Читать книгу Military Art of People's War - Vo Nguyen Giap - Страница 10
ОглавлениеOrigins 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The revolutionary movement in Vietnam was mercilessly repressed; all legal and semilegal organizations of the Party had withdrawn into the underground.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,* who had just come from Canton, told us many stories about Nguyen Ai Quoc.
But it was not only in those early days of my revolutionary life that Uncle’s name was to be familiar to me. Later, at the time of the democratic movement in Hanoi, when I wrote for Notre Voix (Our Voice), the Party’s official organ published in French, the editorial board often received articles signed “P. C. Lin” sent from abroad as contributions to the paper. These typed articles were read carefully again and again, for we knew they were written by Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc. In them, Uncle expressed his opinions about a broad-based democratic front, or his opinions on the international situation, and the experiences provided by the Chinese Revolution. Each of these articles began with sentences which cleverly drew the attention of the readers, such as “If I were a Vietnamese revolutionary I …” or, “If the Yenan experience of the Chinese Communist Party is to be introduced, even a thick book would not be enough to expound it all, here I would like to give only a summary …”
All these images, ideas, all the tasks I performed at that time, are still fresh in my memory. And till the day when I was to meet Vuong, I hoped and I felt sure that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc himself, especially when I recalled Thu’s words as I was leaving the country. All that made me impatient.
It was already June, midsummer in Kunming. One day, Phung Chi Kien asked me to accompany him to Tsuy Hu where Vuong was waiting for us. We walked leisurely on the Tsuy Hu bank and came across a thin middle-aged man wearing a European-style suit and a gray fur hat. Kien introduced him to me as “Comrade Vuong.” I immediately recognized the man as Nguyen Ai Quoc. Compared with the photograph I had seen, he was much more active, more alert. And compared with what he was twenty years previously, he was as thin as before, the only difference was that at that time he was young and had had no beard. I still remember that, when I met him, I had no particular feeling as I had expected I would, except that I found in him that simplicity of manner, that lucidity of character which later when I worked by his side, had the same impact on me. Right at that first meeting I found him very close to me as if we were old acquaintances. I thought that a great man like him was always simple, so simple that nothing particular could be found in him. One thing which nevertheless struck me was that he used many words peculiar to central Vietnam. I never expected that a man who had been so long abroad would still speak dialects of his native place with their particular accents.
VIETNAM
Vuong, Kien, and I talked while walking slowly along the Tsuy Hu bank like the many fresh-air seekers around us. He inquired about our journey, the difficulties we had to face. He asked about the Democratic Front and the movement at home in recent times. About revolutionary work he said, “It is a good thing that you have come; you are badly needed here.” I did not forget to ask him, as Thu had suggested, about the League of Oppressed Peoples. He said, “An important question indeed, but conditions are not ripe enough for its organization.”
Then we parted. After that, I met him quite often together with Phung Chi Kien, Vu Anh, and Pham Van Dong. He often talked about the world situation, analyzed minutely the situation in China, and the Chinese resistance war against the Japanese. He laid particular stress on the double-faced attitude of the Kuomintang, apparently cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party in the fight against the Japanese but in reality striving to destroy it. The great task of the Chinese Communist Party was to unite all the anti-Japanese forces of the nation. As regards the Kuomintang, it must also unite with it, striving to win over the relatively progressive elements in its rank for the common struggle against the Japanese. But unity must go together with the fight against their wrong ideas and more particularly with vigilance against rightist tendencies among them, vigilance against the pro-Japanese group and those inclined to make concessions and to stop fighting.
As regards our work, he said, “You will go to Yenan. There you’ll enter the Party school to study politics. Strive to study military technique as well.”
At subsequent meetings before we went to Yenan, Uncle asked us again and again also to study military technique.
Thus, three of us, Pham Van Dong, Cao Hong Lanh, and I left Kunming for Kweiyang. The journey took three days in the hot sun. At Kweiyang we had to wait for a bus for Yenan.
At Kweiyang, we stayed at the office of the Eighth Route Army.* Since my coming to China, I had realized all the more clearly to what extent the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were closely related to each other. I was especially aware of the heartfelt care the Chinese Communist Party showed the Vietnamese revolution. Our Chinese comrades were very helpful. Wherever we went we were treated like blood brothers. At the Kweiyang office of the Eighth Route Army, I had the opportunity to read for the first time the paper Liberation and to learn about the situation in Yenan. Another thing to which our attention was drawn was the high esteem our Chinese comrades showed Uncle. We didn’t know how many times he had come to Kweiyang, but there everybody, from the man in charge of the office to those who did the cooking, knew Ho Quang very well. (Ho Quang was Uncle’s pseudonym.) Each of them talked about Ho Quang in a different way but all loved him. Many wished that Ho Quang would come often to their office to work and teach them Russian and English.
As food supplies in a region situated deep in the country like Kweiyang were very difficult to find and the Party’s finances were limited, we had to grow our own vegetables. Meat was very scarce. But the question of transportation was the greatest of our difficulties. We had to wait quite a long time for a bus.
Just when we were about to leave for Yenan, we received a message from Ho Quang telling us to wait for him instead. At that time Paris fell, the German fascists had already occupied France; we thought that, because of this new development, there had been a new decision. Some days later, Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh also arrived at Kweiyang. They said that in the face of the new situation, they had come on Uncle’s instructions to go with us to Kweilin and from there to try to return to Vietnam. As France had surrendered, they added, there must be new developments in the situation in Indochina.
Thus, we didn’t go to Yenan, but to Kweilin instead.
In Kweilin, we contacted the office of the Eighth Route Army. As in Kweiyang, our Chinese comrades there did a great deal to help us. They often organized meetings with pressmen to whom we were to give information on the situation in Vietnam and the Vietnam revolutionary movement. As Vietnamese revolutionaries, we made contact with Gen. Ly Tji-shen, director of Chiang Kai-shek’s Southwest Headquarters. During the talk, Ly Tji-shen put forward the question of Allied troops entering Indochina and requested our help in elaborating plans for the coming of Chinese troops to Vietnam.
When Uncle came to Kweilin, and after we had told him of this request, he said, “We must have a clear-cut understanding regarding this question. Only the Soviet Red Army and the Chinese Red Army are fraternal to us, are really our allies. We really welcome them. As to Chiang Kai-shek troops, though they are also anti-Japanese to some extent, their nature is reactionary. In the Nationalist-Communist collaboration they talked of fighting the Japanese but actually sought every possible means to destroy the Communists. We must realize their reactionary character; otherwise it will be dangerous.”
At that moment if all of us stayed in Kweilin for a long time, we would be discovered by the Kuomintang authorities. Moreover, “the Kiangnan incident” occurred when Chiang Kai-shek troops launched a sudden attack against a unit of the New Fourth Army led by Seng Yang right in Kweilin city. They arrogantly confiscated and banned all books and papers in the local libraries. Terror reigned. The situation was tense. We were in a predicament. At any moment arrest could befall us should the Kuomintang happen to be on our trail.
Uncle suggested that we should move close to the Vietnam border and continue our revolutionary work there. We could thus get out of difficulty. But the main reason justifying the decision was that the situation at home required us to do so.
Chiang Kai-shek’s general, Chiang Fa-kwei, had already set up a Frontier Work Group placed under the direction of Truong Boi Cong, who had been entrusted with the task of paving the way for the penetration of Kuomintang troops into Vietnam on Allied powers’ orders. We knew that clique perfectly well and were also fully aware that they were capable of no good. Nevertheless, we availed ourselves of our acquaintances to ask for transport means to reach the Vietnam border easily. Arriving in Tsingsi, we set up an office of the Vietnam Liberation League and maintained contacts with the Kuomintang. Later when Nguyen Hai Than,* who also came to Tsingsi, informed the Kuomintang that we were communists, Kuomintang men in Tsingsi immediately changed their attitude toward us.
When we were in Kweilin, Uncle came and discussed with us preparations for the task ahead when we returned to the country.
Our meetings with him usually took place in the Kweilin outskirts. He used to stay every time he came in a house of the local branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Disguising ourselves as leisurely strollers, we would sit around on the grass, in the shade of a tree. Uncle listened to our report on the work done and gave his opinions and suggestions. Once, when I met him together with Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh, he said, “In face of the new situation, national unity becomes all the more important, we must think of organizing a broad national united front, with appropriate form and name. Should it be called Vietnam Liberation League? or Vietnam Anti-Imperialist League? or Vietnam Independence League? I think we had better call it Vietnam Independence League. But it is too long for a name, so we will shorten it and call it Vietminh. People will easily keep it in memory.”
That exchange of views was later discussed at the Eighth Session of the Party Central Committee held in Pac Bo where it was decided to found the Vietnam Independence League, or Vietminh for short.
Some days after our arrival at Kweilin, papers were full of news on the Nam Ky insurrection in Vietnam. Having no contact with our country as yet, we felt very impatient.
Just then, Uncle came, assembled us, and told us his views on the event as follows: “The general situation in the world and in Indochina has become more and more favorable for us, but the time has not come yet, the uprising should not have broken out. But as it has, the retreat should be made in a clever way so that the movement can be maintained.” He wrote a message accordingly, but unfortunately our efforts to get it sent home failed.
Stirred by the news of the movement which was taking place in our country, we tried every possible means to get into contact with the Central Committee at home.
Meanwhile, news reached us that the French imperialists had terrorized revolutionary organizations in Cao Bang. Many youths of various nationalities in Cao Bang had crossed the border for safety and had come to Truong Boi Cong’s quarters. Uncle said, “We shall organize a training course for them. When they return to Cao Bang, they will consolidate and develop the movement further and organize communication links with abroad.” His suggestion regarding Cao Bang as a revolutionary base opened up bright prospects for the Vietnamese revolution, inasmuch as Cao Bang had long since had its steady revolutionary movement,* and was situated close to the border and therefore favorable for maintaining relations with foreign countries. But it was also necessary to expand the movement from there to Thai Nguyen and still farther south in order to establish connections with the movement throughout the country. Only after achieving this could we start armed struggle and launch the offensive when conditions were favorable, and hold out in case of the reverse.
These suggestions, made prior to our entering Cao Bang, underlined most strikingly the important character of what was later to be the Viet Bac liberated area.
We succeeded in bringing all those comrades from Cao Bang out of Truong Boi Cong’s control. They were originally Party cadres and partisans who had been at a loss after they had crossed the border and had had temporarily to rely on Truong Boi Cong on being told about his Frontier Work Group. We gathered them together, forty in all, among whom were Le Quang Ba, Hoang Sam, Bang Giang,* and others, and together with them we shifted to Tsingsi. Plans were made to set up a training course in a region of Nung nationality† which had been under the influence of the Chinese Red Army. The Longchow region had once been occupied by Chinese Communist troops, and the local inhabitants of Nung nationality had shown much sympathy toward the Vietnamese revolution. We stayed there, scattered in two villages.
The setting up of a training course brought up two important and difficult problems—food supply and training program—which had to be solved first and foremost. In those border villages, thinly populated and poor, to provide food for fifty at a time and for fifteen days was by no means easy, in spite of the fact that the local inhabitants had both revolutionary spirit and sympathy toward revolutionaries. Comrade Cap was given the job, and every morning we all would carry rice and maize to the quarters, husk rice, grind maize, and gather firewood. Uncle was also very active. He did a great deal of firewood splitting.
Phung Chi Kien, Vu Anh, Pham Van Dong, and I worked out the training program under Uncle’s guidance. Each of us had to elaborate a program: propaganda, organization, training, or struggle. After tracing out the main points, we met together to adopt the plan and then began to write. When we finished writing, we met again for checking. Uncle worked with much patience and care. He paid great attention to the political content as well as to the lucidity, conciseness, and intelligibility of the material. As regards any work, any writing of ours, he asked questions and cross-questions, and paid particular attention to practical work. “Only through being integrated with practical work could the training become effective,” he said. Each item ended with the question: “After study what will you do in your locality?” or “After this first step what should you do next?” If that second step was not clearly defined, it would have to be written out or discussed once again. Since the first time I worked with him, I was deeply impressed by his methods: concrete and cautious to the end. This style of work in that small training course had a great effect on me and guided me in my military work all through the resistance war. It also brought home to me from that training course that only with easily understandable words, only through being in line with the aspirations of the masses, could we rouse the latter’s spirit. It was due to that spirit, to the experience I got from my work at that first training course intended for those forty comrades—and for myself as well—that I later could win success in my practical work in the liberated area.
When the training course was over, all the forty comrades felt highly enthusiastic. It was with much emotion that on the closing day, all of us pressed around Uncle and with great animation proceeded with the ceremony of hoisting our flag.
Immediately after that, all the forty comrades returned to Cao Bang, to their former base. As for us, we stayed to enjoy the Lunar New Year Festival and to make further preparations for the work to come. According to the Nung custom, each of us paid New Year visits to a number of families in the village. As they had already sympathy for the Vietnamese revolution, and we correctly observed the rule governing relations with the masses, they esteemed us all the more when we lived close to them.
Also according to custom, New Year’s Day visitors had to share large meals with the families they visited. Uncle was also one of the New Year’s Day visitors, moving along briskly, stick in hand, clad simply in a blue suit of the Nung people with his trousers rolled up to the knees. I recalled the day when he was in Kunming, wearing European clothes, with a stiff collar, a felt hat on his head, and realized that he easily adapted himself to the local ways of living in a most natural way. At each house he visited he was invited to a meal, and he offered a red paper bearing the traditional “Best wishes for New Year” written by himself.
The festival over, we divided into two groups. The first group, comprising Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh with Le Quang Ba guiding the way, went to Cao Bang with the mission of contacting revolutionary organizations there and setting up the Party’s quarters. Uncle would join them afterward. That was in Pac Bo region,* Ha Quang district. The second group, which comprised Pham Van Dong, Hoang Van Hoan,† and I, remained in Tsingsi to work.
Uncle came to Pac Bo. The Pac Bo region with its high peaks was not only the starting point of the Cao-Bac-Lang revolutionary base but also the meeting place of the Eighth Enlarged Session of the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party. Held in May 1941 under Uncle’s chairmanship, the plenum decided on May 19, 1941, on the foundation of the Front called Vietnam Independence League and mapped out new Party policies. It was also decided that national liberation was to be the central and immediate task facing the people as a whole and that preparations for an armed uprising should be made.
The Central Committee decided also at that session that the Bac Son and Vu Nhai guerrilla bases should be maintained and expanded together with the consolidation and expansion of the Cao Bang base, and that these two bases should be built into centers for preparation of the armed uprising in Viet Bac.
From China we headed for the Vietnam border and came across a stone landmark after crossing a long stretch of maize and going down a slope. This is the Vietnam-China border, a man-made border, for the people on either side are of the same Nung nationality. Immediately after crossing the border, we set foot in Ha Quang district, Cao Bang province. Pac Bo region bristles with mountains and hills and is thinly inhabited by the Nung people. They were good-natured people, who had for long sympathized with the revolution and been maintaining relations with revolutionaries. That is why we could contact them immediately after we arrived in the region. Though Pac Bo was so remotely situated, it was visited quite often by the French and their troops coming from their posts in Soc Giang village to arrest bootleggers and search for revolutionaries.
We lived in a cave on a mountain. There were a great many such caves on these rocky mountains, the air therein being very cold. These caves were not easily discovered. From the one in which we lived, we could see here and there sheets of limpid water and a stream meandering around the mountain base. Uncle called it the Lenin stream.
Every day he woke very early and stirred up all of us. After physical exercises, he usually bathed in the stream, notwithstanding the cold weather, and then set to work. (This habit of his has not changed a bit, even at present when he is in Hanoi.) He was always very active, always doing something, going to work or holding meetings, studying, gathering firewood, or visiting the old folks as well as his little nephews in the village in the valley. Sometimes he organized a political training course for the old or taught the children to read and write. If he did not get out, he worked all day long at his desk, a flat rock near the stream, and would stop only for meals. At night everybody slept on a bed made of branches put together in a most simple way, a bed which of course was neither soft nor warm! It was very cold by night. We had to make a fire and sit around it to warm ourselves until daybreak. During these hours, uncle would tell us the history of the world’s peoples who since their inception had lived through many wars and revolutions. He foretold that within four or five years, the war in our country would enter its decisive phase, and that would be a very favorable time for our revolution. This he told us again and again, like folk tales while we sat around the fire in our cave by night.
The border areas were often searched by imperialist troops. Whenever we found ourselves no longer secure, we shifted to another place, sometimes even to a place situated in the middle of a waterfall to which access was very difficult. We had to ford the stream and climb rocks and finally reach the top of a steep rock by means of a rope ladder. There our quarters were set up. They were dark and humid, hidden under a canopy of broad-leaved rattan plants. Sometimes feeling that the enemy was on our trail and as our lodgings were not yet laid out, we had to work and live separately in different caves. Once I returned there from work in another region, and as rain had been pouring heavily, I saw snakes and insects creeping into our cave. Uncle seemed to bother little about all this and carried on as if nothing had happened. He used to say, “The struggle between the enemy and us is one of life and death; we must courageously endure all hardships, overcome all difficulties and carry on the fight to the end.”
However difficult the situation might be, his simple way of life never changed. His meals were frugal; he ate rice with a slice of salted meat or a fish that had just been caught in the stream. For him, revolutionary work must be above everything else. He never cared a bit about where he had to live or the meals he was served with.
After his arrival in Cao Bang, what he did first and foremost was to publish the paper Viet Lap, the abbreviated form of Vietnam Doc Lap (Independent Vietnam), a task of prime importance closely connected with that of consolidating Cao Bang as a base. Just a flat piece of stone, a bottle of ink, and some paper constituted all the printing materials. Though it was of small size, its effect was very great. The Viet Lap was like a cadre who most effectively and rapidly carried out propaganda and organizational work, who fought for, and enhanced the revolution’s influence. After I had been back from Tsingsi and during the time I stayed at the office, I was entrusted with writing news for the paper or treatises on self-defense work, women’s work, or writing on the crimes committed by the French and Japanese. Uncle gave me the limit for each of these articles: fifty words, a hundred words, and no more. Of course, it was not easy to achieve this. More than once I was at a loss. During the time we were in Tsingsi, we also published a lithographed paper. The print was small but the paper was large. When I returned to Cao Bang for work, he smiled and said, “We have received your articles but I didn’t read them, nor did the other comrades. Usually they were long and unintelligible. The Viet Lap, though written in simple terms, was legible and could be understood easily.” Later when I came to various localities for work I saw myself that the Viet Lap was welcomed by the broad masses. Uncle decided that the paper should be sold instead of being distributed free. “He who pays for it will love it,” he said. Gradually, the Viet Lap became a very effective propagandist, agitator, and organizer. It was regularly read in every village, in every national salvation group.
The growth of the Viet Lap meant also the growth of the revolution. The Vietminh movement had already spread to many districts in the mountain region as well as the delta. Associations for national salvation sprang up in every village. Party cells were organized where the movement developed. There existed whole villages, whole cantons, and whole districts in the mountain region where every person was a member of an organization for national salvation. A duality of power came into being in nearly all the localities where the Party had its branches. Village authorities sided with the revolution, became members of organizations for national salvation and in whatever they did, Vietminh committees were consulted before-hand. In reality our own administration already dealt with nearly all the people’s affairs. The inhabitants came to us for marriage registration, for settling their land disputes. Orders were given by French provincial and district military authorities to set up guard posts in every village as defense measures against revolutionary activities. But unfortunately for them, there existed right in the village revolutionaries for whom both militiamen and villagers had sympathy. As a result, the majority of these guard posts did not yield their authors the expected results. In many localities they were turned into our own communication links or guard posts.
Together with the expansion of our organization for national salvation, we organized self-defense units, and sought to give them arms. At the end of 1941, within little more than half a year following the Eighth Session of the Central Committee, and the setting up of the Vietminh Front, there were in Cao Bang province many bases for self-defense armed units. The first one set up in Cao Bang was of the size of a section.
Many pamphlets such as Guerrilla Tactics, Experience in Guerrilla Warfare in Russia, Experience in Guerrilla Warfare in China were written by Uncle and lithographed with the aim of propagating military knowledge among the people. They were much appreciated and avidly read by members of self-defense units and associations for national salvation.
The movement spread. Our headquarters gradually shifted toward the delta together with the southward expansion of the movement, according to the decision of the Eighth Session of the Central Committee.
We moved to Lam Son.
Lam Son is a region covered by laterite mountains. It was in this red-blockhouse region, as we called it, that our first Party Inter-Provincial Committee set up its headquarters. The provinces of Cao Bang, Lang Son, and Bac Can had had their leading organ for which we became an advisory committee appointed by the Central Committee with the task of helping the Party Inter-Provincial Committee. We were located in a dense forest on the border between the Hoa An and Nguyen Binh districts. Uncle was also with us. We first stayed in a house built on poles on a mountain slope. This was for us an improvement, much better than Pac Bo.
But the more the movement grew, the more the imperialists stepped up their terror, especially when we had come close to their top provincial organ. Their patrols came quite close to our place and arrested many people. Many times, we had to shift to the region of the Man Trang people, in a vast and thick forest until then untrodden by man, where now and then centuries-old trees fell from old age and decay. We drank water from the streams. Food supply was very difficult. We ate maize or maize gruel. Once we could spare some rice and decided to give it to Uncle, but he refused. He never thought that he was old and weak and gladly shared hardship with us. Sometimes maize and wild banana trunks were our only food for a whole month.
The more the enemy intensified their terror, the more Uncle paid minute attention to the movement. This could be seen not only in every idea of his on revolutionary work but also in the special care he gave it. When the cadres came from various regions, he inquired in detail about their work, their living conditions, the difficulties they had to face and together with them discussed ways of solving them, be they more or less important.
When the movement surged up, all of us were happy, sharing the people’s enthusiasm. He also was gay, but he remained calm, as was his habit, and often at such times, he foresaw the difficulties lying ahead.
He constantly reminded us: a revolutionary must always be patient, calm, and vigilant.
I recall once when we were in Kwangsi, we had an appointment in Tsingsi with a liaison man from the Central Committee at home. The meeting took place at Lu Sung market, on a market day. We were dressed like the Nung people. Uncle was 100 percent like an old Nung with his blue clothes, his trousers rolled up above the knees, and a stick in his hand. Hardly had the liaison man seen Uncle than he hurriedly announced, “Comrade T. has been arrested.” But Uncle calmly took us to an inn nearby for a little rest just as the local people usually did. After taking vermicelli soup we leisurely drank tea; then he said, “Now, tell us all that happened at home. Don’t be in a hurry.”
On another occasion, when we had returned to Cao Bang, after the Eighth Session of the Central Committee, Phung Chi Kien and a number of other comrades were sent by the Central Committee to Bac Son to help consolidate and expand the guerrilla base there. He set up a military training course which had just ended when the imperialists launched a fierce mopping-up operation in the locality. Part of the Bac Son platoon of the National Salvation Army, while fighting their retreat to Cao Bang, was attacked by the enemy at Bac Can, and Phung Chi Kien fell in an enemy ambush in Lung Sao, Ngan Son district. The heartrending news of his death came to us when we were on our way to a conference. Uncle stopped suddenly, and tears streamed down his cheeks. Only after a while could he resume his way.
Every time we returned to our headquarters and saw him, we felt as if we returned to our own home, a home where revolutionaries lived together like brothers of a family, keeping in mind that they must endure hardships and that revolutionary work must be long. He often said, “In everything we must be prompted by the Party’s interests. The Party is like our own family.” We learned a great deal from his patience, his calmness. The warm feeling of solidarity when we were together gave us confidence in the outcome of the revolution and permeated all our thinking, our words, our deeds.
We came to Lam Son just when the popular movement was developing strongly. Each monthly military training course organized by the Inter-Provincial Committee drew in from fifty to sixty persons. The third course, held first in Kim Ma district, had to be shifted to another place before it was destroyed by the enemy. The latter, when coming to the place, could not conceal their surprise on seeing that, though deep in the forest, there was everything: lecturing hall, dining rooms, dormitory, and a training ground large enough for hundreds of persons.
As the movement was mounting, its consolidation was a task of prime importance. First, we organized training courses only at the district or provincial headquarters, grouping students from various localities. Later, Uncle deemed it necessary to organize mobile training groups moving from one locality to another, short-term training courses of a few days for even two or three persons. These were regrouped for the purpose or could come in between their daily work. In this way, members of national salvation organizations and village self-defense units could, one after another, be trained. As we came from other parts of the country, Uncle always insisted on our paying particular attention to the question of national unity. Such a great question was described by him under the form of concrete, effective, and easy tasks. For instance he said, “Be practical in work, be in harmony with the masses in your way of living and social contacts.” As for myself, I strove to learn the Tho, the Man Trang, and the Man Tien languages during the training courses from the students themselves and could speak a little of each of these languages. Thus, under Uncle’s direct leadership, the cadres and masses of various nationalities of Cao Bang province upheld the spirit of unity in the struggle.
When the movement was expanding, he paid particular attention to organization work and closely followed the activists and cadres. “The movement is like the rising tide,” he often said, “the activists are like piles driven into the earth, only with these piles can silt be retained when the tide ebbs.” As a rule, almost every time he heard a report on the movement, he asked, “How many cadres have been trained? How many activists have come to the fore? How many people have been selected for admission to the Party?” Then he reminded us to keep secrecy, and the way to do it. This enabled us to realize the important role played by the activists of the Party cells. Every query or piece of advice of his brought new tasks with new solutions, for he did not abide by the old routine and took into consideration the new situation.
All the tasks set by the Eighth Session of the Central Committee were carried out one after another along with the development of the movement. The question of the Southward March was put in the forefront. Besides maintaining contacts through usual secret liaison links, we deemed it urgent to organize southward liaison from Cao Bang through the broad masses.
We set out to work. Uncle went abroad. Time passed rapidly as we threw all our energies into our work.
One day, when we had fought our way to Ngan Son district and were organizing a training course for local cadres, we received an urgent letter from Pham Van Dong asking us to return immediately to Cao Bang. Upon arrival we learned that Uncle had been arrested in China by Chiang Kai-shek troops and had died in prison. I fainted. We suffered greatly and were at a loss. We decided to report the news to the Central Committee and planned to hold memorial services for him. Pham Van Dong was entrusted with writing the funeral oration. We opened his rattan portmanteau to see what he had left which could be kept as a remembrance. Nevertheless, we wanted to send someone to China to get confirmation of the news and also to know the place of his tomb. All this is still fresh in my memory. After days of worry, I went again to Ngan Son district, accompanied by a comrade of the Southward March group. We walked at night along the flanks of deserted tiger-grass-covered mountains, through biting cold under a serene sky. Sadness seized me. Tears crept down my cheeks. Some time later, we received most unexpectedly a paper from China. On its cover were written these words which we recognized immediately as written by Uncle, “Wish all brothers at home good health. Hope you are striving in work. I am quite well.” There followed a poem by him:
The clouds embrace the peaks, the peaks embrace the clouds,
The river below shines like a mirror, spotless and clean.
On the crest of the Western Mountains, my heart stirs as I wander
Looking toward the Southern sky and dreaming of old friends.
We were overjoyed, but extremely astonished. We looked at one another and asked, “Why is that? What does it mean?” We gathered around Cap, the man who had brought us the news of Uncle’s death in China, and asked him for explanations. Cap said, “I don’t know myself what happened. It was a Kuomintang officer who told me that.”
We asked him to repeat exactly what the Kuomintang officer had said. He did. Perhaps, we thought, he had mistaken the word su lo, su lo, which means “yes, yes,” for su la, su la, which means “already dead.” As a result, we had been tormented for months by pain and sorrow.
Our Southward March was steadily progressing. It drew in ever greater numbers of cadres and enjoyed an ever mightier response from the youth. Hundreds of boys and girls in Cao Bang province left their families and took part in various armed shock-operative groups. The road had by then been fought through from the Phia Biooc Mountain southward to the limits of Cho Chu. We had arrived at Nghia Ta village, Cho Don district. From Nghia Ta we went straight to the foot of the hill named Lang Coc and entered a burned-out clearing deep in the forest where we met Chu Van Tan and a number of combatants of the National Salvation Army from Bac Son. Thus, two roads had been opened, all along which local organizations had been set up, and armed forces organized. We finally met together, linking up a road surrounding the provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Can, and Lang Son, which had been decided upon at the Central Committee Plenum, namely, to open the way for southward expansion, and for communicating with the Central Committee and the nationwide movement. At that historic junction we had a meeting with the Bac Son cadres working in the region and those of the Southward March group to exchange experiences. After the meeting, a small festival was held. We sang for joy. Nghia Ta was thus dubbed “Victory village.”
Later on I returned to Cao Bang. It was Lunar New Year’s Day. Cadres belonging to some twenty Southward March groups who had opened up their way southward also came to enjoy their success. The Central Committee of the Vietminh Front and the Cao-Bac-Lang Party branch presented them with a flag on which was written “Successful shock work.”
While the movement developed steadily and enthusiastically, the enemy began their terrorist raids.
After we had parted with the combatants for national salvation and as we passed by Ra market, the news came that Due Xuan, head of a Southward March of the locality had just been killed in an ambush near Phu Thong. At Cao Bang, the Inter-Provincial Committee headquarters was besieged. Once the printing shop of the Viet Lap was shelled.
In all localities, proclamations and admonitions were issued by the imperialists warning the population not to sympathize with the Vietminh, to continue to carry on their daily work. Those families whose members had gone with the Vietminh must call them back. But there was no response to this appeal. The imperialists’ scheme failed woefully.
Then came terror. Cadres were arrested, whole families whose members had secretly joined the movement were arrested, their houses burned, their property confiscated. Many villages and hamlets were razed to the ground. Those arrested who had revolutionary papers on them, were immediately shot, beheaded, or had their arms cut off and exhibited at market places. Thousands of piasters and tons of salt were promised as rewards to those who could bring in a revolutionary cadre’s head. Then just as they had done in Vu Nhai and Bac Son, the imperialists proceeded to concentrate the population into camps to make their control easier.
Under such circumstances, Anti-Terror Volunteer Committees were set up. The people’s fighting spirit against terror ran high. Secret groups maintained close contact with them, carrying on propaganda and organizational work, exhorting, consolidating, and strengthening their spirit, enabling professional cadres and youths to join the bases in safety. Owing to that, revolutionary bases in certain regions became smaller but consolidated. In many localities which had been subjected to the enemy’s terrorist operation, the movement surged up again and armed struggle began.
Members of secret groups which were the nuclei of the revolutionary movement in every locality took more feverishly to training themselves militarily and to raising their political understanding. Regular armed sections, some of platoon size, were organized in the districts. These local armed platoons carried out propaganda work, annihilated the most reactionary elements, or ambushed enemy patrols. The Southward March group, for their part, re-established the mass road links interrupted by the enemy terrorist operations. Thus the large-scale terrorist campaign launched by the imperialists, though creating difficulties for us, steeled further the fighting spirit of both cadres and people, once we had stood the test. That spirit was the essential condition for our advance toward armed insurrection.
In June 1944 the terrorist campaign still raged.
But the general situation became more and more unfavorable for the fascists. In Europe, the German fascists suffered telling blows at Stalingrad. The Red Army launched repeated offensives. The second front was opened. In the Pacific area, a number of important naval bases around the Japanese territorial waters changed hands. In July 1944, the French reactionary government under Pétain collapsed. General de Gaulle returned to France at the heels of the United States and British troops and set up a new government. This situation sharpened the contradictions between the Japanese fascists and the French colonialists in Indochina. The Party foresaw an inevitable coup d’état staged by the Japanese fascists in order to destroy the French power. Throughout the country the revolutionary movement was spreading, and Vietminh organizations sprang up.
Under these circumstances, the Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee convened a conference at the end of July 1944, to discuss the question of armed insurrection. Many district groups attended the conference and at the same time carried out guard duty. Boundless was our joy, of all of us, to meet together to discuss a subject which we had so much longed for, after months of arduous struggle against the terrorist campaign. The political report to the conference concluded as follows: “On the basis of the situation in the world and in the country and the revolutionary movement in Cao-Bac-Lang provinces, it can be said that conditions are ripe for starting guerrilla warfare in these provinces.” Seething debate at the conference led directly to the decision that the insurrection be launched to keep pace with the general situation which was favorably developing. That explained why the debate was most animated though the solution could not yet be found for many important and concrete tasks such as how to defend those liberated areas against the enemy’s counterattack. What measures should be adopted, and tasks done, to carry out a drawn-out fight? Nevertheless, the cadres were most enthusiastic, all burning with the desire to bring back this important decision to their respective localities as soon as possible.
The Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee planned to hold another conference together with us with a view to finding a solution to these pending questions and to decide when to start guerrilla warfare.
In the meantime, we learned that Uncle had just returned to the country.
I was sent to Pac Bo together with Vu Anh and some other comrades to report to him on the situation and to ask for his instructions.
As usual, he let us know his opinion immediately after we had finished our report. He criticized our decision saying that to start guerrilla warfare in Cao-Bac-Lang provinces was only to act on the basis of the local situation and not on the concrete situation of the whole country.
Under present conditions, he said, if guerrilla warfare is to be waged at once throughout the country on the scale and scope mentioned in the decision, great and numerous will be the difficulties we will have to face. They will be greater still than those we had already undergone during the last terror campaign. For not a single locality outside Cao-Bac-Lang is yet sufficiently prepared for armed struggle to be able to rise up in response to the decision even though the movement is mounting throughout the country. The imperialists will rapidly concentrate their forces to cope with the situation. As for the Cao-Bac-Lang area itself, we could not yet, as far as the military viewpoint was concerned, concentrate our forces, while our cadres and arms were still scattered, and we still lacked the nucleus forces.
His analysis was as follows: “Now, the period of peaceful development of the revolution is over, but that of nationwide uprising has not yet begun. To limit ourselves now solely to carrying out our work under political form is not sufficient to speed up the movement. But if we start armed insurrection right now, our forces will be destroyed by the enemy. The present struggle must necessarily proceed from the political form to the military form. But for the time being more importance must still be given to the political form. We must, therefore, adopt a more appropriate form in order to bring the movement forward.”
Also at that meeting, Uncle put forth the question of organizing the National Liberation Army. Turning to me, he said in conclusion, “This you should carry out. Can you do that? We are still weak, the enemy is strong. But we must not let them annihilate us, must we?”
I answered, “Yes, I’ll do it.”
Thus the Vietnam Liberation Unit came into being. Uncle thought it over and the next day proposed to add the word “propaganda” to its name in view of its present task. The Vietnam Liberation Unit then became the Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit. It had the task of using armed struggle to mobilize and arouse the population, but our guiding principle was to consist in attaching more importance to political activities, to propaganda than to armed attack. From the depth of the forest, he wrote instructions for the formation of regular units, the backbone of the military forces. These instructions became the main line of our army not only during that period but also during the hard and protracted war of resistance waged by our army and people.
We stayed on another day to assess the situation and draw up an all-sided plan for the formation of the future army. We reviewed the situation of the enemy, our own situation, the strength of our cadres, the problem of food supply, the regions in which our guerrilla bases were to be expanded first, and so on. In the cold and lightless hut, we rested our heads on wooden pillows and talked until far into the night. After listening to Uncle we impatiently looked to the forthcoming activities of the units. He insisted again and again, “There must be military activity within a month, the unit must launch a sudden attack and the first battle must be successful. This first military success will provide us with the best content for our propaganda work.”
The next day, just before we left, he again said, “Be secret, rapid, active, now in the East now in the West, arriving unexpectedly and leaving unnoticed.” On my way back, I thought out and wrote the ten-clause oath for the Propaganda Unit.
When we came to the Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee to report Uncle’s decision, all were overjoyed. The Propaganda Unit immediately came into being. Cadres and arms were called for. The thirty-four comrades who originally composed the first unit were chosen from section leaders, platoon commanders, or from outstanding members of local armed groups. In addition, there were also a number of cadres who had just returned to the country after their military training in China. Thus, in the Cao-Bac-Lang area, there took shape three kinds of armed groups: the Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit which was the main armed force, the district armed groups, and the village self-defense semiarmed units. These three forces closely coordinated their activities. I had asked Uncle previously, “Now that the Propaganda Unit operates according to the plan of the Inter-Provincial Committee, what will be its obligations and rights as regards the local armed groups in the localities where it will be carrying out its activities?” His answer was, “There must be unified command.” This was put into execution right away. During the hard and drawn-out war of resistance carried out by our people as a whole, this combat watchword was thoroughly applied and its effect remained extremely powerful.
By mid-December 1944, on the eve of the founding of the Propaganda and Liberation Unit, I received Uncle’s instructions written on a small piece of paper inserted into a packet of cigarettes. The instructions read as follows: “The Vietnam Propaganda Unit for National Liberation is the first one born. I hope many others will soon come into being. Its size is small, but its prospects are brilliant. It is the embryo of the Liberation Army, and may have to move throughout the country from north to south.”
Two days after the founding of the unit, we started our activities and won the first victories at Phai Khat and Na Ngan.
These two sudden attacks against the Phai Khat and Na Ngan posts, which resulted in their being annihilated, were swift and victorious operations. As they took place in a border region between Cao Bang, Bac Can, and Lang Son provinces, the news of victory spread rapidly and stirred the three provinces.
After the victory, we went to the Thien Thuat base to expand the unit into a company. Reinforcements came from various localities. To see our new company standing in neat rows and armed with new rifles and shining bayonets filled us with jubilance and confidence. After our first victories at Phai Khat and Na Ngan, we had seized a large amount of ammunition. At that time, ammunition was much more valued than guns.
Later we marched northward to Bao Lac district close to the Vietnam-China border. Our troops went through the villages situated high on the mountains and inhabited by the Man people. Everywhere we went, we were welcomed and cheered by the local people, especially by Man mothers who showed high esteem for the revolutionary troops, greeting us most affectionately and feasting us. At Bao Lac, we launched a sudden attack against the Dong Mu post. Our troops sang joyfully while fighting. I was injured in the leg.
With our presence at Bao Lac, the imperialists might think that all of us were there. To put them off the scent, we moved rapidly and most secretly back to Hoang Hoa Tham district, on the eve of the Lunar New Year’s Day. In Hoang Hoa Tham forest, houses had been built and supplies stored for us by the local people, many of whom, old as they were, left their families to enjoy the New Year’s Day festival with us in the forest.
Vu Anh, Pham Van Dong, and others of the Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee also came to visit our troops. We discussed the continuation of the Southward March. Immediately after their departure, we learned that the Japanese coup d’état had just taken place on March 9, 1945.
The Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit moved out from the jungle to the Kim Ma Plain in broad daylight, unfurling their golden-starred red flag. The population was overjoyed.
We marched southward, toward the delta. In every locality we passed through, we set up revolutionary power, disarmed the enemy, and called on the French remnant troops to cooperate with us in fighting the Japanese. New units of the revolutionary army were organized. The Cao-Bac-Lang Inter-Provincial Committee ordered the setting-up of people’s power and launched a vast guerrilla movement against the Japanese. Companies of the Liberation Army were formed in the districts of Soc Giang, Cao Bang, Bao Lac, Nguyen Binh, That Khe. Soc Giang and a number of other district towns were attacked by local armed units. At Nuoc Hai, during a drive to enroll the youth into the Liberation Army, more than three thousand volunteered.
This was an unprecedented, historic scene.
Continuing our march southward, we reached Cho Chu and then Tan Trao.
At Tan Trao, we were heartened to find that the Bac Son bases had already been expanded to there. Guerrilla warfare had already been started and revolutionary power established in all the districts of Thai Nguyen province. The Tan Trao region was under Song Hao’s guidance. The Liberation forces and the National Salvation forces had thus joined.
This time we met each other in a situation different from that of earlier days. The revolution had taken a step forward. The door-die battle against the Japanese had been waged. In their attempts to destroy the revolution, the Japanese from Thai Nguyen and Bac Giang cities launched attack after attack against the liberated area but in vain. The movement in the Cao-Bac-Lang area was not as it had been when the French imperialists unleashed their terror campaign. The population in the liberated area now had revolutionary power and the people throughout the country had heroically risen against the Japanese.
The Southward March reached Tan Trao, thus enabling the Cao Bang and Bac Son centers to link up, and the door was wide open for us to advance toward the delta.
On April 15, 1945, the Central Committee convened the Revolutionary Military Conference of North Vietnam at Hiep Hoa district, Bac Giang province. On our way back to Cho Chu after the conference, we stopped to attend a meeting on May Day. At that time the German fascists had already surrendered to the Allies in Europe. It was also reported that Uncle had crossed the border from China and was coming to us, by the road he had himself planned for the Propaganda Unit.
We hurriedly set out to meet him, our horses galloping, and not thinking of taking a rest. We reached Deo Re, passed Nghia Ta, and met him at Ha Kien where he had just arrived.
This was the first time I had met him since the day he entrusted me with organizing the Propaganda Unit. How many hardships we had undergone, how many successes won since then! I hastened to report to him, “The liberated area has been expanded….” I told him what had been going on since he ordered the founding of the Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit, about the steady development of the popular movement in the regions we had passed through. He listened attentively and calmly, his face beaming with joy.
He said that the world situation was also favorable to us. Furthermore, we had to choose in the Cao-Bac-Lang or Tuyen Quang-Thai Nguyen areas a place where the population was reliable, a place dotted with strong revolutionary organizations and favorable geographical conditions; in short, a place that could be used as a center for promoting relations with the outside world on the one hand and with other parts of the country on the other. That should be done immediately. Many urgent tasks demanded it.
I returned to Kim Quan Thuong and conferred with Song Hao. We suggested Tan Trao, a region with steep mountains and deep forests situated between Tuyen Quang and Thai Nguyen provinces, far from the highway. There in Tan Trao, revolutionary power had been set up, and the people were enthusiastically supporting the revolution. Learning that revolutionary bodies would come to stay in their locality, members of various people’s organizations for national salvation came in great numbers, helping us in many ways, building houses for the leading organs, for the anti-Japanese military and political school, and so on.
Uncle arrived at Tan Trao. The period from 1941 to 1945 were years of hardship in fighting our way from Pac Bo to Tan Trao during which the population of Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen provinces, especially in Bac Son and Vu Nhai districts, fought heroically and made of the Viet Bac zone a nucleus of the national anti-Japanese movement.
After listening to a detailed report on the situation, Uncle reviewed the decision of the North Vietnam Revolutionary Military Conference held in April. He said, “The division of provinces into so many military zones is too cumbersome and unfavorable for achieving a common command.” Now, as the liberated area covered many provinces—Cao Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, and Thai Nguyen—it would be better to include them in one base named the “Liberated Area”; our troops would then be called “Liberation Army.” On June 4, 1945, he suggested that a draft amendment be made with regard to the decision of the North Vietnam Military Conference on the founding of the Liberated Area and that a conference of all cadres in the area be convened to discuss the formation of a unified command. But the war zones in the Liberated Area were practically in a state of emergency; no one could afford to come. I was the only man to assume permanent duty at the Provisional Command Committee of the Liberated Area set up in Tan Trao, maintaining, on the one hand, contact with Cao Bang, Bac Son, and abroad, and on the other, with the zones where Le Thanh Nghi and Tran Dang Ninh were working, with the Central Committee and the other parts of the country. Every day, I came to Uncle’s office to report on the situation and to discuss with him the work to be done. Only after a telephone set had been captured in an attack against Tam Dao post by the Liberation troops, could we have a three-hundred-yard telephone line between his office and mine.
For more than two months, events occurred rapidly. In Tan Trao, in view of the new situation and of our new tasks, we published the paper Vietnam Moi (New Vietnam).
According to the Central Committee decision, active preparations should be made for the convening of the Party National Conference and the Congress of People’s Representatives. Uncle urged that preparations should be made for these two meetings to begin in July. He said that as the situation was very pressing, the meetings should be held, even if certain delegates would not be able to come. Otherwise we could not keep pace with the general situation which was fast developing. Only in mid-August could the meetings be held despite the urgent preparations because delegates of the Party and of other democratic organizations within the Vietminh Front could not reach Tan Trao before that time.
Though very busy, Uncle kept on working most industriously, paying special care to concrete details. He himself wrote and typed letters and documents, giving each item a serial number. Messengers and letters kept on streaming to all parts of the country and assumed a more and more pressing character.
Right in the midst of such pressure of work, Uncle fell ill. For days, he had felt tired and had fever, but he continued to work. Every time I came to discuss work with him and inquired about his health he simply said that I should come as usual as he was quite well. But I saw that his health had declined seriously, and he looked very haggard. One day when I came, he was in bed with an attack of fever accompanied by delirium. We only had some tablets of aspirin and quinine, which had no curative effect on him. Usually he lay down only during rest hours, but now he had to keep to his bed. Of his closest collaborators, I was then the only one to be with him at Tan Trao. One day, seeing that he was seriously ill, I asked permission to stay the night with him. Only after I had insisted, saying that I was not very busy that night, did he open his eyes and nod lightly. That night, in his hut on the flank of a mountain deep in the jungle, every time the coma passed, he talked about the situation: “Now, the favorable moment has come, whatever sacrifice we have to make, whatever obligation we have to meet, even if we have to fight a battle scorching the whole of Truong Son range we will fight it until independence is won.” Each time he recalled something, he wanted us to keep it in mind. We dared not think that these were his last words. But later we realized that, feeling himself worn out, he really wanted to remind us about work, and only work. He said that to consolidate the movement it was necessary always to foster the activists and local cadres. He said, “In guerrilla warfare we must strive to develop the movement when it is at high tide. Meanwhile we must do our utmost to consolidate our bases, which would be our foothold in case of reverse.”
Throughout that night, at close intervals, he fell into a coma. On the morrow, I wrote an urgent letter to the Central Committee. I also tried to find some medicines from among the local inhabitants. On being told that there was nearby an eastern physician of the Tho minority who was very skillful in curing fever, I immediately sent for him. He felt Uncle’s pulse and forehead, and gave him a medicine which was a tubercle he had dug out in the forest. The tubercle was to be burned and taken with light rice gruel. After some days of this treatment his fever gradually abated, and soon he could resume his daily work. On the day he attended the Party National Conference held in early August, he still looked very pale and gaunt.
The situation at home and abroad and the development of the revolutionary movement were very pressing.
The Party National Conference and the Congress of People’s Representatives wound up. From Tan Trao the order for general insurrection was dispatched throughout the country. I received the order from the Central Committee to prepare for the combat. On August 16, with the Liberation Army I left Tan Trao to attack the Japanese at Thai Nguyen, which was the first town to be freed from the enemy’s hands on our march to Hanoi.
The situation was fast developing. While besieging the Japanese in Thai Nguyen, we received news that the insurrection had already taken place in many localities. People’s power had already been established in Hanoi. According to a new decision, a part of the Liberation Army continued its operations against Thai Nguyen, while the rest, among which I was, went straight to Hanoi.
All through that night we marched from Thai Nguyen to Lu Van, passing through immense ricefields, now and again looking at the starlit sky that stretched over the interminable row of telegraph poles which flanked our road. There was a forest of golden-starred red flags everywhere. How moving and enthusiastic was the sight of the fatherland recovering independence! This was the second time I had such unaccustomed feelings since the day when the Japanese coup d’état had overthrown the French. Our Propaganda and Liberation Unit left the Hoang Hoa Tham forest and marched in broad daylight across the Kim Ma Plain, with the golden-starred red flag fluttering over our heads.
The August revolution triumphed. The whole country was seething with jubilation at the turning point of our national history. But in these very first days of the revolution all sorts of complicated problems emerged. Uncle returned to Hanoi. He had not yet recovered from the illness he suffered previously in Tan Trao. Nevertheless, he had to attend conferences, receive all sorts of visitors and deal with so many affairs. Each day, he was busy until noon or 1:00 P.M. When he took meals (the same as those served to office workers) they were usually cold. After meals he would sit at his desk, leaning against the back of his chair, have a nap, then resume his day’s work (exchanging views with the Standing Bureau of the Central Committee and so on) until late into the night. But he was always lively and clear-sighted in dealing with everything. Only on seeing his forehead covered with sweat while he dozed off, could one realize that he was utterly exhausted.
Just as he had said years previously, our Vietnam Liberation Army would have to go from north to south. After the triumph of the revolution, liberation troops emerged in every locality and in the first days of the revolution, when the French colonialists coming at the heels of the British troops started war in South Vietnam, many units of the Vietnam Liberation Army got ready to go south. These were not merely platoons of some dozens as before but thousands of young patriots from every locality who, responding to the appeal of the revolution, resolutely went south to fight the aggressors. Throughout the country, every day witnessed moving, encouraging scenes of these youths piling into long trains which took them to the southern part of their fatherland to fight together with their compatriots there for national independence. The soil in South Vietnam was thus soaked with the blood of the combatants of the Vietnam Liberation Army.
Then came the national resistance. All through that protracted and hard war, the Vietnam army enjoyed uncle’s solicitude just as it did at its inception when it was only a small armed unit in the liberated area. It may be rightly said that our army, which stems from the people, has been brought up according to the ideas and way of life of the Party and of Uncle.
He was used to prompt and timely decisions. In the winter of 1947, French troops parachuted into many localities of Viet Bac (northern Vietnam) with the aim of striking deep in our base. When the battle was raging, a report on the military situation was presented to the Standing Bureau of the Central Committee and to him, with the proposal to set up “independent companies” * in order to step up guerrilla warfare in accordance with the situation at the battlefront. The proposal was immediately approved.
When the Central Committee decided on the launching of the Cao-Lang border campaign in 1950, Uncle gave orders to the troops “only to win”; then he went straight to the front, visited nearly all the army units, and stayed at the front during the whole campaign. His living quarters, which shifted according to the movement of the battle, was a canvas tent set up in the open.
Again, when the northwest campaign started, Uncle gave instructions to issue the Eight-Point Order of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the troops entrusted with liberating the western area. Many cadres who took part in that campaign still keep fresh in their memory his presence at the conference which was to decide on the launching of the campaign. That was an unforgettable event. It rained heavily for days prior to the holding of the conference. Streams swelled, cutting the roads. He had to ford swollen and fast-running streams to come to the conference. He told us all that had happened and how resolute he was to get across the streams. Many local people who had come to the place before him and did not know what to do followed his example, and all succeeded in reaching the opposite bank. Knowing that fording swollen streams in rainy days was not an easy thing, and seeing that he came to the conference in time, all of us were moved by the solicitude he showed to the army. Moreover, we considered it a most valuable lesson for us before we went to the battlefront. That lesson was, as he often said, “Determination, determination; with determination one can do everything successfully.”
He is the incarnation of a great energy, an energy which possesses a great mobilizing force and of which nothing can stand in the way. On that very first day when I met him in Kunming I got an impression which I failed to distinguish, the impression of standing before a man endowed with a simple, lucid, resolute, and steady mind. And today, he is still that kind of man.
Several years ago, at the setting-up of the Vietnam Propaganda and Liberation Unit, he again and again advised us to be active, quick in taking initiative, to act secretly during the combat, to come unseen and to go unnoticed, and to go throughout the country from north to south. More than nine years later, when the revolutionary army had become a full-fledged and powerful fighting force, just when our troops had triumphed at Dien Bien Phu and enemy troops had capitulated, we received his message saying, among other things, “Though great is the victory it is only the beginning.”
Every piece of advice of his at a given time has its particular meaning. But there is one common thing we have found in his teachings, several years ago or at the time of the Dien Bien Phu victory, and that is the spirit inherent in them: consistency, calmness, firmness, simplicity, steadfastness, perseverance in the fight until victory, upholding the great spirit of the Party, of the working class, and of our people as a whole.
This memoir appeared under the title “President Ho Chi Minh, Father of the Vietnam Revolutionary Army” in the collection Days with Ho Chi Minh (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, rev. ed., 1962), pp. 179–228. It was not, in the strict sense, written by Giap, but his oral account was recorded and edited by those compiling the original volume.
* Despite the fact that Admiral Decoux, the French governor general in Indochina, had yielded to their ultimatum and signed an agreement granting Japan the right to establish three air bases and garrison six thousand troops in Vietnam, the Japanese launched an attack on the same day, September 22, on the cities of Lang Son and Dong Dang in northern Tonkin. Lang Son surrendered on September 24, and the following day all French resistance to the Japanese crumbled.
* Giap’s wife and infant, both of whom were to die during World War II.
* A member of the Central Committee, killed in July 1941 in a clash with the French.
† A veteran cadre and soldier; now an officer in the Vietnam People’s Army.
‡ Leader of the Dong Du (Go East) movement and of many other movements against the French from 1904 to 1925, when he was arrested in Shanghai. He lived under house arrest in Hue subsequently and died on October 29, 1941.
* A member of the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party, executed by the French May 24, 1941.
* Following the agreement reached at Nanking by the Chinese Communists and the Kuomintang on September 22, 1937, the Red Army in the Yenan area was renamed the Eighth Route Army.
* An old nationalist who had lived in China since before World War I. The Kuomintang placed him at the head of the moderate nationalist coalition organized under their auspices during World War II (known as the Vietnam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi).
* The revolutionary traditions of Cao Bang go back to 1929, when the Young Comrades Association had many adherents in this region. When the Communist Party was founded the following year, a number of cells were organized in Cao Bang, and many were preserved during the most difficult years of the 1930’s. In the Popular Front period, numerous meetings were held there in support of the All Indochina Party Congress. In the repression which followed, the cadres were forced underground, but they maintained their political strength.
* Le Quang Ba is now commander of the air force of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Hoang Sam is now a general in the Vietnam People’s Army. Bang Giang is now a general in the Vietnam People’s Army, responsible for the conduct of military affairs in the Viet Bac zone.
† The Nung, Tho, and Man minorities (see below) are ethnic groupings who live traditionally in the mountainous Sino-Vietnamese border regions. These tribes were usually hostile to the ethnic Vietnamese; autonomous in their cultural, economic, and political life; and neglected by the central authorities. Often these tribesmen (and especially the women) did not speak the Vietnamese language, and Vietminh organizers, including Giap, were obliged to learn local dialects and resort to crude drawings in order to propagate their ideas. Despite these difficulties, the tribes were to play an important role in the early days of the Vietminh.
* Less than a mile from the Chinese border.
† A veteran cadre, now a member of the Political Bureau and deputy chairman of the National Assembly of the D.R.V.
* In autumn-winter 1947, the Central Committee decided to launch widespread guerrilla warfare in all French-occupied areas. One part of the regular army was scattered in independent companies, whose task was to penetrate deep into the enemy rear to carry out propaganda and armed activities.
