Abstract
Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh campaign against the French in 1946–591 was a classic demonstration of the Mao Zedong strategy for rural revolution, more so even than Mao’s own fifteen-year campaign against Chiang Kai-shek in China, which was obscured by the intervention of Japan and the impact of the Second World War. There was no such interference in the Viet Minh’s war of liberation in North Vietnam in 1946–54.
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Notes and References
Bernard Fall, Street without Joy, Harrisburg, Stackpole, 1961, gives an excellent assessment of the French campaign
Malcolm Browne, The New Face of War, London, Cassell, 1965, vividly describes the way these agit-prop teams operated
John Girling, People’s War, London, Allen & Unwin, 1969, pp. 141–4
Sir Robert Thompson Defeating Communist Insurgency, London, Chatto & Windus, 1966, p. 27. On p. 25, Sir Robert (who headed a British Advisory Mission to Vietnam 1961–64) describes the tactics against village officials: On one occasion in Quang Ngai Province, when the Viet Cong regained control over a village which had been in government hands for some time, they seized the headman and his family, disembowelled his wife in front of him, hacked off his children’s arms and legs and then emasculated him. This method of dealing with ‘traitors’ is certainly an effective way of winning that ‘popular support’ which so endears insurgent movements to less well-informed critics of the local government. It might also be added that these atrocities certainly discouraged others from volunteering to replace the local government officials and probably ensured that anyone who did take the job would make a secret deal not to interfere with terrorist activities in that village.
See also Sir Robert Thompson’s ‘Foreword’, in Richard Clutterbuck, The Long Long War, London, Gassell, 1967, p. ix
Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows, New York, Doubleday, 1975, vol II
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© 1993 Richard Clutterbuck
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Clutterbuck, R. (1993). The Vietnam War. In: International Crisis and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379015_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379015_11
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