Land Reform: China and North Vietnam
China and Vietnam have gone through many changes over their lifetime. They have had dominant people in power that control what goes on in terms of the amount of land China and Northern Vietnam have gained or lost from their enemies. One major problem that still goes on to this day is land reform. Land reform occurs when the government takes the land from the dominant land lords and redistributes the property that was rightfully owned by the land lords and generously donates it to another individual.
The time frame I looked at about the struggles and problems that land reform brought up, was from 1953 – 1957. This process has caused a great deal of troubles and solved few situations. It has made their main focus worse. This focus consists of the land owners overpowering near by land dwellers, almost establishing a personal work force and maintaining the bridge between the rich and the poor to become greater.
With the idea of land reform, it still, in the end, turns to be a slave-like atmosphere. When the government gives the land to these poor peasants to work this piece of property, some of them become overwhelmed which could, in turn, lead to a bad harvest season. In return, these poor peasant workers turn back to the powerful original land owners for help and take out loans. Now, the only way for these peasants to pay off these loans is by the land they are harvesting on and sacrificing their only way to make and establish some type of money for themselves. This is an on going situation that always ends up back at the idea of these peasants working for the dominant land owners.
Anther idea the government tried to push with land reform was reestablishing a new social system. This social system was the idea of bridging the large gap between the rich and the poor. With the distribution of land to the poorer portion of China and North Vietnam, the government felt it could bring positive outcomes back to its community, but even more importantly to its country. At first, these dominant land owners were against the idea because they felt they were losing more than they would gain from the twist on an agricultural distribution. The government reassured them they would not have anything to worry about; that this is a way of smothering the idea that even though these land lords had a great deal of power, with the new motion of dispersing land to everyone would accept the fact or idea of having someone in charge of them. Land Reform had many alterations going on at the same time. It was dealing with the war between the French and ending their rule among the North Vietnamese. While the French was being pushed out the land reform made things even harder. Here we have a society trying to fight off a world leading population to set in stone a new era. They are trying to stick with the motto “out with the old and in with the new”, if the government would have only realized the can of worms they would open with this idea they took from Russia.
It was Russia who rightfully had the first idea or notion of creating a land reform society. It was the idea that if it worked for them maybe it could work for us. This idea brought on a couple other problems the people of North Viet Nam and China faced. They were introduced to a society of where taxation was about to take over. This is another problem why land reform failed the peasants who just received this land had to pay a tax which if a bad harvest came the idea of turning back to the land lords for financial aid was the best thing.
Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, Edwin E. Moise
This book was very intriguing it gave the reader an in depth look on a society that was suffering on so many different levels and the government of these people tried to help but in the long run they ended up hurting the people of these countries more that they could have possibly helped. It was sad because these people were like puppets and the different government types were using them as toys to push their type of governing tactics. The book specifically discussed three different tactics they would use to enforce their reforms. The first one was having the new ruler simply take over where the old one left off. This left the Vietnamese with very little fundamental changes on society and their lifestyles. The second was the “Nationalist”. This is when they would “assert themselves against foreign powers”. (Moise 3) They also felt pushing a modernization and economic development would be in their favor. The third tactic involved a rebellion of the poor to overthrow the basic structure of society and favor an egalitarian order. These structures of government were pushed through this time period and each was trial tested and failed at extreme costs of society. This not only hurt the patrons of the country but the country itself as a whole.
The idea to start this out came from Russia. There was an idea of dividing the land is the central element and returning this land to it original owners. It was not an easy idea for the original land owners to swallow. They felt this idea was mainly directed at them, that the old and elite names of the society would lose their power if the government gave their land away to the peasants.
With the idea of land reform, many main points came up; one being that an unnatural outgrowth of village life was happening. With this, it caused a great deal of poverty, making people poor due to a lack venturing out to further better themselves. Participation by local peasants had to be genuine, understanding the rationale of those policies well enough to apply them. These policies put a great deal of burden on the peasants and the land lords. The peasants did not know how to act or what should be done with the idea of government taking one thing from a powerful individual and giving it to a poor peasant. With this going on, the land lords had to express interests in the peasant life. They were not allowed to deceive or look down on them but be heartfelt with their thoughts. This again was hard because it was such a harsh and dramatic change in the usual lifestyle they were used to.
Sources:
“Forum: Memories of Land Reform; To Hoai’s Three Others”, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Summer 2007, Vol. 2, No. 2
This author of Memories of Land Reform: To Hoai’s: Three Others touches on a lot of resources that are extremely relative to what is mentioned in the Land Reform of China and North Vietnam. It mentions that “the Land Reform had gone terribly awry” that the government finally admitted to that. It is sad to say but this is a part of history that could have been heavily avoided if the idea behind it would be researched and had an outlook on it. All they did, it was said, that the idea of a land reform came from Russia. It is nice to see that with this the government arranged a “Rectification of Errors” where they came together and talked about all the mishaps that had happened. In later meeting the senior leaders in charge were stripped of there roles and replaced immediately. Ho Chi Minh was put in charge and started taking the appropriate steps in evaluating what was necessary and should have happened. Great deals of peasants were released from jail for being wrongly accused of their actions or beliefs on the matter.
Another book that involves Ho Chi Minh a great ruler that was in office for a short time but is heavily noted for his accomplishments and is noted again in a novel called Revolution in the Village, that gives his views on the idea of what Vietnam should be, which is a country where everyone is a equal person. It was noted when Ho Chi Minh gave his famous speech in 1945 about how everyone has the right to keep their right of independence and sacrifice their life when the time was needed and to stand up because they earned their respect and rights by fighting off power house forces such as Japan and France. I feel this action should have waited when the land reform was going on, then people would have stood up and united and realized what was going on in there own country and make smarter moves in perfecting the society they live in. The changes made during the land reform were childish, wrongly provoked, and in the long run hurtful to North Vietnam. Many people lost their lives during the government times of “testing” out new tactics which they thought would work for their civilization. It was at this time when their country felt as if they were whole. They realized what was going on and what had been happening, it was one individual who voiced what he saw and had others agree with the mishaps that were corrupting the country they lived in.
Land Reform was an idea that survived its time but not its purpose. The initial intention behind the fact of trying to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor was a heart warming idea, but would never stand in the civilization these peasants and land lords lived in. It was a reoccurring cycle that just stretched out time for the communities to get back to right where they started.
Revolution in the Village, Hy Van Luong
This book I used to better understand a life of an individual living between the time frame of 1954 - 1987 I mainly focused on the years that corresponded with my book. It touched on many sensitive subjects and uncomfortable situations they took on in their life time. It went on to explain when villages were test subject from the government at first the elderly people were against what was going on. Then when it caught negative attention from the whole village and they realized it was hurting them more than helping them, the idea was run out of the village.
David G. Marr, Review, The Business History Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (summer, 1985), pp. 343-345
I viewed David G. Marrs review to obtain a better understanding of the time period and the situation at hand that is going on. From a student’s perspective to Professor Marr his background on the subject cleared a lot of confusion with me as far as the relationship between North Viet Nam and China. It was also nice to see another person’s opinion on the book. I feel he is a little harsh on the idea of Moise not having direct sources for his book. He brings up the fact that if the government did not have any clue what was going on and how things should be solved then how could Moise. I feel that Moise gave clear cut pieces of information to back up the experiences and the situations that were going on in North Vietnam and in China. Another topic of why land reform was given a test trial Marr try’s to say is to “increase the agricultural production”(Marr, 344). The idea and I think it stands for itself was to build a bridge between the gap of peasants and rich, not the agricultural problem. I can understand that it might have been slow, but that was due to poor harvests or slack on the land owner’s part for not farming correctly. The land was going to be there and producing its crops whether one person ran the land or it was spilt and the land was distributed.
Friday, June 13, 2008
The National Liberation Front
Context:
The formation of the National Liberation Front in 1960 was the brainchild of Lao Dong, Vietnam’s Communist Party based in Hanoi. American troops came to call the NLF the Viet Cong, VC, or Charlie simply to demean them. Lao Dong officials commonly referred to as Hanoi by Americans who linked every move of the front to the communist Capitol, recognized the necessity of carrying out both a political and military struggle to achieve their ultimate goal of crushing the illegitimate Saigon regime. The front was therefore the political wing of the communists operating below the 17th parallel. The Communist’s first attempt to liberate the south failed following six years of solely political actions. Hanoi thus created the military faction of the front, the Peoples Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF). Hanoi implemented the front technique in past conflicts with Japanese and French Imperialists with success. Communist front predecessors to the VC included: the Viet Minh, the Lien Viet, and the Fatherland Front. The front made several pivotal contributions for the eventual communist victory. The largest three contributions being: Negotiating with the U.S., Propaganda, and Foreign Relations.
There are several disputable events, decisions, and relationships regarding the National Liberation Front and its role in the Second Indo-China War or the Vietnam War, in the West. For example, was the NLF under direct control of Hanoi as U.S. administrations advertised? While it seems the Lao Dong viewed the NLF as their chief source of propaganda and comrades in the South. The U.S. repeatedly attempted to link the NLF to the communists in Hanoi. Several high-ranking NLF officials were indeed communists, some were not. Most experts in this area concur that a relationship directly linked the front to Northern communists, but not nearly at the level Americans like Dean Rusk and President Johnson assumed. One significant piece of evidence supports the thought of the front operating without complete Northern communist oversight. The fact being that Lao Dong and the NLF waged separate diplomatic offensives internationally. Specifically in July of 1964 amidst Political chaos in Saigon with the constant fear of another coup de tat, Lao Dong officials successfully whined and dined United Nations’ secretary general U Thant and French president Charles de Gaulle. Both Thant and de Gaulle agreed that diplomatic negotiations were the only way to end an escalating military conflict and suggested the reconvening of the Geneva Conference. Later the same month, the NLF’s president, Nguyen Huu Tho announced the front’s readiness for peaceful negotiations, Tho gained the support of: Peking, Moscow, and Hanoi prior to reading the declaration. A second debatable idea regarding the NLF involves a shift in party policy.
Shortly following its inception the National Liberation Front adopted a Neutralist platform, which in this juncture in history referred to nonalignment in the cold war. Many developing Asian and African nations adopted a similar policy. By far the most crucial Neutralist nation was the communists’ former nemesis, France. The NLF’s unbiased policy helped them achieve three important goals. These achievements were: distancing the front from Hanoi, forging international ties with nations and leaders abroad, and defacing the Saigon Regime.
Another communist action littered with question marks is the NLF’s reason for abandoning its neutralist policy. As early as 1963 following the coup which led to the overthrow and death of Ngo Dinh Diem, certain Lao Dong officials in the form of the Central Committee began questioning the front’s neutrality as to weak and Western. The Central Committee was essentially the cabinet of the Lao Dong, and its secretary general was Le Duan. Le Duan still strongly supported the idea of a neutral policy for the NLF. Duan could see the confusion and frustration it was causing Washington. While members of the Central Committee continued to call for an end to neutrality the policy wasn’t officially abandoned until 1965 when Lyndon Johnson ordered the start of bombing raids with Operation Rolling Thunder and the presence of U.S. ground troops for the first time in Vietnam.
Le Duan
Robert K. Brigham’s Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War is an enlightening account of both military and diplomatic strategies implemented against the Saigon regimes and Americans in South Vietnam.
Brigham’s focal point is the examination of “the development and implementation of the NLF’s international strategy and assess its impact on the war”. Another key point Brigham addresses but does not come to a definitive answer on is the level of control Hanoi had over their southern liaisons, the NLF. Guerilla Diplomacy provides an intensely non-ethnocentric view of the Second Indo-China War. Brigham draws his research and evidence from mainly communist documents from Hanoi as well as some personal interviews. Brigham delves into specific NLF strategies such as Neutrality, a twin goal policy to introduce socialism in the North and to liberate the South, all while fighting and negotiating simultaneously.
The book opens with Lao Dong officials in Hanoi who strongly believe Vietnam was heavily shorted at the negotiation tables of the Geneva Conference. The reestablishment of the Diem regime revealed to the Lao Dong what they must accomplish. The Lao Dong congregated in 1960 forging the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, after the hated, Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem had regained his power in the South. Knowing the NLF would be under close watch by the French and United States they quickly decided to adopt a policy of neutrality. The adoption of this policy was the first of many that would aid Hanoi in discrediting and wearing down imperialism in Vietnam. Propaganda was also an incredibly useful tool the Front would utilize repeatedly.
When Washington decided direct American military intervention provided the best chance for victory in 1965, Operation Rolling Thunder and the addition of U.S. ground troops were the result. The front saw an opportunity to abandon their neutralist policy in favor of an anti-American one. This policy existed in twin goals: the development of Socialism at home, and the liberation of Southern Vietnam. Brigham also goes in depth addressing the success of the NLF’s implementation of foreign policy. Hanoi realized that making the Americans look bad in the media and to other world leaders was almost as important as defeating them on the battlefield. NLF leaders toured friendly countries separately from Lao Dong officials in an attempt to distance the Front from the Communists in Hanoi.
Brigham successfully illustrates the hoops that Hanoi and the NLF forced the administrations of: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford to jump through. After the fall of Saigon it was clear that the Communists in the North and the NLF in the South had clearly, implemented far superior strategy and diplomacy to that of the Americans.
Subtexts:
1. Fitzgerald, Frances (2002). Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
This popular text by Fitzgerald highlights several paradoxes that arise due to American involvement in Vietnam. Rural farming villages and crowded cities, Catholics and Buddhists, soldiers and monks, and especially Communists and non-communists are the main contrasts Fire in the Lake deals with. This novel explores the specific reasons of how and why American misinterpreted the people and nation of Vietnam.
2. Rotter, Andrew J. Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam War Anthology. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Rotter’s account focuses almost entirely on U.S. experiences during the war. Rotter clearly identifies differences in American and Vietnamese culture as well as methods of the communists. The book is broken down into three sections. The first of which deals with American involvement in the war chronologically. The second section depicts the war on the battlefield, guerilla tactics utilized by the VC early in the war and the formation of the NLF. The Third section of Light at the End of the Tunnel concentrates on reasons for U.S. involvement, including ideas such as the Domino Theory and decline of support at home.
3. George Katsiaficas. Vietnam Documents: American and Vietnamese Views of the War. Armonk, New York. M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1992.
Katsiaficas’ anthology differs from most of its kind in the fact that over a third of his resources include Vietnamese documents. Katsiaficas touches on key twists and turns of the Vietnam War. The Geneva Conference, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and American build-up are three of the eight points he focuses on. Katsiaficas, a grizzled antiwar veteran refuses to shy away from those ideals throughout this collection. Excerpts from: Ho Chin Minh, Henry Kissinger, Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson are some of the creators of documents Katsiaficas includes.
4. Duiker, William (1996), The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
In The Communist Road to Power Duiker’s strongest argument arises when speaking about the North’s decision making processes and the adjustments and responses of the Communists to American policy. One major issue with this book is Duiker’s bias toward the communists. This bias has not as much to do with Duiker as it does with the material Duiker used for research. It is extremely difficult for any researcher that uses Communist documents as his or her main source of research due to the socialist bias inevitably contained in them. Duiker’s study focuses mainly on NLF strategy and tactics, both in diplomacy and military. Duiker however, neglects certain aspects of the NLF’s war such as propaganda.
5. Truong Nhu Tang, A Viet Cong Memoir. Assisted by David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai.
New York: Haracourt, Brace, Jovanovich. 1985. Pp. xiv, 350.
Tang’s A Viet Cong Memoir focuses around the author’s own experiences as both an executive of a Southern Vietnamese sugar corporation and an active member of the revolutionary government. Tang rose to the position of Minister of Justice in the newly founded Provisional Revolutionary Government in 1969. Tang’s story does not end with the fall of Saigon as Guerilla Diplomacy does. After the Communist takeover and American withdrawal the PRG was dismantled and replaced with the Saigon Military Management Committee, which was comprised of all Northern Communists. Hanoi and the NLF had made friendly with southern non-communists during the war and essentially abandoned amidst the formation of a self-determined Vietnam.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Land Reform in China and North Vietnam
Ben Banasiak
Hist 334
Rough Draft #1
Vietnam has gone through many changes over its lifetime. It has had dominant people in power that control what goes on in terms of the amount of land Vietnam has gained or lost from its enemies. One major problem that still goes on to this day is land reform. Land reform occurs when the government takes it into there own hands and redistributes property that was rightfully owned by one person and gives it to another individual. The time frame I looked at about the struggles and problems land reform brought up was from 1953 – 1957 . This process has caused a great deal of troubles and solved few situations. It has made their main focus worse. This focus consists of the land owners overpowering near by land dwellers, almost establishing a personal work force and maintaining the bridge between the rich and the poor to become greater. With the idea of land reform, it still, in the end, turns to be a slave like atmosphere. When the government gives the land to these poor peasants to work this piece of property, some of them become overwhelmed which could, in turn, lead to a bad harvest season. In return, these poor peasant workers turn back to the powerful original land owners for help and take out loans. Now, the only way for these peasants to pay off these loans is by the land they are harvesting on and sacrificing their only way to make and establish some type of money for themselves. This is an on going situation that always ends up back at the idea of these peasants working for the dominant land owners.
Anther idea the government tried to push with land reform was reestablishing a new social system. This social system was the idea of bridging the large gap between the rich and the poor. With the distribution of land to the poorer portion of Vietnam, the government felt it could bring positive outcomes back to its community, but even more importantly to its country. At first, these dominant land owners were against the idea because they felt they were losing more than they would gain from the twist on a agricultural distribution. The government reassured them they would not have anything to worry about; that this is a way of smothering the idea that even though these land lords had a great deal of power, with the new motion of dispersing land to everyone would accept the fact or idea of having someone in charge of them.
The novel I read, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, was a very intriguing book that gives the reader an in depth look on a society that was suffering on so many different levels and the government of these people tried to help but in the long run they ended up hurting the people of these countries more that they could have possibly helped. It was sad because these people were like puppets and the different government types were using them as toys to push their type of governing tactics. The book specifically discussed three different tactics they would use to enforce their reforms. The first one was having the new ruler simply take over where the old one left off. This left the Vietnamese with very little fundamental changes on society and their lifestyles. The second was the “Nationalist”. This is when they would “assert themselves against foreign powers”.(Moise 3) They also felt pushing a modernization and economic development would be in their favor. The third tactic involved a rebellion of the poor to overthrow the basic structure of society and favor a egalitarian order. These structures of government were pushed through this time period and each was trial tested and failed at extreme costs of society. This not only hurt the patrons of the country but the country itself as a whole.
The idea to start this out came from Russia. There was an idea of dividing the land is the central element and returning this land to it original owners. It was not an easy idea for the original land owners to swallow. They felt this idea was mainly directed at them, that the old and elite names of the society would loose their power if the government gave their land away to the peasants.
With the idea of land reform, many main points came up; one being that an unnatural outgrowth of village life was happening. With this, it caused a great deal of poverty, making people poor due to a lack venturing out to further better themselves. Participation by local peasants had to be genuine, understanding the rationale of those policies well enough to apply them. These policies put a great deal of burden on the peasants and the land lords. The peasants did not know how to act or what should be done with the idea of government taking one thing from a powerful individual and giving it to a poor peasant. With this going on, the land lords had to express interests in the peasant life. They were not allowed to deceive or look down on them but be heartfelt with their thoughts. This again was hard because it was such a harsh and dramatic change in the usual lifestyle they were used to.
This author of Memories of Land Reform: To Hoai’s: Three Others touches on a lot of resources that are extremely relative to what is mentioned in the Land Reform of China and North Vietnam. It mentions that “the Land Reform had gone terribly awry” that the government finally admitted to that. It is sad to say but this is a part of history that could have been heavily avoided if the idea behind it would be researched and had an outlook on it. All they did, it was said, that the idea of a land reform came from Russia. It is nice to see that with this the government arranged a “Rectification of Errors” where they came together and talked about all the mishaps that had happened. In later meeting the senior leaders in charge were stripped of there roles and replaced immediately. Ho Chi Minh was put in charge and started taking the appropriate steps in evaluating what was necessary and should have happened. A great deal of peasants were released from jail for being wrongly accused of their actions or beliefs on the matter.
Another book that involves Ho Chi Minh a great ruler that was in office for a short time but is heavily noted for his accomplishments and is noted again in a novel called Revolution in the Village, that gives his views on the idea of what Vietnam should be, which is a country where everyone is a equal person. It was noted when Ho Chi Minh gave his famous speech in 1945 about how everyone has the right to keep their right of independence and sacrifice their life when the time was needed and to stand up because they earned their respect and rights by fighting off power house forces such as Japan and France. I feel this action should have waited when the land reform was going on, then people would have stood up and united and realized what was going on in there own country and make smarter moves in perfecting the society they live in. The changes made during the land reform were childish, wrongly provoked, and in the long run hurtful to North Vietnam. Many people lost their lives during the government times of “testing” out new tactics whcih they thought would work for their civilization. It was at this time when their country felt as if they were whole. They realized what was going on and what had been happening, it was one individual who voiced what he saw and had others agree with the mishaps that were corrupting the country they lived in.
Land Reform was an idea that survived its time but not its purpose. The initial intention behind the fact of trying to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor was a heart warming idea, but would never stand in the civilization these peasants and land lords lived in. It was a reoccurring cycle that just stretched out time for the communities to get back to right where they started.
Hist 334
Rough Draft #1
Vietnam has gone through many changes over its lifetime. It has had dominant people in power that control what goes on in terms of the amount of land Vietnam has gained or lost from its enemies. One major problem that still goes on to this day is land reform. Land reform occurs when the government takes it into there own hands and redistributes property that was rightfully owned by one person and gives it to another individual. The time frame I looked at about the struggles and problems land reform brought up was from 1953 – 1957 . This process has caused a great deal of troubles and solved few situations. It has made their main focus worse. This focus consists of the land owners overpowering near by land dwellers, almost establishing a personal work force and maintaining the bridge between the rich and the poor to become greater. With the idea of land reform, it still, in the end, turns to be a slave like atmosphere. When the government gives the land to these poor peasants to work this piece of property, some of them become overwhelmed which could, in turn, lead to a bad harvest season. In return, these poor peasant workers turn back to the powerful original land owners for help and take out loans. Now, the only way for these peasants to pay off these loans is by the land they are harvesting on and sacrificing their only way to make and establish some type of money for themselves. This is an on going situation that always ends up back at the idea of these peasants working for the dominant land owners.
Anther idea the government tried to push with land reform was reestablishing a new social system. This social system was the idea of bridging the large gap between the rich and the poor. With the distribution of land to the poorer portion of Vietnam, the government felt it could bring positive outcomes back to its community, but even more importantly to its country. At first, these dominant land owners were against the idea because they felt they were losing more than they would gain from the twist on a agricultural distribution. The government reassured them they would not have anything to worry about; that this is a way of smothering the idea that even though these land lords had a great deal of power, with the new motion of dispersing land to everyone would accept the fact or idea of having someone in charge of them.
The novel I read, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, was a very intriguing book that gives the reader an in depth look on a society that was suffering on so many different levels and the government of these people tried to help but in the long run they ended up hurting the people of these countries more that they could have possibly helped. It was sad because these people were like puppets and the different government types were using them as toys to push their type of governing tactics. The book specifically discussed three different tactics they would use to enforce their reforms. The first one was having the new ruler simply take over where the old one left off. This left the Vietnamese with very little fundamental changes on society and their lifestyles. The second was the “Nationalist”. This is when they would “assert themselves against foreign powers”.(Moise 3) They also felt pushing a modernization and economic development would be in their favor. The third tactic involved a rebellion of the poor to overthrow the basic structure of society and favor a egalitarian order. These structures of government were pushed through this time period and each was trial tested and failed at extreme costs of society. This not only hurt the patrons of the country but the country itself as a whole.
The idea to start this out came from Russia. There was an idea of dividing the land is the central element and returning this land to it original owners. It was not an easy idea for the original land owners to swallow. They felt this idea was mainly directed at them, that the old and elite names of the society would loose their power if the government gave their land away to the peasants.
With the idea of land reform, many main points came up; one being that an unnatural outgrowth of village life was happening. With this, it caused a great deal of poverty, making people poor due to a lack venturing out to further better themselves. Participation by local peasants had to be genuine, understanding the rationale of those policies well enough to apply them. These policies put a great deal of burden on the peasants and the land lords. The peasants did not know how to act or what should be done with the idea of government taking one thing from a powerful individual and giving it to a poor peasant. With this going on, the land lords had to express interests in the peasant life. They were not allowed to deceive or look down on them but be heartfelt with their thoughts. This again was hard because it was such a harsh and dramatic change in the usual lifestyle they were used to.
This author of Memories of Land Reform: To Hoai’s: Three Others touches on a lot of resources that are extremely relative to what is mentioned in the Land Reform of China and North Vietnam. It mentions that “the Land Reform had gone terribly awry” that the government finally admitted to that. It is sad to say but this is a part of history that could have been heavily avoided if the idea behind it would be researched and had an outlook on it. All they did, it was said, that the idea of a land reform came from Russia. It is nice to see that with this the government arranged a “Rectification of Errors” where they came together and talked about all the mishaps that had happened. In later meeting the senior leaders in charge were stripped of there roles and replaced immediately. Ho Chi Minh was put in charge and started taking the appropriate steps in evaluating what was necessary and should have happened. A great deal of peasants were released from jail for being wrongly accused of their actions or beliefs on the matter.
Another book that involves Ho Chi Minh a great ruler that was in office for a short time but is heavily noted for his accomplishments and is noted again in a novel called Revolution in the Village, that gives his views on the idea of what Vietnam should be, which is a country where everyone is a equal person. It was noted when Ho Chi Minh gave his famous speech in 1945 about how everyone has the right to keep their right of independence and sacrifice their life when the time was needed and to stand up because they earned their respect and rights by fighting off power house forces such as Japan and France. I feel this action should have waited when the land reform was going on, then people would have stood up and united and realized what was going on in there own country and make smarter moves in perfecting the society they live in. The changes made during the land reform were childish, wrongly provoked, and in the long run hurtful to North Vietnam. Many people lost their lives during the government times of “testing” out new tactics whcih they thought would work for their civilization. It was at this time when their country felt as if they were whole. They realized what was going on and what had been happening, it was one individual who voiced what he saw and had others agree with the mishaps that were corrupting the country they lived in.
Land Reform was an idea that survived its time but not its purpose. The initial intention behind the fact of trying to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor was a heart warming idea, but would never stand in the civilization these peasants and land lords lived in. It was a reoccurring cycle that just stretched out time for the communities to get back to right where they started.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Context: The National Liberation Front
There are several events, decisions, and relationships that may be disputed regarding the National Liberation Front and its role in the Second Indo-China War, one statement that is not would be that the NLF and its strategists were vital in the liberation of Southern Viet Nam and ousting of the Americans.
One part of this NLF story that is inconclusive and often debated is how influential were the communist leaders of the Lao Dong on the actions of the NLF. It is indisputable that the NLF was the brainchild of Lao Dong leaders in 1960. What does remain in question is exactly how much weight the Lao Dong pulled in NLF actions. While it seems the Lao Dong viewed the NLF as their chief source of Propaganda and comrades in the South. The U.S. repeatedly attempted to link the NLF to the communists in Hanoi. While several high ranking NLF officials were communists, many were not. Brigham walks a tightrope on this topic stating, “the Front was neither a puppet of Hanoi, nor an autonomous organization.”
Another topic up for debate could be the NLF’s reason for abandoning of its neutrality policy. Brigham credits northern communists for this change because the Lao Dong apparently felt that the NLF had gotten too western diplomatically. This could be due to his research with mainly communist documents. A counterpoint to Brigham’s argument could be formed regarding the massive 1965 American increase in troops and aid to the DRVN.
A third event that remains controversial is the relationship the Lao Dong and PRG had with Southern elites who supported the NLF. After the successful ousting of Diem and the capture of Saigon, a new government was quickly formed under military control. On the list of leaders which the communists released not one southern nor one non-communist appeared. This would seem to prove that Hanoi forged relationships with well-off southern communists and had no interest in including them in the ante-bellum regime. Experts believe these southerners were mainly excluded because they engaged in Capitalism and not because they hailed from below the 17th parallel.
Text: The National Liberation Front
Robert K. Brigham’s Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War is an enlightening account of both military and diplomatic strategies implemented against the puppet regimes and Americans in South Vietnam.
Brigham’s focal point is the examination of ‘the development and implementation of the NLF’s international strategy and assess its impact on the war” Another key point Brigham addresses but doesn’t come to a definitive answer on is the level of control Hanoi had over their southern liaisons, the NLF. Guerilla Diplomacy provides an intensely non-ethnocentric view of the Second Indo-China War. Brigham draws his research and evidence from mainly communist documents from Hanoi as well as some personal interviews. Brigham delves into specific NLF strategies such as: Neutrality, a twin goal policy for socialism in the North and to liberate the South, and a strategy of fighting while negotiating later in the war.
The book opens with unhappy Lao Dong officials in Hanoi who vastly believed Vietnam was heavily shorted at the negotiation tables of the Geneva Conference. The reinstallment of the Diem regime revealed to the Lao Dong what must be done. The Lao Dong congregated in 1960 stirring with bitterness as the Catholic Diem had regained his power the Communists forged the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam at this meeting. Knowing the NLF would be under close watch by the French and United States they quickly decided to adopt a policy of neutrality. The adoption of this policy was the first of many which would aid Hanoi in discrediting and wearing down imperialism in Vietnam. Propaganda was also an incredibly useful tool the Front would utilize repeatedly.
When the U.S. and L.B.J. upped the ante in 1965 with Operation Rolling Thunder and the addition of ground troops the Front realized they could abandon their neutral policy in favor of an anti-American one. This policy existed in twin goals: the development of Socialism at home, and the liberation of Southern Vietnam. Brigham also goes in depth addressing the success of the NLF’s implementation of foreign policy. Hanoi realized that making the Americans look bad in the media and to other world leaders was almost as important as defeating them on the battlefield. NLF leaders toured friendly countries separately from Lao Dong officials in an attempt to distance the Front from the Communists in Hanoi.
Brigham successfully illustrates the hoops that Hanoi made the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations jump through. After the fall of Saigon it was clear that the Communists had clearly implemented far superior strategy and diplomacy compared to the Americans.
Subtexts: The National Liberation Front
1. Robert K. Brigham, Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Brigham turns over several stones to reveal the exact strategies and policies used by the NLF which led to the Communist victory in the Second Indo-China War. Brigham’s focal argument is the development of a twin goal strategy by the NLF: socialism in the North and a war of liberation in the South. Brigham uses a number of North Vietnamese documents and personal interviews for his research. Brigham also emphasizes the division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel at the Geneva Accords was the significant reason for the twin goal ideals.
2. Currey, Cecil, review, Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200110/ai_n8957987
(Journal of Third World Studies, Fall 2001)
Cecil Currey’s review of Robert K. Brigham’s Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War brings to light Brigham’s biases throughout his book. Curry criticizes Brigham’s accolades to the NLF for distancing themselves from Hanoi with their foreign relations ingenious. Currey exclaims that the NLF’s foreign relations policies were a smaller part of Hanoi’s big plan. Another critique Currey has of Brigham is his obvious bias against the Diem regime. Currey points out Brigham’s use of “Diem’s reign of terror…” (p. 9) while completely ignoring poor decisions by Ho Chi Minh’s governance such as the Land Reform in 1956. Currey’s last example of a Brigham bias is his overemphasis of the NLF’s international recognition. Brigham makes it seem that the NLF is seen as a legitimate regime world-wide minus the United States. Currey thinks this is an extreme exaggeration. Relatively, obviously Currey concludes by not approving of the book.
3. Curtis, Willie, review, Guerilla Diplomacy: The NLF’s Foreign Relations and the Vietnam War.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/view/2647633?seq=2&cookieSet=1
The Journal of Politics, Vol. 62, No.1 (Feb. 2000), pp. 309-310
In his review of Brigham’s book Curtis solely emphasizes the NLF’s diplomacy during the war and specifically during the Nixon administration as the largest reason for Northern success. Curtis alludes to Brigham’s points of The NLF’s policy of neutrality in its infant years, the NLF offering the biggest promotion of northern propaganda, their ability to keep Johnson and Nixon’s administrations off-balance during “negotiation” talks. Curtis in the end concludes: “For analysts and armchair strategists, Guerilla Diplomacy should be on the must-read list.”
4. Duiker, William, The Communist Road to Power.
In The Communist Road to Power Duiker’s strongest argument arises when speaking about the North’s decision making processes and the adjustments and responses of the Communists to American policy. One major issue with this book is Duiker’s bias toward the communists. This bias has not as much to do with Duiker as it does with the material Duiker used for research. It is extremely difficult for any researcher that uses Communist documents as his or her main source of research due to the socialist bias inevitably contained in them. Duiker’s study focuses mainly on NLF strategy and tactics, both in diplomacy and military. Duiker however, neglects certain aspects of the NLF’s war such as propaganda.
5. Truong Nhu Tang, A Viet Cong Memoir. Assisted by David Chanoff and Doan Van Toai.
New York: Haracourt, Brace, Jovanovich. 1985. Pp. xiv, 350.
Tang’s A Viet Cong Memoir focuses around the author’s own experiences as both an executive of a Southern Vietnamese sugar corporation and an active member of the revolutionary government. Tang rose to the position of Minister of Justice in the newly founded Peoples Revolutionary Government in 1969. Tang’s story does not end with the fall of Saigon as Guerilla Diplomacy does. After the Communist takeover and American withdrawal the PRG was dismantled and replaced with the Saigon Military Management Committee, which was comprised of all Northern Communists. Hanoi and the NLF had made friendly with southern non-communists during the war and essentially abandoned amidst the formation of a self-determined Vietnam.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Southern Countryside at War: Subtexts
Race, Jeffrey. The War Comes to Long An.
( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).
Jeffrey Race helps present an early view of the failures of the American policy in Vietnam and also shows just why the Communist were able to succeed. He attributes many of the factors of failure to the fact that Americans in the region did not fully grasp the levity of the situation. The points he raises are very interesting, but David Elliott’s book illustrates these ideas more fully. In the sense that it wasn’t necessarily a military failure of the United States, it was more of a an ideological failure in which the United States failed to realize that most people in Vietnam supported the Communists and hated the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But, the book is a classic on the Vietnam War and any historian or interested person in the war and what some believed to be the failures, while the war was still going on, I would recommend it.
Schultz, Richard. The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare. Polity, Vol.11 No.1.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3234249
(Palgrave Macmillian Journals, Autumn 1978)
In Richard Schultz’s article he helps to explain the limits and the advantages of employing terrorism in a military campaign. He examines the National Liberation Front’s policies of terrorism at the village level. Schultz uses many scholarly sources and other proponents of terrorism to help explain the advantages and disadvantages of a terrorist policy. The stance taken by Schultz on terrorism being secondary to the policies of the NLF is one that has been proven false. Although the article contains very pertinent and great information on how the NLF was able to align themselves with villagers, it fails to recognize the overall importance terrorism had in the NLF fighting forces. Elliott illustrates in greater detail, after years of studying and researching the topic, in a post-revisionists sense, that terrorism was extremely important and a vital necessity to the NLF forces in southern Vietnam. I would recommend this article to anyone interested in the policies of terrorism used by the NLF, but keep in mind this article was written in 1978 and there contains some biases but some of the details are quite interesting but for a more comprehensive analysis of terrorist activities used by the NLF in Vietnam I would recommend David Elliott’s The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1945.
Herring, George C. American Strategy in Vietnam: The Postwar Debate. Military Affairs, Vol. 46. No. 2.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1988113
(Society for Military History, April 1982) pp. 57-63.
Herring’s article is a very intense look at the arguments made over the failings of the Vietnam War. He looks at each failure from different perspectives, those of the hawks, or military perspective, those from the perspective of the failures of the military to conduct an effective war because they were using conventional means in an revolutionary guerrilla war and lastly he looks at the doves perspective that stated basically it was impossible for Americans to understand the workings of Vietnamese culture and thus we should not have been involved. Many interesting arguments are made from each perspective, the inability of the military to effectively wage the kind of war it needed to, weighed down ultimately by bureaucracy or the fact that the military simply didn’t adapt to the type of war being waged. All are very interesting points and I would recommend this reading anyone who is looking to see the views of several key figures in Vietnam, including General Westmoreland and others.
Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment. Green Left. July 14, 1993
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1993/106/5903
Tully’s article helps explain the ongoing problems in Vietnam during this time period, or the after effects of a prolonged war. His article helps illustrate the type of warfare implemented by the US in hopes to drive villagers into the cities, diminishing the support and power of the NLF. The article is very useful in determining how the war has affected the nation of Vietnam, specifically the south in this article, since the war has ended. The first quote in the article summarizes the main idea, ‘“Not since the Romans salted the land after destroying Carthage has a nation taken such pains to visit war on future generations,’ wrote Ngo Van long of the US war against Vietnam.” The article examines the war of attrition that the United States waged on the south in the hopes of destroying the power structure of the communists in the south. It also examines the ongoing effects in Vietnam due to the war, such deforestation at a rapid rate and high levels of cancer in victims who were exposed to defoliants such as Agent Orange. Most importantly it shows that during the war rice paddies and food stores were specifically targeted to starve out the power of the communists in the south.
Moyer, Mark. Triumph Forsaken. (Cambridge University Press: October 2006). http://www.triumphforsaken.com/index.php?pr=Home_Page
Mark Moyer’s book details the Vietnam War from 1954-1965, showing many of the elements that led to the ultimate failure of the US in 1975. The book has many different perspectives, most importantly that the war could have been won in numerous ways but poor policy decisions influenced this. For any person who wishes to read a book that details the successes and failures of Americans in Vietnam this book is a must read, although it doesn’t address many of the points Elliott brings up in his book. Although some will attest to this books relevancy and interesting take on the Vietnam War it fails to address the overall feeling many Vietnamese felt toward the Southern government, which was animosity and suspiciousness. The southern people supported the communists because they could see a direct connection to the nationalists ideals of the Viet Minh decades earlier. Although Moyer uses extensive research to make his point, Elliott’s point is far more valid and intelligent and illustrates a greater problem the Americans had in winning the war in Vietnam, which was supporting a weak government that the Vietnamese people viewed as a puppet to the west. Although I find this book to be missing an overall theme and neglecting obvious facts, for any ardent supporter of revisionist history this book is a must read.
The Southern Countryside at War: Text
Text: The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975
David W.P. Elliott’s The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975 is a monumental work that traces the revolutionary movement from the late 1920s and 1930s to the end of the Vietnam War against the United States and the South.
Elliott helps to illustrate the vital importance of the province and village to the revolution. Many of the great revolutionaries in the south had their origins at the village level, which Elliott explains through his continual reference to early revolutionary Muoi Thap, a peasant woman in the My Tho province who helped mobilize the proletariat in her village. She was a seminal figure in the early history of the revolution according to Elliott and represented the poorer peasant classes who would end up being the key figures in the war against the United States and the South in the 60s. Elliott illustrates that the earlier struggles by these revolutionary groups in the south against the French helped to create a spirit of struggle and rebellion that would shape the Vietnamese’s attitudes for the upcoming wars against the French and the United States in the south. Specifically struggles such as the Nam Ky Uprising in October of 1940. Though the Nam Ky Uprising ended up being an extreme failure and wiped out most of the Communist power in the Souths, it quickly caught the attention of the French authorities who now realized that they were dealing with a restless and angry people. This opposition to imperialistic nations would carry over until 1975.
Elliott also uses Thap to help explain why certain groups in the early stages of the revolution worked together and later split ideologically after the expulsion of the Japanese in 1945 and the French in 1954. Thap as said before represented the poorer peasant class and the other figure at this early stage was Tran Van Giau who was a member and at one point leader of the Vanguard group in the south. His organization generally represented the educated middle classes from the cities, after the expulsion of the French tensions reached a high point between the group represented by Thap and the group represented by Giau, of course, as Elliott explains, it was only natural that tensions would arise between these groups since their was no longer a foreign power to expel and their views differed considerably.
Elliott also helps explain the importance of the isolation of the villages in the South that helped to conceal revolutionary tendencies. He uses this example to show the extreme importance of village life to the revolution. Even so important to the point villagers sympathetic to the revolution constructed mass organizations to inform the NLF and early liberation movements of authorities in the areas. They used night watchmen to investigate the areas and used loud noises such as percussions like drums to warn all those in the village. Elliott traces the use of villages in the struggles against the French and United States by showing how certain villages became more important over time. During the years of the struggles against the French and Japanese, the villages located near train stations and other communication devices were the most important because of their easy access to transportation and information. But as time progressed and the war with the United States was at its highest intensity, the importance of the village switched to the isolated villages in rural areas where they were cut off from communications networks and were out of the reach of southern officials and the US military.
What is most interesting is that Elliott helps explain the growing importance of terrorism used by the NLF forces in the South to influence villagers and scare Southern officials. One of the most striking uses of terrorism involved “communists had arrested people and stuffed their disemboweled corpses with straw.” This use of terrorism helped to shape the attitudes of the villagers, who were now fearful of reprisals by the communists if they committed any wrongs against them. The communists would also frequently display corpses of village officials, sending a message to passersby and other southern officials that this is what happens to traitors. He also points out the confusion many felt about supporting the communists’ after the Tet Offensive when they committed the Hue Massacre, in which communists forces killed government officials and civilians. In other words, the use of terrorism helped in some ways but in others it severely shook people’s confidence in the new communist government.
Elliott I also believe helps to reevaluate the way Americans and others view the end of the Vietnam War. He helps to illustrate that the Vietnam War was both won and loss by both sides. Initially the NLF and other revolutionaries helped to expel foreign powers but in the long run, its land reform policies greatly affected the rural societies in drastic ways unintended by the Communists. Also he writes that the casualties suffered in the South are something that the revolutionary groups never recovered from despite their ultimate victory. He illustrates this viewpoint by explaining that the Tet Offensive, though presented as a victory for the communists, ultimately ended up wiping out the power structure in the south and they were never fully capable of fight a large scale war again. The United States ended up capturing all of the cities that had been occupied for a short period by the NLF, except for Hue, which remained in communist control. Elliott also alludes to the fact that after the Tet Offensive in 1968, the burden of fighting in the south largely fell on the shoulders of the North Vietnamese Army, no longer with help and support from southern rebels.
Elliott also helps to illustrate the point made by John Tully in his article regarding the devastation in the countryside to the natural habitats and communities. “The war itself devastated a countryside and sent large numbers of refugees to towns and cities where, cut off from their roots…thinking mainly of survival day to day.
Elliott’s book is a comprehensive analysis of the revolutionary movement within the Mekong Delta and the provincial level. I wouldn’t recommend this book to just any person but I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about revolutionary movements in the south and for anyone who’s studying the history of Vietnam.
Other reviews that may be more useful:
Hunt, Richard A. The Journal of Military History Vol. 68 No. 2 (Society for Military History: April 2004) pp. 656-657
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3397541
David W.P. Elliott’s The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975 is a monumental work that traces the revolutionary movement from the late 1920s and 1930s to the end of the Vietnam War against the United States and the South.
Elliott helps to illustrate the vital importance of the province and village to the revolution. Many of the great revolutionaries in the south had their origins at the village level, which Elliott explains through his continual reference to early revolutionary Muoi Thap, a peasant woman in the My Tho province who helped mobilize the proletariat in her village. She was a seminal figure in the early history of the revolution according to Elliott and represented the poorer peasant classes who would end up being the key figures in the war against the United States and the South in the 60s. Elliott illustrates that the earlier struggles by these revolutionary groups in the south against the French helped to create a spirit of struggle and rebellion that would shape the Vietnamese’s attitudes for the upcoming wars against the French and the United States in the south. Specifically struggles such as the Nam Ky Uprising in October of 1940. Though the Nam Ky Uprising ended up being an extreme failure and wiped out most of the Communist power in the Souths, it quickly caught the attention of the French authorities who now realized that they were dealing with a restless and angry people. This opposition to imperialistic nations would carry over until 1975.
Elliott also uses Thap to help explain why certain groups in the early stages of the revolution worked together and later split ideologically after the expulsion of the Japanese in 1945 and the French in 1954. Thap as said before represented the poorer peasant class and the other figure at this early stage was Tran Van Giau who was a member and at one point leader of the Vanguard group in the south. His organization generally represented the educated middle classes from the cities, after the expulsion of the French tensions reached a high point between the group represented by Thap and the group represented by Giau, of course, as Elliott explains, it was only natural that tensions would arise between these groups since their was no longer a foreign power to expel and their views differed considerably.
Elliott also helps explain the importance of the isolation of the villages in the South that helped to conceal revolutionary tendencies. He uses this example to show the extreme importance of village life to the revolution. Even so important to the point villagers sympathetic to the revolution constructed mass organizations to inform the NLF and early liberation movements of authorities in the areas. They used night watchmen to investigate the areas and used loud noises such as percussions like drums to warn all those in the village. Elliott traces the use of villages in the struggles against the French and United States by showing how certain villages became more important over time. During the years of the struggles against the French and Japanese, the villages located near train stations and other communication devices were the most important because of their easy access to transportation and information. But as time progressed and the war with the United States was at its highest intensity, the importance of the village switched to the isolated villages in rural areas where they were cut off from communications networks and were out of the reach of southern officials and the US military.
What is most interesting is that Elliott helps explain the growing importance of terrorism used by the NLF forces in the South to influence villagers and scare Southern officials. One of the most striking uses of terrorism involved “communists had arrested people and stuffed their disemboweled corpses with straw.” This use of terrorism helped to shape the attitudes of the villagers, who were now fearful of reprisals by the communists if they committed any wrongs against them. The communists would also frequently display corpses of village officials, sending a message to passersby and other southern officials that this is what happens to traitors. He also points out the confusion many felt about supporting the communists’ after the Tet Offensive when they committed the Hue Massacre, in which communists forces killed government officials and civilians. In other words, the use of terrorism helped in some ways but in others it severely shook people’s confidence in the new communist government.
Elliott I also believe helps to reevaluate the way Americans and others view the end of the Vietnam War. He helps to illustrate that the Vietnam War was both won and loss by both sides. Initially the NLF and other revolutionaries helped to expel foreign powers but in the long run, its land reform policies greatly affected the rural societies in drastic ways unintended by the Communists. Also he writes that the casualties suffered in the South are something that the revolutionary groups never recovered from despite their ultimate victory. He illustrates this viewpoint by explaining that the Tet Offensive, though presented as a victory for the communists, ultimately ended up wiping out the power structure in the south and they were never fully capable of fight a large scale war again. The United States ended up capturing all of the cities that had been occupied for a short period by the NLF, except for Hue, which remained in communist control. Elliott also alludes to the fact that after the Tet Offensive in 1968, the burden of fighting in the south largely fell on the shoulders of the North Vietnamese Army, no longer with help and support from southern rebels.
Elliott also helps to illustrate the point made by John Tully in his article regarding the devastation in the countryside to the natural habitats and communities. “The war itself devastated a countryside and sent large numbers of refugees to towns and cities where, cut off from their roots…thinking mainly of survival day to day.
Elliott’s book is a comprehensive analysis of the revolutionary movement within the Mekong Delta and the provincial level. I wouldn’t recommend this book to just any person but I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about revolutionary movements in the south and for anyone who’s studying the history of Vietnam.
Other reviews that may be more useful:
Hunt, Richard A. The Journal of Military History Vol. 68 No. 2 (Society for Military History: April 2004) pp. 656-657
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3397541
The Southern Countryside at War: Context
The war in southern Vietnam between the National Liberation Front, or better known to Americans as the Viet Cong, and the combined forces of the United States Military and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam was a moment in history that stressed the resilience and determination of the Communist forces. It also highlighted the extreme destruction that would take place in the rural countryside in the south, as Ngo Van Long put it, “Not since the Romans salted the land after destroying Carthage has a nation taken such pains to visit the war on later generations.”[1] Historians have debated for many years the exact reasons why and how the Communist were able to succeed in Vietnam, but as one does the research, it reveals that there were a variety of reasons that led to the NLF’s ultimate victory; reasons that varied not only on the Communist side but on the American and South Vietnam’s as well.
The war that consumed the southern countryside was made possible by the ability of the NLF to influence and take control of the smaller provinces and villages throughout the south. The administrations from Kennedy through Nixon claimed that the NLF used means of terrorism to influence policies at the village level. Many historians have examined some of the statistics of terrorist tactics used in villages, and in the years following the war many came to the conclusion that terrorism was a last resort and only used in rare cases. But after later examination in the decades following the war, many came to the realization that terrorism was used quite extensively and effectively. What the NLF also did was create institutions that stressed their overall ideological views, in other words, they promoted reeducation and the idea of revolutionary warfare.[2] The idea of revolutionary warfare implemented by the NLF:
“seeks complete political change followed by a social revolution. The goal of revolutionary warfare is to destroy the credibility of the established order, construct a counter ideology and counter institutions (infrastructure) with a view to overthrowing the existing order as the first step to overall social change.”[3]
Terrorism was highly effective at the village level. The NLF outlined a list of people in the village who might have posed a threat to their influence and structure.[4] The list targeted such people as officials of the South Vietnamese Government who oversaw the villages, others determined to be tyrants in the eyes of villagers and the NLF and others termed “reactionaries” or people involved with religion.[5] The NLF used the element of terrorism to stabilize certain areas when they first took control, establishing their dominance and ideological views. The NLF also used terror as a means of sometimes gaining the respect and gratitude of villagers in the south by disposing of unpopular and hated officials. By using the tactic of assassinating government officials they bound themselves to the villagers and also made an example of anyone else who opposed. “Such tactics not only eliminated members of the opposition and served as a warning to other GVN personnel, but they might gain popular support of the NLF.”[6]
The important use of terrorism and ideological reeducation were not the only factors that helped contribute to the victory of the Communists in the south. A very big reason as to why the Communists were able to succeed was the inability of the American military and government to grasp the nature of the problem growing in the provinces and elsewhere. Many scholars agree that the Americans and South Vietnamese Government misunderstood just how determined the Communists in the South were towards achieving their goal:
“From the outset, moreover, it faced a disciplined and determined adversary, with an ideology adapted to Vietnamese political culture, skilled in the methods of revolutionary warfare perfected in the ten year struggle with France, and fanatically committed to its goals.”[7]
American personnel in Vietnam at the time of the escalation of the war in 1965 also had to come to terms with the fact that they lacked an understanding of “the conditions and nature of the conflict”.[8] Jeffrey Race explains that even though he was a military advisor he lacked an understanding of the conflict and he “frequently had to make decisions affecting people’s lives.”[9] This divergence between Vietnamese culture and the west helped to cause a divide and at this point it was only natural that the ideas of the NLF would appeal to the masses. Race explains that, “the revolutionary movement did not need to be good or effective by any absolute standard; it needed only to be better than the government.”[10] This shows clearly that the Western powers who supported the South Vietnamese government helped to influence the belief held by many common villagers that viewed the government in the south as a puppet to the west and lacking an understanding of the village and provincial lifestyle and naturally the NLF was viewed at this period as being seen as the torchbearer for the poor farmers in the villages.
What is most important to in viewing the insurgency in the south is to remember that the ideas of rebellion and revolution had been stewing in the southern countryside for many years. The south was a constant threat to the status quo in the sense that it was the launching ground for many rebellions against authority.What the south contributed to these revolutions from the 1930s and onward was a constant safe haven from government officials. Despite constant bombings and firefights, the revolution was able to survive because of these villages in the south, they contributed to the defense and the protection of NLF members.
Also one of the key elements that affected the southern countryside and Vietnam as a whole during the war was the rampant use of defoliants in the jungles. The use of these chemicals wrought havoc upon the southern countryside and affected the lives of many villagers for years. The United States’ strategy of a war of attrition, which involved the use of defoliants and napalming villages, was a primarily used to drive villagers away from the countryside and into the city, thus weakening the power structure of the NLF or Viet Cong, a strategy entitled “forced-draft urbanization” by Professor Samuel Huntington.[11]What occurred in the villages as the US implemented its bombing campaign across the countryside was nothing short of a tragedy:
“Much of Vietnam was turned into free fire zones, into which hurtled immense tonnages of explosives and herbicides (defoliants such as Agent Orange)…This involved truly massive rural area bombing, chemical and mechanical forest destruction, large scale crop destruction, destruction of food stores, the destruction of hospitals and large scale population displacements…”[12]
In the years following the end of the war, specifically the 1980s, the Southern part of Vietnam was still feeling the affects of the bombing policies of the United State. It was reported that in the years following the war the Vietnamese went to the remaining forests to help rebuild schools, hospitals and other buildings destroyed during the war. Because of the destruction of forests during the war and the over use of wood after the war to rebuild, many forests virtually disappeared in Vietnam after the war.[13]
The Southern Countryside in the Vietnam War played a key role in the victory of the Communists. Although many historians disagree as to just how they achieved this victory, they all still agree that the NLF and the Communists prevailed. Through the implementation of terrorism and ideological reeducation they helped control the southern villages and because of the deep miscalculations and misunderstandings of the American military and South Vietnamese government it helped contribute to the overall cause of the revolutionaries. But the victory came at an ultimate price, the destruction of wildlife, villages, forests and rice paddies led to long term effects that many Vietnamese felt personally right at the close of the war. The use of defoliants also led to a biological emergency in which many who fought and lived in Southern Vietnam, including American soldiers, were suddenly being ravaged by cancerous outbreaks.
The reasons that helped contribute to the victories of the Communists vary from person to person, but the biggest factor seems to be the ability of the isolated villages to hide and protect the revolutionaries at the risk of their own lives and at an ultimate price in the end. If the ideas and revolutionaries survive, the war will continue and thus victory may be assured.
[1] Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment. Green Left. July 14, 1993.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1993/106/5903
[2] Schultz, Richard. Autumn 1978. The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare: The Case of the Viet Cong. Polity 11(1) : pg 83
[3] Schultz, The Limits of Terrorism, pg 74
[4] Ibid, pg 83
[5] Ibid, pg 83-84
[6] Ibid, pg 85
[7] Herring, George C. April 1982. American Strategy in Vietnam: The Postwar Debate. Military Affairs, 46(2). Pg 61
[8] Race, Jeffrey. 1972. The War Comes to Long An. (University of California Press) pg ix
[9] Race, The War Comes to Long An, pg ix
[10] Ibid, pg xv
[11] Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
The war that consumed the southern countryside was made possible by the ability of the NLF to influence and take control of the smaller provinces and villages throughout the south. The administrations from Kennedy through Nixon claimed that the NLF used means of terrorism to influence policies at the village level. Many historians have examined some of the statistics of terrorist tactics used in villages, and in the years following the war many came to the conclusion that terrorism was a last resort and only used in rare cases. But after later examination in the decades following the war, many came to the realization that terrorism was used quite extensively and effectively. What the NLF also did was create institutions that stressed their overall ideological views, in other words, they promoted reeducation and the idea of revolutionary warfare.[2] The idea of revolutionary warfare implemented by the NLF:
“seeks complete political change followed by a social revolution. The goal of revolutionary warfare is to destroy the credibility of the established order, construct a counter ideology and counter institutions (infrastructure) with a view to overthrowing the existing order as the first step to overall social change.”[3]
Terrorism was highly effective at the village level. The NLF outlined a list of people in the village who might have posed a threat to their influence and structure.[4] The list targeted such people as officials of the South Vietnamese Government who oversaw the villages, others determined to be tyrants in the eyes of villagers and the NLF and others termed “reactionaries” or people involved with religion.[5] The NLF used the element of terrorism to stabilize certain areas when they first took control, establishing their dominance and ideological views. The NLF also used terror as a means of sometimes gaining the respect and gratitude of villagers in the south by disposing of unpopular and hated officials. By using the tactic of assassinating government officials they bound themselves to the villagers and also made an example of anyone else who opposed. “Such tactics not only eliminated members of the opposition and served as a warning to other GVN personnel, but they might gain popular support of the NLF.”[6]
The important use of terrorism and ideological reeducation were not the only factors that helped contribute to the victory of the Communists in the south. A very big reason as to why the Communists were able to succeed was the inability of the American military and government to grasp the nature of the problem growing in the provinces and elsewhere. Many scholars agree that the Americans and South Vietnamese Government misunderstood just how determined the Communists in the South were towards achieving their goal:
“From the outset, moreover, it faced a disciplined and determined adversary, with an ideology adapted to Vietnamese political culture, skilled in the methods of revolutionary warfare perfected in the ten year struggle with France, and fanatically committed to its goals.”[7]
American personnel in Vietnam at the time of the escalation of the war in 1965 also had to come to terms with the fact that they lacked an understanding of “the conditions and nature of the conflict”.[8] Jeffrey Race explains that even though he was a military advisor he lacked an understanding of the conflict and he “frequently had to make decisions affecting people’s lives.”[9] This divergence between Vietnamese culture and the west helped to cause a divide and at this point it was only natural that the ideas of the NLF would appeal to the masses. Race explains that, “the revolutionary movement did not need to be good or effective by any absolute standard; it needed only to be better than the government.”[10] This shows clearly that the Western powers who supported the South Vietnamese government helped to influence the belief held by many common villagers that viewed the government in the south as a puppet to the west and lacking an understanding of the village and provincial lifestyle and naturally the NLF was viewed at this period as being seen as the torchbearer for the poor farmers in the villages.
What is most important to in viewing the insurgency in the south is to remember that the ideas of rebellion and revolution had been stewing in the southern countryside for many years. The south was a constant threat to the status quo in the sense that it was the launching ground for many rebellions against authority.What the south contributed to these revolutions from the 1930s and onward was a constant safe haven from government officials. Despite constant bombings and firefights, the revolution was able to survive because of these villages in the south, they contributed to the defense and the protection of NLF members.
Also one of the key elements that affected the southern countryside and Vietnam as a whole during the war was the rampant use of defoliants in the jungles. The use of these chemicals wrought havoc upon the southern countryside and affected the lives of many villagers for years. The United States’ strategy of a war of attrition, which involved the use of defoliants and napalming villages, was a primarily used to drive villagers away from the countryside and into the city, thus weakening the power structure of the NLF or Viet Cong, a strategy entitled “forced-draft urbanization” by Professor Samuel Huntington.[11]What occurred in the villages as the US implemented its bombing campaign across the countryside was nothing short of a tragedy:
“Much of Vietnam was turned into free fire zones, into which hurtled immense tonnages of explosives and herbicides (defoliants such as Agent Orange)…This involved truly massive rural area bombing, chemical and mechanical forest destruction, large scale crop destruction, destruction of food stores, the destruction of hospitals and large scale population displacements…”[12]
In the years following the end of the war, specifically the 1980s, the Southern part of Vietnam was still feeling the affects of the bombing policies of the United State. It was reported that in the years following the war the Vietnamese went to the remaining forests to help rebuild schools, hospitals and other buildings destroyed during the war. Because of the destruction of forests during the war and the over use of wood after the war to rebuild, many forests virtually disappeared in Vietnam after the war.[13]
The Southern Countryside in the Vietnam War played a key role in the victory of the Communists. Although many historians disagree as to just how they achieved this victory, they all still agree that the NLF and the Communists prevailed. Through the implementation of terrorism and ideological reeducation they helped control the southern villages and because of the deep miscalculations and misunderstandings of the American military and South Vietnamese government it helped contribute to the overall cause of the revolutionaries. But the victory came at an ultimate price, the destruction of wildlife, villages, forests and rice paddies led to long term effects that many Vietnamese felt personally right at the close of the war. The use of defoliants also led to a biological emergency in which many who fought and lived in Southern Vietnam, including American soldiers, were suddenly being ravaged by cancerous outbreaks.
The reasons that helped contribute to the victories of the Communists vary from person to person, but the biggest factor seems to be the ability of the isolated villages to hide and protect the revolutionaries at the risk of their own lives and at an ultimate price in the end. If the ideas and revolutionaries survive, the war will continue and thus victory may be assured.
[1] Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment. Green Left. July 14, 1993.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1993/106/5903
[2] Schultz, Richard. Autumn 1978. The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare: The Case of the Viet Cong. Polity 11(1) : pg 83
[3] Schultz, The Limits of Terrorism, pg 74
[4] Ibid, pg 83
[5] Ibid, pg 83-84
[6] Ibid, pg 85
[7] Herring, George C. April 1982. American Strategy in Vietnam: The Postwar Debate. Military Affairs, 46(2). Pg 61
[8] Race, Jeffrey. 1972. The War Comes to Long An. (University of California Press) pg ix
[9] Race, The War Comes to Long An, pg ix
[10] Ibid, pg xv
[11] Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Army of the Republic of Vietnam: Context
The Vietnam War, aka Second Indochina War, is a war historians look at as a failure of United States foreign policy in Vietnam from 1955-1975. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) fought and died between 1955-1975 in Vietnam. The ARVN had the backing of the U.S. government. The Republic of Vietnam was a puppet government of the U.S. The ARVN was trained by the U.S. government. The ARVN was supplied with United States military equipment: uniforms, weapons, vehicles, and artillery pieces. U.S. government support played a huge role in the ARVN's fate. (ARVN Soldiers)
ARVN: A Little Look Inside
1945-1954:
A history of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) begins with the French who were trying get out of Vietnam between 1948-1955. The French colonized Vietnam from 1862-1945. The years between 1945 to 1954 the French fought the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) which was based in Hanoi. The French created the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) in 1949. The VNA was a product from this idea by the French to process the "yellowing" of the French forces in Vietnam. The VNA fought the Democratic Republic of Vietnam along with the French. The French were defeated by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), which was the army of the DRV, at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The State of Vietnam was spilt into two halves after the French were defeated, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south. Nationalist Ho Chi Minh led the north and Ngo Dinh Diem (backed by the U.S.) led the south. Both sides were split at the seventeenth parallel.
1954-1963:
An interesting thing about the French in Indochina (1945) was that the U.S. allied itself with France. The defeat of the French caused the United States to send advisers to South Vietnam to protect its puppet government (Saigon Government). These advisers were called MAAG (Military Assistance and Advisory Group) whose aim were to train an army which could defend itself from communist invasion from Northern Vietnam. MAAG created the ARVN from the remnant's of the VNA. The ARVN was trained and constructed by these "advisers" and from 1955 to 1963 the ARVN fought the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). President Diem in southern Vietnam dealt with these "advisers" before his death in 1963. After Diem's death, U.S. approved military leaders presided over Southern Vietnam. The ARVN did not gain a lot of ground when it faced the PAVN and the United States government stepped in with its own army beginning in 1963.
1963-1975:
The ARVN was modeled from the U.S. army. U.S. combat troops arrived in 1963, after which a majority of the ARVN was assigned to mainly protection duties. Large scale engagements versus the PAVN were left to the U.S. forces who took over main combat roles between 1963 and 1969. The ARVN started to fight on a grander scale after the United States government decided on a "vietnamization" policy to be enacted in 1969; after 1969 the ARVN were gradually forced back into a full-time combat role after several years of a generally inactive combat role. As U.S. combat forces were reduced in number from 1969-1975 in Vietnam, the ARVN was pushed to the front to fight. Facing the PVAN from the north and People's Liberation Armed Forces based in the south during 1973 to 1975 was a considerable task. The PLAF and PAVN had a lot of momentum with the withdrawal of American Forces. The fate of the ARVN was not their doing. With exceptions of a few tough stands against the PAVN and PLAF around 1974 and 1975, the ARVN were routed and defeated. April, 30 1975 saw the fall of Saigon and the Republic of Vietnam. The ARVN disintegrated.
The ARVN in 1969:
1.) The regular ten infantry divisions and three independent regiments of the ARVN totaling 384,000 men.
2.) More than 46,000 elite striking forces like the three brigades of the Airborne Division, the twenty battalions of the Rangers, the 9,500 Marines, and the few highly trained men of the Vietnamese Special Forces.
3.) The territorial or militia troops, including 218,000 Regional Forces and 173,000 Popular Forces for a total of 391,000 men.
4.) A Navy of more than 21,000 men.
5.) An Air Force of eighteen squadrons including some 21,000 men with more than 1,000 pilots.
6.) Paramilitary groups totaling 182,000 men.
7.) People's Civil-Defense forces of about one million youths, women, veterans and older men organized since may 1968.
-Links to pictures of some weapons/vehicles of the ARVN:
1.) M-79 grenade launcher:
http://www.kumawar.com/Kerry/m24.weapons.m79.jpg
2.) M-16 Rifle:
http://www.rirwin.com/images/riflecoltm16.JPG
3.) M-113 Armored Personel Carrier (APC):
http://www.diggerhistory.info/images/tanks/armour-tracks-m113.jpg
4.) M-14 Rifle:
http://www.modelguns.co.uk/images/m14a.jpg
5.) Grenades: fake grenades, but good representation
http://www.sonic.net/~timdp/picture/M26colorsL.jpg
6.) M-60 Machine Gun:
http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0104/m-60.jpg
7.) M-41 Tank:
http://warandgame.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/m41.jpg
8.) M-1 Garand Rifle:
http://www.capitanhipower.com/Photos/M1Rifle.jpg
9.) Standard Jeep:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10474599@N00/277722598
10.) The Duece and a Half:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photohound/2225180422/
Links to pictures of ARVN soldiers:
1.) "Good Ole Boys" http://www.vhpamuseum.org/companies/121ahc/images/4.jpg
2.) "ARVN and their Counterparts"
http://www.jamd.com/search?assettype=g&assetid=3241532&text=arvn+soldiers
3.) "Hello!" http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/1627800676_f35170320f.jpg?v=O
4.) "Time to Fight!" http://www.vhpamuseum.org/11thCav/images/ARVN.jpg
5.) "More Guard Duty" http://www.bobcat.ws/jjflash/arvn2.jpg
6.) "Just Like Other Soldiers!" http://picasaweb.google.com/danbren1/NamPictures/photo#5179232431053911122
7.) "Artillery Man"
http://picasaweb.google.com/danbren1/NamPictures/photo#5139855476588463986
8.) "ARVN Combat Action"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/ARVN_in_action_HD-SN-99-02062.JPEG/750px-ARVN_in_action_HD-sn-99-02062.JPEG
9.) "I got 'em!" http://www.rugbytales.com/popsmoke/images/rvnabn1.jpg
10.) "Tragedy" http://www.flickr.com/photos/mozzy/69717545/
11.) "Just another day, staying alive"
http://picasaweb.google.com/danbren1/NamPictures/photo#5139856322697021330
The ARVN is generally portrayed as a maligned army by most military historians. ARVN soldiers fought and died the same way as any other soldiers who fought in Vietnam from 1955-1975. ARVN soldiers were more than just soldiers, ARVN soldiers were human beings. Why do soldiers fight? Is it for pride. adventure, self-discovery, money, or love for their country? Do soldiers fight for each other? Military historians wrestle with these questions daily. I wanted to do research about the ARVN to find out why the ARVN were a generally maligned fighting force, why ARVN soldiers fought and died, who were the men who comprised the ARVN, and where did ARVN soldiers come from? More discreetly, where in Vietnam did ARVN soldiers come from? Soldiers need an ideal as to why they are fighting (democracy, human rights, communism, independence, etc.). ARVN soldiers did not have a strong ideal about why they were fighting. A certain army can be classified as a living organism that needs the proper resources to succeed.
Estimated Casualties of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html
Army of the Republic of Vietnam: Text
Text
Brigham, Robert K. (2006). ARVN: Life and Death In the South Vietnamese Army.
Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas.
Mr. Brigham offers insight to what life was like for an ARVN soldier. Mr. Brigham covers ARVN topics such as conscription, training, morale, battles, and families. These areas covered by Mr. Brigham involve an ARVN theater outside of the battlefield. Subjects in particular Mr. Brigham seems to have the most interest in are the areas of family/conscription and how they relate to ARVN life. Mr. Brigham argues that the ARVN were one of the most maligned armed forces in history. This notion of the ARVN being maligned is claimed to be a myth by Mr. Brigham. Mr. Brigham states to have an strong interest in sociomilitary history. The ARVN were essentially a part of society because of the large amount of men it took from society through the draft. The ARVN is generally looked upon as one of the most maligned forces to ever take the field of combat. It is not the ARNV's fault as to why they were generally an underachieving/ineffective low-level army. Beginning with their start as the VNA (1949-1955) to the end of the Vietnam War (1955-1975), the ARVN was mismanaged. A strong factor as to why the ARVN is largely considered a once maligned army was the quality of training they received.
Conscription
The years between 1955 and 1960 most ARVN troops volunteered for military service. In the U.S. the military draft has its own history. Historically in Vietnam, if their was such a draft, it was suited to fit Vietnam's culture and people in the best possible way. Conscription, when enacted by the U.S. government in Southern Vietnam, required loads of able bodied men to serve in the ARVN. The government in Saigon, along with the U.S. government, ignored Vietnam's past philosophy of instituting the draft during wartime. President Diem in Southern Vietnam realized that the way in which the United States wanted to build an army would be wrong, but he faced a crossroads. Diem could have done it his way, but he faced the possibility of losing financial support/stability from the United States government. Diem's realizations, coupled with his actions, were looked upon as threatening and he was assassinated. The average ARVN recruit was from the countryside and he was generally a peasant; the poor man was force to fight. The draft took away the countryside's ability to produce for Southern Vietnam, which in turn zapped the economy of its strength. The U.S. and Saigon government put into place a heavy military draft, therefore desertions in the ARVN became a reality. Biased deferments of the draft were a result of corruption in a mismanaged ARVN. Despite the large numbers of Vietnamese men drafted, the Saigon and U.S. governments never got the full amount of men they expected to be in the ARVN, but the ARVN was a large force.
Training
The quality of an armed force's training is arguably the most important factor in determining its success. The instructor cadre assigned to train the ARVN were not experienced combat veterans. Consisting of American advisers who were generally young lieutenants fresh from military school, inept military sucklings, or American soldiers who did not care; the training cadre did not fulfill its job of properly training the ARVN and it showed in times of combat. The draftee process induction centers that ARVN recruits were sent to were mixed with confusion over who went where and ARVN recruits ended up waiting and waiting for orders that seemed to never come. Physical examinations determining draft deferments were corrupt and biased. The basic training program was only five to six weeks long which was far too short to turn a man into a soldier. The Saigon government came up with combined operations involving the ARVN operating with U.S. forces, but this did not curtail all the problems that needed to be fixed. Political training took precedence over military training which was a grave mistake. Many ARVN soldiers believed that political training should be separate from military training. Soldiers should know what they are fighting for before they even go to a training center. A soldier cannot train effectively enough if his mind is concentrating on why he is there in the first place. Concentration on his training alone is essential for a soldier's success in combat. If the U.S. government would have invested heavily in training the ARVN properly, the ARVN's chances of success would have been greater. The amount of soldiers needed in the ARVN could have been reduced if the training would have been better. More Vietnamese men could have stayed at home with their families. An army of 100,000 men well trained is far more effective than 300,000 men who are not well trained. The ARVN (as a whole) deserved better training than what they got.
Morale
Success of the PAVN against the French occupation of Vietnam was a huge event in 1954. Whether one was a pure nationalist or a pure communist in Vietnam(1954), victory over foreign powers meant independence for Vietnam as a country. ARVN troops felt this and it made them feel left out. ARVN soldiers were fighting for a government(s) that wanted Vietnam split in half if necessary. Desertions played a vital part in morale. Inadequate pay, food, housing, and medical care played a role in low morale. Annual leave of duty (commonly called R and R for Rest and Relaxation) was greatly restrained as the war dragged on. The PAVN had morale problems, but it did not not face the same desertion problems. The Communist Party adopted Marxist, Maoist and Leninist ideals that dealt with locals and their situations. Local support was vital, which was something the ARVN generally did not have. The opposition forces of the ARVN lived off the land and were not succumbed to life on a military base. The ARVN, more so from 1965 to 1969 while the U.S. Army was fully engaged against the PAVN and the PLAF, lived on military bases and experienced long periods of boredom. This led to morale sinking lower.
Battles
In the chaotic realm of a battlefield one must have strong nerves and the ability to let his training take over his instinctive reactions to violence. The reality is to kill or be killed in a military battle. War is hell. The ARVN were not very effective in the first battles it saw action. As evidenced in the battle of AP BAC (1963) the ARVN, with their poor training mixed with the U.S. assumption that superior firepower would destroy the opposition rather easily, found out that fighting with advanced weaponry meant little in the terrain of Vietnam. Low lying marshes, dense jungle, and even mountainous areas made up a good portion of the countryside. The PAVN and the PLAF used the terrain in Vietnam to their full advantage and even though they were outnumbered, the PAVN and the PLAF fought of ARVN attacks with mostly guerrilla tactics and a little bit of ingenuity. This rendered the conventional military tactics employed by the United States government, which was bestowed onto the ARVN as the "right way to fight this war", as obsolete. The PAVN and PLAF, throughout the war, employed a "poke and hide, hide and poke" strategy of warfare. Thinking that little or no success in battle was primarily the ARVN's fault, the United States government employed this "right" way to fight with its own army (1963-1970) and this strategy again failed.
Families
Soldiers must fight as a team within a unit to have the greatest possible chance of success. The ARVN fought and died for their families. A significant part of Vietnamese culture is family. Their lack of sufficient training coupled with their mismanagement from the start, caused individualism to exist withing the ARVN. No one can really blame the ARVN for this. Having been taken from their families because of the draft, the regular ARVN soldier felt lost in a foreign military created from the philosophy of a foreign power. This foreign power (U.S.) made no attempts to take Vietnam's culture into consideration. ARVN soldiers did what they could to keep their families safe in a war torn country. A large number of ARVN soldiers brought along families, or their families followed them, to the base camps to which they were assigned. Small tightly-nit base camp communities came about as a result. ARVN soldiers fought along side each other, but when it came down to it, their families were the shelter ARVN soldiers could rely on. Soldiers have to rely on one another to be successful in combat. The Saigon government made efforts to try and convince the wives of soldiers that the best way they were contributing to the war effort was to support their husbands. In reality, families followed their soldiers to camp not only because of love, but because ARVN life was harsh for the soldier and the countryside was growing unsafe. ARVN soldiers created their own culture that emphasized family ties and individual strength. The defeat of South Vietnam by North Vietnam communists, led some ARVN families to leave Vietnam for the United States to start over. Not all ARVN families made it to the U.S. The ones who stayed in Vietnam tried to avoid humiliation in the face of the communists. ARVN soldiers, and primarily ARVN officers, served time in reeducation camps after the war.
If the Army of the Republic of Vietnam would have been trained in the best possible way, would the ARVN have won the Vietnam War (1955-1975)? Maybe yes and maybe no. The amount of men who died in the ARVN would not have been as high during the Vietnam War. They would have been better fighters. They would have had a better spirit as soldiers. They would have had more of an identity of themselves. Good training builds camaraderie between soldiers. There is an old saying, "the more you bleed in training, the less you bleed on the battlefield." Teamwork and a good work ethic is essential to have the greatest possibility of success as an army. The ARVN had the men, the weapons and the materials, but because of the ARVN's mismanagement by the U.S. government, they lacked good quality training.
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