Thayer, Carlyle A
Description
Any examination of the origins of the National Front for
the Liberation of South Viet-Nam must give prominence to the
role of the Viet-Nam Workers' Party. During the period 1954-60
the VWP was enveloped in a continuing debate over how to
achieve national unification. In 1954, despite disagreement
within the VWP's Central Committee, it was decided to accept a
negotiated settlement to the war. Accordingly the Party set
out a two-year policy of political struggle synchronized with
the...[Show more] various provisions of the Geneva Agreements. The VWP saw
its tasks in each zone as being fundamentally different:
priority was given to socialist construction in the north,
while cadres in the south were expected to carry out a people's
national democratic revolution.
Implementation of this new policy in the south was
hampered by the growing strength of the Diem government, and
by the failure of VWP diplomacy to secure either French or
Russian commitment to general elections. The failure to hold
consultations in July 1955 led to growing southern
disenchantment. In September 1955 the Fatherland Front was
created. Its program in effect recognized the need for a
policy of political struggle based on something other than the
Geneva Agreements.
This policy proved difficult to implement. Although
alliances of convenience were forged with the armed forces of
the dissident sects, the Diem regime proved successful in
meeting and overcoming this challenge. By late 1956 southern
pressures for increased use of revolutionary violence coincided
with failures in conducting land reform in the north. These circumstances led to leadership changes in which the southern
lobby was given an increased voice. The immediate result was
the drafting of another long-range policy. Political struggle
was given renewed emphasis but a limited policy of
"extermination of traitors" was permitted. The prime task was
to rebuild the Party organization. This policy was carried out
during 1957-58 at which time great efforts were made to
consolidate the north and to win international sympathy and
support.
In 1959 the southern lobby argued convincingly for a new
policy sanctioning reunification "by all appropriate means".
This meant the use of armed forces. This new policy of
combining political and armed struggle was ratified at the
VWP's 3rd National Congress in September 1960. The growing
influence of the southerners was evident in leadership
appointments to the Politburo, Secretariat and Central
Committee. Le Duan, the outspoken advocate for armed struggle,
became the Party's First Secretary. The 3rd National Congress
committed the entire VWP to carrying out the people's national
democratic revolution in the south. Southern cadres set about
creating a national united front and regroupees in the north
began returning south. In December 1960 an organizing
committee met and proclaimed the formation of the NFLSVN. Over
a year later, after much organizational work, the First Congress
of the NFLSVN was held. The origins of this Front lie both in
the interaction between contending factions within the VWP
leadership and the interaction between the VWP and various
southern social forces and personalities on the one hand, and
the Diem regime and its American backers on the other.
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