Since its birth, our Party has assumed the great historic mission of leading the national liberation movement in the new epoch and has ushered in the most glorious era in the history of our nation, the era of independence, freedom and socialism.
Over the last few thousand years, our people have waged many insurrections and national wars to win back and safeguard the independence of the country. And in the course of the past forty years, in the protracted struggle along the correct, independent, and creative lines of the Party, our people have again continuously waged heroic nation-wide insurrections and people’s wars to win back and safeguard national independence and build up and defend the people’s democratic system and socialism in our country.
Our people successfully carried out the general uprising in the August Revolution, overthrew the Franco-Japanese fascist rule and founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, the first people’s democratic State in Southeast Asia. Our people victoriously waged the first sacred war of resistance, defeated the French colonialists’ war of aggression, liberated half the country and took the North to socialism. Our people have been successfully waging the second sacred war of resistance against US imperialism, the most glorious and greatest war against foreign aggression in our national history, in order to liberate the South, defend the North, advance toward peaceful national reunification and contribute to the revolutionary cause of the peoples all over the world. Never in its history did our nation fight for such a long time, carrying out armed uprisings and revolutionary war during several decades as at this time. Neither did our nation ever before successively and successfully face such brutal aggressors as Japanese fascism, a powerful force in Asia, French colonialism, an old colonial power in Europe, and US imperialism, the leading imperialist power, the number one enemy of mankind.
Our people have displayed a heroic mettle, an iron-like determination and have won great victories. Those glorious victories are inseparable from the birth of the Vietnamese working class, the leadership of our Party and of beloved and respected President Ho Chi Minh and the historical conditions and contexts of the new era ushered in by the great Russian October Revolution.
In order to fulfil successfully the historic mission of defeating those brutal aggressors, for the sake of independence, freedom and socialism, our nation has mobilized the force of the whole people and, with superb heroism, carried out a just fight under the leadership of our Party. In conjunction with organizing the political forces of the masses and on the basis of this large political army, our Party has successfully solved the problem of the military organization of the people, successfully built up the people’s armed forces.
Our people’s armed forces are one of the very important factors that determine the victory of revolutionary struggle in our country. Its development lies within that of an armed uprising and revolutionary war aimed at implementing the Party’s lines. Therefore, the analysis of new developments in armed uprisings and revolutionary war in our country is just the basis for a clear understanding of the creativeness of our Party and our people in the building of the revolutionary armed forces.
Our Vietnamese people have already experienced in the past people’s uprisings and people’s wars led by the feudal class. They also experienced people’s uprisings and people’s wars growing out of peasant movements, a product of the combination of the peasant movement and the national movement.
Today, our nation has a nation-wide uprising and people’s war led by the working class, a product of the combination of the great revolutionary trends in our country: the national liberation revolution and the socialist revolution.
Creatively applying Marxism-Leninism to the specific conditions of the revolutionary struggle in our country, inheriting and developing the national tradition of glorious struggle against foreign aggression, our Party and our people have brought armed uprising and revolutionary war to a new level of development, and have given it a new content and a new quality, as regards political aims, as regards the forces involved and methods of struggle, and on account of its extremely great offensive power.
With regard to the political aims of uprising and war, the former uprisings and national wars in our history were aimed at winning back and preserving national independence, opposing the rule and aggressive wars of foreign feudalism and at the same time building, defending and developing the feudal system in the country. Through these uprisings and national wars, the peasants also won certain economic and political rights, but only within the framework of the feudal system, of the policy of “sparing the people’s forces” advocated by the feudal class which was playing a positive role at the time.
The armed uprisings and revolutionary wars in our country in our time have other political aims. These are to overthrow the rule of imperialism, and its agents, defeat the aggressive war launched by imperialism, achieve national independence, people’s democracy and socialism and build up, defend and develop the people’s democratic and socialist system in our country. Those political aims are also the basic and immediate tasks of the Vietnamese revolution set forth by the Party. According to the Party’s revolutionary line, the task of national liberation is closely linked with that of winning democratic rights, the road of national liberation is closely linked with that of socialist revolution, the revolutionary task of our country is closely linked with that of other countries in the world. Armed uprising and revolutionary war led by our Party are aimed at liberating the nation, bringing full independence to the Fatherland and also at class liberation, bringing various rights and interest to the labouring people, primarily to the workers and peasants, while contributing to the revolutionary cause of the world people. These political aims of the uprising and wars are the very purpose of the fight, the source of strength of the revolutionary armed organization and of the people’s armed forces.
With regard to the forces involved, the former uprisings and national wars in our history had the great strength of “the whole nation joining forces”, thanks to our people’s ardent patriotism and sense of national cohesion, and led by progressive feudal groups who promulgated certain forms of democracy to mobilize the people in the fight against aggression. Therefore, our nation was able to defeat many aggressors several times as strong. However, this strength of “the whole nation joining forces” still had some limitations due to historical conditions and the antagonism of class interests between the feudal class and the peasantry.
The armed uprisings and revolutionary wars in our country in our time have a new strength, that of the unity of the whole people based on the worker-peasant alliance led by the working class. It originates from the profound identity of interest between the working class and all labouring people and other strata of patriotic people, both in the task of winning back independence and freedom for the nation and in that of building the new social system. It is the strength of ardent patriotism combined with very high class consciousness, indomitable fighting spirit combined with creative intelligence of the broad masses of the people, primarily of the workers and peasants, in the struggle for self-liberation, national liberation, class liberation to win and preserve national sovereignty, the right to be masters of their own destinies. This is the strength of the new social system, the people’s democratic and socialist system, with its clear superiority in every field in comparison with any exploiting regime. The strength of the people’s armed forces is based on the invincible force of the unity of the whole people with the worker-peasant alliance under the leadership of the working class, and on the superiority of the new social system.
In the present fight, our people also enjoy the assistance and support of the world revolution, first of all of the brother countries in the socialist camp, whereas our forefathers in feudal times could only rely on their own forces. This international assistance has become a very important factor for the victory of armed uprisings and revolutionary war in our country and for creating the great strength of our nation.
With regard to methods of struggle, our people have mastered the Marxist-Leninist view on revolutionary violence, inherited and developed the experience of our nation in people’s uprising and people’s war in former times, and created new methods of struggle to win victory. Those varied methods of struggle reflect the law of revolutionary violence in our country, the offensiveness and attacking force of the revolutionary currents in our country within the common offensive position of the world revolution. They are the methods of struggle in uprising and war with the participation of the forces of the whole people, the whole nation, the whole country, with both the political and armed forces, in both the rural and urban areas, with both the powerful people’s army and the omnipresent armed forces of the masses, applying many forms of struggle on various fronts, primarily combining armed struggle with political struggle, thus creating the greatest possible aggregate strength to win victory. Those methods of struggle make up an original and creative mode of carrying out uprising and waging war, the original and creative military art of Vietnamese nation-wide uprising and people’s war in the new times.
With its new content and new quality in regard to political aims as well as to the forces involved and methods of struggle, bringing into full play the strength of the four-thousand-year history of building and defending the country, the present day armed uprising and revolutionary war in our country are endowed with completely new strength. This strength has enabled our Party and our people to solve, successfully and brilliantly, a new and very important problem, which did not arise in our ancestors’ struggles: How a small nation, with a backward economy, can defeat aggressive wars waged by big imperialist powers, which not only have larger populations but also very developed economies, large economic and military potential, and armies that are numerically stronger and equipped with more modern weapons and technical materials.
Both in the past and in the present epoch, our nation has had to oppose a smaller force to a larger one. Yet the situations are not the same. Aggressors in former times were usually stronger than ourselves but were under the same feudal system; they had larger armies, but their weapons and technology were not more sophisticated, and sometimes were less sophisticated than ours wheareas present-day rulers and aggressors have been more powerful enemies for they are the big imperialist powers including the leading one, US imperialism. They wage unjust wars; their social systems are reactionary; but they have developed economies, modern industries, great economic and military potentials and their armies are many times as large and equipped with much more modern technical materials. Our country, in contrast, is small, our territory is not very vast, our population not very large. Our uprisings and wars are just ones; after seizing power, our people have built up an advanced political regime, but the economy is still backward, an essentially agricultural one, and the material and technical basis is very limited. This is due to the thousand years of feudal stagnation plus the nearly one hundred years of French colonialist rule and exploitation; then, since seizing power, our people have had to wage wars for several decades, without having much time for peaceful construction and economic development in the whole country. That is why, in spite of the considerable assistance from the brother countries in the socialist camp, our people’s conditions are such that they have to rely mainly on their own economy to defeat aggressors who are much more powerful with regard to economic and military potential.
*
In the process of leading the revolutionary struggle of our people, in order to successfully carry out armed uprisings and revolutionary war, our Party and President Ho Chi Minh have created, organized and trained the invincible and heroic Viet Nam people’s armed forces. Closely linked to the development of nation-wide uprising and people’s war the Viet Nam people’s armed forces, the present military organization of our people, have undergone further development as regards their class nature, forms of organization, armament and equipment as well as their military art and combat power.
As regards the class nature, the former armed forces in our country involved in insurrections and national wars were mainly organized and led by the feudal class, and therefore had a feudal nature; between the insurgent forces organized by representatives of the feudal class, the army of the feudal State, and the broad masses there was identity of national interests and combat purposes. That was the source of the great strength of the national armed forces in the victorious fights against the rule and aggression of foreign feudal groups. However, there was also opposition in class interests between the army of the feudal State and the broad masses in the country, for the army was the tool of the minority, i.e. the feudal class, to rule over and enslave the majority of the nation made up of peasants. Therefore, the identity of national interests and combat purposes in insurrections and national wars had certain limitations, which could not but affect the combat power of the national armies in those times.
Our people’s present armed forces are new-type armed forces, new-type military organizations, organized and led by the Party of the working class, having a working-class nature. They are the people’s military organization, primarily of the labouring people, above all the workers and peasants and of the various nationalities living on the Vietnamese land. Their combat aims are those revolutionary aims set forth by the Party. They are composed of cadres and fighters originating from the revolutionary classes, firstly and primarily from the workers and peasant masses. They are the tool of our Party and State — the people’s democratic and socialist State — to carry out armed insurrection and revolutionary war under the leadership of our Party against the aggressors and their agents. Between the people’s armed forces, the army of our State and the entire population, there is not only complete identity as regards national interests, and objectives in the uprisings and wars against foreign aggression, but also very high identity as regards class interests and combat purposes in the tasks of building the country, building and developing the new social system — the people’s democratic and socialist system in our country.
This identity of objective between the armed forces and the people in both external and internal tasks, the consciousness of both national and class interests, patriotism, attachment to the new social system and proletarian internationalism are all at the root of the very high fighting spirit, of the revolutionary heroism of the people’s armed forces. That is why the Viet Nam people’s armed forces are really “faithful to the Party, loyal to the people, ready to fight and to sacrifice themselves for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, for socialism. They fulfil every task, overcome every difficulty and defeat every enemy.”(1) The invincible strength of our people’s armed forces has its primary source in the leadership of our Party, in the revolutionary nature of the armed forces, in the intimate relations between the army and the people. Therefore, the most fundamental guarantee for the strengthening of the combat power of our army lies in strengthening the Party leadership, building solid Party organizations and intensifying political work in the army, and building it up in every respect on the basis of political and ideological work.
With regard to the forms of organization of the forces, our Party has creatively applied the Marxist-Leninist thesis on the military organization of the proletariat and inherited and developed the national experience of the past in organizing the armed forces. On the basis of the political and social conditions and of the material and technical foundations, it has successfully realized the intensive and widespread arming of the whole people, giving arms to the revolutionary masses, while building the people’s army, organizing three kinds of troops: the regular troops, the regional troops and the militia and self-defence units. Our Party also organized the people’s armed security forces. The people’s armed forces originate from the political forces of the masses, which were gradually turned into the armed forces of the masses and gradually organized into the people’s army. The armed forces of the masses developed from small detachments of militia and self-defence groups into a large force, on a wide scale, with increasingly higher level of organization and better equipment. The people’s army developed from the original platoons and companies into a powerful army, with an increasingly larger scale of organization and more modern technical equipment. At the beginning it consisted only of infantry but it soon became a regular, modern army made up of various arms and services. The armed forces of the masses and the people’s army are constantly and closely combined on various occasions: in nation-wide insurrection, in people’s war as well as in national defence, in the war of liberation as well as in the war to defend the Fatherland.
The most prominent feature here is the very broad mass character of the people’s armed forces. Following the Party’s line of “unity of the whole people” and relying on the strength of the whole people in the fight for the revolutionary goals, our people have played a larger part in the combat than they ever did at any previous period of our national history. This is a “leap” in the development of the “mass character” of the revolutionary military organization born in revolutionary struggles referred to by Engels. After our people won power and founded a new-type State, the people’s democratic and socialist State led by the Party, the people’s armed forces become an instrument of violence of our State to fight internal and external enemies, to defend the system, preserve the revolutionary power and safeguard the interests of the people. That is why the people voluntarily take part in the fighting to defend the State and the regime and the State can arm the people on a large scale, and on this basis build up a powerful people’s army. Just as the founders of the military science of the proletariat predicted, the liberation of the proletariat will also have an effect in the military field, and will produce new-type armed forces with greater mass participation than those produced by the bourgeois revolution.
Our Party always pays attention to the question of the material and technical basis, the equipment and armament of the armed forces. For men and weapons are the essential factors of the combat power of the armed forces, of which men constitute the most essential and decisive factor. Engels said that the revolutionary effect in military organization comes through the invention of better weapons and the changes in the soldier, in the forces of men taking part in the fighting. The people’s armed forces are a community of men having revolutionary consciousness, high morale, conscious and strict discipline, grouped into appropriate forms of organization, making use of all weapons and means at their disposal, and having appropriate methods of fighting to defeat the enemy.
Through armed insurrections and revolutionary wars in our country, there has obviously been a qualitative change in the people’s revolutionary consciousness which helps create new men in the Vietnamese nation, Vietnamese fighters in the new times. But on the other hand, great limitations remain with regard to material and technical means. A striking success of our Party lies in the fact that it always keeps in view the dialectic relationship between men, equipment and armament and methods of fighting; it can clearly see and analyse the mutual effects of those elements so as to build up the most appropriate military organization. In conditions of a backward economy, our Party knows how to rely on the revolutionary consciousness of the people, the revolutionary spirit of the fighters, the very high morale of the troops, the mass character of the armed forces, the varied methods of fighting, to make use of and bring into full play all weapons and means at its disposal — rudimentary or relatively modern ones at first, then gradually more modern ones — in face of enemies equipped with automatic rifles and tanks, having artillery, air force and navy. Thanks to their bravery, their intelligence and their creative way of fighting, the armed forces of our people have made use and increased the power and effectiveness of various kinds of weapons and means, from rudimentary arms and instruments like bamboo spikes, stone traps, sticks carrying poles, etc., to more or less modern ones, the products of the technological achievements in the 20th century such as artillery, tanks, aircraft, missiles, etc., in their fight against the enemy.
With an army which is numerically weaker than the enemy, but supported by the armed forces of the masses and the large political forces of the masses in combined fighting, our people have defeated aggressive armies several times as large. With weapons and war materials that are inferior both in quantity and modernity, our people have defeated aggressive armies equipped with much more modern weapons and war materials. That is a remarkable achievement of the Viet Nam people’s armed forces, of the heroic Vietnamese people. That is also a remarkable achievement of Viet Nam’s military science.
However, we have always realized that an inferior material and technical basis is a very great deficiency which must be overcome. In the hands of the revolutionary armed forces, in the hands of cadres and fighters of the people’s army, more modern weapons and equipment will greatly heighten the combat power of the people’s armed forces. That is why, in the process of leading the heroic and long fight of our people, our Party always pays attention to improving the equipment of the armed forces, to modernizing the army. The way to solve the problem of equipping our armed forces is to rely on the masses, to fight with any weapons at one’s disposal, to take arms from the enemy, to produce our own weapons when possible, while making most of the assistance of the brother countries in the socialist camp and gradually improving the equipment of our armed forces. Since our people seized power, our Party has relied on the new social system which has been gradually built up, on the developing economy in our country, and on the great international support for our country to renew the equipment of the people’s armed forces on an ever larger scale and with more modern means. It might be said that the technical equipment of our armed forces reflects not only the economy and the level of development of the productive forces in our country but also to some extent, the economy and the level of development of the productive forces in the brother countries in the socialist camp. Therefore, the technical equipment of our people’s armed forces has been gradually modernized; not only is the people’s army further equipped with modern weapons and equipment, but the armed forces of the masses are also equipped with a number of relatively modern weapons adapted to their needs and means so as to heighten their combat power.
Our people’s armed forces have undergone a process of development from a small and weak force to a large and strong one, during decades of fighting full of sacrifices, hardships and glorious exploits: from the Nghe Tinh Soviets to the general uprising in the August Revolution, from the anti-French resistance war to the years of peaceful construction in the North, through the fight against the air war of destruction and the present patriotic resistance war against US aggression in both zones of our country. In the long and fierce struggle of our people against the most cruel and strongest aggressors of our times, our Party has based itself on the revolutionary tasks of each period, and on the specific forms of struggle and fighting objective in those periods, and solved in a creative way the problem of arming the whole people, building the people’s army and arming the revolutionary masses in accordance with specific historical conditions and context. Our people’s armed forces have gained many valuable lessons of experience, at each stage of their development they have solved the key problems arising from the fight in order to build up and increase their forces, to develop continually, to defeat all enemies, to perform glorious feats of arms and to fulfil all the tasks entrusted to them by the Party and the people.
Our Party affirmed its view on revolutionary violence upon its foundation in its Revolutionary Programme. It recognized that power must be seized through armed struggle and prescribed the way how revolutionary forces should be organized. In his Summarized Party Political Programme of February 1930, President Ho Chi Minh proposed the “organization of a worker-peasant army”. Later on, the Party Political Thesis of October 1930 also clearly mentioned the “arming of workers and peasants”, the “organization of a worker-peasant army” and of a “worker-peasant self-defence corps”. Thus from the very first day our Party has advocated the arming of the masses and building of an army, at the same time pointing out the class character of the organization of revolutionary armed forces.
Very soon after the founding of our Party, the country was swept by a revolutionary tempest which culminated in the Nghe Tinh Soviets (1930-1931). For the first time in our country’s history the worker and peasant masses under the leadership of the Party rose up and used revolutionary violence to overthrow the oppressive rule of colonialist, mandarins and local tyrants in a locality, and set up Soviet power, filling the colonialist and feudal rulers with dismay.
The Nghe Tinh Soviets lasted only a short time but their significance was very great. It may be said that this was a first step, and one which had a decisive influence on the whole development of our revolution. It affirmed the leadership of the working class of which our Party was the vanguard, and showed its capacity for leadership. It demonstrated the might of the worker-peasant masses, of the worker-peasant alliance led by the working class. It pointed out the road of violent revolution and the way of using the masses’ revolutionary violence to seize power. It was a general rehearsal by our people under the leadership of the Party, a forerunner of the successful general insurrection fifteen years later.
Our people’s armed forces during the revolutionary period of the thirties were in the form of self-defence organizations. These were the seeds of the extensive armed forces of the masses and also of the revolutionary army later on. At the same time the self-defence organizations were workers’ and peasants’ organizations in the cities and the countryside, whose tasks and functions were indicated by their name: they were the masses’ self-defence forces, with the task of protecting the masses during the various forms of struggle against the enemy.
The self-defence units played a great role. During the demonstrations and strikes by Phu Rieng rubber plantation workers in February 1930, the workers’ self defence unit fought against enemy troops who were put to flight after a French sergeant had had his arm broken, and the demonstration went on as planned. The success of the meeting held at Nha Be late in 1930, followed by the strike of 700 to 800 workers was due to “the intervention of the Nha Be workers’ self-defence unit who fractured the skull of a policeman and threw away his pistol, thus forcing him to free the speaker who was able to finish his speech and continue the meeting till its end”.(2)
In the Nghe Tinh Soviet movement, workers and peasants, armed with sticks, sickles, and pikes rose up to punish local tyrants, tear down offices of district chiefs and jails, lay siege to barracks and set up an administration... In many factories and villages, the best elements were selected from among members of workers’ and peasants’ associations, and the communist youth league to form worker-peasant self-defence units. The meeting of over twenty thousand people at Thanh Chuong (Nghe An) on September 18, 1930 to celebrate their victory was protected by more than 1,000 self-defence corps members.
Our Party fought against erroneous conceptions and mistaken actions as regards the organization of self-defence units. Some condemned organization of self-defence units as a rash act. In other places, temporary instead of permanent self-defence units were organized or, if permanent self-defence corps were organized, there was no political action among the masses or military training for them, etc.
About the arming of the masses, our Party pointed out, “When conditions are ripe, armed violence of the worker-peasant masses under the Party’s command to seize power will necessarily break out”; “if no preparation is promptly made to arm the masses, the revolution cannot succeed.” “While giving military training to the masses and preparing to arm them, a vigorous attack should be directed against the tendency to act rashly and concentrate on making rifles and handgrenades while neglecting daily political action among the labouring masses.”
Regarding the forms of organization of the armed forces, the Party pointed out that “a worker-peasant self-defence corps is not like a guerilla force, neither is it a Red Army. While a Red Army or a guerilla force cannot be created immediately whenever we like, the self-defence corps can and must be organized without delay, however weak we are, as soon as there is any revolutionary agitation work carried out among the masses. No enterprise, no village with base organizations of the Party, Youth League and associations of the revolutionary masses should be allowed to remain without a self-defence force.”
It is necessary to organize simultaneously permanent self-defence units and numerous self-defence forces of the masses.
About Party leadership and the class character of the self-defence corps, the Party pointed out: “The revolutionary worker-peasant self-defence force is to be put under the unified command of the Military Committee of the Communist Party Central Committee”, “the revolutionary character of the self-defence corps should be carefully preserved”. “The leadership of the Party in the permanent self-defence force must be maintained for this purpose, the most resolute party and youth league members should be brought into the self-defence force and put into the command of this force. The unit chiefs and Party representatives should cooperate in the command. Daily action must be subjected to control by Party cadres of corresponding rank. General military activities must be subjected to the control of superior self-defence command levels and the corresponding Party Army Committee”.(3)
It may be said that the above views were the initial but fundamental thoughts of the Party regarding the building of our people’s revolutionary armed forces. These thoughts and the realities of the Nghe-Tinh Soviet movement prove that at an early stage our Party and our people were creatively applying Marxist-Leninist thought on revolutionary violence, the arming of the revolutionary masses and the building of the worker-peasant Red Army to the concrete conditions of our country.
During the years 1936-1939, in face of the danger from the German, Italian and Japanese fascists who were making active preparations to launch a world war, our Party changed the direction of the struggle, and decided to temporarily put aside the slogans “overthrow French imperialism” and “seize land from the landowners for distribution to the tillers.” The Indochina Democratic Front was founded, directing its opposition to the reactionary colonialists and feudal clique of king and mandarins, demanding democratic freedoms and improvement of living conditions, struggling against the fascist aggressors and for the preservation of world peace. The Party also changed the forms of struggle, moving from underground struggle to open struggle coordinated with underground activities, skilfully combining legal and semi-legal activities with illegal struggle. In this way, the Party succeeded in launching an unprecedentedly vigorous and widespread movement of struggle extending in both the towns and the countryside, enabling millions of people to be politically awakened, enhancing class consciousness among the worker-peasant masses and arousing the patriotism of the entire people. This was a rare situation in the conditions of a colonial country. Following the Nghe-Tinh Soviet movement of 1930-1931, the building of political forces and launching of a political struggle movement during the period of the Democratic Front of 1936-1939 was a further fundamental step in the preparation for our people’s decisive struggle by political forces and armed forces, political struggle and armed struggle, during the next revolutionary period, the period of preparation for an armed insurrection and the launching of a general insurrection to seize power.
World War II broke out. While in Europe the French imperialists abjectly surrendered to the German fascists, and in Asia the French colonialists handed over Indochina to the Japanese militarists, the Vietnamese people heroically rose up and fought against both the Japanese and French fascists.
Three uprisings broke out at Bac Son, Nam ky, and Do Luong, heralding a new stage of struggle in our country.
In 1939, the 6th Congress and in 1940, the 7th session of the Party Central Committee judiciously decided on a shift in strategic direction. National liberation was put forward as the foremost task and the slogan of agrarian revolution was temporarily put aside in order to concentrate on the struggle against the imperialists and their lackeys. In the spring of 1941, its 8th session, presided over by President Ho Chi Minh, completed the Party’s strategic shift of direction in the new circumstances. The Congress affirmed that the revolution in the immediate future should be a national liberation revolution and decided on the creation of the Viet Minh Front which would include patriotic associations from different sections of the population. It also decided to build up and develop revolutionary armed forces, to organize self defence units, small guerilla groups for national salvation and permanent guerilla detachments, to set up revolutionary base areas, to intensify activities in all fields, to move gradually from political to armed struggle and, while closely coordinating these forms of struggle, to actively prepare for an armed uprising to seize power.
The nation-wide revolutionary movement was in a state of ferment. The Viet Minh Front, the political army of the revolution, developed rapidly and very vigorously first of all in the countryside then, despite harsh repression by the French and Japanese fascists, in the towns. The armed forces of the masses backed by the political force of the masses also expanded rapidly especially after the Party Central Committee’s appeal “to get weapons and drive out the common enemy”.
A large number of permanent guerilla detachments were organized. The Bac Son guerilla detachment created during the Bac Son uprising, was maintained and developed into a National Salvation Army by the end of 1940. With the creation of the Armed Propaganda Brigade for the Liberation of Viet Nam in December 1944, our Party line of nation-wide war and arming of the entire people, of building the army, and local armed forces was clearly set forth in President Ho Chi Minh’s instructions: “Because our resistance war is the work of the entire people, the entire people must be mobilized and armed. And so, when we assemble our forces to create our first troops, we should maintain the regional armed forces so as to coordinate action with them and give them assistance in every field...”
On March 9, 1945, as foreseen by our Party, the French were overthrown by the Japanese. A vigorous patriotic movement against the Japanese fascists was growing throughout the country, the forerunner of the general uprising. The Vietnamese revolutionary tide reached a new height with partial uprisings and local guerilla wars in many places. The different armed forces were unified into the Viet Nam Liberation Army. The organizations of ordinary self-defence forces and combat self-defence forces were expanding. Then the liberated zone came into being, comprising the provinces of Viet Bac, which became the main revolutionary base for the whole country and was the seed of the future Democratic Republic of Viet Nam.
Thus, from the Nam Ky guerillas,(4) from the National Salvation Army, from the Armed Propaganda Brigade for Liberation, the Ba To guerillas, etc., the revolutionary army was born while the armed forces of the masses continued to be simultaneously formed by patriotic associations. For the first time in our country, a revolutionary armed force, a new-type army, really one of the people, came into existence, organized and led by the Party.
The Second World War was drawing to a close. The German and Italian fascists had surrendered; the Japanese fascists were approaching their end. On August 13, 1945, the 2nd National Congress of the Party, held at Tan Trao, decided on a general insurrection. The success of the insurrection on August 19, 1945 in the capital, Hanoi, had a decisive effect on the revolutionary situation in the whole country. The uprising spread rapidly to the towns and villages of all provinces from Bac Bo and Trung Bo to Nam Bo. The general insurrection of August 1945 was a brilliant victory. The colonial rule which had lasted nearly one hundred years and the feudal rule of the past several thousand years collapsed within the space of some ten days. On September 2, 1945, in Hanoi, President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence: the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam came into existence, opening up a new era in the history of the Vietnamese people.
The general insurrection of August 1945 was an uprising of the entire people under the leadership of the Party of the working class. Responding to the Party’s appeal, our people rose up throughout the country, in the towns and the countryside, closely coordinating political and armed forces and seizing power by armed insurrection. “The August Revolution succeeded chiefly because the people’s political forces had availed themselves of the most favourable occasion to stage an uprising and seize state power. But if, before that, our Party had not built up armed forces and created vast base areas to support the political forces and the movement of political struggle, and had failed to stage an armed uprising promptly when conditions were ripe, the revolution would not have been able to win victory as quickly as it did.”(5)
The mighty political army of the revolution included millions of people throughout the country and, with its extensive armed forces, was the main force which had brought victory to the insurrection. In the action of the masses who took up arms to overthrow enemy power by a direct attack, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between the political and armed forces of the masses. It may be said that our people’s armed forces during the August General Insurrection consisted of:
1. Units of the Liberation Army;
2. Self-defence forces and a multitude of small guerilla groups which embraced hundreds of thousands of people from patriotic associations throughout the country. In addition there were the forces of the broad masses who, when the occasion arose, stood up with every available weapon — sticks, hatchets, hammers and sickles, pikes — to seize power.
In this earth-shaking offensive of the entire people, the armed forces of the masses took a great leap forward. Their number had grown, their morale was high and they had a great offensive capacity. In these conditions our Liberation Army, though only a few thousand strong, enjoyed great prestige; they had tremendous fighting capabilities, could easily demoralize the enemy, and provide a strong stimulus to the insurrectionary movement of the revolutionary masses.
The experience of the August Revolution shows that in the conditions of a colonial country, where every democratic freedom is denied and the smallest weapon forbidden, it is very difficult, in the early days, to create a large revolutionary army to defeat the well-organized, well-equipped army of the colonialist rulers. Therefore, once the political objective of the insurrection has been correctly determined, it is necessary, in order to bring the entire people’s uprising to victory, to have a strong political force, a powerful political army and on that base to build up extensive armed forces of the masses, and a revolutionary army of a certain level of organization.
The masses’ large political army and their extensive armed forces became the main forces which allowed the insurrection to be victorious. This was because the Party had been building up and training these forces continuously all through its leadership of the revolution, it had acted with foresight and known when to seize the opportunity for an insurrection. “The opportunity for dealing the decisive blow, for starting an insurrection... is the moment when the crisis has reached its peak, when the vanguard forces are ready to fight to the end; when the reserve forces are ready to support the vanguard and when enemy ranks are utterly dislocated.”(6) In these circumstances, in face of the people’s offensive power, the rulers have neither the will nor the capabilities to use their army to oppose the insurrection. To seize the opportunity is one of the key points in the art of staging an insurrection. In the August general insurrection, our Party had been able to foresee the opportunity for an uprising and had grasped it when it came; it had made thorough preparations and launched the insurrection at the most favourable moment. It was when fascist Japan had surrendered and the Japanese troops in Indochina had lost all fighting spirit, when the Japanese militarists there no longer had the will to use their army to oppose the insurrection, that the masses’ political army and their extensive armed forces rose up and, using their strength in a decisive manner, overthrew the enemy regime and seized power for the people.
However, without a revolutionary army of a certain level of organization to serve as a shock force to attack and annihilate part of the enemy army and enemy administration which were thus to be paralyzed or broken up wherever they opposed the insurrection, we could not have mobilized the masses for an uprising and created favourable conditions for bringing the uprising of the entire people to victory. During the August Revolution at the same time as the partial uprisings and local guerilla war to prepare for the general insurrection, many armed clashes broke out between the revolutionary army and the reactionary army. Even at the time when the general uprising was breaking out, at the height of the masses’ insurrectionary movement, many armed clashes between the revolutionary army and the reactionary army occurred in a number of localities. Therefore, the main force in an uprising is constituted by the political force of the armed masses; but with the support of a revolutionary army, the insurrection movement of the masses receives effective assistance and encouragement and the uprising has more chance of succeeding. The use of a Liberation Army — though of small size — as a support was a good experience, a positive success, of the August Revolution.
To ensure success for the insurrection, it is also necessary to carry out propaganda work among enemy troops, to win them over to our cause, to paralyse and dislocate their ranks, demoralize them, and to reduce them to a passive, wavering mood, so as to prevent them from intervening against the masses’ uprising, or to rally them to our own side. Lenin said: “Only when the worker-peasant masses and the best elements in the army (the enemy army — Author’s note) coordinate their attacks, are favourable conditions created to stage a successful insurrection, that is to start an insurrection at the right moment.”(7) Propaganda work among enemy troops is in agreement with the slogan of “worker-peasant-soldier alliance”; it is of strategic significance in an insurrection.
In a war when two armies are fighting against each other the situation is different. Though it is still necessary to do agitation work among enemy troops, the main task is to annihilate, to defeat the enemy. “A real victory of an insurrection over the military, (i.e. the enemy army)... in street fighting, a victory as between two armies, is one of the rarest exceptions... But in all cases, the fight was won because the troops failed to respond, because the commanding officers lost the faculty to decide or because their hands were tied.”(8) This work of agitation is mainly carried out by the masses’ political forces and their armed forces, with some support from the revolutionary army. The fact is that in the August Revolution, the insurgent masses relied on their overwhelming strength and the propaganda and persuasion work among enemy troops which almost paralysed the Japanese troops and their Vietnamese mercenaries by reducing them to a passive attitude before the masses and discouraging them from opposing the uprising. In a number of localities, Vietnamese soldiers serving in the enemy ranks joined the revolution. Agitation work among enemy troops must always be carried out. However, if those in power still have the ability and the will to use their troops to oppose the insurrection we must resolutely push forward our revolutionary offensive, we must intensify armed struggle and enlarge and strengthen the revolutionary army in order to defeat the reactionary troops, develop the armed insurrection into a revolutionary war and win victory for the people.
To speak briefly, in the August Revolution our Party led our people to victory in the struggle to seize power in the whole country because of its correct political line and its correct line in the organization of forces, because it seized the right moment for an insurrection and mobilized the entire people, using the might of the masses’ large political army and their extensive armed forces.
The August Revolution was the first victory of Marxism-Leninism in a colonial, semi-feudal country. It proves that in the favourable international situation in our era, a small, oppressed and dominated people is quite capable of rising up and using the form of armed insurrection, to seize power and overthrow the regime of oppression and exploitation of the colonialist imperialists with their imposing administrative machine and their professional army equipped with modern weapons.
Shortly after our people had seized control over the whole country, when the new regime had hardly consolidated its power, the French colonialists returned to launch an aggressive war against our country.
Responding to President Ho Chi Minh’s appeal, “Rather sacrifice everything than lose national independence and be reduced to slavery”, our entire people stood up as one man, valiantly fought a resistance war to annihilate the enemy, save the country, preserve national independence, safeguard the newly-established people’s power. The insurrection of the entire people in the August Revolution developed into a people’s war, a liberation war and at the same time a war to defend the Fatherland.
The war of resistance against the French colonialists was a “protracted war launched on every front by the entire people relying on their own strength”.(9)
The war broke out first in Nam Bo. The armed forces and people of Nam Bo, with unparalleled heroism, used rudimentary weapons such as sharpened sticks to fight against French colonialist troops equipped with heavy guns, tanks, planes, and supported by British and Japanese troops.
On December 19, 1946, the nation-wide resistance war broke out. Together with the population of towns and cities, our people’s armed forces, poorly equipped and lacking experience but animated with a great spirit of sacrifice, waged an unequal but victorious fight to immobilize, decimate and annihilate the enemy.
The resistance war gradually shifted from the towns to the countryside. We tried to make vigorous attacks on the enemy, at the same time taking care to preserve our main force for a long resistance. Everywhere they went, the enemy met with strong opposition from militiamen and guerillas. With the population’s assistance, they destroyed bridges and roads, harassed and decimated the enemy and evacuated the inhabitants from their homes at the enemy’s approach.
Late in 1947, the French colonialists launched a large-scale attack against the Viet Bac region in an attempt to wipe out the main force and the leadership organs of the resistance, to destroy the resistance base of the whole country in order to end the war quickly. With major attacks by the main force and numerous minor attacks by regional troops, militiamen and guerillas all along the enemy lines, the armed forces and people of Viet Bac, acting in close coordination with the battlefronts throughout the country, had by and large defeated the French colonialists’ offensive in the winter of 1947.
The war took a turn favourable to us. The enemy who had hoped to win a quick victory by rapid attacks now found themselves forced to wage a long war, so as to consolidate their rear on all three battlefronts in North, Central and South Viet Nam. They put into action schemes for sustaining the war by the war and using Vietnamese to fight against Vietnamese. On our part, we penetrated deep into the enemy’s rear and waged vigorous and extensive guerilla warfare. By dispersing one part of the main force as independent companies and battalion-size groups we were able to give a strong impulse to the militia and guerilla forces and the regional forces in the enemy’s rear. At the same time, we endeavoured to build up mobile units, and to push forward with mobile warfare. The people’s armed forces with its three categories of armed forces had definitely taken shape.
The victory won in the battle for the frontier zone of autumn and winter 1950 was a mark of the great progress of the three categories of armed forces, especially the regular army. Organized on a larger scale, with improved equipment and armaments, our army had, for the first time, launched a major offensive, annihilating an important part of the enemy’s crack mobile forces, breaking up their frontier defence line and liberating a vast territory. The people’s war had evolved from guerilla warfare into conventional warfare. With the founding of the People’s Republic of China, our victory in the battle for the frontier zone had put an end to the imperialist encirclement of the Vietnamese revolution. Our communication lines with the socialist countries were open.
The Second Party Congress early in 1951 took many decisions on fundamental questions of the Vietnamese revolution and of the long drawn-out resistance. The Party’s correct policies, which were applied following the Congress, and particularly its policy on agrarian reform, stimulated the labouring peasant masses to stand up with an enhanced revolutionary spirit so as to defeat the imperialists and the feudal clique. An added vigour was given to the mobilization of manpower and resources for the resistance and for the building of the armed forces. The people’s war had gained a renewed force enabling it to completely defeat the French aggressors, even though these had received important aid from the US imperialists since 1950.
Large-scale offensives and counter-offensives were repeatedly launched by the regular army, especially in Bac Bo, the principal battlefront. Guerilla war was also intensified on all battlefronts. The population in many places in the enemy’s rear, with the militia, guerilla and regional forces as its core, closely combined political struggle with armed struggle and staged armed uprisings to liquidate the puppet village administration, wipe out enemy posts, set up people’s power and so turn the enemy’s rear into our front lines. Guerilla war went through a new stage of development, in close coordination with conventional war, especially in the major campaigns. While the revolutionary movement in the countryside was intensified, the movement of struggle in the urban areas continued to develop.
By the end of 1953 and the beginning of 1954, a great strategic counter-offensive was launched throughout the country, in several strategically important directions. Both conventional war and guerilla war were intensified and waged in close coordination. Our army and people won great victories on all battlefronts. At Dien Bien Phu especially, we annihilated an important part of the enemy’s crack mobile force in Indochina. The resounding victory at Dien Bien Phu, a historic battle of decisive strategic importance, together with the victories won on other battlefronts, dealt a finishing blow to the enemy’s will to continue their aggressive war. It changed the whole character of the war and brought the resistance war against French aggression to glorious victory.
The experience of the August Revolution and the resistance war against French aggression allow us to draw the following conclusions as regards the forces used in an insurrection and a revolutionary war. The principal force used in the August insurrection was the political army of the masses and their extensive armed forces, but in the people’s war against French imperialist aggression, the principal force was the people’s armed forces based on the political forces of the great union of the people and coordinating its action with these political forces. This is because in general an insurrection is an uprising of the masses, while a war opposes two armies. Evidently, in a people’s war there are also uprisings of the masses and in an insurrection of the entire people battles between the armies of the two sides also take place. In the resistance war against the French colonialists, our people skilfully combined armed forces with political forces. The political forces were the base of the armed forces and the three categories of armed forces constituted the backbone of the resistance in a war by the entire people. Our people skilfully combined armed struggle with political struggle, military operations with uprising, with armed struggle as the essential form of struggle.
During the years of resistance, our Party worked hard to build up the people’s armed forces. On the basis of the people’s political forces with the worker-peasant alliance as their foundation, under the leadership of the working class, our people’s armed forces, created during the days of preparation for an armed insurrection to seize power, made a big leap forwards in the first years of the people’s power, and were tempered and rapidly developed during the long resistance war. The Liberation Army became the Viet Nam People’s Army, the regular army of our State. The self-defence units and the militia and guerilla forces were growing continuously. The three categories of people’s armed forces, the main force, the regional forces and the militia and guerilla forces became increasingly strong.
The regular army is the essential force, it is the mobile force used on the important battlefronts over the whole country. It has the task of annihilating the enemy’s regular army, especially their strategic mobile force, dealing staggering blows at their armed forces, liberating territory, and uniting with the guerilla forces so as to change the situation of the war. These actions have a strategic importance as a means to smash the enemy’s will to wage a war of aggression and win complete victory for the resistance. The regular forces and conventional warfare also created conditions for a vigorous development of guerilla warfare and stimulated the masses’ political struggle and armed uprisings as well as the work of agitation among enemy troops and enemy administration.
In the resistance against French aggression, our main force grew from small units in the beginning to a strategic mobile force composed of battle-hardened mobile combat groups with continuously improving equipment, good training, high morale and great fighting power, capable of annihilating several enemy battalions or regiments in a battle. Our mobile combat groups which engaged the enemy for the first time in the frontier campaign (1950) and then in other major campaigns such as Hoa Binh, Tay Bac, etc., acting in close coordination with the regional armed forces and the three categories of armed forces, proved to be extremely effective, and greatly contributed to the progress of the resistance war. The Dien Bien Phu battle showed the very advanced stage of development reached by our strategic mobile forces in the resistance war against French aggression. While our army and people were winning great victories in many aspects, our crack mobile combat groups on the Dien Bien Phu battlefront, reinforced by technical units and with the strong support of the entire people, wiped out the biggest enemy stronghold in Indochina.
The regional forces built up in accordance with concrete conditions and concrete tasks on each battlefront, in each region, constitute the backbone of the armed struggle in the regions. Organized into strong units, the regional forces operate inside the region, now concentrating their forces, now scattering, acting in close coordination with the militia and guerilla units and the main force to annihilate the enemy and sustain and develop guerilla war, and coordinating action with the masses’ movements of political struggle and insurrection to foil enemy attempts to pen up the population and pressgang the youth. They protect the people and safeguard the people’s power, preserving manpower and resources to serve the resistance.
From the armed propaganda groups, independent companies and battalion-size groups of the first years of the resistance the regional forces in provinces and districts had shown a steady development. Their equipment and armaments were continuously improving, chiefly by means of captured enemy weapons.
The regional forces had annihilated many enemy platoons and companies, taken many enemy posts and, in the last phase of the resistance war, they were even wiping out whole enemy battalions.
Militia and guerilla forces are the extensive armed forces of the people. They coordinated with the regional forces to wage guerilla war and cooperated with the masses’ political forces in operations to liquidate the puppet village administrations and traitors and organize uprisings to seize local power. The militiamen and guerillas did not leave production work, they made use of all kinds of weapons, and varied forms of combat to launch well-timed attacks against the enemy troops in their localities, decimating or annihilating the enemy in the villages and the streets wherever and whenever they showed themselves, and even in their supposedly safe rear. The local militia and guerilla forces are also bases for building the people’s army and developing regular warfare.
During the resistance against French aggression the militia and guerilla forces greatly increased in number and improved their fighting capabilities. Based in the increasingly numerous combat villages, skilfully using rudimentary weapons which were gradually improved, they annihilated many enemy sections and platoons and by the end of the resistance war, whole companies in some places. In cooperation with the regional troops, they became more and more effective. They built up, maintained and expanded guerilla zones and guerilla bases. They defended the liberated zone, defeated enemy sweeps and attempts to seize territory and intensified the people’s war in the regions. The militia and guerilla forces and the regional forces played a very important role during the long resistance war, especially in crucial periods such as 1948-1949, when the Party decided to launch a guerilla war in the enemy rear, and later behind the enemy line during the campaigns of Hoa Binh, Dien Bien Phu, etc.
The development of the people’s armed forces into three categories of forces, the regular forces and regional forces forming the people’s army, the militia and guerilla forces being the armed forces of the masses, show that our military organization during the people’s war against French colonialist aggression was an organization of the entire people.
In that war, the organizational relations between the regular forces, regional forces and militia and guerilla forces during the development of the revolutionary armed forces, as well as the coordination between the three categories of forces, that is between the people’s army and the armed forces of the masses, are linked with the process of the development of the resistance from a guerilla war to a regular war, and the close coordination between the two in order to defeat the enemy.
The experience of the resistance war against French aggression shows that the coordination between the regular forces, the regional forces and the militia and guerilla forces, between regular war and guerilla war is an outstanding feature of a people’s war making it possible to mobilize the entire people against the enemy, and to use the added power of fighting a just war, the liberation war, on one’s own territory. It prevented a professional army with a large number of troops and modern equipment from waging a classical war and making the most of its strength and capabilities. The aggressors had to deal not only with the revolutionary army but also with an entire people who had risen up to join their revolutionary armed forces in a resolute resistance in all fields. The aggressor troops were submerged in the ocean of the people’s war. They faced a war without front line and without rear, with a battlefront which was nowhere and everywhere. The inherent contradictions of all aggressive wars, between dispersal and concentration, occupation and mobility, further deepened. The large aggressive army, well-equipped with modern arms, became ineffective. Not only were they unable to destroy the people’s armed forces, but in addition they were increasingly decimated and were finally defeated by the three categories of the people’s armed forces supported by the entire people.
Thus, with a people’s army numerically inferior to that of the enemy but supported by the masses’ extensive armed forces, our people waged an all-embracing resistance war by the entire people, with a close coordination between guerilla war and regular war, and defeated the French colonialist army, nearly half a million strong and equipped with the most modern means of warfare.
This was the first victory for a national liberation war in a colonial country. It proves that in our era, a small nation with no vast territory and no large population and no developed economy, is quite capable of waging a revolutionary war to defeat an old-type colonialist war of aggression.
Following the great victory of the resistance war against French aggression, the North was entirely liberated, with the complete structure of an independent State and moved to the stage of socialist revolution and socialist construction in conditions of peace. Meanwhile our people were continuing their efforts to complete the people’s national democratic revolution in the whole country, as the South still remained under the rule of the US imperialists and their agents.
After completing agrarian reform and the restoration of national economy, our people in the North began socialist transformation and socialist construction, carrying out the most profound and thorough revolution in our history. With agrarian reform essentially complete, the exploitation of man by man was fundamentally eliminated, new relations of production were established and the socialist ownership of the means of production was achieved. The material and technical bases of socialism were gradually built up. In the North, our people’s political and moral unity was stronger than ever. Patriotism, the love of socialism, and the new socialist man’s consciousness of being collective master, were continuously enhanced. In their construction work and their combat, our people enjoyed increasing aid from fraternal countries in the socialist camp.
The new progress of the people’s armed forces is related to the development of society in the North in the historical conditions described above. They are the military organization for national defence of the entire people of an independent state engaged in socialist construction in conditions of peace. Their function is to serve as the tool of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat to defend the socialist North and to work toward revolution in the whole country, ready to foil all the schemes of US imperialism.
To build up the army, to consolidate national defence in conditions of peace and under a socialist regime, was a new experience for our Party and our people. In the past, our people had for many centuries, gained experience in building an army and consolidating national defence in peace time in an independent country, but that was under a feudal regime. Since our Party came into being, our people have been fighting continuously for several decades. We have gained most precious experience in building armed forces to stage an insurrection and seize power, in the conditions of a country still under colonial and feudal rule and afterwards in waging a long liberation war, in the conditions of an increasingly consolidated people’s democratic regime.
At present, our Party and people have successfully solved a new problem.
In conditions of peace, our people’s foremost task is to concentrate on building up the country and building a socialist economy. That is why a most fundamental question in building the army and consolidating national defence in this period is to find a correct solution to the question of relations between the economy and national defence. Only with a strong economy can we have a strong national defence. Conversely, only with a strong national defence can we protect our people’s peaceful labour, build up the country and ensure the security of the Fatherland. The relations between the economy and national defence must be established in accordance with the situation of a temporarily divided country, the South still being subjected to foreign aggression and the North having to be rapidly built up into a strong base for revolution in the whole country, in the conditions of a small country which must be ready to fight against US imperialism, a powerful aggressor, and to win victory. Therefore, while building the economy, we have to take into consideration the needs of national defence, with regard not only to the direction and tasks of the general economic plan, and the division into major economic regions,.. but also to the different branches — industry, agriculture, communications and transport and cultural and social activities.
At the same time, we have to prepare, in the organizational field, to move from a peace-time economy to a war-time economy.
With respect to the building of the army and the consolidation of national defence, our Party holds firmly to the idea of a people’s war and national defence by the entire people. It has armed the entire people in the new conditions, at the same time building up a powerful people’s army and arming the revolutionary masses, strengthening the three categories of people’s armed forces, in keeping with the new situation and new tasks. With the extensive armed forces of the entire people whose members continue their production work, and a well-trained army with a strong combative spirit, we can have a strong national defence force at the same time as keeping sufficient manpower for production work, building and developing the economy. This is the only correct national defence policy for a small country like ours, which in peace-time must strive to develop the economy and in time of war must wage a victorious opposition to strong imperialist enemies.
We must have a thorough grasp of the necessity of closely coordinating the economy with national defence in the present situation, when peace has been restored in the North but our country is still partitioned and the aggressors remain in South Viet Nam. This thorough grasp is indicative of the high vigilance of our people who are well aware that they have to safeguard the independence and sovereignty of the socialist North, to be ready, even in peace time, to smash all enemy schemes, and at the same time, to be fully prepared and determined to liberate the country.
In accordance with this policy, our Party decided on the building up of a powerful people’s army which should develop into a regular, modern army, the organization of extensive militia and self-defence forces, and the building up of strong reserve forces.
A number of men were demobilized to take part in production in the rear; meanwhile we have been working to consolidate a standing army of adequate size and high morale. Many army units combine military preparedness with the task of taking part in building the economy. In place of voluntary recruitment, our State has instituted compulsory military service — the duty of every citizen to defend the Fatherland — so as to build a powerful reserve force. Soldiers who have been demobilized or transferred to civilian service are registered and classified, according to their qualifications, as reserve officers or soldiers. We have reorganized and consolidated the militia and self-defence forces, speeded up the organization of combat communes, villages and town districts, and strengthened the maintenance of security and order. Our young men are given basic military training, and sports and physical education with a bearing on national defence are encouraged. The people’s armed security force is being organized.
Regarding the strengthening of the people’s armed forces in the North and the role of the people’s army, the Resolution of the Third Party Congress in 1960 specified: “The people’s army is the State’s main force to safeguard national independence and protect the peaceful labour of the people in the North, and it also provides a strong support to the struggle for reunifying the country. We have to further consolidate national defence, make the standing army into a regular, modern army, consolidate the people’s armed police forces and at the same time consolidate and develop the militia and self-defence forces and build up reserve forces.”(10)
On the basis of the achievements of the socialist revolution and socialist construction in every field, the people’s armed forces in the North were rapidly developed.
The formation of a modern regular people’s army marks a new progress for the people’s armed forces in this period. Our army, the revolutionary army of a socialist state, has become a modern army with several services and arms, with an army, air force and navy; the army includes infantry, artillery, armour engineering corps, signal corps, anti-chemical units, transport corps... Regulations have been laid down concerning the organization of the various services; the troops’ fighting spirit and discipline have been heightened. The regular army is thus organized into powerful army corps with increasingly modern armaments and equipment, growing mobility, better and better coordination between different services and great fighting power. The regional troops, consolidated and better equipped, are raising their fighting capacity. Supported by the people’s patriotism and love of socialism, with the institution of military service, the powerful reserve forces and the extensive militia and self-defence forces, the people’s army has a vast source of manpower and can rapidly expand its forces.
The militia and self-defence forces also developed vigorously following the establishment of new relations of production in the countryside and the towns. They are the armed forces of the masses in the conditions of socialism extensively organized among the labouring people. The militia and guerilla forces are the armed organizations of the collectivized peasants. The self-defence and combat self-defence forces are the armed forces of the workers in factories, enterprises, mines, construction sites, State farms, of cadres and workers, employed in government organs and of the labouring people in the towns. The members of militia and self-defence organizations and of reserve forces have a high political consciousness and a relatively advanced cultural level. They are well organized and well trained, armed with different kinds of weapons including modern ones, and have developed suitable methods of fighting. Thus, they have great capabilities for fighting in their own localities or reinforcing the permanent forces.
In 1965, when the “special war” was threatened with total failure in South Viet Nam, the US imperialists brazenly used their air force to attack the North and sent an expeditionary corps to invade the South. So began the fight of our people in the North against the US imperialists’ war of destruction. This was part of the nation-wide resistance war against US aggression, and at the same time it was a war to defend the socialist Fatherland against the enemy air force.
In the war of destruction against the northern part of our country, the US aggressors have mobilized an important part of their modern air force and navy. They have dropped on the North millions of tons of bombs, committing unpardonable crimes against our people. In a continuous escalation of the war, they attacked different regions and then the capital itself, the heart of the whole country. The US aggressors imagined they could subdue our people with their great military power.
They were grossly mistaken. The Vietnamese people, with their tradition of heroic struggle against foreign aggressors, have never submitted to any invader. Our army and people in the socialist North, responding to the call of President Ho Chi Minh that “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom”, resolutely rose up and waged a land-against-air people’s war.
That was for us an entirely new form of people’s war. The whole people fight against the enemy air force and navy, the whole people carry out defence and participate in efforts to maintain communication and transport, they are working and fighting at the same time, protecting the rear and serving the front. That was a new development of the people’s war in our country. In the anti-French resistance, we fought a people’s war in the conditions of a newly-established people’s democratic regime, when people’s power had just been conquered but not yet consolidated, and our country was surrounded by the imperialists. In the present time, we are waging a people’s war in the conditions of a newly-established socialist regime, when our completely independent state has been consolidated and developed through ten years of peace, and is receiving important aid from fraternal countries of the socialist camp. During the resistance against French aggression, when we had to fight chiefly against the enemy land forces, our entire people participated in the war and we defeated the French imperialist army of aggression equipped with more modern weapons. In the present time, our entire people are fighting chiefly against the enemy air force, and we have to deal with one of the most modern arms of the US imperialist armed forces.
Our Party decided to mobilize the forces of the entire people and to move the country into a state of war so as to intensify the people’s war. We rapidly expanded the people’s armed forces to meet the urgent requirements of the resistance. We changed the direction of the economy, dispersing national industry and developing regional industry. We evacuated the inhabitants from populated areas and priority target areas of enemy attacks and we coordinated fighting with production, increasing production even while we were waging war. Our Party pointed out that, whatever the circumstance, we must continue to lead the North toward socialism, in order to strengthen the resistance in all spheres, allow the North to play its part in the nation-wide revolution, and at the same time, prepare for the long-term building of the country. The three revolutions were pushed forward. Socialist relations of production were increasingly consolidated; the people’s political and moral unity was continuously enhanced; the material and technical base of socialism was gradually strengthened. Our Party and people have striven to make good use of the superiority of the socialist regime in all aspects, so as to fulfil all the tasks of the people’s war against the US war of destruction.
The development of the forces of the entire people at war, of the military organization, of the role of the people’s army and of the masses’ armed forces during this period was related to the characteristics of land-against-air people’s war in the conditions of the socialist regime, to the characteristic of the resistance war against US aggression for national salvation carried out by our entire people throughout the land.
In the first place, there has been an outstanding development, in a short time, of the people’s army air defence forces and air force, the anti-aircraft units in the regular army and regional forces. This force was the backbone of the land-against-air people’s war supported by the extensive militia and self-defence forces. Our air defence force and air force equipped with anti-aircraft guns of various calibers, modern missiles, jet planes and many modern technical means, form mobile and fixed units to shoot down enemy aircraft and to protect the chief targets of enemy attacks. Many major battles were fought by mixed combat groups including several branches of our air-defence service and our air force, with the support of infantry troops belonging to the regular army, the regional forces, and the population to defend important points of communication lines, industrial centres and big cities. Our young air-defence force and air force have won great victories. That was a new form of regular warfare by our army in the “land-against-air” people’s war.
While our air-defence force was maturing rapidly, our military transport force was also passing through a vigorous development. The army transport force included several modern branches: transport, engineering, air defence, infantry... Subjected to violent attacks by enemy planes, the military transport force, together with the people’s communication and transport forces, have fought with great heroism and intelligence to maintain communications in all circumstances, fulfilling their duties on communication lines throughout the country, from the rear to the front.
The regular army corps, with several technical branches, have made marked progress in building up a modernized force with greater fighting power, ready to fight against the enemy anywhere and to smash all enemy military ventures. The regional forces have shown a rapid expansion, and improved their organization, equipment and fighting capabilities. Many provinces have their own anti-aircraft units which have shot down many enemy planes, land-based batteries which have sunk enemy warships and engineering units which greatly contributed to maintaining communication and transport lines.
With the people’s patriotism and love of socialism, with the newly-established system of military service, we have satisfactorily carried out war-time mobilization, rapidly expanding the people’s armed forces on the basis of the large reserve forces set up in peace time. Responding to the sacred call of the Fatherland, in order to defend the socialist North and fulfil their duty toward the nation’s holy resistance war, the flower of our youth, in large numbers from the countryside to the towns, from cooperatives and enterprises, government organs, schools... have left for the front, to serve in army units or shock youth groups; they have been fighting valiantly, working with self-sacrifice on every battlefront and accomplishing brilliant military exploits.
Organized and well prepared in peace time, the masses’ armed forces developed very rapidly in war time both quantitatively and qualitatively. Their equipment was markedly increased and improved. In many communes firepower teams and groups have been organized by the militia force, equipped with rifles, machine-guns, small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, ground artillery... there were also specialized teams and groups for engineering, reconnaissance, first aid... In many places, there are mobile forces, each operating on the area of a commune. In many factories and enterprises strong self-defence forces organized in a rational manner engage in production work and fighting at the same time, making effective use of a number of modern weapons.
The militia and self-defence forces played a great role during the war. In the “plough in one hand rifle in the other”, “hammer in one hand and rifle in the other” movements, young and old people, men and women in the countryside and the towns, from the plains to the mountain regions, actively participated in shooting down enemy planes. They formed a low-altitude anti-aircraft fire network which covered the whole country and protected the population and production; they also closely cooperated with the air defence force and the air force in forming a fire network for different altitudes and directions, one which was mobile and able to fight in different conditions, covering large areas but concentrating on the defence of a number of objectives to shoot down US planes flying at different altitudes, over all areas, in all circumstances. Using infantry weapons, militiamen and guerillas have shot down many modern US jet planes and captured a large number of pilots. The shooting at enemy planes flying at low altitude was clearly a new form of guerilla warfare in the land-against-air people’s war. Militiamen and guerillas have also captured or annihilated many enemy commando groups and defused tens of thousands of tons of US bombs and mines, of the latest types. In the context of a socialist regime the masses’ armed forces have greatly increased their fighting capabilities.
It may be said that the very fact that militiamen and guerillas using machine guns and rifles have brought down modern US jet planes over North Viet Nam also explains why a small, underdeveloped country whose army is not so well equipped has been able to defeat the aggression of a big imperialist power with a large army equipped with modern weapons.
The militia and self-defence forces took part not only in the fighting but also in other tasks on other fronts of the people’s war; ensuring communications and transport; organizing people’s air defence; maintaining law and order, together with the people’s armed police; building combat communes and villages, protecting local production and the population’s lives and properties; playing a crucial role in production etc., so contributing a very important part to the defeating of all enemy schemes in the war of destruction.
The people’s armed police force created in peace time rapidly developed and played an important role during the war. With increasing vigilance, it has fulfilled its tasks of guarding the provisional military demarcation line, the frontier and islands, maintaining order and security, fighting valiantly and working with self-sacrifice, bringing down enemy planes, capturing pilots, annihilating or capturing groups of bandits and commandos...
Our people enthusiastically participated in fighting and serving the front, contributing millions of work days to build roads, build earthworks, transport supplies, give first aid and offer every possible assistance to the troops. They worked hard to increase production and develop the economy, culture, education, the medical service, maintaining normal living conditions even as the war was raging. Our army and people have demonstrated revolutionary heroism in fighting and serving the front, ensuring communications and transport, organizing people’s air defence and also in production work and the building of a new life.
The US war of destruction was a severe test for the socialist regime and the military organization built up in the North in peace time. Coordinating our war effort with that of our fellow-countrymen and the Liberation Army in South Viet Nam, receiving important aid from the fraternal countries in the socialist camp, our army and people in the North have won great victories. The US aggressors have suffered an ignominious defeat in their criminal war of destruction. Their dark schemes were smashed. Over 3,000 modern aircraft of more than 40 different types, including the latest models in use for the first time, were shot down over North Viet Nam. A large number of first-rate pilots from the US air force were killed or captured. The socialist North remained as strong as a steel wall, its economy and defence were further consolidated. As a powerful base for the revolution in the whole country, it carried on its glorious task of serving the great battle front, and with the participation of the army and people in the entire country, has brought ever greater victories to the resistance war.
The victory of our people’s war against the war of destruction in the socialist North was a victory of our people in the whole country. It was of great significance not only to our people but also to the world. It was a victory of our Party’s political and military line, its line of resistance against US aggression for national salvation and of socialist construction, and its correct independent, creative foreign policy.
Unlike the August Insurrection and the resistance war against the French, this was the first time when our Party led to victory a land-against-air people’s war on the basis of the socialist system. On the strength of the militant solidarity of the entire people, with, as the backbone, the modern regular people’s army consisting of regular and regional forces acting in coordination with militia and self-defence forces, these extensive and mighty armed forces of the masses with the use of weapons of all kinds, modern and relatively modern, have defeated the US air war of aggression. Our army and people have made a new development, in new conditions and circumstances of the art of using a small force to attack a large one, using few to oppose more and using less modern weapons to defeat more modern weapons.
The first task in a war to defend the Fatherland is clearly to shift the whole country from peace-time conditions to war-time ones. The most important tasks are the mobilization of the entire people with a view to expanding the people’s armed forces, and the reorientation of the economy, the organization of a war-time economy in order to meet all the needs of the war and of the people’s life in war time. The success of the shift of the country to war-time conditions depends firstly on a correct solution of the relations between the economy and national defence and secondly on the comprehensive preparations made, even in peace time, on a national and regional scale. The strengthening of the rear in its economic, political, material and moral aspects is a sure guarantee of supply of men and material to the front. A strong rear is undoubtedly one of the most important factors of victory in any war, especially in a patriotic war.
In the aspect of military organization, the people’s armed forces reached a fairly high level, because unlike the armed forces in the general insurrection and the liberation war, they had been organized, built up and prepared in peace time, taking advantage of the favourable conditions of an independent, sovereign State and of a gradually built and consolidated socialist regime.
In the insurrection and the liberation war, our people rose up and fought with bare hands. For that reason, in the beginning we had to enlighten and mobilize the masses, organize a political force and, on that basis, build up revolutionary armed forces, in the first place the armed forces of the masses, from which the revolutionary army was gradually formed. In the wake of the victorious insurrection and the revolutionary war, we gradually raised the level of the armed forces in every field. Thus a political struggle generally develops into an armed struggle and a combination of the two, and a guerilla war generally develops into a regular war and a combination of the two. In the insurrection and during the liberation war, the armed struggle was always closely combined with the political struggle, uprisings with combats and annihilation of enemy forces with seizing power for the people, etc.
In the war for the defence of the socialist North against the enemy air force, we had from the beginning a modern regular army which was fairly strong, consisting of regular forces and regional forces, built up in peace time and rapidly expanded after the war broke out. We also had extensive armed forces of the masses made up of millions of militiamen and self-defence units in all towns and villages, who had also been organized, built, equipped and trained in peace time. The building of revolutionary armed forces is based on our people’s patriotism and love of socialism and on the concrete policies and regulations decreed by the people’s power.
Because we had a modern regular people’s army and extensive armed forces of the masses, regular warfare and guerilla warfare were from the beginning waged simultaneously and in close coordination. The people’s war against the war of destruction has shown the importance of the role played by the people’s army and regular warfare. Air defence and air force units of the main force have fought many major battles, destroying a large number of enemy aircraft and defeating their successive escalations. The expanded regional forces with new fighting capabilities, were the core of the people’s war in the regions. The militia and self-defence forces also played a crucial role in combat in communications and transport and in people’s air defence and service of the front.
It is certain that in a land combat against an enemy army, all arms and services of the people’s army, together with the armed forces of the masses, will fight with all their might and coordinate action in an effective manner to defeat the enemy and defend the Fatherland.
Naturally, in the war for the defence of the Fatherland, in order to make the most of the power of the entire people, the entire country, and build up the greatest possible combined forces, we are able to apply the experience gained during the insurrection and the liberation war. For the war for national defence in our country like the liberation war, is a people’s war fought by the entire people in every field. On the other hand when, during the liberation war, we had a revolutionary base, a liberated area developing into an increasingly vast free zone, the characteristics of a war for the defence of the Fatherland also appeared and developed.
The great victory of our army and people in the socialist North proves that a small country with an under-developed economy, whose army has little modern equipment and technique, but which has a correct revolutionary line, and is determined to fight for the independence and freedom of the Fatherland, relying on the power of the entire people with the people’s army and the armed forces of the masses as backbone, and enjoying international sympathy and support, is quite capable of waging a people’s war to defeat a war of destruction by the modern air force of US imperialism. Our people’s victory in the North and that of our fellow-countrymen and combatants in the South have shown the great potential of the people’s war which can defeat any aggressor.
Our people’s nation-wide resistance against US aggression took the form of a national liberation war in South Viet Nam and a war for the defence of the socialist regime in the North. The realities of this resistance war and the extremely rich experience gained have helped us solve correctly the question of building up the people’s armed forces and consolidating national defence with the participation of the entire people: in the short term to protect the North and bring the war of resistance to total victory and in the long term, to provide a strong defence for the independence of the Vietnamese Fatherland.
*
Our people’s revolutionary war in South Viet Nam was started over ten years ago. It is a liberation war against the US imperialists’ neo-colonialist war of aggression, waged in order to liberate the South, fulfil the tasks of the people’s national democratic revolution in the whole country, and by contributing to the defence of the socialist North, to advance toward the peaceful reunification of the country.
The war in South Viet Nam was waged by our fellow-countrymen and combatants against a new enemy, the US imperialists, and a new form of aggressive war, the neo-colonialist war of aggression. It was waged in the new conditions, when our people had successfully carried out the August Revolution in the whole country won victory in the resistance against the French and liberated half of the country. The North was carrying out a socialist revolution and was building socialism, becoming a powerful revolution base for the whole country and a member of the socialist camp. Our revolution was receiving increasingly important aid from the fraternal socialist countries. The international situation was favourable for the revolutionary forces in the world had become far stronger than the counter- revolutionary forces and were launching a continuous offensive against imperialism, with the US imperialists at its head.
For these reasons, the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam has made great strides forwards and gained immensely in strength. The growth of South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces is linked with the conditions of the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam in the different periods outlined above: simultaneous uprisings, people’s war against “special war”, people’s war against “limited war”, people’s war against “Vietnamized war”.
In the years 1959-1960, our people in South Viet Nam rose up in arms, staging simultaneous uprisings in many places all over the countryside. The force which carried out these uprisings was the political army of the masses supported by small armed self-defence units. This political army which had been painstakingly built up during the revolutionary movement preceding the 1945 general insurrection and had rapidly developed during the August Revolution and the resistance against the French colonialists, was further tempered during the first years of the fierce struggles against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. It had high morale, great fighting spirit, and a rich experience of struggle. The population in the different regions took advantage of the moment when the weaknesses of the puppet regime, with its deep internal contradictions were openly displayed and valiantly rose up and staged local uprisings, coordinating the political forces with armed forces, with the political forces playing the main role. The powerful movement of simultaneous uprisings overthrew the local puppet administration in several regions although the central government still had hundreds of thousands of troops and a ruthless organization of fascist repression at its disposal. The policy of domination by means of classical neo-colonialist methods had failed miserably.
When the US imperialists launched a “special war“ to carry on the aggression against South Viet Nam, the simultaneous uprisings of our people there developed into a liberation war. Fully grasping the laws of development of the revolution and the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam and having carefully studied the US imperialists’ neo-colonialist war of aggression our people, under the leadership of the National Front for Liberation, intensified the offensive which they had started with the simultaneous uprisings. They greatly increased the combined political and armed forces, intensified both the political struggle and the armed struggle, and attacked the enemy with armed action and political action, while carrying on agitation work among enemy troops in all three strategic areas: highlands, plain, and urban areas.
With the existence of a large and strong political army of the revolutionary masses, the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces grew up rapidly. Units of the Liberation Army in different localities, and units of the main force for all South Viet Nam were built up. Guerilla, militia and self-defence forces were organized everywhere. The three categories of the liberation armed forces gradually came into shape. The weapons used by these people’s armed forces were of poor quality, most of them captured from the enemy or homemade.
The people’s war was intensified in many places all over the countryside. The army and people in South Viet Nam closely combined political with armed struggle, they staged attacks and uprisings and intensified guerilla warfare and partial uprisings. They decimated or annihilated the puppet forces, defeated the “heliborne” and “armoured troop-carrier” tactics, won control over the base levels, broke up two-thirds of the “strategic hamlets” and shook the puppet central government to its foundation. The movement of struggle in the urban areas including the big cities was intensified, in coordination with the revolutionary movement in the countryside. The large political army and the extensive armed forces of the masses were playing a most important role. Even the enemy had to admit that the “Viet Cong” were “past masters in the art of guerilla warfare.”
The character of the war was moving continuously in our favour. Torn apart by more and more acute internal contradictions the enemy increasingly found itself in an impasse. The US imperialists were forced to “change horses in mid-stream”, and liquidated their henchman Ngo Dinh Diem.
The people’s war further developed with the appearance of mobile regular forces of the Liberation Army. Battles involving large concentrations of troops were fought at Binh Gia, Dong Xoai, Ba Gia, during which whole units of the enemy regular forces were wiped out. The revolutionary war gained new offensive power.
The close combination of the political and armed forces, of the armed forces of the masses and the Liberation troops brought about a new situation. The whole puppet army and the whole puppet administration were threatened with total collapse, although the number of their troops had increased to 550,000 and the Liberation forces had not much increased numerically and were only beginning to engage in major battles involving large numbers of troops. This was because our people’s local political and armed forces were then very powerful, the masses’ movement of political struggle and insurrection was mounting, and guerilla warfare was highly developed. At the same time the regular troops which had just appeared on the scene already had a high prestige, great offensive power, great capabilities in threatening, overwhelming and annihilating the enemy, and they had been making continuous attacks and winning victories.
Faced with the bankruptcy of the “special war” strategy, the US imperialists were forced to dispatch a huge expeditionary corps to South Viet Nam in an attempt to save the situation.
Thus, in the new conditions and circumstances of the years 1960-1965, the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam developed from a political struggle into an armed struggle and a combination of armed and political struggle, from an armed insurrection into a liberation war and a combination of liberation war and armed insurrection, from guerilla warfare to pitched battles and a combination of pitched battles and guerilla attacks. The South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces were also created from political forces; during the war the armed self-defence units of the insurrection days grew into three categories of forces. The regular forces and the regional forces formed the South Viet Nam Liberation Army; the militia, guerilla and self-defence organizations formed the armed forces of the masses. With the support of the political forces and in combination with them, the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces played an important strategic role in the masses’ partial uprisings to overthrow the puppet administration at the base levels and seize power for the people, as well as in the military offensives to defeat various categories of puppet forces under the command of US “advisers”.
When the US aggressors were forced to introduce US troops en masse into South Viet Nam, and use their air force to attack the North, launching the biggest and most brutal “limited war” in their history of aggression, our people and their revolutionary armed forces throughout the country had to face an unprecedentedly serious challenge. The US imperialists are the strongest of all the imperialists with the greatest economic and military potential in the capitalist world, with a large army equipped with most modern weapons. They gradually mobilized a total of one million US, puppet and satellite troops including 500,000 US troops, for the aggression against South Viet Nam. For this war, they spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and used tens of millions of tons of bombs and shells and all the most sophisticated types of weapons and means of warfare, except nuclear weapons.
Responding to President Ho Chi Minh’s sacred appeal to fight against US aggression, for national salvation, faithful to their traditions of indomitable courage, our entire people from North to South rose up in close unity, determined to fight to save their country and homes, to fulfil their sacred national duty and their lofty internationalist obligations.
Our army and people have made a correct evaluation of the US imperialists’ schemes and the balance of forces. We have assessed the enemy’s strong and weak points, their difficulties and contradictions, and we know our own advantages and difficulties, our strengths and our strong position. On that basis, our army and people are united in their determination to completely defeat the US aggressors by continuing their offensive strategy and fighting against the enemy’s large and well-equipped army.
The Vietnamese people’s patriotic resistance war against US aggression became the front line of the struggle of the people of the world against the US imperialist aggressors. The peoples of the socialist countries and progressive peoples the world over were closely united with our people in the struggle against the common enemy. The strong sympathy, support and assistance from progressive mankind was a decisive factor which helped us win victory in the patriotic resistance war against US aggression.
On the South Viet Nam battlefield, relying on their two strategic forces, the US expeditionary force and the puppet troops, with the US troops as the main force, the US aggressors launched a violent counter-offensive in an attempt to annihilate the revolutionary forces, especially the regular units of the Liberation Army. At the same time they continued the perfidious “pacification programme” in order to enslave our people by keeping them under tight control. They carried out a so-called “war on the military and political fronts”, an “all-out war”, combining ruthless military operations with deceitful economic and political schemes and perfidious psywar tricks.
The people and army of South Viet Nam, pushing forward their offensive, used their victorious position to intensify their political struggle and armed struggle to defeat all schemes and manœuvers of the US imperialists. The South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces stepped up major engagements involving large numbers of troops and guerilla warfare. They attacked US, puppet and satellite troops and combined big, average and small operations. They annihilated large numbers of enemy troops and destroyed a great quantity of war material, giving strong support to the movement of political struggle and the uprisings to seize power for the people. Less numerous than the enemy and not so well equipped, the South Viet Nam liberation forces dealt the US expeditionary corps stunning blows at Van Tuong in Central Trung Bo, on the Tay Nguyen highlands, in Eastern Nam Bo and in the Quang Tri—Thua Thien region... The increasingly extensive campaigns of the Liberation main force and the guerilla activities of the regional forces took place in all theatres of operations. A vigorous movement of political struggle had been launched in the cities, especially Da Nang and Hue. The US expeditionary corps soon lost their initial aggressiveness; they received unexpected blows and suffered defeat after defeat. The 1965-1966 dry-season counter-offensive by 200,000 US troops was smashed, the “search and destroy” strategy was a failure, like the “break the Viet Cong backbone” strategy and the “pacification program”. The liberation forces opened the Tri—Thien front and continued vigorous attacks on all fronts. The 1966-1967 dry-season counter-offensive by 400,000 US troops, was again smashed, the “pincers”, “search and destroy” and “pacification” strategic operations failed completely.
Just when the escalation of the US war of aggression, at its highest point in both North and South Viet Nam, had met with failure, the general offensive in the spring of 1968 by the South Viet Nam army and people broke out like a thunderbolt, rocking South Viet Nam and the United States. This unique, creative and perfectly mounted strategic attack by the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces, in coordination with mass insurrections, dealt decisive blows at the “limited war” strategy and brought a historic turning point to the course of the war.
In the people’s war against the “limited war”, the task was to intensify the military struggle and closely coordinate the military struggle with the political struggle so as to inflict a military defeat on the US imperialists. To achieve this, the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces further developed their forces in both quantity and quality, in organization and equipment and in the art of warfare.
The regular forces of the Liberation Army were given new services and were organized into increasingly powerful mobile army corps. The regional forces were expanded and strengthened. The militia, guerilla and self-defence forces saw a vigorous and extensive development on all fronts. Elite units made their appearance. The armament and equipment of the armed forces were markedly improved. As a result, all the three categories of armed forces, to varying degrees, were able not only to annihilate enemy infantry troops but also to destroy tanks and armored vehicles and shoot down enemy planes. The experience gained at each stage of the combat was studied. The determination and confidence of the cadres and combatants were continuously strengthened in the fighting against the US aggressors. The cadres’ capacity for organization and command was steadily improving. The entire army and people, with all the three categories of the liberation armed forces, were galvanized by an emulation movement to attack the US aggressors, annihilate puppet troops, to become valiant anti-US combatants.
The South Viet Nam Liberation Army benefited from the favourable strategic situation inherent in the fighting of a people’s war, and benefited also from the immense force resulting from a combination of armed struggle and political struggle. With great fighting spirit and using sufficiently large number of troops supported by the extensive armed forces of the masses and the people’s large and powerful political army, it dealt the US expeditionary corps, the puppet and satellite troops heavy blows, and gradually brought them to defeat.
On the battlefields, the regular forces of the Liberation Army could concentrate their forces in a rational manner, and frequently used a small force to attack a larger one in order to decimate the enemy, it could use the combined forces of different services or the forces of a single service operating independently. The regional forces developed their combat methods so as to win great victories. By using small, well-tried units the South Viet Nam Liberation Army has dealt the enemy painful and dangerous blows. They have annihilated a large number of US troops and destroyed a large quantity of modern war material, inflicting severe losses, particularly on US command organs, US officers and technical personnel, US aircraft and technical equipment of the latest type. With the regional forces as mainstay, the militia, guerrilla and self-defence forces gave a new impulse to guerilla warfare, making the most of rudimentary, relatively modern and modern weapons and developing most varied methods of annihilating the enemy. Many creative, effective methods of people’s warfare were applied and developed: attacks with concentrated forces, guerilla raids, attacks against the enemy rear, communication lines and towns, a combination of fighting with agitation work within the enemy ranks.
In each region and in the whole of South Viet Nam, there was coordination between mobile forces and local forces, so that they could be advantageously deployed, a strategic posture which should combine solidity and mobility on all fronts, especially over the most important sectors in all three strategic zones. The local armed forces consisting of strong units of the regional forces, extensive militia, guerilla and self-defence organizations with the firm support of the political forces and in close coordination with the local political forces, from the mountains to the plain and from the countryside to the towns, brilliantly succeeded in dispersing US, puppet and satellite forces over a wide area, immobilizing them in all places, encircling attacking, decimating, annihilating them and destroying a large quantity of war material. At the same time, the Liberation Army mobile forces, using increasingly big concentrations of troops at different battlefronts, dealt the enemy heavy blows, annihilating great sections of the enemy forces.
In the people’s war in South Viet Nam, the enemy were relentlessly beaten, encircled and cut up, they were continuously attacked and decimated. The US expeditionary corps, the puppet and satellite troops, totalling over one million, with most modern equipment, could not fight as effectively as they wished. They were in a situation when their immense army proved to be insufficiently large, when apparent strength proved to be weakness. They attacked but could not hit the right target and were increasingly decimated by the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces. Their forces were dispersed, their offensive power continuously decreased, and they were forced to return gradually to the defensive. They wanted to end the war quickly but were compelled to prolong it. Their large and modern army was reduced to a more and more passive posture. It was suffering increasingly heavy losses and was gradually being put to defeat by a highly developed people’s revolutionary war. At the same time, their modern air force and navy were dealt deadly blows in our people’s land-against-air war in the North. Our army and people won glorious victories in the fight against the huge military machine of the US imperialists. Our people defeated the biggest US “limited war” of aggression at the stage of its highest escalation in both parts of our country.
The “limited war” strategy was defeated. The Johnson administration had to deescalate the war, unconditionally end the bombing of the North, return to a defensive posture in South Viet Nam and carry out a “de-Americanization” of the war in an attempt to find a way out of the impasse.
Nixon, an unscrupulous and obstinate politician, on coming to power in the United States shifted to a “Vietnamization” of the war hoping to prolong the war of aggression and continue the enslavement of our people in South Viet Nam by maintaining the US neo-colonialist rule.
The “Vietnamization of the war” strategy was but a continuation of the neo-colonialist war of aggression with new methods, the application of the so-called Nixon doctrine to the US imperialist war of aggression against South Viet Nam. That most reactionary doctrine was the US imperialists’ new global strategy for the seventies, appearing at a time when they were suffering repeated defeats in their aggression against Viet Nam, and when the changing balance of forces in the world was more and more unfavourable to them. The objective of the Nixon doctrine was to maintain the US imperialists’ role of world gendarme and enable them to continue to implant their neo-colonialism in the world with new methods and manoeuvres: to rely on US might and at the same time to make satellite countries contribute more men and material.
To carry out the “Vietnamization” of the war, the US imperialists and their henchmen concentrated forces for the realization of their ruthless pacification programme, which was regarded as the main strategic measure to enslave our people in South Viet Nam. The US imperialists’ perfidious scheme was to make Vietnamese fight against Vietnamese, to feed the war by the war, to use the blood of their lackeys together with US dollars, bombs and shells to serve their dirty interests. They endeavoured to build the Saigon puppet army into a modern army to be used as the main strategic force in South Viet Nam, a shock force in Indochina which should gradually replace US troops in land combat. The Nixon administration also brazenly ordered an invasion of neutralist Cambodia, an intensification of the war in Laos, and the extension of the aggressive war to the whole of Indochina. The United States endeavoured to “Khmerize”, “Laotianize” these wars and, encouraging the collusion between the Saigon puppet and Cambodian puppet forces, and between the Thai reactionaries and the Lao and Cambodian puppets, organized a kind of regional alliance among the puppet forces, using Indochinese against Indochinese, Asians against Asians.
In the wake of their victories, under the leadership of the National Front for Liberation and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam, well aware of the characteristics and laws of development of the war in the new stage, the army and people of South Viet Nam further intensified the strategic posture of offensive of the people’s war in order to defeat the enemy’s “Vietnamization” strategy. In all three strategic zones, our army and people in South Viet Nam greatly intensified and closely combined armed struggle and political struggle; they carried out attacks accompanied with uprisings and uprisings accompanied with attacks while at the same time stepping up agitation work among enemy troops, with a view to annihilating and disintegrating the enemy forces, winning power for the people, expanding the liberated zone, and defeating the enemy.
Our army and people closely coordinated their resistance war with the revolutionary struggle of the armies and peoples of fraternal Laos and Cambodia, in order to defeat the Nixon doctrine as applied in Indochina. The offensive of the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam developed into that of the people of the three Indochinese countries who shoulder to shoulder fought against the common enemy. The Lao people’s patriotic war won new and brilliant victories. The Cambodian revolution had made a big leap forward.
In the process of defeating the enemy plan to “Vietnamize” the war, the South Viet Nam Liberation Army, with a sufficient number of troops and great fighting capabilities, greatly increased their fighting power to meet the new requirements of the revolutionary war: the weapons used were more and more modern, the technical branches developed vigorously, the capacity to mount concentrated attacks with coordination between different arms was enhanced. The victories won by the South Viet Nam Liberation Army in early 1969 caused a large number of US casualties and dealt the aggressors a heavy blow in the first days of the Nixon administration. From 1970, after Nixon sent US troops to Cambodia and Laos, the revolutionary armies of all three Indochinese countries, used powerful regular army units to launch repeated attacks against the enemy and won resounding victories. Despite strong US air and logistic support, despite their increased US-supplied equipment, the puppet forces suffered defeat after defeat. Not only the Vientiane and Phnom Penh puppet troops suffered heavy losses, but the Saigon puppet troops, the backbone of the “Vietnamization” strategy, the shock force of the Nixon doctrine in Indochina, were severely defeated. The great victories of the peoples of the three countries, especially the resounding victory on Highway 9 in Southern Laos, had a great strategic significance opening the prospect of defeating the “Vietnamization” strategy and the Nixon doctrine in Indochina by military means.
While the enemy were making strenuous efforts to enlarge their reactionary armies and other forces of repression to build a thick network of military posts to control the population and carry out their ruthless pacification programme in the countryside, the role of the people’s war in individual regions of the country and that of the regional armed forces became more and more important. In many vast areas of the South Vietnamese countryside, our army and people closely combined armed with political struggle and pushed forwards the three converging prongs of the offensive in order to smash the “pacification programme”. Greatly encouraged by the victories of the main force, the militiamen and guerillas, more and more strongly supported by the regional forces, carried out the slogan “the cadres stick to the people, the people stick to the land, the guerillas stick to the enemy.” They raised the guerilla war, the people’s war at the base level to a higher stage of development, annihilating and decimating important regional reactionary forces, and taking many enemy posts. They coordinated their action with the movement of political struggle and insurrection to win power for the people, eliminate wicked elements, break the enemy’s grip, disintegrate enemy civilian defence forces and overthrow the puppet administration at the base level. The revolutionary forces of the masses were firmly maintained, consolidated and developed. The regional people’s war checked the enemy pacification programme. Severely defeated, the enemy were forced to draw back. While the regular forces of the Liberation Army were winning great victories and the regional people’s war was increasingly intensified, the movement of political struggle of the urban population in South Viet Nam underwent a remarkable development both in scope and in depth, with new and varied forms of struggle.
During the past three years, since Nixon came to power and carried out the “Vietnamization of the war” strategy, our army and people in South Viet Nam have won great victories. In 1971, when they hoped to have fundamentally completed their “Vietnamization” plan, the US imperialists and their lackeys, suffered the most severe defeats, despite the great efforts, made by the Nixon administration on all fronts. Our people won tremendous victories, and the “Vietnamization of the war” suffered a severe setback. This proves that the strategy of “Vietnamization” and the Nixon doctrine contain many insoluble contradictions and insuperable weaknesses. Nixon’s strategy of “Vietnamization” was nothing but an illusion. In the political field, he hoped to be able to use the neo-colonialist bait of independence and freedom to camouflage the fundamental contradictions between our people and the US aggressors. At the very moment when our entire people were closely united in their patriotic fight against US aggression and when the above contradictions were most acute, he hoped to use lackeys without any national feeling to carry out the policy of “making Vietnamese fight against Vietnamese”, to serve the interests of the US aggressors. In the military field, when the United States with over one million US and puppet troops had been defeated, and had to gradually withdraw US troops, Nixon hoped to turn weakness into strength, defeat into victory, to put puppet troops back on their feet and use them to replace US troops. Countered by the heroic struggle of our people, a people with a long tradition of national unity and unshakable determination to oppose foreign aggression, who in the wake of their victories were in a position of strength and constantly on the offensive, the “Vietnamization” strategy, the main test of the Nixon doctrine, was bound to fail miserably. Our people in the whole country, in close unity with the brother peoples of Laos and Cambodia, persevered in their resistance and intensified the war, determined to defeat the “Vietnamization of the war” strategy and the Nixon doctrine in Indochina and to win complete victory.
Looking back, we can say that in the revolutionary war in the South our people have synthesized the experience gained over the past decades in military and political struggle, in armed insurrection and revolutionary war and in military organization. Well aware of the laws of revolutionary development and revolutionary methods of action in South Viet Nam, and the laws of development of US neo-colonialism and of the US neo-colonialist war of aggression, the people and army of South Viet Nam have brought all this experience to a higher level, in a new situation. In the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam, our people have increased their great total force derived from the close combination of political forces with armed forces, waging simultaneously an armed struggle and a political struggle, combining insurrection with war and war with insurrection in order to win victory. In accordance with the concrete situation at each stage of development of the war, the army and people of South Viet Nam combined the armed forces with the political forces in a flexible and creative manner and repeatedly defeated all forms of neo-colonialist war of aggression, even at the peak of the US aggressive war.
The resistance war for national salvation against US aggression achieved a high degree of mobilization and arming of the entire people. Relying on the great power given by the correct line followed by the people’s democratic national revolution in South Viet Nam, and the superiority of the socialist system in the North, our people have built up political forces tested by many years of struggle, increasingly better organized and developing with ever greater vigour; on that basis we have built ever more powerful people’s armed forces consisting of the well-organized extensive armed forces of the masses and a continually modernized regular revolutionary army. Those forces played different roles, on different battlefields at different stages of development of the resistance war. But generally speaking, in the revolutionary war in South Viet Nam both the armed forces and the political forces have played a fundamental and decisive strategic role; in the South Viet Nam people’s liberation armed forces, the Liberation Army composed of the regular army and the regional forces and the armed forces of the masses made up of militia, guerilla and self-defence forces have played a great strategic role and are becoming more and more important as the war develops.
Their defeat in the war of aggression against Viet Nam and Indochina is the worst defeat the US imperialists have met with in their history of aggression. Our people’s great victory in the struggle against US aggression, for national salvation proves that in our era, a small nation is quite capable of mobilizing the forces of the entire people, the entire nation, closely combining the political and armed forces, the revolutionary army and the masses’ armed forces, carrying out a political struggle and an armed struggle, armed insurrection and revolutionary war, in order to defeat the neo-colonialist war of aggression by the great imperialist powers including the biggest one, the United States.
*
Looking back at the process of revolutionary struggle, the process of development of armed insurrection and revolutionary war and of the people’s armed forces in our country during the last forty years, we feel extremely proud of our Party and of venerated President Ho Chi Minh, of our people and our nation. As I said above, never before in their 4000-year history of building and defending the country, has our nation been so continuously engaged in insurrection over so long a period. We can say that never before in our history had our nation successively defeated in the space of a few decades three most brutal aggressors, including US imperialism, that cruel and unscrupulous world gendarme, a country which possesses the greatest economic and military potential on earth.
In order to win victory in the nation-wide insurrection and people’s war, our Party has combined its work of propaganda, education and organization with the building up of the political forces of the masses — regarding these as a fundamental necessity in all stages of the revolutionary struggle — and of the people’s armed forces. It has solved the question of military organization, considered as another essential factor.
Our ancestors used to say that “the whole nation joining forces” led to “everyone a soldier”. So today our Party is carrying out the line of “unity of the entire people”, organizing “the entire people to fight against the aggressors“, making “each village, each commune a fortress“, “each street a front line“, “our 31 million fellow-countrymen 31 million valiant combatants“.
Our Party has extensively carried out the arming of the entire people, building up the people’s army and at the same time, arming the revolutionary masses. This has been done in different circumstances and conditions of struggle, different with regard to the enemy and the form of aggression used by them, with regard to our way of using revolutionary violence, the situation in our country and in the world, and the balance of forces between us and the enemy. Originating from the political organizations of the masses, starting from small self-defence units and from secret armed organizations at the base level, our people’s armed forces have developed into a mighty revolutionary armed force with a most brilliant fighting record, a glorious tradition of loyalty to the Party and the people, and of invincibility. These armed forces are made up of a well-tried people’s army consisting of an army, air force and navy which are more and more modernized and the extensive and powerful armed forces of the masses, which are organized everywhere and use varied types of weapons including a number of modern ones.
In their growth and in their fighting record in different conditions and circumstances of struggle, our people’s armed forces have adopted different concrete forms of organization and varied positions and roles. Each day they have attained a higher and higher level but they have always been made up of a union between two fundamental parts:
First, the people’s army consisting of the regular army and the regional forces.
Second, the armed forces of the masses consisting of the extensive militia and self-defence organizations.
The realities of insurrection and war in our country show that arming the entire people means arming the broad masses and building up a people’s army. The people’s army has many advantages over the masses’ armed forces: strong organization, high discipline, careful training, relatively advanced technical equipment, unified command and leadership, great fighting capabilities and high combat-readiness. On the other hand, the armed forces of the masses have advantages over the army as a result of their close coordination with the masses whose power is their direct support, and their use of the most varied weapons and a multitude of fighting methods anywhere and at any time.
To build the people’s army and at the same time to arm the masses is to simultaneously build up the backbone force and the extensive forces, the mobile force and the stationary forces in order to defeat large armies of aggression possessed of modern equipment, high mobility and great firepower. We must build a force to serve as backbone and a mobile force for the whole country and also a backbone and mobile force for each region. We must build stationary forces everywhere in all three strategic areas, in the highlands and the plain, in the countryside and the urban areas. The mobile force to serve as backbone for the whole country is the regular army. The mobile backbone force for each region is the regional force. Thus the people’s armed forces consist of three categories of forces: the regular army, the regional forces and the militia and self-defence forces. The regular army and the regional forces form the People’s Army. The militia and self-defence forces are the armed forces of the masses. On the national scale, the regular army is the mobile force while the regional forces and the militia and self-defence forces are the stationary forces. The regional forces and the militia and self-defence forces form the regional people’s armed forces. On the regional scale, the regional forces are the mobile forces, while the militia and self-defence forces are the stationary forces. The relation between the regional force and the militia and self-defence force in a region reflects the relation between the people’s army and the masses’ armed forces on the national scale.
The combination of the people’s army with the masses’ armed forces and vice versa is clearly the form of military organization most suited to the full realization of the power of the entire people, the entire country, the entire nation. As the combination of political forces with armed forces, of political struggle with armed struggle and of armed insurrection with revolutionary war is the fundamental form of revolutionary violence in our country, so the combination of the revolutionary army with the masses’ armed forces is the military organization best suited for uniting the armed forces with the political forces, armed struggle with political struggle and applying the methods of insurrection and war as well as the military art of the entire people’s insurrection and people’s war.
The above-mentioned realities and experience bring us to this conclusion: the combination of the revolutionary army with the masses’ armed forces and vice versa, the building of the three categories of the people’s armed forces, these are laws of organization and employment of the people’s armed forces which will allow the full realization of the force of the entire people, the entire nation, the entire country in an insurrection of the entire people, in a people’s war as well as in national defence by the entire people, in the liberation war as in the war for the defence of the Fatherland by our nation, a small nation which has had to struggle against domination and wars of aggression by big imperialist powers.
The creativeness of our Party and people with respect to the arming of the revolutionary masses and building of the people’s army springs from the Marxist-Leninist thesis on military organization by the proletariat and the continuation and development of our ancestors’ experience on building armed forces. Our Party has closely combined modern proletarian military science with our own original national tradition, correctly applied this science and this experience to the realities of our people’s struggle in the new circumstances and historical conditions of our era. That is why the very high development of armed insurrection and revolutionary war and of the present military organization in our country, under the leadership of the Party, is a necessary and logical development of our people’s history and tradition of struggle in an era when the Vietnamese working class has become the authentic representative of the nation. Under the leadership of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, our people have maintained and gloriously developed their heroic tradition of struggle against foreign aggression. The insurrection of the entire Vietnamese people and the people’s war under the leadership of the Party of the working class are the culminating point of armed insurrection and revolutionary war in our country. They are the insurrection of the entire Vietnamese people and the people’s war in the new era, the Ho Chi Minh era.
Our people’s repeated victories in the fight against three imperialist powers testify to the great might of the people’s war under the leadership of the working class and their Marxist-Leninist party in this new era of the history of mankind and to the invincible power of the people’s armed forces, the new-type military organization of the working class, the labouring people and the oppressed peoples who have taken up arms and fought to liberate themselves and build a new society.
With the great power of insurrection and national war of the national army and the armed masses, our ancestors gloriously succeeded in reconquering and preserving national independence. They defeated enemies who were much stronger, but who like us, were also under a feudal regime and whose forces of production and technical base were at the same stage of development. Nowadays, with the new power of the insurrection of the entire people and the people’s war under the leadership of the working class, the new power of the entire people united under the Party banner, the new power of the people’s army and the masses’ armed forces, our Party and people have gloriously succeeded in the great mission entrusted to them by history. Relying on the force of the entire people of a small nation whose economic potential, material and technical base were inferior to the enemy’s, taking advantage of the superiority of the new regime, our Party and people have defeated aggressive armies of big imperialist powers, armies which are superior in number and are equipped with more modern weapons and means of warfare.
In order to solve this most important strategic problem, our Party has thoroughly grasped and correctly solved the dialectical relationship between the organization of forces and the material-technical base, between men and weapons, as has been analysed above. In war, victory is generally won by armies which fight for a just cause, and besides are greater in number, armed with more sophisticated weapons and supported by a more highly-developed economy. But a main characteristic of our country has been the fact that in our insurrections and wars, our nation has won victories fighting against an enemy superior in number and equipment. Today we are winning victory even though we are poorly equipped, or not so well equipped as the enemy who has up-to-date weapons and is supported by a more highly developed economy. The secret of that brilliant success lies in the fact that our Party has known how to relate men to weapons, and has realized that, although weapons constitute a very important factor, men are the determining factor. The Vietnamese man, the Vietnamese combatant in the new era, has a new political consciousness and a high fighting spirit. The new social system, the people’s democratic regime and the socialist regime have great vitality and superiority in all aspects. The new-type military organization allows the mobilization of more people than ever before in our history to fight against the aggressors. The combination of the army with the masses’ armed forces has further developed the military art of the people’s armed forces and has a radically revolutionary content, an intense spirit of offensive, creative and original fighting methods. These new acquisitions formed the basis on which the power of the entire nation, of the people’s armed forces could be developed even when we were still poorly armed and equipped. As a result, when the entire nation has risen up, the entire people’s armed forces have a tremendous power and can defeat an enemy like the US imperialists, who are superior in number and equipped with most modern weapons. Never before in our history had we faced a one-million strong army of aggression equipped with the most modern weapons like the US expeditionary corps and the puppet troops. Never had our people confronted an enemy with so great an economic and military potential as the US imperialists. But our army and people have won increasingly great victories, and will certainly win complete victory.
The military victory of our people, of the people’s armed forces has shattered bourgeois military thinking according to which weapons and technique play a decisive role in war, and it proves the correctness of proletarian military thinking which holds that it is men who play a decisive role. It shows the superiority of proletarian military science over bourgeois military science. The era when big imperialist powers could use their military might to do as they pleased, to dominate and enslave the smaller nations, is definitely over.
The great victory of the Vietnamese nation, a small nation with not very large territory and population and with an underdeveloped economy, in its resistance against imperialist powers with great economic and military potential, with large and well equipped armies, is an eloquent proof of the might of nations, including the smaller ones, in their just wars, and it has exposed the limited capabilities of big imperialist powers in their unjust wars of aggression. It is clear that in our era, even a small nation, if it is united and determined, follows a correct revolutionary line, and is able to mobilize the entire people to rise up and wage war, to build and consolidate national defence, and to gain international support and assistance, such a nation is quite capable of overthrowing colonialist rule and defeating the aggressive war of big imperialist powers including the leading imperialist power, the United States.
(1) President Ho Chi Minh.
(2) Communique of the Party Central Committee of January 1931, Party Military Documents, People’s Army Publishing House, Hanoi, 1969, p. 61.
(3) Party Military Documents 1930-1945, People’s Army Publishing House, Hanoi 1969, p. 113-120.
(4) Created during the Nam Ky uprising of November 1940.
(5) “Political Report”, Congress Documents, published by the Viet Nam Workers’ Party Central Committee, Hanoi, 1960, Vol. I, pp. 145-146.
(6) J. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Su That Publishing House, Hanoi 1959, p. 88.
(7) “Insurrection in the Army and the Navy.” K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, J. Stalin: Military Essay, People’s Army Publishing House, Hanoi 1964, p. 72.
(8) F. Engels: “Introduction” of “The Class Struggles in France”, Marx-Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1958, pp. 130-131.
(9) Party Central Committee’s Directives on the Entire People’s Participation in the Resistance War, December 22, 1946.
(10) Congress Documents published by the Viet Nam Workers’ Party Central Committee, Hanoi 1960, Vol. I, p. 190.
Previous: II - OUR PEOPLE’S TRADITION AND EXPERIENCE IN BUILDING THE ARMED FORCES
Next: IV - TO ARM THE REVOLUTIONARY MASSES STRONGLY AND EXTENSIVELY, TO BUILD A MODERN REGULAR PEOPLE’S ARMY