It has been 42 years since the 1954 Geneva Agreement to end the war in Indochina was signed. Consequently, Vietnam was divided into two parts. The communists controlled North Vietnam and the non-communist Vietnamese controlled the South.
The agreement is a great landmark in the Vietnam history and is one in a very complicate string of events involved in the conflict between the nationalists and the communists in Vietnam long before 1954. It also marked the beginning of a new military conflict that drew the Americans into the war that winded up in another agreement.
The 1973 Paris Agreement allowed the peaceful but shameful withdrawal of the American armed forces. It did not stop fighting's between North and South Vietnam and became a piece of wasted paper at the collapse of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975.
Foreigners may have known much about the Vietnam War since 1961 when the USA increased its commitments by sending combat support units to Vietnam. But the roots of the war had begun springing up way back in the 1920's.
The friction between the Communists and the non-Communist revolutionaries really began in the late 1920's when the Vietnamese Communist cells in southern China often got rid of young Vietnamese fleeing Vietnam for national independence struggle who refused to join them. Meanwhile, as the VNQDD strengthened its forces for a military campaign against the French colonialists, it was the Vietnamese Communists that informed the French colonial authorities of the intended uprising. The French quickly launched large scale raids to wreak havoc with the VNQDD and were on the alert for the attacks.
After the failed 1930 uprising, the greater parts of every anti-colonialist party set up their bases in southern China. Conflicts between communist and non-communist Vietnamese in China became worse, partly because they were influenced by the similar conflict in China. Even in French colonial prisons, the communists and the non-communists sometimes clashed.
While members of both sides were in China, however, the conflict was somehow limited. According to a reliable version, when Chinese authorities ordered to jail Ho Chi Minh "to death," many nationalist leaders put pressure on Nguyen Hai Than to implore Chiang to release Ho. Nguyen hesitated because other leaders raised objection.
Finally, Nguyen was persuaded by the argument "Communist or not, he is a Vietnamese. You will be blamed if he dies in the prison." At last, after receiving Nguyen's letter, Chiang granted Ho a pardon.
Nguyen Hai Than (1869-1951) is one of the Vietnamese who gained high respects from Chiang Kai-shek and other Chinese leaders by their remarkable assistance to the war against Japan. Only with Nguyen's intervention was Ho released from jail. Ho and his Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi then joined the VNCMDMH, the members of which included the VNQDD and other nationalist parties.
As a revolutionist, Nguyen won the hearts of almost all Vietnamese leaders in China at the time, though he was not a talented politician. He was the Chairman of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi - not Ho Chi Minh (1) - and represented the nationalist bloc in 1945-46. He accepted the office of vice-president to Ho Chi Minh in the coalition government until the nationalists were wiped out in the late 1946. He returned to China and died there in 1951.
Nguyen Hai Than had an important role in the history of Vietnam in the 1940's. His role was often ignored unfairly in many books about Vietnam.
Some authors like Mr. Stanley Karanow made mistakes when writing about Vietnam. Karnow said that Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists "created" the VNQDD (2). In fact, before 1930, the VNQDD had no relations with Chiang's Kuomintang. Since 1933, the party leadership operated in southern China and got limited supports from Chiang's government. But at the same time, many party members, even some top leaders, suffered arrests by orders of Lung Yun, the governor of Yunnan province and other Chinese warlords. Two VNQDD members were executed after the French consulate in Kunming put pressure on Lung Yun along with bribes.
The conflict became bloody after August 1945 when Ho Chi Minh's subordinates, breaking his promise to the Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi, took advantage of the great spontaneous gathering in Ha Noi to seize power solely for his party. Ho's underlings ambushed and killed the nationalists, most were VNQDD members, when they crossed the border from China into Vietnam in small groups.
The others of the parties in the VNCMDMH who later returned from China reacted furiously, and under great pressure, Ho had to share powers with the nationalists.
To lessen Chinese supports for the nationalists, Ho launched the "Gold Week," calling people all over the country to make contribution in gold to the fund for purchasing weapons to defend the Fatherland. A large amount of solid gold were donated to the right cause. Ho Chi Minh used the gold contribution to bribe Chinese General Lu Han so that this corrupted general would keep his forces from interfering in his affairs and limit supports to the VNQDD. And Lu Han did.
Ho Chi Minh, notorious for political wily schemes, signed the Preliminary Agreement on March 6, 1946, admitting French troops into major cities above the 16th parallel. In so doing, he could get rid of the Chiang Kai-shek army in Vietnam who would side with the nationalists should a civil war break out.
In 1946, especially while Ho was in France, Vo Nguyen Giap and the Viet Minh death squads were hunting their nationalist opponents at full swing. The nationalists fought back. Gunfights took place almost every week in major cities of North Vietnam, killing dozen of victims from both sides every week - not that only VNQDD hunting Giap and his men as Stanley Karnow said in his book (3).
Ho Chi Minh then appealed for "Great Soliditary." His opponents trusted him somehow after the coalition government was established with the nationalist seats doubled that of the communists. The nationalists underestimated the capability of their enemy.
While the VNQDD are unalerted, Ho's army conducted a large scale surprise offensive, overran several VNQDD bases. At the same time, French units launched attacks on the rear of the VNQDD units. In a few months, most nationalist forces were wiped out.
The Great Purge followed all over Vietnam, eliminating thousands of nationalist leaders and cadres, including members of various churches such as the Catholics, the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai. The Hoa Hao suffered the heaviest human losses. Most victims were selective.
The Resistance against the French broke out on Dec. 19, 1946. The purge continued. The nationalist militants who survived the purge had fled to China. Others who had not been in the Viet Minh Public Security's blacklists stayed in the resistance areas and fought the French beside the Viet Minh. The non-communists who felt unsafe in Viet Minh areas had to fled to the French occupied area especially in the peak of the purge in 1948.
The non-communist patriots contributed the large parts in the national efforts to fight the French. Had they gone on fighting beside the Viet Minh, the French forces could have been defeated years before 1954.
The so-called State of Vietnam, headed by former King Bao Dai came into existence on March 8, 1948, after an agreement between France and a few nationalist leaders. Its government had limited powers and virtually was under control of the French, and so was its small army of a dozen infantry battalions.
In 1951, the Lao Dong Party (Worker's Party) went public. Communism became a religion, and Communist cadres dominated every level of the Resistance government and armed forces. Communist doctrine dictated to every activity, not excluding elementary education, ethics, music, literature, arts, military, and all.
The event frustrated most of the non-communist patriots. Many of them rallied to the side of the nationalist government, including famous writers, artists, music composers and other intellects.
The flow of those who changed side increased sharply since late 1953, after the Lao Dong Party carried out the first phase (experimental) of the Land Reform Campaign. It was the bloodiest campaign in the history of Vietnam that lasted 3 years until 1956 after the well staged "Campaign of Correction of Errors."
An estimate of about 15,000 landlords and opponents were sentenced to death by the "people's courts" and executed by lynching, lapidating, firing squad or even by locking up without food and water. The campaign scared off many cadres who realized that one day it would be the turn of their families who had been landlords or unwanted notables.
In 1954, both the Viet Minh and the French forces were exhausted and signed the Geneva Agreement.
Since August 1954, waves of North Vietnamese moved to South Vietnam with assistance from the USA and other Western countries. By May 1955, about one million refugees went south, compared with more than 100,000 going north.
Under the US-backed government of President Ngo Dinh Diem, the new Republic of Vietnam was declared on October 26, 1955 and retrieved full sovereignty from the French who were withdrawing from Vietnam. More than 100 countries - not including the Communist bloc and some non-aligned nations - recognized the new republic.
During 20 years that followed, the RVN had to fight the most destructive war on one hand, and to build South Vietnam a wealthy nation on the other. It has made considerable progress in every field: education, health care,science, technology, culture (especially music), justice and administration. Such progress did not save the regime, but parts of it are still profitable to the Vietnamese people today - technology, music, management.
Although South Vietnam after 1954 and before 1975 was still a developing country, its people enjoyed more democracy and freedom than most of the American allies in the Third World. Probably no country that is in war has the similar freedom of press.
One of the effective strategies of the Vietnamese Communists has been to make people in the world feel that there were only the Americans fighting them in the war. If they have to refer to the RVN, they would always try to belittle its existence and its achievements as much as possible. Many people have fallen for it.
Today, 42 years after the Geneva Agreement and 23 years after the Paris Agreement, the Communist regime in Ha Noi still lags behind in almost every area, and is even worse than South Vietnam in 1954. The most critical is that it lacks a reliable legal system and effective administrative procedures.
If only Ha Noi's leaders adopted all laws and regulations relating to economy and trade enacted in South Vietnam before 1975, however outdated they may be, foreign investors would be very happy not to encounter so many obstacles when they do business in Vietnam. But they would never do so, and their incapability is why we are against them.
July 20, 1996.
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(1) Stanley KARNOW, "Vietnam: A History." New York: Penguin Group, 1988. P. 141.
(2) Ibid., p. 124.
(3) Ibid., p. 152.