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Viet Minh Combat Forces

Charles R. Shrader

in A War of Logistics: Parachutes and Porters in Indochina, 1945-1954

In Chapter 3, the author describes the number, distribution, and organization of Viet Minh combat forces, including the high command and territorial structures and the organization of tactical units.

The Indochinese Communist Party and the Vệit Minh

David G. Marr

in Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution (1945–1946)

The Indochinese Communist Party's substantial impact on Vietnam in late 1945 was marbled by its budding relations with the Việt Minh groups and local government committees around the country. In ... More

The Indochinese Communist Party's substantial impact on Vietnam in late 1945 was marbled by its budding relations with the Việt Minh groups and local government committees around the country. In November 1945, with pressure coming in, following Ho Chi Minh's rejection by the Nationalist Party, the ICP resolved to dissolve. Their hasty disbandment flummoxed the masses and eventually led to mass controversy in Moscow. After the release of a confidential directive titled “Resistance, Country Building” that failed to acknowledge the dissolution, the ICP set off a torrent of action and reaction that galvanized the domestic and international masses in even stride.Less

Modus Vivendi

Stein Tønnesson

in Vietnam 1946: How the War Began

The modus vivendi was enclosed with eleven articles which contains the following: an outline of the conditions for Franco-Vietnamese cooperation in the economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military ... More

The modus vivendi was enclosed with eleven articles which contains the following: an outline of the conditions for Franco-Vietnamese cooperation in the economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military fields. But apart from the cease-fire and a promise from both sides to respect democratic liberties, it did not include new concessions. It was predetermined that a definitive round of negotiations should be prepared once the institutions of the French Fourth Republic had been put in place by January 1947. During the last weeks before the cease-fire prescribed in the modus vivendi agreement entered into force on October 30, the Viet Minh initiated a military offensive. On October 26, d'Argenlieu reported a serious attack on the city of My Tho, southwest of Saigon. By the end of October, Devillers affirms, the Viet Minh held practically three-quarters of Cochinchina.Less

Seven Years of War in Indochina

Nathaniel L. Moir

in Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare

Chapter 4 explores the origins of the French–Indochina War and why France, and geopolitical pressure created by the Cold War, drove the United States to support France's operations in Vietnam. The ... More

Chapter 4 explores the origins of the French–Indochina War and why France, and geopolitical pressure created by the Cold War, drove the United States to support France's operations in Vietnam. The chapter also focuses extensively on the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), and the Associated State of Vietnam (1949-1955), which preceded the Republic of Vietnam founding in 1955.Less

Advisors and Aid

Xiaobing Li

in Building Ho's Army: Chinese Military Assistance to North Vietnam

Chapter 2 examines what the Viet Minh needed from China and Mao’s determination to support Ho’s war effort. It discusses Mao’s concerns about national security since Josef Stalin was not ready to ... More

Chapter 2 examines what the Viet Minh needed from China and Mao’s determination to support Ho’s war effort. It discusses Mao’s concerns about national security since Josef Stalin was not ready to send Soviet forces to defend Chinese borders against a foreign invasion. Mao therefore decided on a self-reliant, proactive defense to stop the Western powers outside the Chinese borders in neighboring countries like Vietnam and break the US military encirclement of China in East and Southeast Asia. Although external Cold War factors may appear to be one of the motives behind Mao’s decision, his strategy also was driven by significant internal factors. China’s power status depended more on its political stability and military strength than on its foreign relations. In this sense, Mao may have perceived China’s involvement in the French Indochina War as a chance to continue the Communist movement at home and to project New China’s power image abroad. The PLA’s victory in the civil war gave Mao and his generals confidence in their ability to help the Viet Minh drive the French Army out of Indochina and later to help Kim Il-sung to drive the UN force out of the Korean peninsula.Less

Ho’S China Connection

Xiaobing Li

in Building Ho's Army: Chinese Military Assistance to North Vietnam

Chapter 1 details how Ho made China his revolutionary base from World War II to the French Indochina War. The Vietnamese and Chinese shared a common heritage and anticolonial experiences for more ... More

Chapter 1 details how Ho made China his revolutionary base from World War II to the French Indochina War. The Vietnamese and Chinese shared a common heritage and anticolonial experiences for more than a hundred years. The background narrative extends beyond the diplomatic activities and historical events between China and Vietnam and views their nationalist independence movements and Communist revolutions as an intertwined history, not as isolated or parallel phenomena. East Asia’s countries and peoples participated in the global Cold War of 1946–1991 for their own historical reasons in some specific ways that served their own political agenda, met their economic programs and security needs, and created their own development models. This chapter places Vietnam and China at center stage for exploring the anticolonial movements and transnationalism in East and Southeast Asia from 1800 to 1949 rather than treating them primarily as subordinate or dependent actors in a larger historical drama. As a result, by the early twentieth century, all of these areas saw the rise of new kinds of nationalism and Communism, which were adjusting to military confrontations with the West.Less

Battle for the Airwaves during the First Indochina War

Lonán Ó Briain

in Voices of Vietnam: A Century of Radio, Red Music, and Revolution

The VOV proudly proclaims September 7, 1945 as the foundational date for Vietnamese public radio, when the Declaration of Independence was read out on wireless for the first time. Vietnamese ... More

The VOV proudly proclaims September 7, 1945 as the foundational date for Vietnamese public radio, when the Declaration of Independence was read out on wireless for the first time. Vietnamese technicians who had been trained by the French set up a station in Hanoi to support the Viet Minh’s independence coalition. In December 1946, the French seized control of Hanoi again and established a new station, Radio Hanoi, at Rue Richaud (now Quán Sứ street). In contrast to the exclusive European radio clubs of the 1920s and 1930s, Radio Hanoi hired a troupe of Vietnamese musicians and actors who performed live on air and at popular venues in the capital between 1948 and the early 1950s. Their programming of entertainment and news in several languages appealed to Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese alike. Meanwhile the Viet Minh resumed their broadcasts of anti-colonial rhetoric from a discrete mountain location, but they struggled to sustain the attention of their listeners. To reengage with the public and draw listeners away from Radio Hanoi, they began to program communist-themed entertainment (music, poetry, stories, and short plays) alongside political news and information. Chapter 2 draws on oral histories, archival records, and historical broadcasts to reconstruct the sonic ambience of this creative conflict. The research investigates how composers, musicians, singers, and voice actors at both stations battled to nurture a resilient and attentive radio listenership with attractive artistic outputs that were often imbued with implicit (Radio Hanoi) and explicit (Viet Minh Radio) political ideologies.Less

From Thanh Niên to the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and the Việt Minh

John T. Sidel

in Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia

This chapter starts with the introduction of Thanh Niên dissolution as a coherent organization, leaving in its wake a welter of new groupings: an Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), a rival Annamese ... More

This chapter starts with the introduction of Thanh Niên dissolution as a coherent organization, leaving in its wake a welter of new groupings: an Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), a rival Annamese Communist Party in Cochinchina, and the Annam-based Tân Việt (New Việtnam). The chapter demonstrates the onset, unfolding, and ultimate outcomes of the Việtnamese Revolution, which were shaped by World War II, successive seismic shifts in neighboring China, from the overthrow of the Qing and the warlord era to the rise and fall of the KMT (Kuomintang)-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) United Front, the Japanese invasion and occupation, the civil war, and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The chapter also highlights the establishment of an armed united front effectively under ICP control but aimed to encompass — or overshadow — a broader array of groups active in southern China, the Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh (Việtnam Independence League, or Việt Minh). Ultimately, the chapter exemplifies the broader importance of China's role in enabling Việtnamese revolutionary mobilization, from the heyday of Phan Bội Châu through Thanh Niên, and the ICP and the Việt Minh.Less

“The Effort Must Be Made”

Thomas L. Ahern

in Vietnam Declassified: The CIA and Counterinsurgency

John Caswell, then chief of Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Vietnam desk, later recalled the atmosphere of despair at the CIA Headquarters as Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem took office in July ... More

John Caswell, then chief of Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Vietnam desk, later recalled the atmosphere of despair at the CIA Headquarters as Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem took office in July 1954. Caswell thought the Viet Minh would be in charge by 1956. Ngo Dinh Nhu was scarcely more hopeful when he told Paul Harwood in late July that despite all the obstacles, Diem refused to give up the fight to consolidate his government. Reporting this to headquarters, Harwood commented bleakly that the task was hopeless, but that the effort must be made. This pessimism reflected more the fragility of the new regime than it did any immediate threat from the communists. The terms of the Geneva Accords, signed in July 1954 just after Diem took office, called for the repatriation of adherents of both sides, and the Viet Minh were busy preparing to evacuate some 90,000 activists to North Vietnam.Less

“ A Long Country Inhabited by Lotus Eaters”: Washington Encounters Laos

Seth Jacobs

in The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos

This chapter discusses how the Eisenhower administration reacted to the recognition of Laos and Cambodia as independent nations. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Viet Minh War, a ... More

This chapter discusses how the Eisenhower administration reacted to the recognition of Laos and Cambodia as independent nations. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Viet Minh War, a multinational conference of communist and noncommunist powers in Geneva worked out the details of what would be known as the Geneva Accords: recognition of Laos and Cambodia as independent nations, withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lao and Cambodian territory, and partition of Vietnam until elections could be held to unify the country in 1956. President Eisenhower declared at his weekly press conference that the accords contained “features which we do not like.” Nevertheless, after years of either ignoring Laos and Cambodia or conceptually conflating them with Vietnam, U.S. geopoliticians began to consider their merits as cold war battlefields.Less

First Reflections on a War

Nathaniel L. Moir

in Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare

This chapter analyses the early Cold War in Southeast Asia. It examines this global conflict by assessing Bernard Fall's experiences and how France's return to Vietnam after World War II bound the ... More

This chapter analyses the early Cold War in Southeast Asia. It examines this global conflict by assessing Bernard Fall's experiences and how France's return to Vietnam after World War II bound the United States to Southeast Asia in consequential ways. The chapter, through Fall's study as an early scholar in the Fulbright Program, provides a foundation for the remaining chapters on the development of the First Indochina War, the Second Indochina War and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare.Less

Xuan: “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality ­Were Not for Our People”

Patricia D. Norland

in The Saigon Sisters: Privileged Women in the Resistance

This chapter draws attention to the eighth Saigon sister, named Xuan. It talks about Xuan's father who resigned from his position of privilege and decided he could no longer work for the French. It ... More

This chapter draws attention to the eighth Saigon sister, named Xuan. It talks about Xuan's father who resigned from his position of privilege and decided he could no longer work for the French. It also stresses how Xuan learned about Viet Minh after seeing her father reject a life of prestige and wealth to join the August Revolution. The chapter highlights Xuan's patriotism that was nurtured through the liberal education and friendships forged at Lycée Marie Curie. It details how Xuan rejected a life of wealth and privilege and by 1949 left the lycée for a three–month course on Marxism–Leninism before joining the resistance.Less

1946: Postwar Reconciliation and the Loss Reimagined

Shane Strate

in The Lost Territories: Thailand's History of National Humiliation

Following the war, the effects of National Humiliation policies were visited on Thailand’s new heads of state. The National Assembly underwent fierce debate over whether to accept France’s demand to ... More

Following the war, the effects of National Humiliation policies were visited on Thailand’s new heads of state. The National Assembly underwent fierce debate over whether to accept France’s demand to return provinces acquired in 1941. The loss of the four provinces to French Indochina in 1946 cemented the symbolic status of the lost territories at a time when Thailand was attempting to move past the National Humiliation paradigm. The transfer of territory helped destroy the civilian government’s credibility and ensure the military’s return to power.Less

Communist Parties Come to Power in Korea and Vietnam

George W. Breslauer

in The Rise and Demise of World Communism

In Korea, the USSR occupied the northern half of the country after Japan withdrew its occupation forces. The Soviets installed a regime of North Korean communists who enjoyed popular support due to ... More

In Korea, the USSR occupied the northern half of the country after Japan withdrew its occupation forces. The Soviets installed a regime of North Korean communists who enjoyed popular support due to their sacrifices in fighting the Japanese during World War II. The leadership convinced Moscow and Beijing to sanction and support an invasion of South Korea that they hoped would reunify the country. This led to the Korean War, which merely restored the status quo ante at the expense of millions of lives. The pathway was different in Vietnam, where a guerrilla war against Japanese, then French, occupation led to the victory of the Vietnamese communist party in the North.Less