HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

, , war = the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietna ...
, image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active = 1954–1959 ''(as southern
Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
cadres)''
, ideology = , position =
Far-left Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars conside ...
, leaders = Liberation Army: Central Office: Liberation Front:Burchett, Wilfred (1963):
Liberation Front: Formation of the NLF
, ''The Furtive War'', International Publishers, New York.
Governance: , merged_into =
Vietnamese Fatherland Front The Vietnamese Fatherland Front ( vi, Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam) is an umbrella group of mass movements in Vietnam aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese government. It was founded in February 1977 by the m ...
, clans = , headquarters = , area =
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
, with a focus on South Vietnam , predecessor =
Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
, successor = Vietnam Fatherland Front , allies = , opponents = , battles = See full list The Viet Cong, ; contraction of (Vietnamese communist) was an armed
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
organization in
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of t ...
,
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
and
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thaila ...
. It fought under the direction of
North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietna ...
. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory the Viet Cong controlled. During the war, communist fighters and anti-war activists claimed that the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. According to
Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Chấn, known as Trần Văn Trà (1918 – April 20, 1996) was a Vietnamese general. He was a commander in the Vietcong; a member of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party ( Workers' Party of Vietnam) from 1960 to 1982; a lieuten ...
, the Viet Cong's top commander, and the post-war Vietnamese government's official history, the Viet Cong followed orders from Hanoi and were part of the
People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...
, or North Vietnamese army. North Vietnam established the Viet Cong on December 20, 1960, at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh Province to foment insurgency in the South. Many of the Viet Cong's core members were volunteer "regroupees", southern
Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Viet Cong called for the unification of Vietnam and the overthrow of the American backed South Vietnamese government. The Viet Cong's best-known action was the
Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
, an assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Viet Cong. Later communist offensives were conducted predominantly by the North Vietnamese. The organization officially merged with the Fatherland Front of Vietnam on February 4, 1977, after North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government.


Names

The term ''Việt Cộng'' appeared in
Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
newspapers beginning in 1956. It is a contraction of (Vietnamese communist), The earliest citation for ''Viet Cong'' in English is from 1957. American soldiers referred to the Viet Cong as Victor Charlie or V-C. "Victor" and "Charlie" are both letters in the
NATO phonetic alphabet The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spelling ...
. "Charlie" referred to communist forces in general, both Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. The official Vietnamese history gives the group's name as the Liberation Army of South Vietnam or the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (NLFSV; ''Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam'').Military History Institute of Vietnam,(2002) ''Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975'', translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. .Radio Hanoi called it the "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam" in a January 1961 broadcast announcing the group's formation. In his memoirs,
Võ Nguyên Giáp Võ Nguyên Giáp (; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general and communist politician who is regarded as having been one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He served as interior minister in President H ...
called the group the "South Vietnam National Liberation Front" (). See also the (1967).
Many writers shorten this to National Liberation Front (NLF).The terminology "liberation front" is adapted from the earlier
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and Algerian National Liberation Fronts.
In 1969, the Viet Cong created the "
Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG, vi, Chính phủ Cách mạng Lâm thời Cộng hòa Miền Nam Việt Nam), was formed on June 8, 1969, by North Vietnam as a purportedly independent shadow gover ...
" (''Chính Phủ Cách Mạng Lâm Thời Cộng Hòa Miền Nam Việt Nam''), abbreviated PRG.This also follows terminology used earlier by leftists in Greece ( Provisional Democratic Government) and Algeria (
Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic The Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic ( ar, الحكومة المؤقتة للجمهورية الجزائرية, ; French: ''Gouvernement provisoire de la République algérienne'') was the government-in-exile of the Algerian Natio ...
).
Although the NLF was not officially abolished until 1977, the Viet Cong no longer used the name after the PRG was created. Members generally referred to the Viet Cong as "the Front" (''Mặt trận''). Today's Vietnamese media most frequently refers to the group as the "
Liberation Army of South Vietnam The Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV, ), also known shortly as the Liberation Army () was the military arm of National Liberation Front of South Vietnam established by the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1961 in South Vietnam. In 1962, the Pe ...
" (''Quân Giải phóng Miền Nam Việt Nam'') .


History


Origin

By the terms of the
Geneva Accord (1954) The Geneva Conference, intended to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War, was a conference involving several nations that took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 April to 20 July 1954. The part o ...
, which ended the Indochina War, France and the
Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
agreed to a truce and to a separation of forces. The Viet Minh had become the government of North Vietnam, and military forces of the communists regrouped there. Military forces of the non-communists regrouped in
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of t ...
, which became a separate state. Elections on reunification were scheduled for July 1956. A divided Vietnam angered Vietnamese nationalists, but it made the country less of a threat to China. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai negotiated the terms of the ceasefire with France and then imposed them on the Viet Minh. About 90,000 Viet Minh were evacuated to the North while 5,000 to 10,000 cadre remained in the South, most of them with orders to refocus on political activity and agitation. The Saigon-Cholon Peace Committee, the first Viet Cong front, was founded in 1954 to provide leadership for this group. Other front names used by the Viet Cong in the 1950s implied that members were fighting for religious causes, for example, "Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front", which suggested affiliation with the
Hòa Hảo Hòa Hảo is a religious movement described either as a syncretistic folk religion or as a sect of Buddhism. It was founded in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1920–1947), who is regarded as a saint by its devotees. It is one of the major religions ...
sect, or "Vietnam-Cambodia Buddhist Association". Front groups were favored by the Viet Cong to such an extent that its real leadership remained shadowy until long after the war was over, prompting the expression "the faceless Viet Cong". Led by
Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic o ...
, South Vietnam refused to sign the Geneva Accord. Arguing that a free election was impossible under the conditions that existed in communist-held territory, Diệm announced in July 1955 that the scheduled election on reunification would not be held. After subduing the Bình Xuyên organized crime gang in the Battle for Saigon in 1955, and the Hòa Hảo and other militant religious sects in early 1956, Diệm turned his attention to the Viet Cong. Within a few months, the Viet Cong had been driven into remote swamps.Karnow, p. 245. The success of this campaign inspired U.S. President
Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
to dub Diệm the "miracle man" when he visited the U.S. in May 1957. France withdrew its last soldiers from Vietnam in April 1956. In March 1956, southern communist leader
Lê Duẩn Lê Duẩn (; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd Nati ...
presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled "The Road to the South" to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi. He argued adamantly that war with the United States was necessary to achieve unification.Ang, p. 21 But as China and the Soviets both opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn's plan was rejected and communists in the South were ordered to limit themselves to economic struggle. Leadership divided into a "North first", or pro-Beijing, faction led by
Trường Chinh Trường Chinh (, born Đặng Xuân Khu; 9 February 1907, Xuân Trường District, Nam Định Province – 30 September 1988, Hanoi) was a Vietnamese communist political leader and theoretician. He was one of the key figures of Vietnamese pol ...
, and a "South first" faction led by
Lê Duẩn Lê Duẩn (; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd Nati ...
. As the
Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...
widened in the following months, Hanoi began to play the two communist giants off against each other. The North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956. Lê Duẩn's blueprint for revolution in the South was approved in principle, but implementation was conditional on winning international support and on modernizing the army, which was expected to take at least until 1959. President
Hồ Chí Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Pr ...
stressed that violence was still a last resort. Nguyễn Hữu Xuyên was assigned military command in the South, replacing Lê Duẩn, who was appointed North Vietnam's acting party boss. This represented a loss of power for Hồ, who preferred the more moderate
Võ Nguyên Giáp Võ Nguyên Giáp (; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general and communist politician who is regarded as having been one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He served as interior minister in President H ...
, who was defense minister. An assassination campaign, referred to as "extermination of traitors" or "armed propaganda" in communist literature, began in April 1957. Tales of sensational murder and mayhem soon crowded the headlines. Seventeen civilians were killed by machine gun fire at a bar in Châu Đốc in July and in September a district chief was killed with his entire family on a main highway in broad daylight. In October 1957, a series of bombs exploded in Saigon and left 13 Americans wounded. In a speech given on September 2, 1957, Hồ reiterated the "North first" line of economic struggle. The launch of
Sputnik Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...
in October boosted Soviet confidence and led to a reassessment of policy regarding Indochina, long treated as a Chinese sphere of influence. In November, Hồ traveled to Moscow with Lê Duẩn and gained approval for a more militant line.Ang, p. 24-25. In early 1958, Lê Duẩn met with the leaders of "Inter-zone V" (northern South Vietnam) and ordered the establishment of patrols and safe areas to provide logistical support for activity in the Mekong Delta and in urban areas. In June 1958, the Viet Cong created a command structure for the eastern Mekong Delta.Karnow, p. 693. French scholar Bernard Fall published an influential article in July 1958 which analyzed the pattern of rising violence and concluded that a new war had begun.


Launches "armed struggle"

The Communist Party of Vietnam approved a "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959 and this decision was confirmed by the
Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
in March. In May 1959,
Group 559 Group 559 was a transportation and logistical unit of the People's Army of Vietnam. Established on 19 May 1959 to move troops, weapons, and materiel from North Vietnam to Vietcong paramilitary units in South Vietnam, the unit created and mainta ...
was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.''Victory in Vietnam'', p. xi. The first arms delivery via the trail, a few dozen rifles, was completed in August 1959.Prados, John, (2006) "The Road South: The Ho Chi Minh Trail", ''Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land'', editor By Andrew A. Wiest, Osprey Publishing, . Two regional command centers were merged to create the
Central Office for South Vietnam Central Office for South Vietnam (abbreviated COSVN ; vi, Văn phòng Trung ương Cục miền Nam), officially known as the Central Executive Committee of the People's Revolutionary Party from 1962 until its dissolution in 1976, was the Ameri ...
(''Trung ương Cục miền Nam''), a unified communist party headquarters for the South. COSVN was initially located in
Tây Ninh Tây Ninh () is a provincial city in south-eastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Tây Ninh Province, which encompasses the town and much of the surrounding farmland. Tây Ninh is approximately to the northwest of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's lar ...
Province near the Cambodian border. On July 8, the Viet Cong killed two U.S. military advisors at
Biên Hòa Biên Hòa (Northern accent: , Southern accent: ) is the capital city of Đồng Nai Province, Vietnam and part of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area and located about east of Ho Chi Minh City, to which Biên Hòa is linked by Vietnam Hig ...
, the first American dead of the Vietnam War.Major Dale R. Buis and Master Sergeant Charles Ovnand, the first names to appear on the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a U.S. national memorial in Washington, D.C., honoring service members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Vietnam War. The site is dominated by two black granite walls engraved with the names of those ...
.
The "2d Liberation Battalion" ambushed two companies of South Vietnamese soldiers in September 1959, the first large unit military action of the war. This was considered the beginning of the "armed struggle" in communist accounts. A series of uprisings beginning in the
Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...
province of Bến Tre in January 1960 created "liberated zones", models of Viet Cong-style government. Propagandists celebrated their creation of battalions of "long-hair troops" (women). The fiery declarations of 1959 were followed by a lull while Hanoi focused on events in
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
(1960–61). Moscow favored reducing international tensions in 1960, as it was election year for the U.S. presidency.This is sometimes referred to as the "Genoa Policy" and later inspired Khrushchev to take credit for Kennedy's election.() Despite this, 1960 was a year of unrest in South Vietnam, with pro-democracy demonstrations inspired by the South Korean student uprising that year and a failed military coup in November. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda. The Viet Cong created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh as a "
united front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political a ...
", or political branch intended to encourage the participation of non-communists.Ang, p. 58. The group's formation was announced by Radio Hanoi and its ten-point manifesto called for, "overthrow the disguised colonial regime of the imperialists and the dictatorial administration, and to form a national and democratic coalition administration." Thọ, a lawyer and the Viet Cong's "neutralist" chairman, was an isolated figure among cadres and soldiers. South Vietnam's Law 10/59, approved in May 1959, authorized the death penalty for crimes "against the security of the state" and featured prominently in Viet Cong propaganda. Violence between the Viet Cong and government forces soon increased drastically from 180 clashes in January 1960 to 545 clashes in September.Nghia M. Vo Saigon: A History 2011 – Page 140 "... on December 19 to 20, 1960, Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, a Saigon lawyer, Trương Như Tảng, chief comptroller of a bank, Drs. Dương Quỳnh Hoa and Phùng Văn Cung, along with other dissidents, met with communists to form the National Liberation Front..." By 1960, the Sino-Soviet split was a public rivalry, making China more supportive of Hanoi's war effort. For Chinese leader
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (P ...
, aid to North Vietnam was a way to enhance his "anti-imperialist" credentials for both domestic and international audiences. About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated the South in 1961–63. The Viet Cong grew rapidly; an estimated 300,000 members were enrolled in "liberation associations" (affiliated groups) by early 1962. The ratio of Viet Cong to government soldiers jumped from 1:10 in 1961 to 1:5 a year later.''Victory in Vietnam'', p. xii. The level of violence in the South jumped dramatically in the fall of 1961, from 50 guerrilla attacks in September to 150 in October. U.S. President John F. Kennedy decided in November 1961 to substantially increase American military aid to South Vietnam. The arrived in Saigon with 35 helicopters in December 1961. By mid-1962, there were 12,000 U.S. military advisors in Vietnam. The "special war" and "strategic hamlets" policies allowed Saigon to push back in 1962, but in 1963 the Viet Cong regained the military initiative. The Viet Cong won its first military victory against South Vietnamese forces at Ấp Bắc in January 1963. A landmark party meeting was held in December 1963, shortly after a military coup in Saigon in which Diệm was assassinated. North Vietnamese leaders debated the issue of "quick victory" vs "protracted war" (guerrilla warfare).Ang, p. 74-75. After this meeting, the communist side geared up for a maximum military effort and the troop strength of the
People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...
(PAVN) increased from 174,000 at the end of 1963 to 300,000 in 1964. The Soviets cut aid in 1964 as an expression of annoyance with Hanoi's ties to China.Zhai, p. 128.There was also a U.S. presidential election in 1964. Even as Hanoi embraced China's international line, it continued to follow the Soviet model of reliance on technical specialists and bureaucratic management, as opposed to mass mobilization. The winter of 1964–1965 was a high-water mark for the Viet Cong, with the Saigon government on the verge of collapse.''Victory in Vietnam'', p. xiii. Soviet aid soared following a visit to Hanoi by Soviet Premier
Alexei Kosygin Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Pre ...
in February 1965.Karnow, p. 427. Hanoi was soon receiving up-to-date surface-to-air missiles. The U.S. would have 200,000 soldiers in South Vietnam by the end of the year. In January 1966, Australian troops uncovered a tunnel complex which had been used by COSVN. Six thousand documents were captured, revealing the inner workings of the Viet Cong. COSVN retreated to Mimot in Cambodia. As a result of an agreement with the Cambodian government made in 1966, weapons for the Viet Cong were shipped to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville and then trucked to Viet Cong bases near the border along the "
Sihanouk Trail The Sihanouk Trail was a logistical supply system in Cambodia used by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and its Viet Cong (VC) guerillas during the Vietnam War (1960–1975). Between 1966 and 1970, this system operated in the same manner and s ...
", which replaced the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Many
Liberation Army of South Vietnam The Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV, ), also known shortly as the Liberation Army () was the military arm of National Liberation Front of South Vietnam established by the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1961 in South Vietnam. In 1962, the Pe ...
units operated at night, and employed terror as a standard tactic. Rice procured at gunpoint sustained the Viet Cong. Squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas. Government employees, especially village and district heads, were the most common targets. But there were a wide variety of targets, including clinics and medical personnel. Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at
Huế Huế () is the capital of Thừa Thiên Huế province in central Vietnam and was the capital of Đàng Trong from 1738 to 1775 and of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945. The city served as the old Imperial City and ad ...
, 48 killed in the bombing of My Canh floating restaurant in Saigon in June 1965 and a massacre of 252 Montagnards in the village of Đắk Sơn in December 1967 using flamethrowers.Krohn, Charles, A., ''The Last Battalion: Controversies and Casualties of the Battle of Hue''. pg. 30. Westport 1993.
Jones, C. Don,
Massacre at Dak Son
'', United States Information Service, 1967

Pictures of Dak Son can be viewe

.
Viet Cong death squads assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam; the real figure was far higher since the data mostly cover 1967–72. They also waged a mass murder campaign against civilian hamlets and refugee camps; in the peak war years, nearly a third of all civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities. Ami Pedahzur has written that "the overall volume and lethality of Vietcong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century".


Logistics and equipment


Tet Offensive

Major reversals in 1966 and 1967, as well as the growing American presence in Vietnam, inspired Hanoi to consult its allies and reassess strategy in April 1967. While Beijing urged a fight to the finish, Moscow suggested a negotiated settlement. Convinced that 1968 could be the last chance for decisive victory, General
Nguyễn Chí Thanh Nguyễn Chí Thanh (1 January 1914 – 7 July 1967) was a General in the North Vietnamese Vietnam People's Army and former North Vietnamese politician. Nguyễn Chí Thanh was born in Thừa Thiên Province in Central Vietnam to a peasant fami ...
, suggested an all-out offensive against urban centers.Ang, pp. 116–117.Disappointed with the results of the 1964 U.S. presidential election, the Kremlin did not try to influence the election of 1968. Desiring "businesslike" relations, the Kremlin favored incumbent
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
against left-wing challenger
George McGovern George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 p ...
in 1972. (Lynn-Jones, p. 29).
He submitted a plan to Hanoi in May 1967. After Thanh's death in July, Giáp was assigned to implement this plan, now known as the
Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
. The Parrot's Beak, an area in Cambodia only 30 miles from Saigon, was prepared as a base of operations. Funeral processions were used to smuggle weapons into Saigon. Viet Cong entered the cities concealed among civilians returning home for
Tết Tết (), short for Tết Nguyên Đán (Chữ Hán: 節元旦), Spring Festival, Lunar New Year, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations in Vietnamese culture. The colloquial term "Tết" is a shortened form of , ...
. The U.S. and South Vietnamese expected that an announced seven-day truce would be observed during Vietnam's main holiday. At this point, there were about 500,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, as well as 900,000 allied forces. General
William Westmoreland William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was a United States Army general, most notably commander of United States forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968. He served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army fr ...
, the U.S. commander, received reports of heavy troop movements and understood that an offensive was being planned, but his attention was focused on
Khe Sanh Khe Sanh is the district capital of Hướng Hoá District, Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam, located 63 km west of Đông Hà. During the Vietnam War, the Khe Sanh Combat Base was located to the north of the city. The Battle of Khe San ...
, a remote U.S. base near the DMZ. In January and February 1968, some 80,000 Viet Cong struck more than 100 towns with orders to "crack the sky" and "shake the Earth." The offensive included a commando raid on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and a massacre at Huế of about 3,500 residents. House-to-house fighting between Viet Cong and South Vietnamese Rangers left much of Cholon, a section of Saigon, in ruins. The Viet Cong used any available tactic to demoralize and intimidate the population, including the assassination of South Vietnamese commanders. A photo by Eddie Adams showing the
summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes inclu ...
of a Viet Cong in Saigon on February 1 became a symbol of the brutality of the war. In an influential broadcast on February 27, newsman
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...
stated that the war was a "stalemate" and could be ended only by negotiation. The offensive was undertaken in the hope of triggering a general uprising, but urban Vietnamese did not respond as the Viet Cong anticipated. About 75,000 communist soldiers were killed or wounded, according to
Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Chấn, known as Trần Văn Trà (1918 – April 20, 1996) was a Vietnamese general. He was a commander in the Vietcong; a member of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party ( Workers' Party of Vietnam) from 1960 to 1982; a lieuten ...
, commander of the "B-2" district, which consisted of southern South Vietnam. "We did not base ourselves on scientific calculation or a careful weighing of all factors, but...on an illusion based on our subjective desires", Trà concluded. Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
, estimated that Tet resulted in 40,000 communist dead (compared to about 10,600 U.S. and South Vietnamese dead). "It is a major irony of the Vietnam War that our propaganda transformed this debacle into a brilliant victory. The truth was that Tet cost us half our forces. Our losses were so immense that we were unable to replace them with new recruits", said PRG Justice Minister Trương Như Tảng. Tet had a profound psychological impact because South Vietnamese cities were otherwise safe areas during the war. U.S. President
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
and Westmoreland argued that panicky news coverage gave the public the unfair perception that America had been defeated. Aside from some districts in the
Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...
, the Viet Cong failed to create a governing apparatus in South Vietnam following Tet, according to an assessment of captured documents by the U.S.
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
. The breakup of larger Viet Cong units increased the effectiveness of the CIA's
Phoenix Program The Phoenix Program ( vi, Chiến dịch Phụng Hoàng) was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian, and South Vietnamese militarie ...
(1967–72), which targeted individual leaders, as well as the Chiêu Hồi Program, which encouraged defections. By the end of 1969, there was little communist-held territory, or "liberated zones", in South Vietnam, according to the official communist military history. There were no predominantly southern units left and 70 percent of communist troops in the South were northerners. The Viet Cong created an urban front in 1968 called the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces.Porter, pp. 27–29 The group's manifesto called for an independent, non-aligned South Vietnam and stated that "national reunification cannot be achieved overnight." In June 1969, the alliance merged with the Viet Cong to form a "Provisional Revolutionary Government" (PRG).


Vietnamization

The Tet Offensive increased American public discontent with participation in the Vietnam War and led the U.S. to gradually withdraw combat forces and to shift responsibility to the South Vietnamese, a process called
Vietnamization Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same t ...
. Pushed into Cambodia, the Viet Cong could no longer draw South Vietnamese recruits. In May 1968, Trường Chinh urged "protracted war" in a speech that was published prominently in the official media, so the fortunes of his "North first" fraction may have revived at this time. COSVN rejected this view as "lacking resolution and absolute determination." The Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
in August 1968 led to intense Sino-Soviet tension and to the withdrawal of Chinese forces from North Vietnam. Beginning in February 1970, Lê Duẩn's prominence in the official media increased, suggesting that he was again top leader and had regained the upper hand in his longstanding rivalry with Trường Chinh. After the overthrow of Prince
Sihanouk Norodom Sihanouk (; km, នរោត្តម សីហនុ, ; 31 October 192215 October 2012) was a Cambodian statesman, Sangkum and FUNCINPEC politician, film director, and composer who led Cambodia in various capacities throughout his ...
in March 1970, the Viet Cong faced a hostile Cambodian government which authorized a U.S. offensive against its bases in April. However, the capture of the
Plain of Jars The Plain of Jars ( Lao: ທົ່ງໄຫຫິນ ''Thong Hai Hin'', ) is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos. It consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain o ...
and other territory in Laos, as well as five provinces in northeastern Cambodia, allowed the North Vietnamese to reopen the Ho Chi Minh trail.Ang, p. 52. Although 1970 was a much better year for the Viet Cong than 1969, it would never again be more than an adjunct to the PAVN. The 1972
Easter Offensive The Easter Offensive, also known as the 1972 spring–summer offensive ('' vi, Chiến dịch Xuân–Hè 1972'') by North Vietnam, or the red fiery summer (') as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature, was a military campaign conducted b ...
was a direct North Vietnamese attack across the DMZ between North and South. Despite the
Paris Peace Accords The Paris Peace Accords, () officially titled the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam (''Hiệp định về chấm dứt chiến tranh, lập lại hòa bình ở Việt Nam''), was a peace treaty signed on January 27, 1 ...
, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. In March, Trà was recalled to Hanoi for a series of meetings to hammer out a plan for an enormous offensive against Saigon.


Fall of Saigon

In response to the anti-war movement, the U.S. Congress passed the
Case–Church Amendment The Case–Church Amendment was legislation attached to a bill funding the U.S. State Department. it was approved by the U.S. Congress in June 1973 that prohibited further U.S. military activity in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia unless the presiden ...
to prohibit further U.S. military intervention in Vietnam in June 1973 and reduced aid to South Vietnam in August 1974. With U.S. bombing ended, communist logistical preparations could be accelerated. An oil pipeline was built from North Vietnam to Viet Cong headquarters in Lộc Ninh, about 75 miles northwest of Saigon. (COSVN was moved back to South Vietnam following the Easter Offensive.) The Ho Chi Minh Trail, beginning as a series of treacherous mountain tracks at the start of the war, was upgraded throughout the war, first into a road network driveable by trucks in the dry season, and finally, into paved, all-weather roads that could be used year-round, even during the
monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...
.Karnow. pp. 672–74. Between the beginning of 1974 and April 1975, with now-excellent roads and no fear of air interdiction, the communists delivered nearly 365,000 tons of war matériel to battlefields, 2.6 times the total for the previous 13 years. The success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive convinced Hanoi to accelerate its timetable. When there was no U.S. response to a successful communist attack on Phước Bình in January 1975, South Vietnamese morale collapsed. The next major battle, at
Buôn Ma Thuột Buôn Ma Thuột () (formerly Lac Giao) or sometimes Buôn Mê Thuột or Ban Mê Thuột, is the capital city of Đắk Lắk Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Its population was 420,000 in 2016, and grew to 502,170 by 2018. The c ...
in March, was a communist walkover. After the
fall of Saigon The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, t ...
on April 30, 1975, the PRG moved into government offices there. At the victory parade, Tạng noticed that the units formerly dominated by southerners were missing, replaced by northerners years earlier. The bureaucracy of the Republic of Vietnam was uprooted and authority over the South was assigned to the PAVN. People considered tainted by association with the former South Vietnamese government were sent to re-education camps, despite the protests of the non-communist PRG members including Tạng.Porter, p. 29 Without consulting the PRG, North Vietnamese leaders decided to rapidly dissolve the PRG at a party meeting in August 1975.Porter, p. 28. North and South were merged as the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
in July 1976 and the PRG was dissolved. The Viet Cong was merged with the
Vietnamese Fatherland Front The Vietnamese Fatherland Front ( vi, Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam) is an umbrella group of mass movements in Vietnam aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese government. It was founded in February 1977 by the m ...
on February 4, 1977.


Relationship with Hanoi

Activists opposing American involvement in Vietnam said that the Viet Cong was a nationalist insurgency indigenous to the South. They claimed that the Viet Cong was composed of several parties—the People's Revolutionary Party, the Democratic Party and the Radical Socialist Party—and that Viet Cong chairman
Nguyễn Hữu Thọ Nguyễn Hữu Thọ (10 July 1910 – 24 December 1996) was a Vietnamese revolutionary and Chairman of Consultative Council of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam from 6 June 1969 to 2 July 1976, and the Chairman of the National As ...
was not a communist., p. 255. Anti-communists countered that the Viet Cong was merely a front for Hanoi. They said some statements issued by communist leaders in the 1980s and 1990s suggested that southern communist forces were influenced by Hanoi. According to the memoirs of
Trần Văn Trà Nguyễn Chấn, known as Trần Văn Trà (1918 – April 20, 1996) was a Vietnamese general. He was a commander in the Vietcong; a member of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party ( Workers' Party of Vietnam) from 1960 to 1982; a lieuten ...
, the Viet Cong's top commander and PRG defense minister, he followed orders issued by the "Military Commission of the Party Central Committee" in Hanoi, which in turn implemented resolutions of the Politburo.Trà begins, "How did the B2 theater carry out the mission assigned it by the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee?" () Trà himself was deputy chief of staff for the PAVN before being assigned to the South. The official Vietnamese history of the war states that "The Liberation Army of South Vietnam iet Congis a part of the People's Army of Vietnam".


See also

*
Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure During the Second Indochina War, better known as the Vietnam War, a distinctive land warfare strategy and organization was used by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) or better known as the Viet Cong (VC) in the West, and the Peop ...
*
Viet Cong and PAVN battle tactics VC and PAVN battle tactics comprised a flexible mix of guerrilla and conventional warfare battle tactics used by Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to defeat their U.S. and South Vietnamese (GVN/ ARVN) op ...
* Kit Carson Scouts, former Viet Cong who worked with U.S. Marines *
People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...
, the North Vietnamese army * Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War


Notes


References


Further reading

* U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, ''The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam'' (1972)
part I

part II

part III
, an
part IV
. * Marvin Gettleman, et al. ''Vietnam and America: A Documented History''. Grove Press. 1995. . See especially Part VII: The Decisive Year. * Truong Nhu Tang. ''A Vietcong Memoir''. Random House. . 1985. See Chapter 7 on the forming of the Viet Cong, and Chapter 21 on the communist take-over in 1975. * Frances Fitzgerald. '' Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam''. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972. . See Chapter 4. "The National Liberation Front". * Douglas Valentine. ''The Phoenix Program''. New York: William Morrow and Company. 1990. . * Merle Pribbenow (translation). ''Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People's Army of Vietnam''. University Press of Kansas. 2002 * Morris, Virginia and Hills, Clive. 2018. ''Ho Chi Minh's Blueprint for Revolution: In the Words of Vietnamese Strategists and Operatives'', McFarland & Co Inc.


External links


Tet Offensive 1968, US Embassy & Saigon fighting
CBS News footage of the Tet Offensive.
Vietnam War – Hue Massacre 1968
A tribute to the dead of
Huế Huế () is the capital of Thừa Thiên Huế province in central Vietnam and was the capital of Đàng Trong from 1738 to 1775 and of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945. The city served as the old Imperial City and ad ...
by Trịnh Công Sơn, one of wartime Vietnam's most prominent composers.
The Wars for Vietnam: 1945–1975
Primary documents concerning the Vietnam War, including peace proposals, treaties, and platforms. * Digger History

At one point, Viet Cong tunnels stretched from the Cambodia border to Saigon.
The Viet Cong 1965–1967 – part 1
an
The Viet Cong 1965–1967 – part 2
What was it like to be a Viet Cong? This recruiting video shows one perspective. *
Tiên vê Sài Gòn
(Forward to Saigon.) This propaganda video features singing Viet Cong and newsreel footage from the 1975 offensive. {{Authority control Vietnamese independence movement Communism in Vietnam Defunct communist militant groups Defunct political party alliances in Asia Guerrilla organizations History of South Vietnam History of the Communist Party of Vietnam Military units and formations of the Vietnam War National liberation armies Political party alliances in Vietnam Popular fronts of communist states Rebellions in Vietnam Vietnamese nationalism 1954 establishments in South Vietnam 1976 disestablishments in Vietnam