CHARLIES LONG MARCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100300011-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: July 1, 1966
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

RAMPARTS
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CJiar1ie's 'ong mare
0 N THE battlefield the GI's call them "Charlie"; at head-
quarters in Saigon, the "V.C." In the conservative papers
they're the Viet Cong and in the liberal press, the "NLF."
In the East they are "the Front" or "our glorious comrades of the
Vietnamese liberation army." In the West one would prefer not
to call them anything. One fights them without knowing them.
b\TAJ0'*
LrL V l,{ 5F
G
lustration. by Dugald Stermer
25X1A9a Continued
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Seen from Washington they were at first a fiction. Now,
they are merely a faction. In the beginning it was a form
of Red banditry, a melange of folkloric agitation and
fanatical refusal to obey the decent laws of the good Mr.
Diem. Later one saw them as the advance guard of an
invasion of free South Vietnam by a North Vietnam
likened to Nazi Germany. This assumed a historical re-
semblance between Ho Chi Minh and Hitler which im-
pressed at least Mr. Rusk.
Today it is a matter of different "groups" manipulated
by the North but only representing, according to Mr.
Goldberg or Mr. Ball, and according to the time of day,
from one half to one and one half per cent of the popula-
tion. A feeble proportion, but so active, it would appear,
that with the support of Northern elements estimated at
25,000 men, it has prompted the shipment to Vietnam of
hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers, supporting a
"nationalist" army of more than 600,000. Accursed little
groups, who are not content with being tough in combat,
but w o have hved to}see themselves ac ,0ow[edged "the_
major factor on the South Vietnamese political, scene" by
George Carver A` gent and learned spokesman for
the most conservative circles df the Adrnmistratlon: m a
major articleln Foreign Affairs (Anl 1966)
WE CAN UNDERSTAND neither the nature nor
the present behavior of the "Viet Cong" with-
out recalling several stages in its historical
development. For revolution is not a new
phenomenon in South Vietnam - it is a "long march."
It begins in the early '30s, with the formation of the
Communist Party of Indochina (CPI), the appearance of
powerful Trotskyist groups in Saigon, and the growth of
politico-religious sects and the Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang,
the Vietnamese Kuomintang, more active in the North
but present also in the South.
A second stage, opening in 1945, is the anticolonial in-
surrection against France, which ends in 1954 with the
Geneva compromise. The revolutionaries of the South
foot the bill, for the South is left in the conservative hands
of Mr. Diem. The third stage in the history of the move-
ment is Saigon's refusal to implement the Geneva accords
(and to a lesser degree Hanoi's), touching off the formation
of a maquis of rebels in places like Quang-Ngay, Zone D
and the Plain of Jones. During the fourth stage, the North
becomes aware of the agitation in the South and seeks to
harness this revolutionary force which will serve its objec-
tives of reunification and socialization. And in the fifth
stage, Hanoi comes out openly in support of the revolts in
the South and gives its sponsorship to what is now officially
called the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
From here we see the radicalization of the movement.
It starts in 1961 after the creation of the People's Revolu.
tionary Party (PRP), the Communist section inside the
"Front." At the same time there is competition between
the autonomous "Southern" tendency in the NLF and
the growing influence of Hanoi, due to escalation of the
war and the increasing numbers of North Vietnamese
troops and cadres in the South.
Revolution in South Vietnam is an old story. It is not an
import from the North. In fact, political life under French
colonial rule is always more violent in the South than in
the North. The avowedly colonial regime imposed on the
South (the North is a mere protectorate) leaves Saigon
and its hinterland more open to modern and progressive
influences. And while nationalism is developing at Hue
and Hanoi, diverse revolutionary tendencies are making
themselves felt in Saigon and the back-country. In the
sizable French colony, largely composed of working class
whites, leftist ideas gain currency, particularly after 1935,
with a corresponding influence on the Vietnamese elites.
The system of land distribution, much more feudal in the
South, favors the flowering of radical movements, as does
the growth of a proletariat in the urban area around
Saigon. The CPI, created at Haiphong in 1930 at the insti-
gation of Ho Chi Minh (then known as Nguyen ai Quoc),
has a strong section in the South. And the Trotskyists are
strong enough in 1932 to win four or five seats in the Sai-
gon municipal election.
The Trotskyists owe much of their success to an excep-
tional leader, Ta Thu Tau, a popular figure known for his
fiery oratory. The Communists have a competent leader-
ship - Dr. Thach, Duong Bach Mai and Tran Van Giau
- but they suffer, up to 1941, from the conservative direc-
tives of their French "brother" party, then hogtied by its
support of the Popular Front government of Leon Blum.
During the war the Communists are persecuted, and sev-
eral dozen of them are sent to the prison at Poulo-Condors,
an island in the Indian Ocean still considered to be "the
university of the revolution."
If the Trotskyists are powerful in Saigon, the Commu-
nists are doubly so in the countryside. In 1941 a vast
dragnet operation is launched in the Mytho region, 50
miles south of Saigon in the Plain of Joncs, resulting in
the arrest of 3,000 Communists - which gives some idea
of the party's strength in the area. The Plain of Jones is to
become a stronghold of the Viet Minh, and later of the
Viet Cong. Few rural areas in the world of that time con-
tain so many avowed Marxists.
HE ELIMINATION of the French administration by
the Japanese in 1945, followed by the collapse
of the Japanese, creates a vacuum which gives
an extraordinary impetus to the Communists.
continued
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JUL 1966
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CPYRGHT
Ho Chi Minh marches on Hanoi with the guerrillas he
has been training for four years in southern China and
seizes power, with a sense of timing and a genius for tac-
tical alliances reminiscent of Lenin in 1917. But in the
South, the Communist high command, obsessed by its
rivalry with the Trotskyists, loses valuable time, devoting
its energies to ill-directed violence and repression (Ta Thu
Tau is assassinated). French units, freed from Japanese
prisons and assisted by the British regiments of General
Gracey, seize the occasion and take power. The responsi-
bility for the ineffectiveness of the Communists can be
laid to Tran Van Giau, whose fanaticism and taste for
violence leave him soon isolated and unpopular.
Defeated, the Communists of the South take to the
maquis, applying the strategy of alliances with the national-
ists so well defined by Ho Chi Minh at the time of the
creation of the Viet Minh Front and the dissolution of the
Communist party. Of the 12 members of the Committee
of Nam-Bo (South), Marxists hold only two posts (in-
terior and economy). Military affairs are directed by a
nationalist, the famed Nguyen Binh, who is to be liqui-
dated in 1952, probably on the orders of the North
Viet Minh high command.
The war against the French expeditionary corps is never
as hot in the South as in the North. But the battle in the
South has more political overtones and gives to the Com-
munists, more than to their allies, the opportunity to train
the population. They work the peasants "in depth," initiat-
ing an agrarian reform which succeeds better than in the
North and wins them a great prestige among the peasants.
As the war draws to a close in 1954, the Viet Minh con-
trols wide areas of South Vietnam - more than half the
Mekong Delta, the Camau peninsula in the far south and
Quang-Ngay, along the 14th parallel.
Nevertheless the Geneva powers - including the Rus-
sians, Chinese and Viet Minh - decide to divide Vietnam
at the 17th parallel, which will deprive the revolutionaries
of several millions of their partisans, about a fourth of
the population they formerly controlled. Viet Minh parti-
sans are to be regrouped into five zones, and then move
north. By and large the order is obeyed. The Communists
order about 100,000 men north, leaving 5,000 as cadres
for agitation, for the future. In carrying out the Geneva
formulas, the Communists have to put considerable pres-
sure on their nationalist allies, less ready than they to
respect a treaty guaranteed by Messrs. Molotov and Chou
En Lai. Once again, as in the years 1936-40, the Commu-
nists acquire a reputation as moderates and opportunists,
a reputation they will try to live down later.
Thus, in 1954, the revolutionary movement in the South
is delivered to the mercies of Mr. Diem. The Geneva
accords provide that no one may be prosecuted for his
activities during the war. But the Diem regime respects
the rule even less assiduously than the authorities in the
North. Pro-Viet Minh partisans in the South, Commu-
nists and nationalists alike, are soon to.be the victims of a
witch hunt. Feeling betrayed, they will not be very good
citizens of South Vietnam; nor will the survivors of the
sects crushed by Diem in 1955.
The underground begins to take form in 1956, in the
west, around Chaudoc and Long-Xuyen, and in the north-
western plantation zone, near the Caodaiste center of
Tayninh. The categorical refusal of the Saigon govern-
ment to hold the elections called for in the Geneva docu-
ments and the growing severity of the repression push the
revolutionaries into violent opposition.
Throughout the first phase of the revolt, it remains
purely "Southern." The cadres left behind by the Com-
munists play rather a moderating role, the watchword
from Hanoi being "respect of the Geneva agreements," in
accord with the then Moscow-and-Peking line. It is only
slowly that Marxists begin to penetrate the anti-Diem
movement. By this time the movement is anti-American
as well, in view of Washington's unequivocal support of
the Saigon government and the reinforcement of the U.S.
military mission. As early as 1959 the revolt has already
assumed sufficient magnitude for Diem to say on receiving
the Gaullist vice-president, Antoine Pinay, in Saigon:
"We, too, have our Algerian war ..."
STILL HANOI GUARDS its reserve, but emissaries sent
South report that the rebels are beginning to de-
nounce the cowardice of the Northern regime.
The Central Committee of the Lao-Dong (Com-
munist Party reconstituted in 1952) studies a report
presented by Le Duan, deputy secretary general and vet-
eran of the war in the South. Le Duan recommends that
North Vietnam give its total support to the anti-Diem
movement, arguing that the Geneva accords no longer
have any validity after the violations committed in the
South. About this time Diem pushes through a law per-
mitting the execution of suspects, and nullifies the land-
slide election to parliament of Dr. Dan, an outspoken but
firmly anticommunist opposition leader.
It is only in 1960 that Hanoi clearly assumes its respon-
sibilities. But it is not without considerable soul-searching.
The "Viet Cong" (abbreviation of Vietnam Cong San, or
Vietnamese Communists), as Messrs. Diem and Nhu like
to call them, have at this time only a small minority of
Communists in their ranks. Ho Chi Minh and his advisors
note, however, that the anti-Diem nationalists are re-
doubling their activity -m the solemn appeal of 18 leaders
in April calling for a return to democracy; feverish in-
trigue in the Army that will result in the abortive coup of
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Coatilluell
JUL 1966
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November 1960. Diem's regime appears to be tottering,
and the Communists fear being outdone by the national-
ists, fear the nationalists will be the beneficiaries of the
coming victory over Diem.
Then, at the Third Congress of the Lao-Dong, Septem-
ber 1960 in Hanoi, in the presence of a strong Soviet
delegation, Le Duan pushes through a program of ener-
getic support for the revolutionary movement in South
Vietnam. More important still, he is elected secretary-
general of the party, replacing Ho Chi Minh, who retains
the presidency. Thus the partisan of intervention in the
South is at the controls. He circulates to his comrades in
Hanoi the text of an appeal made the previous March by
"a group of veterans of the South Vietnamese resistance,"
which says the time has come for a general insurrection
against the "My-Diem" dictatorship ("My" means Amer-
ican). Ho Chi Minh and his comrades now intend to act
swiftly to take control of this movement.
It is thus with their open support that the creation of
the NLF is announced in December 1960, grouping to-
gether the forces which have struggled against Diem for
four years. To all appearances, Communists are in the mi-
nority. And the ten-point program announced by the NLF
might be that of almost any agrarian nationalist party of
the Third World, except, perhaps, for the denunciation of
American "imperialism" and "monopolies." The insist-
ence on neutralism, on independence for the South, on the
necessary alliance with Cambodia and Laos, gives the
impression that the movement seeks the help of a variety
of allies and prefers not to antagonize anyone but Saigon.
If Hanoi has surely approved the simple formula of an
organization that will serve as cadre and high command
for the uprising, it feels at the same time that this type of
Front (as in the time of Nguyen Binh, in 1950), gives the
nationalists an unnecessary predominance. These misgiv-
ings prompt the formation, early in 1962, of the People's
Revolutionary Party, a resurrection of the Southern sec-
tion of the CPI. This time the language is clearly Marxist,
and the job of this hard Communist cell is to channel and
control the activity of the Front.
The injection of the PRP inside the NLF - a spine, so
to speak - is one of the factors in the radicalization of
the Front. But this is not due simply to the calculations of
Hanoi. The realities of the extension of the war inevitably
give priority to elements that are the most battle-trained,
most experienced in organizing, closest to Hanoi and thus
most capable of making liaison with Northern units oper-
ating on Southern soil. These are estimated at 25,000
soldiers and specialists, comprising about 10 per cent of
the revolutionary forces. But more than anything else, it
is the U.S. bombings, North and South, that strengthen
the PRP position inside the NLF and give it authority
among the people.
Recent reports from "V.C." controlled zones show two
startling developments:
1. That PRP strength has grown in four years from
7,000 to nearly 100,000 partisans.
2. That PRP cadres are less inclined to use ruses with
the population, and tend to present themselves more and
more as Communists.
It is hardly astonishing that from the point of view of
the interests of the Party, a prolonged war is desirable.
What is more astonishing is to see this opinion shared by
Dean Rusk.
The long march of the "Viet Cong" is not finished. Ev-
erything indicates that as long as the war lasts, the move-
ment's orientation will move more and more toward the
left. But there is one other reality we must keep firmly in
mind, and that is the profoundly Southern character of
the movement. None of the fighters of the NLF, certainly,
would deny that their goal is as much the reunification of
Vietnam as its independence. But the program of the
Front, and the comments of its spokesmen on the need for
a long breathing period before reunification, show that
the Front is still deeply marked by the original history
of the revolutionary movement in South Vietnam. The
sects, the secret societies, the Communists, the national-
ists are still there, and to believe that they will blindly
accept dictation from the North is to falsify their histo'
and present development.
URIOUS, u we don tind the 0 C le ams O
C the Southern CPI at the head of the PRP,
neither Dr. Thach, who has become minister of
health in Hanoi, nor Duong Bach Mai, nor
Tran Van Giau, purged for ultra-left adventurism in 1945
and consigned to an honorific post in Hanoi. The key
figures in the PRP seem to be Vo Chi Cong, vice-president
and, it is believed, acting secretary-general of the NLF,
and General Trung, reputed to be a pseudonym for
Nguyen Son, a top aide of Viet Minh General Giap at the
time of Dien Bien Phu.
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