Social Scientist

Vietnam: Ten Years after Victory

Author(s): G. V. C. Naidu
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 13, No. 5 (May, 1985), pp. 58-64
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517234
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 Vietnan: Ten Years After Victory

ON 30 APRIL 1985 Vietnamcelebratedthe tenth anniversaryof the fall of

Saigon. In this connection a spate of articles,documentaries,interviews
etc appeared in the American media. One again heardthe old justifi-
cations for the massive American intervention, namely,that the Vietnam
war was fought with the 'best intentions' of defending freedom; and this
notwithstandingthe fact that the people of Vietnam waged a heroic war
againstthis varietyof Americanfreedomfor more than 30 years.
Vietnamis the Vietnamese pronunciation of a Chinese character
which meansa countryto the south of China which passes over obstacles
and sits up again. It appears the Vietnamese have a better vision of
themselves than others. Ho Chi Minh confidently declared in 1946,
"Vietnamesewould rather die than lose their independence."' This only
reflectedthe spiritand determinationof the Vietnamesenationalism. The
Vietnamesehad a glorioushistoryof repellingforeign intrudersfor about
2000 years. The Vietnamese tradition of nationalism started fromtheir
long struggle(morethan 1000 years) against imperial China and lasted
till 1975when they humbled the world's mightiest power, the United
States.
The Frenchnaval vessels sailed into South Vietnamin the 1840s.On
the pretextof protectingthe missionariesfrom reprisals of the natives they
sought to Christinize;the plan was to colonize Vietnam and to seek new
access to China. In 1889 the French made the three territories of
Vietnam-Cochin-Chinain the south, Annam in the centre,and Tonkin
in the north-together with the separateentitiesof Cambodiaand Laos to
the west to form a single administrativeunit of Indochina,though cultures,
languagesand nuances of religionwere different.2Though this helpedthe
people of Indochinato forge a unity in their liberation struggles, it also
created border problems later on, thus contributing to the present
instability in that region. Throughout the colonial period there were
sporadicuprisingsagainstthe French,but they were suppressed ruthlessly.
These never threatenedthe French rule in any significant way. The
formationof the CommunistParty of Indochinaon 18 February1930 was
a landmarkin the historyof Vietnam which enabledthe freedomloving
disparategroupsto unite underone banner. It soon gained tremendous
popularityamong the masses, especiallythe peasants, whom it finallyled
to victory.
The weakness of the metropolitan powers was exposed duringthe
Second WorldWar when the Japanese overran the whole of South-East
Asia with little or no resistance. When Roosevelt warned the Vichy
governmentthat France would lose Indochina after the war if it yielded
to Japan, the French callously appealed to Hitler to maintain white
(Franco-German)supremacy over the colony; this proposal, however,

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 VIETNAM: TEN YEARS AFTER VICTORY 59

despite its explicitly racialist appeal, was rejected by the Axis.3 While
the war was in progress the French and the Japanese actively collaborated
to rule Indochina and suppress the nationalist movement. On 2
September 1945 Ho Chi Minh issued a declaration of independence based,
ironically enough, on the American declaration of 4 July 1776. This bold
action of Vietnam forced the United States to come to a decision on the
Indochina question. On 23 September 1945, the French staged a come-
back supported by the British to rule Indochina again. The French and
the British troops attacked Viet Minh (guerrilla wing of the Communist
Party of Vietnam) strongholds on the pretence that they were Japanese
agents On many occasions the French and the British employed Japanese
troops who had surrendered in mopping-up operations against the Viet
Minh.4 But the nationalists were not to be subdued so easily.
With the division of the country, like many other colonies, Ho Chi
Minh signed an agreement with the French in March 1946 which declared
North Vietnam, Republic of Vietnam, "a free state". But the French
ignored the promises made to the Viet Minh, brought in thousands of
troops and started the bombardment actively supported by the United
States under Marshall Plan which gave the call for defeating communism.
The US contention was that the nationalist movement was not genuine.
The Americans and the French chose Bao Dai as the true nationalist,
a person who was distinguished earlier for his collaboration with the
Japanese, but who, after the war, had formally abdicated in favour of the
Viet Minh and received an honorary post as political counsellor to Ho Chi
Minh. When the fighting was in progress between the Viet Minh and the
French, Bao Dai ran away to Hong Kong. He again renounced the Viet
Minh and accepted the offer of the Americans, after two years of
persuation to play the role of a "true nationalist". It was not until the
summer 1949 that the French colonial war was officially labelled as a
defence of the "legitimate" government of Bao Dai. Soon the Vietnamese
nationalist movement had international repercussions. The Black troops
from Africa and West Indies quickly realized that they were being used as
cannon fodder to suppress the nationalist movement in another colony.
The shifting of troops from other colonies weakened the French garrisons
in North Africa and the direct inspiration of the Viet Minh's struggle was
reflected in the growth of militant resistance movements in Tunisia (1952),
Morocco (1953) and Algeria (1954). By mid-1954 the French lost nearly
100,000 troops; another 114,000 were wounded. The cost of the war for
the French was over $ 7 billion and the US was paying 78 per cent of the
French cost in the Indochina war. The siege of Dien Bien Phu resulted
in the complete defeat of the French on 13 March 1954 and the
stage was set for US intervention. John Foster Dulles offered Bidault
the use of nuclear weapons at Dien Bien Phu; the Freneh did not accept
because the West would have completely lost its credibility and long-term
interests.
In April 1954, US Vice-President Richard Nixon proposed to send

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60 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

"American boys" to Indochina. He expressed growing concern over the

"loss" of South-East Asia, a most critical source of raw materials and
markets: "If this whole part of South-East Asia goes under communist
domination or influence, Japan, which trades and must trade with this
area in order to exist, must inevitably be oriented towards the communist
regime." Eisenhower further elaborated on this theme: "The loss of
Vietnam together with Laos on the west and Cambodia on the northwest...
would have spelled the loss of valuable deposits of tin and prodigious
supplies of rubber and rice. And if Indochina fell, not only Thailand
but Burma and Malaya would be threatened, with added risks to East
Pakistan and South Asia as well as to all Indonesia."5 The Americans
intervened not so much because they had any serious stakes in Vietnam
per se but because of the US economic and security interests in the whole
of the Asia-Pacific region which has been the fastest growing region of the
world. The US rightly foresaw its interests in this area, and Vietnam type
militant movements were considered a threat. For a long time now,
American trade across the Pacific has suipassed the trans-Atlantic trade.
South-East Asia is always considered one of the most important areas not
only for its strategic location but also as a repository of raw materials with
fast growing markets.
The first hint of a possible US defeat in South Vietnam came in
January 1963 at the Ap Bac battle where a small force of 230 liberators
successfully resisted huge American and South Vietnamese forces who
were supported by helicopters and planes and inflicted unimaginable
damage. The American intervention lasted till its total withdrawal in
1973. The Americans who were pitted against the aroused nationalism
of Vietnam inflicted devastation upon that country on a scale which is
unparallelled in the history. The US dropped more than seven million
tons of bombs on Indochina-nearly three times the total tonnage of
bombs dropped in World War II and Korea combined-plus 100,000 tons
of defoliants and other noxious substances. About 8000 US planes and
helicopters were destroyed. The direct expenditure of the US in Vietnam
was about $ 150 billion. The Americans used all possible experimental
weapons such as chemicals, gas, napalm, phosphorus fragmentation
weapons and bacteriological weapons. "Agent Orange", "carpet bombing",
"lazy dog" and a variety of other appellations were invented or describe
novel modes of devastation. Dykes, bridges, canals etc, were bombed
so that people would flock to urban areas which could be more easily
managed. Defoliants were sprayed on crops and forests to deny food
and shelter to the guerrillas, carpet bombardment was done to wipe out
the villages. Finally, by the time the Americans were left with no options
but to quit in the wake of the irresitible guerilla advance on the field,
and mounting public pressure and economic crisis at home, the over half-
a-million-strong US Expeditionary Force in South Vietnam had become
"a drugged, mutinous and demoralized rubble." Because of forced
urbanization to serve the needs of the US troops, the percentage of people

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 VIETNAM: TEN YEARS AFTER VICTORY 61

living in rural areas came down from 85 per cent to less than 40 per cent
by 1970 in South Vietnam, and Saigon became the most congested city
in the world. The Americans left Vietnam with 58,000 dead, 300,000
wounded and a humliliating defeat. The price was heavier for the
Vietnamese. During the American intervention alone nearly two million
Vietnamese were killed, 4.5 million wounded and nine million became
refugees. A leading US weekly ruefully commented on the futility of the
"deployment of 3.3 million American troops and a concentrated application
of firepower that was, by every historical standard, almost inconceivable in
so small a place."6 The social, economic and ecological damage was
beyond anybody's imagination. It was reported that there were 30,000
cases of permanent deafness among children from the 1972 bombing
alone.
By late-1960s it became too much for the US to bear the cost of the
Vietnam war, with hopes of victory diminishing. Richard Nixon
announced on the island of Guam, the US military base in the Pacific, the
fomous "Nixon Doctrine" in 1969 which meant the withdrawal of troops
from Vietnam but to lend active support to the US ally, the Thieu regime
in South Vietnam. In other words it was "Vietnamization" of the
conflict where North and South Vietnam would fight each other. In 1973
the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam after the Paris Talks which was
only a face saving device and was nothing short of an acceptance of defeat
on the part of the US. But it was presented as a "stunning diplomatic
victory" in the US. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize jointly after the successful conclusion of the talks.
Le Duc Tho rejected the award implying that the Vietnamese won the
peace defeating aggression. The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to
Kissinger represented supreme irony.
Instead of allowing the three political forces (the Provisonal Revolu-
tinory Government, the Thieu administration and a third force of
nationalists) to set up a council of National Reconciliation and Concord,
which was to organize elections in South Vietnam and set up a new
government--as was accepted under the Paris Agreement-the US started
supplying arms to Theiu as part of Vietnamization.7 But littie did anyone
imagine that the fall of Saigon would be so soon. On 21 April 1975,
South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned and flew to Taipei,
reportedly shipping out a retirement fund of 3.5tons of gold. By the
end of April 1975, the whole of South Vietnam, including Saigon, fell to
the liberation forces. The sudden collapse of South Vietnam was not
because of any overwhelming numerical superiority of the guerilla forces,
but because of the degree of moral disintegration which the South
Vietnamese army had reached in 1975.
The People's Liberation Armed Forces occupied Saigon and imme-
diately restorted order in South Vietnam, which had been converted into
what Senator Fullbright called "a society of prostitutes and mercenaries."
They banned brothels, dance halls, opium dens, and "all decadent slave

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62 SOCIAL SCIENTIST

culture activities of the American variety", and ordered that "generosity

and leniency" shouldbe shown towardssoldiers, police and employeesof
the former regime who reported to the new revolutionarygovernment.
Foreign journalists praisedhighly the discipline of the liberation forces.
The FinancialTimescorrespondentadmittedthat "therehas not been one
reportcome to light of looting, raping, stealing or for that matter
drunkenness." The Vietnamesehad the formidabletask of reconstruction.8
They had to deal immediatelywith one million soldiers of the South
Vietnameseregimewho were demobilizedand who remainedlargelyhostile
to the victorsand anotherone millioncivilianswho were workingin various
capacities for the former regime. There were about two million
unemployedpeasantswho had flockedto urban centres underthe forced
urbanization programmeduring the war. The long years of war had
generatedsocial problems whichadded to the burdens: three million had
contracted venereal diseases, one million suffered from tuberculosis,
500,000 were employed as prostitutes, 500,000 drugaddicts, 370,000
orphans, 200,000 beggarsetc.9 The whole of the South Vietnamese
economywas gearedto servethe war machineof the Americans,which
crumbledthe momentthe Americansleft.
The majorproblemafter the victorywas over-concentration of people
in Saigonand consequent unemployment. There was no option but to
shift people to the countryside, for Vietnam is basically an agricultural
country with very limited resources for large-scale industry. Several
sectionsofthe population like businessmen, or those who served the
earlierregimeand the Americans,or those who wereexclusivelydependent
on the Americansor their supplies, and who had got habituated to the
easy life of the cities and were not preparedto go to the villagesand work.
These people started leaving the country. The soldiers who surrendered
were sent to "reeducation camps" for "ideological reorientation."
This becamea perfect excuse for the Carter administration to refuse
reparationsor aid to Vietnam on the pretext of human rightsviolation;
Carterwasnot bothered however by the violation of human rights by
Somoza of Nicaragua, the Shah of Iran, Marcos of the Philippines and
many US-supportedregimesin Latin America. The reeducationcampsin
Vietnam becamea serious human rights problem for the West which
conveniently forgot the reeducation camps set up by the British, tle
French and the US for the prisonersof war of the World WarII who
were subjectedto hardlabor and harshtreatment.10 The US also exerted
pressureto stall aid from other countries,and blockedtrade with Vietnam.
Thousandsof people, mostly smugglers,blackmarketeers,prostitutesetc,
startedfleeingSouth Vietnamin the face of harshreality that one has to
work.
The Western press raiseda hue and cry about the Vietnamese
refugees,deliberately ignoring otherinstances wherepeople had fled their
countries.. For instance, in mid-June 1978 about 200,000 Bengali
Muslimsfled Burmainto Bangladesh and a quarter million people were

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 VIETNAM : TEN YEARS AFTER VICTORY 63

displaced as a result of Israeli bombings in March 1978 alone. Not much

was reported about 140,000 Filipinos fleeing to Sabah, nor about the
massive flight from countries with US-backed regimes in Latin America:
an estimated half a million from Uruguay, about 700,000 from Bolivia.
nearly 100,000 from Nicaragua under Somoza's rule and many more from
other military regimes. More than 1,000 refugees had travelled from
Haiti over 800 miles in flimsy boats to Florida where they were imprisoned
and subjected to harsh and discriminatory treatment.1X Probably the
Vietnamese would have been in a much better position had there not been
any foreign intervention, or at least if the same concern, if not more, was
shown about the people who stayed back in that war ravaged country.
In the middle of June 1976 a UN Commission on Vietnam said in
a report that at least $ 432 million was required immediately to restore
the country's agriculture and transport system. The commission was
impressed by the "effective arrangements made by the governments of
North and South Vietnams (unified in 1976) to set to work and repair the
war damaged country.12 This was precisely the time when Vietnam was
denied aid and was forced to depend on the Soviet Union alone. The
Vietnamese estimated that some 7.5 million unexploded bombs, mines,
shells and other explosives still lay buried in the old battlegrounds in 1975.
So far more than 4000 people have been killed by discarded American
ordnance since the end of the war. One-third of the country remains
devastated even today. On top of all this came the murderous Pol Pot
regime in neighbouring Kampuchea, which instigated border clashes, to
leading eventual Vietnamese intervention in late-1978. This incurred the
wrath of the Chinese who resorted to punitive measures by attacking
Vietnam in February 1979. Despite all these obstacles, the Time magazine
accepts that life is much better in Vietnam today than in 1975, and "for
most people, life's basic necessities are satisfied."13 At present, Vietnam
has the most comprehensive primary education and rural health programme
in continental Asia. By 1983 Vietnam became self-sufficient in foodgrains
production despite calamities in the late 1970s like drought and typhoons.
This month while Vietnam is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its
victory, there is a spate of articles in the Western press, portraying the
present government as inefficient, accusing it of not pursuing the right
path of development, calling it a stooge of the Soviet Union, and pooh-
poohing the socialist construction it has undertaken. While talking of
Vietnam's backwardness and low per capita income, the colonial powers
cannot evade their historical responsibility for the present situation; for
no fault of theirs the Vietnamese were subjected to a devastation unheard
of in human history. President Reagan says now that the Vietnamese war
was fought for a "noble cause"; ironically, however, his administration did
not hesitate to cut the federal funds which were meant for the war veterans.
Kissinger writes : "Vietnam, a noble goal but a flawed strategy"; what
the "correct" strategy would have been, what further suffering it would
have inflicted on the Vietnamese people, is known only to him. Even now

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64 SOCIALSCIENTIST

however the American public opinion continues to be repelled by the

bloodshed that was inflicted on Vietnam.
Though the US lost the war in Vietnam it has managed to safeguard
its South-East Asian sphere of influence against communism, it has, in
other words, managed to consolidate its position. Another "gain" for
the Americans was that they converted Vietnam into a testing ground for
biological warfare system, napalm, and for conducting experiments on
monsoons etc. But the fact remains that the world's mightiest power was
humbled by the tiny freedom loving patriotic people of Vietnam. The
Communist Party of Vietnam would not have succeeded but for the commit-
ment of the people to struggle. Vietnam proved that if the people are
committed, any foreign intervention or aggression could be thrown back.
Ho Chi Minh said in 1946: "Whatever sacrifices we must endure
and however long the war of resistance will last, we are determined to
fight to the end, until Vietnam is completely independent and reunified."1'
His dream was fulfilled by the heroic people of Vietnam.
GVC NAIDU
Centre for South-East Asion Studies,
JawaharlalNehru University, New Delhi.

1 Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings(1920-1969), Hanoi, Foreign Language

PublishingHouse, 1973, p 70.
2 See Wilfred Burchett, The China, Cambodia, Vietnam Triangle, London,
1967, pp 15-17.
3 BetrandRussel, WarCrimesin Vietnam,London, George Allen and Unwin
Ltd, 1967 pp 15-17.
4 Ibid, pp 22-23.
5 BarryWeisberg(ed), Ecocide in Vietnam: The Ecology of War,New York,
1970, p 5.
6 Newsweek,15 April 1985.
7 Harish Chandola, "Vietnam : Who are the Refugees ?"Economic and
Political Weekly,12 April 1975, p 614.
8 Keesing'sContemporaryArchives,22-31 December 1975, p 27493.
9 Peter Linqueco, "Notes on a Visit to Vietnam", Journal of Contemporary
Asia, Vol 6, No 4, 1976, p 408.
10 Noam Chomsky After Cataclysm: Postwar Indochina and the Construction
of Imperial Ideology, Political Economyof Human Rights II, Nottingham,
Spokesman, 1979, p 84.
11 Ibid, pp 50-56.
12 Asian Almanac,5 March 1977, p 8109.
13 Time, 15 April 1985.
14 Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings,op cit, p 71.

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