Military Art of People's War

Vo Nguyen Giap

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780853451938
• eBook ISBN: 9781583678244
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Vietnam War
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This collection includes the major writings of General Giap, who, on the evidence of his record as well as his theoretical work, has long been recognized as one of the military geniuses of modern times. The book includes writings from the 1940s to the end of the 1960s.

The War Against the French

Origins of the People’s Army

The Second World War broke out. The revolutionary movement in Vietnam was mercilessly repressed; all legal and semilegal organizations of the Party had withdrawn into the underground. In 1938, at the time of the Indochinese Democratic Front there emerged in Vietnam a big mass movement such as was never seen before, while in France the Daladier government surrendered to the fascists and itself became fascist. In Indochina, the Japanese fascists were waiting for a favorable opportunity to invade this country. In 1940, they attacked Lang Son.* The French colonialists on the one hand kowtowed to the Japanese fascists and on the other sought to deal most violently with the popular movement. Arrests and terror increased in ferocity. In the face of such a situation, the Party had to carry on underground revolutionary activities.

On a Party decision, Pham Van Dong and I would cross the border and go to China. We were then in very difficult conditions. Pham Van Dong was ill, and I was teaching at the Thang Long private school; every movement of mine was closely watched by secret agents just as they had done previously when we openly carried out journalistic activities for the Party in Hanoi. But, despite all the difficulties, careful preparations for our departure could be made in complete secrecy.

Before we went, I was able to meet Hoang Van Thu once more for the last time in my life. The meeting took place at Quang Thien cemetery on the Hanoi-Ha Dong road. I entered the cemetery in the dusk of twilight. A man clad in a long black robe walked in my direction: it was Thu who was waiting for me.

Thu said, “We should make preparations to start guerrilla warfare. At present the Japanese fascists are about to occupy Indochina, hence there is every possibility that Allied troops will land here. Our revolutionary movement must have armed forces. We must prepare ourselves in every way, so as to be able to start guerrilla war in time.”

Before we parted, Thu said, “When you go abroad, you may meet Nguyen Ai Quoc. Try to get information on the activities of the League of Oppressed Peoples of East Asia.”

That week, I taught on Friday in order to have Saturday and Sunday free. Then, on Monday morning when it was realized that I was missing, I would already be far from Hanoi. On May 3, 1940, at 5:00 P.M., after school hours, I went directly to the Great Lake, just as if going for a walk or for normal activity. Comrade Thai, with little Hong Anh in her arms,* was waiting for me on the Co Ngu road. In parting we expressed the hope to meet each other again in underground work when she was able to commit her child to someone’s care. We had no idea that we were meeting for the last time. I called a rickshaw which was moving slowly in my direction. That rickshaw pulled by Comrade Minh took me to Chem in the city suburbs as had been previously arranged.

The following day, Pham Van Dong and I took the train to Lao Cai at the End-of-the-Bridge Station. During the journey we had to get down twice when the train was searched. It was the rainy season. Rivers were swollen. At Lao Cai, we crossed the Nam Ti River on a bamboo raft to the Chinese territory. From there Pham Van Dong and I took the train for Kunming. This leg of our journey was more difficult still. As soon as we caught sight of railway employees and policemen boarding the train to search at the far end of the train, we surreptitiously moved behind them. We finally reached Kunming.

At Kunming, we were able to contact Phung Chi Kien* and Vu Anh† who were doing revolutionary work there. We were told that we had to wait for Vuong before any decision could be made.

At that time, our comrades in Kunming maintained secret contacts with the local branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Owing to our Chinese comrades’ help, we could set up our quarters, have books and papers at our disposal, and organize communication links as well, etc. Of course we had to act very secretly to avoid the watchful eyes of the Kuomintang clique lest they should assassinate us. Life in our quarters was very hard. We had to do the marketing and cooking. When my turn came, I cooked so badly that from that day on I was only entrusted with cleaning the dishes. We learned Chinese eagerly while waiting for Vuong.

I did not ask who Vuong was. Inwardly I vaguely imagined the man as I recalled Thu’s words telling me in Hanoi that I might meet Nguyen Ai Quoc.

At that time, for those youths of our age, Nguyen Ai Quoc had become our ideal, the object of our dreams. In the years 1926–1927, while the student movement in Hue was developing due to the great impact of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, we often called on Phan Boi Chau‡ in Hue where he had been brought from Hanoi and kept under forced residence. Often he told us about world events. On the walls of his house were portraits of Sun Yat-sen, Lenin, and Sakyamuni. We were of those youths so eagerly searching for truth. But what made us most excited were the stories whispered among students about the revolutionary Nguyen Ai Quoc. One day Nguyen Khoa Van got from I don’t know where, a pamphlet entitled Colonialism on Trial written by Nguyen Ai Quoc. We passed it from hand to hand. The pamphlet cover was also printed with Arabic script. To read for the first time a book denouncing colonialism inspired us with so much hatred, and thrilled us. Later, there came to my ears many interesting stories about Nguyen Ai Quoc. Some of my friends told them with as much excitement and enthusiasm as if they themselves had seen Nguyen Ai Quoc publish Le Paria in Paris, or traveling throughout the world. Nguyen Khoa Van even showed us a blurred photograph of Nguyen Ai Quoc wearing a fur hat. But, with our active imagination and our veneration for the man, it was for us the clear-cut image of a devoted and noble-minded revolutionary youth.

Following the quit-school movement staged by the students in Hue in 1927, I was dismissed from school and had to go to my native village. At that time, the student movement in Hue also maintained contacts with revolutionary organizations abroad. Many, including myself, had made up our minds to get out of the country, but difficulties prevented us. However, we continued to hope and waited for a favorable occasion. Meanwhile, I went to my native village. One day, Nguyen Chi Dieu, a very intimate friend of mine in Hue, came to my house, talked about the political situation, and admitted me to membership of the Tan Viet Party whose aim was to carry out “first a national revolution and then a world revolution.” Dieu handed me a book written in French dealing with communism, a pamphlet printed in Brussels by the World League of Oppressed Peoples, and documents on the Canton meeting including a speech delivered by Nguyen Ai Quoc. I went to the fields with these documents, climbed up a tree, and read them. It might be said that through the pages of the book internationalist ideas became clearer and clearer to me and were gradually instilled in me, and each page of the book was a very powerful inspiring force. Some time later I returned to Hue, not to resume study but to carry out underground activities as a member of the Tan Viet Party. Here Phan Dang Luu,* who had just come from Canton, told us many stories about Nguyen Ai Quoc.

But it was not only in those early days of my revolutionary life that Uncle’s name was to be familiar to me. Later, at the time of the democratic movement in Hanoi, when I wrote for Notre Voix (Our Voice), the Party’s official organ published in French, the editorial board often received articles signed “P. C. Lin” sent from abroad as contributions to the paper. These typed articles were read carefully again and again, for we knew they were written by Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc. In them, Uncle expressed his opinions about a broad-based democratic front, or his opinions on the international situation, and the experiences provided by the Chinese Revolution. Each of these articles began with sentences which cleverly drew the attention of the readers, such as “If I were a Vietnamese revolutionary I …” or, “If the Yenan experience of the Chinese Communist Party is to be introduced, even a thick book would not be enough to expound it all, here I would like to give only a summary …”

All these images, ideas, all the tasks I performed at that time, are still fresh in my memory. And till the day when I was to meet Vuong, I hoped and I felt sure that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc himself, especially when I recalled Thu’s words as I was leaving the country. All that made me impatient.

It was already June, midsummer in Kunming. One day, Phung Chi Kien asked me to accompany him to Tsuy Hu where Vuong was waiting for us. We walked leisurely on the Tsuy Hu bank and came across a thin middle-aged man wearing a European-style suit and a gray fur hat. Kien introduced him to me as “Comrade Vuong.” I immediately recognized the man as Nguyen Ai Quoc. Compared with the photograph I had seen, he was much more active, more alert. And compared with what he was twenty years previously, he was as thin as before, the only difference was that at that time he was young and had had no beard. I still remember that, when I met him, I had no particular feeling as I had expected I would, except that I found in him that simplicity of manner, that lucidity of character which later when I worked by his side, had the same impact on me. Right at that first meeting I found him very close to me as if we were old acquaintances. I thought that a great man like him was always simple, so simple that nothing particular could be found in him. One thing which nevertheless struck me was that he used many words peculiar to central Vietnam. I never expected that a man who had been so long abroad would still speak dialects of his native place with their particular accents.

VIETNAM

Vuong, Kien, and I talked while walking slowly along the Tsuy Hu bank like the many fresh-air seekers around us. He inquired about our journey, the difficulties we had to face. He asked about the Democratic Front and the movement at home in recent times. About revolutionary work he said, “It is a good thing that you have come; you are badly needed here.” I did not forget to ask him, as Thu had suggested, about the League of Oppressed Peoples. He said, “An important question indeed, but conditions are not ripe enough for its organization.”

Then we parted. After that, I met him quite often together with Phung Chi Kien, Vu Anh, and Pham Van Dong. He often talked about the world situation, analyzed minutely the situation in China, and the Chinese resistance war against the Japanese. He laid particular stress on the double-faced attitude of the Kuomintang, apparently cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party in the fight against the Japanese but in reality striving to destroy it. The great task of the Chinese Communist Party was to unite all the anti-Japanese forces of the nation. As regards the Kuomintang, it must also unite with it, striving to win over the relatively progressive elements in its rank for the common struggle against the Japanese. But unity must go together with the fight against their wrong ideas and more particularly with vigilance against rightist tendencies among them, vigilance against the pro-Japanese group and those inclined to make concessions and to stop fighting.

As regards our work, he said, “You will go to Yenan. There you’ll enter the Party school to study politics. Strive to study military technique as well.”

At subsequent meetings before we went to Yenan, Uncle asked us again and again also to study military technique.

Thus, three of us, Pham Van Dong, Cao Hong Lanh, and I left Kunming for Kweiyang. The journey took three days in the hot sun. At Kweiyang we had to wait for a bus for Yenan.

At Kweiyang, we stayed at the office of the Eighth Route Army.* Since my coming to China, I had realized all the more clearly to what extent the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were closely related to each other. I was especially aware of the heartfelt care the Chinese Communist Party showed the Vietnamese revolution. Our Chinese comrades were very helpful. Wherever we went we were treated like blood brothers. At the Kweiyang office of the Eighth Route Army, I had the opportunity to read for the first time the paper Liberation and to learn about the situation in Yenan. Another thing to which our attention was drawn was the high esteem our Chinese comrades showed Uncle. We didn’t know how many times he had come to Kweiyang, but there everybody, from the man in charge of the office to those who did the cooking, knew Ho Quang very well. (Ho Quang was Uncle’s pseudonym.) Each of them talked about Ho Quang in a different way but all loved him. Many wished that Ho Quang would come often to their office to work and teach them Russian and English.

As food supplies in a region situated deep in the country like Kweiyang were very difficult to find and the Party’s finances were limited, we had to grow our own vegetables. Meat was very scarce. But the question of transportation was the greatest of our difficulties. We had to wait quite a long time for a bus.

Just when we were about to leave for Yenan, we received a message from Ho Quang telling us to wait for him instead. At that time Paris fell, the German fascists had already occupied France; we thought that, because of this new development, there had been a new decision. Some days later, Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh also arrived at Kweiyang. They said that in the face of the new situation, they had come on Uncle’s instructions to go with us to Kweilin and from there to try to return to Vietnam. As France had surrendered, they added, there must be new developments in the situation in Indochina.

Thus, we didn’t go to Yenan, but to Kweilin instead.

In Kweilin, we contacted the office of the Eighth Route Army. As in Kweiyang, our Chinese comrades there did a great deal to help us. They often organized meetings with pressmen to whom we were to give information on the situation in Vietnam and the Vietnam revolutionary movement. As Vietnamese revolutionaries, we made contact with Gen. Ly Tji-shen, director of Chiang Kai-shek’s Southwest Headquarters. During the talk, Ly Tji-shen put forward the question of Allied troops entering Indochina and requested our help in elaborating plans for the coming of Chinese troops to Vietnam.

When Uncle came to Kweilin, and after we had told him of this request, he said, “We must have a clear-cut understanding regarding this question. Only the Soviet Red Army and the Chinese Red Army are fraternal to us, are really our allies. We really welcome them. As to Chiang Kai-shek troops, though they are also anti-Japanese to some extent, their nature is reactionary. In the Nationalist-Communist collaboration they talked of fighting the Japanese but actually sought every possible means to destroy the Communists. We must realize their reactionary character; otherwise it will be dangerous.”

At that moment if all of us stayed in Kweilin for a long time, we would be discovered by the Kuomintang authorities. Moreover, “the Kiangnan incident” occurred when Chiang Kai-shek troops launched a sudden attack against a unit of the New Fourth Army led by Seng Yang right in Kweilin city. They arrogantly confiscated and banned all books and papers in the local libraries. Terror reigned. The situation was tense. We were in a predicament. At any moment arrest could befall us should the Kuomintang happen to be on our trail.

Uncle suggested that we should move close to the Vietnam border and continue our revolutionary work there. We could thus get out of difficulty. But the main reason justifying the decision was that the situation at home required us to do so.

Chiang Kai-shek’s general, Chiang Fa-kwei, had already set up a Frontier Work Group placed under the direction of Truong Boi Cong, who had been entrusted with the task of paving the way for the penetration of Kuomintang troops into Vietnam on Allied powers’ orders. We knew that clique perfectly well and were also fully aware that they were capable of no good. Nevertheless, we availed ourselves of our acquaintances to ask for transport means to reach the Vietnam border easily. Arriving in Tsingsi, we set up an office of the Vietnam Liberation League and maintained contacts with the Kuomintang. Later when Nguyen Hai Than,* who also came to Tsingsi, informed the Kuomintang that we were communists, Kuomintang men in Tsingsi immediately changed their attitude toward us.

When we were in Kweilin, Uncle came and discussed with us preparations for the task ahead when we returned to the country.

Our meetings with him usually took place in the Kweilin outskirts. He used to stay every time he came in a house of the local branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Disguising ourselves as leisurely strollers, we would sit around on the grass, in the shade of a tree. Uncle listened to our report on the work done and gave his opinions and suggestions. Once, when I met him together with Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh, he said, “In face of the new situation, national unity becomes all the more important, we must think of organizing a broad national united front, with appropriate form and name. Should it be called Vietnam Liberation League? or Vietnam Anti-Imperialist League? or Vietnam Independence League? I think we had better call it Vietnam Independence League. But it is too long for a name, so we will shorten it and call it Vietminh. People will easily keep it in memory.”

That exchange of views was later discussed at the Eighth Session of the Party Central Committee held in Pac Bo where it was decided to found the Vietnam Independence League, or Vietminh for short.

Some days after our arrival at Kweilin, papers were full of news on the Nam Ky insurrection in Vietnam. Having no contact with our country as yet, we felt very impatient.

Just then, Uncle came, assembled us, and told us his views on the event as follows: “The general situation in the world and in Indochina has become more and more favorable for us, but the time has not come yet, the uprising should not have broken out. But as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Introduction
• The War Against the French
• The War in the South
• The War of Escalation