There is no doubt that DRVN leaders averted a number of potential disasters by adopting a strongly worded resolution and then implementing it with tempered guidelines. Less immediately certain was whether that result would serve the long-term interests of the reunification struggle or only temporarily silence those inside and outside the party who favored a genuinely militant strategy.
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Treading Cautiously, 1960
East-West détente suffered a major setback in May 1960 after a U.S. spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The so-called U-2 incident affronted Moscow, embarrassed Washington, and derailed a summit between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. But that did not end Sino-Soviet contention, as Khrushchev refused to give up on peaceful coexistence. In fact, relations between Moscow and Beijing took a turn for the worse after the Soviets recalled all their experts from China and drastically cut military and other aid to the PRC in an apparent attempt to sow discord in CCP ranks and pressure Mao into adopting more moderate attitudes on domestic and international issues. Angered by Soviet actions and, specifically, the attempted meddling in their affairs, Chinese leaders decided they would no longer play second fiddle to the Soviets and began to vie for leadership of the world communist movement. By the end of the year, Mao and Khrushchev were openly attacking each other, amplifying tensions in the socialist camp.
Mounting concerns about the situation in Vietnam and the potential pitfalls of a failure to contain the nascent insurgency in the South informed Washington’s decision that year to commit more resources, including military personnel, to improve Saigon’s armed forces. Diem, for his part, continued to consolidate his authority in the RVN and proved successful in stemming the tide of insurgent activity during this period.
Judging conditions internationally and domestically unfavorable to escalating the insurgency spawned by Resolution 15, Hanoi continued to exercise caution in the South. Its refusal to involve the DRVN more deeply below the seventeenth parallel was a particularly tough pill to swallow for VWP militants, and it amplified intraparty tensions that year. The VWP’s Third National Congress in the fall not only reaffirmed Hanoi’s commitment to the socialist transformation of the northern economy, to the “North-first” policy, but also decreed a division of revolutionary labor between northerners and southerners that left no doubt as to where DRVN decision-makers stood on reunification of the country by force. Militants did, however, get some reprieve in December, when Hanoi announced the formation of a new united front in the South to contest Diem’s rule and bring about his overthrow.
UPS AND DOWNS OF THE SOUTHERN INSURGENCY
In January 1960, Nam Bo leaders forwarded a new assessment of their situation to Hanoi, and in doing so pleaded, again, for increased militancy. “Political struggle supported by armed propaganda is not enough to protect revolutionary bases,” they insisted. The party had to “elevate” violent struggle to the level of political struggle, to allow offensive in addition to defensive armed activity in order to grow the revolutionary movement. Otherwise, they could do no more than preserve their movement. “We must coordinate closely between the work to protect and strengthen the movement, look upon both fronts, ‘strengthening’ and ‘preserving,’” and “not consider ‘preserving’ as central as before.” They also repeated their wish for more support from the North.1
As Hanoi considered these recommendations, an uprising broke out in Ben Tre Province southwest of Saigon.2 Communists there were reportedly so eager to take the offensive that their leaders were concerned that “once Ben Tre turns to military action we won’t be able to restrain them.”3 The uprising began on the night of 17 January and resulted in the destruction of “large sections of the enemy’s administrative and coercive apparatus in villages and hamlets,” the formation of “people’s committees” to replace that apparatus, and the confiscation and redistribution of land. Though ARVN forces quickly recaptured the area, the action generated revolutionary élan. “From there on,” according to one account, “the tide of concerted uprisings swept over the provinces of Nam Bo, the Central Highlands and several places in Trung Bo [northern and central South Vietnam].”4 The southern provinces of My Tho, Tra Vinh, Can Tho, Bac Lieu, Rach Gia, Tay Ninh, and Chau Doc were especially affected by this burst of action. In Tay Ninh, revolutionary forces joined Cao Dai rebels to overthrow local authorities, an action that demonstrated the party’s willingness to continue working closely with other anti-Diem groups.5
Over the next several months, communists participated in hundreds of such actions across the South. “The uprising of the South Vietnamese peasants did not occur at one time throughout the land,” an official account observes, “but occurred in various places at various times when the conditions were present.”6 Meanwhile, the effort to eliminate “traitors” intensified, averaging more than 130 assassinations per month that year.7 As revolutionary forces thus chipped away at the sway of the Diem regime, violent confrontation increased dramatically in the South, as southern revolutionaries took liberties in implementing the guidelines for Resolution 15 and ARVN forces responded in kind. Wherever uprisings were successful, cadres reconstituted party hierarchies and controls dissipated or destroyed by years of neglect and repression, and formed people’s committees, as occurred in Ben Tre. The committees in turn undertook land reform and other measures to win the loyalty of the people. According to one official source, in 1960 such regimes existed in half the villages in the South (1,383 out of 2,627), and the number of people living in liberated areas exceeded 5,600,000, approximately a third of the South Vietnamese population.8 These accomplishments enhanced the prestige of communism, enabled party operatives to exert greater influence over the anti-Diem cause, facilitated recruitment of fighters and other activists, and began to change the balance of forces below the seventeenth parallel. The new “offensive stance” ended the period of “temporary stability of the U.S.-Diem clique” and augured “a period of continuous crisis.”9
Not to be outdone, Saigon responded as aggressively to this upsurge of revolutionary activity as it had the previous year. It unleashed its military and security forces on the insurgents and their supporters, and continued the Rural Community Development Program, begun the year before, which consisted of forced relocations of peasants to fortified “agroville” communities.10 While the agrovilles produced mixed results at best, the use of force paid dividends; many of the latest gains by insurgents proved ephemeral. Alarmed by the growing tensions below the seventeenth parallel and fearful of the global implications of the “loss” of South Vietnam, the Eisenhower administration committed more military advisers and other resources to train ARVN forces, improve their efficiency, and contain the insurgency. The reluctance of DRVN decision-makers to provide more support for insurgent activity at this critical juncture severely undermined the cause of southern revolutionaries.
Paradoxically, the setbacks in the South reinforced Hanoi’s predilection for caution there. Ton Duc Thang, now chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, told his colleagues in April that the timing remained inopportune for shifting to war below the seventeenth parallel. Even with DRVN support, the communist movement there remained too disorganized to prevail in such an undertaking. Besides, Thang declared, “the will and keen wish of our people are: work and peace.”11 Clearly, “our people” here meant northerners rather than southerners, for whom peace if not work remained elusive. “We want to preserve peace in order for our people to use their strength to build socialism,” another official stated at the time, similarly ignoring the different circumstances and priorities of many people on both sides of the seventeenth parallel. “Real developments in the North of our country over the past years have been consistent with that wish,” this official continued. The “clearest proof” was that “in recent years our state has demobilized tens of thousands of soldiers” to “increase the workforce” for building socialism. After 1954, “our defense budget has never stopped shrinking, from
27 percent of the national budget in 1955, to 19.2 percent in 1958, and approximately 16 percent this year [1960].”12 International conditions also discouraged escalation, Thang told the National Assembly. “The international political climate has become peaceful, and upcoming summit meetings between leaders of big countries [i.e., the Four-Power Paris summit scheduled for May, at which the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France would address the status of Berlin] promise new victories for the cause of peace.”13 On the basis of these considerations, in April the Politburo answered the Nam Bo leaders’ plea for increased militancy by reiterating its policy of caution. Unless the party heeded domestic and international constraints, it wrote in a cable to them, it would “meet difficulties and possibly lose ground.”14
None of this assuaged the concerns of southern militants, who kept generating pressure for intensifying the insurgency below the seventeenth parallel and for increased DRVN aid. In March 1960 a group calling itself “Former Resistance Fighters of the Nam Bo Region” and consisting largely of veterans of the war against the French, appealed to Hanoi for more military aid to escalate the armed struggle below the seventeenth parallel.15 Albeit helpful, the group advised, the measures undertaken since the previous year had only marginally improved the position of revolutionary forces, and then only in parts of the South. Similarly, the representative from Ben Tre Province told the DRVN National Assembly that while Saigon continued to “rabidly increase war preparations” and “increase the repression of the people by violent methods,” Washington “stubbornly” executed its “plan of invasion of the South” to “destroy peace” and prevent national reunification. In blunt criticism of Hanoi’s southern policy, the Ben Tre representative added that while northerners strove to build socialism, improve their living standards, and “protect [their own] peace by any method,” southerners faced “an extremely unsafe situation” caused by the ability of Washington and Saigon to impose their will on “the heads of our people” as they “hectically strengthen” their military capability and “prepare for war in accordance with the plans of the Americans.” “The forced conscription of soldiers, the forced recruitment of laborers, home expulsions, land seizures, the construction of military roads and bases, plundering, [and] pauperization of the people,” he continued, were causing “our compatriots in the South to endure untold misery and distress.”16
Two separate measures adopted at two different meetings of southern party leaders that summer reiterated the desire of southern communists to escalate the insurgency, with corresponding support from the North. In the first of these, the Interzone V Executive Committee told Hanoi that recent increases in the number and intensity of attacks by South Vietnamese forces against revolutionary bases had caused significant “human and material losses for us.” As a result, “the correlation of forces between the enemy and us [in Interzone V] at present is still essentially unchanged.” Contrary to what DRVN leaders were saying, the committee insisted, the root of the problem lay not in the shortcomings of political struggle but in the weaknesses of armed struggle. The only viable strategy in the South was simultaneous use of military struggle and political struggle in mutual support.17
In July, the Nam Bo Executive Committee again made a plea to Hanoi for much the same purposes. Recent results of the political struggle, it told Hanoi, had been positive but disappointing. Propaganda efforts among South Vietnamese soldiers and civil servants (chinh quyen van) had been ineffective. At the same time, the armed struggle continued to be weak, plagued by its own inadequacies. Southern fighting forces waited anxiously for modern weapons from the North and “thought little” of “the merits of various types of rudimentary weapons” at their disposal. Most of their small arms were from stocks buried at the conclusion of the war with France by Viet Minh fighters anticipating a resumption of hostilities. These weapons were now “archaic” and in short supply.18 “Our armed forces,” the Nam Bo Executive Committee concluded, did not “meet the requirements of their responsibilities.”19 The meaning was clear and the solution simple: Hanoi had to endorse and support a more forward strategy in the South.
TENSIONS WITHIN THE PARTY
Through the summer of 1960, DRVN leaders studied their options. It was obvious Resolution 15 and the level of support they provided to southern revolutionaries had failed to satisfy the aspirations of many on both sides of the seventeenth parallel. That, in turn, amplified intraparty conflict over revolutionary strategy. The collapse of Syngman Rhee’s “reactionary” regime in South Korea on 26 April and the shooting down of an American U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union on 1 May, which compromised Soviet-American détente for a time, aggravated that conflict.20 Rhee’s regime and leadership style had had much in common with Diem’s. Its fall did not just demonstrate to militants that “puppet regimes that faithfully obeyed every order by imperialists against the wishes of their people could not last long, even if supported by the bayonets of their foreign masters”; it also convinced them that war in the South would expedite the collapse of the Diem regime.21 The U-2 incident, for its part, derailed the Four-Power Paris summit, which moderates in Hanoi had hoped would “consolidate peace in the world” and, by extension, in Vietnam. Militants, however, felt vindicated by the derailment. As adherents of Chinese revolutionary theses, they, like the Chinese, “had always maintained that this détente was nothing but an ‘American ploy’” intended to deceive Third World revolutionaries as well as world opinion.22
In the aftermath of these events, western diplomats in Hanoi reported increasing tensions between moderates and militants within party and government organs. “We are witnessing” a “dangerous evolution,” one of their reports surmised.23 Indeed, by this time the affinity of views between radicals in Beijing and militants in the VWP was growing, producing a “sinization” of sorts within the party.24 The party itself acknowledged the lack of ideological unity in its ranks at this time, confessing that “dogmatism,” essentially hard-line thinking, colored the attitudes of members at all echelons.25 According to Nhan dan, some cadres and members refused to “correctly conform to the discipline of the party” and were instead “obstinately creat[ing] factions and acting on their own impulses.”26 While it is impossible to gauge just how widespread “leftist deviationism” was in party ranks, the lack of unity was significant enough to prompt Hanoi in the spring of 1960 to mandate another round of political re-education for all members.27
The Vietnamese masses themselves were becoming polarized into moderate “pro-Soviet” and militant “pro-Chinese” camps at this time, a result of both conditions in Vietnam and the state of Sino-Soviet relations.28 In rural areas, anti-Chinese sentiment inspired by historical memory was strong, a western assessment noted. Such sentiment also existed in the cities, among intellectuals and others who estimated that since the end of the war against France, the Vietnamese “have only changed masters: yesterday the French, today the Chinese.’” Conversely, low-level bureaucrats and other state employees boasted of their admiration for China, as did young adults who “have the conviction of sharing a greater affinity” with the Chinese. “The evolution of young Vietnamese generations in support of China,” the assessment observed, “forces us to recognize that elements relatively favorable to Europe . . . will disappear little by little.” Many Vietnamese workers had also become alienated from Moscow because of the behavior of Soviet and other East Europeans who had recently come to the DRVN in growing numbers as technical experts and economic advisers. It seemed to many workers that these people “incessantly complained about living conditions” and openly counted the days they had to remain in Vietnam before their contracts expired and they could go home. Some Vietnamese concluded on the basis of interactions with these and other Eastern Europeans that “‘Whites’ are always the same, Communist or non-Communist.”29
By the summer of 1960, Le Duan and other party militants were exerting unprecedented influence in Hanoi and seemed poised to take over policymaking.30 Signs of th
is were unmistakable: creation by the government of a “Union of Chinese Residents” in Hanoi; growing numbers of Vietnamese of Chinese descent working as civil servants and political commissars in Hanoi and Haiphong; “extreme hardening” of security concerns manifested in “mass arrests” of Vietnamese who had once served in pro-French armies; and renewed harassment of Catholic clergy and community leaders.31 Though no evidence exists to substantiate the claim, foreign observers at the time even speculated about the possibility of a coup by “extremists” within the party and the armed forces to overthrow the “temporizers” who still dominated decision-making.32
Although their authority and acumen were being challenged, Ho, Giap, and other moderates in the Politburo and the Central Committee retained the upper hand for the time being. They “held their ground,” the British Consulate surmised, after undergoing “a certain amount of criticism from some who complain that the policies of the past six years have brought reunification no nearer and who would therefore prefer a tougher line.” Party militants, the consulate thought, “are at present most unlikely to succeed in modifying the Northern régime’s reunification policy so far as to make open military intervention in the South at all probable.”33 Indeed, for the next three years that policy remained essentially unchanged.
That summer Hanoi mulled over a new plan to bring about reunification peacefully. The first step was the most daunting: replacing the Diem regime in Saigon with one that was “more independent toward the United States.” Far-fetched as it seemed, Hanoi thought that might be achieved through skillful manipulation of public opinion and coordination of mass demonstrations in Saigon and elsewhere. Once Diem was gone, DRVN authorities would negotiate with his successor the amalgamation of the governments of the two Vietnams. Under any such plan, which recycled many ideas that had circulated in Hanoi since 1955, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would fall under Hanoi’s jurisdiction, and the Ministries of Defense and of Finance under Saigon’s control. Control of other ministries would be decided through consultation and by mutual agreement. Eventually, the leadership itself would be amalgamated, presumably under communist control, but that was not spelled out. French diplomats believed in the summer of 1960 that Hanoi possibly had already established contacts with “‘liberal’ elements” in the South.34 After a discussion of these subjects with Pham Van Dong in the early fall, a Canadian diplomat reported that Hanoi might even be open to the possibility of mediation by the UN, an organization DRVN leaders distrusted in the extreme by this time.35
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