Military Art of People's War. Vo Nguyen Giap

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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