The second Indochinese war was set in a new global context, in the wake of successful revolutions in Cuba and Algeria and at a time of ferment throughout the Third World. Giap’s later writings take full account of these developments and are imbued with a deep internationalism. Eighteen months before Che Guevara called for “many Vietnams,” Giap considered how “many Santo Domingos” would sharpen the contradictions in which imperialism is fixed.50 But internationalism has never blurred Giap’s respect for the sovereignty and independence of nations in the struggle for socialism.51 His determination is strong, and he knows that his country cannot be independent until the last foreign soldier is gone. We hope that the writings presented here will help the reader understand this determination and gain some insight into the strategy which has led Vietnam to its victory over the United States. We also hope that these writings will constitute the final chapter in Vietnam’s two-thousand-year saga of war and injustice, and we trust that the 1970’s will begin a new period of liberation.
Russell Stetler
London
November 1969
Notes
1. Quoted in J. S. Girling, People’s War: The Conditions and the Consequences in China and in South-East Asia (London, 1969), p. 58.
2. The best analysis of the impact of Vietnamese military history on present-day strategy is that of Georges Boudarel, “Essai sur la pensée militaire vietnamienne” in L’Homme et la Société, n. 7 (January-February-March, 1968). Though marred by small inaccuracies, this article is a first-rate contribution.
3. Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston, 1965), p. 549.
4. Source material on the life of Vo Nguyen Giap is scant, and most of the Western accounts are unreliable. We have, therefore, relied wherever possible on conversations and interviews with Vietnamese friends who are personally acquainted with General Giap. He has contributed two brief memoirs himself, but these deal only with a limited period of his life. One is included as the first chapter of this volume, and the other appears in two slightly different versions as “Stemming from the People” in A Heroic People (Hanoi, Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d.) and as “Naissance d’une armée” in Récits de la résistance vietnamienne (Paris, Maspero, 1966). We shall cite below the standard Western texts which we have consulted. For a discussion of Giap’s family and early life, for example, see Bernard Fall, “Vo Nguyen Giap: Man and Myth” in People’s War, People’s Army (New York, Praeger, 1962), pp. xxix–xxx; Philippe Devillers, L’Histoire du Vietnam de 1940 à 1952 (Paris, 1952), p. 70; and Robert J. O’Neill, General Giap, Politician and Strategist (Melbourne, 1969), pp. 1–4.
5. See Fall, op. cit., p. xxx; O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 5–10; and Jean Chesneaux, “The Historical Background of Vietnamese Communism” in Government and Opposition, v. 4, n. 1 (winter 1969), p. 121.
6. Chesneaux, op. cit., p. 119, and The Vietnamese Nation: Contribution to a History (Sydney, 1966), p. 144; Devillers, loc. cit.; and Fall, op. cit., p. xxxi.
7. Fall, op. cit., pp. xxxi-xxxii, and O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 10–11.
8. Wilfred G. Burchett, Vietnam Will Win (New York, 1968), p. 161.
9. Devillers, op. cit., pp. 72–73 and 264.
10. O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 16–17.
11. See Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh (London, 1968), pp. 55–56, 60–61.
12. Boudarel, op. cit., p. 188.
13. Ibid.; Lacouture, op. cit., pp. 57–58; O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 21–24; Hoang Quoc Viet, “Peuple Héroïque” in Vo Nguyen Giap et al., Récits, pp. 162–165; and Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955 (Stanford, 1966), pp. 95–96.
14. Chesneaux, “Historical Background,” p. 119.
15. Lacouture, op. cit., p. 55.
16. Boudarel, op. cit., p. 188.
17. Devillers, op. cit., pp. 102, 105.
18. See Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy 1943–1945 (New York, 1968), chapters 4, 9, and 24 (especially, pp. 607–610).
19. Ibid.
20. French journalists and historians writing during the war (including Devillers, Fall, and Lacouture) shared the view that the OSS was entirely anti-French and, by implication, an agent of the Vietminh. This view is also to be found in standard American works which rely heavily on French sources (e.g., Hammer, op. cit.). It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the Vietminh should have been confused about American intentions.
21. Kolko, loc. cit.
22. See chapter six of Hammer, op. cit.
23. For example, Gaston Rueff, “The Future of French Indochina,” Foreign Affairs, v. 23, n. 1 (October 1944).
24. Boudarel, op. cit., pp. 188–189; Fall, op. cit., pp. xxxiv–xxxv; Hammer, op. cit., pp. 99–102.
25. Hammer, op. cit., pp. 101–103.
26. Ibid., p. 100.
27. Boudarel, op. cit., pp. 188–189; Fall, op. cit., pp. xxxiv–xxxv; Hammer, op. cit., pp. 102–105.
28. Truong Chinh, The August Revolution (Hanoi, 1947); Boudarel, op. cit., pp. 188–189; Devillers, op. cit., p. 151; Hammer, op. cit., 102–105.
29. Hammer, op. cit., pp. 105, 128–131; Devillers, op. cit., p. 182.
30. Devillers, op. cit., p. 182; Hammer, op. cit., p. 131. Giap’s remarks are quoted in Hammer, from D.R.V., Documents, n. d.
31. Cited by Kolko, op. cit., p. 610.
32. Ibid., pp. 609–610.
33. Ibid., p. 202; Hammer, op. cit., chapter six.
34. Hammer, op. cit., chapter five.
35. Devillers, op. cit., p. 201.
36. Hammer, op. cit., p. 144.
37. Cited in Devillers, op. cit., p. 221.
38. Hammer, op. cit., p. 144; Devillers, op. cit., p. 220.
39. Hammer, op. cit., pp. 144–156; Girling, op. cit., p. 120.
40. Quoted in Devillers, op. cit., pp. 228–230, as translated from the Vietnamese version from Quyet Chien, Hue, March 8, 1946.
41. Girling, op. cit., p. 17; Hammer, op. cit., pp. 148–156; Devillers, op. cit., p. 225.
42. Devillers, op. cit., pp. 234–235.
43. Ibid., pp. 236–237.
44. Ibid., p. 250; Hammer, op.