How did North Vietnam win the civil war (American Phase)?

[GauchoBadger]

Stop pushing your own words into my comments. Gaddis called the accords dead on arrival because neither side met its obligations.

Franklin Weinstein paints a different picture: North Vietnam and the VWP were quite enthusiastic yet orderly in their preparations for the 1956 plebiscite on reunification, restraining Viet Minh troops, consulting regularly with the UN, and engaging in regular talks with southern leaderships ensuring them that reunification would not be forceful and that business activities, land reform practices, and cultural exchange would be respected and employed in a mild way if the vote was held for reunification.

While it is impossible to speak with certainty of Hanoi's intentions, it seems undeniable that the DRV did almost every thing possible to facilitate the holding of elections. From 1954 to 1956, the DRV behaved largely as one would expect a country sincerely interested in carrying out the Geneva Agree ments' election provision to act. On the other hand, Diem, clearly conscious that he would lose the election, was under
heavy domestic political pressure completely to eliminate the possibility of elections and thus to demonstrate that Communist rule was not around the corner. Diem's refusal even to consult probably also reflects a fear that the DRV might have agreed to any reasonable conditions he imposed. The conclusion seems inescapable that the 1956 elections were not held because the Diem government, with important US backing, was more interested in maintaining itself as a separate, anti communist government than in risking its survival to achieve the national unity to which all Vietnamese ostensibly were committed.

 

[Cuirassier]

@GauchoBadger

Diem as early as July 1955 had declared that he would not accept the Geneva Accords. Not sure how America meddling can be blamed for that.

 

[marathag]

ensuring them that reunification would not be forceful and that business activities, land reform practices, and cultural exchange would be respected and employed in a mild way if the vote was held for reunification.

Said with a straight face too.
By 1954, everyone knew what 'land reform' did in the North, along with business and cultural dealings with the Church and Temples.

 

[Sam R.]

If everyone knew by 1954 then why hadn’t the prospective targets of the Red River land reform fled by 1955? The first land reform campaign was a rent reduction enforcement campaign with limited results. The second land reform campaign proper increased the number of administrative units affected late, and according to the wiki summary of Zhai (2000) _China…_ University North Carolina press, p75., “Compared to the prior campaign, land reform campaign proper was carried out more violently and in larger areas especially after the Geneva Conference because the VWP leaders realized that the Geneva Agreement was impossible to be implemented; and feared that Diem's “March North” may start a fire at its backyard.” Ie: increasing violence was a direct result of geopolitical failure by the VWP.

Now this doesn’t argue anything about the necessary volume of VWP brutality against large and middling peasants caught up in a first serious Stalinist attempt to control the countryside. It is a direct argument against everybody knew by 1954. You’ve got an implicit claim about the timing of rural violence and Geneva backwards.

And in any case this argument is tending suspiciously towards what should have been done by nice people; not what was actually done and why by compradores, landlords, nomenklatura, and workers.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

That isn't the feeling I got from Miller's book. By the end of the fighting France had run itself ragged and was forced to play nice with various power brokers.

And some of those power brokers became quite dependable proxy forces. The private armies of the Binh Xuyen and the sects represented a very substantial force within the State of Vietnam, and there was a sizeable faction within Eisenhower's administration that wanted to write Diem off as dead when the Battle of Saigon kicked off.

 

[marathag]

From another forum. Killings were planned from the start

vu tuong <vhtuong@yahoo.com>
date May 25, 2007 9:45 AM
subject [Vsg] Newly released documents on the land reform

Dear list,

Just to piggyback on the comments from my dear Mongolian comrade Balazs, I have run into two recently released Party documents which are relevant to the
topic. Before I discuss these documents, let me say that I am focusing on the particular issue of executed and persecuted people during the land reform. I am not
trying to assess all the good and bad things about the land reform, which is a different topic.

1) “Chi Thi Cua Bo Chinh Tri Ve May Van De Dac Biet Trong Phat Dong Quan Chung” (Political Bureau’s Decree on Special Issues in Mobilizing the Masses),
May 4, 1953. Van Kien Dang Toan Tap v. 14 (2001), 201-206,wrote:

Quote—

“In this campaign, [we] will have to execute [xu tu] a number of reactionary or evil landlords. In our current situation, the ratio of executions [xu tu] of
these landlords to the total population in the free areas is fixed at the rate of 1/1000 in principle.
This ratio will be controlled by the leadership and is to be applied for the rent and interest reduction campaign this year and next year; it does not mean
only for this year, and it does not mean that every village will execute landlords according to this ratio. (Thus there may be communes that execute 3-4
people, others that execute only one or none at all).

The lives of people are an important matter. It is not that we don’t want to execute those who deserve execution. But the number of executions should not be
too many; if so, it would be difficult [for us] to win popular support.

[The document went on to mention several mitigating factors (such as “dia chu tre tuoi co hoc thuc va co hy vong cai tao duoc”) and special cases such as
Catholic priests that require special treatment].

“[The executions of] criminals [pham nhan, referring to landlords to be executed] who were local cadres from district level up, who were soldiers from the
company level up, must be approved [in advance] by central leaders [Trung Uong]. [The executions of] local cadres at the commune level [and below] must be
approved by Interzone Party Committee. [The executions of] soldiers from the platoon level [and below] must be authorized by the Central Party Committee
of the Army [Tong Quan Uy].

At the central level, an executive committee will be formed....This Committee is authorized to collect and protect information about criminals, make
recommendations to the Chairman of the Government [Chu Tich Chinh Phu—Ho Chi Minh himself, who was also amember of the Politburo which issued
this decree] for approval, and deliver the decision to the special people’s court for ruling on the cases.”

Unquote—

I am not sure if this document had ever been released before—I would appreciate any information on this. In all the five volumes that contained documents on the
land reform (1953-1957), this was the only document that mentioned the issue of executions in specific terms. Now what is the value of this document?

First, one often hears the argument that the central government did not intend to kill so many people during the land reform. This happened only during the
implementation of the policy and was the acts of some zealous low-level cadres. Perhaps this was true to some extent. The question is how much of the mistake
was the responsibility of the central government?

On the one hand, the document shows that Politburo members (or at least some of them) were concerned about indiscriminate killings. This caution, if not
for humanitarian reasons, was driven by political concerns for popular support for the policy as the document explicitly mentioned. The Politburo also
suggested that the ratio or quota was to be applied in a flexible manner depending on local situations.

On the other hand, the Politburo had calculated and decided in advance, before launching the campaign, a targeted ratio of 1/1000, or 0.1% of the total
population, to be executed. If we take the population of North Vietnam in 1955 to be 13.5 million (Nguyen Tien Hung, Economic Development of Socialist Vietnam,
1955-1980, Praeger 1977, p. 98), about 13,500 people were to be executed. The population in “the free areas” that this execution ratio was meant for were in
fact much fewer, perhaps about 10-11 million people.
In this case, the number of executions planned for for 1953-1954 was 10,000-11,000. But after 1954 the campaign was extended to most of North Vietnam, so the
figure of 13,500 was perhaps within the expectation of the Politburo.

The document (together with many others in the same volume) also demonstrates the careful planning of the campaign. There was a clear process of required
approval for executions that could go all the way up to the Chairman of the Government. I am sure that there were many cases (persecutions out of personal
revenge) in which local committees did not report the executions (against central order), but I doubt that this was widespread. It seems more plausible that
those local committees would rather fabricate crimes to get their requests for executions approved than to kill people without approval from above. I am also
aware that the campaigns moved left and right a few times during 1953-1956, but the dominant trend was the fear of committing rightist rather than leftist
errors. Given this fear, and the way these political campaigns were run in North Vietnam (read To Hoai’s new novel Ba Nguoi Khac [Three Different Characters]
for a sense of campaign-style politics; To Hoai served as a land reform cadre), local committees must have had greater incentives to over-report than
under-report executions. The central government, and its Chairman, must have approved most, if not all,
executions. Central leaders could blame local officials for fabricating charges and for overreporting, but it was they who gave the final approval to most executions.
At the very least, the document suggests that, besides the fact that thecentral government was responsible for the overall supervision of the campaign, it must
bear sole responsibility for at least 10,000-11,000 deaths that it planned to carry out.

To be sure, this was the number planned for, not the actual number of executions. But the intention to kill was there, and the percentage of the population to be
killed was calculated and fixed in principle, before any verdict had been made on those to be executed.

Furthermore, there is no reason to expect, and no evidence that I have seen to demonstrate, that the actual executions were less than planned; in fact the
executions perhaps exceeded the plan if we consider two following factors. First, this decree was issued in 1953 for the rent and interest reduction campaign
that preceded the far more radical land redistribution and party rectification campaigns (or waves) that followed during 1954-1956. Second, the decree was
meant to apply to free areas (under the control of the Viet Minh government), not to the areas under French control that would be liberated in 1954-1955 and that
would experience a far more violent struggle.

Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low-end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper “Land
Reform in North Vietnam, 1953-1956” presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California,
Berkeley (February 2001). In this paper Moise (7-9) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book (which was 5,000) and accepted an estimate close to 15,000
executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised
estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign,
the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture (the central government bore less direct responsibility for these
cases, however).

Second, the decree suggests that the campaign in Vietnam was proportionally just as murderous as the one launched in China after 1949. Viviene Shue
(Peasant China in Transition, University of California Press 1980, 80) who is very sympathetic to the Chinese revolution quotes Benedict Stavis, who estimates the
number of executions in China during 1949-52 based on official sources to be between 400,000 and 800,000 (These executions may also have come from other
campaigns besides the land reform in the same period, and if unofficial deaths are added, the total number could reach more than a million). If 500,000 deaths
(officially and unofficially) can be assumed to be specifically related to land reform, then the proportion was also about 0.1% in the total population
of 572 million Chinese in 1952 (Dwight Perkins, ed. China’s Modern Economy in Historical Perspective, Stanford University Press 1975, 122).

Given that Chinese advisors were heavily involved in the Vietnamese campaign, a relationship may have existed between this Chinese ratio and the Vietnamese decree,
but this hypothesis needs further research to confirm.

2) “De cuong bao cao cua Bo Chinh tri” (Draft Report of the Politburo), Van Kien Dang Toan Tap v. 17 (2001), 432-474.
(This was Party Secretary General Truong Chinh’s report at the Tenth Central Committee Plenum, August 25-October 5, 1956, which ordered the Error
Rectification Campaign [Sua Sai]. Truong Chinh was to resign from his post after this Plenum). I am very certain this document had never been released before.
This document offers the most details as yet about the number of punished cadres but unfortunately it contains no information on those who were executed (or
the number may have been removed before publication).

In this document, Truong Chinh cited statistics about the land reform “yet to be confirmed.” He said that three-quarters (2,876) of all Party cells (3,777) in
16 provinces had been rectified in the rent reduction and land reform campaigns by the time these campaigns were suspended (some time in May 1956).
84,000 members in these cells were punished [xu tri] among the total of 150,000, or 56%. “Punishment” usually meant being expelled from the Party after
torture, and could amount to execution. As Truong Chinh (ibid., 435) frankly but belatedly admitted, “most cadres and party members who were arrested were
subject to brutal and barbaric torture [nhuc hinh rat tan khoc, da man].”
The goal of the Party was to purge only members of exploitative class backgrounds but in practice those of working classes were purged as well. In the Ta Ngan
Zone (provinces to the left of the Red River), it was found out that 7,000 of the total 8,829 persecuted party members belonged to “peasants and other
[non-exploitative] classes.” While the persecutions of these working-class cadres based on fabricated charges were clearly not intended by central leaders, they
could not have been carried out without their prior approval.

According to the same document, in the 66 districts and seven provinces where the party rectification campaign was carried out (the campaign at the
provincial level was directed by none but the Party’s Central Organizational Department headed by Le Van Luong), 720 were “punished” out of 3,425 cadres and
employees (80% of these 3,425 were party members). The ratio was 21%. If only cadres from provincial department level up were counted, 105 were punished
out of 284, or 37%. Among 36 incumbent members of provincial party committees who were subjects of the campaign, 19 (or 57%) were persecuted. Among
61 former members of provincial party committees who were subjects of the campaign, 26 were punished. At the district level, 191 out of 396 district party
committee members were punished, or 48%. In an extreme case (Ha Tinh province), all 19 members of the provincial party committee, police department, and
district militia commanders were branded “counter-revolutionaries” and purged during the campaign (all were later found to be innocent by central authorities).

To conclude, both documents are not to be taken as truths but they seem to be the best available sources about this complex topic. I expect documents to be
released in the future will improve substantially on what we know. Also it should be reiterated that, whether some of those executed landlords deserved to
die, and whether the benefits of the campaign for the peasantry justified or outweighed the sacrifice of these landlords, are questions that require a
different debate.

Tuong Vu

 

[Sam R.]

Lovely source. The pace of executions and extraparty killing didn’t increase until after the failure of Geneva though. Which accords with the public opinion savvy competence of the ICP/VWP. I’m not sure I agree with Vu Tongs suspicion they’re using Chinese estimates for their 1 in 1000 target. Independent derivation seems most likely. I like their analysis of the dynamic between central local and avoidance of right deviationalism. The increase in killings *corresponds* to the loss of a potential bourgeois democratic solution to immediately controlling the south and thus a belief that right lines are no longer viable. Correspondingly with the later elimination of the more socialist-humanist northern development line. Of course rectifying party errors is a great way to solidify your own groups power.

 

[ComradeH]

That 80% quote also has no real basis.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Compnay, Inc., 1963), p. 372

"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. "

Longer context: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/vietnam/ddeho.htm

How did the US make SV?

By not-signing Geneva Accord of 1954, by launching a "vote of confidence" for Bao Dai (vs Ngo Dinh Diem) in 1955, by not-launching Vietnamese referendum of 1956.
Oh, and from 1950, the US started funding France during First IndoChina War (which counts for 80% of the war cost in 1954 if my brain serves correctly)

 

[ComradeH]

“In this campaign, [we] will have to execute [xu tu] a number of reactionary or evil landlords. In our current situation, the ratio of executions [xu tu] of
these landlords to the total population in the free areas is fixed at the rate of 1/1000 in principle.
This ratio will be controlled by the leadership and is to be applied for the rent and interest reduction campaign this year and next year; it does not mean
only for this year, and it does not mean that every village will execute landlords according to this ratio. (Thus there may be communes that execute 3-4
people, others that execute only one or none at all).

The lives of people are an important matter. It is not that we don’t want to execute those who deserve execution. But the number of executions should not be
too many; if so, it would be difficult [for us] to win popular support.

[The document went on to mention several mitigating factors (such as “dia chu tre tuoi co hoc thuc va co hy vong cai tao duoc”) and special cases such as
Catholic priests that require special treatment].

“[The executions of] criminals [pham nhan, referring to landlords to be executed] who were local cadres from district level up, who were soldiers from the
company level up, must be approved [in advance] by central leaders [Trung Uong]. [The executions of] local cadres at the commune level [and below] must be
approved by Interzone Party Committee. [The executions of] soldiers from the platoon level [and below] must be authorized by the Central Party Committee
of the Army [Tong Quan Uy].

At the central level, an executive committee will be formed....This Committee is authorized to collect and protect information about criminals, make
recommendations to the Chairman of the Government [Chu Tich Chinh Phu—Ho Chi Minh himself, who was also amember of the Politburo which issued
this decree] for approval, and deliver the decision to the special people’s court for ruling on the cases.”

I'm actually reading the sources (in Vietnamese), and there is no mention about the 1/1000 ratio
Source: (in Vietnamese) (page 104 of the pdf file, because of the page format) http://tulieuvankien.dangcongsan.vn/Uploads/2019/3/5/21/VK Dang TT - Tap 14.pdf

 

[Sam R.]

That’s disturbing as it is in a purportedly quoted section.

 

[marathag]

I'm actually reading the sources (in Vietnamese), and there is no mention about the 1/1000 ratio
Source: (in Vietnamese) (page 104 of the pdf file, because of the page format) http://tulieuvankien.dangcongsan.vn/Uploads/2019/3/5/21/VK Dang TT - Tap 14.pdf

Will have to take your word for that translation. English Translations seem to live behind the jstor paywall
Figure is also in his book
Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia
By Tuong Vu Amazon Link
He has done many journal publications.

 

[Cuirassier]

@marathag
He also wrote Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Compnay, Inc., 1963), p. 372

I wasn't doubting that Eisenhower said that, but the veracity of Eisenhower's claim.

By not-signing Geneva Accord of 1954,

Doesn't make a difference. Unless you think it was somehow an American responsibility to force South Vietnamese politicos.

by not-launching Vietnamese referendum of 1956.

Also not an American responsibility.

 

[marathag]

force South Vietnamese politicos.

For being accused of being mere puppets for the US, Each US President found that every single RVN leader, from Diem on, including the Junta Generals, From Ike to Ford, found them all a pain in the ass to deal with, they all had to be really armtwisted into doing what the US wanted, and often just refused anyway.
Vietnam War would have much easier for the US had they all been willing toadies, like say Bulgaria was to the USSR

 

[Tehshudge]

For being accused of being mere puppets for the US, Each US President found that every single RVN leader, from Diem on, including the Junta Generals, From Ike to Ford, found them all a pain in the ass to deal with, they all had to be really armtwisted into doing what the US wanted, and often just refused anyway.
Vietnam War would have much easier for the US had they all been willing toadies, like say Bulgaria was to the USSR

This isn't exactly a historical anomaly. Client States of every stripe throughout history are routinely led by people who are less than extremely helpful.

 

[Rickshaw]

This isn't exactly a historical anomaly. Client States of every stripe throughout history are routinely led by people who are less than extremely helpful.

They all have their own agendas. "Allies are a tiresome lot," attributed to the British commander of the Italian Expeditionary Force in 1915.

 

[ComradeH]

Doesn't make a difference. Unless you think it was somehow an American responsibility to force South Vietnamese politicos.

The Geneva Meeting in 1954 was a multi-side meeting (DRVN, State of Viet Nam, France, PRC, Soviet, US). Any extra signatures on the paper would mean a difference...

Unless the others have nuke.

Still, if the US sign the paper and then proceed as they did in the history, nothing much will happen. Their reputation will shake a bit, but nothing much (they have nukes, after all). And sure, in 1954, the US cannot really dictate the policies to the South Vietnamese (still State of Viet Nam at this point).

Also not an American responsibility.

Diem came into full power in 1955, through the "magic of democracy". And from 1955, the US had an legal "in" to the South Vietnamese policy. I chalk the absence of the 1956 referendum to their responsibility.

That’s disturbing as it is in a purportedly quoted section.

Less "purportedly quoted" and more like the only free stuff online (with all the citation need) I can find.
Or rather the first thing shows up on Google.

 

[Belisarius II]

Persistence, and good diplomacy. The strategy of using Laos, and Cambodia for base areas allowed them to fight on their own terms. Unless the Americans were willing to pay the diplomatic price for sending ground troops into Laos & Cambodia they had control of the tempo of action, and the length of the war. At some point the Americans would have to leave. They couldn't believe their luck that the Americans could be so stupid.

 

[Cuirassier]

And from 1955, the US had an legal "in" to the South Vietnamese policy. I chalk the absence of the 1956 referendum to their responsibility.

You do but most people don't. Unless you can show the US somehow changed Diem's mind about the referendum?

 

[King-Emperor]

As others have mentioned the tendency of media to amplify anti-communist atrocities and ignore worse communist atrocities, the incompetent conduct of the war from the american side, the american political refusal to invade the North with boots on the ground in order to destroy the NVA, the unwillingness to invade Laos which was for all intents and purposes an North Vietnamese puppet state to interdict and destroy the Ho-Chi-Min trail, the South Vietnamese lack of strong leadership after Diem was murdered, the tolerance of absurd levels of South Vietnamese corruption.

These are all things that should have enabled the destruction of South Vietnam. And yet it managed to survive all of these things until the U.S. congress cut them off from American Air power and money to purchase weapons, ammo and oil.

That was what killed South Vietnam.

That’s just sad. Korea and Vietnam war Vets are the most traumatized veterans in United States history relative to the information that was available to the public and the conscientiousness that it had.

They fought (officially) for 8 years to prevent a communist dictatorship from taking over South Vietnam, and considering the artificial obstacles placed in their way and the unwillingness of the higher ups to wage the war competently until Westmoreland was replaced, I’m amazed that that they succeeded in their mission, only to be failed by partisan hacks that lost the war on purpose. That goes double for South Vietnamese veterans.

It’s a stain on U.S. honor that I as refugee from a communist state will never forget. And it’s a shame that vets blame themselves or who think they actually lost the war.

It’s unarguable to say that the men and women of the American military lost the Vietnam war. They did what they set out to achieve. The Paris Peace accords established a peace that although was violated frequently by the NVA, was held together by the threat of U.S. AirPower. Once that threat was taken away, once South Vietnam couldn’t afford to pay for ammo, oil and the other necessities of modern war, it was dead.

I'm genuinely curious here; would the continuation of American air support (perhaps without the distraction of Watergate or some other POD) have enabled South Vietnam to survive? I've heard it said often that the Vietnam War was lost from the start, but there is also this argument that if the US just stayed the course from 1973-1975, enforcing the Paris Peace Accords instead of withdrawing, South Vietnam could have stood its ground. I'm not by any means an expert on this topic, so I'd love to find out if this claim is accurate.

 

[AlexG]

Because in the years prior( I’m on mobile rn) the NVA tried to invade South Vietnam in the same manner it did in 1975. It was defeated in detail and had to take time to rebuild its forces after that defeat. The only difference between that invasion and the one in ‘75 was American airpower or its lack-thereof. Well. That and the fact that South Vietnam was able to maintain its mechanized army in the prior invasion and was left to be destroyed in ‘75 because of a lack of oil and support equipment to maintain it.

While the north was able to feed its mechanized forces because the Comintern was excluded from the oil embargo and continued to get support from the Soviet Union.