40. Vo Chi Cong, Tren nhung chang duong cach mang [On the Revolutionary Paths] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2001), 148–52.
41. “Bao cao cua Bo Chinh tri tai Hoi nghi Ban chap hanh Trung uong lan thu 15 (mo rong), hop tu ngay 12 den 22–1-1959: Ve tinh hinh mien Nam” [Report of the Politburo at the Fifteenth Plenum (expanded) of the Central Committee, Meeting from 12 to 22 January 1959: On the Southern Situation], in VKD: 1959, 1–56.
42. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15 (mo rong): Ve tang cuong doan ket, kien quyet dau tranh giu vung hoa binh, thuc hien thong nhat nuoc nha” [Resolution of the Fifteenth Plenum (expanded): On Increasing Unity and Determination to Struggle to Preserve Peace and Achieve Unification of the State], in VKD: 1959, 57–92.
43. Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution through Reform (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 75.
44. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15,” 75.
45. “Bao cao cua Bo Chinh tri tai Hoi nghi Ban chap hang Trung uong lan thu 15 (mo rong),” 37–41.
46. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15,” 81.
47. “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for April 1959,” May 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 2.
48. “History of the NLF, 1954–63” [CRIMP Document], undated, Folder 03, Box 01, DPC: Unit 05—National Liberation Front, VATTU, 5.
49. Quoted in Le Hong Linh, Cuoc dong khoi ky dieu o mien Nam Viet Nam 1959–1960 [Wonderful Uprising in Southern Vietnam, 1959–1960] (Da Nang: Nha xuat ban Da Nang, 2006), 259.
50. Quoted in ibid.; Theo mien Dong Nam Bo khang chien, Tap 3 [Following the Resistance in Eastern Nam Bo, Volume 3] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Quan doi nhan dan, 1993), 69.
51. Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take: Memoirs of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Data Paper 102 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1976), 61.
52. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15,” 64.
53. Ibid.; Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 101.
54. Nguyen Manh Hung, “The Vietnam War in Retrospect: Its Nature and Some Lessons,” in Lawrence E. Grinter and Peter M. Dunn, eds., The American War in Vietnam: Lessons, Legacies, and Implications for Future Conflicts (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 15–25.
55. Philippe Devillers, “La lutte pour la réunification du Viêt Nam entre 1954 et 1961” [The Struggle for Reunification in Vietnam between 1954 and 1961], in Jean Chesneaux, Georges Boudarel, and Daniel Hémery, eds., Tradition et révolution au Viêt Nam [Tradition and Revolution in Vietnam] (Paris: Éditions Anthropos, 1971), 350.
56. Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take, 62–63.
57. George McT. Kahin and John Lewis, The United States in Vietnam (New York: Dial Press, 1969), 120.
58. Sophie Quinn-Judge, “The Ideological Debate in the DRV and the Significance of the Anti-Party Affair, 1967–68,” Cold War History 5, no. 4 (November–December 2005): 487.
59. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15,” 64.
60. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin va tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 101.
61. “Factions within the North Vietnamese Regime: Their Bearing, If Any, on Policy Pursued towards South Vietnam,” undated [1960], FO 371/160122, NAUK, 1.
62. On the specifics of the incident, see Ang Cheng Guan, “The Huong Lap and Phu Loi Incidents, and the Decision to Resume Armed Struggle in South Vietnam,” War and Society 15, no. 1 (May 1997): 3–22.
63. “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for January 1959,” undated [February 1959], FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
64. Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 286.
65. “History of the NLF, 1954–63,” 5.
66. “Chi thi cua Bo Chinh tri, thang 3–1959: Ve nhiem vu xay dung can cu cach mang Tay Nguyen” [Politburo Instruction, March 1959: On the Task of Building the Tay Nguyen Revolutionary Base], in VKD: 1959, 245–59.
67. The response of DRVN authorities to the second Taiwan Strait crisis is detailed in “Review of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) during September 1958,” 7 October 1958, FO 371/136119, NAUK, 3. On 4 September 1958, during the crisis, Beijing issued a declaration on China’s territorial sea, stating that its “breadth . . . shall be twelve nautical miles,” eventually the international standard. The declaration made repeated references to Taiwan and mentioned the Jinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu) Islands, as it was intended to reinforce Beijing’s claim over these territories, “still occupied by the United States armed forces” (“Declaration on China’s Territorial Sea,” 4 September 1958, reproduced in United States Department of State, Limits in the Seas: Straight Baselines—People’s Republic of China, no. 43 [1 July 1972], 2–3). Ten days later, DRVN prime minister Pham Van Dong sent his PRC counterpart, Zhou Enlai, a note stating that his government “recognizes [ton trong]” Beijing’s declaration. In light of the ongoing crisis, the DRVN’s concerns about the separatist regime in Saigon abetted by Washington, and Hanoi’s reliance on Beijing for economic and other aid, the note was an exercise in diplomatic propriety more than anything else. In subsequent years, however, it would haunt Vietnamese communist authorities. As Beijing and Hanoi, among other governments, began to tussle over control of two archipelagos in the South China or Eastern Sea, the Spartlys (Nansha) and the Paracels (Hsisha/Xisha), which had also been mentioned in the Chinese declaration of 4 September 1958, Chinese authorities used Dong’s 1958 note as evidence that Hanoi had renounced its sovereignty over those islands. On this, see also the comments by historian Balazs Szalontai at www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/story/2008/01/080124_vietnamchinaphamvandong.shtml.
68. Hoang Trang, Toan dan doan ket chong My, cuu nuoc duoi ngon co tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, 1954–1975 [The Entire People Unites against the United States for National Salvation under the Banner of Ho Chi Minh Thought] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2005), 90.
69. Jean Lacouture, “Viet Cong,” undated, Folder 14, Box 04, DPC: Unit 02—Military Operations, VATTU, 3.
70. Ang Cheng Guan, “Southeast Asian Perceptions of the Domino Theory,” in Christopher E. Goscha and Christian Ostermann, eds., Connecting Histories: The Cold War and Decolonization in Asia, 1945–1962 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009), 311–12.
71. “History of the NLF, 1954–63,” 9.
72. Le Hong Linh, Cuoc dong khoi, 269.
73. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu gui X.U.N.B., ngay 7–5-1959” [Secretariat Instruction to the Nam Bo Executive Committee, 7 May 1959], in VKD: 1959, 515.
74. Thayer, War by Other Means, 185.
75. “Nghi quyet Hoi nghi Trung uong lan thu 15,” 84.
76. David W. P. Elliott, The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930–1975, concise ed. (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2007), 166.
77. Thayer, War by Other Means, 185.
78. William R. Andrews, The Village War: Vietnamese Communist Revolutionary Activity in Dinh Truong Province, 1960–64 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973), 33.
79. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin va tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 104.
80. “History of the NLF, 1954–63,” 6.
81. Bui Kim Dinh, “Tim hieu nguyen nhan cuoc dung dau lich su o Viet Nam (1954–1975)” [Understanding the Cause of Historical Encounters in Vietnam, 1954–1975], Tap chi Lich su Dang [Journal of Party History], no. 186 (May 2006): 68.
82. Tai Sung An, “Hanoi’s 15th Plenum Resolution—May 1959,” Folder 010, Box 30, DPC: Unit 05—National Liberation Front, VATTU, 277 (emphasis in original).
83. Quoted in French Legation, Hungary, to MFA, 1 April 1959, #31, AO: VN, ADF, 4.
84. Tran Quoc Tu, “Peace and Revolution,” Hoc tap (January 1964). Reproduced and translated in Folder 03, Box 25, DPC: Unit 06—Democratic Republic of Vietnam, VATTU, 11.
85. BCGH to SEAD, 30 April 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
86. “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for May 1959,�
�� undated [June 1959], FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
87. “Summary of Events in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for March 1959,” April 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1; and “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for April 1959,” May 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1. By one account, within a year of the promulgation of currency reform in February 1959, “those few bourgeois who in 1958 still lived in relative comfort” were now “reduced to the common level.” “It is remarkable how uniform is the apparent level of existence” in parts of the DRVN, the account concluded (BCGH to FO, 11 April 1960, FO 371/152746, NAUK, 1).
88. William S. Turley, “Civil-Military Relations in North Vietnam,” Asian Survey 9, no. 12 (December 1969): 885–86.
89. “Summary of Events in North Vietnam (DRV) for February 1959,” undated [March 1959], FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1; Turley, “Civil-Military Relations,” 886.
90. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, so 146-CT/TW, ngay 4-7-1959: Ve ke hoach chinh huan can bo, dang vien” [Secretariat Instruction, no. 146-CT/TW, 4 July 1959: On the Plan to Re-educate Cadres, Party Members], in VKD: 1959, 573–85.
91. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin va tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 98n1.
92. Nguyen Dinh Binh, ed., Ngoai giao Viet Nam, 1945–2000 [Vietnamese Diplomacy, 1945–2000] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2005), 170–71.
93. “Chi thi cua Ban Bi thu, so 146-CT/TW,” 573–85.
94. Douglas Pike, “Basic Causes of the Vietnam War,” Folder 010, Box 30, DPC: Unit 05—National Liberation Front, VATTU, 9.
95. BES to BCGH, 21 October 1960, FO 371/152747, NAUK, 1.
96. FGDH to MFA, 22 October 1959, #17, AO: VN, ADF, 2.
97. Tai Sung An, “Hanoi’s 15th Plenum Resolution,” 283.
98. Economic Attaché, FGDH to Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Paris, 16 March 1959, #35, AO: VN, ADF, 5; “Vietnam—Annual Report for 1959” (BES to FO), 27 January 1960, FO 371/152737, NAUK, 12.
99. Marangé, Le communisme vietnamien, 286.
100. Nguyen Vu Tung, “The 1961–1962 Geneva Conference: Neutralization of Laos and Policy Implications for Vietnam,” paper presented at “Indochina between the Two Geneva Accords (1954–1962): The Failure of Peace?,” Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, 6–7 October 2006, 2–3. The paper was published as Nguyen Vu Tung, “The 1961–1962 Geneva Conference: Neutralization of Laos and Policy Implications for Vietnam,” in Christopher E. Goscha and Karine Laplante, eds., L’échec de la paix en Indochine / The Failure of Peace in Indochina (1954–1962) (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2010), 255–68.
101. Hoc vien Chinh tri quoc gia Ho Chi Minh—Khoa lich su Dang, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, Tap 1 [History of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Volume 1] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1997), 153; and Bo Quoc phong—Vien lich su Quan su Viet Nam, Lich su khang chien chong My cuu nuoc, 1954–1975, Tap 2 [History of the Anti-American Resistance for National Salvation 1954–1975, Vol. 2] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 1996), 224–36.
102. Bui Kim Dinh, “Tim hieu nguyen nhan,” 68.
103. King C. Chen, “Hanoi’s Three Decisions and the Escalation of the Vietnam War,” Political Science Quarterly 90, no. 2 (Summer 1975): 257.
104. “Danh sac can bo di B trong nam 1961” [List of Cadres Who Went South in 1961], undated, Ho so 876, Danh sac can bo di B trong nam 1961, Phong Uy ban Thong nhat Nha nuoc, Vietnam National Archives Center 3, Hanoi [hereafter VNAC3].
105. Canadian Delegation [ICSC], Saigon, to Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa, 19 January 1966, 20–22-VIET S-1, Vol. 9387 [Part 3], RG 25, LAC, 1.
106. “Danh sac can bo di B trong nam 1961.”
107. On the sea infiltration route, see Christopher E. Goscha, “The Maritime Nature of the Wars for Vietnam, 1945–75: A Geo-Historical Reflection,” War and Society 24, no. 2 (November 2005): 53–92.
108. Thayer, War by Other Means, 185.
109. Turley, Second Indochina War, 39, 80.
110. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, “Between the Storms: An International History of the Second Indochina War, 1968–1973” (PhD diss., Yale University, 2008), 13, 31.
111. Turley, Second Indochina War, 41.
112. Logevall, Embers of War, 690.
113. Elliott, Vietnamese War, 119.
114. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 59.
115. Zhihua Shen and Danhui Li, After Leaning to One Side: China and Its Allies in the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2011), 24–26.
116. The quoted passage is from Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Hanoi’s War, 59.
117. Logevall, Embers of War, 691.
118. Ang Cheng Guan, “Southeast Asian Perceptions of the Domino Theory,” 312.
119. “Bao cao tai Hoi nghi Ban chap hanh Trung uong lan thu 16 (mo rong), hop ngay 16 den 30–4 va ngay 1 den ngay 10–6-1959: Kien quyet dua nong thon mien Bac nuoc ta qua con duong hop tac hoa nong nghiep tien len chu nghia xa hoi” [Report to the Sixteenth Plenum (expanded) of the Central Committee, Meeting 16–30 April and 1–10 June [sic] 1959: Resolutely Guiding the Peasants in the North of Our Country on the Path to Agricultural Collectivization to Advance Socialism], in VKD: 1959, 290, 295, 356.
120. “Nghi quyet cua Hoi nghi trung uong lan thu 16 (mo rong), thang 4, nam 1959: Ve van de hop tac hoa nong nghiep” [Resolution of the Sixteenth Plenum (expanded) of the Central Committee, April 1959: On the Issue of Agricultural Collectivization], in VKD: 1959, 394.
121. BCGH to SEAD, 26 June 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1–2.
122. “Vietnam—Annual Report for 1959,” 13.
123. BCGH to SEAD, 3 September 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
124. “Vietnam—Annual Report for 1959,” 11, 16.
125. BCGH to SEAD, 25 July 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
126. BCGH to SEAD, 21 July 1959, FO 371/144390, NAUK, 1.
127. Quoted in ibid., 2.
128. “Bao cao cua Lien khu uy V, thang 11–1959: Ve tinh hinh Lien khu V” [Report by Interzone V, November 1959: On the Situation in Interzone V], in VKD: 1959, 1022.
129. Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take, 62.
130. Bo Quoc phong—Vien Lich su quan su Viet Nam, Lich su quan su Viet Nam, Tap 11, 101.
131. Bernard Fall, Vietnam Witness (New York: Praeger, 1966), 239.
132. Douglas Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1966), 102.
133. Quoted in Andrews, Village War, 55–56.
134. FGDH to MFA, 14 January 1960, #33, AO: VN, ADF, 2.
135. Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 97, 103. See also Kahin and Lewis, United States in Vietnam, 120; and David Hunt, Vietnam’s Southern Revolution: From Insurrection to Total War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 56.
136. Bo Quoc phong—Vien Lich su quan su Viet Nam, Lich su quan su Viet Nam, Tap 11: Cuoc khang chien chong My, cuu nuoc, 1954–1975 [Military History of Vietnam, Volume 11: The Anti-American Resistance for National Salvation] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2005), 100; and Diep Dinh Hoa, “Khoi nghia Vinh Thanh (6–2-1959)” [The Vinh Thanh Uprising, 6 February 1962], Nghien cuu Lich su [Historical Studies], no. 326 (January 2003): 35–48.
137. Le Hong Linh, Cuoc dong khoi, 259–60.
138. Elliott, Vietnamese War, 118–19.
139. “History of the NLF, 1954–63,” 15.
140. Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 114.
141. “History of the NLF, 1954–63,” 14, 21.
142. “Problems—Deviant Ideas and Mistaken Notions Which Must Be Promptly Corrected and Resolved,” Hoc tap (August 1960). Reproduced and translated in Folder 16, Box 04, United States Department of State Collection, VATTU, 5.
143. Turley, Second Indochina
War, 43.
144. Portions of the text of Law 10/59 and an official interpretation of its application are reproduced in Marvin E. Gettleman et al., eds., Vietnam and America: A Documented History (New York: Grove Press, 1995), 156–60.
145. “Vietnam—Annual Report for 1959,” 2.
146. Vien nghien cuu chu nghia Mac-Lenin va tu tuong Ho Chi Minh, Lich su Dang Cong san Viet Nam, 98.
147. “De cuong bai noi chuyen ve cuoc dong khoi nam 1960 cua tinh uy Ben-tre” [Outline of Speech on the 1960 General Uprising by the Ben Tre Provincial Committee], undated, Ho so 233: De cuong bai noi chuyen ve cuoc dong khoi nam 1960 cua tinh uy Ben-tre, Phong Uy ban dieu tra toi ac cua de quoc My o Viet Nam, VNAC3, 4, 6.
148. The resolution is reproduced as “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], in VKD: 1959, 977–1006.
3. TREADING CAUTIOUSLY, 1960
1. 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), 106.
2. “De cuong bai noi chuyen ve cuoc dong khoi nam 1960 cua tinh uy Ben-tre” [Outline of Speech on the 1960 Uprising by the Ben Tre Provincial Comittee], undated [March 1976?], Ho so 233: De cuong bai noi chuyen ve cuoc dong khoi nam 1960 cua tinh uy Ben-tre, Phong Uy ban dieu tra toi ac cua de quoc My o Viet Nam, Vietnam National Archives Center 3, Hanoi [hereafter VNAC3], 4, 6. A recent and insightful account of the important role of women in the uprising is Ben Tre Dong khoi va Doi quan toc dai [The Ben Tre Uprising and the Long-Haired Army] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Phu nu, 2009).
3. Nguyen Thi Dinh, No Other Road to Take: Memoirs of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Data Paper 102 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1976), 62–63.
4. An Outline History of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, 1930–1975, 2nd ed. (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1978), 101.
5. Vo Thi Hoa, “Dang bo Tay Ninh van dong dong bao theo dao Cao Dai tham gia khang chien chong My, cuu nuoc” [The Tay Ninh Party Committee’s Activities regarding the Participation of Cao Dai Compatriots in the Anti-American Resistance for National Salvation], Tap chi Lich su Dang [Journal of Party History], no. 185 (April 2006): 57–58.
Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War, 1954-1965 Page 38