Giap obituary: winner of three small wars

[jmm99]

Vo Nguyen Giap, People's War, People's Army (New York: Praeger, 1962, 1965; original, Hanoi, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961), pp.144-149 (in hardcopy 2001 Pacific reprint):

One cannot speak of the armed struggle and the building of the revolutionary armed forces without mentioning the problem of the rear. This is an important problem of strategic significance and a decisive factor to the outcome of armed struggle and in the building of the armed forces.

At the beginning of World War Two, when our Party set the task of preparing for the armed insurrection, we had no armed forces and not a single inch of free land as a springboard for our activities. ...
...
[Giap recounts the long process in 1940-1954, so costly in blood and effort, to build "resistance bases" in North and South and create rear areas to support the frontlines]
...
...Thanks to that, our resistance bases were continually strengthened, and constantly furthered their great effect on the development of the army as well as on the work of serving the frontline. Therefore, we could carry on our long Resistance War and win glorious victory in the end.

At present [ca.1960], north Viet Nam is entirely liberated; it is the vast rear of our army. We know that in modern warfare the rear is all the more important. Strengthening of the rear ranks first among the permanent factors which determine the victory of the war. Modern warfare requires the highest development of all the economic, political and military potentialities. Marxism-Leninism has shown that "at present, war is an overall test of the material and spiritual forces for each country".

Having seen the importance of the problem of the rear, the resolution taken by the 12th Session of the Central Committee in 1957 pointed out:

"We must have a plan for building and consolidating the rear in every aspect. We must enable our rear to have full material and spiritual abilities to ensure all the needs for the building of an army in peace time, as well as for the requirements of life and fighting in time of war. In every aspect of State work, in the State's general plan as well as in the plan of each branch, it is necessary to take into consideration the building and consolidation of the rear, and to combine economic and cultural needs with those of national defence and the needs in peace time with those in war. While carrying on the task of building the army, it is necessary for the army itself to pay due attention to and actively participate in the work of consolidating the rear, particularly the implementation of the economic and financial policies, and the work of production and economy."

Proceeding from the revolutionary task in the present stage, our rear is, on a national scale, the entirely liberated north Viet Nam which is advancing to socialism. It is the revolutionary base for the whole country. Therefore, we must fully realise the importance of this rear, in order to intensify and consolidate north Viet Nam in every aspect. Parallel with the intensification and consolidation of national defence, and the building of the armed forces, we must strive to strengthen the rear in the political and economic spheres. We must actively carry out socialist transformation, strengthen the social regime and the State regime, intensify dictatorship towards the anti revolutionaries, educate the masses in patriotism and love for socialism, and raise the people's vigilance and concern in national defence, thereby ensuring the stability of the rear against all emergencies. We must do our best to build economy, develop socialist industry and agriculture in order constantly to raise the people's livelihood, at the same time to cater for the material needs of the army.

At present, peace has been restored in our country. The world situation is developing to the advantage of peace. But our country is still partitioned. American imperialism is striving to turn south Viet Nam into a new type colony and a military base. They are intervening in Laos and threatening the security of north Viet Nam. In view of this situation, it is of utmost importance to keep the correct relation between the army and the rear, between national defence and economy. On the one hand, we continue to cut down military expenditure to concentrate on economic construction; only thus can the building of socialism, consolidation of the rear and improvement of our people's livelihood be pushed forward, and concurrently good bases created for the strengthening of national defence. On the other hand, we must do everything in our power to raise the quality of the army, develop the militia and the reserve, at the same time thoroughly realising the requirements of national defence in economic construction. If we succeed in doing so, the socialist construction in north Viet Nam will win greater victories and the North will become a more stable base for the struggle for national reunification.

Roger Hilsman's Preface (Praeger edition) is remarkable for its insularity:

This is a peculiar book, as the reader will see for himself. People's War, People's Army is not a well organized book but, rather, a collection of papers; and a lot of it is simply lies. Yet with all its obvious shortcomings, this book can help us to appraise our opponents more accurately.

The basic value of this book at this time is that it may aid us in appreciating the importance and the special nature of a battle that is difficult to define or describe. Thousands of men in Southeast Asia are now engaged in this shadowy conflict, which may yet rank as one of the decisive battles of world history. We may call it the battle for the villages.

Yes, we (the US) may have called it that (a "battle for the villages"), but Giap (as quoted above) was clearly calling for a national effort on the part of North Vietnam to conquer the South.

In Camelot, "American" solutions were bound to win. The predicate was to believe that Americans Can Do Anything - "And I remember waving American flags and my grandfather telling me that the Apollo mission was an example of how Americans can do anything they put their minds to."). Here is Hilsman's "obit" for 1961-1965 Giap:

Who Is General Giap?

We cannot win the battle for freedom by adopting General Giap's methods, which include everything from brazen lies to cowardly assassinations. But we cannot win in the short run if we do not understand his methods. We cannot win in the long run if we do not understand the world in which he fights. Behind him lie many years of success. We must know why.

Vo Nguyen Giap is a general, schooled in formal military tactics and articularly in guerrilla warfare. He is also a Communist political leader and propagandist. In this collection of papers, we have at some points rather factual descriptions of military measures and at other points distortions or the expression of Communist fantasies. The reader must distinguish between what may be worthwhile as observations on military tactics and other passages that have value only as examples of beliefs Communists hold or statements Communists wish us to believe.

Though far less ambitious, the book can be compared with Hitler's Mein Kampf, which expressed a distorted view of history as seen by a fanatical personality. Nevertheless, Mein Kampf contained useful clues toward understanding prewar Germany and fascism. In another way, the Giap book may be approached like General de Gaulle's early writings, in which De Gaulle theorized, quite correctly, about the use of armor in future wars. Far more aptly, this book may be compared with the recent book by Che Guevera, the Cuban guerrilla leader, in which he has written out his conception of the realities and theories of guerrilla tactics. This is not to compare General Giap's book on its merits with any of these books, for it is far inferior to any of them in its scope and insight. This book was not, in fact, written as a book but was simply collected-presumably by Communist leaders or by the original publishing house, a Communist organ-to demonstrate how General Giap and his forces had achieved victory.

Despite its limitations, this book is important for Americans, because it presents the thinking of a successful Communist who displays insight into the dynamics of the battle for the villages. How much the Communist gains are due to the concepts enunciated in this book may be debated. It is unquestionable, however, that Giap's ideas are provocative enough to lead us to some rethinking about ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses.

General Giap led the successful battle that humiliated the French at Dien Bien Phu. He has since built up the armed forces of Communist-held North Vietnam to an estimated quarter of a million men - the largest armed force in Southeast Asia. General Giap has fought against such well-known French generals as De Lattre de Tassigny, Raoul Salan (later leader of the OAS underground in Algeria), and Henri Navarre. Today, General Giap is a Vice-Premier and the Defense Minister of the North Vietnamese regime, a member of the Politburo of North Vietnam's Communist Party, and one of Asia's outstanding military tacticians.

In this book, General Giap is a propagandist as much as he is a guerrilla-warfare tactician. In his way, he is trying to teach. The American publisher has performed an unusual service in recognizing that in our way we can learn from General Giap.

What about a conventional-unconventional warfare planner and logistician on a national scale ?

- to be cont. -

[jmm99]

While a critique of Roger Hilsman's "Plan for Victory in the Villages" would be interesting, it would most likely give rise to conventional warfare types fighting unconventional warfare types as to the policy that should have been followed in Vietnam. The policy that should have been followed in Vietnam was the most parsimonious counter-policy against the policy set by the aggressor. That was North Vietnam; and its policy was that of conventional-unconventional warfare expressed by Giap and a number of other North Vietnamese leaders.

However, before going there, Bernard Fall has a good, short biography of Giap, following Hilsman's polemic. Here are some snips, showing Giap's background in state security, and his command of a very hardball political struggle (including targeted killings and large-scale massacres). Giap often went where Uncle Ho would not tread.

At twelve, young Giap was sent to the Lycee National at Hue -founded a few years earlier by Ngo Dinh Kha, a high court official who was the father of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. Created precisely for the purpose of providing both a traditional and a modern education, instead of the solely modern schooling given by the French-run high schools, the Lycee National at Hue had counted among its students prior to Giap both Ngo Dinh Diem and his arch-enemy (and Giap's future chief), Ho Chi Minh. ...
...
In 1926, while still a student, Giap joined the Tan Viet Cach Menh Dang, an underground nationalist group.... The Depression year 1930, which brought rock-bottom prices for rice and rubber in Vietnam and near starvation to the already poor farmers of Giap's home area, also brought Giap his first taste of prison. After the rifles of French-led militia troops halted a march of 6,000 peasants on the chief city of Ngh-An, the province neighboring Quang-Binh, Giap led student demonstrations at Hue and was promptly arrested by the colonial authorities. Ironically, it was to be one of General Giap's own crack divisions, the 325th Infantry Division, that was to crush another peasant revolt in Nghe-An in November 1956, when the farmers of that unfortunate area refused to endure any longer the harsh land-reform measures imposed by the Hanoi regime. But this time, there was no anguished outcry from student leaders.

In 1956, the 325ID killed many "counter-revolutionaries". However, Giap had long before became the North's "Enforcer" - from Fall's bio:

Having passed the stiff examinations of the French baccalaurat (for a high-school diploma equivalent to two years of college in the U.S.), Giap now moved to Hanoi, then the seat of French Indochina's single full-fledged university, and began his undergraduate law studies after a last year of precollege studies at Hanoi's Lyce Alhert-Sarraut, named after one of Indochina's most progressive French governors. (The Lyce Albert-Sarraut retained its name even after the Communist takeover of Hanoi and is still maintained and staffed by a French Cultural Mission.) While at the university, Giap took lodgings with a Vietnamese professor, Dang Thai Mai, whose daughter he was to marry in 1938.
...
In 1937, Giap earned his LL.B. degree at Hanoi, with a poor grade in public law but very high marks in political economics, and decided to continue his studies toward a doctorate. But the meagre resources of his family were at an end and although his future father-in-law was willing to continue to house him, Giap had to find a way of earning a living. He found a post as a history teacher at Thang Long High School in Hanoi. Now a convinced Marxist in addition to being a Vietnamese nationalist, Giap turned his classroom lectures into political harangues, but he was well liked by the students as well as by his principal, Ton That Binh. Both Ton That Binh and his father-in-law, Pham Quynh, a leading Vietnamese scholar and nationalist, were executed by the Communist police during Giap's tenure as Minister of Interior, in 1945-46.

With his doctorate earned in 1938, Giap married the daughter of his landlord. ... [In 1939] Giap and his wife disappeared from Hanoi and returned to Central Vietnam. It was there, in Vinh, the chief city of Ngh-An Province, that the French authorities arrested Giap's wife. Both she and her sister were tried before a French military court for conspiracy against the security of France. Mme. Giap was sentenced to life imprisonment but died of illness - Giap himself says of ill-treatment - in prison in 1943; her sister was sentenced to death and guillotined. Giap himself escaped from Vietnam into neighboring South China, which, though theoretically Chinese Nationalist-controlled, was, in fact, a no man's land that sheltered revolutionaries and warlords of all kinds.

So, Giap had personal reasons to hate - and to kill.

... In October, 1944, Ho Chi Minh ordered him to set up an "Armed Propaganda Brigade for the Liberation of Vietnam." According to Ho Chi Minh's directive, the Brigade was to base its efforts "more on political action than on military force, because it is an instrument of political propaganda. In order to be militarily effective, the essential principle of the concentration of forces
must be observed. ..."

On December 22, the Brigade's first platoon, consisting of 34 men, was organized by Giap at Dinh-Ca Valley pear Cao-Bang on the Chinese border, and on Christmas Eve, Giap and his men attacked the two small French border posts of Phy Khat and Na Ngan and massacred their garrison. December 22 is now the official birthday of the VPA and a holiday in North Vietnam. With deliberate cruelty, Giap set about liquidating village chiefs and other notables "guilty" of collaboration with the French.

Thus, Uncle Ho's concept of "political action" was a bit more hardball than that of Chicago ward politics.

But Giap was to reveal the full measure of his ability in the four months beginning in June, 1946, while Ho Chi Minh and other top government members were absent in France. Giap then, held the de facto interim Presidency of Vietnam, as well as running the key Ministry of Interior, which controlled all the police forces and the administrative apparatus of the regime. In a series of swift stabs, he destroyed the back-country strongholds of the nationalist parties; executed hundreds of Vietnamese nationalists and even such old comrades in arms as the Trotskyite leader Ta-Thu-Thau, a personal friend of Ho Chi Minh. Finally, on July 11, 1946, Giap launched a country-wide purge of nationalist leaders and closed down Viet-Nam, the last opposition newspaper. When it re-appeared, on July 18, it was fully in line with the rest of the Communist-controlled press.
...
... Although as late as 1947 Giap was described by Marcel Ner, one of his French professors in pre-war days, "as a sentimental and passionate man, deeply attached both to his country and to Communism," Giap remarked to another observer that "every minute, hundreds of thousands of people die all over the world. The life or death of a hundred, a thousand, or of tens of thousands of human beings, even if they are our own compatriots, represents really very little."
...
Now middle-aged, Giap has never remarried. The very tiny, sentimental college professor of the 1930's, the self-taught guerrilla leader of the early 1940's, and the brilliant strategist of the 1950's have been combined into a stocky and competent commander in chief who may well be among the first of a new breed of revolutionary-warfare generals for whom the West may find it difficult to produce a worthy match in the foreseeable future; for it is almost impossible within our military system to develop men with both brilliant tactical abilities and wide-ranging political training.

It is Giap who defined the role of the Vietnam People's Army as being "the instrument of the Party and the revolutionary state for the accomplishment, in armed form, of the tasks of the revolution." Or, to misquote Clausewitz: "War is the continuance of revolution in another form." And that is precisely what the little "Snow-Covered Volcano" - the man who could kill his onetime benefactor and could send thousands of his men into the jaws of French guns - is doing in South Vietnam in the 1960's.

So, let us not mistake Giap for what he was not; nor mistake his concept of conventional-unconventional warfare for what it was not.

- to be cont. -

[jmm99]

Admittedly, Giap's Solution for the Rear (the North from 1944-1961) involved more than mere killing, even on a grand scale. Recall that Giap's depth as a scholar was in political economy; and he and other Communist leaders in the North and South were also devoted to the national political economy where it could be achieved by non-violent means. The end justified whatever means.

Now, we turn to what Giap told us in 1967; Vo Nguyen Giap, "The Big Victory; The Great Task" (October 16, 1967). I'm just going to hit the highlights of its discussion of the "rear" (the North) and the "frontline" (the South), with respect to their interactions in the ongoing political and military struggles (mostly in the South, but some in the North).

[p.1] Our people are living the most glorious years and months in the history of our people's thousands-year-old struggle against foreign aggression and in the history of the decades-old revolutionary struggle under the leadership of our party. In the heroic south, with 170,000 square meters of land, our people are defeating more than a million troops of the U.S. imperialist aggressors and their lackeys, and winning increasingly big victories. In the north, our army and people are defeating the U.S. imperialists' war of destruction and thwarting their basic plots while pursuing socialist construction and economic development, consolidating national defense, and fulfilling the duties of the great rear toward the great frontline.
...
[p.2] After the Binh Gia victory, between February and June 1965, on the basis of combining armed struggle with political struggle, the southern army and people stepped up the guerrilla war; and, at the same time, developed large-scale attacks, completely annihilating puppet companies and battalions in each battle on all battlefields. They drove the puppet troops into a state of collapse, unable to resist the strong attacks of the Liberation Armed Forces.

Giap engages in counter-history (wishful thinking) for a bit.

... [p.3] On the basis of the 1965-1966 winter-spring victories, the southern army and people stepped up the combination of military struggle with political struggle and actively attacked the enemy, causing an unstable situation in which the puppet authorities and army encountered crises in all fields, and driving the U.S. imperialists into an embarrassed and defensive position. Thirty cities and municipalities throughout the south seethed with the struggle of city people rising up to struggle against the introduction of U. S. aggressive troops and against the Thieu-Ky clique. In Da Nang and Hue, the political struggle movement developed most widely and vigorously during this period.

It was obvious that contradictions between the U. S. imperialists and the traitors and the southern people were becoming very fierce. The fierce attacks of the southern army and people caused the Americans and puppets to sustain heavy military defeats and encounter grave political crises. This situation brought about quarrels, conflicts, and discord among the puppet authorities and army in the First Corps area. This crisis lasted over two months and led to a change in commanders five times. Six enemy battalions were dispersed as a result of their shooting at each other. Faced with this situation and especially with U.S. troop defeats, the decline of the puppet troops was accelerated. In some months, there were 20,000 deserters. At the same time, many military revolts broke out, such as at the first regiment in Thu Dau Mot and other puppet units.

The "revolt in the cities" became something of a reality during Tet 1968; and the breakup of the ARVN certainly took place in 1974-1975.

[p.5] While fighting fiercely, the southern army and people continued to step up the coordination between the military along with political struggles. The political struggle movement of the southern clty people continue to develop strongly. Its anti-U.S. character increased. The southern people's liberated areas continued to be firmly maintained, and some liberated areas were even enlarged.

The Communists never did achieve that much success in the cities - even in 1974-1975, when the city folk fled the Communists en masse.

[p.6] In the war, the north has developed the strength of the socialist regime and has fought well, along with achieving good production. The north has constantly insured good communications and transportation and has incessantly developed its economy and culture. Despite many difficulties created by' the enemy, the people's living conditions continue to be stabilized. The determination of our people to oppose the Americans for national salvation has been increasingly strengthened.

Meanwhile, in the south, with the spirit "The north calls, the south answers", the southern army and people have continuously attacked the U.S., puppet, and satellite troops everywhere and have striven to attack their airbases and logistical depots, thus causing them to suffer heavy losses and to be increasingly passive
...
[pp.7-8] On Our Side ... The military struggle has been stepped up in close coordination with the political struggle, which is developing increasingly deeply and widely. The resistance forces of the southern combatants and people have matured rapidly and are strong.

In North Vietnam, our armed forces and people have defeated and are defeatlng the U.S. imperialists' war of destruction, have continued building socialism, and at the same time have striven to fulfill the duty of a large rear toward a large frontline. North Vietnam has become increasingly strong and steady in all fields.

B. The victories achieved by the armed forces and people in tne entire country have been of great political and military strategic significance. Our people throughout the country are standing shoulder to shoulder in steadily advancing and pushing the anti-U.S, national salvation resistance war to final victory.

Giap then goes on to more than a bit of wishful thinking and counterfactual argument in pp.9-23, but then makes this important point:

[p.23] In our country at present, fighting against U.S. aggression and for national salvation is the great, sacred historic task of the Vietnamese people as a whole. Our people in the south and the north resolutely stand shoulder to shoulder in fighting until final victory in order to achieve independence and freedom of the entire country.

Waging a comprehensive resistance war is a very important strategic problem for developing our strength in all fields in order to vanquish the aggressor, an enemy with numerous troops and strong equipment, but with many contradictions and weaknesses in the neocolonialist war of aggression.

A striking characteristic of the people's war in our country at present is that even within the local war, the fight against the enemy on all fronts - military, political, cultural, diplomatic, and so forth - is waged at the same time, in which the military struggle and the political struggle are the most basic forms of struggle. The military struggle and political struggle are closely coordinated, assist each other, and encourage each other to develop. The coordination between the military struggle and the political struggle is a law of the revolutionary struggle in our country. It is also an initiative of our people in the process of the protracted revolutionary struggle.

Bernard Fall accurately assessed Giap, several years before Giap wrote this; but then Fall (unlike Hilsman) viewed Giap with open eyes and ears - and without imperial hubris. Fall was ruthless in exposing Giap's ruthlessness.

This is a good place to take a break until tomorrow (actually it is "tomorrow" vs. when I started writing this) or the next day. In pp.24-54, Giap explains the interactions of the rear and front, military and political struggles in terms of what he expects the U.S. to do - and what Vietnam (North and South) should do to counter the U.S. on all fronts (and rears )

Regards

Mike