Military Art of People's War. Vo Nguyen Giap

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ