M-TH: The Vietnam War

[George Pennefather]

Title: The Vietnam War

Some quick comments on the Vietnamese War.   The Vietnamese Communist Party under Ho Chi Minh demonstrated tremendous opportunism in the struggle against imperialist domination of Vietnam. In many ways it actually facilitated the perpetuation of that domination and the tremendous suffering inflicted on the Vietnamese masses during the wars.   The Communist Party sought to restrict its programme and even subordinate its bourgeois interests. It did this by presenting the struggle as one of seeking an independent capitalist democratic republic of Vietnam. It even went so far as to confine itself to seeking autonomy by sucking up to Paris and Washington. While maintaining hostility against the French occupiers it effectively co-operated with the Americans. It conducted itself in this way even thought the French were being actively supported by Washington in its effort to recover its control over Vietnam after the Japanese were forced to withdraw from Vietnam. It took Washington’s Wilsonian rhetoric at face value. It was only when it could not but recognise the imperialist agenda of Washington that it was forced to challenge the American presence in Vietnam.   At the same time the role of Stalinist Russia and the PCF were decisive factors in the opportunist role played by Ho Chi Minh. Stalin was  prepared to sacrifice the struggle in Vietnam in the interests of the nationalism he was pursuing in relation to Russia. Stalin was so preoccupied with consolidating his control over Eastern Europe that he was prepared to sacrifice Vietnamese independence over it. The PCF actively supported French oppression of Vietnam. Stalin was not prepared to encourage conditions that would lead to the PCF taking state power by means of the democratic process. He was of the view that Washington would not permit this to happen even if it was done democratically. However Stalin wanted to maintain a strong PCF in France as a means of exerting leverage over the West in relation to its foreign policy. It would give the Soviet Union a strong position within Europe. He also hoped that the growth in the French Communist Party would cause the right wing politicians would turn their heads away while he consolidated his control over Eastern Europe the gateway to Russian and his chief security concern. In 1945 and 1946 the PCF hoping to win power through the ballot box was not anxious to avoid anything  to do anything that might make them unpopular which is why they abandoned their support for national independence movements. Consequently the Vietnamese were advised by the PCF not to resist the re-imposition of colonial rule because a war of  independence would obstruct the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. Thorez a member of the coalition government at the time saw to it that the Communist deputies in the National Assembly did not vote to block resources being mobilised in the mounting of the war against the Vietnamese masses --the voting of emergency measures and military appropriations.   So for the first four years of the war the Viet Minh were quite alone.   Later Ho Chi Minh was to order the Viet Minh left behind in South Vietnam to lie low. They were instructed to do this despite the fact that they were being brutally decimated by Diem. Eventually the winter Viet Minh were to disobey orders and actively resist the Diem regime. Eventually the Northern regime actively supported it when it saw that it had widespread support.