season -- winterspring, 1974-75 -- will probably witness significant development in the relationship of forces in the three countries of Indochina. It is thus Important today to take a closer look at the situation. Cambodia, the "weak link" of the puppet regimes in the region, could have been able to move to the fore in the current scene. But this has not happened during the past several months Once again it is South Vietnam that most directly reflects the progress of the Indochinese revolution. The summer months in South Vietnam have seen the establishment of a new militory situation (despite the monsoons), the permanent aggravation of the social and economic crisis of the zones under Saigon's control, and the rapid extension of action by urban opposifions to Thieu. This is the first feature that must be examined. A new military situation As the debate in the American Congress on the question of economic and military aid to Saigon has approached, both Thieu and many U.S. officials have brandished the specter of a coming "general offensive" by the National Liberation Front. The deceptive character of the maneuver is obvious. The Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) is following a gradual policy that confinues to fall within the framework of the situation born of the signing of the Paris Accords. But if would be False to conclude from this that the PRG is content simply to more or less reestcolish the status qua ante, or that the apparent tension of past months is essentially a result of an attempt to artificially create an atmosphere favorable to obtaining increased aid. To be sure, a good part of the PR's recent military activity has been aimed at recovering territory that it had controlled at the time of the cease-fire and that hod since been eaten away by Saigon or at the destruction of Saigon posts illegally established in these zones after Jenuary 1973. In fact, the puppet army enlarged it maneuvering room during 16 on ther a the first months ofter the signing of the Paris Accords. The military power of the revolutionary war waged by the NLF lay in its ability to "pin down" the enemy on the whole field of battle, thus denying it any mobility, With the cease-fire, Saigon was partially relleved of this pressure. Thieu could then concentrate troops and material at a few select points in order to attack the liberated zones (not, however, without suffering heavy losses). That was one of the difficulties the PRG agreed to face as part of the price to pay for the ending of the direct imperialist infervention and the initiation of the political process that was intended to lead to the recomposition of the urban opposition and the disorganization of the puppet apparatus. It wos in October 1973 that the Peoples Armed Forces of National Liberation (PAFNL) and the PRG decided to react. In a series of communiqués they asserted their will no longer to be content with resistance, but rather to try to recover lost ground and to carry the counteroffensive behind enemy lines wherever necessary. During the first few months, this effort was concentrated along the Cambodian border and in the central highlands. This was a matter of consolidating the "rear" and of assuring the development of the infrastructure of the liberated zones. The essential and principal puppet bases implanted in these regions, from which the continual nibbling operations had been launched, were liquidated at that time. Since then, however, at the end of the dry season and during this summer, new factors have appeared: * The essential part of the PRG's effort was directed at the very populous regions in the Mekong Delfa and the coastal provinces of the center: first north of Saigon around Ben Cat and Lai Khe, where battles of exceptional scope have been going on since May and where Thieu tried in vain for months to re-take two of the three posts taken over by the PRG. (More generally, more than 800 of the 3,500 posts in the Mekong Delta - - according to Saigon statistics -- have been "voluntarily" abandoned this year in face of the threats weighing on them.) Next, in the provinces of Thua Tien (Hue), Quang Nam (Da Nang), Quang Ngai, and Binh Dinh, where the PAFNL registered their most important successes of the past summer. It was precisely there that Saigon had probably done its deepest nibbling into the liberated zones, herding a part of the population into camps. It appears that more than 100,000 people returned to
new dry season zones controlled by the PRG during the months of August and September. *The counteroffensive (or "strategic attacks") took on greater breodth. Since October 1973, the PAFNL have operated behind the Saigon lines (rocket attacks on the Bien Hoa airport, destruction of oil depots as of Nha Be, etc.) and have destroyed the bases that were implanted into their zones before January 1973 (in the central highlands). But in August the North Vietnamese press stressed that: "it is no longer a matter of simply re-taking territory seized by the puppets during nibbling operations, " but rather of carrying the response to the heart of the enemy bases. " An example that was mentioned was the liberation of the capital of the Minh Long district south of Da Nang, which has since been followed by the liberation of a second district capital, Thoug Dua. (See the August 30 Le Monde, which quoted Nhan Dan, the CP newspaper, and Quan Doi Nanh Dan, the army's pa*The war matérial and the infrastructure of the PRG have clearly improved. The battle of Ben Cat was significant in this respect. If was the first time that such fighting had taken place so close to Saigon (about thirty miles away). Thieu threw considerable material into his counteroffensive. He brought the first paratroop brigade back from Quang Tri; the rate at which heavy artillery, air power, and tanks were utilized by the puppet army went beyond that of any battle waged since the signing of the accords. But the puppet army was confronted by the Seventh North Vietnamese division (at Lai Khe it was the Ninth division), which was equipped with high quality material. To be sure, the best Soviet weapons are not always at hand in Vietnam, the sort of ultramodern equipment like the 5AM-6 and SAM-9 missiles used by the Egyptians. But in the Mekong Delta today, there are weapons that for a long time had been used only in the North (particularly during the defense of Hanoi and Haiphong) . The puppet air force ran up against an effective anti-aircraft defense: surface to air missiles like the SAM-7, which can be used by individual soldiers, the AAA system (rodar-controlled antiaircraft artillery), and cannon up to 85-100 mm. caliber. - Saigon's heavy tanks had to face the Soviet PT76 (light amshibious tanks), the T54 (medium weight tank), and the T34 (heavy tank). The PAFNL also had the use of heavy mortar (120 mm.), 107 and 122 mm. rockets, 85 and 105 mm. cannon (captured from the puppets), and 122 and 130 mm. artillery (for the first time in the Saigon region). It is difficult to tell in what quantities modern weapons have been sent to the South. But their presence in the delta is new. It is all the more important a novelty in that the PRG has considerably developed it logistical system. According to Peter Collins, writing in the August 30 Far Eastern Economic Review, 1,000 miles of communication roads have been constructed, routes that come down from the North extending as far as the southern part of the central highlands. A gas pipeline has been laid to the Pleiku region. The means of transport commanded by the revolutionary forces today are infinitely superior to those of 1965 and even, it appears, to those of 1972. While the battles in South Vietnam have often remained localized, they have taken on considerable breadth. According to still partial figures announced by the PRG, 115,000 Saigon soldiers were knocked out of action during the first six months of 1974. Not all the zones that were liberated territory in January 1973 and were subsequently aftacked by Saigon have been recovered (such as the port of Sa Huynh in Quang Ngai, which remains under the control of the puppet armyl, but large-scale battles have resulted in the liberation of of least two district capitals. The PRG has demonstrated that it is capable of responding on the military level to the American-puppet policy. This fact is brought even more sharply into relief in the cities under Saigon's control. There, the puppet regime has experienced an aggravation of its crisis. The urban opposition The article published in INPRECOR No.0 (May 9), analyzed the features of the economic and social crisis of the Thieu regime and the recomposition of the urban opposition. Saigon has not succeeded in moving beyond the artificial "war economy" generated by the American presence to an industrialization of a neocolonial type. But that is Thie's only chance of
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INDOCHINA consolidating the features of a regime that is condemned to transform itself profoundly or disappear. Since then, the gravity of the crisis has only been confirmed. It is of course difficult to get a precise idea of the real amoun of aid that the puppet regime has received from the American government, although it has certainly been considerable. 1Ilegal aid, which comes through various channels, in any case goes far beyond the aid officially voted by the American Congress. The Pentagon, for example, is free to set its own price for "surplus" war matériel that it resells to other govemments. Thus, the official cost of aid to Saigon can be reduced (sometimes to less than 10 percent of its real cost) simply by shipping modern equipment to one of the American bases abrood and then "reselling" it to Saigon at "surplus" prices. The PRG estimates the real value of the military aid received from the United States by Saigon at more than $4 thousand million! Nevertheless, it is now certain that the expected investors have not materialized (and it is probable that the secret meeting the World Bank is supposed to hold in Paris on October 17 will not change this state of affairs. It is equally cerfain that financial aid properly so-called (coming from the United States, Japan, France, and West Germany) is not keeping up with growing needs and in fact is declining in real value (because of world inflation) and that Washington is meeting greater and greater difficulties in "carrying" its decisions in a Congress that has just reduced the amount of aid for the next fiscal year from S1.4 thousand million to S700 million. Consequently, the infletion rate from January 1973 to July 1974 was 85 percent, occording to the goverment's figure. Unemployment is now growing at an accelerated rate; the Saigon economy is in the midst of a depression. Even according to the US Agency for International Development, there are 800,000 to 1 million unemployed out of an active population of 7 million. Hunger has struck not only in Saigon, but also in Hue, Da Nang, Quang Ngai, Qui Nhon, and Nha Rang. More and more experts in the United States are expressing their pessimism. An example is Samuel Adams, a CIA agent (one of the most "competent, " it appears), who told an American Senate committee in July 1973 that the PRG was experiencing a "resurgence" and that "under the surface, the South Vietnamese government is in the course of disintegration." (See Gabriel Kolko's article in the September 1974 Le Monde Diplomatique.) This is what explains the fact that today, even a section of the Saigonese right wing is opposing We are now seeing an extension of the open movements of opposition in all the cities under pupper control as well as a multiplication of committees of oppositionists. The new rise of these movements was launched in a certain sense by an April 21 meeting of 400 religious personalities. Previously, the opposition religious movements, especially the Buddhists of the An Quang pagada (see INPRECOR No.0, May 9), had been in crisis. Since then, the workers movement, which is not well known in the international press, has been continuing its struggle, which is based especially on a "committee against unemployment, " a group including dozens of trade-union organizations, and the "committees of struggle for the right to live, " which were initiated by the union of the Lambretta and Tilburys drivers. Some success has been won in struggles for economic demands. The workers of the Saigon gloss works won 30 percent wage increases; those of the Esso corporation in Saigon, Nha Be, and Tan Son Nhut won wage increases and the rehiring of their fired comrodes like Nguyen Thua Nghiep, the president of the oil workers union. On May 1 some 3,000 workers delegates put forward an eleven-point program of demands, while 500 workers of the Lambretta drivers union and those of small commercial establishments marched through the streets for several hours. Finally, forty unions are coordinating their actions ogainst inflation, unemployment, and layoffs and against the company unions of Tran Quoc Buu (see INPRECOR No.0)But it is the politico-religious opposition that is presently going through the broadest extension. A whole series of opposition organizations have been founded recently: the Popular Front of Struggle for Peace (with Madam Ngo Ba Than), the Committee to Defend the Rights of the Workers, the Popular Movement of Struggle Against Corruption and for National Salvation and the Establishment of Peace (under Catholic leadership), the Committee of Struggle for Freedom of the Press and Publishing, the Popular Front Against Famine (members of the so-called Third Force, Catholics, Buddhists, Coodai, Hoa Hoo, whose president is the monk Thich Thien), the Popular Organization for the Application of the Paris Accords (intellectuals, professors, journalists, religious figures), and the Forces of National Reconciliation (Buddhists, led by Vu Van Nan). During this time, the political refugees of the Third Force (notably the lawyer Nguyen Long) held a press conference and the Free Forces of Viemam, previously based in France, reorganized Itself in Saigon. These new oppositions have been very octive. Demonstrations called on Catholic initiative took place in Hue on September B, 15, and 17; they attracted 5,000 people. There were other demonstrations in Nha Trang, Da Nang, and Saigon. (The latest one in the capital, called by the "beggar journalists, " attracted several thousand persons.) The press has entered the struggle against corruption. Three newspapers took the spectacular initiative of publishing a document directly aflocking Thieu, the "Act of Accusation No. 1. " (The three papers were Dai Dan Toc, Dien Tin, and Song Thanh; three other papers backed out at the last minuto.) When the police came to seize the papers, the issues were massively distributed in Saigon or symbolically burned in protest. The "Act of Accusation" was then read out in many churches and meetings. It accuses Thieu of being involved in real estate scandals, and speculation, trafficking in fertilizer, blocking construction of the "Hospital for the People, " drug smuggling, and the deliberate organization of the rice shortage. Concurrently, the number of personalities, deputies, senators, and religious leaders demanding Thie's immediate resignation is growing rapidly. Today, even more than in the past, these oppositions are politically and socially heterogeneous. The Reverend Hoang Quynh, who is stigmatizing Thieu, is a refugee from the North, a trenchantly anticommunist Catholic who reproaches the prosent government for being incapable of effectively fighting against "the other side"! "There is no question of peaceful coexistence with the Communists, " Father Tinh told J.-C. Pomonti (Le Monde, October 11). Nevertheless, in June he offered his church to religious leaders who had signed the manifesto against corruption. The rodical priests (like Father Chan Tin) are probably a small minority. The Catholic hierarchy that is now in motion is tightly linked to the Vatican. The Buddhist movement An Quang (United Buddhist Association) remains deeply divided. But the crisis of confidence that is shaking Saigon bourgeois circles reflects the degree of the erosion of support that is undermining the puppet regime and and is forcing Thieu to ease the repression somewhat, thus gpening a breach through which the revolutionary and popular opposition can flow. The 5, 000 demonstrators in Hue were certainly not all good Catholics loyal to the reactionary hi-
The PRG The September 17 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde reported that Hanoi and the PRG were convinced that Washington had decided to dump Thieu and replace him. The reality -- and the analyses of the PRG -- is probably more complex. It is certain that the problem of replacing Thieu has been discussed in Washington; otherwise the Catholic right would not be stirring the way it is now. But South Vietnam is not Thailand! Because of the very existence of the PRG, Washington could not hope for such an easy switch in regimes in Saigon, are certainly looking around for a new horse to back should it become clear that Thieu can no longer hold on. But the changeover in regimes threatens to be so delicate that it is very probable that Washington will continue to support Thieu for some time. For a long time the PRG has made the departure of Thieu a precondition for unblocking the situation. Nguyen Van Hieu, Paris negotiator for the PRG in 1973, told the Far Eastern Economic Review (July 8 issue): "Thieu and the Americans want a military confrontation because Thieu can stay in power only by using force and by repressing all opposition. The conclusion is thus obvious. The enforcement of the Paris Agreements implies the fall of Thieu. The main obstacle to peace, however, is in Washington. " Consequently, the Vietnamese revolutionaries cannot but follow the evolution of the current situation with great interest. Moreover, the PRG has recently called on the opposition to "overthrow Thieu and his men." The PRG and Hanoi have issued unequivocal warnings. On Saturday, September 14, Colonel Giang, PRG spokesman in Saigon, denounced CIA-financed "political saboteurs" for "diverting the movement of mass anger against Thieu in a direction favorable to the United States. " He recalled the precedent of the overthrow of Diem in 1963. The North Vietnamese daily Nhan Dan made the same charge on the same day. (See Le Monde, September 17.) For Hanoi and the PRG, the opposition leaders are not part of the "Third Force," which must be a people's force; rather, they reflect the crisis of the "First Force" (Saigon). This situation once again sheds light on the nature of the policy of "national concord" advanced by the Vietnamese fighters. This formulation is dangerous and should be condemned, for it tends to cover up the irreconcilable class opposition that bars any "reconciliation" between national capital, tied organically to imperialism, and the Vietnamese proletariot. In the final analysis, this also accounts for the contradictory nature of the apposition to Thieu. But this policy has not prevented the PRG from struggling since the Paris Accords to be recognized as the sole and unique representative of the Vietnamese people and for the revolutionary overthrow of any puppet regime, whoever may stand at its head.* This reality is expressed not only in the infensity of the struggle on the ground and in the social character of the liberated zones, but also in the diplomatic octivity conducted by the PRG. During the preparation for the meeting that was scheduled to take place in Algiers on September 5-8, 1973, South * Vietnam in Struggle (No. 210), the organ of the NUF, published a two-page article entitled "The PRG, sale authentic representative of the South Vietnamese population. " In the article, the editors wrote, "The Paris Accords recognized the fact that in reality two administrations, two armies, and two zones exist in our country." The Thieu regime, "far from being supported by the popular masses, rests solely on U.S. dollars *See the December 1972 resolution of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International, published in the re iew Quatriême Internationale, No.6, March-April 1973, and arms. That is why Saigon is one of the less independent neocolonies of the United States." "The PRG, " the article noted, "was born of the rise of a victorious patriotic struggle. ... Its creation followed the formation of peoples self-management committees that replaced the local committees of the Thieu administration. ... It defends the higher intarests of the South Vietnamese population, its fundamental national rights as well as its self-determineIt is this same policy that has led the PRG to request recognition from governments (the latest ones to do so being Malagasy and Mauritius) and by international organizations. It has also led it to declare, on August 20 at La Celle Saint Cloud (Paris) that all oil prospecting accords concluded by Saigon with multinational firms are null and void. The whole of Indochina The signing of the Paris Accords marked a break in the situation in Vietnam. Its essential consequence was to raise to the First rank the problem of revolutionary struggle in the cities as the final phase of the revolutionary overthrow of the puppet regimes. In effect, the signing of the accords capped the strategic failure of the direct imperialist military escalation in Indochina. The only serious chance for the Thieu regime would have been to organize a multinational aid program able to transform the economic and social base of the regime. This did not happen. The U.5. government cannot fill this breach by itself. Gabriel Kolko understood this very well when he wrote in the September Le Monde Diplomatique (on the occasion of Nixon's resignation) that "the crisis in Washington is now added to the crisis in Saigon. The war in the Middle East, the vagaries of the world economy, and the serious deterioration of the 'détente' have imposed new priorities on the foreign policy of the United States. However much it may want to, Washington cannot sacrifice its Fundamental interests in other areas of the world in order to try to reverse the balance of forces in South Vietnam, which in the relatively near future must lead to a PRG victory in this conflict that has lasted for thirty years. " Spring, 1974. Students demonstrate in Phnom-Penh.
19
INDOCHINA But the task of the Vietnamese revolutionaries is not so simple. Far from it. The situation in Vietnam after the Paris Accords was in fact marked by the controdictory results of the earlier escalation and the policy of "Vietnamization. " The resistance of the population and of the NLF and PRG hod exhausted the imperialist interventionist resources and policy. The strategic prospects were clearly favorable. But this did not prevent Washington from succeeding -- thanks to an immeasurable escalation of aid -- in creating a regime in Saigon that would not automatically collapse to long an it was artificially bolstered by the influx of dollars. Too many social and political interests and too many ties of dependency on the United States had been created for the puppet regime to lose all roots after the departure of the last Gl. Too large an army and police had been built for the population to be able to rise up before the decomposition of the repressive forces had become well advanced. The destruction of Saigon society had been too profound for it not to give rise to politically heterogeneous social currents and for a profound recomposition of clandestine revolutionary work not to be necessary for preparing the insurrection. The liberated zones were too strongly under attack not to require a good deal of time to reconstruct themselves. That is why the situation in South Vietnam was charecterized and continues to be characterized by a favorable, but only gradual, shift in the relationship of forces in the couse of a struggle that remains a protracted one. And this situction rebounded on the development of the situation throughout Indochina. The FUNK is indubitably in a position of strength in Cambodia. Lon Nol's great claim to fame is that he still exists. The liberated zones have attained unprecedented breadth and the urban opposition came to the fore more than anywhere else during the student, high-school, and popular demonstrations of May-June (which saw the assassination, perhaps the work of Lon Nol himself, of the minister of national education and his deputy, who had been sequestered by high-school students).
The GRUNK may even enter the United Nations during its current session after having obtained what may be a majority of votes against the puppet govemment. But all this has not orevented the postponement of the final uprisings and offensives.
the real relationship of forces between the right wing and the Pathet Loo was illustrated after the departure of Souvanna Phouma, prime minister of the government of national unity, who left for France to undergo treatment for heart disease. If was Phoumi Vongvichit, a Pather Loo leader, who took over as head of the government. Souphenouvong, another
Pathet Lao leader, remains as head of the National Council.
But this has not prevented the revolution in this small Indochinese kingdom From taking o "roundaboul" route.
In each case, specific factors (such as the weight of Sihanoukism and the youth of the FUNK in Cambodia and the weakness of the national and social dynamic in Laos) had their effects, as did the orientation of the Communist party, which was troined in the Stalinist school of the 1930s and effected only a very empirical break with the Soviet bureaucracy.* But the
*On Cambodia, see Quatrième Internationale, No.7-8, May-
August 1973 (La Révolution Cambodge et le Sihanoukisme).
On Laos, see INPRECOR, No.4.
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Indochinese revolution forms a whole, the key to which is South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese revolution has partially imposed its rhythms on this whole. This is even true of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The difficulties of reconstruction after the terrible destruction wreaked by the American escalation have been profoundly aggravated by the necessity of participating in the continuation of the revolutionary struggle in South Vietnam and the rest of Indochina. This is reflected in the political tension that has been manifested since the signing of the accords. On March 12 Nhan Dan published a resolution adopted one month earlier by the Political Bureau of the Vietnamese Workers party (the CP), which dealt with the problem of technical training anc phenomena of bureaucratization; if was accompanied by three articles by Le Duan, general secretary of the VWP.* This question has been treated in several articles since then. Very important economic reforms, especially in agriculture, have been undertaken and seem to have been contested by some. The October 4 Le Monde reported that, according to Hanoi's theoretical journal, Hoc Tap, in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the effects of this "two currents are counterposed phenomenon, produced 'by imperialist and petty-bourgeois opportunist thought, ' are making themselves felt. " Further, a resistance has been "raised by some to the notion of class struggle in the North and to the theory that the battles in the South are the reflection of a war of liberation and a class struggle at the same time." The Vietnamese fighters stand at the head of a struggle that has been made quite arduous by a series of factors: the results of "Vietnamization, " the uneven rhythms of the Indochinese revolution, the relative international isolation of Indochina, and the particular isolation of the Vietnamese CP within the world Communist movement since the turn of Chinese diplomacy.
But a new turn is now approaching. It may be marked by the fall of the Lon Nol regime, the opening of an acute crisis of the Thieu regime, or a major defeat for the Saigon army, perhaps during the next dry season, that of winter-spring 1974-
It is incumbent upon anti-imperialist and revolutionary militants throughout the world to reaffirm their solidarity with the
Indochinese peoples in their struggle for the recognition of the
GRUNK and the PRG, for the liberation of political prisoners, for the halting of all U.S. and multilateral aid to the puppet regimes and to act with them for the final victory of the Indochinese socialist fevolution. M
*On this question, see Rouge, June 15, 1972 (Le Danger Bureaucratique) and Quatriême Internationale, No.14, April 15-
May 15, 1973 (Le Parti Communiste et l'UP au Chili).