-Leninist line and spirit of independence, self-reliance, and international solidarity.
C--The longer the fight, the more mature our forces, and the weaker the enemy forces. Through our anti-U.S. national resistance, all forces of our people have gone through ordeals and become increasingly mature. On the vast frontline, through two years of direct confrontation with the U.S. expeditionary troops, not only have the southern army and people scored great achievements, but they have also gained many rich fighting experiences. The liberation armed forces have become increasingly mature, their fighting effect and their strategic efficiency have been more and more increased, and their offensive impetus has become increasingly stronger.
The NFLSV has been increasingly consolidated and enlarged and has increasingly strengthened the people’s political forces. The liberated areas have been enlarged and firmly consolidated. The political struggle movement has been widely developed. The people in the southern cities are rising up to struggle more and more fiercely against the U.S. aggressors and the country-selling Vietnamese traitors.
In the north, as the people’s armed forces have been developed in quantity, as their quality has been increased, and as they have also learned from the southern liberation armed forces’ fighting experiences, their fighting strength has been comprehensively increased.
The U.S. imperialists have attacked the north in a very fierce manner, but our people have never been shaken, and their fighting determination has constantly been heightened. Our army and people have ever more valiantly engaged in production and combat, are determined to insure good communications and transportation, and have devoted themselves to supporting the frontline. Never before was the kith-and-kin northern-southern love expressed so ardently and deeply as it is now by the 17 million northern compatriots in their production and combat efforts and in support of the frontline. The northern army and people fear no sacrifices and hardships and are devoting efforts day and night to fulfilling their task toward the vast frontline with the spirit of “all for the frontline and all for victory.”
As for the enemy, although his economic and military potential is great, it is, however, obvious that the more he intensifies the war of aggression in Vietnam, the more weakened he becomes, and the more difficulties he encounters. Although great, the U.S. military forces have been scattered in many parts of the world. The U.S. imperialists must cope with the national liberation movement, with the socialist bloc, with the U.S. people, and with other imperialist countries.
The U.S. imperialists cannot mobilize all their forces for the war of aggression in Vietnam. The present force-mobilizing level has far exceeded initial U.S. forecasts and is at sharp variance with U.S. global strategy. At present, the United States does not have enough troops to meet Westmoreland’s requirements. In the days ahead, even if the U.S. imperialists send more forces to the south, they will remain unable to stop the decline of the U.S. expeditionary and the puppet troops.
The U.S. troops’ fighting spirit has declined, and the U.S. officers’ leadership is very poor. Westmoreland remains unable to find any method which can help the U.S. imperialists extricate themselves from their deadlocked situation, and to discover any way to help increase the U.S. troops’ efficiency and to recover the puppet troops’ strength, which has become more and more exhausted.
The (?enemy’s) weakness stems from his contradictions and his basic weak points, but is also attributable to a decisive factor: The invincible strength and the great achievements of our people.
Our maturity stems from the radiant just cause of the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance, the all-people great unity bloc with the determination to fight and win, the correct anti-U.S. national salvation lines, and the strategies and tactics of the invincible people’s war, the tenacious, indomitable tradition, the potential strength, and the fighting experiences of our people in countering foreign aggression, the absolute superiority of the vast rear--the socialist north--and the strong and wide sympathy and support of the brotherly socialist countries and progressive people in the world. Facts in the past years have proved that the more we fight the stronger we become, and the more the enemy fights the weaker he becomes. This is the law of the protracted, hard, but certainly victorious resistance of our people.
D--The past great achievements are a firm base for our people to move forward to win final victory. The enemy’s heavy setbacks will certainly lead him to complete defeat. At the outset, everything is difficult to do. In the past two years, the anti-U.S., national salvation resistance of our people has gone through fierce ordeals and has initially defeated the U.S. imperialists’ local war strategy. As we have succeeded in overcoming all difficulties at the beginning, we will certainly succeed in overcoming all the forthcoming difficulties and hardships in a more advantageous manner. The recent great achievements are a firm base for our people to move forward to win final victory.
We do not subjectively evaluate our successes. President Ho has said: “The nearer victory is, the more hardships there will be.” The U.S. imperialists are still very stubborn and cunning. Yet, no matter how frantically they may writhe, they will certainly not be able to change the situation to avoid final defeat. They can by no means turn the cause of defeat into the cause of victory, but will merely deepen the causes leading them toward defeat. Taylor himself, who initiated the flexible reaction strategy and who once directly led the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam, had to admit in his latest work entitled “Responsibility and Reaction” that the Americans committed an error in choosing the time, place, and objective in this war. Taylor complained that the Americans have sent troops to South Vietnam in an instinctive rather than a calculated manner and that the Americans committed themselves too late yet too deeply to a war which is very costly in terms of human and material resources. He said that the puppet Saigon army and administration are too weak, are on the decline, and so forth.
The U.S. imperialists will certainly meet with complete defeat in their war of aggression in Vietnam, because they have encountered a people who not only have a determination to fight and win, but who also know how to fight and defeat all aggressive enemies. The territory of Vietnam is not vast and its population is not large. Yet, the Vietnamese people possess traditions of indomitability and a very high spirit of self-reliance and have defeated all aggressive enemies. In the past few decades, our Vietnamese people, relying mainly on their own strength, defeated the Japanese fascists and the French colonialist aggressors and the U.S. interventionists. Today, our people have defeated the Americans’ special war strategy and are defeating more than 1 million U.S., puppet, and satellite troops in their limited war strategy.
This eloquent fact proves that in the present age, even though a people be small, but have a determination to unite and fight for independence and freedom in accordance with correct and creative political and military lines, they know how to rely mainly on their own strength, how to develop the favorable conditions of their time, and how to launch a people’s war in conformity with the characteristics and situation of their own country. Having effective fighting methods, they are fully capable of defeating and will certainly defeat all aggressive enemies, including the U.S. imperialists.
Can a small country, which relies mainly upon its own strength, defeat the limited war of aggression of the U.S. imperialists, the archimperialists who possess great military and economic potentials? This is the burning question of our time. The Vietnamese people are replying to this question with their glorious victories. These victories are the Vietnamese people’s great contribution to the world’s peoples. History has entrusted this glorious mission to our people. Our people are resolved to devote all their minds and abilities to completely defeating the U.S. aggressors and thereby fulfilling this historic task.
Previous: Part III--The people throughout the country have achieved very great victories.
Next: Part V--The U.S. imperialists’ forthcoming plots and our task.