The Truth Behind the Myth of the Viet Minh (Pt. 3)
THE FIGHT IN THE SOUTH: THE VIET CONG
South Vietnam was (and still is) the region with the most concentrated ownership of land. After the launch of land reform, during the anti-French war, the peasants had driven out the landowners and occupied their land. After the Geneva Agreements, the Vietminh forces had to withdraw from the south and leave the field open to the return of the landowners and the bloody repression that accompanied them.
The Diem government, created by the USA, immediately began the restoration of the large landed estates. The peasants had to abandon the lands they had occupied after the launch of the agrarian reform (about 2,000,000 hectares), and this was achieved through a series of bloody expeditions in the countryside.
In 1956, Diem forbade the villages from electing their own representatives according to the tradition of the communes, and appoints governmental village chiefs (the Ac On). The puppet government also establishes traveling “special courts” to wage terror in the countryside.
The restoration of the landowners gives good results; suffice it to say that in 1957, 1% of the owners had 44% of the surface cultivated with rice, while in 1934 1% of the owners had 358% of the same surface.
The guerrilla movement, with which the peasants tended to defend themselves from repression, began spontaneously, long before the formation of the “National Liberation Front”, aka the Viet Cong; according to what Jean Chesneaux writes (op. cit), “for five years, from 1954 to 1959, the peasants of the villages of the South suffered through the searches, the reprisals, the acts of terrorism of the police and the army of Diem. All of this was named, in Saigon, the “witch hunt”, i.e. the persecution against the old members of the resistance and against anyone suspected of having more or less close relations with them”.
On the part of the DRV, there was no material or propaganda support to the insurrection; on the contrary, the Vietminh leaders who were still in the South argued that any recourse to violence should be avoided, in order not to be accused of violating the Geneva agreements. One of the exponents of the Front, Quyet Thang, declares about this period: “Very strict directives were issued in view of a very strict compliance with Geneva: we never went beyond the legal political struggle…. This cost us hard losses, our best comrades. And it took us a whole year to explain and convince everyone that it was the right line” (quoted by Lê Châu).
The opportunist press generally tends to emphasize this position of the North Vietnamese government, and happily hypes it up as a demonstration of its “good will for peace” and the aggressiveness of the Americans. The position held by the DRV, on the other hand, showed that, in line with the decisions of the great powers, it had now accepted as definitive the partition of the country into two. On the other hand, this “will to peace” was certainly not a merit when dealing with a stronger adversary.
The NFL, formed in 1960, is a continuation of the policy of the Vietminh; it frames and directs a movement of armed struggle with a program that remains below the limits of what a movement with the same bourgeois objectives could demand. This, of course, does not detract from the valor and heroism of the Vietcong, but the violence of the struggle juxtapose with the “mildness” of what the Viet Cong is struggling for.
The Front, in the same way as the old Vietminh, agitates the ghost of national unity: “The force that guarantees the fulfillment of the task of fighting against American aggression and saving our country is unity of our great nation. The National Liberation Front of South Vietnam constantly advocates the unity of all social classes and strata”. It aims at the overthrow of the puppet government, the proclamation of free elections, and the creation of a “democratic government of national union that includes the most representative personalities of the various social classes”.
Is it not typical of the bourgeoisie to claim that it wants to exercise power in the name of all social classes? Revolutionaries have never hidden that they represent the interests of only one class and that they want to take power in the name of only one class!
On the economic level, the Front proclaims, on the one hand, the confiscation of the property of the Americans “and their cruel agents” and the need to “guarantee the workers and employees the right to participate in the management of enterprises”; on the other hand, the will to “protect the right of ownership of the means of production by the people”.
Regarding the question of land reform, it declares that it wants to put the slogan “the land to those who work it” into effect. The measures that are indicated are, however, as always, ambiguous: “Confiscate the lands of the American imperialists, and of the cruel and unrepentant agrarians (?) their servants, and distribute them to the peasants without or with little land… The State will deal with the purchase of land from landowners who own more than a certain limit depending on the situation.” Lands belonging to “absentee landlords” will be turned over to the peasants… Adequate measures will be taken in this regard at a later date bearing in mind the political attitude of each landowner“. “Finally, owners of industrial agricultural cultures and orchards must be encouraged to manage them. Respect the legitimate rights over land ownership of the church, Buddhist clergy and the Caodaist Holy See“.
Regarding the workers, the NLF declares that it wants to implement the eight-hour day and also, with a distinct sense of humor, that it wants to “create conditions for rest and enjoyment”, but the really serious part is this: “Create a system of wages and incentives for increased productivity”.
And here is the attitude of the Front towards workers’ struggles: “settle disputes between employers and workers through negotiations between the two sides with the mediating action of the democratic national government”.
We can hear these words from the ministers of every bourgeois state: – Why resort to strikes? – The contrasts between labor and capital, will be resolved by peaceful negotiation, with the mediation of the State… of capital.
The Front does not explicitly state that it has accepted as final the partition of the country into North and South; however, by proclaiming that it wants to constitute an “independent South Vietnam”, it shows that it does not want the reunification of the country (the formation of a Provisional Revolutionary Government in 1969 confirms this): “The reunification of Vietnam will be achieved little by little and by peaceful means, on the basis of negotiations between the two zones, without either side exerting pressure on the other and without foreign interference” (1965 Program, reported by Lê Châu).
Finally, it should be noted that the word “socialism” is never found in this program (even if it has become a completely meaningless, innocuous word these days).
In 1959, the Diem regime organized the so-called “agrovilles”, concentration camps in which peasants were grouped together and kept under strict police surveillance. In 1962, the Americans and their puppets attempted to implement the “Staley-Taylor plan”, according to which the entire rural population of South Vietnam is to be concentrated in thousands of concentration camps.
This plan ends in complete failure; the guerrillas score some brilliant military victories in 1963 (at Ap Bac) and 1964 (at Binh Gia), while the puppet army is decimated by desertions.
The living conditions of the proletarians of the south are those of pure starvation; suffice it to say that, in 1962, 40% of the working population was registered in the employment offices. The invasion of U.S. goods, the famous “aid”, quickly liquidated the weak local industry. In the textile industry, one of the most important, 80% of the workers had been laid off.
In the fall of 1963, Diem, by then compromised, was assassinated by the CIA. Throughout 1964, coups and counter coups occurred between the various bands of officials.
In 1965, the bombings and massive U.S. intervention begin.
The bombings don’t have exclusively military objectives, as their purpose is also to wage terror; as such, special bombs are used (cluster bombs) specially designed not so much to destroy buildings, bridges, etc., as to make the greatest number of victims and to terrorize the population as much as possible.
The most recent facts are well known: in 1968, the Viet Cong obtained a brilliant victory, the so-called “Tet offensive”; during its course, according to the figures provided by the NLF, 380 thousand enemy soldiers, 4400 airplanes and helicopters, 4560 armored vehicles, 700 cannons, 500 naval units, 500 warehouses of war material were put out of action.
In May 1970, the U.S. launched an offensive through Thailand and Cambodia. It soon failed, and the Front, in its counterattack, destroyed the entire Cambodian air force.
The offensive in Laos, launched in February 1971, is suffering the same fate.
In this war, the Americans have made use of their enormous financial means with a cruelty and cynicism never seen before; every single day there are reports of massacres of inhabitants of entire villages, destruction of forests, torture inflicted on prisoners. The former judges of Nuremberg have learned the craft of the Nazis (their former defendants), which is to say, the technique of extermination, and they apply it with a hundred times greater means than the Nazis ever had.
But while the American military has outstanding means of destruction, the morale of the soldiers is less than zero: the troops are held together only by terror and by the force of money. No psychological element induces the American soldier to fight “willingly”: – The defense of the Homeland and of the American people”? …But where? Thousands of miles away from his own country and against a weak and badly armed enemy? – The “defense of the Western World and the values of democracy and freedom”? …But how? With torture? With the massacre of the civilian population?
The propaganda of the US government can say all it wants, but the attempts to paint this greedy war of plunder with “noble ideals” appear more and more ridiculous.
Forty-five percent of US military personnel in Vietnam use drugs (in 1970 alone, 11,000 U.S. soldiers were arrested for drug use). Soldiers often refuse to leave for war operations; there are cases of open mutinies, as well as fraggings – shootings and killings of officers. The colonel of the “marines”, Robert Heinl, in an article in the “Armed Forces Journal”, writes: “Our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous ” (quoted by the Unit of 7-7-71).
In 1970, there were 35 officially recognized cases of insubordination (but many more remain unreported).
The most hated officers have bounties of $50 to $1,000 placed on their heads. In 1969, a $10,000 bounty was placed on the head of Colonel Weldon Honeycutt, who had ordered bloody suicide attacks. According to Colonel Heinl, 14 “pacifist” organizations operate in the army; 140 underground newspapers are distributed among the US troops; one of them launched this watchword: “Don’t desert. Go to Vietnam, and kill your commanding officer”.
In 1970 alone, there were 65,000 desertions among Americans.
The Vietnam War has become the prototype of anti-imperialist struggles: it is not an isolated case, and valuable general lessons can be drawn from it.
For many decades, practically the only movements of rebellion against exploitation that take the form of armed violence are those that occur in the so-called “Third World”.
What are the reasons for this? Has the proletariat of Western countries definitively repudiated armed violence? Is this a confirmation of the “Third Worldist” theory of the “countryside besieging the city”? The Third Worldists limit themselves to noting a fact: that is, that the Western proletariat, for many years, has not left the legal struggles. But, instead of explaining the reasons, they accept this state of affairs as a permanent fact, and they draw the conclusion that the Western proletariat is now “gentrified” and that the vanguard of the world revolution is no longer in the West (in the “city”), but in the anti-imperialist struggles taking place in the underdeveloped countries (in the “countryside”).
Che Guevara, in the preface to Giap’s book People’s War, People’s Army, said: “This work… raises questions of general interest for the world in the struggle for its liberation. They can be summarized as follows: the feasibility of armed struggle under particular conditions that have nullified the peaceful methods of the liberation struggle”. Guevara therefore admits the possibility of a “peaceful way” while he envisaged armed struggle only “in particular conditions” in which the “peaceful way” was not possible.
In fact, for over 50 years now, the Western proletariat has been fighting in a “peaceful way”. What are the results?
Today, as a result of the crisis of regime of capitalist economy, the living conditions of the working class in the West are getting worse and worse and unemployment is increasing all over the world. The persistence of the Western proletariat on the tracks of peaceful and legal struggle has allowed international imperialism to crush any movement of rebellion of the exploited masses of the “third world”. The Vietnam struggle shows how the possibility of victory of any anti-imperialist struggle is inextricably linked to the attitude of the proletariat of the industrialized countries. As long as the Western proletariat keeps fighting in a “peaceful way” like how the opportunist organizations linked to Moscow and Beijing try to keep it, none of these struggles will have any hope of success.
However, opportunism carries out its action not only in the West, but also in the “Third World”, where it tries to bind the proletariat to the claims of the national bourgeoisie and to prevent it from forming an autonomous organization separate from the other classes.
Today, in spite of the advancing economic crisis, the western proletariat still only shows some mild signs of life and imperialism maintains its positions all over the world. Should we draw the conclusion that imperialism is invincible and that the US army, the most powerful and numerous ever seen, will always be able to maintain the current social order? Certainly not. Who flies the American planes? Who drives the tanks? Who operates the cannons? How scary will the bombs be when the red pilots refuse to leave? What fear will the mighty US fleet have when red sailors throw their officers overboard? In what direction will the guns of US soldiers fire when the resurrected International Party of the working class exerts its influence on it?
The struggle against imperialism is fought first of all here, in the West, not with “protest” demonstrations and chants, but with the struggle against opportunism and with the re-establishment of the world party of the working class.