It was on a winter evening that President Ho’s call for the national resistance war — dated December 20, 1946 — was broadcast by the Voice of Viet Nam radio from a place not far from Hanoi as the station was being moved to a base area.
Since the previous night, the historic December 19, the war had spread all over the country. Just over a year after Nam Bo had risen up in arms, and after the battles already fought by our army and people in Son La, Lang Son and the port city of Haiphong, the army and people of Hanoi now began to strike back against the invaders. Nam Dinh, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Hue, Da Nang... also rose up to destroy the enemy for national salvation.
The national resistance war had thus broken out.
Today, at the Hanoi Museum of the Revolution, we can see on display a manuscript in President Ho’s handwriting with the headline “Urgent work at present”, dated November 5, 1946. By this rare document, we learnt that as soon as he returned from France, President Ho had foreseen the inevitability of a widespread war started by the French imperialists. He had himself mapped out the fundamental lines in dealing with a possible emergency situation and outlined a plan for staging a resistance war and, at the same time, for building the country.
On the long resistance war, he wrote:
“We must understand and make the people understand that the resistance war will be very hard and arduous.
“Even if the enemy is driven to almost complete failure, he will, all the same, strive to hit back. For a defeat in Viet Nam would lead to a disintegration of all his empire.
“Starting from scratch and with only a few revolutionary activists hiding in the jungle we were able to build up an anti-Japanese, anti-French base. Now that we have an army and the people what can we not do? Though Nam Bo has unfavourable terrain and was not well prepared, it has been able to fight for over a year. Over the whole country, we have good terrain, stronger forces. We can surely fight for several years, till victory...”
As we desire peace, we have made concessions. But the more concessions we make, the more the French colonialists press on. All the efforts he made till the last moment could not stay the criminal hands of the enemy. The flame of the war of aggression spread to the entire country.
No! We would rather sacrifice all than lose our country. Never shall we be enslaved! Compatriots, rise up!
That winter, fifty-six years old, with a bamboo walking-stick and a pair of rubber sandals, he set out for the resistance war, the first sacred resistance war.
If we endure through this cold winter, we shall see spring.
Responding to his call, the entire nation rose up with great determination, a high fighting spirit, superb heroism and noble sacrifices and achieved resounding military exploits from the very first winter days of the national resistance war.
Since then, under the banner of President Ho and the Party, our people have overcome untold hardships during the three thousand days and nights of combat, continuously increasing in strength, winning ever bigger victories and ceaselessly advancing on the road to the spring of the nation, the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu.