Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965

by Asselin, Pierre

  133. “Vietnam: Annual Review for 1955,” 4.

  134. BCGH to FO, 14 May 1956, FO 371/123394, NAUK, 2.

  135. “Thuyet trinh cua Tieu ban nghien cuu du luat Nghia vu quan su” [Presentation by the Sub-Committee for Research on the Military Service Law], 15 April 1960, Ho so 64: Ho so ky hop thuc 12 QH khoa I, tu ngay 11–15.4.1960. Tap 3: Phien hop ngay 15.4.1960: Chuyet trinh, tham luan Nghi quyet ve ke hoach va ngan sach Nha nuoc nam 1960, Luat Nghia vu Quan su, that bai cua che do Diem, Phong Quoc hoi, Vietnam National Archives Center 3, Hanoi, 2; “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for February 1959,” 1.

  136. “Fiche sur les forces militaires et paramilitaires de la RDVN” [File on Military and Paramilitary Forces of the DRVN], 13 February 1956, #19, AO: VN, ADF, 2.

  137. FGDH to MFA, 22 June 1956, #19, AO: VN, ADF, 1–2.

  138. By the end of 1956, the PAVN reportedly included 250,000 men in regular units and 50,000 in regional units, as well as an additional 200,000 serving in paramilitary and militia units (“Fiche sur les forces militaires et paramilitaires de la RDVN,” 1–2).

  139. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 56.

  140. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, so 08/CT-TW, ngay 4 thang 2 nam 1956: Ve lanh dao cong tac thuong nghiep trong nam 1956” [Secretariat Instruction, no. 08/CT-TW, 4 February 1956: On Leading Commercial Activity in the Year 1956], in VKD: 1956, 43.

  141. Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 22.

  142. BCGH to FO, 14 May 1956, 2.

  143. Pham Van Dong letter to the two cochairmen of the Geneva Conference on Indochina, 14 February 1956, 3.

  144. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, so 09/CT-TW, ngay 17 thang 2 nam 1956: Ve chu truong doi hop lai Hoi nghi Gionevo de ban bien phap thi hanh Hiep nghi Gionevo 1954” [Secretariat Instruction, no. 09/CT-TW, 17 February 1956: On the Policy of Reconvening the Geneva Conference to Discuss Methods of Implementing the 1954 Geneva Agreement], in VKD: 1956, 60.

  145. FGDH to MFA, 1 March 1956, #71, AO: VN, ADF, 1–2.

  146. BCGH to FO, 14 May 1956, 2.

  147. Galia Golan, Soviet Policies in the Middle East: From World War II to Gorbachev (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 47.

  148. “General Policy of the Soviet Union in Vietnam” (undated), 20-USSR-1-3-VIET N, Vol. 10853 [Part 1], LAC, 1.

  149. Duiker, Communist Road to Power, 187; Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003), 92.

  150. FGDH to MFA, 22 July 1956, #71, AO: VN, ADF, 2.

  151. “Nghi quyet cua Hoi nghi Ban chap hanh Trung uong Dang Lao dong Viet Nam lan thu chin mo rong, hop tu ngay 19 den 24 thang 4 nam 1956” [Resolution of the Ninth Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, Meeting 19–24 April 1956], in VKD: 1956, 167–72.

  152. Mari Olsen, Soviet-Vietnam Relations and the Role of China, 1949–64 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 59, 61, 68.

  153. “Loi be mac cua Chu tich Ho Chi Minh tai Hoi nghi Ban chap hanh Truong uong Dang Lao dong Viet Nam lan thu chin mo rong, hop tu ngay 19 den ngay 24 thang 4 nam 1956” [Closing Address of President Ho Chi Minh at the Ninth Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, Meeting 19–24 April 1956], in VKD: 1956, 174.

  154. Franchini, Guerres d’Indochine, 182–83; Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 26; and “Bao cao cua Bo Chinh tri tai Hoi nghi lan thu chin Ban Chap hanh Trung uong, hop tu ngay 19 den 24 thang 4 nam 1956: Ve viec quan triet nguyen tac lanh dao tap the, de cao vai tro cua Dang” [Politburo Report at the Ninth Enlarged Plenum of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, Meeting 19–24 April 1956: On the Issue of Grasping Thoroughly the Principle of Concrete Leadership, to Increase the Role of the Party], in VKD: 1956, 157–66.

  155. “Bao cao cua Bo Chinh tri tai Hoi nghi lan thu chin Ban Chap hanh Trung uong,” 157–66.

  156. BCGH to FO, 11 May 1956, FO 371/123393, NAUK, 2; FGDH to MFA, 20 November 1956, #37, AO: VN, ADF, 2; FGDH to MFA, “Visite de M. Tcheou En Lai à Hanoi” [Visit by Mr. Zhou Enlai to Hanoi], 23 November 1956, #37, AO: VN, ADF, 3. For both ideological and pragmatic reasons, Hanoi supported Soviet intervention in Hungary to suppress the uprising there. “We must resolutely fight the maneuvers of imperialists seeking to overthrow socialist states,” it publicly affirmed. “It is necessary to keep supporting the revolutionary movement of Hungarian workers and peasants.” Quoted in FGDH to MFA, 22 November 1956, #37, AO: VN, ADF, 1.

  157. Quoted in FGDH to MFA, 7 July 1956, #31, AO: VN, ADF, 1.

  158. BCGH to FO, 11 May 1956, 2.

  159. “Extent of Opposition to the Regime in North Vietnam,” 5 June 1956, FO 371/123394, NAUK, 1.

  160. Quoted in Joes, War for South Vietnam, 42.

  161. Soviet Peace Committee, U.S. Aggression in Vietnam: Crime against Peace and Humanity (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1965).

  162. Logevall, Embers of War, 652.

  163. Bui Diem, In the Jaws of History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 88–89.

  164. On the consolidation of Diem’s power, see Dommen, Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, 280–305. Interestingly, Dommen believes that had national elections taken place in July 1956, “there is little doubt that [Ho Chi Minh] would have lost in a free and fair contest with Diem” (ibid., 342). See also Chapman, Cauldron of Resistance; and Miller, Misalliance.

  165. “Vietnam: Annual Review for 1955,” 2.

  166. Laure Cournil and Pierre Journoud, “Une décolonization manquée: L’armée nationale du Vietnam, de la tutelle française à la tutelle américaine (1949–1965)” [A Failed Decolonization: The Vietnamese National Army from French Tutelage to American Tutelage, 1949–1965], Outre-Mers 99, nos. 370–71 (2011): 73; “Annual Review of Events in Vietnam for 1956,” 22 January 1957, FO 371/129701, NAUK, 1–2, 6; Commonwealth Secretariat, “Vietnam: Background Paper,” 11.

  167. FGDH to MFA, 4 September 1956, #71, AO: VN, ADF, 2–3, 5.

  168. FGDH to MFA, 3 November 1956, #16, AO: VN, ADF, 3, 5.

  169. “Memorandum,” 10 November 1956, FO 371/123396, NAUK, 1.

  170. “Annual Review of Events in Vietnam for 1956,” 4. Classification was conditioned by property size and wealth, as well as “whether [households] had hired people or used tenants, and whether they had lent money for profit” (Kerkvliet, Power of Everyday Politics, 45).

  171. “Memorandum,” 10 November 1956, 7.

  172. Franchini, Guerres d’Indochine, 181. During the land reform campaign, Hanoi regularly deployed units of southern regroupees to enforce policies and quell upheavals, since they had no ties to the northern population and were therefore more loyal to DRVN authorities (Zasloff, Political Motivation, 44–45).

  173. On the shortcomings of the land reform campaign generally, see Edwin E. Moïse, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983).

  174. For an excellent treatment of the plenum, see Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 273–77. See also Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 35–36.

  175. “Memorandum,” 10 November 1956, 1.

  176. “Annual Review of Events in Vietnam for 1956,” 4; Duiker, Communist Road to Power, 189.

  177. Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 264; FGDH to MFA, 29 October 1956, #16, AO: VN, ADF, 1; “Memorandum,” 10 November 1956, 3, 5.

  178. BCGH to FO, 31 October 1956, FO 371/123395, NAUK, 1.

  179. BCGH to FO, 14 May 1956, 2.

  180. Quoted in FGDH to MFA, 29 October 1956, #16, AO: VN, ADF, 2, 5, 10 (appendix 3). According to French diplomats, the Central Committee never actually met in September–October; the decision to sack Truong Chinh and his associates was made during a meeting of 760 party cadres held in Hanoi on 21 October (“Memorandum,” 10 November 1956, 7).

  181. Ang Cheng Guan,
Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 37.

  182. On Tho and his relationship to Le Duan, see Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 17–31.

  183. FGDH to MFA, 10 October 1956, #71, AO: VN, ADF, 1.

  184. BCGH to FO, 26 October 1956, FO 371/123395, NAUK, 2.

  185. Peter Zinoman, “Nhan Van-Giai Pham and Vietnamese ‘Reform Communism’ in the 1950s: A Revisionist Interpretation,” Journal of Cold War Studies 13, no. 1 (2011): 98.

  186. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 37. On the periodicals episode generally, see Zinoman, “Nhan Van-Giai Pham,” 60–100.

  187. “Note pour Monsieur le President du Conseil: République Democratique du Vietnam” [Note for Mr. the Prime Minister: Democratic Republic of Vietnam], 7 June 1958, #35, AO: VN, ADF, 1.

  188. Dennis J. Duncanson, Government and Revolution in Vietnam (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 179.

  189. Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 21.

  190. Kevin Ruane, War and Revolution in Vietnam, 1930–1975 (London: UCL Press, 1998), 41.

  191. Franchini, Guerres d’Indochine, 189–90.

  192. Ang Cheng Guan, The Vietnamese War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 15–16; Turley, Second Indochina War, 36.

  193. Le Kinh Lich, ed., The 30-Year War, 1945–1975, Vol. 2: 1954–1975 (Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2002), 31.

  194. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 18, 32.

  195. Turley, Second Indochina War, 35.

  196. The missive appears in United States Department of State, Working Paper on North Viet-Nam’s Role in the War in South Viet-Nam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), Appendix Item No. 204. I used a translation of the document by Robert Brigham.

  197. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 52; Le Mau Han, Dang Cong san Viet Nam: Cac Dai hoi va Hoi nghi Trung uong [The Vietnamese Communist Party: Congresses and Central Committee Plenums] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1995), 73–74; Duiker, Communist Road to Power, 189.

  198. Logevall, Embers of War, 688.

  199. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 82–83; Bernard B. Fall, “South Vietnam’s Internal Problems,” Pacific Affairs 31, no. 3 (September 1958): 257; Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60 (Cambridge, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 142–51; Nguyen Dinh Uoc, “Nha chien luoc loi lac” [An Outstanding Strategist], in Vien nghien cuu Ho Chi Minh va cac lanh tu cua Dang, Le Duan va cach mang Viet Nam [Le Duan and the Vietnamese Revolution] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1997), 99.

  200. Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese Communists’ Relations with China, 47; and Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese War from the Other Side, 19–20.

  2. CHANGING COURSE, 1957–1959

  1. “The Question of the Admission of Vietnam to the United Nations,” 30 April 1957, R219-121-3-E [Part 2], Vol. 3069, Record Group [hereafter RG] 25, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa [hereafter LAC], 5.

  2. “Évolution de la RDVN en 1957” [Development of the DRVN in 1957], 20 January 1957, #31, Asie-Océanie [hereafter AO]: Vietnam Nord [hereafter VN], Archives Diplomatiques de France, La Courneuve [hereafter ADF], 12.

  3. “The Situation and Likely Developments over the Next Eighteen Months in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia,” 15 July 1957, R219-121-3-E [Part 2], Vol. 3069, RG 25, LAC, 5.

  4. “Vietnam: Annual Report for 1957,” 10 January 1958, FO 371/136114, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew [hereafter NAUK], 1–2.

  5. “Economic Conditions in North Vietnam,” in report entitled “The Situation in Vietnam,” 30 September 1957, R219-121-3-E [Part 2], Vol. 3069, RG 25, LAC, 2.

  6. Edwin E. Moïse, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 261–62; Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005), 46.

  7. “Vietnam: Annual Report for 1957,” 1.

  8. “The Year 1957,” undated, FO 371/136118, NAUK, 14.

  9. Christian C. Lentz, “Mobilization and State Formation on a Frontier of Vietnam,” Journal of Peasant Studies 38, no. 3 (July 2011): 574.

  10. Seth Jacobs, America’s Miracle Man in Vietnam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and U.S. Intervention in Southeast Asia (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004), 254–62.

  11. Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House, 2012), 678.

  12. Robert K. Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), 9. See also William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Concise Political and Military History, 2nd ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 38; and Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945–1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 60–69. Tran Van Giau confirms that this period was the “darkest hour” of the revolutionary movement in the South. See William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life (New York: Theia, 2000), 661n71.

  13. “The Situation and Likely Developments over the Next Eighteen Months in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia,” 1; “Vietnam: Annual Report for 1957,” 5, 7, 8; “The Question of the Admission of Vietnam to the United Nations,” 9.

  14. “Vietnam: Annual Report for 1957,” 4; Ang Cheng Guan, The Vietnamese War from the Other Side: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 20.

  15. Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954–60 (Cambridge, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 111; Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese War from the Other Side, 21.

  16. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin va tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, Tap 2: 1954–1975 [History of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Volume 2: 1954–1975] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1995), 94, 96.

  17. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 32.

  18. Commonwealth Secretariat, “Vietnam: Background Paper,” September 1967, R219-121-3-E [Part 3], Vol. 9523, RG 25, LAC, 17.

  19. Ang Cheng Guan, Vietnamese War from the Other Side, 24; Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003), 101.

  20. British Consulate General, Hanoi [hereafter BCGH], to Foreign Office, London [hereafter FO], 3 March 1958, FO 371/136118, NAUK, 2.

  21. “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) during July 1958,” undated [August 1958?], FO 371/136119, NAUK, 2.

  22. Pham Van Dong letter to Ngo Dinh Diem, 7 March 1958, #312, AO: Vietnam Conflit, ADF, 3.

  23. French Embassy, Saigon, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris [hereafter MFA], 30 April 1958, #312, AO: VN, ADF, 3.

  24. Trung tam Khoa hoc xa hoi va nhan van quoc gia—Vien su hoc, Lich su Viet Nam, 1954–1965 [History of Vietnam, 1954–1965] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Khoa hoc xa hoi, 1995), 13; BCGH to FO, 2 May 1958, FO 371/136118, NAUK, 3.

  25. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 79.

  26. “Bao cao ve nhiem vu ke hoach ba nam (1958–1960) phat trien va cai tao kinh te quoc dan” [Report on the Responsibilities of the Three-Year Plan (1958–1969) of Development and Improvement of the People’s Economy], in Dang Cong san Viet Nam, Van kien Dang—Toan tap, Tap 19: 1958 [Party Documents—Complete Series, Vol. 19: 1958] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2002) [hereafter VKD: 1958], 451–524.

  27. Céline Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 1919–1991 [Vietnamese Communism, 1919–1991] (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2012), 284.

  28. Quoted in “Minutes,” 20 August 1958, FO 371/136119, NAUK, 2.

  29. “Bao cao ve nhie
m vu ke hoach ba nam (1958–1960),” 451–524.

  30. Tran Van Dinh, ed., This Nation and Socialism Are One: Selected Writings of Le Duan, First Secretary, Central Committee, Vietnamese Workers’ Party (Chicago: Vanguard Books, 1976), 10.

  31. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh, 506.

  32. Trinh’s remarks are reported in BCGH to Southeast Asia Division, London [hereafter SEAD], 21 December 1958, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.

  33. Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 75.

  34. British Embassy, Saigon [hereafter BES], to FO, “Review of Events in North Vietnam (the D.R.V.) during 1961,” 31 January 1962, FO 371/166697, NAUK, 5.

  35. “The VWP and the International Communist Movement,” Folder 08, Box 02, Douglas Pike Collection [hereafter DPC]: Unit 13—The Early History of Vietnam, Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University [hereafter VATTU], 14–15.

  36. Ibid.

  37. French General Delegation, Hanoi [hereafter FGDH], to MFA, 28 April 1960, #31, AO: VN, ADF, 7.

  38. Nguyen Dang Vinh, Dang Viet Thuy, and Le Ngoc Tu, eds., Viet Nam: 30 nam chien tranh gia phong va bao ve To quoc, 1945–1975—Bien nien su kien [Vietnam: 30 Years of War for Liberation and Protection of the Fatherland, 1945–1975—Annals of Events] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Quan doi nhan dan, 2005), 243.

  39. Le Mau Han, Dang Cong san Viet Nam: Cac Dai hoi va Hoi nghi Trung uong [The Vietnamese Communist Party: Congresses and Plenums] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1995), 65. On the situation facing the southern revolution at that juncture, see “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Xu uy Nam Bo lan thu tu, thang 11–1959” [Resolution of the Fourth Plenum of the Nam Bo Executive Committee, November 1959], in Dang Cong san Viet Nam, Van kien Dang—Toan tap, Tap 20: 1959 [Party Documents—Complete Series, Vol. 20: 1959] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2002) [hereafter VKD: 1959], 977–80; and Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy, 9–10.