Shortly after Le Duan reported to the Politburo in January 1959, the Central Committee convened its Fifteenth Plenum. Some of the delegates at the meeting were southern cadres, who were undoubtedly eager to add their personal accounts to help dramatize the recent course of events in the RVN. Others were supporters of the movement who had left the South after the Geneva Accords and had grown increasingly restive at the failure of the Party leadership to take sufficient action to protect their compatriots in South Vietnam. Such delegates undoubtedly had a powerful spokesman in Le Duan, who argued before the Central Committee that if the insurgent forces in the South were not allowed to build up their size and firepower, the revolutionary movement might be extinguished. The rising chorus of dissent against the Diem regime, he declared, represented a golden opportunity to take a giant step toward the future reunification of the country.
For the Party leadership the decision was not easy. According to one document captured by South Vietnamese military forces a few years later, there were “many opinions and hesitancies” among the delegates over how to respond to the rapidly evolving situation. Some argued that the Party had no choice but to come to the aid of the movement in the South, which had been reduced to a struggle for survival. Popular resentment throughout the country against the Diem regime, they declared, had reached a boiling point. But others pointed out that a resumption of armed struggle could anger Hanoi’s allies in Moscow and Beijing, and might even provoke active U.S. intervention. Still others, such as Truong Chinh and his allies, feared that an escalation of the fighting in the South would divert precious resources from the North at a time when the DRV was making a major attempt to lay the initial foundations of an advanced socialist society.72
Ho Chi Minh remained one of the strongest voices stressing the need for caution. He warned his colleagues not to rely simply on armed violence, for that would create a pretext for U.S. intervention. He pointed out the importance of placing the Vietnamese revolution in a global context. With the strength of American imperialism steadily weakening throughout the world, Ho argued that a gradual approach was preferable. He promised that when opportunity struck, Vietminh forces in the South would be in a position to achieve a swift and decisive victory. In the meantime, he urged that they be sarisfied with small victories.73
Perhaps in response to Ho Chi Minh’s pleas, the plenum reached a compromise. The decision to resort to a strategy of revolutionary war to bring about the reunification of the two zones of the country was approved, but the relative degree of political and military struggle to be applied was left unresolved. As the resolution, which was not released until many years later, stated:
The fundamental path of development for the revolution in South Vietnam is that of violent struggle. Based on the concrete conditions and existing requirements of revolution, then, the road of violent struggle is: to use the strength of the masses, with political strength as the main factor, in combination with military strength to a greater or lesser degree depending on the situation, in order to overthrow the ruling power of the imperialist and feudalist forces and build the revolutionary power of the people.74
The Central Committee conceded that the struggle would be arduous and complicated, but it expressed the hope that although it might be necessary to adopt methods of self-defense and armed propaganda, it would still be possible to achieve victory primarily through political struggle.
In recent years, some Western scholars have argued that the debate in Hanoi essentially turned into a contest between cautious northerners fearful of the implications of escalation and militant southerners determined to topple a tyrannical regime. Although there is undoubtedly some truth in that hypothesis—many southerners tried to make a strong case for a policy of armed violence and encountered resistance from cautious delegates from the North—the image of a North-South divide should probably not be overstated. A number of prominent Party leaders in Hanoi, including General Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh himself, had been convinced for years that a strategy of revolutionary violence might eventually be needed to bring about national reunification. Ho and his colleagues had argued strongly to that effect in Moscow in the fall of 1957 and had probably repeated those arguments in discussions with Chinese officials. The debate at the Fifteenth Plenum, then, was more a matter of timing. All—or almost all—Party leaders agreed that armed struggle might be needed and would be fully justified if all other avenues had failed. But whether it was now appropriate for such a strategy to be adopted, and what mix of military and political tactics should be applied, was a matter for careful discussion and calibration. In Ho Chi Minh’s view, it was not yet time to abandon the hope for a political solution.
The scholarly debate over the decisions reached at the Fifteenth Plenum is not simply an academic one. If, as some argue, the stimulus for the escalation of revolutionary violence came primarily from southerners, then the evolving revolutionary struggle can be described essentially as an internal resistance movement against a corrupt and despotic regime. North Vietnam in turn can be portrayed as a somewhat passive observer and eventually a reluctant participant in the process. But if Party leaders in the North played a crucial role in the decision, then the resulting events in the South can be described, as some insist, as a consequence of the determination of Hanoi to consolidate its control over the entire country. The evidence suggests that the truth is in between these two extremes, with Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues seeking to bring organization and discipline to a vocal but unfocused chorus of discontent against political and economic conditions in South Vietnam.75
The decision by the Central Committee to resort to a strategy of revolutionary war, known in Party histories as Resolution 15, was not immediately circulated to all echelons. For the next four months, Vo Nguyen Giap was assigned responsibility for assessing all aspects of the problem, while current reports on the situation in the South were gathered. In the meantime, Ho Chi Minh was sent abroad by the Party to consult with Hanoi’s chief allies and seek their support. Now almost seventy years old, he was still tirelessly pursuing his final dream of bringing about the reunification of his country under socialism. Ho visited Beijing in mid-January, and then proceeded to Moscow to attend the Twenty-first Congress of the CPSU. He returned to Hanoi after a few days in China on February 14, 1959. The details of Ho’s conversations with Chinese and Soviet leaders about the situation in South Vietnam have never been divulged, but in May, Resolution 15 was formally approved by the Central Committee.76
XV | ALL FOR THE FRONT LINES
With the decision reached at the Fifteenth Plenum in January 1959, the Party leadership had made a formal commitment to abandon its policy of watchful waiting and now placed reunification with the South as a matter of highest priority. But there was as yet no consensus on exactly what the new policy would entail. Some sought victory through a combined strategy of political and military struggle such as had been adopted during the August Revolution of 1945. Others predicted that it might be necessary to return to the style of direct military conflict that had been adopted during the later war against the French.
For the moment, there were too many unresolved questions to draft a concrete strategy. Whether the Diem regime would collapse under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption; whether the United States would react to the weakening of its ally in Saigon by escalating its own role; whether Hanoi’s sponsors would prove willing to support a new round of conflict in Indochina—all these remained to be determined. Until such questions could be answered, Party leaders postponed an internal debate over specifics and compromised with an approach that for the time being was simply called “revolutionary war.” As Le Duan, who was now emerging as the leading strategist in the Politburo, described it, the revolutionary forces in the South should for the moment continue to rely primarily on the techniques of political struggle, while gradually enlarging their base areas and building up their military strength in order to push the movement forward.1
Hanoi’s
decision to limit the role of armed violence in the South was motivated in part by the desire to avoid excessive loss of lives and vital resources. But there were other factors as well, including the urgings of its allies not to endanger world peace. During the summer of 1958, Ho Chi Minh had consulted with Mao Zedong at Mao’s summer beach retreat at Beidaihe about how the DRV should proceed in its struggle to unify the two Vietnams. Mao had responded that in his view the “most urgent task” at the moment was to complete the socialist revolution in the North. To Beijing, the South was not yet ripe for revolutionary change. In the meantime, Mao believed that dissident forces there should build up their political and military strength in preparation for a future opportunity to achieve a great leap forward.2
But the decision reached at the Fifteenth Plenum in January 1959 also reflected Hanoi’s growing concern over the threat of direct U.S. intervention in the South. Since replacing the French as the primary sponsor of the regime in Saigon, the Eisenhower administration had shown no indication that it was ready to abandon its effort to prevent the unification of the two zones. Not only had Washington followed up on the threat to build a firm anti-Communist base in the South (announced by Secretary of State Dulles shortly after the Geneva conference), but it had also indicated that the new states in Indochina would be covered in the new SEATO agreements created in Manila in 1954. Although the Republic of Vietnam was not a member of the organization, a clause in the founding charter declared that in case of an armed attack on South Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia, each member of SEATO would “act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes.”
For the time being, then, there were persuasive reasons for Party leaders to be cautious in their approach to the South. Even Le Duan, probably the most militant member of the Politburo, had privately expressed his view that the strategy applied against the French had focused excessively on military operations and should not be repeated. During the remainder of 1959, cautious preparations got under way to advance to the next stage of the struggle. Small clusters of “regroupees”—young Vietnamese who had been born and raised in the South but then were transported to the North after the Geneva conference for training in the techniques of revolutionary warfare—were now ordered back to the South to provide the insurgency there with a solid nucleus of experienced and loyal cadres. Of the approximately 90,000 refugees who had gone north in 1954, many of the most dedicated had received training at the Xuan Mai Training School near Hanoi in preparation for a possible return to revolutionary war in the South. As one trainee later commented:
It was a very interesting time for us in the northern part of Vietnam. We had always been strong fighters for the Viet Minh, and we always admired Ho Chi Minh and the other Viet Minh leaders. The trip to North Vietnam was very difficult and very long, but we did not ever complain, because we knew the difficulties were for the revolution.
Our training in North Vietnam was also difficult. Sometimes the food was not good. Sometimes we were very lonely and wanted to go home and see our family and friends. But we learned after a while not to be lonely, and learned to find strength in our revolutionary struggle. We learned not to think much about our families any more. We learned not to miss our families any more—like Ho Chi Minh.3
The regroupées were infiltrated back into South Vietnam, usually in groups of forty to fifty, traveling by truck into the mountains of southern Laos and then continuing on foot over jungle trails that bypassed the demilitarized zone to the east. On their arrival in South Vietnam, they were assigned to leading positions within the Party’s southern apparatus. A unit labeled Group 559 (the name came from May 1959, the date of its creation) was directed to construct a system of trails to transport troops, weapons, and supplies from north to south. The trails—many of which had previously been hacked out of the jungle during the war against the French—would eventually be known to the world as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. A second unit, called Group 759, was ordered to facilitate the shipment of goods and personnel by ship down the long and relatively undefended South China Sea coast. Supplies were carried by special units called the Bo doi Truong son (Central Mountains Troops). At first they carried equipment on foot or on bicycles; later the trails were expanded to handle truck traffic. It was often hard going. As one commented, “The farther south we got, the worse our situation became. Finally we were down to a few kilos of rice, which we decided to save for the last extremity. For two months we are what we could find in the jungle—leaves, roots, animals, jungle birds.”
According to another account:
At first we would walk about eight hours a day. But with the climbing and the jungles, it was slow going. When and where we rested depended on the guide and our leader. Any place that was clear and safe would do. But even the way stations were not like some stopover in the city. There was nothing to shelter you from the rain, no beds. You just put up your hammock and slept in it.
The way stations had been established by our predecessors on the trail. They were supposed to supply us with food and water. But they were often short. So each individual learned to save his own food and water. The farther along we got, the worse the hunger we faced. As food grew scarcer, comradeship broke down. People became more and more intent on saving their own lives.4
Information about the decisions reached at the Fifteenth Plenum in January 1959 and confirmed by the passing of Resolution 15 in May did not reach insurgent commanders in the South until late summer. To many, the news was undoubtedly welcome, since the Diem regime had just begun to intensify its effort to suppress the revolutionary movement by means of a set of new directives known as Law 10/59, which gave Saigon’s security forces increased authority to apprehend and punish the opposition. During the remainder of the year, roving tribunals circulated throughout the country, charging, convicting, and sometimes executing individuals suspected of political connections with Hanoi. Because peasant families in the densely populated Mekong delta were now increasingly herded into the heavily defended agrovilles, guerrillas had much less access to the rural population.
Driven to desperate measures, insurgent leaders tried to respond. In late August, crowds of villagers in the hardscrabble piedmont areas of Quang Ngai province gathered to protest upcoming elections for a National Assembly of the RVN, which, in the view of Party leaders in Hanoi, was an illegal government. The demonstrators, who were supported by Vietminh forces operating in the area, temporarily seized sixteen villages in Tra Bong district, a hilly region on the eastern slope of the Central Highlands, and briefly carved out a liberated zone consisting of about fifty villages with a population of more than one thousand people.
Five months later, a second uprising erupted, this time in Kien Hoa province (known to Vietminh supporters by its previous name of Ben Tre) in the heart of the Mekong delta. The local population had been sympathetic to the revolutionary cause since the war against the French. when Vietminh activists had seized the farms of pro-French landowners and distributed them to the poor. After the Geneva Accords, the landlords had returned, and with the support of government troops took back their lands, sometimes after harsh reprisals (including arrest and imprisonment) against the previous occupiers. In January 1960, local self-defense forces under Vietminh command suddenly attacked government outposts and with the aid of local residents occupied dozens of villages. Party cadres had carefully planned the operation, arming sympathizers with spears or wooden rifles to frighten the enemy and dispatching units disguised as South Vietnamese troops to various villages to seize administrative authority. Then, as one participant described,
Sometime after 9:00 P.M., I had just arrived in the permanent office [headquarters] when I heard the sound of drums and wooden blocks echoing from one village to another and resounding everywhere, followed by the happy shouts of the people.... As the night advanced, the sound of drums and wooden bells intensifed and became insistent as though urging everyone to rise up. This was the people’s signal for combat being transmitted everywh
ere.... Suddenly there was a shout: “The post is on fire, and it’s burning rapidly!”
The forces encircling the posts had been ordered to burn down any posts they captured. The people immediately tore up the flags, and burned the plaques bearing their house numbers and family registers. On the roads, the villagers cut down trees to erect barriers and block the movement of the enemy.... All the posts were surrounded by the people who made appeals to the soldiers through bullhorns. It was a night of terrifying thunder and lightning striking the enemy on their heads. Attacked by surprise, they were scared out of their wits and stayed put in the posts.5
The rising tempo of armed resistance in South Vietnam created problems for the Party leadership in Hanoi, which was still concerned about the ramifications of a wider conflict. In an obvious effort to reassure Hanoi’s allies, Le Duan declared in an April speech that it was important to restrict the revolutionary violence to the South. Duan conceded that the need to keep peace in the world and carry out the socialist revolution in the DRV created “complications” for the revolution in South Vietnam, but he maintained that in the long run these factors would work to the advantage of the cause of national unity.6
In the meantime, Ho Chi Minh played his usual role as the DRV’s chief diplomat by taking a prominent part in the effort to win support from Hanoi’s allies for the reunification effort. It was a time of increasing tension within the Soviet bloc because of the widening split between China and the USSR over global strategy. As an indication of its displeasure with Beijing’s uncooperative attitude, Moscow had just refused a formal request from China for a sample atomic bomb, as had been promised in a mutual agreement a few years previously. In the future, the North Vietnamese would learn how to play one ally against the other, but in these early stages of the dispute they were reduced to pleading with their allies for fraternal unity. In early July 1959, Ho Chi Minh traveled to Moscow for talks with Soviet leaders. Before his departure from Hanoi he warned the Politburo that the struggle in the South would be fierce and complicated. He warned against an attitude of blind adventurism.7
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