46. Hammer, op. cit., pp. 165–174 and chapter seven; Devillers, op. cit., pp. 256–257; Fall, op. cit., p. xxxvi.
47. Burchett, op. cit., p. 163 et seq.; Hammer, op. cit., p. 232.
48. George K. Tanham, Communist Revolutionary Warfare: The Vietminh in Indochina (New York, 1961), p. 102; Girling, op. cit., pp. 131–135.
49. Vo Nguyen Giap, We Open the File (Hanoi, 1961), p. 16.
50. See “The Liberation War in South Vietnam,” below.
51. On the occasion of the Prague Army Day celebration in the autumn of 1968, Giap personally cabled his Czech counterpart, General Martin Dzur, urging him to consolidate the national defense and defend the gains of socialist construction of the Czech people by strengthening the army. See Reuters dispatch, Hong Kong, October 5, 1968, quoting Vietnam News Agency.
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The revolutionary movement in Vietnam was mercilessly repressed; all legal and semilegal organizations of the Party had withdrawn into the underground.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,*