He said that the world situation was also favorable to us. Furthermore, we had to choose in the Cao-Bac-Lang or Tuyen Quang-Thai Nguyen areas a place where the population was reliable, a place dotted with strong revolutionary organizations and favorable geographical conditions; in short, a place that could be used as a center for promoting relations with the outside world on the one hand and with other parts of the country on the other. That should be done immediately. Many urgent tasks demanded it.
I returned to Kim Quan Thuong and conferred with Song Hao. We suggested Tan Trao, a region with steep mountains and deep forests situated between Tuyen Quang and Thai Nguyen provinces, far from the highway. There in Tan Trao, revolutionary power had been set up, and the people were enthusiastically supporting the revolution. Learning that revolutionary bodies would come to stay in their locality, members of various people’s organizations for national salvation came in great numbers, helping us in many ways, building houses for the leading organs, for the anti-Japanese military and political school, and so on.
Uncle arrived at Tan Trao. The period from 1941 to 1945 were years of hardship in fighting our way from Pac Bo to Tan Trao during which the population of Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen provinces, especially in Bac Son and Vu Nhai districts, fought heroically and made of the Viet Bac zone a nucleus of the national anti-Japanese movement.
After listening to a detailed report on the situation, Uncle reviewed the decision of the North Vietnam Revolutionary Military Conference held in April. He said, “The division of provinces into so many military zones is too cumbersome and unfavorable for achieving a common command.” Now, as the liberated area covered many provinces—Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen—it would be better to include them in one base named the “Liberated Area”; our troops would then be called “Liberation Army.” On June 4, 1945, he suggested that a draft amendment be made with regard to the decision of the North Vietnam Military Conference on the founding of the Liberated Area and that a conference of all cadres in the area be convened to discuss the formation of a unified command. But the war zones in the Liberated Area were practically in a state of emergency; no one could afford to come. I was the only man to assume permanent duty at the Provisional Command Committee of the Liberated Area set up in Tan Trao, maintaining, on the one hand, contact with Cao Bang, Bac Son, and abroad, and on the other, with the zones where Le Thanh Nghi and Tran Dang Ninh were working, with the Central Committee and the other parts of the country. Every day, I came to Uncle’s office to report on the situation and to discuss with him the work to be done. Only after a telephone set had been captured in an attack against Tam Dao post by the Liberation troops, could we have a three-hundred-yard telephone line between his office and mine.
For more than two months, events occurred rapidly. In Tan Trao, in view of the new situation and of our new tasks, we published the paper Vietnam Moi (New Vietnam).
According to the Central Committee decision, active preparations should be made for the convening of the Party National Conference and the Congress of People’s Representatives. Uncle urged that preparations should be made for these two meetings to begin in July. He said that as the situation was very pressing, the meetings should be held, even if certain delegates would not be able to come. Otherwise we could not keep pace with the general situation which was fast developing. Only in mid-August could the meetings be held despite the urgent preparations because delegates of the Party and of other democratic organizations within the Vietminh Front could not reach Tan Trao before that time.
Though very busy, Uncle kept on working most industriously, paying special care to concrete details. He himself wrote and typed letters and documents, giving each item a serial number. Messengers and letters kept on streaming to all parts of the country and assumed a more and more pressing character.
Right in the midst of such pressure of work, Uncle fell ill. For days, he had felt tired and had fever, but he continued to work. Every time I came to discuss work with him and inquired about his health he simply said that I should come as usual as he was quite well. But I saw that his health had declined seriously, and he looked very haggard. One day when I came, he was in bed with an attack of fever accompanied by delirium. We only had some tablets of aspirin and quinine, which had no curative effect on him. Usually he lay down only during rest hours, but now he had to keep to his bed. Of his closest collaborators, I was then the only one to be with him at Tan Trao. One day, seeing that he was seriously ill, I asked permission to stay the night with him. Only after I had insisted, saying that I was not very busy that night, did he open his eyes and nod lightly. That night, in his hut on the flank of a mountain deep in the jungle, every time the coma passed, he talked about the situation: “Now, the favorable moment has come, whatever sacrifice we have to make, whatever obligation we have to meet, even if we have to fight a battle scorching the whole of Truong Son range we will fight it until independence is won.” Each time he recalled something, he wanted us to keep it in mind. We dared not think that these were his last words. But later we realized that, feeling himself worn out, he really wanted to remind us about work, and only work. He said that to consolidate the movement it was necessary always to foster the activists and local cadres. He said, “In guerrilla warfare we must strive to develop the movement when it is at high tide. Meanwhile we must do our utmost to consolidate our bases, which would be our foothold in case of reverse.”
Throughout that night, at close intervals, he fell into a coma. On the morrow, I wrote an urgent letter to the Central Committee. I also tried to find some medicines from among the local inhabitants. On being told that there was nearby an eastern physician of the Tho minority who was very skillful in curing fever, I immediately sent for him. He felt Uncle’s pulse and forehead, and gave him a medicine which was a tubercle he had dug out in the forest. The tubercle was to be burned and taken with light rice gruel. After some days of this treatment his fever gradually abated, and soon he could resume his daily work. On the day he attended the Party National Conference held in early August, he still looked very pale and gaunt.
The situation at home and abroad and the development of the revolutionary movement were very pressing.
The Party National Conference and the Congress of People’s Representatives wound up. From Tan Trao the order for general insurrection was dispatched throughout the country. I received the order from the Central Committee to prepare for the combat. On August 16, with the Liberation Army I left Tan Trao to attack the Japanese at Thai Nguyen, which was the first town to be freed from the enemy’s hands on our march to Hanoi.
The situation was fast developing. While besieging the Japanese in Thai Nguyen, we received news that the insurrection had already taken place in many localities. People’s power had already been established in Hanoi. According to a new decision, a part of the Liberation Army continued its operations against Thai Nguyen, while the rest, among which I was, went straight to Hanoi.
All through that night we marched from Thai Nguyen to Lu Van, passing through immense ricefields, now and again looking at the starlit sky that stretched over the interminable row of telegraph poles which flanked our road. There was a forest of golden-starred red flags everywhere. How moving and enthusiastic was the sight of the fatherland recovering independence! This was the second time I had such unaccustomed feelings since the day when the Japanese coup d’état had overthrown the French. Our Propaganda and Liberation Unit left the Hoang Hoa Tham forest and marched in broad daylight across the Kim Ma Plain, with the golden-starred red flag fluttering over our heads.
The August revolution triumphed. The whole country was seething with jubilation at the turning point of our national history. But in these very first days of the revolution all sorts of complicated problems emerged. Uncle returned to Hanoi. He had not yet recovered from the illness he suffered previously in Tan Trao. Nevertheless, he had to attend conferences, receive all sorts of visitors and deal with so many affairs. Each day, he was busy until noon or 1:00 P.M. When he took meals (the same as those served to office workers) they were usually cold. After meals he would sit at his desk, leaning against the back of his chair, have a nap, then resume his day’s work (exchanging views with the Standing Bureau of the Central Committee and so on) until late into the night. But he was