Military leaders from Vietnam

"The hour has struck! Raise aloft the banner of insurrection and lead the people throughout the country to overthrow the Japanese and the French! The sacred call of the fatherland is resounding in our ears; the ardent blood of our heroic predecessors is seething in our hearts! The fighting spirit of the people is mounting before our eyes! Let us unite and unify our action to overthrow the Japanese and the French."

"A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent. For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country and in fact it already has been so. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty."

"In practice, the enemy has been making much more propaganda for us than we have ourselves."

"In a war, to win a victory or suffer a defeat are common things. The essential is that we must win final victory. We must help all officers and men and the people to bear that firmly in mind so that they will not be self-complacent when winning and disappointed when losing, but instead will always make utmost efforts to overcome difficulties and hardships and advance towards final victory."

"To have a good crop we must weed the field, otherwise the rice will grow badly in spite of careful ploughing and abundant manuring. To be successful in increasing production and practicing thrift, we must also weed the field, that is root out embezzlement, waste and bureaucracy. Otherwise they will harm our work."

"We want to build a new society, a free society where all men are equal, a society where industry, thrift, integrity and uprightness prevail hence we must wipe out all bad habits of the old society."

"The duty of the cadres is to love and take care of every fighter and to value and save every cent, every bowl of rice, every work hour of their compatriots. Our fighters and compatriots have the right to demand that the cadres fulfill this task, and to criticize those who do not."

"Democracy means to rely on the masses, correctly follow the mass line. Hence to be successful, the movement against embezzlement, waste and bureaucracy must rely on the masses."

"It is crystal clear that once victorious, socialism can never tolerate the personality cult and its harmful consequences. The energetic measures taken by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to do away with the personality cult, and its consequence, set a brilliant example of unprecedented political boldness."

"Obviously, Lenin meant that the stage of fierce civil war and the restriction of democracy imposed on the Soviet people were only provisional and had to be abolished as soon as the new regime was consolidated."

"The CPSU again demonstrates that the most important aspect of self-criticism is to practically and effectively correct one's errors."

"Only in a socialist system are the interests of the individual, the state and the collective at one. That is why only a socialist constitution can encourage the citizens to fulfill enthusiastically their duties to the society and the fatherland."

"The capitalists often boast that their constitutions guarantee the rights of the individual, democratic liberties and the interests of all citizens. But in reality, only the bourgeoisie enjoy the rights recorded in these constitutions. The working people do not really enjoy democratic freedoms; they are exploited all their life and have to bear heavy burdens in the service of the exploiting class."

"To wear away the time, we learn to play chess, In thousands, horses and infantry chase each other. Move quickly into action, in attack or in retreat. Talent and swift feet give us the upper hand."

"People who come out of prison can build up the country. Misfortune is a test of people's fidelity. Those who protest at injustice are people of true merit. When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."

"I am a straightforward man, with no crime on my conscience, But I was accused of being a spy for China So life, you see, is never a very smooth business And now the present bristles with difficulties."

"My people hunger for independence and will have it. [...] And are you forgetting some recent examples of what ragged bands can do against modern troops? Have you already forgotten the heroism of the Yugoslav partisans against the Germans? The spirit of man is more powerful than his own machines."

"Our era being a civilized, revolutionary era, one must rely all the more on the force of the collective, of society, in all undertakings. More than ever the individual cannot stand apart but must join the collective, join society."

"To make the revolution to transform the old society into a new one is a very glorious, but also extremely heavy task, a complex, protracted and hard struggle. Only a strong man can travel a long distance with a heavy load on his back. A revolutionary must have solid foundation of revolutionary morality in order to fulfill his glorious revolutionary task."

"To study Marxism-Leninism is to learn the spirit in which one should deal with things, with other people and with oneself. It means to study the universal Marxist-Leninist truths in order to apply them creatively to the practical conditions of our country. We must study with a view to action. Theory must go hand in hand with practice."

"Individualism spawns hundreds of dangerous diseases: bureaucratism, commandism, sectarianism, subjectiveness, corruption, waste ... It ties up and blindfolds its victims whose every action is guided by their desire for honor and position, not by concern for the interests of the class and the people."

"Revolutionary morality consists, in whatever circumstances, in resolutely struggling against all enemies, maintaining one's vigilance, standing ready to fight, and refusing to submit, to bow one's head. Only by so doing can we defeat the enemy, and fulfill our revolutionary tasks."

"Revolutionary morality consists in absolute loyalty to the Party and the people."

"Revolutionary morality does not fall from the sky. It is developed and consolidated through persevering daily struggle and effort. Like jade, the more it is polished the more it shines. Like gold, it grows ever purer as it foes into the melting pot."

"Our party has a mass character, and hundreds of thousands of members. Owing to the situation in our country the bulk of Party members spring from the petty bourgeoisie. There is nothing surprising in it. In the beginning under the influence of bourgeois ideology the stand of some Party members may lack firmness, their outlook may be confused and their thinking not quite correct, but owing to the fact that they have been tempered in the revolution and the war of resistance, our Party members are by and large good militants, faithful to the Party and the revolution. Those Comrades know that those Party members who commit errors will lead the masses into error; therefore, they stand ready to correct any mistake they may make, and this in a timely way, and do not allow small errors accumulate into big ones. They sincerely practice criticism and self-criticism, which makes it possible for them to progress together."

"Revolutionary morality consists in uniting with the masses in one body, trusting them and paying attention to their opinion. By their words and deeds. Party and Working Youth Union members and cadres win the people's confidence, respect and love, closely unite them around the Party, organize, educate and mobilize them so that they will enthusiastically implement the Party's policies and resolutions."

""All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the Earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and to be free. The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights." Those are undeniable truths."

"Under the banner of Marxism-Leninism, let our party, with the seething spirit of an invincible army, unite even more closely, and lead our working people boldly forward to new victories in the struggle for socialist construction in the North and for the reunification of the country."

"Though frontiers and mountains stand between us, Proletarians of the whole world come together as one family."

"Journalists are also revolutionary soldiers. The pen and paper are their sharp weapons."

"Our cause is just our people are united from North to South; we have a tradition of undaunted struggle and the great sympathy and support of the fraternal socialist countries and progressive people all over the world. We shall win!"

"All my life, I have served the fatherland, the revolution and the people with all my heart and strength. If I should now depart from this world, I would have nothing to regret, except not being able to serve longer and more."

"Remember that the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability."

"Nothing is more precious than Independence and Liberty."

"The Trotskyists are not only the enemies of Communism, they are also the enemies of democracy and of progress. They are the most infamous traitors and spies."

"Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom... Independence without freedom is worse than no independence."

"You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life."

"The students caught between the two superpowers and equally disillusioned by East and West, "inevitably pursue some third ideology, from Mao's China or Castro's Cuba." (Spender, op. cit., p. 92.) Their calls for Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh are like pseudo-religious incantations for saviors from another world; they would also call for Tito if only Yugoslavia were farther away and less approachable."

"There was one exception to the rule that all our foes have committed and that is the Decadence Assumption. Ho Chi Minh never underestimated America. His avowed hero was George Washington and he remained in awe of the U.S., all his life. He remains the only enemy leader who ever defeated us at war, and then only because our hubris (not decadence) got the better of us."

"Comrade Ho Chi Minh, in a genius way, combined the struggle for national independence with the struggle for the rights of the masses oppressed by the exploiters and the feudals. He saw that the path was to combine the patriotic feelings of peoples with the need of freedom from social exploitation. National liberation and social liberation were the two pillars on which his doctrine was based. Furthermore, he saw that underdeveloped countries, in those conditions because of capitalism, could make a leap in history, building their economy along the path of socialism, saving themselves from the sacrifices and the horrors of capitalism."

"Ho Chi Minh was, is and will be an eternal example."

"President Ho Chi Minh, understanding the extraordinary historical importance and the consequences of the glorious October Revolution, and assimilating Lenin's luminous thought, saw clearly that in Marxism-Leninism we could find the teaching and the path that had to be followed to find a solution to the problem of the peoples oppressed by colonialism."

"The third elite element to develop in Vietnam during the 1920s was composed of Marxist-oriented, largely middle-class, educated individuals who came together as the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. Ho Chi Minh did more than anyone else to organize the ICP and develop its revolutionary program. The ICP fused traditionally fierce and resilient Vietnamese nationalism with Marxist-Leninist concepts. The result was an ideology that called for both the defeat of imperialism (attainment of true independence) and the defeat of feudalism (social revolution involving redistribution of resources). The party’s program won broad support. Eventually the ICP, accepting Ho Chi Minh’s view, put primary emphasis on achieving independence from foreign domination."

"I have met many people in the course of my political career, but none has made such a particular impression on me. Believers often talk of the Apostles. Well, through his way of living and his influence of his peers, Ho Chi Minh was exactly comparable to these 'holy apostles'."

"One thing is clear, the president of North Vietnam is not a fanatic. He is a very strong and determined man, but capable of listening, something that is very rare in a person of his position."

"It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected Premier."

"Charismatic leadership is a determinant in most revolutionary struggles –consider India’s Gandhi and Nehru, Kenya’s Kenyatta, Cuba’s Castro. Ho Chi Minh established a legitimacy that proved impregnable even when the shortcomings and indeed barbarities of his regime became apparent, because in 1945 he seized sole ownership of Vietnam’s independence movement. Sixteen-year-old Nguyen Cao Ky wrote later that in those days in Hanoi ‘the one name on my lips, as well as those of nearly everyone of my generation, was Ho Chi Minh’. Many households began to display his portrait: in the words of another young Vietnamese, ‘We were hungry for a hero to worship.’ The French had made no attempt to foster an indigenous political class with any sympathy for the aspirations of its own people: rich and educated Vietnamese existed in a world entirely alien from that of the peasantry. While Ho and his intimates knew that few would endorse an avowed communist prospectus, he was able to unite a great swathe of his people behind expulsion of the French. In the years that followed, he achieved a mystic stature unrivalled by any fellow-countryman."

"During the early years of the independence struggle, in ‘liberated zones’ land was compulsorily transferred from landlord to peasant ownership. Ho and his associates did not reveal that they viewed redistribution as a mere transit stop, pending collectivisation. Political cadres painted a glowing picture of Russia as an earthly paradise, which Vietnam should aspire to emulate. Ho himself exuded an aura of dignity and wisdom that impressed all those who met him, and proved a brilliant political manipulator. Beneath a veneer of benignity, he possessed the quality indispensable to all revolutionaries: absolute ruthlessness about the human cost of the courses he deemed appropriate for his people."

"It seems a fair test of any political movement to enquire not whether it is capitalist, communist or fascist, but whether it is fundamentally humane. A remark attributed to Giap answered this question for the Vietminh: ‘Every minute, hundreds of thousands of people die upon this earth. The life or death of a hundred, a thousand, tens of thousands of human beings, even our compatriots, means little.’ Ho Chi Minh’s conduct reflected the same conviction, though he was too astute a politician ever to be recorded by Westerners as expressing it. There has been much debate about whether he was a ‘real’ communist, or instead merely a nationalist driven by political necessity to embrace Lenin’s creed. Evidence seems overwhelming in favour of the former view. He was never the Titoist some of his Western apologists suggested: he repeatedly condemned Yugoslavia’s 1948 severance from the Soviet bloc. He avowed an unflagging admiration for Stalin, though the Russian leader never reciprocated either by trusting the Vietminh leader or by providing substantial aid to him."

"How has Gandhi's movement affected you in Indochina? Have you experienced any vibrations, any echoes?" I asked Nguyen Ai Quoc." "No," answered my companion. "The Annamese people, the peasants, live buried in the profoundest night. They have no newspapers, no idea of what's going on in the outside world. It is night, truly night."

"Although Ho was prominent in founding the French Communist Party and the Indochinese Communist Party, he was above all else a nationalist who sought a unified, independent Vietnam. Only after democratic nations such as France and the U.S. refused to support the DRV's bid for independence did Ho turn to China and the Soviet Union for support; both extended diplomatic recognition in January 1950."

"In the late 1960s, if a popularity poll had been taken among the protesters, Lev Trotski, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara would probably have headed the list. They were disgusted with Soviet leaders from Stalin to Brezhnev and agreed that American Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, who had reinforced the USA’s military intervention in the conflict in Vietnam, were war criminals. The esteem for Che Guevara was enhanced by his good looks. The fact that Guevara died on campaign in Bolivia even though he could have had a comfortable career in Cuba was also counted unto him for righteousness. A similar reaction was evoked by Ho Chi Minh. Like Guevara, he was taking on the might of ‘American imperialism’. Data on Ho’s repressive regime in Hanoi were limited and would anyway have been disbelieved by his admirers if they had learned about them. The chant went up outside American embassies and on peace marches: ‘Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!’"

"Ho left no significant theoretical innovations, much less an integrated body of theory. This has, of course, no prevented some in the Vietnamese Communist Party from claiming that Ho left behind 'Ho Chi Minh Thought', which was described as a new development in Marxist Leninist theory."

"I think uh...we lost everyday Vietnamese life in fighting the Communists, you know, and and no progress, we have to do something else, you can, we cannot have a more of the same, you know, every, every day, so we, we must change, yes."

"We, we respect very much what the American want to do uh...but, you know sometime the American way of life and the...uh American democracy maybe uh cannot work in a country like mine, you know, in South Vietnam. Uh...so, we, we can have the principle and adapt that in the country but we cannot adapt what you have here, you know, eh two houses, all that stuff, you know, and changing the president every four year. You have many people here who can be leader of the country. We have a few in Vietnam, a few who can uh you know uh lead the country because education, because the training, because all that uh, background that we must have, you know."

"The French Colonial, you know...did not export too much their ideal of d—of democracy outside of the French frontier. Now, with the American people, you export too much your democracy and your...freedom, you know, all that, your way of life and you want to impose that uh in the country like Vietnam, it doesn — it doesn’t, it cannot work. But, in some way, we better adapt and not adopt what you have."

"I staged the coup because uh...the leaders in Saigon at that time did not keep their word. Uh, you know, by example, not killing Diem. Uh, they killed Diem. Uh... secondly, by example... to try to do something better in the fight, in fighting the Communists. But, you remember, I mean uh, at that time, everybody remember that they are a good time in Saigon, you know uh...uh, just enjoy the victory over Diem. And also, the main thing is leader at that time, we feel, was for the French solution of Indochina, for DeGaulle at that time, you know, he want to neutralize South Vietnam and to impose a French solution for the whole Indochina. And leaders at that time were in Saigon, we feel, it was true later on, like by example, Duong Van Minh, you know, who surrender to the Communists at '75 and we know that now we tory we know that Minh was one of the men of the policemen in Saigon who took, took over. So, I think we were ah, ah right, we were right at that time to change the leadership in Saigon."

"Now I had the power, I want to realize the goals of the Vietnamese revolution back in 1945. The goals were and still be right now is, they uh, independence, that means national sovereignty, the uh, freedom, and the happiness of the whole population. It was the national aim, strategically, but when I had the power the country was divided in two parts on the 17th parallel, we had insurgency in South Vietnam and I want to uh, how to said it, integrate the Front of Liberation, the non-communist people and the Front of Liberation with me and then uh...to fight the North Vietnamese if at that time, the North Vietnamese do not uh, did not want to have a peaceful solution in North Vietnam, in South Vietnam."

"Yeah, we, we uh, we had a march North, movement at that time, in July '64. I prepare at that time the psychology of the South Vietnamese people that maybe we need to go north to answer to the aggression from North Vietnam. You, you cannot defend yourself always to have a defensive plan, you know. Uh...what the...the...one of the uh military principle is you better defend yourself by having an offensive plan."

"Ambassador Taylor and, and, and, and me, and I, we had a very bad moment together at that day in the general staff. Ambassador want to see me uh because he uh made what we called a young turk at that time, a young general officer, namely Nguyen Cao Ky, and Nguyen Van Thieu, and other general. And uh... to kind of to insult them uh for, you know, being changing what we call the civilian government at that time."

"I was against the idea to commit the ground American troops in South Vietnam for the simple reason that we do not need that. We need the support, the technical support, the technology of the of the uh...American armed forces but we do not need the combat troops at that time...You know, uh...how can we justify with the population if the American come to fight for us? We just can't. So, this error...is main, one of the main error that we made...in the year '65, to bring in the combat troops, American combat troop in South Vietnam. And, then the South Vietnamese armed forces become a kind of uh subletive, you know, the the second reign on the, and the, the national mission of these forces cannot be uh in the Vietnamese hand. Then it, 't...are under the American hand. And later, later on when we see the American withdrawal we changing government back in Washington 'n 'n policy, and then when the element of the American troops is getting out of the country, the disaster we saw later on in '75 is a result of the decision to send the...the troops, the American troop to fight for the Vietnamese troops."

"The council uh, forced me to leave the, the country. That was officially, but, in fact, you know, it's 'n...uh...there are many books writing of that, that, that uh incident and the American official in Saigon are very pleased at that time to see me uh out of the country."

"I feel very, very badly and uh I left Saigon...with some of my...soil of the you know Vietnam you know in my hand...I left uh seeing the soldier that I always command, you know, for two decades. Uh...behind. I feel that I missed to bring peace to my people. And I feel that uh maybe the only time that we can have that peace, you know, and have dignity of South Vietnam, the sovereignty, respected by every people and I feel very badly, of course."

"I was supporting the Buddhists. But the, the Buddhists in a a general uh strategy. You know, we have uh...India, Burma, Cambodia...uh Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan. What we call that...it's a Yellow Bear. Yellow Bear to stop the red invasion. That's a kind of, of uh, uh...religion side of the fight again the Communists. So I was for the organization of kind of international Buddhists. And if you remember, we had a headquarters, international Buddhists at that time, in Saigon to all, to buil—build its forces, to face Communists red, "vague" of red, you know, invasion from the China, Indochina or Russian."

"I put Huong, I put Duong Van Minh like uh...chief of state. I put Huong, I put Quat, Quat on the prime minister role. Anytime we feel that they do not answer, I mean, deal with the situation we change them. They are not a coup. Either Quat, either Huong, or Minh does not come in office with election with the power, with the population, you know. The people give him the mandate to be prime minister, or to be, to be uh chief state. The mandate it coming from the armed forces at that time before we have any constitution, you know, uh set up later on. So, when we change a government it's not a coup. We just change somebody what we just want to put in. That's all."

"The boat people, the boat people, in getting out what got in, getting out of South Vietnam, that so called communist paradise and that’s to show enough to the whole world that the communist regime doesn't work in South Vietnam. And maybe if we are in fight now inside in...in...South Vietnam, we will have certainly the support of the general, of the majority, of the population. We never had that thing before. But now, if there is some, something, you know, moving over there, I am almost sure that we have I am sure that we have, the support, the majority of the population."

"I an a political asylum situation here. Legally, I cannot tell that I am making any politics action here. But I always want to be with my people over there. I want to go back to Vietnam, of course, if possible."

"I remember that day clearly when I left Saigon. I left my country in honor that day, not like Thieu who fled later. My cabinet, my troops, the whole diplomatic corps were there at the airport to bid me farewell."

"I have a promise to keep; to return to a free and democratic Vietnam."

"Very much! China presents Vietnam with a very big problem. China is taking over Vietnam, from Cholon, where there are rich Chinese, to Haiphong. They are everywhere now with their product. My wife is from the North, people there resent China more than the South feared the Viet Cong. The Chinese are invaders — like any other foreigners — to fight. We must stop the Chinese. You know the dikes built on the Red River? If they break, what happens? A flood!"

"I took with me in my hand on the departing plane a bag of sand, a bag of earth from the soil of a free South Vietnam. My western hero had always been General Douglas MacArthur who made the famous promise "I shall return", after he lost a battle in the Philippines."

"Look. What happened, that was just business. Personal betrayal I can understand. But never betrayal of one’s people you serve, or your country."

"China believes it is the center of the universe. Look at its flag: one big star surrounded by satellite stars. Arrogant!"

"In August 1945, the capitulation of the Japanese forces before the and the Allied forces, put an end to the world war. The defeat of the German and Nippon fascists was the beginning of a great weakening of the capitalist system. After the great victory of the Soviet Union, many people's democracies saw the light of day. The socialist system was no longer confined within the frontiers of a single country. A new historic era was beginning in the world. In view of these changes, in Viet Nam, the Indo-chinese Communist Party and the Viet Minh called the whole Vietnamese nation to general insurrection. Everywhere, the people rose in a body. Demonstrations and displays of force followed each other uninterruptedly. In August, the Revolution broke out, neutralising the bewildered Nippon troops, overthrowing the pro-Japanese feudal authorities, and installing people's power in Hanoi and throughout the country, in the towns as well as in the countryside, in Bac Bo as well as in Nam Bo. In Hanoi, the capital, in September 2nd, the provisional gouvernment was formed around President Ho Chi Minh ; it presented itself to the nation, proclaimed the independence of Viet Nam, and called on the nation to unite, to hold itself in readiness to defend the country and to oppose all attempts at imperialist aggression. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam was born, the first people's democracy in South-east Asia. But the imperialists intended to nip the republican regime in the bud and once again transform Viet Nam into a colony. Three weeks had hardly gone by when, on September 23rd, 1945, the French Expeditionary Corps opened fire in Saigon. The whole was to be carried on for nine years at the cost of unprecedented heroism and amidst unimaginable difficulties, to end by the shining victory of our people and the crushing defeat of the aggressive imperialists at Dien Bien Phu. ... Never before had there been so many foreign troops on the soil of Viet Nam. But never before either, had the Vietnamese people been so determined to rise up in combat to defend their country."

"Listen, the Palestinians are always coming here and saying to me, 'You expelled the French and the Americans. How do we expel the Jews?' I tell them that the French went back to France and the Americans to America. But the Jews have nowhere to go. You will not expel them."

"There was a knock, and Kiem reached for his Smith & Wesson .22 revolver. It was his aide, Lieutenant Su. "Excuse me, sir," said the lieutenant, "but there was a call while you were out. A colonel from the Four Party Joint Military Commission, speaking with a heavy accent. 'Borck' or 'Borek'- some Polish or Hungarian name beginning with a B. He wouldn't leave his number. Said he had an important message for you and that he might call back later." "What the hell?-" said Kiem. He didn't know a soul on that worthless commission charged with monitoring the terms of the 1973 Paris "peace" agreement. That lying, two-faced German Henry Kissinger had set it up as a sham, just before selling out South Vietnam to the communists. If the Four Party Commission had a message for him, they could stick it, as far as Kiem was concerned. Fuck the bastards."

"For two thousand years Vietnam had been ruled by an emperor and a class of mandarins- scholars who had passed the difficult poetry and philosophy examinations necessary to advance through the bureaucratic hierarchy. Anyone could take the examinations, young or old, poor or rich, and become a mandarin. In a society where change was almost nonexistent, memorization of traditional knowledge was the key to success. Then, late in the nineteenth century, following decades of armed resistance by the Vietnamese, the French finally succeeded in conquering the country. They took over everything, from the government to the police, and staffed all of the good jobs with French colonials. The annual mandarin examinations continued, but the highest scorers could aspire to be only low-level civil servants under the French."

"While Kiem was imagining how he'd look in Vietnamese Navy dress whites, Viet Minh general Vo Nguyen Giap was busy massing tens of thousands of troops around the French-held valley town of Dien Bien Phu, near the Laotian border. Giap's forces choked off the French supply lines, ringing their noose tighter and tighter as the French got thinner and weaker and monsoon rains beat down on their equipment. The French appealed to U.S. president Eisenhower and British prime minister Churchill for help, but it was not forthcoming. On 12 March 1954 Giap's army of fifty thousand men attacked French general Navarre's eleven or twelve thousand with everything in its arsenal. In early May, as Kiem was preparing to take the written exam for the French Naval Academy in Hanoi, Giap's men overran the last of the weakened French forces- and the Viet Minh won the war. Kime was thrilled that his country had finally gained its independence, but he couldn't help worrying that the French defeat might ruin his future plans. Mr. Sach said not to fear: no matter what happened at the postwar negotiating conference, the French would still want to help shape a young navy just starting out. They were human, and that was human nature."

"Kiem knew he had seen the florid face somewhere before. Suddenly he remembered. As commandant of the Vietnamese Naval Academy, Kiem had once made the mistake of assigning three of his cadets to Lt. Comdr. Nguyen Van Luc, also of the River Force, for practical training. All three had come back sick and shaking, telling the same story under repeated questioning. Luc had ordered the cadets to change into their dress whites, handed them rifles, then ordered them to shoot at anything that moved- which they'd taken to be a figure of speech. But a few minutes later their patrol boat had rounded a bend in the river, exposing a small boy with a stick in his hand, tending a water buffalo. "Shoot," Luc had hissed. They had looked at one another in confusion, thinking it some sort of test. "Shoot!" Luc had screamed at them again, so loudly that even the boy at the river's edge had cocked his head and stared. Then Luc had raised his own gun and fired, killing both animal and child. Mercifully there weren't many officers like that in the navy- knowing nothing about the sea, only how to kill. Luc was more like an army than a navy man."

"But before the ships could be brought into the harbor, their guns had to be dismantled, their ammo unloaded, their names painted over, their Vietnamese flags lowered, and the American colors raised. The shame of it was almost unbearable: Kiem and his men were a bunch of losers. They had lost the long war. In all of the excitement and chaos of the past week, it was the first time the realization had fully hit them. But there was still one small thing Kiem could do to help his men save face. He could ask for a proper changing-of-colors ceremony: something to soften the blow of seeing their flag yanked down like a rag. Late that afternoon, on board every ship, an ex-VNN officer made a speech; then a U.S. Navy officer made a speech. As the ropes creaked and the gold flag with three red stripes began to descend, the refugees broke into their national anthem: "Nay cong dan oi..." (Oh citizen of the country...) Their voices soared over the turqoise waters of the Pacific Ocean. Slowly the US flags were hoisted into place. Then the ex-VNN officers walked to the ship's rail, ripped the insignia from their uniforms, and tossed the gold glitter into the sea with their caps. They were civilians, now, not military men. Stripped of their national identities, they could help bring another country's warships into the bay with no shame."

"Kiem Do, a native of Hanoi, was a captain in the South Vietnamese Navy and the deputy chief of staff for operations when Saigon fell in 1975. During his twenty-one years in the navy, he served as district commander, chief of staff of the Mobile Riverine Force, and commandant of the Vietnamese Midshipman's School. After settling in the United States he taught high school math and science, studied in the MBA program at the University of New Orleans, and worked as a cost engineer with a Louisiana utility company for more than twenty years. Since retirement in 1997, he has been active as a leader in the New Orleans Vietnamese community and has lectured frequently on the Vietnam War at local universities and before veterans groups. He and his wife of thirty-nine years, Thom Le Do, have five children and six American-born grandchildren."

"The Navy of the Republic of Vietnam never surrendered. Instead, in accordance with the best tradition of navies, the ships got under way with families aboard and turned themselves over to the United States at Subic Bay in the Philippines. The story of the heroic way in which this was accomplished is part of the life story of Kiem Do, an illustrious and patriotic veteran."

"It is so easy to be an enemy of the United States, but so difficult to be a friend."

"Don't listen to what the Communists say, but look at what they do."

"The Communists could only hope to win if our ally betrays us and sells us out. But our main ally will never betray us. He has invested so much blood and money."

"I have always said we are not afraid of a ceasefire, but our stance is that if there is a cease‐fire it must go along with a political settlement."

"In any peace solution the final decision should be ours. Nobody can sign a cease‐fire agreement or peace settlement without the signature of the Government of the Republic of Vietnam."

"We have told the Americans, that when you talk to the Communists, if they propose this or that solution, you just receive it and take it back and show it to us. Then we would give our views and you would inform them of our views."

"Of course, I would like to go down in history as the man who brought peace."

"When you negotiate with the Communists, you shouldn't fix a deadline. You must not tell them that you want to repatriate the prisoners as soon as possible, to bring peace as soon as possible, otherwise they exploit you. Be patient. One must be patient with the Communists, more patient than they are."

"Until today we have had a half war. I say, had we attacked North Vietnam with a classical war, had we bombed North Vietnam continuously, had we landed in North Vietnam, the war would be over by now."

"Yes, I'm a military man, and as a military man I say that if peace fails and we want to end this war, we must bring the war to North Vietnam. In all possible ways, including landing."

"You say that you blame me for the fall of South Vietnam, you criticize me, everything. I let you do that. I like to see you do better than I."

"When democracy is recovered in Vietnam, I can say that my dream has come true. I can go back to my life. I would like to go back to my own province, my native province. That’s the best place."

"The Americans have asked us to do an impossible thing… You have asked us to do something you failed to do, with half a million powerful troops and skilled commanders, and with nearly $300 billion in expenditure over six long years."

"If I do not say that you were defeated by the communists in Vietnam, I must modestly say that you did not win either. But you found an honourable way out. And at present, when our army lacks weapons, ammunition, helicopters, aircraft and B-52s (bombers), you ask us to do an impossible thing, like filling up the ocean with stones…"

"Likewise, you have let our soldiers die under the hail of shells. This is an inhumane act by an inhumane ally. Refusing to aid an ally and abandoning it is an inhumane act…"

"The United States is proud of being an invincible defender of the just cause and the ideal of freedom in the world… Are US statements worthy? Are US commitments still valid?"

"Some $300 million is not a big sum to you. Compared to the amount of money you spent here in ten years, this sum is sufficient for only ten days of fighting. And with this sum, you ask me to score a victory or to check communist aggression, a task which you failed to fulfil in six years, with all US forces, and with such an amount of money. This is absurd."

"The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men."

"I believe that we cannot survive as a democratic country when we are supporting someone like Thieu in Saigon, who has put 300,000 political prisoners in jail because they've spoken in favor of peace. I just don't believe that when a Republican Party bugs the Democratic Party headquarters, that that smacks of democracy. These kind of things I speak out against. That doesn't mean I'm a Communist."

"Nguyen Van Thieu and his machine of oppression and constraint, instruments of the U.S. “Vietnamization” policy, constitute the main obstacle to the settlement of the political problem in South Vietnam. Therefore, Nguyen Van Thieu must resign immediately, the Saigon administration must end its warlike policy, disband at once its machine of oppression and constraint against the people, stop its “pacification” policy, disband the concentration camps, set free those persons arrested on political grounds and guarantee to the people the democratic liberties as provided for by the 1954 Geneva agreements on Vietnam. After the above has been achieved, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam will immediately discuss with the Saigon administration the formation of a three-segment government of national concord with a view to organizing general elections in South Vietnam, to elect a constituent assembly, work out a constitution, and set up a definitive government of South Vietnam. The general elections will be held according to procedures agreed upon among the political forces in South Vietnam so as to ensure effectively their free, democratic and fair character."

"Leninism is the Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale."

"Marxism-Leninism is the acme of human thought in our time. It not only explains the world thoroughly, but transforms it radically. It is the beacon lighting the path of the international working class, the oppressed peoples and the whole of progressive man-kind, who are struggling to rid themselves of all oppression and exploitation and to build a new world, a world of genuine peace, freedom and happiness."

"The collapse of world imperialism is a long historical process comprising different types of revolutions in various countries, determined by their unequal level of economic, political and social development."

"The working class' invincible strength is due to its vanguard party which leads the revolution according to a judicious line. the Marxist line, and sets up a firm worker-peasant alliance to serve as the basis for uniting all popular forces with a view to isolating the enemy to the utmost and overthrowing him."

"The triumph of socialism in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries proves that it is entirely possible to realize it in one country or in a number of countries even in conditions of encirclement by world capitalism."

"Starting from the Leninist thesis on the possible success of the revolution in a single country, even one that was economically underdeveloped but constituted the weakest link of the imperialist system, our Party asserted that the Vietnamese revolution was closely related to the revolution in the metropolitan country but was not subordinate to it. Moreover, owing to the concrete conditions of Vietnam and the world in the era of imperialism, it was possible for socialist revolution to triumph in Vietnam before it would in many a developed capitalist country."

"Ever since the US imperialists ousted the French colonialists from South Vietnam and rigged up a puppet Saigon administration to their devotion, then sent troops for direct aggression against the South of our country, our entire people have been waging a sacred war of resistance against US aggression, for national salvation, in order to liberate the South, defend the North and proceed to the peaceful reunification of the country."

"Our people's patriotic war of resistance against US aggression has achieved great victories in all fields, compelling the American imperialists to unconditionally end their war of destruction against the North, withdraw part of their troops from the South and come to the four-party conference in Paris."

"The Machiavellian machinations of the US imperialists against Vietnam and Indochina betray a passive character on the strategic plane, being conceived in a posture of weakness and defeat and fraught with insolvable contradictions. They arouse increasing opposition from the peoples of Vietnam, Indochina, the United States and the world. They have met with initial setback and are bound to fail completely."

"The powerful attacks which are taking place on the South Vietnam battlefields show that our people have the required determination and strength to defeat the US aggressors, liberate the South, defend the North and advance toward the peaceful reunification of the country."

"Let our entire people and armed forces advance on the impetus of their victories and completely defeat the US aggressors and their stooges!"

"The proletarian who sells his labouring power to the capitalist is paid a wage which corresponds only to a part of the time of labour he spends, the value of the rest, the surplus value, being pocketed by the employer. This viewpoint eloquently proves that all the wealth of the bourgeoisie is made up of the surplus value produced by the proletariat and appropriated by the capitalists."

"Capitalist primitive accumulation, the emergence of capitalism in the course of history, means essentially savage and ruthless despoliation of small producers by the bourgeoisie. Capitalism came about by the elimination of small production, the abolition of small producers' private owner-ship based on individual labour and its replacement by capitalist private ownership based on exploitation of the labour of the proletariat through the agency of the wage system."

"The cogency of Marxism precisely resides in its ability to reflect accurately the objective laws of historical development; and to represent the most advanced class, the most revolutionary class of modern society, the proletariat, and hence strike roots into the broad masses, to win the hearts and minds of millions and millions of people, and stir them into an implacable and uncompromising fight against the enemy of their class, against world bourgeoisie, and into the building of a classless, communist society."

"Today, the world socialist system, which consists of thirteen countries in three continents, with a population of more than a thousand million, has been established. The movement of the working class and labouring people in the capitalist countries for democracy and social progress and the national liberation revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin America are vigorously growing. The colonial structure of imperialism is swiftly sliding towards disintegration with a momentum that no reactionary force can halt."

"To overthrow the imperialist aggressor, stress should be laid on the question of national liberation. An anti-imperialist national united front should be founded, and the fire of revolutionary struggle should be concentrated on the imperialist aggressors and the feudalists, their devoted agents, in other words the king, mandarins and village tyrants."

"The working class must provide firm leadership to the people's national democratic revolution and cannot share it with any other class, least of all let it fall into the hands of the national bourgeoisie."

"With a view to the implementation of this general line, our Party's policy is on the one hand to strengthen dictator-ship over the enemy of the people, repress the counter-revolutionaries, maintain order and security; on the other, to develop democracy with regard to the people, put their democratic rights into effect in a correct fashion, gradually build and consolidate socialist legality, and create conditions for the people to participate in a concrete manner in the. management of the state."

"Parallel to these two revolutions and with a view to effectively serving them, we carry out an ideological and cultural revolution. In the field of ideology, we must foster and strengthen proletarian ideology, fight all forms of bourgeois ideology, criticize petty-bourgeois ideology and continue to do away with all vestiges of feudal and other erroneous ideologies. In the field of culture, we inherit in a critical way the national culture, and build for Vietnam a new culture, socialist in content and national in character."

"Our people. the overwhelming majority of whom are peasants, are making revolution, are fighting against the aggressors, and are building the country. To bring both our patriotic war and our national construction to victory, we must wipe out the imperialist aggressors and liberate our peasants from the feudalist yoke."

"Land reform is the immediate and major method of accelerating the development of the national economy. Only if the national economy is developed can supplies to the front and the rear area be guaranteed, the people's strength be replenished, and only then will we have enough manpower and material resources to carry on a protracted war of resistance until final victory."

"Since the beginning or French imperialist rule in Vietnam, the Vietnamese landlord class has relied on the imperialist forces to oppress and exploit the Vietnamese peasants still more harshly. A considerable number of peasants toil all the year round and yet do not ·have enough to eat and to wear. Under the colonialist and semi-feudal regime, when any natural calamity occurred enormous· numbers of labouring peasants would die of starvation. At the end of 1944 and early in 1945, two million of our peasants died of starvation not only due to savage exploitation by the feudal landlord class, but also because the Japanese fascists and the French imperialists brutally robbed them of their resources. This has aroused deep hatred in. the hearts of every peasant in our country."

"Imperialism and feudalism, the two most reactionary forces, have dominated Viet Nam in collusion for more than 80 years now. It was the feudalists of the Nguyen dynasty who sold our country to the French imperialists, and who became the puppet administration, lackeys to the French imperialists who then occupied our country."

"As a matter of fact, we must clearly see that imperialism is the foremost enemy of our people, because it is the more brutal. It brings troops to invade our country and massacre our fellow countrymen. For this reason, the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks are twin main tasks, but the anti-imperialist task is the foremost task."

"If we want our revolution to be successful and our patriotic war and national construction to be victorious, we must rely mainly on the workers and the peasants, of whom the peasants make up the overwhelming majority. The aspiration of tens of millions of peasants of our country at present is national independence and the distribution of land to the tillers."

"Our patriotic fight must be long-drawn-out. Its requirements in terms of manpower and material resources are increasing daily. These are mainly contributed by the peasants; but the peasants, who have little or no land at all, are poverty-stricken."

"The effect of the land reform bringing land to the peasant masses is to enhance their enthusiasm and their zeal in increasing production and taking part in the war of resistance, and consequently the resistance forces will grow in strength."

"Our agrarian policy in the present revolutionary stage is aimed at abolishing imperialist and feudalist land ownership, in order to wipe out the feudal regime of exploitation of the landlord class. For this reason, apart from the land and property of the imperialists which we must confiscate, our policy is to confiscate, requisition, and forcibly purchase the land of the landlord class, but not to confiscate, requisition or forcibly purchase land in general upward of a certain area."

"We should not only deal with the landlords' scattering of land and their opposition to the agrarian policy until now, but also deal with scattering of land and opposition to the agrarian policy from now on."

"Confiscation and requisition are both carried out without compensation. The only difference between these two measures being their political significance. As for forcible purchase, it will be followed by compensation."

"With inconceivable strength, the whole Vietnamese people rose up and did their utmost to break the yoke imposed by the French and Japanese fascists, and resolutely went forward; side by side with the peoples of China and Indonesia, they marched in the vanguard of the Far-East peoples' liberation movement."

"First of all, the triumph of the August Revolution was due to the two following subjective and objective conditions: Subjective condition: our people are united around the Vietminh Front led by the Indochinese Communist Party. The proletarian class exercises this leadership without sharing it with any other class. It results from this that the revolutionary forces of our people are not scattered, that they have no rivalries or internal conflicts (except in some insignificant cases), and that at the decisive hour, they can be gathered together under the leadership of a single organisation to launch a direct and massive attack against the fortified enemy lines. Objective condition: World War II created for the Vietnamese people an extremely favourable opportunity: the enemies of the Vietnamese Revolution, the Japanese and French fascists, had exhausted each other and grown weak. Moreover, the Japanese were then defeated by the Soviet army; that was enough for the Vietnamese people to fell them with a single blow and to seize power."

"Besides, the August Insurrection was a real revolution. The Vietnamese people, in bloody combat and with arms in their hands, had to struggle against the Japanese fascists to regain their freedom and independence. Immediately after this, to defend these rights, they had to shed more blood. It is by the August Revolution that the dictatorial and fascist monarchical regimes have been overthrown and the democratic republican regime set up."

"In its domestic policy, the Indochinese Communist Party organized the different strata of the people into the National Liberation Front: the Vietminh Front. The programme of this Front assured the protection of human and civil rights and of property, the respect of private property, the liberty of conscience, as well as equality between nationalities and the sexes, with the aim of realising the unity of the whole people against the Japanese and French fascists."

"We admit that, because of the extremely intricate situation of our country and the relatively limited strength of the Vietnamese Revolution, it was not possible to carry out a systematic elimination of the counter-revolutionary elements on Jacobean or Bolshevik lines. The Vietnamese Revolution was not opposing only the counter-revolutionary forces at home; other forces were intervening from abroad in favour of the French reactionaries and other traitors. It was due to this that the latter were able, in certain places, and at certain moments, to equal, and even to overpower the revolutionary forces (in Saigon, for example)."

"The more democratic the power, the more dictatorial it must be – that is, it must exercise the democratic dictatorship of the whole people against the very small reactionary minority ready to grab back their age-old domination and hinder the march of the revolution. Not being firmly repressed, the reactionaries at home have been used by the French and international reactionaries to create difficulties for the revolutionary power and to divide our people."

"The August Revolution was a revolution of national liberation. It aimed at liberating the Vietnamese people from the colonial yoke and making Vietnam an independent nation."

"Born in the new times, the democratic republican regime in Vietnam inevitably bears the mark of the new times. The August Revolution is a revolution of national liberation in its form and one of new democracy in its content. In other words, the August Revolution is a revolution of national liberation with a new democratic character. It constitutes a step in the national democratic revolution of Vietnam."

"The regime of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation must be abolished, and “land to the tillers” must be realized. So far, the Vietnamese Revolution has only restricted that feudal and semi-feudal exploitation. It must progress further to realise land reform and wipe out all vestiges of feudalism. In brief, the Vietnamese Revolution must fulfil both the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks to realize independence, freedom and happiness for the people. In other words, it must complete the task of democratization to pave the way to the socialist revolution in the future: to socialize all means of production, abolish from Vietnam the regime of exploitation of man by man."

"If we strive only for national reconstruction but neglect to struggle for sovereignty and territorial integrity, national independence will certainly not be recognized and our country will be reduced to an autonomous state."

"We should ally ourselves not only with the French people, but also with all peace-loving and democratic peoples, particularly with the Chinese people, our great neighbours who are resolutely struggling for democracy, unification and independence. In a word, we must unite with all the oppressed peoples who are fighting to liberate themselves."

"The French reactionary colonialists hoped to solve the Vietnamese problem by armed force according to their own will. But the Resistance war carried out by the Vietnamese people has shattered their illusions, The Vietnamese people are ready to wage a long struggle to overcome all difficulties and obstacles and resolutely fight all brutal plunderers and their stooges until they recover the integrity of their territory and gain complete independence, liberty and happiness."

"The third world war is unlikely to erupt in the next few decades. Peace, cooperation and development is a major trend reflecting the keen desire of many countries. However, local wars, armed conflicts, racial and religious clashes, arms race, activities of interference and subversion, terrorism and socio-economic crises will possibly occur in many places in an even more complicated manner."

"New progress will be attained in the struggle for peace and development, against war, the arms race and the use of force, serving the interests of national independence, democracy, welfare, and social progress and justice."

"We reaffirm that there remain four dangers facing the nation that the Party has already warned of. They have developed in a complex, interconnected and mutually-influenced manner. None of them can be ignored but particular attention should be paid to the danger of lagging further behind in economic development and the danger of corruption, bureaucracy, and moral degradation of not a small number of Party cadres and members."

"We cannot build an independent and self-governing national economy without our own industrial base of manufacturing essential means of production and materials."

"The economy's efficiency, quality and competitiveness are low; corruption, wastefulness, bureaucracy and many social vices have not been pushed back, and the dominant rights of the people in many places are severely violated. There have appeared potential dangers of social and political instability."

"When imperialism speeds up trade and services liberalization and globalization of investment, the rich countries become richer, and the gap between rich and poor countries widens."

"They (West) continue to seek ways to completely wipe out the remaining socialist countries. We should never relax our vigilance for a minute."