In their long struggle under the leadership of the Party, our people have accumulated rich experience in many fields.
With regard to the enemy and the various forms of war of aggression, our people have used armed uprisings and revolutionary wars to defeat successively three big imperialist powers in three continents: the ruthless Japanese fascists, the French colonialists, an old imperialist power in Europe, and the U.S. imperialists, the ringleader of international imperialism, the international gendarme. We have thwarted all forms of aggression: from the aggressive wars of the French colonialists and the Japanese fascists to the neo-colonial war of U.S. imperialism, from neo-colonial domination by fascist means and through the agency of puppet rulers to the “special war”, “limited war” and air and naval war of destruction by the United States.
Regarding the mode of struggle and the use of revolutionary violence to seize and maintain power and to liberate and defend the country, our people have gained rich experience. They have launched insurrections by the entire people, in the countryside and in urban centres, partial and general. They have waged protracted people’s war, mainly using armed struggle to oppose the old-style colonial wars of aggression. They have waged people’s war against neo-colonial wars of various forms, combining armed struggle with political action, military attacks with armed uprisings. They have conducted a “surface-toair” people’s war to foil the U.S. war of destruction.
With regard to internal and external historical situations, our people have acquired the experience of people’s war and revolutionary war in the most varied historical conditions: when power was not yet in the people’s hands; then when they had won it in some regions; then when they were in control of the whole country; when our struggle relied on the nascent people’s democratic regime, then when it rested on the superiority of the socialist system in the course of building; when the whole country applied a unified revolutionary strategy – that of people’s democratic national revolution – then when, temporarily partitioned into two zones, it applied two different strategies; when a world war was raging and the imperialists were fighting each other on a world scale, then when insurrection and war of resistance were conducted in the absence of a world war; when our war of resistance was carried out in conditions of complete encirclement by imperialism and our forces were still quite modest, then when we had the immense backing of the socialist camp, etc.
Our people have had to wage a protracted, arduous, complex and relentless war. Owing to the extremely important strategic position of Viet Nam in Southeast Asia, these last decades, international imperialism – the French, the Japanese, again the French then the Americans – and its valets have repeatedly used counter-revolutionary violence against our people. In face of such powerful and ferocious enemies, our people, fighting under the glorious banner of our Party, have displayed an unflinching will of resistance and a thoroughly revolutionary spirit; they have firmly kept and developed the offensive posture of the revolution. They have won success after success, recorded achievements without precedent in our history, and in this way made worthy contribution to the world revolution. This testifies to the fact that our Party’s general and military lines, whose theoretical basis in Marxism-Leninism, have at the same time deep roots in the practice of revolutionary struggle. They require from us a high sense of independence and creativeness which will prevent us from simply copying the experiences of foreign countries and from being content with our own acquired experiences.
From the above-mentioned points, we can sum up the fundamental characteristics of the wars waged by our people under the leadership of our Party as follows:
1. Ours is a just war, – a war for national liberation or a war for national defence – waged against an unjust and aggressive war by imperialism and aimed at implementing the political line of the Party and achieving the goals of the revolution in the interests of the Vietnamese people and nation and for the sake of world revolution.
War is the continuation of politics. The Party’s revolutionary line determines the political aim of revolutionary war and the just character of the war waged by our people. Conversely, the colonialist and aggressive policy of the imperialists determines the unjust and counter-revolutionary character of their war.
The military traditions bequeathed by our forefathers are all traditions of just wars, wars fought either to liberate or defend the country. The feudal class which led our uprisings and wars for national liberation always raised the banner of a just cause – salvation for the country and the people – and took some democratic measures aimed at achieving national union. Though confined within the framework of feudalism, those military traditions were permeated with the great spirit of just wars to “defend the mountains and rivers of the country” (Ly Thuong Kiet), “unite the entire people for the struggle” and “foster the people’s strength so as to strike deep roots and ensure a lasting base” regarding this as “the best way to defend the country” (Tran Hung Dao), and “to confront barbarity with justice and fight truculence with humanity” (Nguyen Trai). It is precisely because their aim was to save our country that our just wars had always been able to mobilize this invincible force: patriotism and national unity.
In our era, national-liberation revolution is part and parcel of international proletarian revolution. Our Party has clearly defined the fundamental objectives of the revolution: national independence, people’s democracy and socialism. These are the political goals of all uprisings and wars for national liberation and for national defence carried out by our people in the various stages of our revolution. Our revolution and revolutionary war at present link national liberation to the winning of democratic rights for the people, national liberation to socialism, the Vietnamese revolution to world revolution. President Ho Chi Minh said: “To save the country and liberate the people, the only way is that of proletarian revolution”.
Today the national struggle led by our Party has closely combined nation with class, and patriotism with internationalism. It reflects the objective law of development of Vietnamese society at present, the basic interests and profound aspirations of our working class and toiling people, of our whole nation, which are consistent with the interests of world revolution. Therefore, the righteousness of the war for national liberation, the war for national salvation, waged by our people under the leadership of our Party, has a new qualitative content and a completely new strength. The justice of our cause has moved our entire people to resolutely stand up to liberate and defend the country; the righteousness of our cause and the successes we have recorded have won for us the support of progressive people all over the world. This is for us an inexhaustible source of strength never fathomed by the enemy; there lies the basis of the superiority of our Party’s military line.
2. Ours is a war for national liberation, for national salvation waged by the people of a former colonial and semi-feudal country, a country not very big in size and in population, and with a backward economy; but a country which has, on the other hand, a centuries-old record of struggle against foreign aggression and is building a new system – that of people’s democracy and socialism – a country whose heroic, intelligent, persevering and resourceful people know how to fight victoriously against enemies superior in numbers and equipment, and defeat the aggressive armies of imperialist powers with immense territories and populations, huge economic and military potential and modern armaments and techniques.
Our wars against foreign aggression, at present and in the past have always been fought against the invading armies of countries definitely greater than ours in size, population and with overwhelmingly superior military forces. But while in the past, the invading countries had the same feudal regime as ours, today the aggressors are imperialist powers which are not only by far superior to us in area and population, but also possess highly developed industries, huge economic and military potential and modern armaments, while our country is not very large in area and population, and is moreover an economically under-developed former colonial and semi-feudal country. On the other hand, unlike our forefathers, we are now striving to fully build a new social regime, that of people’s democracy and socialism, definitely better than the rotten reactionary social regime of the aggressors. We are possessed of the immense strength of an advanced social regime and of the new Vietnamese man, master of that regime.
Correctly assessing the relation of forces between the enemy and us, in order to win the war for national liberation and national defence in our time, our people have taken full advantage of favourable conditions of population, terrain and climate and brought into full play the strength sprung from an advanced social regime and the Vietnamese man of the new era. On this basis, they have continued and developed the nation’s military tradition; with courage and intelligence, they have succeeded not only in defeating a stronger and more numerous enemy in the new conditions, but also in making civilization triumph over brute force and overcoming the enemy’s superior armaments with our absolute political and moral superiority. Thanks to their determination to fight and win and their intelligence and resourcefulness, our people have been able to take full advantage of their fundamental advantages and essential strengths, overcome the relative strong points of the enemy, aggravate his fundamental weaknesses and bring into full play the combined strength of people’s war in the new epoch, in order to attack and crush the enemy.
3. This is a war for national liberation, for national defence, conducted in the world conditions of our era, the era of triumph of socialist revolution and nationalliberation revolution, when the revolutionary forces have grown superior to the reactionary forces on a world scale and world revolution is in a posture of unrelenting offensive on imperialism.
In the feudal period, our forefathers had to rely on their sole forces, without any outside support and assistance. Today we are prosecuting a war for national liberation and national defence in quite different international conditions.
The triumph of the October Revolution ushered in a new era in the history of mankind, the era of the collapse of capitalism and triumph of socialism on a world scale. It linked the socialist revolutionary movement of the working class in developed capitalist countries to the national-liberation revolution of oppressed peoples. The Vietnamese revolution led by our Party is an integral part of the world revolution. It benefits from the broad support of and co-ordination with revolutionary movements in various countries. In particular, the victory of the Soviet Union over fascism in World War II paved the way for the triumph of the revolution in many countries of Europe and Asia. A world socialist system came into being and has become the decisive factor in the development of revolution in the world. The socialist camp is the bulwark and mainstay of the national-liberation struggle in the present epoch. With the triumph of the Chinese revolution and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the world revolutionary forces, with the socialist camp as its core, have grown stronger than the forces of counter-revolution, of imperialism. The world revolution in a posture of uninterrupted offensive is relentlessly hammering at imperialism from many sides and has won big victories. These are world conditions most propitious to revolution and revolutionary war in Viet Nam at present.
Today our people are simultaneously building and defending socialism in the North and carrying out the war of resistance against U.S. aggression to liberate the South and eventually reunify the country. Revolution in our country reflects the meeting of the two revolutionary trends of our time: socialist revolution and national-liberation revolution. This is a fundamental advantage which strengthens the position of our revolution in the world revolutionary movement. In their long and arduous struggle against powerful imperialist aggressors, our people, guided by our Party’s sound revolutionary line and correct line of international solidarity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, have been contributing an active part to the world revolution. At the same time, they have received ever greater assistance from the Soviet Union, China and other fraternal socialist countries and staunch support from progressive peoples all over the world, including the American people. This is a very important factor of victory.
As for the imperialist aggressors, they represent a reactionary social system condemned by history. They are striving to muster all forces available and frenziedly try to ward off the onslaught of the world revolution. However, together with other reactionary forces, they are in a defensive posture, grow weaker every day and suffer defeat after defeat. They are more and more vigorously opposed by their own people and more and more isolated in the world; their internal contradictions grow more and more acute. This is one of their fundamental weaknesses at present and also an immense advantage to our struggle. Our former aggressors were the Japanese fascists, who were eventually defeated by the Soviet Union and the Allies, and the French colonialists, whose country had been invaded by the Nazis in World War II and was recovering. Today the U.S. imperialists, the ringleader of the imperialist camp, are facing great difficulties and contradictions in every respect; they are sustaining repeated setbacks and growing ever weaker.
These characteristics of revolutionary war in our country are clearly reflected in the military line of our Party.
Our Party’s military line – that of people’s war – originates from its political line and must conform to it; it is the line of people’s war waged by our people at present to achieve national independence, people’s democracy and socialism. Applying the Marxist-Leninist conception of revolutionary violence, the Party’s military line can be defined as follows: the whole nation fights the enemy under the leadership of the working class, develops its fighting forces to the full, carries out popular uprisings and people’s war to get the better of the big aggressive armies of imperialism.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism already spoke of people’s war. Engels highly valued the struggle put up by the French people in 1793 in the bourgeois revolution and called it the “insurrection of the masses, of the entire people”, and “people’s war”. He also held that the struggle of the Chinese people against the British colonialists in the 19th century was a “people’s war to safeguard the Chinese nation” and a “war which, in the last analysis, was a genuine people’s war”.
Our people possess a long record of uprisings and people’s wars waged to liberate and defend the country.
Mentioned in our history are people’s wars led by the feudal class against foreign aggressions, and that sprung from the Tay Son revolutionary peasant movement and waged against both the country’s rotten feudal rulers and foreign aggressors. Today, people’s war is led by the working class.
In the past, all people’s wars displayed historical limitations in their objectives, leadership and motive power. At present, our people’s war led by the working class, is a war waged “by the people” and “for the people” with a full significance and content in the context of the present era. Due to its aims of national independence, people’s democracy and socialism, the revolutionary line of our Party, the Party of the Vietnamese working class, allows our people’s war to closely link “the country’s salvation” to the “people’s salvation” and national liberation and defence to the emancipation of the labouring people. That is why, following our Party’s political line, our popular fighting forces at present are the most powerful and broadest-based forces ever. Our Party has mobilized and rallied the entire people in a broad national united front based on the worker-peasant alliance, led by the working class and united with the working class and peoples of the world. This is a new, invincible, strength of our people’s war. Deeply aware of their revolutionary tasks and of the objectives of the war, our fighters draw their immense strength from the national consciousness and traditional patriotism of the Vietnamese people, which carries a new content. This is patriotism associated with democracy, love of socialism and proletarian internationalism. This is the ardent patriotism of our people combined with the revolutionary spirit of the working class.
In our time, with the strength of the whole nation rising up to fight, we rely mainly on our own forces. We fight the enemy on our soil, with the joint strength of the Vietnamese man and an advanced social regime. At the same time, we enjoy the great support and assistance of the world revolution, the core of which is the socialist camp.
Our Party’s military line is a creative application of the Marxist-Leninist conception of revolutionary violence which regards revolution as the work of the masses, revolutionary violence as violence by the masses. Revolutionary violence must associate the political forces of the masses with the people’s armed forces, armed struggle with political action, ending in general uprising and people’s war. Only a deep and correct grasp of this conception of violence makes it possible to mobilize and organize the forces of the entire people, the whole nation. The enemy is fought not only by the armed forces but also by the population, using every means available. Not only do the people intensify production and assume combat support duty, they also take direct part in the fighting. We fight the enemy not only by armed struggle but also through political actions by the masses, persuasion work among puppet, American and other troops; we launch not only military attacks but also mass uprisings of various scopes and forms. A new characteristic of the people’s war in Viet Nam at present is the high national and class consciousness of the masses, the scientific and tight organization of the struggle in the whole country, the flexible methods of struggle – which turn all the 30-odd million Vietnamese into valiant fighters for national salvation.
Our line, embodied in the watchword: “Let the entire people fight the enemy”, is concretized in the following essential problems:
– Mobilization and organization of the entire people for war, building of the people’s political forces and armed forces, the latter including three categories of troops and constituting the core of the fighting people.
– Reliance on the political forces of the masses, setting up of resistance bases and rear-bases of people’s war; co-ordinating the local rear-base with the national rear-base while drawing support from the international rear-base: the socialist camp.
– Creative application of the mode of conduct and the military art of people’s war, successfully opposing enemy troops more numerous and better equipped than our own, attacking the enemy by the combined force of armed struggle and political action in all strategic zones in town and country, and defeating the enemy step by step until we have gained complete victory.
– Strengthening of the Party’s leadership in the conduct of the war, this being the decisive factor of victory.
To sum up, our experiences are mainly those of staging armed uprising, revolutionary war and national-liberation war to seize power and overthrow imperialist rule; they are also, to a certain extent, experiences acquired in the war waged to defend the national territory when we already have a state with an adequate political and economic structure.
The military line of our Party stems from its correct political line, from the Marxist-Leninist theory on war and the army, from the military skill of our forefathers and from the advanced experiences of the revolutionary struggle in the world. At the same time, it reflects the wealth of precious experience acquired by our people in the practice of revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the Party in the last forty years.
From its inception and during the process of its development, this military line has always proved to be correct and has shown invincible strength, because it has constantly been guided by the Party’s political line and supported by the huge forces and inexhaustible creative spirit of the great masses of the people. The strength of revolutionary war epitomizes the force of the revolution. Proceeding from the correct revolutionary task to the correct political aim of people’s war, from the correct thesis of revolutionary violence to the theses of popular uprising and people’s war, such is the dialectical relationship between the Party’s military line and its political line, and there lies the source of the strength of our military line and that of the revolutionary war of our people.
In the conditions of an uninterrupted war, our Party’s military line has been constantly tested in combat; it has been completed, developed and perfected. It has made ceaseless progress in theory and scored new successes in combat. It is the invincible weapon of our people against all imperialist aggressors and their bourgeois military theories, which are reactionary and retrograde.
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