Military Art of People's War. Vo Nguyen Giap

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      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 СКАЧАТЬ