Six months before, Chungking had sent its large armies into northern Viet Nam. The political and moral strength of our people, together with the Party’s and President Ho's line and tactics, had frustrated the enemy’s scheme of aggression in its initial stage. They still remained a danger. But the revolutionary power had been continually strengthened. By reaching a compromise with Chiang, we had in a way, turned his armies into a temporary fence to prevent the French from returning to the North.
While preparing against a widening of the war by the French, Uncle Ho and the Party Central Committee had decided to mobilize the strength of the whole nation to assist our southern compatriots in the first difficult moments of the resistance. Our people had strictly abided by the Party’s declaration at the Tan Trao national conference: “Only our own strength can determine victory.” To win important victories on the fighting front was the most active way to defend revolutionary power.
Meanwhile, the enemy was launching a series of attacks on various fronts. Militarily, he intensified “pacification” campaigns in Nam Bo, and occupied more provinces in southern Trung Bo, so as to gain some advantageous positions, while preparing for a return to the North. Diplomatically, he tried to strike a bargain with Chiang in an attempt to present our people with a fait accompli. While conducting talks with us, he continually spread rumours about a Sino-French treaty so as to shake our morale. The Nationalist Party reactionaries, to further their dark designs, concurred with the French in this psychological warfare.
The situation began to change.
Before, we had tried to turn to account the contradictions between the French and Chiang in order to concentrate our efforts on fighting the French. Now those two enemies had come to a temporary arrangement. They were joining hands in a new scheme against us.
The revolution was faced with a difficult and urgent situation.
Right after the Sino-French treaty was made public, the Standing Bureau of the Party Central Committee understood that it was not a mere bargain between Chiang and the French. It was in fact a compromise between the Americans, the British and Chiang on the one hand and the French on the other on the Indochinese question. They had temporarily set aside their contradictions with each other in order to save their common interests which were being jeopardized by the new revolutionary tides.
The Chiang clique would bring pressure to bear on our people to accept the provisions they had concluded with the French. Before withdrawing their troops, they would seek a change in the composition of our Government, trying to introduce into it the reactionaries in their pay. On the other hand, the Chiang generals here would try to obstruct the negotiations between us and the French so that they could stay on and line their pockets.
Most dangerous at the moment were the Nationalist Party and the Revolutionary Alliance groups. They pretended to be the most ardent revolutionaries. They sought to inflame the masses with such slogans as “No negotiations with anyone!”, “Victory or Death,” etc. They wanted to wreck the negotiations between us and the French. Their design was to force us to oppose the Sino-French treaty. That would be the pretext for a collusion between the French and Chiang to destroy the revolution. They would slander us, saying that we opposed the Allied powers and peace. While we prevented the French from coming into the North, the reactionaries would swiftly set up a puppet government against us, and would change masters according to the circumstances. The Chiang troops would avail themselves of this opportunity to stay on in Indochina.
The situation was evolving rapidly.
But our Party and President Ho had predicted such developments. As early as the end of November 1945, in its directive about Resistance and National Reconstruction, the Party Central Committee held that the imperialists would compromise with each other to let the French come back. In fact, this had been forecast even earlier, at the Party national conference at Tan Trao, before the August Revolution.
To Uncle Ho and the Party Central Committee, the situation had developed as foreseen. During the short period that had passed, our Party had been actively preparing against such circumstances. Willy-nilly, the French imperialists were facing a new reality: the whole Vietnamese nation had risen up in unity for a life-or-death fight against the aggressors. The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam had a government strong enough to mobilize and organize the whole people for resistance and having full authority, prestige and ability to decide all questions relative to the sovereignty, future and destiny of the nation.
The French colonialists could not ignore this reality, even when their arrangement with Chiang had been achieved. An obvious sign of this was the French mission’s repeated requests to see our authorities.
The question of the moment was whether to fight or to make peace with the French.
The answer was given by Uncle Ho and the Standing Bureau of the Party Central Committee: “We can say right away that if the French maintain their idea of an autonomous Indochina along the lines of their statement of March 24, 1945, we will fight and we will certainly be able to fight a long guerilla war; but if the French recognize a sovereign Indochina then we can make peace so as to defeat the schemes of the Chiang clique, the Vietnamese reactionaries and the French fascist diehards who intended to force us into isolation and compel us to fight against many enemies at the same time...”
Our position in the negotiations was to achieve Independence, and possibly enter into an alliance with the French. The French must recognize our right to self-determination and national unity. We could agree to let the French introduce a number of troops into the North to take over duties from the withdrawing Chiang army. But French troops would be allowed to remain only a definite time.
By making peace with the French, “we shall gain some respite to prepare for a new fight, in coordination with that of the French people, to advance toward complete independence.”
An important point was stressed by the Standing Bureau of the Party Central Committee.
“The essential thing was that while conducting negotiations with the French, we not only should not stop, even for a minute making preparations and standing ready to fight any time and anywhere, but should even step up our preparations, and certainly should not let the negotiations with the French blunt our nation’s will to fight”.(1)
Acting upon those directives of the Party Central Committee, our army and people in the South unrelentingly intensified their resistance on all front during the whole process of negotiations. Our compatriots in the whole country were actively preparing, morally and organizationally, for a long resistance war, even if the worst should happen i.e. if the French and the Chiang clique should enter into collusion and seek to destroy the revolution.
(1) Party Bureau’s directive on “The situation and our policies”, March 3, 1946.