Viet Minh

“ The Viet Minh exercises its control over the mass nationalist movement through a variety of 'national welfare' organizations of women, youth, peasants, soldiers, etc., which in their totality embrace most of the population of Vietnam. ”

“ During the time allowed for collecting forces for the move north, the Viet Minh evidently undertook to bank the fires of revolution by culling out of their units trained and reliable cadres for "demobilization," "recruiting " youth — forcibly in many instances — to take their place, and caching weapons.11 Particularly in Annam and the Highlands, then, the Viet Minh posed a significant challenge to Ngo Dinh Diem. His test of strength with the Viet Minh, however, was to be deferred by the Geneva Settlement and DRV policy for some years. ”

“ Viet Minh strength and control in Vietnam at the time of the conference, it is equally important and revealing to understand why. Viet Minh ambitions were thwarted, not so much by Western resistance or treachery, as by Sino–Soviet pressures on them to compromise. If the Viet Minh were to look for villains at the Geneva Conference, in honesty they would have to admit that their interests were compromised by their own communist allies, not the West. ”

“ Concerning numbers of Viet Minh left behind, figures are even more vague. U.S. intelligence as of 1956 accepted 8,000 as its best estimate, of which 5,000 were armed and organized in skeletal military units ”

“ PAVN Modernizes At the close of hostilities, the Viet Minh probably had some 300,000 to 400,000 men under arms—about 130,000 regulars of which all but about 70,000 were concentrated in North Vietnam and Laos. (See Map, ff.) 83 The French had fielded 420,000 troops, including about 200,000 Vietnamese. Both sides received extensive aid from non-combatants, the French chiefly from the U.S., and the DRV chiefly from China. ”

“ Throughout Vietnam, the ICP initiated patient political action: the dissemination of propaganda, the training of cadres, the establishment of a network of cells down to hamlet level. The Central Committee of the ICP adopted this four point program in 1941:
"1. Develop new organizations among the people, and consolidate those which exist within the Viet Minh. 2. Expand organizations into the cities. 3. Organize the minority peoples within the Viet Minh. 4. Form small guerrilla groups."23 The Viet Minh assigned priority to political tasks ahead of military missions. ”

“ Assist Free Viet Nam to build up indigenous armed forces, including independent logistical and administrative services, which will be capable of assuring internal security and of providing limited initial resistance to attack by the Viet Minh. ”

“ Moreover there is evidence that the Viet Minh systematically broadened its family ties in the South through hundreds of hasty, directed marriages for departing "warriors" and by recruiting very young men and boys just before departure. [12]
72. NIE 63-56, op. cit., 10. 73. U.S. Interagency Intelligence Committee, Draft Memorandum, "The North Vietnamese Role in the Origin, Direction, and Support of the War in South Vietnam," (DIAAP-4, May, 1967) , op. cit., 16–17. 74. ”

“ Most spent their time in preparation for a future uprising, in careful recruitment in the villages -- concentrating on the very families with Viet Minh ties who were receiving priority in the GVN's attentions -- and in constructing base areas in the mountains or jungles. ”

“ Diem, the moral reformer, also drew heavily upon the same traditions for "personalism." One of the tragedies of modern Vietnam is that the political awakening of its peasants was to these, the most virulent, and vicious social theories of the era.
But doctrine was not the sole heritage the Viet Cong received from the Viet Minh. Perhaps more important was the "Resistance" organization: the hierarchy extending upward from hamlet and village through provincial to regional authorities capable of coordinating action on a broad scale. ”

“ Soviet Pressure on Partition There is evidence to believe that both the Chinese and the Soviets were instrumental in bringing about a series of Viet Minh concessions on the issue of where to draw the demarcation line between North and South Vietnam. ”

“ Let us stand up with all our strength to free ourselves! "Many oppressed peoples the world over are vying with each other in the march to win back their independence. We cannot allow ourselves to lag behind. "Forward! Forward! Under the banner of the Viet Minh Front, move forward courageously!"30 The hapless Bao Dai — the first Vietnamese to govern a nominally united, independent nation in nearly a century — on August 18, 1945, dispatched to General de Gaulle of France the following poignant and prophetic message:
"I address myself to the people of France, to the country of my youth. ”

“ But O.S.S. assistance to the Viet Minh-led guerrillas was quite limited, although it gave the Viet Minh the opportunity to proclaim that they were part of the Allied effort against the Japanese. Cf., Fall, Le Viet-Minh: La République Démocratique du Viet-Nam [Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1960] , 34. Fall, Two Viet-Nams, op. cit., 66–71, details the case for the postwar American aid and comfort to the Viet Minh, which adds up to a more substantial charge — but similarly is without foundation in the record. 28. ”

“ There is little doubt that Diem and his government applied the term Viet Cong somewhat loosely within South Vietnam to mean all persons or groups who resorted to clandestine political activity or armed opposition against his government; and the GVN meant by the term North as well as South Vietnamese communists, who they presumed acted in concert. At the close of the Franco-Viet Minh War in 1954, some 60,000 men were serving in organized Viet Minh units in South Vietnam. For the regroupments to North Vietnam, these units were augmented with large numbers of young recruits ”

“ To the contrary, Diem seemed, if anything, over-conscious of the fact that his test with the Viet Minh lay ahead, and that they posed a threat more dangerous than the sects could ever have been, not only because they were politically more pervasive, and not only because they had taught a generation of Vietnamese peasants the techniques of armed conspiracy, but also because their tenets offered competing solutions to the most pressing problems of the Vietnamese people: land and livelihood. ”

“ Viet Minh propaganda painted grim pictures of life in South Vietnam, and savagely attacked the French and Americans who were aiding refugees. In turn, French and American propaganda promoted recourse to migration to escape the terrors and injustice of communism. Voice of America was active in rebutting the Viet Minh radio, and battery radios were reportedly distributed to extend the audience for Western programs. ”

“ The following extracts from Viet Minh doctrine are dated 1948: "TWELVE RECOMMENDATIONS "The nation has its root in the people. "In the Resistance war and national reconstruction, the main force lies in the people. Therefore, all the people in the army, administration, and mass organizations who are in contact or live with the people, must remember and carry out the following recommendations: "Six forbiddances: 1 – Not to do what is likely to damage the land and crops or spoil the houses and belongings of the people. ”

“ Some French authors have been prone to credit the U.S. for Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh; e.g., Lucien Bodard, The Quicksand War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967) , 221–222. The ranking American official in northern Vietnam in 1945, Brigadier General Philip E. Gallagher, has attested: "...throughout the months before the Japanese capitulation, O.S.S. officers and men operated behind Japanese lines, to arm, lead and train native guerrillas who were organized by the Viet Minh." ”

“ This part of the study examines the Geneva Conference of 1954. Section A deals with U.S. positions before and during the conference. Section B discusses the role of the Bao Dai Government of Vietnam during Geneva, and its consequent obligations. Section C relates the Viet Minh position at Geneva to overall objectives and strategy of the communist powers. The final portion, Section D, analyzes the outcome of the conference as viewed, first by the communists, then by the West, and finally as its spirit and effects can be seen in objective retrospect. ”

“ Under ARVN Colonel Le Van Kim, the troops behaved well toward the people, and the propagandists exploited Viet Minh errors to the extent that, as the last Viet Minh soldiers marched down toward their ships, the populace jeered them. American advisers were active, and Diem himself visited this operation a week after the last Viet Minh had left, receiving what the Americans present considered a spontaneous welcome by the peasants.60 Nonetheless, the Cau Mau experience became more typical of the ARVN than the Binh Dinh affair. ”

“ American thinking and policy-making was dominated by the tendency to view communism in monolithic terms. The Viet Minh was, therefore, seen as part of the Southeast Asia manifestation of the world-wide communist expansionary movement. French resistance to Ho Chi Minh, in turn, was thought to be a crucial link in the containment of communism. This strategic perception of the communist threat was supported by the espousal of the domino principle: the loss of a single nation in Southeast Asia to communism would inexorably lead to the other nations of the area falling under communist control. ”

“ Fall once accepted a figure of 120,000, but later tended to a ceiling of 100,000. Cf., Fall in Lindholm, ed., Viet-Nam, op. cit., 57; and Fall, Vietnam Witness, op. cit., 216. The 130,000 total approximates the figures published by the Research Staff of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1956; 150,000 Viet Minh troops and their families. [7] Wilfred G. Burchett, the Australian communist, has referred to "the withdrawal of the 140,000 Viet Minh and the cadres to the north." ”

“ A reported 90,000 soldiers were taken to North Vietnam in the evacuated units, while the U.S. and the GVN estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 trained men were left behind as "cadre." If French estimates are correct that in 1954 the Viet Minh controlled over 60 to 90 percent of South Vietnam's villages outside the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao regions, those 5000 to 10,000 cadre must have represented only a small fraction of the remaining Viet Minh apparatus--cadre, local workers, sympathizers--in the countryside. ”

“ In 1950, anti-communism asserted itself, and in a remarkable volte-face, the United States threw its economic and military resources behind France in its war against the Viet Minh. Other commentators, conversely — prominent among them, the historians of the Viet Minh — have described U.S. policy as consistently condoning and assisting the reimposition of French colonial power in Indochina, with a concomitant disregard for the nationalist aspirations of the Vietnamese. ”

“ Despite this manpower advantage for the French Union forces, an intelligence estimate for the period said they faced possible defections on a mounting scale which could become very large if the Viet Minh scored major victories or if the French were believed about to abandon Hanoi and portions of the Delta. ”

“ Our struggle will be a long and hard one. Because the Japanese are defeated, we shall not be liberated overnight. We still have to make further efforts and carry on the struggle. Only a united struggle will bring us independence. "The Viet Minh Front is at present the basis of the struggle and solidarity of our people. Join the Viet Minh Front, support it, make it greater and stronger! "At present, the National Liberation Committee is, so to speak, in itself our provisional government. ”

“ Membership was held open to any other individuals or groups willing to join in struggling for "national liberation." The announced program of the Viet Minh called for a wide range of social and political reforms designed mainly to appeal to Viet patriotism. Emphasis was placed on an anti-Japanese crusade and preparation for "an insurrection by the organization of the people into self-defense corps," not on communist cant.
Though a Kuomintang general originally sponsored the Viet Minh, Ho soon became suspect, and in 1942 was jailed by the Chinese. ”

“ Ho re-joined the Viet Minh, re-entered Vietnam, and led the Viet Minh to power in August, 1945.
Ho, at the time he became President of the DRV, was undoubtedly a communist in the sense that he had spent twenty-five years in the embrace of Party discipline and doctrine, and that he had been an agent of the Communist International. He was also a dedicated revolutionary nationalist whose cause had exacted of him years of hardship, imprisonment, exile, and conspiratorial isolation. In his Notes from a Prison Diary, he wrote:
"People who come out of prison can build up a country. ”

“ After 1954 many Viet Minh entered the ranks of the nevl Diem government, and even a decade later many of the top military and civilian governmental figures in Saigon were former Viet Minh. Nevertheless the Viet Minh eleme nts, made up chiefly but not entirely of Communists, continued to offer resistance to the Diem government .... In terms of overt ' activity such as armed incidents of the distribution of propaganda leaflets the period was quiet and the Communists within the remnant Viet Minh organization relatively inactive. ”