strategic units of the all-people's national defense and build the districts
into strong fortresses within the national military organization.

Considering the aforesaid situation, we can and must build the regional
forces of the provinces, the municipalities and the districts into compre-
hensively strong armed forces for defending the localities and positively
contributing to national defense. The regional force is part of the stand-
ing army, and its building and training must be carried out according to
the people's army regulations. This force must be appropriately standard-
ized and modernized. Its main task is to fight locally in defense of the
localities, and in many ways it is linked with the localities. We must
base ourselves on the characteristics, situation, conditions and position
of each locality in building this force while developing all-people's
national defense for defending the localities--one of the tasks in the
national defense undertaking. We must develop the various localities'
advantages as regards their terrain and positions in building the regional
forces of the provinces, the municipalities and the districts within the
national defense system. These localities are situated in the delta, coastal
or mountain areas. Some localities must defend our country's borders while
others have to defend our territorial waters and offshore islands. Some
districts are situated in strategic positions in the event of a future war.
Consequently, in building the regional forces of the provinces, the munici-
palities and the districts, we must base ourselves on the actual situation
and specific duties of each locality so as to organize the units in line
with the conditions in each locality. In localities with large maritime
areas or numerous waterways to defend, we must conduct studies and form
combat forces to fight on rivers and at sea--coastal and river combat
forces.

The military training of the regional force must be aimed at turning it
into a crack force that can fight well within each locality, fight well
independently and satisfactorily launch coordinated attacks with strategic
mobile forces. The regional force, which is also an assault force in pro-
duction in the localities, must positively carry out its economic building
task in the localities, contribute to advancing the local economies from
small-scale to large-scale socialist production and resolve its own prob-
lems step by step as regards food, clothing, housing facilities, repairs
of weapons and equipment.

We are confident that, if we have a correct view and an appropriate organ-
ization of the regional force and if this force is given satisfactory
military and political training and satisfactorily forged during the course
of fulfilling the two political tasks of the army, it will develop tremen-
dously, will be endowed with considerable new capabilities and will be

able to serve as the firm core of the armed forces of the provinces, munic-
ipalities and districts in firmly defending the localities, contribute to
developing the local economies and to fulfilling its other duties and tasks.

60



class awareness, patriotism, love for socialism and the spirit of proletar-
ian internationalism of our cadres and combatants. This education will
instill in our armed forces a very high combat spirit, a very high "deter-
mined to fight and to win" willpower and a very high revolutionary heroism,
so that they will be able to successfully carry out combat and construction
tasks.

F--Determined and developed in our People's Armed Forces correct relations
with the party, the revolutionary administration and the people, and rela-
tions within their own ranks and with our friends in the world.

Therefore, our People's Armed Forces have the excellent revolutionary nature
of the working class, of a new-type armed force which is absolutely loyal
to the party, wholeheartedly and selflessly fights for the interests of

the nation and the class, stands firm through trials, fulfills all tasks
and defeats all enemies.

Our armed forces have won the confidence of the party and state, are loved
by our people and are admired by our friends in the world. The absolute
superiority of our armed forces over all enemies is due to their political
and spiritual strength. This success is the result of a creative applica-
tion of the Marxist-Leninist principles of tailoring the proletarian army
to the specific conditions of our country and People's Armed Forces.

On the basis of building the armed forces politically, our party attached
very great importance to strengthening the army's material and technical
bases and to constantly improving the weapons and equipment of our armed
forces. Weapons and equipment are a basic factor of an armed force's com-
bat strength. The more modern the weapons, the greater opportunity we will
have for outstandingly increasing our troops' combat strength. If an army
is endowed with a high combat spirit and equipped with effective weapons,
its combat strength is very great. :

Our party has always attached very great importance to weapons and tech-
niques. Under the revolutionary conditions in our country and through
various periods of revolutionary development and wars, we had great diffi-
culties regarding weapons. We had no weapons at first. How could we get
weapons to equip our armed forces? Some time later, when we first won
back power, we had no national defense industry, our economy was backward
and we were besieged by the enemy from all directions.

During our anti-U.S. war of resistance we received great assistance from
fraternal countries. However, we were technically less equipped than the
Americans. In such a situation two key problems had to be resolved--how
to secure weapons, that is, to determine the source of weapons supply and
how to determine the organization of equipment and the methods of using
equipment so as to defeat a better-equipped enemy. Our party correctly
determined the source of equipment supply: rely on the people; equip our
armed forces with whatever weapons are available; produce part of the

26



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—_—_—_—_—__——

both just and unjust--but also different types of wars--national liberation
war, revolutionary civil war, a combination of national liberation war and
revolutionary civil war, war for defense of the fatherland and war waged
among the imperialists. In differentiating among the different types of
war, we want to further determine in a more specific manner the nature and
characteristics of war and determine our specific attitude toward a specif-
ic war so as to apply a specific method of conducting war and a specific
art of leadership compatible with this type of war. We can enumerate the
following differences between the liberation war and the war for defense

of the fatherland:

With regard to specific objectives, the liberation war is waged to win
back the independence of a country occupied and dominated by the enemy
and to liberate the nation. The war for defense of the country is waged
in defense of the independence of a country in which the people are mas—
ters against a war of aggression waged by the enemy. We should note that
the defense of the socialist state differs in nature from that of the
feudalist state in the past--notably, the defense of a socialist state
within the system of socialist countries. We have an advanced social sys-
tem under which our laboring people exert their mastership rights under
the party's leadership in defense of our country's sovereignty and
territory.

[1712 GMT 9 Jul 77 OW]

[Text] Regarding the force used in conducting a war, in the liberation
war we began building a political force of revolutionary masses and then
gradually moved to building the armed forces. Consisting of guerrilla
cells and teams at first, the armed forces gradually became increasingly
greater concentrated army units, and the main force gradually took shape.
Our armed forces had to fight the enemy while developing their strength.
In building our armed forces, we had to start from scratch, to constantly
develop their numerical strength and to gradually increase their fighting
capabilities.

In any future war for the defense of the socialist fatherland, our forces
will have been well prepared in every aspect during peacetime. Under the
superior socialist system, we will have a strong force at the outset to
fight the enemy from a position of strength. This strength will be that
of our entire people who have been prepared for the defense of the father-
land and that of millions of militiamen and self-defense corpsmen and
numerous units of the regional force and a well-trained modern main force
which will have a tremendous fighting strength. The military regions will
become well-prepared battlefields and will be very strong from the outset
in fighting the enemy. As a result of our correct leadership and unified,
strict and effective command, our consolidated fighting strength will
increase considerably. No matter how strong the enemy may be and no mat-
ter what combat method he may use, he will certainly be defeated.

69



concept of a large-scale, long-term strategy. We must urgently improve

the network of schools to make it a perfect, uniform, .regular,. fundamental
and unified network of schools specializing in forming additional high-
ranking cadres, intermediary-rank cadres and primary-rank cadres; of schools
in charge of training military, political, rear service, technical, special-
ized, professional and economic noncommissioned officers; and of schools of
the Defense Ministry, military zones, regiments, armed branches and armed
services.

We must train additional cadres for the local armed forces, cadres for the
self-defense militia force, cadres for the reserve force and cadres for
economic construction, capital construction and the national defense indus-
try. All schools must be closely and scientifically coordinated into a
unified network having separate assignments but under the unified guidance
of the defense ministry. Schools must be improved in every aspect. First
of all, we must make great efforts to develop and improve the contingent
of teachers, improve the study program and training content, compile a list
of textbooks, augment training materials and equipment, promulgate regula-
tions on school work, step up the building of schools and pay adequate
attention to the recruitment of students. We must resolutely consolidate
a number of major schools, determine the responsibilities of various general
departments regarding school work and insure that the teaching program

is properly carried out and the standards for teachers and the regulations
regarding learning, inspection, examination and the issuance of graduation
certificates by the schools in the armed forces are properly implemented
in accordance with the general statutes of the state.

We must build a very good on-the-job study system. This system is very
important because not all of our cadres can go to school at the same time
and because they should continue to complement their studies during their
work after leaving school. On-the-job study must be organized and requires
a definite program and timetable, rigorous study discipline, a contingent
of good teachers, good teaching and learning methods and effective control
measures.

We must pay attention to increasing the quality of the on-the-job study
system and to practically improving the cadres’ skills. Our cadres must
consider self-study a duty and responsibility. Each cadre must have a
high level of determination to conduct self-study and must work out a
proper study program in order to constantly improve his knowledge. The
more numerous his tasks are, the greater effort he will have to make in
self-study because this is the best way for him to satisfactorily carry
out all his tasks.

In his talk to the high-ranking cadres of the armed forces on 11 May 1969,

President Ho Chi Minh cordially recommended: You must endeavor to study
and must always set a good example of revolutionary ethics.

80



compatriots and combatants in the south, defeated all war escalation steps
of the U.S. imperialists in the local war waged by them in the south, and
achieved great victory.

Extremely serious trials in the war have strikingly manifested the superior-
ity and unmatched vitality of socialism. As recognized in the political
report of the party Central Committee Political Bureau read at the Fourth
Party Congress, the victory in the anti-U.S. national-salvation struggle
would have been impossible without the socialist north's assistance.
Obviously, in all periods the strength of our People's Armed Forces and
the people's war in our country has always been closely related to the
overall strength of our country's new social system. This new social sys-
tem has provided our armed forces with all that is needed to form their
combat strength--men, weapons, provisions, combat spirit, technical and
cultural knowledge, physical strength and combat skills.

Under the new social system our people have devotedly assisted our troops,
who have wholeheartedly supported our people. The masses’ political forces
and the strength of our social system have had an impact on the development
of our armed forces which, in turn, have also developed their strong impact
not only in protecting but also in building revolutionary bases and the
new social system.

In every revolutionary stage our armed forces have always performed both
their fighting tasks and their work and production tasks. While fighting
the enemy and defending the revolutionary forces they have also taken part
in building the masses’ political bases and assisted our people in building
the administration, forming revolutionary organizations, stepping up pro-
duction and building a new life pattern.

We have achieved complete victory in liberating our nation. Our country
has become completely independent and unified and is advancing to socialism.
It is now waging a great, new revolutionary struggle--successfully building
socialism. The socialist system will create for our armed forces new bases
and extremely advantageous conditions for vigorously developing their com-
bat strength. Therefore our People's Armed Forces must positively build
our country into a wealthy and powerful socialist fatherland having an
excellent socialist collective system, a modern economy, industry and
agriculture, advanced culture, science and technology, a strong, stable
national defense and a decent, civilized and happy people's life. We must
build powerful People's Armed Forces on the basis of a prosperous country.

[1430 GMT 7 Jun 77 OW]
[Text] Third Experience
In building the People's Armed Forces in any period we must firmly grasp

the viewpoint of arming all the people--building the masses' armed forces
while building the People's Armed Forces and organizing three categories

16



To shape such men for the armed forces is to shape comprehensively devel-
oped men who have a sense of being masters, who are qualified for master-
ship, who have communist ideals and a high political enlightenment; who
have a sufficient standard of military, economic, scientific, technical
and cultural knowledge; who have an aesthetic sense; whose manners befit
outstanding socialist citizens and outstanding revolutionary military men
and who are strong physically.

To successfully shape such a new type of men for the armed forces, it is
absolutely necessary to base oneself on the achievements of the three revo-
lutions and on the result of the shaping, through various methods, of new
men in society until they reach the age of military service. At the same
time, the army must really become a great school to actively contribute to
continuously training youth into outstanding revolutionary military men
and new socialist men throughout the period they serve in the army. To
this end, our army must consider it its duty to train new men in the armed
forces, correlate this training with the general training of new men in
society; draw up scientific plans and programs to comprehensively shape
combatants during the period they serve in the army from the viewpoints of
political qualities; military, technical, cultural and professional stand-
ards; behavior, physical strength and life style; and develop appropriate
organizational methods to satisfactorily carry out these programs. New
combatants’ training centers must be set up in various military regions
and armed branches since these centers are useful in many respects in
training new combatants during the initial period of their stay in the
army. Afterwards, the greatest attention must be paid to training combat—
ants (?assigned) to various units to fully acquaint them with army life.
It is also necessary to teach them various occupations according to require-
ments of economic construction. We must consider it important to give
elementary and advanced training to a body of basic-level cadres having
skills and a high sense of responsibility, and capable of and experienced
in educating, training and managing combatants.

It is necessary to heighten the political task to a new standard to more
effectively educate, train and shape new men; to eagerly apply achievements
of the scientific, educational, pedagogic and psychological branches; and
to attentively build good collectives in which new men will be shaped.

If these collectives are strong and continuously achieve good results in
study, production and task execution, the combatants therein will be per-
meated by the atmosphere of common enthusiasm and eagerness, feel proud of
their collectives and endeavor to be worthy of their collectives. Good
collectives are thus a very important factor in shaping good men because
there are close relations between collectives and individuals.

Therefore, we must closely manage units and satisfactorily organize the
troops' material and cultural life because it beneficially affects the
shaping of a new type of man. In other words, it is necessary to closely
manage combatants 24 hours a day with full awareness of the need to educate

75



3. Armed uprisings, liberation wars or wars to defend the fatherland have
a common characteristic: revolutionary armed struggles in our country con-
form to the general rules of armed struggle. Therefore, in formulating our
army's orders, regulations and systems we must base ourselves on these
experiences and summarize and further enrich them to meet the requirements
of the war to defend the fatherland.

4. In declaring that our experiences have been primarily derived from
armed uprisings and liberation wars, we mean that these experiences already
include increasingly developing factors from the war for the defense of the
fatherland and experiences in building the armed forces while consolidating
national defense in peacetime and shifting our nation's peacetime activities
to wartime activities, such as the initial experiences gained after the
August Revolution and, particularly, the experiences gained during the
decade of peaceful construction in the north from 1954 to 1964 and during
the recent people's war against the war of destruction waged in the north.

5. Our experiences have been gained under various circumstances in the
battles to defeat many imperialist aggressors, including the U.S. arch-
imperialists, particularly under the conditions of a modern war in which
our enemy used nearly all ultra-modern weapons and means of war of the
imperialist camp except nuclear weapons while we used modern and relatively
modern weapons and means of war of the socialist countries. Therefore, we
have a basis for successfully solving new problems related to a future war.

6. Our experiences are also of tremendous importance in the international
arena. They are the experiences of building the armed forces in a former
colony and semifeudal country that resorted to revolutionary violence in
carrying out armed ‘uprisings and liberation wars to win back national inde-
pendence and advance toward socialism. During the process of national lib-
eration we established a socialist state in one-half of our country and led
the war of resistance throughout the country. Our people and army toppled
both the colonialist and neocolonialist ruling yokes of imperialism, includ-
ing the U.S. imperialist ringleader. In the new era of the society of man,
which began with the great Russian October Revolution, we have received
increasingly greater international assistance from the socialist countries
and increasingly stronger support from the national independence, democracy,
peace and social progress movements all over the world, including the pro-
gressive forces in the imperialist countries that invaded our country. At
the same time, we have positively contributed to the revolutionary under-
taking of the world's peoples.

The experiences of our country's revolution in general and the experiences
in building our People's Armed Forces in particular are a significant con-
tribution to the revolutionary struggle experiences of the working class
and people of the various nations in the world in today's era.

33



and forest farms; rebuild cities, provincial capitals, towns, schools and
hospitals destroyed by the war or build them anew--particularly in new
economic zones and important and vital strategic areas in the mountains
and forests having great economic and national defense significance. This
is a basic and pressing task that must be. performed very urgently, over a
long period, with expanding volume, on an ever larger scale and using more
and more modern techniques.

Our army must positively take part in the work on the communications and
transport front. We can and must utilize a proper number of our troops
along with the work force of the state construction and communications
sectors to build an expanding network of roads, railroads and pipelines
throughout the country and to streamline, perfect and expand the network
of airfields, wharves and ports so that we will be able to meet escalating
requirements in economic transactions among the various parts of our coun-
try and between our country and foreign countries--these requirements will
be very great in the next several decades--and to meet national defense
requirements in both peacetime and wartime.

Regarding our army's national defense enterprises, we must, on the one hand,
continue to concentrate forces on building new installations and, on the
other hand, along with carrying out production in line with national defense
requirements, we must resolutely mobilize the largest possible amount of
manpower, machinery and raw materials along with the work force of the
state machine industry to produce large quantities of labor tools to meet
production requirements and, together with the state light industry enter-
prises, to produce certain varieties of consumer goods for supply to the
army and people.

Presently, on the path to large-scale socialist production, our country's
economy is encountering many difficulties. These difficulties are objec-
tive ones because our country--whose material-technical base is basically
very weak, was virtually destroyed during the war years. We must work
positively in many economic sectors because the actual requirements of
national economic construction demand this. This is aimed at contributing
to the resolution of our country's and army's difficulties. We must begin
our tasks. This is the only way to overcome difficulties. During the
1976-1980 period, if we do our work well and can overcome--we certainly
will be able to overcome--the difficulties we are encountering, we will
make very great, new progress in subsequent plans. Of course, new diffi-
culties will arise, but they will be of a different nature.

When our troops' economic work has been gradually disciplined and when
they have gained sufficient experience in this field, and when our coun-
try's economic and technological levels have developed to a fairly high
level, our troops may have to concentrate on some particular sectors suit-
able to their skills, particularly key sectors, which are mostly related
to national defense.

104



[1430 GMT 25 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] 2. New Circumstances and Conditions for Building the People's
Armed Forces

The political report of the party Central Committee presented at the Fourth
Party Congress pointed out the major characteristics of our country's revo-
lution in the new stage. Let us now base ourselves on these characteristics
to analyze the new circumstances and conditions related to the building of
our People's Armed Forces. We are building our armed forces under circum-
stances and conditions completely different from those in the past.

A. All our country is independent, unified and advancing toward socialism.
With an economy which is predominantly one of small-scale production it is
advancing toward large-scale socialist production, bypassing the capitalist
development stage. We have very great and advantageous new conditions. We
have the clear-sighted leadership of our party, an experienced Marxist-
Leninist party loved and trusted by our people. Our party has correctly
and creatively determined the socialist revolutionary line in our country
for the new stage.

Our independent and unified country is advancing toward socialism with the
seething revolutionary impetus of a nation which recently achieved great
victory. We have a strong, stable proletarian dictatorship system which

has been tested and is being strengthened throughout the country. Our peo-
ple are very revolutionary, industrious and creative, and cherish independ-
ence and socialism. Now that they are masters of their country our people
can concentrate their thoughts and energy on building the country and social-
ism. In the northern part.of our country, where socialist revolution has
been under way for 20 years, the exploiting class has been eliminated,
socialist production relations have been established, initial large-scale
socialist production installations have been built, and an ideological

and cultural revolution has been carried out. The completely liberated
southern provinces of our country, which set an example of stanchness and
indomitability for 30 years or more under the aggressors’ yoke, have eagerly
embarked upon socialist reform and construction. We have an abundant source
of manpower needed for the building and defense of our fatherland and
plenty of natural resources for developing our economy and building our
national defense.

Since liberation of the southern part of our country our people have con-
trolled a large quantity of material-technical bases and have created more
conditions for building the material-technical bases of socialism and a
modern all-people national defense. Our armed forces have modern supply
bases provided by fraternal countries or seized from the enemy. We must
recognize all the existing favorable conditions created by the great vic-
tories in the past revolutionary stage as well as future favorable condi-
tions for building our People's Armed Forces in the coming years of
socialist revolution throughout the country.

40



we must institute universal military education among all the people, set
up military training in schools and step up the national-defense sports
and physical exercise movement in order to prepare all the people for
their national defense obligation and incessantly strengthen the abundant
reserve force for the people's army.

The consolidation and strengthening of the district and provincial levels
in the military field must be carried out at a pressing pace. The military
organizations in the regions and state branches are responsible for direct—
ing the organization, training and management of the reserve force, acting
as staff for party committee echelons and organizing wartime mobilization.

[1430 GMT 6 Jul 77 OW]
[Text] B. Weapons, Equipment and Material-Technical Base

We must strive to build a modern national defense industry to gradually
resolve the question of building a material-technical base for the defense
of the fatherland. In the immediate future as well as in the years to come
we must endeavor to maintain and develop the existing technical equipment
to create new fighting strength for our armed forces. In the course of
the country's socialist industrialization the Vietnamese People's Armed
Forces and the SRV's modern and regular people's army must gradually rely
on a modern national defense industry to resolve the question of building
a material-technical base. This is a development of historical signifi-
cance for our troops. This is a reflection of our independent, sovereign
and self-reliant spirit in the task of building the army and consolidating
our national defense.

1. Building a Modern National Defense Industry in Accordance With the
Resolution of the Fourth Party Congress To Resolve the Question of Build-
ing a Modern Material-Technical Base for the Defense of the Fatherland

We must exert efforts so that by closely combining the forces inside and
outside the army, relying mainly on our own strength and achieving inter—
national cooperation, we will build a modern national defense industry
within a relatively short period of time. Our task of building a modern
national defense industry is closely linked to the task of industrializing
the country, as set forth by the Fourth Party Congress: to basically
puild, within 20 years, the material-technical base of socialism. This

is a task of all the people and all state economic sectors. However, the
army must make an important contribution and take charge of modernization.

Our modern equipment must be suitable to our terrain, weather, human fac-
tors and our highly efficient fighting method. It must help develop to
the highest degree the outstanding and skilled Vietnamese combatant's
intelligence and bravery in order to create the highest efficiency at the
least expense. This equipment and these weapons must aim at gradually
increasing our People's Armed Forces' firepower, assault strength and
mobility.

65



In the past, when our country was still an agricultural country with dom-
inant small-scale production and dispersed production installations, even
with his fierce attacks on our cities and few industrial areas the enemy
could not make any significant impact on our people's resistance. However,
the future situation will not be the same. In the future, if the enemy
waged a war of aggression against our country he would mobilize large
numbers of troops and would certainly use more modern equipment and weapons.
That is why we must safeguard our country with the highest and strongest
revolutionary offensive spirit. Should the enemy recklessly plunge into
aggression against our country, we would have to resolutely annihilate him
and defend our entire fatherland.

Confronted with such requirements, not only must we have an extremely reso-
lute revolutionary spirit, a full consciousness of our responsibility and
a serious attitude, but we must also have new knowledge in many fields.

We must not be contented with old knowledge and existing experiences. We
must solve a host of new problems relating to organization, troops' equip-
ment, military science and art, cadres and fighters’ training and prepara-
tion of the people before we can fulfill these tasks.

The SRV is an inviolable bastion in the southeastern region of the world
socialist system. It has an important position in Southeast Asia in par-
ticular and in Asia in general. The successful building and firm defense
of our beloved socialist Vietnam fatherland has a very great significance
for the cause of revolution and peace in this region of the world. Clearly
the new stage of the revolution is posing many extremely new and high
requirements for our armed forces in their tasks of maintaining combat
readiness and defending our fatherland and peace in Indochina, Southeast
Asia and the rest of the world. We must see all the wide-ranging complex,
firm and thorough requirements of these tasks.

[1430 GMT 23 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] Concerning the task of building the country, in the past the main
task of our People's Armed Forces, together with all the people, was to
conduct two sacred resistances to defeat two imperialisms--French and
American. In the anti-U.S. resistance for national salvation, all our
party, people and army simultaneously performed two strategic tasks: to
carry out the socialist revolution in the north and to struggle to liberate
the south, achieve national reunification and complete independence and
democracy throughout the country. Our slogan during the war was: "All
for the Front, All for Victory."

Now that our entire country has gained independence and all our people

have begun the period of national construction, our People's Armed Forces!
task is: to simultaneously defend and build the country. This is a very
new task with extremely high requirements for our armed forces in the peace-
ful reconstruction of the country. We should understand that using our

36



fatherland; about building a People's Armed Force on the basis of social-
ism; and about the preparations for and conduct of a people's war under
modern conditions to protect the socialist Vietnam fatherland. All of
this is aimed at enabling us to be ready to frustrate all sabotage and
aggressive schemes of our internal and external enemies; to steadfastly
defend the socialist Vietnam fatherland during the period of peaceful
national construction as well as any time the enemy wages a war of aggres-
sion against our country; and to contribute to the revolutionary undertak-
ing of the world's people. In order to satisfactorily resolve these prob-
lems, we must thoroughly comprehend the party's political and military
lines in the new revolutionary stage set forth by the Fourth Party Congress.
We must conduct studies to firmly grasp the combat targets and the overall
situation of our country. We must base our actions on our consolidated
experiences and, at the same time, selectively study the experiences in
building national defense and in conducting wars for the defense of the
socialist fatherland by fraternal socialist countries, as well as the
experiences of the rest of the world's people.

As in previous people's wars, while developing the theory of our all-
people's national defense and war for defense of our socialist fatherland,
we must uphold the spirit of independence and sovereignty and must be very
creative. The military science and art used in defense of our socialist
Vietnam fatherland definitely must be a product of the wisdom of our party,
our people, our armed forces and our contingent of cadres engaged in the
study of military science.

One of the important aspects of the task of consolidating experiences is

to find the similarities and differences between the liberation war and

the war for defense of the fatherland in our country. Only by so doing
can we vividly recognize experiences of lasting significance, which take
on the force of law, and strive to take full advantage of and develop

them to resolve problems arising from new tasks. We must also realize more
vividly the new requirements and objectives in the new stage.

The past national liberation wars or future wars waged to defend our father-
land, although conducted under modern conditions, are people's wars carried
on under our party's leadership. The Vietnam people's war has common rules
that also apply to the liberation war and the war for defense of the coun-
try, such as the rule on developing the strength of all of the people and
the entire country; the rule of mainly relying on one's own strength while
striving to gain international support and assistance; the rule of fighting
the enemy wherever he appears, fighting him with all suitable methods and
on all levels, coordinating conventional warfare with guerrilla warfare,
thoroughly understanding the strategic offensive spirit and so forth.

Although the liberation war and the war for defense of the socialist father-

land are just wars, they differ from each other in certain ways. Marxism-
Leninism analyzes not only the nature of war, the characteristics of war--

68



Thus, our armed forces must do economic work not only in the coming years
and during the length of the current Five-Year Plan, but on a long-term
basis, as I mentioned in part II. In any historic stage, as long as our
army exists in peacetime, we must perform both military and economic tasks
and stand combat-ready to defend our fatherland while building our economy
and our country. In addition, on the basis of stepping up our country's
industrialization, in coordination with various sectors of the national
economy our army must strive to advance toward resolving on its own prob-
lems related to the building of its own material-technical base. This is
a very new requirement.

[1430 GMT 5 Aug 77]

[Text] In the last war, our army had to concentrate on fighting. We had
to rely on the aid of fraternal countries for a large part of our technical
equipment and weapons and for part of the grain and food we needed. Our
army's logistical tasks were carried out for a long time under such condi-
tions. Since we now live in peacetime, we cannot continue to do so, Our
army must strive to gradually meet, with its own means, its grain and food
requirements as well as its requirements in essential consumer goods and,
together with the various national economic sectors, particularly the
industrial sector, build a modern national defense industry. We cannot
continue to think and act in the style of "receiving goods from foreign
countries and distributing them inside the country" and "receiving goods
from higher echelons and distributing them in lower echelons" as we did
pefore, but instead must produce our own goods.

By saying that our army must strive to resolve its own problems, we mean
that we cannot distribute only to the troops what we get from the state.
And by saying that the army must resolve its own problems and produce goods
itself for its own use, we do not mean that production and utilization of
goods by the army are done in a close cycle of a self-sufficient, self-
supplying economy. Our army's economic work is a part of the socialist
state's unified economic structure. The army's plan for developing produc-
tion and for meeting its own demands must be integrated into a common state
plan and policies under the party's leadership and under the concentrated
and unified management of the government. Work assignments and cooperation
with other state economic sectors must be achieved. There are some types
of products and projects that the army must produce or carry out in coopera~
tion with other state economic sectors for its own use such as military
equipment, weapons and national defense projects. There are some types of
products and projects that the army must produce or carry out for its own
benefit and for the people's benefit such as grain, food, other essential
commodities and economic and cultural projects in support of the people's
livelihood.

In carrying out its work assignments and in cooperating with other state
sectors, our army must strive to meet, in increasing proportion, its demands
in food, clothes, houses, medical treatment and facilities for its spiritual
activities in peacetime and must have reserves for use in wartime.

105



in building our People's Armed Forces into a regular and modern armed
force with powerful, mobile main-force units and technological armed serv—
ices and branches equipped with modern weapons and equipment. The People's
Armed Forces have been developed extensively, vigorously and steadily not
only in the northern provinces but also in the southern provinces.

B. Our People's Armed Forces are very strong politically and morally
because they have been extensively trained in revolution and revolutionary
war. Placed under direct, absolute and overall party leadership, they are
guided by the party's correct, independent, sovereign and creative polit-
ical and military lines. This is a source of invincible strength for our
People's Armed Forces. Our People's Armed Forces possess very fine revolu-
tionary characteristics and an excellent combat tradition. They have a
very high level of solidarity and unity within their ranks. Bound to our
people by blood-sealed sentiments, they are imbued with patriotism and
love for socialism, a proletarian internationalist spirit, revolutionary
heroism and a strong determination to fight and win. They are invariably
and absolutely superior over enemy armed forces, politically as well as
spiritually. This is the most important factor in the combined strength
of our People's Armed Forces. In particular, our People's Armed Forces
have a large contingent of qualified cadres with sound political knowledge,
excellent combat skills, leadership and command capabilities and vast com-
bat experience. This is a valuable asset of our party and armed forces,
the core force in building our armed forces at present and in the coming
years.

C. Our People's Armed Forces have a relatively vast and modern material
and technological base, which has been gradually built in the course of
successfully developing the revolution and revolutionary war and building
a new social system in our country. We have enjoyed great assistance from
the Soviet Union, China and other fraternal socialist countries, partic-
ularly during the anti-U.S. war of resistance. On achieving total victory
we seized from the enemy more modern weapons and means of war. Such a
relatively vast and modern material and technological base can be and must
be used to the fullest extent in defending our fatherland and building
socialism.

D. With their rich combat experience our People's Armed Forces have suc-
cessfully built a unique military science and art for people's war and
liberation war.

Having a rich combat experience, as our armed forces do, is something rare.
Our armed forces have gained rich combat experience under various condi-
tions and defeated many imperialist aggressors. They gained this experience
mostly in armed uprisings, revolutionary wars and liberation wars, in part
during the war for the defense of the country; in guerrilla wars, conven-
tional wars and even during our people's war against the aggression launched
by the colonialists and neocolonialists.

46



the resolutions of the Fourth Party Congress; heighten their political
awareness and self-consciousness in all activities and proudly, trustfully
and resolutely translate these resolutions into specific and practical acts,
into a widespread revolutionary mass movement and into a realistic success
in defending and building the nation. We must make our troops deeply aware
of the tasks of the People's Armed Forces in the new stage and of the new
requirements for the entire army in the new historic phase of. the revolution.
In particular, they must be aware of the actual and major political tasks
of our armed forces: to stand ready to defend the fatherland, to build

the economy and the country and to cooperate with the entire people in
making positive contributions to the world's people's cause of revolution
and peace.

We must bring about a big change in the ideology, organization and behavior
and must advance to keep pace with the situation and tasks of the revolution
and armed forces. We must step up the education of party members and cadres
in Marxist-Leninist theory to enable them to grasp scientific methods and

a world concept as well as historic law, economic law and the law of class
struggle under the condition of the party assuming leadership of administra-
tion and of socialist transformation and socialist construction in our
country.

As army cadres, we must also grasp the law of building an all-people
national defense in the socialist revolution, the law of building an armed
forces at a time that our entire people are engaged in national construction
and in socialist revolution and construction and’ the law of wars for pro-
tecting the socialist fatherland under the present conditions.

[1430 GMT 29 Jul 77]

[Text] While insuring thorough comprehension of the party's revolutionary
line and tasks and the armed forces' tasks and mastery of Marxist-Leninist
theory and methodology, we must consolidate the working class stand of all
party members, cadres and combatants, enhance their awareness of socialism
and communism, heighten their socialist patriotism and spirit of proletarian
internationalism, and strengthen their spirit of revolutionary offensive,
sense of responsibility, their concept of collective ownership and sense of
organization and discipline. We must constantly strengthen and develop

the revolutionary nature and tradition of our armed forces; turn revolu-
tionary heroism in the struggle for national liberation into revolutionary
heroism in protecting and building the fatherland; and whip up a surging,
vigorous, widespread, steady, continuous and effective determined-to-win
emulation drive throughout the army to successfully complete all present
People's Armed Forces' tasks.

Building the socialist collective ownership system is a very big factor

in insuring implementation of our party's socialist revolutionary line.
We must study it carefully and realize it satisfactorily within our armed

88



In the anti-French resistance the political and military tasks of the
Vietnamese revolution consisted of defeating the French imperialists’
aggressive war to achieve national independence and people's democracy and
to advance to socialism. This was a people's war, a self-reliant, pro-
tracted and overall nationwide resistance. In this war, armed struggle was
coordinated with political struggle and was the main form of struggle. To
implement this resistance line, we concentrated on the key task of building
three categories of powerful troops: main force troops, local troops and
guerrilla militia. We found the source of equipment mainly on the frontline
and made positive efforts to gradually build the rear of people's war.

Obviously, if the guerrilla militia and local troops were not built and
developed vigorously, we would have been unable to step up guerrilla war-
fare as well as the conventional war in the anti-French resistance. How-
ever, if we did not strive to develop and build the main force troops into
powerful and crack mobile army corps, we would have also been unable to
stage large-scale annihilating attacks against the enemy's main force troops
and mobile troops to liberate our territory, to gradually change the war
situation and to advance to defeat the enemy in the 1953-1954 winter-spring
offensive, with the historic Dien Bien Phu campaign as its climax, to end
the war and liberate half the country.

If we did not find the source of equipment mainly on the frontline and did
not struggle for some aid from the fraternal countries during the final
war period, we would have also been unable to solve the problem of equip-—
ment for the armed forces at that time.

In the anti-U.S. resistance, the Vietnamese revolution had to carry out

two simultaneous strategic missions: the socialist revolution in the north
and the people's democratic national revolution in the south. At that time
the political and military tasks of the Vietnamese revolution consisted in
defeating the U.S. imperialists’ neocolonialist war of aggression to liber-
ate the south, to steadily protect the north, to advance to peacefully
reunify the fatherland and to build a peaceful, independent, unified, dem-
ocratic, prosperous and powerful Vietnam.

Our people conducted a wide-scale people's war in both zones of the country.
In the north we waged an extremely valiant and creative people's war against
the U.S. air and naval war of destruction to protect the north and continue
to fulfill the large rear area's sacred obligation toward the vast front-
line and the internationalist obligations. In the south we developed the
uprising into a liberation war, coordinated the uprising with the war and
waged the people's war--a wide-scale, overall and all-people revolutionary
way to liberate the south, protect the north, topple the lackey puppet
administration and defeat the extremely atrocious regional war of aggression
of the U.S. imperialists.



into a fighting, combat-support force in all rural and urban bases through-
out the country and who are well trained and endowed with increasingly
powerful equipment and superb guerrilla warfare tactics that frightened
the French and U.S. troops.

Our People's Armed Forces are endowed with a very fine revolutionary nature
and very valuable fighting tradition. According to great President Ho's
full and profound observation, our armed forces are loyal to the party and
faithful to the people, stand ready to fight and sacrifice their lives for
the fatherland's independence and freedom and for socialism, and can fulfill
any mission, overcome any difficulty and defeat any enemy.

Citing the exploits by our People's Armed Forces, the Fourth National Party
Congress declared: The congress commends the cadres and fighters of the
heroic People's Armed Forces who fought with great valor decade after decade
and who, with bamboo sticks and ordinary rifles, developed into a powerful
army, defeated many cruel enemies, achieved glorious feats from Dien Bien

Phu to the Ho Chi Minh campaign, enhanced a fine tradition and wrote, together
with all our people, a wonderful epic of the Vietnamese revolutionary war.

The great victory of this war is a victory of the talented and creative lead-
ership of the glorious VCP and of great President Ho Chi Minh, the creator,
trainer and leader of our People's Armed Forces. It is the victory of the
unyielding struggle of the heroic Vietnamese people, the good mother who
carefully protected and fostered our People's Armed Forces and created all
necessary conditions for them to operate under all circumstances.

This victory has its deep origins in the new social system, in the past
people's democratic system and in the present socialist system that our
party and people have gradually set up and consolidated in our country.

This victory is the result of sacrifices in struggle and great creativeness
of the cadres and combatants of our People's Armed Forces in implementing
our party's revolutionary line and all guidelines and policies of our party
and state in battle as well as in construction.

This victory is the result of the close militant solidarity and wholehearted,
mutual support and assistance among the people and revolutionary armed
forces of the three Indochinese countries. This victory is linked with the
multisided assistance of the Soviet Union, China and other fraternal social-
ist countries and with the support of communist parties and the working
class of various countries, of the national liberation movement, of nation-
alist and peace-loving countries, of various international democratic organ-
izations and of all progressive mankind, including U.S. progressives.

The history of the founding and growth of our People's Armed Forces reveals
that there is an entire treasury of very abundant experiences which we should
fully gather together. Here, we begin by dealing only with major experiences
involving principle which reflect the basic problems in our party's line for
building the People's Armed Forces.

-2-



We also have conditions for making more extensive plans for longer periods,
positively examining the situation in a comprehensive manner, and predicting
the process of development of the revolution in our country and the rest
of the world in the next 5 to 10 years, or even 15 to 20 years. We also
enjoy the necessary conditions for building our armed forces in a balanced,
uniform and better manner as regards structure, organization, weapons and
technical equipment and for training our cadres and educating and training
our troops over relatively long periods. Of these tasks some must and can
be done right now. We cannot and must not be passively inactive. Consid-
ering the present situation, only by building our People's Armed Forces in
this direction can we outstandingly increase their strength.

[1430 GMT 26 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] C. Although the current world situation is still developing ina
complicated manner, the situation is much more favorable than before. We
have entered a period that many people in the world call "the post-Vietnam
period." This is an assessment of the victory of historic and epochal
significance in the Vietnamese people's anti-U.S. war of resistance for
national salvation. It is also an assessment of the new balance of forces
between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces in the world
which has changed in favor of the revolution. The victory of the Vietnam
revolution has positively contributed to effecting this favorable change.

Our socialist country has a prestigious position in the international arena.
World developments have had an increasingly favorable influence on the build-
ing and defense of our fatherland, the building of our all-people national
defense and the building of our People's Armed Forces.

In the three Indochinese countries--which are completely liberated--people
are striving to consolidate the fruits of their revolutions and to build
their countries into prosperous nations. This is a very new situation
which is completely different from the past when the U.S. imperialists
and their lackeys still had a foothold in the three Indochinese countries.

The socialist countries are developing very rapidly and vigorously in the
political, economic and national defense fields. As a result, the inter-
national socialist network has a combined strength greater than that of
the imperialist force and is exerting its ever greater influence, which
is a factor deciding mankind's progress. The revolutionary storm of the
national liberation and national independence movements is shaking Asia,
Africa and Latin America. With an ever stronger posture linked to social-
ism, the national independence movement is playing a very important role
in advancing the world to socialism during the transitional period. In
the capitalist countries, workers movements also have made new developments
which strikingly reflect the revolutionary capability and organizational
characteristic of the working class which, together with other democratic
forces, is dealing violent offensive blows to state monopoly capitalism.

43



the most basic of the two basic factors--human beings and weapons--that
constitute the armed forces. The socialist system and the socialist state's
armed forces need new socialist men and outstanding revolutionary military
men who are suitable to this system and armed forces. Modern weapons and
the armed struggle under the conditions of modern warfare also place new
demands on the bearers of these weapons. Since our armed forces have
emerged from the people, the new men in the armed forces--the outstanding
revolutionary military men--cannot be divorced from the new men in society
who have been shaped during the socialist revolution process in our country.

Concerning the characteristics of the new socialist Vietnamese and the meas-
ures to be taken to shape this type of men, the Fourth Party Congress reso-
lution indicates: We must satisfactorily carry out an important task en-
trusted by the party and state to the army which must become a great school
to help train youths into new socialist men and skillful combatants and
laborers. After fully realizing the party resolution on the formation of
new men, what criteria should we set to shape new men for the People's
Armed Forces--that is, outstanding revolutionary military men? This is an
important problem requiring a great deal of thought. However, I should
like to venture some suggestions.

The new men in the People's Armed Forces--that is, our outstanding revolu-
tionary military men--must be men with the following characteristics:
enlightenment with communist ideals; socialist patriotism; proletarian
internationalism; the socialist collective ownership spirit; a sense of
organization and discipline; absolute loyalty to the fatherland and the
party and people's revolutionary cause; full awareness of one's position
and duties in national defense; readiness to fight and make sacrifices for
independence, freedom, socialism and communism; deep love for work; belief
that to work is a duty and honor inherent in the nature of the People's
Armed Forces and that labor must be performed with a deep self-awareness
and heroism equal to that displayed when fighting the enemy, with discipline,
according to technical regulations and with high productivity; love for
study and progress; increasingly high cultural standards; understanding of
literature and fine arts; continuous endeavor to firmly grasp military,
economic, scientific, technical and specialized knowledge and ability to
use this knowledge in training, combat and production; a civilized and
wholesome life style in conformity with new socialist ethics and the good
traditions of our Vietnamese nation; pure and lofty revolutionary sentiments
coupled with solidarity with and deep love for the laboring people and
one's comrades; full understanding and application of the socialist coop-
eration relationships in carrying out all activities; respect for public
property and public life; love and loyalty in family relation; urgent,
versatile and accurate working skills suitable to the combat and labor
circumstances and activities of a modern army and a large-scale socialist
production; an aesthetic mind sensitive to the correct, pure and wholesome
beauty found in all aspects of life in the army, society and household;
and a strong body able'to overcome all difficulties and tensions in train-
ing, combat and production.

74



Training must become more scientific and less time-consuming; it must lean
towards a more advanced program, broader knowledge and more proficient
skills. If the quality of training is high, the length of military train-
ing can be reduced and the time for productive labor and economic construc-
tion can be increased for those combatants who are fulfilling their military
obligation. If the quality of training is high, we can gradually achieve

a reduced length in military service, insure combat readiness and conduct
business more economically. When length of military service is reduced,

we can increase the number of youths engaged in military service and, conse-
quently, we can make preparations for enabling the youths to fulfill the
task of protecting the fatherland and raise the combat readiness level of
the country. In addition, national defense expenses will yield better
results.

To achieve these results, we must immediately create a training curriculum
that includes scientific subjects such as military psychology and Vietnamese
military pedagogy. At present,.we must insure that all armed forces partic-
ipate in an increasingly improved, unified military training program and
that all combatants who are fulfilling their military obligation undergo a
suitable military training program, no matter whether they are permanent
members of the forces engaged in implementing the combat readiness tasks

or involved in economic construction work.

The purpose of military training is to make all individuals, units, echelons
and sectors fully aware of their responsibilities and tasks, to give them

a basis for developing their resourcefulness and creativeness, and to ful-
fill the combat task in the most effective way, thus enhancing the combat
strength of all the armed forces.

The combat-ready standing forces must be trained properly. Low-level de-
tachments and combatants must acquire basic technical knowledge, strive to
become all powerful and aware of detachment tactics and join other armed
branches, including the tank, armored vehicles and artillery branches, in
a joint military training program. Basic tactical corps must be skilled
in coordinated regimental and divisional tactics. Campaign corps must
train commanders and staffs who command large-scale coordinated battles.
Attention must be paid to training commanders and commanding organs. All
the armed forces technical services and branches must study technology
and undergo joint training with other branches in the armed services.

It is necessary to organize joint maneuvers of the armed branches and
services in accordance with modern warfare requirements in order to gain
experience and constantly improve training quality.

At present, local forces must pay attention to technical training and to
training of grassroots units, under conditions of local terrain, in order
to advance large-scale training according to the predetermined provincial
and district combat plans. The self-defense militia and reserve forces

must attain required technical levels and grasp individual combat drills

83



| JPRS 69902
4 October 1977

TRANSLATIONS ON VIETNAM
No. 1977
Van Tren DUNG ON BUILDING THE PEoPLE’s ARMED Forces

20000424 062

U. S. JOINT PUBLICATIONS RESEARCH SERVICE

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A
proved for Public Release
Distribution Unlimited

Reproduced From
Best Available Copy



of the army and at the central level as well as at the local level in
order to produce the greatest wealth possible for society.

Our army must do its economic work in this manner, not only because the
army carries out production as a part of the national economy but also
because it cannot by itself resolve all the questions related to the pro-
duction process.

In each production unit, we must attach particular attention to organizing
management. This is a very important matter in large-scale socialist pro-
duction. Particularly under the present conditions when labor tools are
largely rudimentary, organization is of decisive significance in achieving
greater productivity and greater efficiency. Recently, in carrying out
water conservancy work, many army units achieved fairly high productivity
and economic efficiency. This proves the great role and significance of
labor organization.

Resolving the organizational question not only means resolving the question
of organizing the work force for the respective production field, but also
means resolving many other questions such as increasing the force directly
engaged in production, decreasing the force indirectly engaged in produc-
tion, supporting administrative activities, expanding the skilled work
force, gradually decreasing the unskilled work force, organizing a unified
and uniform production chain and managing the work force, man-days and
man-hours, productivity and quality. . We must go deep into economic produc—
tion matters in order to resolve the organizational question in the most
suitable manner and develop economic efficiency as best we can. We must
resolutely overcome the situation in which workers work at their own con-
venience and thereby cause a large amount of waste.

A basic, pressing question that we must study and resolve now is how to
improve and supply labor tools to the troops. This is a decisive factor
for increasing labor productivity and also an important requirement in
realizing the great objective of scientific-technological revolution in
production and economic construction by our army.

Comrade Le Duan, general secretary of the party, once said: Our country's
workers now number more than 20 million. If they are equipped with modern ~
labor tools, their production capability will equal that of 200 million

or more workers. Thus, by improving labor tools, a worker equipped with
mechanized equipment can achieve a. 10 times higher productivity than a
worker equipped only with manual labor tools. Even a worker equipped with
improved labor tools can achieve a labor productivity which is two or three
times higher than that of a worker equipped with rudimentary labor tools.
If we know how to concentrate our forces on resolving this question, our
army's work force will be able to achieve higher labor productivity and
greater economic efficiency.

109



JPRS 69902

4 October 1977

TRANSLATIONS ON VIETNAM

No. 1977

Van Tren Dune on BurLDING THE PEoPLE’s ARMED Forces

Hanoi Domestic Service in Vietnamese 31 May-10 Aug 77 OW

[Part 1 of address by Sen Gen Van Tien Dung, VCP Central Committee Political
Bureau member and chief of VPA General Staff at Higher Military Academy,
published in TAP CHI QUAN DOI NHAN DAN, No. 5, 1977: "Build a Powerful
People's Armed Forces To Steadily Defend the Socialist Vietnam Fatherland"—-
date of address not given]

[1430 GMT 31 May 77 OW]

[Text] Our People's Armed Forces are one of the very important, decisive
factors in the victory of the revolutionary struggle and revolutionary war
in our country under our party's leadership. They are the offspring of our
people and a product of the revolution and new regime in our country. The
process of development, maturity and victory of our armed forces is part of
the process of development and victory of the revolutionary forces and new
social system that have been gradually built in our country. It is also
part of the process of development and victory of the revolution and revo-
lutionary war in our country under our party's leadership.

Our People's Armed Forces have gone through an extremely glorious develop-
ment and through many stages of our nation's glorious history: the Nghe
Tinh Soviet, the August Revolution, the anti-French resistance, the years

of peaceful construction in the north and the anti-U.S. resistance. Orig-
inating from the masses' political forces and from the self-defense guer—
villa units, they have developed into a powerful People's Armed Forces.

This is a large, modern and regular people's army composed of regular and
local troops and of ground, air, naval and air defense forces which are
provided with increasingly modern equipment. Well organized and trained
and endowed with a very high fighting spirit, outstanding military tactics
of people's war and an increasingly modern and powerful material-technical
network, this army conducted successful large-scale offensive campaigns
with the coordination of various armed branches and the participation of
many military corps, from the Dien Bien Phu campaign in the 1953-1954
winter-spring offensive to the 1975 spring general offensive and uprisings.
This constitutes a very large self-defense militia force comprising millions
of intelligent and valiant combatants who have been scientifically organized

~i- [III - ASIA- 110]



In many army units, the question of workers is very serious. In some of
the tens of thousands of hectares of army farms, our troops carry chemical
fertilizer in their knapsacks to fertilize the soil and sow seeds and spray
‘insecticides from baskets. In this way, how can we achieve high labor pto—
ductivity, low production cost and large production? In many army units,
our troops do not even have enough hoes and shovels for preparing the soil
or enough large axes for reclaiming wasteland in forest areas. Therefore,
for the immediate future, we must concentrate our efforts on supplying
sufficient labor tools to our troops and on studying and solving--the sooner
the better--the question of improving labor tools so as to achieve a labor
productivity which is at least double.the present one. At the same time,
we must mobilize some of the modern equipment that we have, without affect-
ing combat readiness and our strategic reserves, to support the economic
construction task.

{1430 GMT 7 Aug 77}

[Text] A very important factor in developing the advantage of being a
revolutionary military organization in doing economic work is’ that we must
know how to develop the experience gained in leadership and command in
combat and apply it to leadership and management of production... Recently,
many army units satisfactorily performed this task and gained much good
experience. They determined the direction of production in the same manner
as they determined the direction of an attack--that is, in line with the
requirements, tasks, actual production conditions and their units' capabil-
ities. They prepared themselves for production in the same way they pre-
pared themselves for combat on the battlefield. They conducted research
and study, correctly assessed the objective situation and subjective con-
ditions, learned how to seize opportunities, carried out production while
developing it and utilized the proper work forces. They provided leader-
ship and guidance over and managed production in the same way they provided
leadership and command in a military campaign and attack. They resolutely
and strictly directed their activities toward the objective, acted ina
concentrated and uniform manner, insured close coordination among their
component parts, adopted a clearcut attitude, formulated detailed plans
and quickly completed the separate parts of the task at hand. They knew
how to concentrate efforts on key tasks so as to bring about a favorable
change in the production situation. They knew how to apply and develop
the strength of their staff and their political, logistical and technical
agencies in production.

In regiments and divisions, the staff actually served as an advisory body
for production and worked out production plans in the same way they formu-
lated combat plans. The logistical and technical agencies performed logis-
tical tasks and insured that production was carried out in a technical—
oriented manner, providing labor tools and material supplies to the produc-
tion personnel in the same way they supplied equipment and weapons to the
combat troops. They cared for the livelihood of the production personnel
and insured sufficient food, houses and clothes for the various types of
workers.

110



protracted fighting in which we gradually repelled the enemy, defeated him
step by step and moved toward complete victory over him. During the proc—
ess of protracted fighting we had to strive to make great strides while
conducting the war.

We coordinated conventional warfare with guerrilla warfare and combat activ—
ities of the main force troops with those of the regional, militia and
guerrilla forces on a large, medium and small scale. We coordinated attacks
involving the whole armed services and branches with independent attacks

by each armed service and branch and with the people's war conducted locally
and in basic-level units. We fought the enemy both in the front and rear.
We developed the effectiveness of all types of available weapons--modern,
relatively modern and rudimentary--and applied many combat methods, many
forms of combat tactics and many valiant, resourceful combat tricks that
had high combat efficiency and that were highly effective in wiping out
enemy troops, according to each situation.

Considering the above, I think that our military art is unique, creative
and different from the military art of many other countries. This resulted
from our revolution, revolutionary wars and revolutionary armed struggles
being conducted under especially complicated objective conditions and sit-
uations requiring highly efficient revolutionary activities by our cadres
and combatants so they could firmly grasp and apply objective rules and
achieve victory. We must develop our military art while building and per-
fecting our military science in defense of our fatherland.

Comrade Le Duan, general secretary of our party, said: Proceeding from
the basic viewpoint of mainly relying on men, our army and people have
devised unique tactical methods of using a small force to fight a larger
force and pitting our basic strengths against the enemy's basic weaknesses.
Sometimes, in combat, we have concentrated a relatively strong force of
troops and firepower--using a force and firepower two or three times larger
than the enemy's to fight him--but, in many attacks, we used a force just
equal to that of the enemy to fight him or a force that was only one-tenth
of the enemy's or even smaller. Yet, we scored victories in all the
attacks. Thus, our army and people devised combat methods and tactics and
developed combat skills suitable to the Vietnamese battlefield and people.
We should not underrate foreign weapons and technology, but we must under-
stand the characteristics of weapons and technology and know how to effec-
tively use them in accordance with the situation and characteristics of
our country and combat methods.

All of us must think about, firmly grasp and effectively apply the correct
and creative military viewpoint of our party.

31



revolutionary line, love for one's class, affection for one's comrades and
companions in struggle, equality and mutual respect. These relations must
be insured organizationally and their underlying principles reaffirmed in
orders and regulations, which therefore have legal force and must be adhered
to and implemented by everyone.

Socialist collective ownership calls for socialist new men and for a corps
of cadres as the nucleus. The socialist new men and the corps of cadres
must be built in an overall manner as mentioned earlier. Permit me to say
a few words here about building socialist new men and cadres politically.

As the political aspect is regarded as basic in the building of the army
and of organizations, this must be the same in building the corps of cadres.
The socialist new men, cadres of the socialist armed forces, must acquire
the necessary political qualities and the necessary political trust. Of
course, these political qualities should not preclude effective power of
action.

Educated, trained and tested in the protracted revolutionary war, our armed
forces' corps of cadres is very good politically. Our contingent of combat-
ants at present and in the future is educated under the socialist new
regime and in socialist schools and is trained in the realities of social-
ist construction and socialist transformation. Their outlook and their way
of life develop with the growth of the new social system in our country

and their political qualities are constantly tempered and enhanced.

During the previous revolutionary stage, our armed forces’ well-trained
cadres’ corps outstandingly fulfilled its tasks and won the confidence of
the party and the love of the masses. However, unless it continues making
efforts in study and training, it will be unable to discharge its very
weighty and difficult tasks in the new stage.

In carrying out the troop recruiting task, we have selected recruits accord-
ing to the set standards. However, during their service in the army, unless
the youth are constantly educated, trained and fostered, they will fail to
grasp the precious nature and traditions of our people's army, make no prog-
ress, and be unable to become outstanding combatants.

During the first phase of training recruits in the newly liberated provinces,
we must devote much more time to political training. We must strive to
provide political training and advanced political training to all categories
of troops, to both the standing army as well as the militia and self-
defense forces and to both the troops standing combat-ready as well as those
troops engaged in economic activities. With regard to the standing army,

it must be provided with adequate political training. Political and ideo-
logical training must be coordinated with the implementation of other tasks
and must be carried out at all times and in all places. With regard to

the militia and self-defense forces, which are closely related to production

90



adopt a unified, substantive training program and must resolutely and
carefully implement it so that the set criteria for troop training can be
attained annually. Teaching materials must be unified on the basis of the
regulations and rules which will be promulgated. We must strengthen train-
ing organs at all levels so that training guidance can embrace all the armed
forces and closer leadership over the technical and specialized branches
and services of the armed forces can be achieved.

At present, the consolidation of material bases for the training task is

a major problem. Consolidation is aimed at insuring that the training

task meets the requirements of a modern army and modern warfare. Military
training must be practical, realistic and in line with modern combat require-
ments. If the material bases remain rudimentary, training cannot be con-
sistent with modern combat realities.

We must strive to overcome difficulties in building, perfecting and consol-
idating the training centers. Attention must be paid to the immediate
requirements as well as to their development so that they can be expanded
when necessary. We must consider the organization of training centers for
new combatants to provide basic military training before sending them to
the units specializing in economic construction or we can organize the
training of new combatants for these units. Training centers, auditoriums
and so forth must be gradually modernized, mechanized and supplied with
electricity; clay models of these centers should be erected. We must estab-
lish organs and workshops in charge of producing training tools for the
armed forces in order to promptly and effectively serve training work.

[1430 GMT 26 Jul 77]
[Text] Combat Readiness

In time of peace, our whole country concentrates on economic construction.
The armed forces, which must stand combat-ready while engaging in economic
work, have a different task throughout the country. Only by looking at the
problem of combat readiness against this background can we see it in all
its complexity and can we attempt to satisfactorily resolve it. Combat
readiness reflects an understanding of the class viewpoint and struggle and
the spirit of revolutionary vigilance on the part of our cadres and combat~
ants under the present conditions. This viewpoint must be reflected in
concrete activities and organization so as to insure that all the units
are constantly at a high level of combat readiness. Only by maintaining

a high level of combat readiness can we develop our combat strength,
promptly annihilate the enemy, defend ourselves and achieve victory.

Under present conditions, the matter of protecting the army and the coun-
try's potentials in all fields so as to be able to strike back at and
defeat the enemy is of very great significance. For this reason, more than
ever before, our People's Armed Forces must constantly maintain a high
level of combat readiness, constantly improve that level, and be able to

85



them for their existence and development, our People's Armed Forces must
devotedly fight and serve for the people's sake. They must pay attention
to continuously consolidating and developing their blood-sealed relations
with the people, contributing to the building of the political strength of
all of the people and firmly linking all of their activities with the
political movement of the masses.

The strength of our People's Armed Forces is always closely linked with
the strength of the new social regime--the people's democratic and social-
ist regime--being built and constantly developed in our country. The
strength of the new regime is the strength of both production relations
and production forces, and both the superstructure and infrastructure. It
is the combined strength of the political, moral, organizational, economic,
cultural, scientific, material and technical fields. It is the strength
of the new-type men led, educated and organized by the party.

In our country the strength of the new regime grew continuously with the
successful and gradual development of the revolution and the revolutionary
war. As early as its conception by our party in the platform of the revo-
lution, the new social regime--the people's democratic and socialist regime--
had made an impact as a banner for mobilizing and rallying the patriotic
masses to rise up and carry out the revolution. During the early years the
new regime appeared in the form of revolutionary bases. Small at first,
these bases gradually grew into liberated areas during the period before
the August Revolution. They inspired the confidence and hope of the revo-
lutionary people throughout the country, and became solid offensive bases
for the revolutionary forces.

From the beginning, although the new regime was still small, it was able
to provide aid to the revolutionary armed forces. It became the main
source of manpower, material, money and food for the troops, and supplied
some of the weapons used to fight the bandits. These liberated areas
were safe bases for the troops to train and rest, and were staging areas
for fighting the enemy.

With the success of the August Revolution that led to the birth of the DRV,
the people's democratic regime was set up in the entire country. Our
people promptly built their new state, making it a sharp tool for develop-
ing the new regime. The people's democratic state promulgated revolution-
ary political, social, economic and cultural policies aimed at the practical
interests of the people, smashed the enemy's opposition, and mobilized and
organized the people to prepare for a struggle of resistance in defense of
the country and the new regime. The people actively supported the state
they themselves had set up, a state that worked for their interests.

The potential of the country has gradually developed in an organized manner.
The big strides made by the armed forces during the first year of the revo-
lutionary administration were closely linked to the strength of the people's
democratic regime being set up on our entire country.

13



In the current new revolutionary stage all our party and people are con-
tinuing to surge forward with a vigorous offensive impetus to victoriously
advance socialism throughout the country. On the basis of a superior
socialist system we definitely can build and outstandingly develop our
People's Armed Forces into the most powerful armed force of our nation's
history. Our armed forces building is closely related to the achievements
scored during the process in which our country's socialist industrialization
is increased and in which our party firmly grasps proletarian dictatorship,
develops our laboring people's right to collective ownership, simultaneously
carries out the three revolutions--the revolution in production relations,
the scientific-technological revolution and the ideological and cultural
revolution, with the scientific-technological revolution being the key revo-
lution--and builds a new system, new economy, new culture and new-type
socialist men in our country. Consequently, our country's strength will
achieve a new quality.

The building of our armed forces is also closely related to the vigorous
advance of the network of socialist countries and the three world revolu-
tionary currents. In the next several decades our country and the entire
network of socialist countries will certainly have a new strength, consid-
erably greater than at present. We have strong, stable political and social
bases, a well-organized and scientific foundation and an increasingly modern
material-technological base with which to create more qualified and unprec-
edentedly strong People's Armed Forces. We also have a treasure of rich
experiences gained during more than 30 years of fighting and defeating the
enemy. We have a contingent of combat-tested cadres—-a very valuable asset.
We are confident and determined that we will be able to fulfill this his-
toric task although many difficulties still lie ahead in our country's
future. In performing this task we must be very active, positive and cre-
ative. Our experiences gained in revolutionary struggles prove that no
success was won without difficulties, which were always overcome by our
outstanding efforts to achieve success.

The process of building our People's Armed Forces into a powerful People's
Armed Forces in the next several decades is basically linked to the gradual
development and big leaps forward of our country--basically an agricultural
nation where small-scale production prevails--which will become a powerful
socialist Vietnam; this process is also linked to the implementation of
periodic economic plans and the current 1976-80 five-year plan. We must
orient our efforts in the direction of building our armed forces in the
next several decades; we must base ourselves on the current actual situa-
tion, the overall capabilities of our country during the advance to social-
ism and the characteristics and situation of the world in each period in
order to formulate appropriate plans for gradually building our armed
forces.

Now I will present some major questions in regard to the building of our
People's Armed Forces in this direction:

55



The economic installations built by the armed forces belong to the state-run
sector and are owned by all the people. The more vigorously the armed forces
take part in economic work, the more they contribute to strengthening the
state-run economy, expanding the ownership of all the people, and reinforcing
the sector of socialism in the fierce and complex struggle between the social-
ist and capitalist paths, thus further insuring complete victory for socialism.

As the number of large-scale state farms, forest farms, fishing fleets and
production installations of high economic productivity and efficiency and
run by the state and army economic sectors increases, the state can control
larger quantities of food, foodstuffs, raw materials, materials and many
other strategic products and can better hold the initiative in the develop-
ment of agriculture, forestry, fishery and industry. In order to build
large-scale socialist production we must simultaneously carry out three revo-
lutions, among which the scientific-technological revolution is the key one.

Our armed forces are capable of rapidly assimilating scientific and techno-
logical knowledge and have already had some experience in this matter. Dur-
ing the war years in the past, especially during the anti-U.S. resistance
war, our armed forces actually carried out a scientific-technological revo-
jution in the military field. They mastered modern technical equipment to
triumph over the enemy who was superior in modern material and technical
equipment. Today, while engaging in economic work, our armed forces are in
a position to, together with the state economic and technical sectors, con-
tribute to pushing forward the scientific-technological revolution in our
country in all fields--industrial, agricultural, forest, fishing, capital
construction, communications and transportation and consumer goods
production.

The large-scale socialist production that we are building must be rooted in
big industry which is capable of reequipping all the branches of the national
economy on the basis of modern technology. Naturally, to bring the economy
from small-scale to large-scale socialist production, we must succeed in
gradually building our country's heavy industry. By engaging in economic
work and entering technical fields, particularly by building a modern
national defense in our country, our armed forces actually contribute,
together with the state sectors, to resolving this great task of historical
significance.

[1430 GMT 1 Aug 77]

[Text] Our country's workers now number more than 20 million. Our coun-
try's work force continues to increase. The problem is how to fully use
this plentiful resource, the work force. A foremost and decisive question
is that we must redistribute and redivide the work force throughout the
country and in each branch, locality and installation. Our army is respon-
sible for and capable of making positive contributions to this question.

97



men during training, combat readiness, productive labor, task execution,
study, diversified activities and entertainments.

Attention must also be paid to the private life, state of mind, feelings,
aspirations, needs and hobbies of combatants in order to formulate correct
methods to educate them constructively. If a barracks is well organized,
it will greatly influence the shaping of the military men's behavior. At
present, our barracks must be orderly and neatly arranged because if this
is done, it will contribute to a good education of combatants. In the
future when the economy has been developed, we will have to build barracks
more satisfactorily, with adequate facilities, in order to improve the
troops' material and cultural life, thus contributing to training and shap-
ing new men. We must try to make youths, on joining the army, immediately
take a liking to the material, cultural and moral life in the army and not
just give them responsibilities and duties.

[1430 GMT 22 Jul 77]

[Text] The fundamental task of forming new type men in the armed forces
must be carried out immediately. This very difficult task involving very
high requirements calls upon us to make great efforts and to have some
scientific knowledge. Through the practical accomplishment of all armed
forces tasks new type men are formed. The new men in the People's Armed
Forces can be constantly formed only through practical acts, labor and a
struggle to fulfill all duties. For this reason, we must firmly grasp
the following essential method of forming new men in the People's Armed
Forces: train new men amidst the hardships of military training, in the
realities of combat and in the struggle to overcome all difficulties so
as to satisfactorily fulfill all tasks and stand ready to fight and defend
the fatherland and build the economy and the country.

Our revolutionary military organization is endowed with many capabilities
for continuing to create new men. Such men are inherent to our society,
but these capabilities must be turned into reality. During their period
of military service we must help our combatants make clear progress in

all fields; reach a high level of political awareness; acquire a spirit

of collective mastership, a sense of organization and discipline and good
military ability; learn technical professions and adopt a civilized and
healthy relationship with their families, loved ones and friends. On this
basis, our combatants should satisfactorily carry out the tasks on the
productive labor and socialist construction front while properly fulfill-
ing their mission as'a reserve force of the People's Armed Forces who enjoy
the affection and confidence of their families, the production installa-
tions and the mass organizations. In this way, our people and the parents,
who sympathize with the armed forces, can be confident in sending their
sons for training in the People's Armed Forces--a great school.

A significant factor in educating and forming new men in our armed forces
is the promotion of mutual affection and protection. This affection must

76



army to simultaneously defend and build the country is a very great and
creative policy and is the strategic determination of our party. This
policy stems from the various aspects of the actual situation of our coun-
try, from the central task of our party and people in the new stage of the
revolution and from the position, role and great capabilities of our armed
forces in national reconstruction. This policy is also in the interests
of building of the People's Armed Forces and consolidating the all-people
national defense, because a prosperous and strong country is a stable base
for military and national defense strength. The Fourth Party Congress
resolution said: In the conditions of a poor country which has just
emerged from a long and fierce war, the armed forces, in addition to their
duty of standing constantly ready to defend the fatherland, must actively
participate in economic construction, thus contributing their part to the
building of a material-technical base for socialism. Only by promoting
economic construction and socialist industrialization in our country will
we be able to develop national defense industry, build truly regular and
modern armed forces and comprehensively develop the country's defense.

In this spirit we must use the military obligation system to draft able-
bodied men into the army for economic construction work. In our country,

if the army did not join the people in producing material wealth for society,
then certainly both the people and the army would meet with difficulties

and the activities of the army would be restricted. Using the army in
national and economic construction is advantageous for both the economy

and national defense, and we are entirely capable of doing this.

The party Central Committee has great confidence in and highly assesses

our army's capabilities not only in national defense but also in national
construction. Our army is not only a powerful fighting force but also a
large labor force consisting mostly of young and strong youths with good
political qualities, a spirit of socialist collective mastery, tight organ-
ization and extensive capacity to master science and technology. Our army
and people's achievements in economic and national construction will influ-
ence the socialist revolution and socialist construction, the shift of our
country's economy from small-scale production to large-scale socialist
production and the tempo and scale of the building of the material-technical
base of socialism, national defense and the army itself.

Our army is an armed revolutionary organization that has been painstakingly
educated and trained by the party. It has always been absolutely faithful
toward the party and the people. It has very great creative capabilities
in combat as well as in construction. That is why the party has entrusted
and will entrust it with heavy and important tasks on the economic construc-
tion front. Naturally, since economic construction is a new task for us,
our army will encounter problems and will have shortcomings that must be
overcome before it can perform it well, so as to produce much material
wealth for society and achieve high economic efficiency.

37



revolution, eliminate the exploitative regime of man by man, backwardness
and poverty, and successfully build a prosperous and strong socialist
Vietnamese fatherland.

Only when the country is prosperous and strong and the people are well-fed
and happy can there be a strong national defense and a powerful army. Thus
we must view the building of the armed forces within the context of build-
ing the country. The People's Armed Forces must actively build the country
and, consequently, build their own forces. They must successfully perform
tasks both in combat readiness and in economic construction.

Therefore, as aforementioned, we must grasp and apply a law of armed forces
development during the period of peaceful construction and national defense,
namely through building a prosperous and strong country. The armed forces
must be ready to fight and defend the fatherland while engaging in produc-
tive labor to build the economy; they must closely coordinate combat readi-
ness with economic construction. We must make our army truly become a
training ground for the new-type socialist men who fight and produce well.
These trainees are youths who have been prepared by society and who will
continue their training in the army according to specific military require-
ments in order to become outstanding armymen in the new revolutionary stage.
This is a glorious yet very serious and difficult task, one that can be
fulfilled only after a long struggle.

B--The building of the People’s Armed Forces must be imbued with the party's
concept of all-people national defense. It must be based on the combined
strength of the three revolutions in the socialist revolution and on the
combined strength of the socialist regime in our country. It must focus

on all the factors that comprise the combined strength of our People's
Armed Forces.

The all-people national defense concept is fundamental to our party's mil-
itary line during the period of peaceful construction and defense of the
socialist fatherland. Our country's present all-people national defense
is a national defense of an independent and sovereign socialist state, a
comprehensive and modern national defense built on the basis of the social-
ist regime. This national defense carries the fullest meaning of being of
the people and for the people. Our national defense strength must also
reflect the entire strength of the country and the superiority of the
socialist regime in all political, moral, economic, military, cultural,
scientific and technical aspects. This national defense strength is closely
linked to the ever-developing strength of the powerful socialist regime
and to the offensive strength of the world's three revolutionary currents.

The combined strength of the all-people national defense and of the People's
Armed Forces can be built only on the basis of the combined strength of

the three revolutions in our country's socialist revolution--in production
relations, in science and technology and in ideology and culture. It must

49



our country along this path. To this end we must positively build our
People's Armed Forces into the most powerful armed force in our national
history--the army of a powerful socialist state, a revolutionary army with
a high level of standardization and modernization which steadfastly defends
the socialist Vietnam fatherland under any circumstances.

As pointed out in the Fourth Party Congress resolution, our People's Armed
Forces have a strong standing force, a widespread, well-trained reserve
force, a regular and modern army with the necessary armed services and
branches, main force troops, regional troops and large militia, guerrilla
and self-defense forces.

Before discussing our task of armed forces building, I would like to explain
why we must build them into the most powerful armed force in our national
history and to discuss the possibility of fulfilling this task.

We must adopt this course of action because of the important new require-
ments for the task of defending the socialist Vietnam fatherland in the
new stage, as previously pointed out. We must be adequately strong and
ready to fight and defeat the enemy in defense of our fatherland should a
war of aggression be waged against us on any scale, in any form and with
any type of weapon. We will be able to fulfill this task because we have
unprecedentedly great, new capabilities in the most glorious era of our
nation's development and during the process of building a powerful social-
ist Vietnam in light of the Fourth Party Congress resolution.

In our long national history, powerful armed forces had existed before
whose strength paralleled the strength of our nation at the time. For
instance, our armed forces under the Tran Dynasty were very powerful; this
strength correlated with the strength of our nation, in the Dai Viet era,
which existed under a flourishing feudalist system--an era that followed

3 centuries of peaceful construction. The Tran Dynasty's army gloriously
defeated the enemy, firmly maintained our national sovereignty and on three
occasions smashed the brutal armies of the Mongolian-Yuan imperialists
which had invaded most of Asia and Europe and won victories wherever they
fought. Another example is the armed forces of Nguyen Hue. Their strength
was related to that of the peasants revolutionary movement--which later
developed into a national movement and closely coordinated the strengths
of the peasants and national movements. Nguyen Hue's army broke the Nguyen-
Trinh-le ruling feudalist yokes, completely defeated the Siamese and Ching
aggressive troops and reunified our fatherland from north to south.

In this era the strength of our People's Armed Forces is closely related

to the strength of the Vietnam revolution under our party's correct leader-
ship and the strength of a new social system, the national-democratic sys-
tem and the socialist system in many countries. With such an armed force
our people successively defeated the Japanese fascists, the French colonial-
ists and the U.S. imperialists, ushering in an era of independence, freedom
and socialism in our country.

54



be a product of the entire process of building the socialist collective
ownership system, large-scale socialist production, the new socialist cul-
ture and the new-type socialist man; it must also be a product of the proc-
ess of exercising and developing the working people's right to socialist
collective ownership in all respects--political, economic, cultural and
social--under the leadership of the party and the state of the proletarian
dictatorship. We must build our armed forces in a manner compatible with
the process of establishing and perfecting the socialist relations of pro-
duction--changing our country's economy from small-scale to large-scale
socialist production.

Relying on the combined strength of the socialist regime and the all-people
national defense, we must focus on developing all the factors that comprise
the strength of the People's Armed Forces. For instance, in the political
and moral spheres we must insure the party's tight leadership over the army,
enhance national and class consciousness, socialist and communist conscious-
ness, and heighten the cadres' and fighters' socialist patriotism and pro-
letarian internationalism.

Regarding organization, we must pay heed to the masses' armed forces and
the people's army as well as to the regular troops, regional troops and
military and self-defense forces, insuring that their numbers, structures
and organizational scales are rational and compatible with requirements
of the revolutionary tasks in the new stage.

Regarding the material-technical base, our long-term orientation is to
proceed on the basis of national industrialization, with a division of
labor and cooperation among our state's national economic sectors, in order
to gradually build the national defense industry. This undertaking belongs
to all our people, the whole army and all the national economic sectors--
not just to the army. However, the army must act as the core force, be

the vanguard and serve as one of the shock forces.

Regarding military science, art and technique, we must thoroughly study
military science, art and technique and organize armed forces' training
in accordance with the requirements of the military tasks in the new stage.

[1430 GMT 30 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] C--In building the People's Armed Forces we must continue and devel-
op the traditions and military experiences of our party and people. At the
same time we must selectively learn from and creatively apply the experi-
ences and knowledge of the armies of fraternal and other countries in the
world. Our People's Armed Forces are new-type forces of the Vietnamese
people's working class led by the VCP in the new era of an independent,
unified and socialist Vietnam and in the period of worldwide transition
from capitalism to socialism.

50



It is necessary to correctly value the strengths and abilities of youth;
to boldly place those in worthy positions who have undergone trials and
who are endowed with qualities, capabilities and prospects; to overcome
conservative thoughts, narrowmindedness, parochialism and cliquishness;
and to avoid prejudices and favoritism in the implementation of tasks
concerning cadres. If we fail to do so, we will be unable to perfect

and renew the cadre contingent and rapidly increase its quality so as to
create a new energetic force in the process of organizing the implementa—
tion of the party's revolutionary line and policies on the armed forces.

As for those cadres whose qualities, abilities and health are unsuitable
for their functions and who are incapable of assuming responsibility, they
must be rationally reassigned.

[1430 GMT 23 Jul 77]

[Text] High-ranking cadres are very important in the cadre contingent.

For this reason, our party and the Central Military Party Committee have
advocated the founding of a higher military academy specializing in forming
and fostering high-ranking cadres. Let all of our comrades endeavor to
study and be worthy of their positions and functions. Their tasks are
very difficult, including the formation of new socialist men for our
People's Armed Forces.

To build such a cadre force, it is necessary to thoroughly comprehend the
party's line and policies regarding cadres in the new stage and to create
a comprehensive plan for forming and fostering a contingent of armed
forces cadres now and in the future. We must determine the objectives,
criteria, requirements and major measures in this long-term plan. At the
same time, there must be 5-year plans with the aim of realizing specific
objectives in each period.

It is necessary to resolutely form cadres in accordance with a regular,
unified, systematic, fundamental and comprehensive policy. As regards the
cadres' conditions for completing their basic studies, it is necessary

to pay attention to complementing and improving their basic theoretical
studies and their cultural, technical and economic knowledge and to strength-
ening their ability to organize the implementation of tasks. As far as
our armed forces are-concerned, another matter of important significance
is the need to overcome the differences in cadres' skills and military
knowledge resulting from different battlefields and the protracted war of
the past. Within 5 years we must strive to raise the cadres' skills to
the same level and help them acquire the deeper knowledge required in
their branches, professions and positions.

Schools play a very important role in forming and improving cadres. At

the same time, on-the-job study and self-study are also important. At
present, the formation and improvement of cadres must be based on the

79



forces. In this connection, I would like to make a few suggestions here.
First of all, we must make all our cadres and combatants fully understand
the significance and substance of the socialist collective ownership sys-
tem as formulated by our party. Collective ownership involves both duties
as well as interests. We must make all our cadres and combatants deeply
aware of the armed forces' great responsibility for protecting the father-
land and building-the country as well. Everybody must display a high sense
of responsibility, take the initiative in all revolutionary matters, demon-
strate a sense of strict and proper self-discipline and scrupulously imple-
ment all orders and regulations of the armed forces and all state laws.

In our armed forces, rigorous unity, broad democracy and strict and proper
discipline and efforts to properly fulfill all armed forces' tasks are
manifestations of our cadres’ and combatants' spirit of collective owner-
ship as well as of the socialist collective ownership system.

Cadres must share the people's viewpoint, realize that the people are the
real masters of history, love and respect the lower-level echelons and
combatants, have a sense of democracy and must vigorously develop democracy”
within the armed forces and in their respective units. Cadres must refrain
from inflicting punishments on combatants as they please and against regu-
lations. They must not violate the combatants' dignity. They must comply
with President Ho Chi Minh's teaching: Without their units and without

the masses, cadres and leaders can achieve nothing. Therefore, cadres
must love members of their unit while combatants must respect the cadres
and upper echelons, scrupulously implement all orders and instructions from
the upper echelons and enthusiastically create innovations in fulfilling
their functions and tasks.

Merely holding a correct view on collective ownership is not sufficient.
There must also be a structure or organization to insure such a system.
Only by having such a structure or organization can we gradually get into
the habit of translating thoughts into actions and develop and strengthen
self-discipline. Therefore, we must base ourselves on the requirements

of the law of building and struggle of our armed forces to determine system
and rules or legislate regulations and orders pertaining to the armed forces.
Our armed forces' systems, rules, regulations and orders reflect the objec—
tive requirements of armed struggle and of the use of modern weapons and
equipment. But first of all, they reflect the revolutionary nature of the
armed forces and are manifestations of the socialist collective ownership
system and the laboring people's right of collective ownership under the
party's leadership.

All aspects of our armed forces’ relations--solidarity, democracy, disci-
pline, relations between upper and lower echelons, relations between cadres
and combatants, relations between the army and people, and relations between
our country's armed forces and those of fraternal socialist countries--are
based on political and ideological foundations such as the party's

89



A salient feature in the current world situation is that the scientific-
technological revolution is developing very rapidly even in the military
field. This revolution, which is not a monopoly of capitalism and impe-
rialism, has also affected the socialist countries and is efficiently sup-
porting the building of socialism and communism. It has also created con-
ditions for the developing countries to apply modern scientific and tech-
nological achievements so as to rapidly eliminate poverty and backwardness
on the basis of firmly maintaining their political independence.

Since their historic setbacks in Vietnam the U.S. imperialists have been
further seriously weakened. Although they are inherently stubborn and
reactionary, their new situation greatly differs from the old one. Never-
theless, U.S.-led imperialism is still seeking every means possible to
counterattack the world's revolutionary movement and is harboring evil
schemes against our country and the other Indochinese countries. We must
constantly heighten our vigilance and follow up and study the activities
of the imperialists and their lackeys and predict their schemes and acts.

The Fourth Party Congress resolution points out: Relying on the strength
of the three revolutionary currents and continuing to correctly apply the
offensive strategy, the working class and laboring people of the various
countries will certainly further advance the revolutionary movement and
score yet bigger successes in the struggle for the noble objectives of the
times. In the new stage our party, government and people must strive to
take advantage of favorable opportunities in the international arena in
order to rapidly heal the wounds of war, build our material-technological
base of socialism and consolidate our national defense. They must continue
to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fraternal socialist countries and
all the world's peoples struggling for peace, national independence, democ-
racy and socialism and against U.S.-led imperialism.

Considering the new circumstances and conditions in our country and the
world, we must build a People's Armed Force that manifests the great devel-
opments of the revolution in our country and the world in the coming years
and that reflects the profound changes in our country resulting from the
impact of the three revolutions--the revolution in production relations,
the scientific-technological revolution and the ideological and cultural
revolution. Our People's Armed Forces must have the new qualities of an
armed force which is discharging its tasks of defending and building the
socialist Vietnam fatherland in the new stage.

{1430 GMT 27 Jun 77 OW]
[Text] 3. Current Situation of Our People's Armed Forces
After several decades of building their forces and fighting the enemy,

which extended to the 1975 spring general offensive and uprisings, our
People's Armed Forces have become a very strong force, the strongest force

44



—

work, we must constantly increase the combatants' level of knowledge in the
cultural, scientific and technological fields. Their knowledge in these
fields generally increases in the course of doing productive labor. This
is a very favorable condition enabling our combatants to better understand
modern military science and technology.

Productive labor is also a kind of combat in which workers fight against
nature and wage a bloodless war. Carrying out productive labor under our
country's specific conditions at present, particularly in difficult but
vital areas, obviously demands that we have a revolutionary spirit, the
will to fight and a very strong determination to fight and to win. Train-
ing and fostering our troops in the will to fight so as to meet requirements
of the productive labor task and building the economy under such difficult
and harsh conditions will also help to keep up the troops' morale and help
prepare them for the task of standing combat-ready and fighting success-
fully whenever necessary.

Turning the army into a truly vast school that contributes to fostering
and turning tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of youths not only
into excellent combatants, but also excellent workers, is a gigantic task
that requires much effort. Its success depends on how well we carry out
our tasks regarding leadership and command, political indoctrination, ideo-
logical and military training and productive labor and on our efforts in
enhancing the combatants' knowledge and training them how to cope with
actual combat and production, and to perform other tasks and activities.

These are the major problems concerning our troops engaged in economic
work for the immediate and more distant future. This is a political task
of extremely great strategic significance for our army, a task of tremen-
dous and weighty responsibility for our whole army. With thorough under-
standing of the party's policy, we must resolutely organize our troops to
implement this task at all costs.

[1430 GMT 10 Aug 77]
[Conclusion of Sen Gen Van Tien Dung address]

[Text] Strive To Advance Toward a Strong Socialist Vietnam Fatherland and
Build a Powerful People's Armed Force

The application of the Fourth Party Congress resolutions to the building

of the People's Armed Forces in the new revolutionary stage is a great

task that demands that our party, army and people respond with intelligence.
All army cadres, especially high-ranking cadres, must strive to study and
implement the party resolutions and fulfill the duties of each unit and
person. They must have an extremely positive and serious attitude, uphold
their sense of responsibility and guard against and overcome the phenomena
of lazy thinking, subjectivity, satisfaction with one's achievements and
stagnation.

114



BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA |} Report No. on a Recipies Nocoasiow No
SHEET 7 JPRS 69902 7 Golon No

4 Tete and Subriele 5. Report Date
TRANSLATIONS ON VIETNAM, No. 1977 4 October 1977
VAN TIEN DUNG ON BUILDING THE PEOPLE'S ARMED FOR- 6.

CES

7. Author(s) 8. Performing Organization Rept.

jo. :

5. Performing Organization Name and Address 10, Project/Task/Work Unit No.

Joint Publications Research Service
1000 North Glebe Road TY. Contract/Grant No.
Arlington, Virginia 22201

12. Sponsoring Organization Name and Address 13. Type of Report & Period
Covered

As above

14,

15. Supplementary Notes

16. Abstracts

The report contains information on military, political, sociological, economic,
and technical developments in Vietnam, selected from Vietnamese and foreign
newspapers and periodicals.

17. Key Words and Document Analysis. 17a. Descriptors

Vietnam

Military sciences
Political sciences
Sociology

Economics

Culture (Social Sciences)
Ethnology

Technological sciences

17b. Identifiers /Open-Ended Terms

17e. COSATI Field/Group 2, 5C, 5D, 5K, 06, 15

18. Availability Statement WW. Security Class (This 2. No. of Pages
‘ ;. eport)
Unlimited Availability Pott SSIFIED pe
Sold by NTIS ww Security Class (This 22, Price
Springfield, Virginia 22151 28 CLASSIFIED PE A

FORM NTISSS (REV: 3-72) UscomMeoe 14952-P72

THIS FORM MAY BE REPRODUCED
,

}



|

Our army must strive to produce raw materials and building materials,
including those that our troops can mainly produce themselves such as.
bricks, tiles, lime and cement and those whose production necessitates
coordination with economic sectors such as chinaware, glassware, iron and
steel. We must formulate plans that will be gradually implemented in
accordance with the aforesaid long-range policy.

Regarding medical treatment and medicine, the army medical branch must
make positive contributions in order that together with the state health
sector it builds a modern national medicine, a modern Vietnamese military
medicine. We must attach importance to training good physicians having
good political qualities and a high level of scientific knowledge. We
must gradually improve the material-technical base in line with the direc—
tion to modernization. We must, on a step-by-step basis, meet requirements
of medicine, medical treatment and treatment of troops’ wounds mainly with
locally available medicinal products. Therefore, we must take steps right
now for studies in this field. We must have a force of capable cadres to
make specialized and profound studies in order to form and systematically
build modern Vietnamese military medicine. We must provide guidance over
and organize a movement to grow and exploit medicinal herbs and plants in
all army units. Large army units must have drug production installations,
using locally available medicinal herbs and plants and those which they
can grow and exploit. We must conduct studies on treatment of diseases
and wounds with modern Vietnamese medical methods. These methods must be
worked out on the basis of our people's traditional experiences which are
continually developing. At the same time, we must take advantage of and
apply. new knowledge and achievements of modern medicine. We must coordi-
nate modern medicine with our people's traditional medicine.

Regarding consumer goods, we must make studies and strive to resolve for
ourselves a major part of our army's needs of essential consumer goods
such as soap, toothpaste, cigarettes, paper, cultural items and physical
education and sporting goods. This is a relatively important requirement
that must be fulfilled over a long period of time. In the immediate
future, we can meet part of them, particularly in military regions and
military provincial agencies which develop the advantages of each region
and coordinate with local economic sectors.

Obviously, these requirements are very great and many difficulties will

be encountered during the first phase of our implementing tasks to fulfill
them, but our army must and certainly will be able to meet them.

[1430 GMT 6 Aug 77]
[Text] 3. Our Army's Method of Economic Construction: Utilize and

Develop the Experience Gained in Leadership and Command in Combat in
Leading and Managing Production

107



3. Building a Modern Military Material-Technical Base to Effectively Carry
Out All Peacetime Activities and To Be Ready To Meet Wartime Requirements

This material-technical base comprises the system of naval, ground, air
force and air defense bases; national defense sites and projects; and the
system of modern command posts, information and communications centers,
strategic roads, installations and warehouses which insure our logistic
needs and strategic reserves. To a certain extent we already have such a
base. Proceeding from the requirements of defending the fatherland now
and ‘in the future and on the basis of the achievements made in developing
the national economy and the relationship between the economy and national
defense, we must utilize to the fullest, readjust, supplement and reform
the old base and build a new one with a view to creating a unified,
rational and perfect system of material-technical bases throughout the
country. This is a major problem and a very important task which we must
positively study and gradually fulfill.

[1430 GMT 7 Jul 77 OW]

[Text] C. Development of Military Science and Art and the Study of
Military Science and Technology

Our political and military tasks in the new stage demand that we raise the
development of military science and art to a new level and, at the same
time, pay attention to studying and developing military science and
technology.

Under the party's correct leadership-—-during 30 years of armed uprisings
and liberation wars--we have succeeded in building a superior revolution-
ary military science and art in Vietnam: Marxist-Leninist military sci-
ence and art. Its tremendous strength was strikingly manifested in the
great victories we scored in the two wars of resistance against the French
and Americans. This was mainly a military science and art of armed upris—
ings and liberation wars waged to win back the independence and reunifica-
tion of our fatherland and pave the way for our entire country to advance
to socialism. Today, faced with the political and military tasks in the
new stage, we must develop military science and art to a new level, posi-
tively study the latest inventions of modern military science and technol-
ogy and build a military science and art to defend our independent,
reunified and socialist Vietnam fatherland. This is a great task involv—
ing many new questions that we need time to study before reaching a
conclusion.

This military science and art must also be constantly developed so that

we can keep up with the development of the situation in our country and
the world. It must contribute to resolving from a theoretical aspect
problems involving some basic objectives, such as the theories about build-
ing a strong, stable all-people's national defense in the socialist Vietnam

67



movement of the other countries in Indochina, Southeast Asia and the rest
of the world. We must envisage the impact of the gradual developments of
the socialist revolution in our country and the powerful developments of
the world revolution in the future.

We must understand the objective law and the dynamic law of things. At the
same time we must fully see the subjective role of man, our party, our
people and their armed forces. We must grasp the objective law and apply
it to social realities to meet our requirements. One of the differences
between the cadres and the masses lies in the fact that the cadres and
troops must understand the objective law sooner, fuller and deeper than
the latter. From this they would know how to develop their subjective
dynamism to a high degree, mobilize the masses and guide them in develop-
ing their own dynamism and making it exert a strong impact on the objective
law.

In the war our cadres on many occasions showed a keen knowledge of this
objective law, developed well their subjective dynamism and successfully
performed their tasks. Entering into the new stage, our cadres must make
still greater efforts to grasp the new requirements and tasks, the law of
development of our country's revolution in the new stage and the laws of
combining the economy with national defense and building the People's
Armed Forces and people's army in the new era of the nation.

All of our concepts, viewpoints, thoughts and actions in building the
People's Armed Forces and people's army must always reflect the party's
correct independent, sovereign and creative line. The independent, sover—
eign and creative spirit was one of our party's and people's greatest and
deepest lessons in the past revolutionary stage. Only by holding fast to
Marxism-Leninism with an independent, sovereign and creative spirit could
we have developed such a great strength to triumph over the enemy, defeat-
ing even the strongest imperialists. This spirit is also a salient point
that runs through the revolutionary lines and tasks developed by the Fourth
Party Congress. Only by being imbued with this spirit can we victoriously
fulfill the task of building the People's Armed Forces in the new stage.

[1430 GME 2 Jul 77 OW]

[Part III, dealing with building "the most powerful People's Armed Force
in our national history for the defense of the socialist Vietnam fatherland--
some major questions"]

[Text] The Fourth Party Congress resolution sets forth our people's tasks
for the next two decades--to basically complete socialist industrializa-
tion in our country and to build a powerful socialist country with a mod-
ern economy, industry and agriculture; advanced culture, science and tech-
nology; a strong, stable national defense; and a civilized, happy life.
This congress also mapped out the 1976-80 five-year plan for advancing

53



———_—

Our army's difficulties during the first period of production and economic
work are very great, but we certainly will be able to gradually overcome
them. Previously, when we first launched the war of resistance against the
French, our cadres' and combatants' level of knowledge in the military field
was very limited and our army's weapons and equipment were crude and few.
However, our People's Armed Forces, upholding the spirit of fighting and
making sacrifices, endeavored to overcome difficulties; conducted military
studies; resolved the weapons question; matured rapidly and, together with
all of our people, successfully conducted the war of resistance against

the French.

When we first unleashed the war of resistance against the United States,

our army was inferior to the enemy's in terms of numerical strength, weap-
ons and equipment, and our troops' knowledge of modern military science

and technology was still limited. However, building their forces while
fighting the enemy, our People's Armed Forces worked hard, studied diligently,
learned how to use many types of modern weapons and technical equipment,

made great strides in increasing their fighting strength and finally--
together with all of our people--completely defeated the largest, mightiest,
and most modern army of international imperialism.

Now that it is engaged in economic construction work, our army is facing
difficulties regarding know-how, economic construction capabilities, mate-
rial supplies and labor tools. However, many of our army units have rapid-
ly and thoroughly grasped the determination of the party Central Committee
and Political Bureau, have clearly realized their weighty but glorious
task on the national construction front, have immediately and arduously
embarked upon economic work in a very high, intense revolutionary spirit
similar to that they displayed during the war and have scored meritorious
initial achievements. These initial achievements prove the determination
and great capabilities of our army on the new front. Despite great diffi-
culties facing us, we will certainly be able to overcome them and will
fulfill the tasks entrusted by the party, just as previously we outstand-
ingly fulfilled the task of fighting the enemy to liberate the nation.

[1430 GMT 4 Aug 77] -

[Text] 2. The Immediate and Long-Term Objectives.of Our Army's Economic
Construction Task

This is a very big question that must be carefully studied and considered
in various aspects.. In addition, it must be modified and readjusted
through the army's actual efforts. The immediate and long-term objectives
of our army's economic construction task must be closely linked to those

of our country's socialist construction. Our army's economic construction
plan is part of the state's short-term and long-term economic development
plan. It is also linked to the army's task of building a material-technical
base for itself.

102



essential items that could be produced; seize enemy weapons to equip our
armed forces with; and, at the same time, whenever conditions permitted,
take full advantage of the assistance of the fraternal countries.

During the first period we relied on our people and equipped our armed
forces with whatever weapons were available. Our equipment at that time
was primitive. During the early days of the revolutionary administration
following the August Revolution we motivated our people to make contribu-
tions so we could buy firearms, and we established a number of military
weapons manufacturers to produce mines and grenades.

During the anti-French war of resistance the party clearly decided that

we had to seek military equipment supplies on the frontline and seize
enemy weapons to fight the enemy. Our main-force and regional troops were
primarly equipped with weapons seized from the enemy. Our military weapons
manufacturers gradually succeeded in producing a number of relatively
modern weapons such as bomb and grenade launchers and recoilless rifles.
After 1950 we acquired a number of new weapons that enabled us to organize
larger units and move toward victory with the historic Dien Bien Phu
campaign.

During the anti-U.S. war of resistance we relied on the assistance of the
Soviet Union, China and the other fraternal socialist countries to greatly
improve our armed forces' weapons. The improvement of our armed forces'
weapons was carried out in two periods: the period of peaceful construc—
tion from 1954 to 1964 and the period of conducting the nationwide anti-U.S.
war of resistance beginning from 1965. After defeating the U.S.-—puppets

we seized a lot of enemy weapons and equipment. We now have large amounts
of fairly modern technical equipment.

In addition to determining the source of military equipment supplies, we
have correctly determined the organization of equipment and the methods
of using equipment. We advocated coordinating the use of various types
of weapons of different technical levels--modern, relatively modern and
rudimentary--while seeking to constantly improve and modernize our weapons
so as to create the greatest combined power and to defeat the enemy troops
equipped with many modern weapons.

Essentially equipped with modern weapons, our main-force troops also made
full use of relatively modern and rudimentary weapons. Our militia and
self-defense forces were essentially equipped with rudimentary and improved
weapons and utilized some modern weapons that they had secured.

Modern weapons cannot exert their effectiveness if they are not controlled
and directed by talented people. A great success of ours was that we suc—
ceeded in making our cadres and combatants rapidly understand and then
master the use of those types of weapons, which enabled them to win vic-
tory in our people's war.

27



[1430 GMT 9 Jun 77 OW]
[Text] Fourth Experience

The building of the People's Armed Forces in each period must be imbued with
the comprehensive view of giving importance to all factors that make up the
combined fighting strength of the People's Armed Forces.

The fighting strength of the People's Armed Forces is the combined strength
of many factors--human, weapon, political, moral, organizational, equipment,
military art and troop-training level. These factors are important, closely
related to one another and influencing one another. In the course of build-
ing the armed forces we must correctly assess the role of each factor and
firmly grasp the dialectical unity among these factors. We must guard
against and avoid erroneous tendencies such as unilaterally stressing the
political and moral factors, considering them decisive and slighting all
the other factors, or unilaterally stressing the material and technical
factors, considering them decisive and slighting the political and moral
factors.

In building the armed forces our party has given top priority to building
of the People's Armed Forces in the political aspect. As stated above, the
strength of any armed forces is made up of many factors, and this strength
depends on the political line of the leading class of the armed forces.
Particularly in our situation of waging the just war of a country with
backward economy and agriculture against strong aggressive enemies armed
with modern weapons, we first of all had to have correct political and
military lines, valiant fighting spirit and unparalleled resourcefulness
before we could surmount all difficulties and trials to achieve victory.
That is why the political and moral factors were extremely important to
our armed forces. To give priority to the political aspect, considering
the political factor to be the basis for building the armed forces in
other aspects, is a matter of principle in building the revolutionary armed
forces that must be grasped in any situation.

Here we must distinguish between the political and moral factors and at
the same time see the close connection between them. To talk about the
political factor means to talk about the leadership of the working class'
party, its political line, the just nature of the war, and the revolution-
ary nature of the armed forces. It was the most fundamental and decisive
factor. The moral factor comes from the political factor. The unequaled
valiant fighting spirit of our cadres and fighters stemmed from their
thorough understanding of the correct political line, the party's unerring
leadership, the revolution's noble objective, the war's just nature, and
our armed forces' revolutionary nature. It is wrong to divorce the moral
factor from the political factor. It was in consideration of this close
connection between the moral and political factors that Lenin said: In
any war, victory will finally be determined by the moral condition of the
masses who shed blood on the battlefield.

23



As for food, we must study and resolve problems regarding food resources,
diet composition, and the way of cooking in peacetime and wartime inside
and outside military camps. We must advance a step further in drawing on
experience in order to contribute to formulating a dietary composition and
our people's scientific way of cooking. Our army must not only produce
enough grain for its troops in peacetime but create reserves for the state
and strive to provide for our people's future grain needs. By so doing,
we make very important contributions to the country not only in the eco-
nomic field but in the military, political and social fields. Our troops'
diet must be one based on modern scientific research which is suitable to
our people's characteristics and to military organizations in peacetime
and wartime. We must conduct studies to arrive at a suitable proportion
of protein, rice and subsidiary’ crop products, and animal and vegetable
protein in our army's diet and carry out industrial processing of this
diet so that it is light and less cumbersome. We must positively resolve
problems related to processing grain varieties such as corn, potatoes,
cassava and so forth and conduct studies on field rations in modern warfare.
The army's way of cooking must ‘be improved to suit conditions of an indus-
trialized country in peacetime and must be consistent with highly mobile
conditions of wartime in a modern war. We must not prolong the situation
wherein our army's companies, while on the move, must take along large
cooking pans to cook their food. We must conduct studies for producing
rations of dehydrated foods. In solving this problem, our army will make
a very significant contribution to society by solving problems related to
our people's diet for industrial workers and by minimizing the time house-
holds spend on cooking.

As for clothing, we must resolve problems related to the resources of
clothing, the network of ready-made clothing enterprises, and styles,
colors and quality of clothing items, shoes, sandals, caps, belts, knap-
sacks and military insignias so they are suitable for a modern army, the
SRV army. We must participate positively in cultivating cotton and jute
and produce natural and synthetic textile fibers. -We must rapidly perfect
the army's network of ready-made clothing enterprises and shoe and sandal
enterprises. We must study available styles of military equipment in order
to suit the activities of a modern Vietnamese army, according to the weather
and climate of areas where our troops carry out their activities, and
according to the characteristics of each armed service and branch and, at
the same time, to insure neatness, simplicity, durability, beauty and
reduction in expenses.

On the housing question, durable military camps must have sufficient facil-
ities and must be solid and attractive. Military camps must be exemplary
living quarters and must suit not only requirements for combat-readiness,
meetings and studies in the immediate and long-range future, but must
reflect the civilized life of new socialist men who are revolutionary com-
batants, knowledgeable in all fields, with a high level of political aware-
ness and aesthetics and who have met requirements in both material and
spiritual aspects.

106



of the resolutions of the Fourth Party Congress in the development of the
People's Armed Forces in order to outstandingly fulfill all the tasks
entrusted us by the party.

As high-ranking cadres of the party and the armed forces, you should know
this more than anyone else. The fundamental change in the cadres' views
on shifting the stages of the revolution and shifting the duties of the
armed forces and on the new requirements of these duties has a very great
and decisive significance in the building of our armed forces in the new
stage.

The new requirements of the duties of our armed forces at present are
entirely different from those of the past. As far as national defense is
concerned, in the past our People's Armed Forces' duties were to fight for
national liberation and independence and advance toward socialism. Now
that our country is entirely liberated, our fatherland unified and the SRV
has emerged, our People's Armed Forces must firmly defend the fatherland's
independence and freedom and the nation's sacred sovereignty. We must
safeguard all of our land, territorial waters and airspace, from the uplands
of Dong Van to Ca Mau Point, from the Truong Son Cordillera to the East
China Sea, from the borders and mainland to the offshore islands. We must
firmly protect the proletarian dictatorial state, the socialist revolution
and socialist construction in our country. We must defend the socialist
regime and peaceful labor and construction of our country.

We must be ready to smash all the imperialists’ plots and acts which encroach
on our sovereignty and territory and all schemes of the reactionaries at
home against the revolution. At the same time we must be prepared and
capable of defeating the imperialists and their lackey's aggressive war
should they wage it against our country on any scale, in any form, with

any kind of weapons and under any circumstances.

While building the country, our people are duty bound to contribute to the
cause of revolution and peace in Indochina, Southeast Asia and the rest of
the world. In the days to come while building large-scale socialist pro-
duction, new construction projects and new economic and cultural centers
will gradually appear, not in small numbers and sizes but in increasingly
larger numbers and bigger sizes, and there will be many big industrial
areas, many big and small cities and many new province and district capitals
in all regions.

These new economic areas and new production establishments will be located
not only deep inside the country but also in the border regions and coastal
areas, not only on the mainland but also on the sea. These will be the
fruits of our people's labor and our country's great economic and national
potential. Among these, the major economic centers will exercise a great
influence on our entire economy and our people's fighting strength. That
is why we must defend them with a most resolute and thoroughgoing spirit
and with new strength and knowledge.

35



Realizing this, the cadres of all echelons in the army must uphold their
responsibility, develop a revolutionary offensive spirit and strive to
raise their levels in all fields. They must look ahead while remaining
close to reality and the masses. They must strive to complete the tasks
of their units in order to turn the party's correct, creative, independent
and sovereign line into a practical victory.

Let us be worthy of the party and people's trust by continuing our revolu-
tionary efforts, and maintaining our patriotism and intelligence as
Vietnamese, our burning revolutionary ardor as communists, our rich expe-
rience gained during decades of fighting and growth as time-tested revolu-
tionary soldiers under the party and the great Uncle Ho's glorious banner,
and our wide knowledge in all fields as combatants, workers and peasants.
As combatants, we must continuously improve ourselves in the current
national reconstruction and defense activities.

Under our party's leadership, our nation has become the equal of other
vanguard nations in the world in the great struggle and glorious victory
against the U.S. imperialists, the Huns of the 20th century; against aggres—
sion, oppression and exploitation; for our fatherland's independence, free-
dom and socialism and for our international obligations. Our nation will
also certainly advance to the ranks of other vanguard nations in the world
in the work of peace and in building a wealthy and strong country, triumph-
ing over backwardness and poverty, for our people's comfortable life and
happiness and for our country's prosperity. We will surely succeed in
building a socialist Vietnamese fatherland according to the line mapped

out by the Fourth Party Congress. We will certainly build the Vietnam
People's Armed Forces into the most powerful and modern armed force in our
nation's history in order to safeguard and build our beloved Vietnamese
fatherland.

cso: 4209 - END -

116



Navy--Our navy plays a very important role. Our coast is more than 3,260
kilometers long, our immense territorial waters are larger than our land
and we are very righ in maritime resources. We have another Vietnam on
the sea, so to speak. Consequently, our navy must urgently increase its
fighting strength and be ready to defend our fatherland's immense territo-
rial waters in peacetime as well as in wartime. In addition, it must,
together with all of our people, exploit our undersea resources so as to
improve our people's living conditions and build our country.

Air-defense troops--The air-defense troops are responsible for defending
our fatherland's airspace. They must be combat-ready in peacetime and
make overall preparations for the eventuality of war. Therefore they must
raise their capabilities to a much higher level than that attained during
the anti-U.S. period so as to meet the requirements of their new tasks
under new conditions. There will be some changes in our economic structure
in the future, and many large industrial and population centers will have
to be defended. Our enemy devoted a great deal of attention to developing
its air power and to launching sudden attacks on our important areas.
Therefore the air-defense force must be further developed and must become
increasingly stronger. Coordination must be achieved among the air force,
missile, anti-aircraft and radar troops and the widespread anti-aircraft
network of the regional armed forces. If our armed services and branches
are harmoniously developed and are gradually and uniformly perfected, the
fighting strength of our people's army will take on a new quality.

[1430 GMT 4 Jul 77 OW]

[Text] 3. Regional Forces of the Provinces, Municipalities Subordinate
to the Central Level, and Districts

In the new revolutionary stage and in any future war for the defense of
our fatherland, the requirements for defending the localities are very
great. However, the localities' capabilities will increasingly develop
during the course of the socialist revolution and building socialism, and
as a result the position of the regional armed forces will develop
accordingly.

A province covers a large area, and many have fairly large populations of
some 2 million people. The provincial industrial-agricultural economy is
gradually taking shape. The municipalities subordinate to the central
level are being comprehensively consolidated and developed. The district
is occupying an increasingly important position within the national eco-
nomic system and the national defense system, and is being gradually
built into an agricultural-industrial economic unit. Thus the provinces,
municipalities and districts will have increasingly greater capabilities
for providing the manpower and material resources for building the armed
forces in general and the regional force in their own localities, in par-
ticular. We can and must build the provinces and the municipalities into

59



in the long run, when our army will do economic work with increasingly
modern mechanized equipment, a large number of our youths will have condi-
tions in which they can become technical workers.

Previously, during the war, with our country's survival at stake, our
youths enlisted in the army to discharge their highest obligation at the
time: to fight to liberate the nation and advance to socialism. They
usually did not show any aspirations regarding their professions or lives.
Now that we live in a peaceful period of national construction and defense,
our youths in discharging their military obligations not only want to im—
prove their military knowledge so they can perform well their duty of defend-
ing the fatherland during the time they are in the army, they also want to
learn trades and to improve their professional skills so they will be able,
at an early date, to contribute to building the country. Thus they want

at the same time to broaden their knowledge and learn a trade so that later,
when they complete their term of obligatory military service and leave the
army, they will have secured the necessary conditions to satisfactorily
perform the task of building the country in the various national economic
sectors and to build their own lives.

Naturally, in order to satisfactorily perform the task of productive labor
and economic construction, we must train and foster people and organize
them in accordance with our production requirements. Our army is a revo-
lutionary armed organization engaged in economic work. Therefore, on the
one hand, we can develop its advantage of being such an organization to do
economic work; on the other hand, we can, through productive labor, con-
tinue to consolidate and increase its strength in all aspects—-organization,
morale, determination and cultural, scientific and technological standards.

We must plan time for military training and forging combat skills and com-
bat readiness for the combatants. But if we properly understand and know
how to skillfully coordinate these activities, we can train these combat—
ants even during the course of doing productive labor and organize the
army to help meet not only production requirements but the requirements of
building a modern, combat-ready people's army.

Since many of the requirements of large-scale socialist production are very
much like those of building and training a revolutionary armed organization-—
for example, the army as an armed organization must have a very high level
of organized discipline; to carry out productive labor in line with large-
scale socialist production also requires a very high level of organized
discipline--the establishment and enforcement of work discipline in doing
economic work contributes significantly to consolidating and strengthening
army discipline in military training, combat readiness and combat.

Productive labor carried out in line with large-scale socialist production

must be technical-oriented labor carried out on an increasingly higher
technical level. Therefore, before as well as in the course of doing labor

113



be based on the ideological stand of the working class. It is the class
affection among the laboring people that has progressed toward a new level,
a new quality and an ethical value of the Vietnamese nation manifested in
the following proverbs: "As countrymen, we must love one another," "Let
us love our neighbors as ourselves.'"' These are great motives in the strug-
gle for the noble objectives of the revolution, in the struggle to fulfill
the great and glorious missions of the armed forces. Marx always linked
love with the struggle in that way. Cadres must love the combatants and
other cadres in the lower ranks. President Ho Chi Minh taught: The unit
commander or political officer must be a brother, sister or friend of his
unit members. Failure to behave in such a way means failure to fulfill
one's obligation. Only when a cadre remains as intimate with his unit
members as their hands and feet can they love him as if he were their kith
and kin and implemerit all directives, orders and plans from the upper
echelons in a positive and scrupulous manner. With the prevalence of a
sense of organization, discipline and mutual affection, there will be no
militaristic attitude and acts on the part of cadres toward combatants and
there will be no negative actions on the part of combatants. If there is
mutual love, there are many ways to. properly solve problems in an army
unit. Regrettable incidents will not happen and there will be a collective
life in solidarity, harmony, comfort and impartiality. Such a life can
have a great impact on the promotion of fine qualities, pure sentiments
and optimistic behavior among cadres and combatants.

Regarding the building of a contingent of cadres, we must promote the forma-
tion and improvement of cadres, raise the level of knowledge of cadres in
all aspects and set up a contingent of cadres typifying the political line
set forth by the Fourth Party Congress. To this end, the People's Armed
Forces must meet the requirements of their two tasks in the new stage.

The cadre contingent in the People's Armed Forces must be carefully selected.
It must have a perfect, balanced structure comprising commanding cadres,
political, rear service, technical, professional, research, teaching, eco-
nomic, main force, local, regular force and reserve force cadres. This
cadre contingent must include a fixed nucleus, a reserve force and a vast
successor force which can meet the requirements not only in peacetime but

in wartime as well.

The quality of cadres resides in the coordination between political quality
and capacity for work and is manifested through the successful implementa-
tion of tasks. The requirements of political quality must not be detached
from those of capacity for work because failure to meet any of these require-
ments means the failure to meet the qualifications of a cadre.

As pointed out in the Fourth Party Congress resolution, a eadre's political
quality resides in his loyalty to the party, his revolutionary will, his
sacrifice, his close ties to the masses, his positiveness and his very high
spirit of responsibility in the performance of his duties. At the same

77



Our military art reflected the balance of forces between ourselves and the
enemy--we had to use small forces to fight larger forces, to pit few against
many, and to use fewer modern weapons to fight and defeat an enemy equipped
with many more modern weapons. Our war was the just war of a nation whose
territory is not vast, whose population is not large, whose agricultural
economy is backward and whose army was small and equipped with less modern
weapons, a nation that had to fight a war of aggression waged by the impe-
rialists who had large military and economic potential and a large profes-
sional army equipped with ultramodern weapons. Under such conditions we
had to have a very high revolutionary spirit, a deeply realistic viewpoint
and a scientific mentality so as to devise proper combat methods and defeat
the enemy. We had to develop our strengths, overcome and limit our weak—
nesses, hit and exploit the enemy's weaknesses and limit his strengths.

We had to strive to win the assistance of the socialist fraternal countries
and strengthen the three revolutionary currents of the era, so as to create
our own strength and defeat the enemy.

The problem was how to create a posture and force stronger than the enemy's--
with our troops and weapons that were inferior to the enemy's--in order to
defeat the enemy. We can cite many examples to prove the correctness of
this statement. Our sapper troops fought many battles with very high com-
bat efficiency. To a certain extent our sapper armed branch could replace
our strategic air force, which we still lacked, to launch attacks on large
airfields, harbors, warehouses, nerve centers and other targets located
deep in the enemy's rear area. We used everything from rifles to anti-
aircraft guns, missiles and jet aircraft to fight and defeat the U.S.
imperialists' strategic air force, and we downed many of their assorted
modern jet aircraft--B-52's, their trump card, and swing-wing F-111's.

We sank or set ablaze many enemy warships on rivers and at sea while they
were either underway or moored at well-protected military harbors. We
destroyed modern enemy bombs, land mines and underwater mines with unique
methods, effectively using both modern and simple methods.

The strategic Ho Chi Minh communications line was a grand achievement in
the Vietnamese people's war, an achievement of the marvelous revolutionary
heroism, resourcefulness and valor of our armed forces and people. We
devised many methods for building, protecting and developing this great
strategic communications line, rendered useless many of the enemy's latest
technical developments and smashed the enemy's schemes and tricks in his
attempt to block our military transportation and cut off the air from our
large rear area, the socialist north, to the vast southern front.

We organized in different ways our military campaigns, attacks and violent
strategic battles, and we constantly developed their effectiveness. Each
of our military attacks, campaigns and general offensives had its distinc—
tive features as regards the art of providing leadership over strategic
attacks, military campaigns, tactical fighting and the use of various
types of weapons and techniques. Our army's armed services and branches
launched independent attacks well and made increasingly greater progress

29



and technology related to modern people's warfare in order to defend the
socialist fatherland. We must accelerate implementation of the logistic
task, suiting it to the new situation. We must further strengthen the
material-technological base so it can support both the task of standing
combat-ready and that of economic construction. We must stabilize the
troops' activities in all fields, gradually improve the living conditions
of cadres and combatants, and actively resolve the remaining questions in
the postwar period.

By satisfactorily performing these pressing tasks, we will actually further
raise the quality of our People's Armed Forces to a new level and implement
the task of building the People's Armed Forces in this new era of our
nation.

[1430 GMT 31 Jul 77]

{Part IV of Sen Gen Van Tien Dung address published in TAP CHI QUAN DOI

NHAN DAN, No 7, 1977: "Build a Powerful People's Armed Forces To Steadily
Defend the Socialist Vietnam Fatherland"; this part subtitled: "The People's
Armed Forces and the Task of Building the Country and the Rear and Consoli-
dating National Defense"]

[Text] In this part, I shall deal with four points: 1--thoroughly grasp
party policy, develop the strength of military organization in national
construction; 2--the immediate and long-term objectives of our army's
economic construction task; 3--our army's method of economic construction:
utilize and develop the experiences gained in leadership in combat and com-
mand in production leadership and management; and 4--our army must be a
big school that contributes to training the youth into new socialist men
who fight and produce well.

1. Thoroughly Grasp Party Policy, Develop the Strength of Military Organ-
ization in National Construction

The Fourth Party National Congress of Delegates, the party Central Committee
and the Political Bureau advocated the use of the People's Armed Forces in
economic tasks in order to develop the strength of military organization

in building the country and consolidating national defense, thus contrib-
uting to rapidly bringing our country's economy directly from small-scale
to large-scale socialist production, bypassing the stage of capitalist
development and turning our country into a prosperous and strong socialist
one. The fact that our People's Armed Forces are as big and strong as

they are today is one of the great achievements of our country's revolution,
party and people.

In past wars, our army has proved to be worthy of being the entire people's

core force in fighting bandits, defeating one aggressor army after another
and brilliantly fulfilling its combat task in the national liberation war.

95



We built powerful People's Armed Forces in both zones of the country com-
prising the modern regular people's army and the broad popular armed forces
in accordance with the party's political and military tasks. We relied on
the assistance of the Soviet Union, China and other fraternal socialist
countries to solve the problem of equipment of our armed forces. In a short
time we rapidly developed the modern air defense and air force units of the
main force troops and the air defense units of the local troops and self-
defense militia force. We strongly developed the strategic military trans-
port force and built steady strategic transport lines to meet all require-
ments regarding numerical strength, techniques, rear service and the armed
forces' increasingly high mobility.

We always grasped the main offensive guideline on the southern great front-
line, stepped up both concentrated combat and guerrilla combat, coordinated
military struggle with political struggle and staged attacks and uprisings
in all the three strategic areas in the south. We continued to intensify
the combat strength of the strategic mobile force, local troops and self-
defense militia force.

In addition we endeavored to build a rear force, satisfactorily carried out
the wartime mobilization task and rapidly developed the People's Armed
Forces to meet the requirements of large-scale offensive and achieve deci-
sive victory when opportunities presented themselves.

During the final period of the war we organized army corps and advanced to
launch the 1975 spring general offensive and uprisings that put a victorious
end to the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance with the historic Ho Chi
Minh Campaign as its climax.

It is crystal clear that the talented strategic guidance of the party
Central Committee and Political Bureau, along with their correct and crea-
tive guidelines regarding the building of the People's Armed Forces involv-
ing the problems of men and organization, the political and moral aspects,
equipment, weapons and military tactics, was a decisive guarantee for our
armed forces to outstandingly fulfill all political and military tasks
entrusted by the party in the process of the armed uprising, revolutionary
war and liberation war over the past several decades.

At present the Vietnamese revolution has shifted to a new stage in which
the whole independent country has been reunified and is advancing to social-
ism. Because the political task has changed, the military task must change
too. For this reason the direction of building the armed forces has led

to new problems.

We must thoroughly understand the socialist revolutionary line determined
by the Fourth Party Congress and the political and military tasks of our
country's revolution in the new stage. With the revolutionary offensive
spirit, we must be resolved to actively and creatively implement all

10



time, a cadre must have a general knowledge and the ability to organize the
implementation of all tasks set forth by the party.

In the new stage of the revolution, cadres must unceasingly heighten their
knowledge of Marxist-Leninist theory, profoundly understand the party's
line and policies, further improve their military, technical, economic and
cultural knowledge and be capable of organizing the implementation of tasks.

The People's Armed Forces cadres, regardless of rank, must pay particular
attention to improving their military knowledge in modern warfare to ful-
fill their missions. At present, since we are prepared to implement the
system of unit leaders in accordance with the party Central Committee's
regulations, the formation of cadres endowed with all-round ability has
become more important. We must resort to numerous forms and measures to
educate the cadres in theory and to further improve and strengthen them
militarily, politically, technically, professionally, economically and
culturally. We must positively develop the formation and improvement of
cadres in schools in accordance with a regular, fundamental, comprehensive
and unified policy while paying attention to organizing systematic on-the-
job training to improve their skills. In order to have a policy for form-
ing and fostering cadres, we must rapidly standardize the requirements
governing various aspects of a cadre's knowledge at all levels and in all
branches. In this way, we can take an active part in forming and fostering
cadres and in creating a basis for promoting cadre-related tasks. We must
strive to improve and increase the quality of the present contingent of
cadres who have undergone trial by combat. At the same time, we must ur-
gently form numerous additional young cadres especially selected from among
those trained and tested in combat from the classes of workers, peasants,
laborers and revolutionary intellectuals. We must increase the worker
component among the contingent of leading and commanding cadres. Cadres
must be formed in accordance with a regular, unified systematic, funda-
mental and comprehensive policy.

It is our party's policy to advocate the coordination of the older people's
experience with the young people's ability to progress. We must highly
value the cadres who underwent trials and matured in the revolutionary
movement, in the anti-French and anti-U.S. resistances and from the lower
ranks upward. They must be employed in the right places and their talents
and experience developed to the highest degree.

At present, it is necessary to enhance the contingent of intermediate and
high-ranking cadres with a view to fostering leading cadres and keeping
them in reserve. It is also necessary to increase the number of cadres
in charge of conducting research in science, social science, military sci-
ence and technical science and the number of teachers in the schools. As
a leader, each cadre is responsible for forming reserve cadres and must
contribute to preparing cadres to replace him.

78



so that they can rapidly perform the assigned tasks within the armed forces
technical branches and services when they are drafted into the army during
wartime.

As for the high-ranking commanding cadres, special attention must be given
to developing their strategic knowledge and the art of conducting a military
campaign. The intermediate-level cadres must concentrate on tactics and
combat organization capabilities. Young cadres must attach great importance
to complicated military technology.

The training of commanders and commanding organs is a basic and important
aspect of the new requirements for advancing the modernization and standard-
ization of our army. It helps to insure adequate implementation of combat
readiness systems, the combat readiness of an army composed of many armed
branches and services in peacetime, and the successful coordination of armed
branches and services during combat in modern warfare in case the enemy
launches an invasion against our country.

We must continue to improve the command task and strive to utilize scien-
tific and technical accomplishments for insuring rapid effectiveness of
unified command for various forces on many vast terrains. We must, by sur-
veying the enemy's front line, constantly improve the command capability
of cadres in order to insure good command of organs at all levels.

We must insure that the necessary time is given for training, especially
field training and tactical maneuvers involving coordinated combat by var-
ious forces, so that our cadres and combatants can learn to apply theory
and to train themselves in acquiring combat resourcefulness and boldness.

Standing forces specializing in economic construction must also attach
importance to military training and devote proper time to military studies,
especially technical training and the training of grassroots units, so as
to insure combat readiness. Concerning these units, special attention must
be paid to training in technical skills, in specialized and professional
skills and in economic construction.

We must scrupulously implement all training orders of the Defense Ministry
which considers the training task as a combat task. Supervision of the
implementation of training orders and of the combat readiness attitude and
posture of units must be carried out according to plan and must attain

the aim of improving the training quality and their combat readiness
posture.

The training plan must be carefully designed and detailed in many aspects.
Units at various levels are not free to modify the training plan or program.
If a change of schedule is needed, they must submit a report and request
instructions. They must strictly maintain all training systems in order

to systematize and regularize the training task. To this end, they must

84



Revolution means carrying out the offensive, carrying out a continuous
offensive and sustaining an offensive to achieve victory. In his poem on
how to play chess, President Ho Chi Minh graphically described it as a con-
test between two opponents each of whom wants to achieve victory: one must
look broadly, ponder carefully. He must be determined not to cease his
offensive. Comrade Le Duan also pointed out: In the history of our coun-
try, each time our people rose up to oppose foreign aggression they always
took the offensive and not the defensive position. To attack the aggres-
sors is to defend the independence of one's nation. Taking the offensive
is the strategy, whereas taking the defensive position is only a tactic.
The offensive idea is the basis of our revolutionary and military strategy.

Not to attack also means not to carry out revolutionary struggle. It will
much less mean victory. The victories of our country's revolution in the
successive movements, uprisings, and liberation wars were precisely victo-
ries of the idea of continuously maintaining the offensive and continuously
implementing offensive strategy. We can cite a few examples: In 1959, when
the enemy in the south brought their guillotines everywhere to massacre the
people, our party launched a powerful struggle movement of the masses. The
party correctly answered the question posed by history by saying: The
southern revolution must continue to follow the path of revolution and vio-
lence if we want to seize administrative power. We must move into the
offensive and launch uprisings and a guerrilla war. We must change from
simultaneous uprisings to revolutionary war. Imbued with the party line,
our ranks were singleminded. We were unanimous both in line and in action.
Our whole party, our entire people and all our armed forces acted along
this line.

In 1965 the United States sent its troops to massively invade the south;

it attacked the north with its air force and navy and repeatedly escalated
the war. Our friends worried about us. But we correctly assessed the
Americans' strong and weak points and actively and resolutely attacked

and defeated them. The lesson here clearly is that we must resort to
violence, develop our combined strength, carry out the offensive and solve
the question in an independent manner. As early as during the resistance
against the French, Comrade Truong Chinh pointed out: To attack is the
only effective way to annihilate the enemy. One does not fight the bandits
without attacking them.

We have applied the party's idea of strategic offensive in the building
and fighting of the People's Armed Forces. In building the armed forces
we have ceaselessly instilled the cadres and combatants with an undaunted
and brave revolutionary will, organized powerful armed forces in accordance
with the requirements for attacking the enemy and formulated an effective
military science and military offensive art under the conditions of a revo—
lutionary war waged by our people on our land.



and strong within the shortest possible time. They must strive to secure
assistance from the various state sectors and agencies and at the same
time positively contribute, together with these sectors and agencies, to
overcoming all difficulties so as to speed national construction.

The pressing requirements of national construction now demand that we mobil-
ize all forces, manpower and material resources for production. We must
utilize all facilities that can be used for economic construction. Our
army's property is the property of the state, of all our people. It is the
common property of our country. It must be mobilized as much as necessary
and as much as possible in support of the economic construction work. There-
fore, we must guard against and overcome all manifestations of departmental-
ism and regionalism and must avoid a situation in which our scanty and scat-
tered property is not rationally utilized and not properly maintained, thus
causing damage and losses.

We must conduct an accurate and correct inventory of our property. We must
properly maintain all property necessary for combat readiness, our army's
development and our strategic reserves. We must have plans for timely,
rational and efficient utilization of all that can be mobilized and uti-
lized--particularly material supplies and machinery--for economic work and
by the army's economic construction work force and the state.

[1430 GMT 8 Aug 77]

[Text] 4. Our Army Must Be a Big School That Contributes to Training
Youths Into New Socialist Men Who Fight and Produce Well

Previously, during the war, our army was a big school which fostered and
trained tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of youths to be combat-
ants with revolutionary consciousness and combat skills to meet our coun-
try's then most pressing requirement: to fight to liberate the nation and
advance to socialism. Now that we live in a peaceful period of national
construction and defense, our army has again been entrusted by the party

to serve as a large school which contributes to turning our youths into
new socialist men, stalwart combatants who defend the fatherland and are

at the same time outstanding workers enthusiastically building the country
and socialism. This task of our army is consistent with our country's
revolution in the new stage, with the aspirations of our cadres, combatants,
youths and people and with the requirements of building our army.

With our army doing economic work, every one of our youths, while discharg-
ing his military obligations, can not only improve his knowledge in the
military field but, through productive labor, acquire labor skills and
gradually improve his professional skills.

In the immediate future, most of our cadres and combatants will have to do
economic work under conditions in which manual labor still prevails. But

112



[1430 GMT 24 Jul 77]
[Text] Military Training and Combat Readiness

With regard to the nation as a whole, standing combat ready implies devel-
oping all potentialities of the country; building a strong economy, a power-
ful national defense and armed forces--comprised of regular and reserve
forces supported by a steadfast rear service; and devising a plan for rapid
transfer of the whole country from a peacetime to wartime status.

As far as the armed forces are concerned, standing combat-ready means
enhancing the fighting strength and combat readiness of various units in
many aspects; improving in political and organizational spheres, military
science and art, military training and construction of material and techni-
cal bases; insuring the support’ of the rear service; and being prepared to
frustrate all counterrevolutionary and aggressive activities. Let us now
discuss military training and the insurance of a combat-ready People's
Armed Force:

Military training must be properly carried out and become substantively
and qualitatively better on the basis of political and ideological educa~
tion. This must be achieved with the aim of creating an increasingly
steady combat capacity for each individual and unit, increasing the armed
forces' fighting strength and insuring that the armed forces maintain a
position of high combat readiness in order to defeat the enemy under all
circumstances. In this way the armed forces' combat strength and combat
readiness will remain steadfast.

Training is a very important subject--a central task in building the armed
forces during peacetime. In peacetime we must rapidly regularize and
systematize the training task and achieve training in a basic, systematic
and comprehensive manner in order to insure combat readiness. We should

not think that combat readiness cannot be insured when we approach the train-
ing task in a basic, systematic way and according to the regulations of a
regular army. When we carry out the training task in this way, we must

know how to keep it consistent with present combat readiness requirements.
Basic training must be coordinated with combat readiness training.

Because our army is rapidly developing into a regular and modern army, and
in order to be able to cope with future modern warfare, we must pay atten-
tion to new requirements and characteristics of training. Because the train-
ing of cadres and combatants in mastering modern equipment and techniques
has become a major problem, we must place high value on technical training
and closely coordinate technical training with tactical training, with
technical training as the basis. Since we must continue modernization of
our army, we must train and improve a large number of technical cadres and
personnel.

82



Methods play an important role in implementing any revolutionary task. In
revolutionary struggle and war, after a correct policy has been formulated,
methods for conducting revolution and methods for conducting warfare con-
stitute a direct factor in deciding victory. The same holds true in economic
construction. After the correct line and the objectives of struggle have
been worked out, methods for carrying out the task constitute a decisive
factor in achieving the set objectives. If our army carries out its work
according to’ the style of small-scale production, in a scattered and frag-
mentary manner, doing work purely at its own convenience and with low pro-
ductivity and poor quality, it can at best carry out simple production and
meet only part of its requirements and will be unable to make any significant
contributions to the state and society. On the contrary, if our army knows
how to develop its advantage of being a revolutionary military organization,
knows how to work according to the style of large-scale socialist production,
its vast work force will be able to create large quantities of products,

meet its essential requirements and meet the increasing requirements in
pbuilding a prosperous and strong country.

We are determined to carry out the party's policy of letting the army do
economic work. Of course, in the initial stages we will encounter diffi-
culties and lack experience as mentioned earlier, but we are confident that
we will be able to overcome step-by-step all these difficulties by our

own effort and creativity and with the assistance and cooperation of the
economic sectors.

At present and in the coming years, we can and must pay attention to satis-
factorily resolving a number of questions related to our army's economic
work. First, we must always follow closely both the short and long-range
state plans and the tasks that the state entrusts to the army; firmly grasp
the army's requirements and capabilities in the immediate and more distant
future; and, on this basis, formulate concrete objectives, steps, plans
and measures for the entire army and for each army unit. Each army unit
must also firmly grasp and develop the economic advantage of its respective
locality and closely coordinate with the local economies, In this way, our
entire army will work according to a unified, balanced and uniform plan
and work assignment, thus insuring cooperation among army agencies and
between the army and the state sectors.

We must always formulate plans on the basis of requirements and capabilities
for the immediate future--from 5 to 10 years--as well as for the more dis-
tant future--10 to 20 years. We must carry out our work in accordance with
actual realities while anticipating future developments. We must achieve
close coordination with the state economic sectors in the agricultural,
forestry, fishery, industrial, capital construction, communications, trans-
port, material supplies, trade, financial, and banking fields as well as
with local economic agencies of the provincial, municipal and district
administrations so as to insure mutual assistance and activities according
to a unified plan among the economic construction forces within and outside

108



The political task must be regulated and standardized. Functions, responsi-
pilities and rules of activities must be clearly defined for each echelon
and for each cadre and combatant performing political tasks. We must com-
plete and perfect the regulations pertaining to the political task and
satisfactorily organize their implementation so as to effectively and
uniformly implement the political task in the entire army and to gear it

to all the activities of the people's army.

We are in a better situation now to further develop the execution of polit-
ical tasks. We must take full advantage of modern technological facilities
to vigorously develop artistic activities so as to meet the ever greater
requirements in the spiritual life of our cadres and combatants. We must
base ourselves on the new requirements of the political task in building
political agencies and training and fostering the corps of cadres perform—
ing political tasks at all levels. Political cadres must be trained in a
basic, comprehensive, systematic and uniform manner. They must not only
possess political knowledge but military, economic and technological knowl-
edge. They must possess knowledge not only about social science but about
the natural sciences. They must have extensive knowledge of their own
armed services and branches and sound knowledge of the other armed services
and branches.

Regarding organized command, we must always observe the principle of collec-
tive leadership and that of the army unit chiefs' responsibility for organ-
izing the implementation of tasks so as to insure both collective leadership
by the party committee echelons as well as effective command by the army
unit concerned. Only by so doing can we insure close party leadership over
the army, insure rapid and timely command from the upper to the lower eche-
lons, insure unity in will and action throughout the army and fulfillment

of all tasks entrusted by the party and state regardless of circumstances.

In order to increase the efficiency of organized command, our army must
advance toward realizing the hierarchic system according to the party
Central Committee's regulations. This is a new task for our army. There-
fore, proper preparations must be made and, particularly, better prepara-
tions must be made concerning the corps of cadres and the fostering of
cadres’ qualities and skills in the military, political, logistic, cultural,
scientific and technical fields. We must understand that any cadre command-
ing an army unit is not merely the chief of this unit in the military aspect,
but must be a commander responsible for his unit's activities in all fields--
military, political, logistic and technical. He must exercise leadership

in combat, military training, political training as well as economic con-
struction. Of course, he must be assisted by the comrades in charge of

each respective field.

We must continue to regulate our army's activities in all fields according

to a uniform system of rules and regulations. This is one of the pressing
questions in stepping up our army's standardization. It is also a firm

93



4. The Militia, Self-Defense and Reserve Forces

We must have a correct viewpoint on the development of our entire country
as well as of each locality over the next several decades so as to correctly
resolve problems related to the building of our militia and self-defense
forces as they are the armed forces of the masses and are closely connected
with production and the process of building large-scale socialist produc-
tion, the socialist collective ownership system and a new culture and the
process of building and developing new-type socialist men. Therefore, the
building of the militia and self-defense forces must be based on the achieve-
ments scored during the course of carrying out three revolutions, the in-
creased population, the shaping of a new economic structure in the entire
country as well as in each locality and grassroots unit, the division of
labor in the national economic sectors and the redistribution of the work
force throughout the country. This work must be aimed at meeting require-—
ments in peacetime as well as in wartime. Any future war for the defense
of our socialist fatherland will not be an armed uprising type or like the
last liberation war. We must follow closely the developmental steps in
carrying out the socialist revolution and building socialism throughout

the country in each locality and grassroots unit so that we will constantly
be able to positively and promptly resolve new problems arising from the
tasks of building the militia, self-defense and reserve forces.

In peacetime, the militia and self-defense forces must be combat-ready to
defend the localities and serve as an assault force in production. There-
fore, we must develop the strength of military organizations engaged in
production so as to achieve high productivity, particularly on the agricul-
tural front where outstanding progress must be made. Many localities have
been able to achieve this end. The militia and self-defense forces must
take part in maintaining public order and security in the localities and
production installations. In wartime these forces, together with the
regional force, serve as the core of our entire people's force in the

fight to defend the localities. Considering this weighty task, the militia
and self-defense forces must be up to proper numerical strength. In the
northern provinces, only after a long period of peaceful construction and
a long war against the United States under the socialist system do we

have a large number of quality militia and self-defense corpsmen. In the
southern provinces, the militia and self-defense forces and militia guer-
rilla force were built during the war for national salvation and since the
complete liberation of the south. We are confident that, with our compa-
triots' patriotism and love of socialism, and after various steps in behalf
of socialist reform and construction and the building and consolidation of
the political base among the masses in the urban and rural areas, we will
be able gradually to enlarge the contingent of our militia and self-defense
forces and to improve their quality so as to create the harmonious and
uniform development of the armed forces of the masses throughout the
country.

61



On what basis should we presently build our military organization? We must
thoroughly comprehend the revolutionary policies and tasks set forth by the
Fourth Party Congress; firmly grasp the party's policy of upholding the
banner of national independence and socialism; develop the combined strength
and apply the concept of offensive strategy in the new stage. We must use
our nation's and the world's conditions and situation at present and in the
next several decades as our basis in the process of socialist revolution
and socialist building. We must correctly observe the rules of armed strug-
gle and predict combat targets and the enemy's schemes, tricks and methods
of waging war. We must use the ever-growing military art and methods of
conducting a future people's war as our basis for defending our fatherland
should such a war occur. We must also take into account the future devel-
opment of military science and technology.

I am going to present questions regarding our military organization:
1. National Military Organization System

On the basis of the present military organization we must build a truly
scientific and effective military organization system throughout the coun-
try from the central level to the military regions, armed services and
branches, army units and localities so as to form a unified organizational
system under strict leadership and command. Every battlefield and unit
must be capable of launching coordinated and independent attacks against
the enemy under any war situation. We must organize our military regions
into large, well-prepared battlefields and develop the advantages of every
battlefield in order to wipe out the enemy and defend our country. We must
organize our 35 provinces and three municipalities subordinate to the cen-
tral level into 38 strategic units of our all-people's national defense in
peacetime, units of people's warfare organized under ‘the new conditions
for defense of our fatherland on the basis of building the provinces into
industrial-agricultural-economic units with large-scale socialist produc-
tion. We must organize the nearly 500 districts into mighty fortresses on
a widespread and firm battleground where they will be able to launch vio-
lent attacks against the enemy, defend their own localities and coordinate
attacks with other localities (on the basis of building the district into
an agricultural-industrial structure and an economic-national defense unit).

We must organize strong detachments in the more than 10,000 villages and
form both on-the-spot and mobile forces at the grassroots units capable

of launching violent attacks against the enemy and directly protecting
production installations and the lives and property of our people and
state. The nucleus of this military force is a strong regular, modern
standing army consisting of the necessary armed services and branches with
great fighting strength. This is a unified, uniform and balanced military
organization system under closely coordinated leadership and command com-
pining the strength of all our people throughout the country for strong
defense of our fatherland.

57



country. The same holds true for our people's wars of resistance against
the French and the Americans. As the scale of the war of resistance against
the Americans grew, the scale of organization of the main force troops and
the scale of concentration of the military forces in the last, decisive
battles became larger. This is the general rule for all wars. Therefore,
we must strive to build the main force troops and organize them into
increasingly larger strategic mobile units capable of waging large strate-
gic extermination battles so as to successfully end the war.

In Vietnam armed uprisings developed into a liberation war that was con-
stantly linked to armed uprisings, and that developed the people's war

to a higher level. Therefore, not only the main force troops fought the
enemy and not only the army--which consisted of the main force and regional
force--fought the enemy, but all of our people fought the enemy. We fought
the enemy not only on a certain battlefield, but our entire people fought
the enemy in many places, on the front and in the rear, in any place in
our sacred fatherland where the enemy was. Only by so doing could we mobil-
ize the forces of all of our people and our entire country and create the
combat strength of an entire nation to fight and defeat the wars of aggres—
sion waged by brutal enemies of great numerical strength equipped with
modern weapons. Therefore, in Vietnam today, we must build the main-force
troops, the regional force and the militia and self-defense forces so as
to meet the requirements of that rule of people's war.

[1430 GMT 8 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] We affirm not only the necessity of organizing the three categories
of troops but also the necessity of clearly determining their roles, posi-
tions and effects. We must base ourselves on the requirements, the actual
conditions, and the development of the actual situation in each period,
throughout the country as well as in each locality, to build these troop
categories accordingly.

The militia and self-defense forces are the masses' armed forces, the
largest force that is not diverted from production and that is organized

in all production units, organs, schools, enterprises and cooperatives in
all urban and rural areas. A tool to defend the party and the people's
administration at the grassroots level, they are placed under the direct,
overall leadership of the grassroots party committees and party chapters
and directly commanded by grassroots military organs under the guidance of
higher military level organs. They form a stable, strong and widespread
force throughout the country that is ready to fight the enemy with all types
of available weapons from rudimentary to modern. They serve as the core
for the people's war at the grassroots level. In the liberation war their
role was to launch widespread attacks to decimate and wipe out enemy troops,
to serve as a source for replenishing the standing army, to coordinate
attacks with and support the combat troops and to support the political
struggle movement of the masses at the grassroots level in the areas

19



develop and build the military science and art of people's warfare, and
defend our fatherland with modern weapons and equipment.

We must affirm the strong points of our army so as to gain more confidence
and must strive to develop these strong points in order to advance our
People's Armed Forces rapidly, vigorously and steadily in the new stage.
We must also correctly assess the limited capabilities of our People's
Armed Forces and contingent of cadres that prevent us from keeping up with
the new tasks and requirements and must do our utmost, follow the correct
direction and correctly resolve vital problems so as to further improve
the fighting strength of our People's Armed Forces.

[1430 GMT 28 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] The political and military tasks of the revolution, the People's
Armed Forces' tasks in the new stage, the specific conditions and circum-
stances in our country and the rest of the world, including the projected
requirements for a possible future war and for the present realities of
our People's Armed Forces, constitute a basis on which the tasks, orienta-
tions and substance of the building of the People's Armed Forces in the
new stage can be determined. By analyzing the aforementioned factors we
can briefly provide guidance which must be grasped during the course of
building the People's Armed Forces.

A--The task of building the People's Armed Forces must be imbued with the
socialist revolutionary line put forth by the Fourth Party Congress. This
task must be viewed within the context of national construction and must
closely coordinate the tasks of maintaining combat readiness and building
the economy. This strongly reflects the working-class nature of our army
and the party's understanding of leadership over our armed forces in the
new revolutionary stage. We must firmly grasp the party's lines for
socialist revolution in the new stage, economic construction, military
tasks, scientific and technological development and foreign relations. In
pbuilding the armed forces, only by grasping the contents of the party's
revolutionary lines can we correctly resolve questions concerning political,
moral and organizational orientations and substance, and questions on educa-
tion and training of the new-type man, and build a material-technical base
which is compatible with successful development of the socialist revolution
and socialist construction throughout the country.

First of all we must grasp the party's line of upholding the banner of
national independence and socialism and the party's revolutionary offensive
spirit in the new stage. Today, national independence and socialism have
merged. Consequently, the objective of our armed forces' struggle must be
to protect and build the socialist Vietnamese fatherland and thus contrib-
ute to the cause of revolution and peace for the world's people. Our armed
forces must develop their victorious mettle and revolutionary offensive
spirit so that, together with all the people, they advance the socialist

48



We must learn all this selectively and with a critical mind. We must know
how to apply what we learn creatively and not mechanically.

D--In building the armed forces we must correctly resolve the relationship
between the immediate and long-term requirements of the revolutionary tasks
on the one hand and the capabilities of the army and the country on the
other. We must envisage the impact which gradual development and forward
leaps of the revolution has on the building of the armed forces.

The guidelines for building the armed forces and the army at present must
respond to both the immediate and long-term requirements. We must be fully
aware of these requirements and must know how to skillfully coordinate them
in order to meet them now. We will be deluded if we fail to see fully the
immediate situation. But if we see only what is in front of us but not
what lies ahead, our vision will be restricted. Only by looking at the
basic, long-term requirements can we formulate appropriate guidance and
methods for immediate tasks.

We have a long-term project which is the orientation for building the
country over the next 20 years, and we have an immediate project which is
the five-year plan developed by the Fourth Party Congress. We must use
these projects to study long-term guidelines for building the army. From
these guidelines we will carry out the short-term tasks of each year or
each five-year period in building the army.

In building the People's Armed Forces we must consider both our require-
ments and capabilities. As mentioned above, we must proceed from our
requirements and tasks while considering our capabilities. In doing so we
must always think of the greatest possible capabilities resulting from our
people's, cadres’ and fighters' most thoroughgoing revolutionary spirit,
strongest offensive will and most positive character. We must not lower
the requirements just because of difficulties. Naturally we must not set
requirements that exceed our realistic capabilities, either. We shall be
able to meet these immediate and future requirements because they stem
from the realistic capabilities of our People's Armed Forces and our coun-
try's revolution at present and in the coming years.

Our People's Armed Forces now have many strong points which can further
strengthen combat readiness for national defense and productive labor for
national construction. Our People's Armed Forces still have limited capa-
pilities in certain areas. However, under new circumstances and conditions
we will certainly be able to overcome them. We must always grasp the con-
cept of dialectical development. We should not look at things in their
stationary condition but must always consider their dynamism.

You comrades must look further ahead and must have a most revolutionary

spirit and scientific attitude. You must see the close connection and
interrelation between our country's revolution and the revolutionary

52



At present, there are a number of cadres, including high-ranking cadres,

who still have an inadequate understanding of this problem. Our party and
armed forces are very concerned with the formation and improvement of cadres.
However, each cadre must have a high level of determination to train and
improve himself so as to be able to fulfill all the tasks they assign.

As for the organizational aspect, we must have a plan and create conditions
for all cadres to conduct self-study. This must be regarded as a responsi-
bility of the organization, upper echelons and various organs. In addition,
it is necessary to develop other forms of study, including correspondence
courses, in order to raise the cadres' level of knowledge.

The more our armed forces advance toward a regular, modern army, the more
the specialized and technical branches will have to develop and the greater
the need for technical cadres will be. Thus we must develop the training
capability of armed forces schools while depending on the assistance of

the state colleges for training specialized and technical cadres for the
armed forces.

The armed forces schools must perform research so as to form cadres able
to satisfactorily implement their tasks in the armed forces, worthy of
being the party's cadres in the armed forces and ready to assume other
tasks entrusted by the party.

We should study the proposed amendment to the law governing officers’ mil-
itary service so that it will be consistent with the situation and tasks
in the new revolutionary stage. We must pay attention to building a very
good contingent of reserve cadres in compliance with the requirements for
complementing and enlarging the forces of a regular, modern army. To this
end, we must properly manage the demobilization of military personnel,
coordinate the colleges and vocational middle schools with the various
economic sectors, properly build the reserve cadre contingent and attach
importance to the contingent of scientific cadres and workers and special-
ized and technical personnel. We must have proper systems of registration,
management, training and mobilization so as to insure that mobilization
work is achieved in the fastest time possible when necessary.

We must positively concern ourselves with the cadres’ material and spiritual
life. The armed forces' cadres as well as the contingent of cadres in
general are a valuable asset of the party and state. The cadres' tasks are
very great. Due to two fierce wars, the majority of our cadres' health

has deteriorated, so we must concentrate on improving their health and
create favorable conditions for them to enjoy better food, housing, travel
and recreation in accordance with the capability for economic development.
We must make positive efforts in organizational work to help our cadres
save time in their daily activities so that they can further their studies.
We must have a correct and rational policy regarding retired cadres.

81



{1430 GMT 6 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] During the anti-French war of resistance our party led our people
in waging the war of resistance while building the country, eliminating
hunger, wiping out illiteracy, exterminating foreign aggressors and striv-
ing to develop the economy during the resistance period so as to strengthen
our people's force, bolster the capacity to wage the war and develop the
revolutionary armed forces.

Our party gradually carried out the agrarian policy and then conducted
agrarian reform during wartime, abolishing the landlords' right to appro-
priate ricefields and land and giving ricefields and land back to the peas-
ants. It established labor exchanges and cooperative teams, wiped out
illiteracy and developed the people's democratic culture. Thus, a large
peasants' force was activated, the worker-peasant alliance further strength-
ened, the people's united front developed and the people-army combat spirit
heightened. In addition, production was stepped up and the economy and cul-
ture during the resistance period further developed to meet the increasingly
greater requirements of the war of resistance. It was on the basis of these
changes that our People's Armed Forces enjoyed favorable conditions for
vigorously increasing their numerical strength and their quality, received
increasingly better supplies that enabled them to wage ever bigger campaigns,
vigorously developed both conventional and guerrilla warfare and, together
with all our people, brought the anti-French war of resistance to a success-

ful conclusion.

The realities of the people's war waged by our people against the war of
aggression carried out by the French colonialists prove that the strength
of the people's democratic regime--which was strengthened more and more in
accordance with the party's correct revolutionary line--was necessary for
successfully building the revolutionary armed forces and for winning the
anti-French war of resistance, a victory that led to complete liberation of
the north. Therefore, we can say that the victory in the anti-French war
of resistance was also a victory of the people's democratic regime.

The great victory in the sacred war of resistance waged for the first time
under our party's leadership led to an extremely important event in our
people's development, namely the establishment of the socialist regime with
a socialist state in the northern part of our country. After completion
of the agrarian reform the north entered a period of socialist transforma-
tion and construction, exploitation of man by man was abolished and social-
ist production relations were established. For the first time in our
people's history the laboring people in one-half of our country were free
of class oppression and became masters in society. The modern socialist
economy was gradually built. Patriotism, love for socialism and the labor-
ing people's sense of collective ownership have been constantly heightened.
The all-people unity bloc, with a new class structure--the working class,
the collectivized peasantry and the socialist intelligentsia--with the

14



A. Organization of three categories of troops;
B. Weapons, equipment and the material-technological base;

C. Development of military science and art and the study of military
science and technology;

D. Training of outstanding revolutionary soldiers and the building of a
contingent of cadres;

E. Military training and combat readiness; and

F. Building the army politically and organizing leadership and command.
[1430 GMT 3 Jul 77 OW]

[Text] A. Organization of Three Categories of Troops

Organization is of extreme importance. President Ho Chi Minh stated long
ago that we must have a very firm, stable organization in order to success—
fully carry out revolution. (Nguyen Ai Quoc: "The Revolutionary Path")
Comrade Le Duan said: Once we have a correct line and policy, organization
plays the decisive role. He added: To advance from the theoretical to the
practical stage we must experience the organizational stage. Organization
is an instrument, a means for translating thought into actions and reality.
Therefore, once we have a correct orientation for building the armed forces
we must become well-organized in order to carry out our activities in the
desired direction. Good organization will create the greatest combined
strength. Quality increases in direct proportion with quantity and tremen-
dous progress is expected.

Organization is a science with objective rules which do not depend on any
subjectivity. In regard to armed forces, organization is a science combin-
ing human strength with the power of weapons and equipment, with the human
strength as the decisive factor. We must have an appropriate organization
in order to fully develop manpower and arms power and to create the great-
est strength to defeat the enemy. The state military apparatus must be
organized and its activities must be carried out in accordance with the rules
of future armed struggle. Therefore our army's cadres must firmly grasp
the objective rules in order to continually make their organizations com-
patible with these rules and develop the real and potential strength of all
their organizations’ component factors. We must correctly predict situa-
tional developments, resolve specific organizational problems on a timely
basis and create a strong organization capable of facing any situation so

as to accelerate the development of events. Otherwise, extreme sluggish-
ness and conservatism will result. Thus, it has been said that organiza-
tion plays the most important role in a revolution as well as in preserva-
tion of conservatism. (Le Duan: "Some Questions About Cadres and Organiza-
tion in Socialist Revolution")

56



The experiences mentioned hereafter are those which originate in the funda-
mental spirit of the great lessons which the Fourth Party Congress decided

— to apply in gathering together the experiences in building the People's
Armed Forces. We should grasp the spirit of the great lessons of the revo-
lution so as to study and accumulate all experiences in building the People's
Armed Forces in the past and apply them in building the armed forces at
present.

First Experience

In building the People's Armed Forces in any period, we must thoroughly
comprehend the correct, independent, sovereign and creative political and
military lines of the party so as to contribute in the best way to satis~
factorily implementing them.

This is the most basic lesson embracing all spheres of construction and com-
bat of our armed forces. The party's leadership and revolutionary line
decide the revolutionary character, direction and content of building the
armed forces politically as well as in other aspects: organization, equip-
ment, military science, military tactics and study of military technique.

Our armed forces, organized and led by the party, serve as an instrument
of violence for the party and must cooperate with all the people in imple-
menting the party's revolutionary line. All activities of our People's
Armed Forces in combat as well as in construction, and in the military as
well as political and other fields, must be grasped and aimed at realizing
the party's revolutionary line. This is a concentrated manifestation of
comprehension of the principle according to which party leadership over
the armed forces must be absolute and direct in every aspect and must com-
ply with the party's line for building the armed forces. This also involves
the principle of proletarian military science according to which the mil-
| itary must be subordinate to the political.

Thus, in building the People's Armed Forces in any period, the party's revo-
lutionary line must be followed and the revolutionary tasks set forth by
the party must be satisfactorily fulfilled. If we do not grasp this prob-
lem, or if we grasp it inadequately, we will commit errors regarding direc-
tion and principle, and the fighting strength of the People's Armed Forces

| will be affected.

of holding high the banner of national independence and socialism. This
line reflects the great truth of the present era as pointed out by Pres-
ident Ho Chi Minh: To save the country and liberate the nation there is
no way other than the proletarian revolutionary path. Only socialism and
communism can liberate the oppressed peoples and laborers in the world from
the yoke of slavery. This line is like a red thread running through the
entire history of the Vietnamese revolution since the emergence of the
party, the ever victorious banner of the Vietnamese revolution. With this
basic line, the party has correctly solved a series of strategic and

First of all, our People's Armed Forces must comprehend the party's line

-~3-



situation, thereby creating a firm basis for building our national defense
force; study the characteristics of the wars that may occur in our country
and determine the nature and major causes of these wars as well as the
conditions in which they may occur; and find out their major characteristics
and promptly resolve questions arising during the course of building our
all-people's national defense and our People's Armed Forces.

3. Attach importance to studying questions of military science and tech-
nology. Follow the current development of the scientific-technological
revolution in the world--particularly in the field of military science and
technology--in order to resolve questions involving the immediate and long-
range tasks of building a national defense industry and, at the same time,
contribute to the tasks of building the national economy. We must formu-
late and perfect a long-range plan for studying military science and
technology.

4. Compile combat ordinances and regulations involving the staff, polit-
ical, logistic, technological and economic tasks of the army and of each
armed service and branch and documents regarding the regional military
tasks and the building of and combat tasks of the militia and self-defense
forces.

In order to insure satisfactory fulfillment of the aforesaid tasks of mil-
itary science study, we must accord the right position to the task of
studying military science; exercise a more concentrated leadership over

this task; and streamline and strengthen the agencies for studying military
science and art at all levels, sectors, and armed services and branches,

to make them compatible with the position of the military science task in
the new stage. We must develop the mandatory subjects and step by step
build and perfect such military science and art subjects as those concern—
ing general discourses about the people's war in defense of the fatherland,
military science, economy, history and geography, leadership science and
military pedagogy science. We must attach importance to pbuilding and train-
ing a contingent of military science cadres who have a basic theoretical
knowledge, firmly grasp the party's political and military lines and have

a penetrating professional knowledge about the essential sectors. We must
positively train and foster the existing cadre force and, at the same time,
take measures for urgently training the next batch of cadres. We must
apply many methods for effectively inducing the army's cadres and combatants
and the cadres of scientific sectors outside the army to contribute to
developing military science and art and studying military technology.

[1430 GMT 21 Jul 77]

[Text] Elementary and Advanced Training of Outstanding Revolutionary
Military Men and the Shaping of a Contingent of Cadres

In shaping a new type of men in the army--that is, outstanding revolution-
ary men--it must be remembered that men are the most precious asset and

73



We must now gradually build a modern national defense industry while
striving to maintain the continued assistance of fraternal countries so as
to solve our armed forces' problems of material and technical bases. To
increase the combat strength of our People's Armed Forces, we must also
correctly determine the troop organization structure, the scale of this
organization and the specific form of organization of our armed forces

in each period.

[1430 GMT 11 Jun 77 ow]

[Text] In intensifying the combat strength of our armed forces our party
has attached particular importance to creatively developing and building

a unique military art of the Vietnamese people's war in the new era. This
is of tremendous importance for our People's Armed Forces, because we fought
a war in conditions in which our army's numerical strength, military equip-
ment and economic and military potential were inferior to the enemy's. We
had to independently and creatively devise our combat methods.

One characteristic of our military art is that it is an art of the prole-
tariat, a Marxist-Leninist military art in Vietnam which was formed and
developed in the process of armed uprisings and revolutionary wars in our
country.

As Engels predicted, the proletariat's liberation will be manifested
militarily. It will lead to the emergence of a new military science, the
proletarian military science. Our military art has inherited and developed
our people's valuable military heritage to a new level, with a new content.
It is a product of the people's democratic and national revolution and the
socialist revolution in our country under our party's leadership. It has
assimilated the essence of the new era. Our military art has developed

on the basis of the correct, independent, sovereign and creative political
and military lines of our party.

Our party's political and military lines determine the creative develop-
ment of our military art which, conversely, insures implementation of our
party's political and military lines, helps concretize them in the actual
success of armed uprisings and revolutionary wars and helps achieve our
party's revolutionary objectives. An example of this is that the line,
task and methods of the revolution in the south--coordinating political
struggles with armed uprisings and uprisings with warfare in all three
strategic areas, and so forth--determined the direction of development of
our military art: that is, armed struggles had to be closely coordinated
with the masses' uprisings and combat methods had to be devised for the
three categories of troops in the mountainous regions, rural areas, the
delta and the cities. This creative development of our military art, in
turn, exerted its impact to insure the stepping up of the revolution and
revolutionary war in accordance with the party's revolutionary methods,
and led to success.

28



{1430 GMT 10 Jul 77 OW)

[Text] Another noteworthy point is that we must know how to apply offensive
strategy in defending and building our fatherland. Upon entering a new
revolutionary stage following their latest victory, our people must take
advantage of their victories to advance, launch an offensive against and
eliminate poverty and backwardness, build a prosperous and strong country
and continue making positive contributions to the world people's revolu-
tionary undertaking.

Our people's great revolutionary undertaking in the struggle to eliminate
poverty and backwardness and to build a prosperous and strong country is
closely related to our military tasks--a prosperous country with a strong,
stable national defense and powerful armed force is a deterrent to any
aggressive power. Only if our country is prosperous and strong can we
contribute to increasing the strength of the socialist system and of the
three revolutionary currents which are vigorously developing their offen-
sive against imperialism.

In the past liberation war, we creatively applied the offensive strategy
concept--fighting even though barehanded, building our armed forces on a
political base, and advancing from revolutionary struggle to armed strug-
gle. As our country was under foreign domination and our national economy
was poor and backward, our armed forces and people conducted a protracted
war under extremely harsh conditions and suffered considerable losses and
sacrifices in order to achieve victory. We must clearly perceive our
country's poverty and backwardness so as to--together with all of our
people--positively build a prosperous and strong country, which will serve
as the basis for the building of our People's Armed Forces.

Many important questions--ones to which we must apply our military science
and art--regarding the task of consolidating our national defense and the
war for the defense of our fatherland are closely related to our economy,
economic construction, and the increase of our country's potential in
every field. We know that the state of production forces, industry and
science and the expansion of the population have an impact on the produc-
tion of equipment, weapons and on the army's numerical strength, thereby
influencing the army organization and military art. Engels said: All
the army's organizations and combat methods or, in other words, the vic~
tories and defeats in war, obviously depend on material conditions--

that is, on economic matters.

In the next several decades, with increasing progress in the struggle to
eliminate poverty and backwardness, we will have a different economy from
that of the present. Therefore, all of our scientific predictions about
the methods of conducting a war and strategic principles must be made on
this new basis. In order to build a military service and art for defending
our fatherland, we must make accurate predictions about the enemy's schemes

71



we will be able to rely on the militia and self-defense forces and the
regional troops of the provinces, cities and districts and on the all-round
strength of the agricultural-industrial economy of the districts and the
industrial-agricultural economy of the provinces to turn the nearly 500
districts of the whole country into bastions of socialism and turn the
country's 35 provinces and 3 municipalities under the central level into
strategic units of the all-people national defense in peacetime or in a
possible people's war for the defense of the fatherland should the enemy
invade our country. These are major problems which we must gradually and
creatively resolve in our current regional military tasks in accordance
with the development of economic construction and national construction in
the regions.

During peacetime, no matter how strong the standing force may be, the
reserve force cannot be as large as during wartime. That is why we must
have a really powerful reserve force with large numbers and high quality,
a force ready to meet the requirements for expanding the armed forces
levied by a future war. The reserve force must meet the requirements for
expanding the branches and services of the regular and modern people's
army. It includes millions of reserve combatants belonging to the militia
and self-defense forces in various localities; hundreds of thousands of
reserve officers and noncommissioned officers and technical cadres, and
personnel belonging to different sectors of the national economy and
agencies of the proletarian dictatorship system.

Due to the requirements for expanding the strength of technical branches
and services, the composition of technical cadres and personnel and
officers, noncommissioned officers and combatants possessing specialized
technical knowledge must increase with every passing day. The powerful
development of the sectors of the national economy will further increase
both the numbers and quality of this contingent and will help it acquire
all required skills so that it may be mobilized into the army when
necessary.

We must rely on the training by the various sectors of the national econ-
omy, state agencies, colleges, vocational middle schools and trade schools
to build and organize a reserve force to meet these requirements. The
reserve force must be well trained, tightly organized and managed and sci-
entifically recruited so that we will be able to mobilize it as quickly
as possible and to use each person according to his specialty and profes-
sional skill when the occasion arises. The training, organization and
management of the reserve force must be regulated by a system and state
law requiring strict compliance by all persons and organizations.

We are applying the system of peacetime military obligation coordinated
with the system of the army engaging in economic work. We must study

and supplement the military obligation law and the systems and policies
necessary for troops recruitment and military discharge, thus further dis-
ciplining the implementation of military obligation. On the other hand,

64



Since we are now at peace, a major part of the regular troops is engaged

in economic construction to contribute to building the country. The mil-
itary strength of the socialist state depends on the strength of the regular
troops. Each troop category has an important role and its own strategic
position, and develops its own functions, thus creating a vigorous, harmo-
nious development for the entire People's Armed Forces.

Only when the militia and self-defense forces were strong were we able to
scatter the enemy forces and attack them everywhere, thus creating favor-
able conditions for fighting by the regional and regular troops. Conversely,
only when the regular troops were strong, inflicting big annihilation blows
on the enemy, were we able to unsettle them and cause them heavy losses,
thus creating conditions for pushing forward the guerrilla warfare and
people's warfare in the regions and basic areas. Only when the three cat-
egories of troops were strong could we create a seething sea of fire in
the people's war, burning any aggressive enemy. That is why we had to
build all the three categories of troops in a balanced manner and insure
the intensification of both the regular warfare and the guerrilla and peo-
ple's warfare in the regions and basic areas, incessantly developing the
revolutionary war, bringing about great developments in the war situation
and advancing toward total victory. We had to insure sufficient replenish-
ment of the regular troops while insuring strong militia and self-defense
forces.

During the progress of the war the rapid development of the regular troops
was necessary but it was not advisable for us to concentrate all our efforts
on building the regular troops at the expense of regional troops and militia
and self-defense forces, thus weakening the people's warfare in the regions
and basic areas, which would have adversely affected the activities of the
regular troops. It was not advisable, either, to be slow in building the
regular troops, which would have delayed the advance toward fighting big
annihilation battles and prevented us from bringing about a change in the
balance of forces and war situation in a manner favorable to us, and this
would not have stepped up the activities of the regional troops and militia
and self-defense forces.

The organization of each category of troops had to be compatible with the
requirements of the tasks in each stage of the revolution, with the char-
acteristics of the situation and with the operating conditions in each
area and each period. The organization of the militia and self-defense
forces was linked to the organization of production, proceeding in accord-
ance with the development of the organization and scale of production.

According to specific circumstances, the militia and self-defense forces
could be enlarged to the size of platoons and companies and even to bat-
talions and regiments. The troops at the district, province, military
region and ministry levels had to be appropriately organized according to
each period. In the enemy's rear, when the revolutionary base and the
militia guerrilla force was still small and the regional troops were still

21



Our army is a revolutionary and proletarian army. Not only does it have
the function of waging combat but it also has the function of mobilizing
the masses and engaging in production. The prominence of any function in
a given period is determined by the political task of the party and not

by the military organization itself. Prior to the August Revolution, during
the period of preparation for the armed insurrection, as the function of
mobilizing the masses and fighting became prominent, the liberation army
units and the other armed units of the party then mobilized and organized
the masses while fighting to annihilate the enemy and proselyting among
enemy troops. During the resistance against the French and the Americans,
when the entire country was fighting, the combat function of the army again
became prominent. The army had to concentrate on fighting to liberate the
nation while also performing the function of mobilizing the masses and
production.

Now that our fatherland is independent and that the central task of the
entire party and the entire people is to build a prosperous and strong
country, naturally the army cannot merely maintain combat readiness, but
it must also produce on a large scale, considering it to be its strategic
task and most important political task. At the same time it still has to
perform the task of propagandizing among and mobilizing the masses.

This is also Marxism-Leninism's concept on building the armed forces. The
founders of Marxism-Leninism gave much thought to combining the building

of the proletarian army with production so that is most advantageous for

the economy. This question is posed not only for the economic goal but

also for the political goal. Its purpose is to constantly link the new-type
army of the new social regime to the working class and the laboring masses,
with production and the people's life. When conditions exist, such as
during peaceful construction, we must strive to link the army with production
and must build and use the army in a manner most advantageous to the economy.

The people's army is a part of the state of the proletarian dictatorship.
This state has two basic facets, namely, violence on the one hand and
organization and construction on the other, in which the organization and
construction facet plays a basic and decisive role. Thus, the question of
the army maintaining combat readiness while engaging in economic construc~
tion is not a temporary affair to be pursued over the next 5 or 6 years,
but it is a question that belongs to our army's basic and long-term polit-
ical task in the period of peaceful construction and defense of the father-
land, a question that pertains to the nature of the revolutionary army.

To pose the question in such a manner is compatible with the law of devel-
opment, maturity and growth of our army, with its nature, function and
political task in the new stage, with the situation of our country and
with our army's real capabilities.

To pose the question in such a manner is to manifest the revolutionary
offensive spirit in the new stage, the spirit of advancing to eliminate

38



2. Armed Services and Branches of the People's Army

During peacetime conditions we must maintain a reasonable number of troops
consistent with the current situation in order to fulfill the tasks of both
building the economy and being combat-ready to deal violent counterblows
against the enemy from the outset should he wage a war of aggression against
our country. We must continue to step up the building of our people's army
into a regular, modern force and build the necessary armed services and
branches (Fourth Party Congress resolution) in accordance with our country's
overall capability in the process of carrying out socialist industrializa-
tion; we must do this so that the army's level of modernization will in-
crease at the same pace as that of many other countries' armies in order

to fulfill the requirements for defending and building our country in
peacetime and to be ready to fight and defeat any aggressors under any war
situation, even conditions in which the enemy uses ultramodern weapons.

I am not going into details on the question of building our armed services
and branches, but will concentrate on the role of a number of our armed
services and branches under our national situation.

Army--The army, our main armed service, must continue to modernize, contain
the necessary armed branches, have strong firepower, be capable of launch-
ing violent attacks and be highly mobile and well trained (on the basis of
consolidating and enhancing the fighting strength and combat support capa-
pilities of the armed branches--infantry, artillery, armored, sapper and
engineering forces, signal corps, chemical and transportation forces).

Our armed branches might develop further in the future. Considering com-
bat requirements in a future war and our capabilities, the organizational
scale of our army will certainly be further developed. No matter how large
this organizational scale may be, we must attach importance to building
strong divisions, companies and grassroots units.

Air force--The air force, a very powerful force, must have a high standard
of combat readiness in order to defend our airspace and national sover-
eignty. Should a future war occur, air force will have to launch coordi-
nated attacks with the other armed services as well as independent attacks.
The air force has a very important reconnaissance and transport task, which
it is highly capable of rapidly discharging. Although our air force is
still young, it gained experience in the fight against the modern U.S. air
force and navy and, together with the air-defense force of our three cate-
gories of troops and all of our people, fought and defeated both U.S.
tactical and strategic air forces under varied complicated circumstances.
Our air force's contingent of cadres has matured in combat and gained much
valuable experience. Our material-technological means, which we procured
ourselves and seized from the enemy, help improve the conditions for devel-
oping our air force so it can increase its fighting strength and fulfill
all the tasks entrusted to it.

58



In the anti-American resistance, with the party's correct political and
military lines and with the firm determination that "as long as there is

a single aggressor in our country we must fight on to sweep him away,"

our armed forces and people, by accepting innumerable sacrifices to defeat
the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen, upheld revolutionary heroism.
They carried out the second sacred resistance with earth-shaking mettle and
a phenomenal strength unfathomable to the enemy. This was the fundamental
factor that created the invincible strength of the people's war in our
country.

To affirm the role of the political and moral factors is also to affirm
the role of man in war. Naturally when we speak of man we have to deal
with the political, moral and organizational aspects as well as the capacity
of using weapons and technique. However, the political factor is always
the most basic one to which the moral factor is connected. Man is always
a member of a certain class, a certain nation. To examine a man we must
first of all consider his political and social aspects according to the
viewpoint of historic materialism. To us, man is the revolutionary man.
He is the masses of the working people led by the vanguard class. He has
revolutionary will and capacity and resolutely fights for the revolution—
ary cause of the Vietnamese working class and people.

We must correctly understand our party's view on the role of man and the
role of the political, moral, material and technical factors. Both the
political and moral factors are important in combat as well as in construc—
tion, in war as well as in peacetime. In the defense and peaceful recon-
struction of our fatherland, our cadres and fighters must ceaselessly
uphold their revolutionary consciousness and socialist consciousness, their
socialist patriotism, their proletarian internationalism and their combative
spirit.

No matter what task we are engaged in--training, maintaining combat readi-
ness, building the economy--we must first of all have correct political
orientation, high revolutionary consciousness, firm fighting spirit and
a determined-to-fight-and-win will and must manifest these fine political
qualities in our actions. We must seek all means to ceaselessly improve
our knowledge and develop our intelligence and creativity to successfully
fulfill all tasks given to us. This is the view on the position of the
political and moral factors as well as of other factors in the close and
inseparable connection among all the factors that make up the combined
strength of our People's Armed Forces in the past, at present and for
always in the future.

[1430 GMT 10 Jun 77 OW]
[Text] Thoroughly comprehending the party's line and viewpoint of build-

ing the armed forces, we have scored very great successes in building our
armed forces politically. A striking success is that we have:

24



and have certain limitations in terms of conditions for political and mil-
itary training, we must provide even better guidance in study and training.
We must coordinate with mass organizations, general schools, colleges and
vocational middle schools in providing political training for the militia
and self-defense forces. In the newly liberated provinces, political and
military training for these forces must be rapidiy regulated. We must
constantly bear in mind that under any circumstances, our armed forces
must be trustworthy forces, be stable and strong politically, and be worthy
of being the instrument of force of our party and people.

In order to thoroughly comprehend the party's direct, absolute and compre-
hensive leadership over the army, we must attach particular importance to
building party organizations within the army and correctly and scrupulously
implement the party statutes approved by the Fourth Party Congress. We
must firmly grasp the essential lessons in party building reviewed by the
party congress and firmly grasp the working-class nature of our party and
the party-building criteria so as to achieve high quality and efficiency
in the task of developing the party organizations within the army. We must
firmly grasp the duties and policies concerning the party-building task in
the new stage; correctly apply them in accordance with the requirements

and characteristics of building the party within the army; enhance the qual-
ity of political leadership of party organizations; develop party organiza-
tions; insure proper leadership so as to successfully fulfill all tasks of
the People's Armed Forces; insure vigorous development of party organiza-
tions throughout the army from the level of the party committees down to
that of party grassroots cells and from (?organizations) to the corps of
party members and cadres.

We must constantly and thoroughly understand that collective leadership is
the party's most basic principle of leadership and, at the same time,
closely coordinate collective leadership with individual responsibilities
while fostering the individual's sense of responsibility. Our army must
advance toward building in the most satisfactory manner the party committee
echelons along with realizing the hierarchic system [chees dqooj thur
trwowngr] according to the party Central Committee's regulations (report
summarizing the party-building task and amending the party statutes pre-
sented at the Fourth Party Congress). We must insure the realization of
the party's leadership system by taking into account the set principles
and the conditions and situations of fierce and decisive combat of modern
warfare as may be faced by the modern technical armed branches and services
and of coordinated attacks involving various armed services and branches.
We must view the successful fulfillment of all tasks entrusted by the party
as the highest objective. We must base ourselves on the regulations of the
party congress and the party Central Committee in building party organiza-
tions within the army. The party organizations within the army must carry
out their work in such a way that the party's line and policies are thor-
oughly understood in army units, that all party committee echelons’ reso-
lutions and orders and the directives of higher echelons are strictly

91



we have ever had in our people's history of fighting against foreign aggres-
sors for national liberation. This has been the common achievement of our
entire party, people and armed forces, a proud achievement of the Vietnamese
revolution made possible by the assistance of the socialist countries and
the sympathy and support of the world revolutionary movement.

Our People's Armed Forces have gone through many stages of development--
the period preceding the August Revolution, that of the anti-French war of
resistance and particularly that of the anti-U.S. war of resistance, in
which they made the most outstanding and biggest strides. Together with
all our people they successively defeated one aggressor army after another,
including the vast and ultramodern U.S. aggressor army. Obviously, our
People's Armed Forces are an invincible, new-type, revolutionary armed
force which has defeated its mightiest enemies.

Since their total victory our People's Armed Forces have further gained

in strength. We have seized from the enemy a large quantity of modern
equipment, weapons, means of war and many warehouses, workshops and mili-
tary bases. We have further improved the main force as well as the regional
force throughout the country and further developed the militia and self-
defense forces in the southern provinces, and developed a new strategic
posture to defend our fatherland. We have scored initial successes in

the past nearly 2 years in building and training our armed forces in com-
bat readiness, in developing the economy and in overcoming the consequences
of the last war. Our armed forces have taken part in our people's compre-
hensive struggle and contributed to building the revolutionary administra-
tion, developing mass organizations in the localities and organizing the
armed forces at the grassroots level. They have continued to track down
and wipe out remnant enemy troops and to suppress counterrevolutionaries.
Together with the people's public security force they have firmly maintained
political security and social order, consolidated and defended the fruits
of the revolution and further strengthened the revolutionary administration.
Together with all our people they have continued to advance the revolution.

Thus, we have entered a new stage in building our People's Armed Forces
whereby we do not have to start from scratch as we did in the period pre-
ceding the August Revolution. Nor do we, in the period of socialist revo-
lution, encounter the difficulties and lack the experience in building our
army into a regular and modern force and in building our militia and self-
defense forces as we did when we had just ended the anti-French war of
resistance.

We can list some of the strong points of our armed forces as follows:

A. Our People's Armed Forces have a tightly organized structure through-
out the country. Our system of military organization is uniform through-
out the country, from the central level down to the armed services and
branches, localities, military regions, provinces, municipalities, dis-
tricts and grassroots units. We have been able to make an important step

45



—

rapidly and bravely fight at any time to annihilate the enemy and defend
themselves. This is an extremely important matter for the country and a
principled requirement of the standing army during peacetime.

As stated above, fighting skill developed through military training consti-
tutes a basis for achieving a state of combat readiness. However, in this
connection, the army must have regulations, systems and discipline for
combat readiness and must strictly adopt various measures and organizational
procedures before it can insure combat readiness. Specifically, we must
make sure that we successfully resolve such matters as grasping the enemy
situation in all aspects, everywhere and at all times. All levels, from
the strategic organs down to the military regions, army corps and units,
are responsible for constantly learning about the enemy situation according
to each level's sphere and function. This is the first requirement of the
task of insuring combat readiness. :

We must determine the degree of combat readiness for each unit and armed
branch in each region and so forth to create a system of combat readiness
according to a unified plan for safeguarding the country during peacetime
and deploying forces when necessary. The military regions and army corps
must determine which units have a high level of combat readiness. These
units must be fully combat-ready, enforce stern discipline and be trained,
inspected and continuously improved in terms of combat readiness. The
alert and guard system in these units must be strictly implemented. Any
violation of the combat-readiness discipline in these units must be con-
sidered a violation not only of army discipline but of the state regula—
tions and law as well.

Those units which are engaged in economic construction work must have appro-
priate regulations on combat readiness. Naturally, we cannot impose on
them the same requirements as on those units which must maintain constant
combat readiness, but we must insure that they retain their character of
being standing forces rather than reserve forces.

We must build combat readiness through many uniform measures, from formu-
lating plans to deploying and arranging forces, means and so forth. In
big military regions and army corps, we must have detailed plans for combat
readiness. We must prepare battlefield plans, forces’ plans, command plans
and mobile and coordinated combat plans. We must gradually strengthen and
perfect our defense arrangements in important areas.

In small units, we must have plans for combat readiness and conduct regular
training to gradually shorten the time needed to make the troops combat—
ready. We must guard our weapons and other fighting means well, set up
procedures for managing and cleaning weapons, and systematize and strictly
carry out inspection of combat readiness in units and of weapons and
technical means--firearms, vehicles and communications means.

86



We can organize large self-defense forces in developing factories, construc-
tion sites, state farms, industrial centers and cities to act as the core
and assault force in production and in combat readiness for the defense

of production installations and the regions. Many factories, enterprises,
construction sites and mines have organized self-defense regiments.

The organization of the militia and self-defense forces according to the
aforementioned scale not only facilitates their training and use for pro-
duction during peacetime, but helps their use for combat according to an
appropriate scale during wartime. This matter is closely linked to the
fighting method of militia and self-defense forces during the War for the
Defense of the Fatherland, which we must continue to study. What is impor-
tant is that we must preserve the militia and self-defense forces' nature
of being the armed forces of the masses. That is why we must closely com-
bine the militia and self-defense forces with production in a manner compat—-
ible with the structure of production organization and must develop them
according to the development of production from small-scale to large-scale
socialist production. We must not turn the militia and self-defense forces
into regional troops.

With the nationwide reorganization of labor, the militia and self-defense
forces will be broadly and rationally organized in all regions of the
fatherland--from the borders to the offshore islands, and from the moun-
tainous areas to the deltas, cities and coastal areas. They will be appro-
priately organized according to different organizational scales to become
stable on-the-spot forces to defend the regions.

We must also properly study the equipment for the militia and self-defense
forces. Peacetime equipment is different from wartime equipment. Since
the different regions--those in the lowlands and highlands, in the coastal
and mountainous areas--have different tasks, their equipment must differ.
The militia and self-defense forces can utilize mechanical and semimechan-
ical work tools of the provinces and the modern work tools of large and
small factories to repair their equipment and weapons.

The fighting strength of the militia and self-defense forces will be
greater thanks to their rising numbers, their large-scale and tight organ-
ization and their suitable equipment and weapons. Even during peacetime,
the militia and self-defense forces will be a major force directly support-
ing production, particularly in helping agriculture develop thoroughly,
powerfully and steadily. For instance, Nam Ninh District has four militia
regiments engaged in water conservancy, land improvement, communications
and transport and mechanized work.

Well organized, the militia and self-defense forces will become a large

reserve force having a scientific organization compatible with the require-
ments of a future war. Thus, by closely combining the economy with national
defense--within the spheres of the districts, provinces and related cities--

63



All this must be put down in writing. We must organize periodical as well
as irregular combat-readiness inspection drives which should be coupled
with appropriate surveys. We must constantly study to insure the highest
level of preparations so that we can promptly deploy the units to carry
out their tasks. We must constantly instill our cadres and our fighters
with the spirit of revolutionary offensive, strengthen their eagerness to
study and train them to acquire military skills. All our cadres at all
levels must always consider and study the best measures to hold the initia-
tive under all circumstances.

Build the Army Politically and Organize Leadership and Command

Priority should be given to building the army politically as this is the
basic principle of our party policy in building the people's army. Build-
ing the army politically aims at insuring the party's comprehensive, abso-
lute and direct leadership over the army and the party Central Committee
and Political Bureau's constant control over the army. It aims at insuring
our army's continued and absolute loyalty to the party, the fatherland and
the people, and that it fully place itself under the party's leadership,
scrupulously implement the party's revolutionary line and tasks and satis—
factorily complete all tasks entrusted by the party and state. In the new
revolutionary stage, all this is a fundamental guarantee for our army to
become a really socialist one and an effective tool of the party and state
of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the era of independence, freedom
and socialism of the Vietnamese nation.

Led, educated and trained by the party, our army will always remain polit-
ically steadfast; thoroughly understand the party's revolutionary line;
firmly adhere to the working class stand; display growing political aware-
ness, revolutionary characteristics and fine combat traditions; possess a
strong and steady leadership, command and mass organization and maintain
internal solidarity, people-army unity, internationalist solidarity and
strict and proper self-discipline.

In the new revolutionary stage, we must strive to strengthen and develop
these basic strongpoints and pay more attention to building the army polit-
ically. The political general department will study the major problems in
building the army politically in the new stage. Let me express some of

my views here.

The most basic and central point in actually building the army in the
political aspect is the need to make the entire army thoroughly understand
the socialist revolutionary line and tasks, the military line and tasks,
the economic construction line and the foreign policy set forth by the
Fourth Party Congress.

We must make all party members, cadres and fighters, and especially the
leading cadres at all levels and of all branches, thoroughly comprehend

87



(1430 GMT 12 Jun 77 OW]

[Text] Our party could not properly solve all problems related to the
building of our People's Armed Forces right from the outset. We had to go
through an entire process of applying Marxist-Leninist military doctrine

to the specific conditions of the revolution and revolutionary wars in our
country in order to solve these problems in an independent, sovereign and
creative manner. We had to draw experiences from the realities of a pro-
tracted struggle throughout different periods and under varied circumstances.
One period prepared the ground for the next, which inherited and developed
the experiences gained in the preceding period. The success of the August
Revolution was the result of the application of the experiences gained in
the 1930-31 Nghe Tinh soviet movement, the 1936-39 democratic campaign and
the period preceding the August 1945 Revolution. The experiences of the
August 1945 Revolution helped us correctly resolve the practical problems

of the anti-French war of resistance. Only with the experiences gained in
the August Revolution and the anti-French war of resistance could we prop-
erly solve the practical problems of the anti-U.S. war of resistance. Our
party has successfully solved problems regarding the building of the People's
Armed Forces in our country and made positive contributions to further en-
riching the theories and experiences of Marxism-Leninism and the proletarian
military doctrine.

We should also note that the aforesaid experiences derived from the reali-
ties in building our People's Armed Forces during the uprisings and libera-
tion wars over the past several decades. These experiences, which are very
precious and of tremendous importance and practical value, are a firm sup-
port for successfully carrying out the new tasks of building our armed
forces in the present period and for defending our fatherland in future
people's wars should the imperialists invade our country. This is because
of the following reasons:

1. Past experiences. These, which result from inevitable happenings and
take on the force of law, are reflected in our party's lines, criteria and
principles for building our armed forces. The dialectical relationship
between the inevitable and accidental in wars proceeded in a complicated
manner. However, the outcome yas always decided by the inevitable happen-
ings having the force of law. The more profound studies we conduct for
summing up experiences, the better we will grasp what is inevitable and
takes on the force of law so as to act correctly and build our forces
accordingly.

2. Armed uprisings, liberation wars or wars to defend the fatherland are
Vietnamese people's wars conducted under our party's leadership. These
wars are revolutionary wars placed under the proletariat's leadership
according to the Marxist-Leninist military doctrine and are fought for
the noble objectives of the era--national independence and socialism.

32



triumph over so many cruel enemies, using a small force to defeat a big one
and elementary weapons to defeat an enemy equipped with more modern weapons,
achieve victory step by step and advance to total victory in their struggle
for national liberation over the past few decades. We must study and grasp
the characteristics of a future war of national defense to cope with a pos-
sible imperialist invasion of our country and to develop the Vietnamese
military science and art in the new stage.

[1430 GMT 4 Jun 77 ow]

[Text] The victory of our people's revolution and revolutionary war is the
victory of the clever strategic guidance by the Central Party Committee,
Political Bureau and Central Military Party Committee. It is the victory
of the art of organizing combat of our party organization at all levels and
of all military command echelons.

In the process of leading the revolution and revolutionary war, the party
Central Committee was well aware of the U.S. imperialists' basic schemes,
correctly evaluated the balance of forces between us and the enemy and set
forth accurate and vivid strategic guidelines to frustrate the enemy's
political and military schemes in each period and to advance to completely
foil his aggressive schemes and moves.

Clinging to the party's strategic guidelines, our People's Armed Forces
outstandingly fulfilled, together with the entire people, the political and
military tasks of the revolution in each period. On the basis of a thorough
comprehension of the party's line of building the People's Armed Forces,

we paid constant attention to envisaging and solving the key problems gen—
erated by the strategic guidance of the party Central Committee and Political
Bureau so as to step up the people's war, change the war situation to our
advantage and advance to win complete victory.

In the August general uprising the political and military tasks of the
Vietnamese revolution consisted of staging a general uprising to win admin-
istrative power. For this reason our party endeavored to build a political
army of the masses, relied on the powerful political army of the entire
people and strove to build numerous self-defense and guerrilla units while
setting up a number of concentrated armed units, including the National
Salvation Army, the propaganda units of the Vietnam Liberation Army and
other full-time guerrilla units.

This way of posing the problem of building the armed forces in the August
general uprising is correct because an uprising is generally and basically
a rebellion of the masses associated with the armed forces which were
organized at a certain level. It is different from the war which is basic-
ally a fight between two armed forces.



On the basis of this rich combat experience we have succeeded in building
a well-developed military science and art for armed uprisings and libera—
tion wars. This military science and art has been built in the course of
protracted wars and been increasingly perfected. © It has been tested and
developed in combat to defeat vast, mighty and modern imperialist aggressor
armies.

These strong points constitute a basis for advantageously developing our
armed forces rapidly, vigorously and steadily. On the other hand, our
armed forces must strive to surmount their shortcomings so as to meet the
requirements of the revolutionary and military tasks in the new stage. We
must continue to resolve problems related to the organizational structure
of the various types of forces--the ground, air and naval forces, the air
defense force and other technological branches. We must consolidate and
build the regional, militia, self-defense and reserve forces in a way that
reflects the process of development of our national economy from small-
scale to large-scale socialist production throughout the country as well

as in each locality and at each basic-level unit. We must properly organize
and assign tasks to the standing armed force so it can be combat-ready while
satisfactorily building the economy.

Due to the long war many of our cadres and combatants have not been trained
and have not studied in a basic, systematic and uniform manner and still
lack comprehensive knowledge, particularly as regards modern military sci-
ence and technology and economics. The level of our cadres’ knowledge is
still uneven in many respects. Therefore, it is now an imperative require-
ment for all our cadres and combatants to study in a comprehensive manner,
particularly as regards modern military science and technology, economics
and production. Our schools play a very important role in providing formal
training to cadres.

Qur People's Armed Forces' present material and technological base is
mainly derived from the assistance of fraternal countries and from what

we seized from the enemy. Therefore, in reorganizing production and moving
toward socialist industrialization, we must strenuously strive to build a
socialist material and technological base and a national defense industry
that can meet the requirements of our country's defense and development.

Our armed forces' experience in combat and in organizational building has
mainly been experience concerning armed uprisings and liberation wars and
experience in using weapons and equipment provided by fraternal countries.
We must strive to consolidate this experience, study the new actual prob-
lems that face us, foresee new developments in the revolution, and step up
the study of the experience of fraternal countries and other countries in
the world. Only by so doing can we satisfactorily resolve problems con-
cerning the building of our People's Armed Forces on the basis of the
socialist system and a modern all-people national defense and satisfacto-
rily resolve new problems concerning modern military science and technology,

47



The successive exploits registered by our armed forces and people from the
August general uprising to the various campaigns and battles, the different
strategic attacks and the general offensive and uprising were all exploits
of the revolutionary offensive spirit which had been nurtured ceaselessly.
They were exploits of a military organization which had been painstakingly
set up in accordance with the offensive idea. They were also exploits of
the increasingly improved scientific offensive strategy and military offen-
sive art of the revolution and of revolutionary war in our country.

The lesson learned in offensive strategy and the positive spirit must be
creatively applied in the new revolutionary stage. It must be applied in
the revolutionary line, the military line, the economic line, in all other
areas of endeavor, and in national construction and national defense. That
is why we must study military science, military art and military technique
in this spirit. We must be imbued with the idea of revolutionary offensive
in performing our economic construction tasks to, together with all the
people, contribute to the elimination of backwardness and poverty, to the
pbuilding of the country and to accelerating socialist construction in our
country.

Ever since the time the Vietnam revolution was placed under the leadership
of the party it has steadily developed along a correct and creative line,

through different forms of struggle and methods of waging a revolutionary

war, and based on an extremely rich, lively and unique military art. This
was the result of the creative application of the theory of revolutionary

violence and the revolutionary and military science of Marxism-Leninism in
the specific condition of our country. All this developed our ancestors'

strategic talent to a new degree.

Our party chose many methods from among the world proletariat's treasure

of experience in revolutionary struggle to develop the positive impact of
all its own forms of struggle and to coordinate them with one another, thus
creating great strength. The party led our people and armed forces to repel
step by step and topple bit by bit the enemy forces; to resolutely defeat
any type of aggressive war the imperialists launched whether it was the
old-type or new-type colonialist war of aggression; to foil all war esca-
lations of the U.S. imperialists while seeking ways to make them deescalate
so as to defeat them; to resolutely smash every war strategy and every
tactical maneuver of the present imperialist ringleader of the world and

to gradually frustrate their military science and modern military technol-
ogy; and to persevere in their strategy of long-term war while knowing how
to create opportunities and surprises and resolutely bringing the resistance
forward through different stages of development and to advance in giant
strides toward total victory.

It was through their grasp of the lessons in revolutionary methods, in the
methods of conducting war and in the military art of revolutionary war that
our People's Armed Forces were able to, together with all the people,



However, we also have many great difficulties. Although indications of
large-scale production have been noted in certain areas of our national
economy, small-scale production is still dominant. In addition, our economy
was ravaged by war for several decades. The vestiges of thousands of years
of the feudal system, nearly a century of colonialism and in particular the
20 years of the U.S. neocolonialist regime are still very serious. The
southern provinces have just embarked on socialist reform and construction.
We need time to eliminate discrepancies in our economy, social structure
and the level of socialist economic and cultural development throughout

our country.

This situation is creating many problems for the consolidation of national
defense in general and the building of our armed forces in particular. Of
the characteristics of our country, that of advancing from small-scale to
large-scale socialist production is the one exerting the greatest influence
on the process of advancing toward socialism in our country. Therefore our
People's Armed Forces must be used correctly so they can positively contrib-
ute to speeding up the process of advancing from small-scale to large-scale
socialist production. Through the building of industrial-agricultural-
economic bases of socialism, our People's Armed Forces will positively con-
tribute to boosting the state-run economy of our socialist state and to
socialism itself, particularly in the southern provinces, to bringing

about a redivision of social labor in the national economic sectors and to
redistributing the social work force throughout the country.

We must perceive all the difficulties in our country's advance. These dif-
ficulties are also exerting an impact on the current building of our armed
forces. We must recognize the role and responsibilities of our armed
forces in overcoming these difficulties and strive to contribute to accel-
erating the process of socialist revolution and to building large-scale
socialist production. This also helps create the most basic and stable
conditions for building a powerful People's Armed Force in the new stage.

Thus, the building of our armed forces in the new stage is closely linked
to the socialist revolution throughout our country and to each developmental
step of our economy in its advance from small-scale to large-scale social-
ist production. We must conduct studies and firmly grasp this character-
istic in building our People's Armed Forces in the new stage.

B. All our people have entered a period of peaceful national construction.
This is a very new condition for our armed forces, which were formed under
the situation wherein our people were under foreign domination and which
developed in the process of conducting a decades-long, protracted liberation
war. In the insurrection and liberation war we started from scratch and
had to fight the enemy while building our army, and we had to develop our
army through fighting so it would grow increasingly stronger. Due to revo-
lutionary and combat requirements, on several occasions we had to build our
armed forces at times when our developing national economy lacked the means

41



temporarily occupied by the enemy in order to topple the puppet administra-
tion and win back the right to be masters for the people.

In peacetime the militia and self-defense forces, together with the people's
public security forces, maintain political security and social order and
protect the party's organizations, the administration, mass organizations
and the people's lives and property and the property of the state and

army in the localities. They act as a shock force in production and carry
out all policies of the party and state. Only if the militia and self-
defense forces are strong can they contribute to strengthening the local-
ities militarily, insure a stable combat posture for the people's war and
create conditions for the grassroots units to fulfill their tasks and the
standing army to perform its duties.

The regional force is part of the standing army in the localities placed
under the direct, overall leadership of the party committee echelons and
directly commanded by the regional military organs under the guidance of
higher level military organs. It is a concentrated mobile force in the
localities which, together with the militia and self-defense forces, serves
as the core for the people's war in the localities. It is an efficient
tool to defend the local administration. Its responsibility is to launch
mobile attacks in various areas of each locality. Sometimes it is required
to perform combat tasks in areas outside its own locality, depending on

its assignment by higher levels. It guides the militia and self-defense
forces in their combat and construction tasks; supports the masses in their
struggle against the enemy; coordinates attacks with the regular troops

and the militia and guerrilla forces; steps up military attacks and the
masses' uprisings in the areas temporarily occupied by the enemy; creates
conditions for the regular troops to carry out their combat tasks in the
localities; protects the party's organizations, administration, and mass
organizations in the localities; protects the people and contributes to
maintaining political security and social order. Strengthening the regional
force is an important condition for strengthening the localities militarily.

The regular troops are the most important part of the standing army, a mobile
force, the key force that fulfills strategic tasks on the nationwide scale
and on the battlefields. They are placed under the direct, overall leader-
ship of the party Central Committee (through the central military party
committee) and directly commanded by the [VPA] High Command. Their organ-
ization is a perfected one. Their major task is to conduct conventional
warfare and accelerate concentrated attacks with the combined armed branches
and services on an increasingly larger scale in order to wipe out increas-
ingly larger enemy units, to liberate important areas of the fatherland, to
positively contribute to changing the situation of the war and tilting the
balance of forces to our side and to successfully ending the war. They
must assist, cooperate and conduct coordinated attacks with the regional,
militia and self-defense forces.

20



worker-peasant as the basis and under the leadership of the working class,
has been strengthened more than ever. Problems involving relationships in
the task of building and defending the country, the task of developing the
economy and the task of consolidating national defense have been properly
solved by our party and government. We have enjoyed more favorable condi-
tions for winning the assistance of the fraternal countries and world
progressives.

In the south, increasingly larger liberated areas were formed during the
successful development of the anti-U.S. national-salvation struggle.
Together with the revolutionary struggle movement of the southern compatri-
ots in the rural and urban areas temporarily controlled by the enemy, the
new socialist regime in the southern liberated areas developed its great
contribution to the building of our armed forces and the success of the
revolution and the revolutionary war in different periods.

These profound changes created the basis for a new, unprecedentedly greater
development of our People's Armed Forces. In line with the principles of
building a regular and modern people's army, our people's army, which had
developed fairly rapidly during the years of peaceful construction after
the anti-French war of resistance, advanced by leaps and bounds during the
anti-U.S. national salvation war of resistance. Fairly strong numerically
and outfitted with modern equipment, our people's army consisted of ground
forces, an air defense force and a naval force. In the last period of this
war of resistance the army organization included an army corps, its modern
material and technical bases were fairly large, its combat ability was
very great and its abundant reserve force was satisfactorily and rapidly
organized.

The militia and self-defense forces developed in a vigorous, steady and
widespread manner in all organizations in the rural and urban areas. Their
numerical strength reached the million mark, and their combat spirit was
high. They acquired increasingly better technical equipment. Besides the
infantry force they had technical units such as the anti-aircraft and
coastal artillery and engineering units. They were trained in accordance
with the requirements of their combat tasks and they devised excellent
combat methods.

A further development was noted in the rear area's ability to meet the
demands of the people's war under new conditions. The army's rear was
fairly strong, and our country's rear area had close connections with the
socialist countries and enjoyed quite strong new capabilities. Therefore,
our People's Armed Forces were capable of serving as the core force for
our people throughout the country in achieving victory over the brutal war
of aggression waged by the U.S. imperialists in both parts of our country.
Victorious over the war of destruction waged by the U.S. imperialists,
they firmly protected the socialist north, sent increasing numbers of
strategic mobile troop units to the battlefield and, together with all the

15



tactical problems in the people's democratic national revolution as well as
in the socialist revolution (political report of the party Central Committee
at the Fourth Party Congress).

The party has traced the line of the people's democratic national revolution
leading directly to the socialist revolution by bypassing the stage of cap-
italist development. According to our party's correct and creative revolu-
tionary line, the national liberation task is linked with the class libera-
tion task, the national liberation road is linked with the socialist road
and the national tasks are linked with international obligations.

The party's revolutionary line determines our armed forces' objective of
struggle: achieving independence and freedom for the Vietnam fatherland
and socialism and communism in our country and in the entire world. It
determines that the class nature of our armed forces is the nature of the
working class, that our armed forces are from and for the people and that
our armed forces should develop into a sharp tool of violence with which
to realize the aforesaid revolutionary objectives of the party.

The party's revolutionary line is a source of invincible strength for our
armed forces because it reflects the objective laws of history and the just
and profound aspiration of our working class and laboring people for elim-
inating the yoke of slavery of the nation, as well as the oppressive yoke
of class, and for building a beautiful society in which men no longer
exploit men.

Grasping this line in building the armed forces, we made our cadres and
combatants from one generation to another comprehend it and have a will to
fight and sacrifice to regain independence and freedom for the fatherland
and to struggle for socialism and communism. Our armed forces not only
have a national awareness but also a class awareness, and they are aware
not only of their duties toward the fatherland but also of their interna-
tionalist obligations. Our cadres and combatants have constantly heightened
their love for the country and socialism, have coordinated genuine patriot-
ism with pure internationalism and have enhanced to thorough-going revolu-
tionary spirit and the will to continuously advance the revolution. At the
same time, unsatisfied with past successes, they refuse to stop advancing
in the face of new requirements of the revolution and they do not deviate
from the direction of the armed forces' advance at this turning point in
history.

In the process of building the armed forces politically, militarily and
organizationally, and in regard to equipment and fighting methods, we must
foresee future developments and the new requirements of the revolution in
the process of achieving the long-term objectives of the revolution.



The political agencies provided guidance in implementing political tasks
in line with production requirements, fostered education and motivated peo-
ple to engage in production in the same way they educated and motivated
them for combat. They launched emulation drives and turned the emulation
movement to perform productive labor, develop innovations and improve man-
agement organization and techniques into a true motive power in production
in the same way they launched movements to score achievements in combat.
They carried out policies regarding production personnel and plunged deep
into all production activities and scientific and technological matters.

Of course, by saying that we must develop the strength of being a military
organization in economic work and must organize leadership and command and
perform economic work in the same way we organize leadership and command
in combat, we do not mean that economic construction work must be strictly
patterned after combat. Economic rules differ from military rules. There-
fore, in doing economic work we must thoroughly understand the economic
rules. Army units engaged in economic work in various fields and trades
must, on the one hand, maintain their military organization; on the other
hand, they must know how to apply the experiences gained in carrying out
military tasks to economic work in line with the economic rules for these
various fields and trades.

We learned a valuable lesson in the revolutionary offensive spirit during
the war of resistance against the United States for national salvation.
It was a lesson in overcoming difficulties and obstacles. It teaches us
that as soon as we adopt the correct direction and strategy, we should
start working and the realities will help us further understand our work.
Our army units that scored initial achievements on the economic front
worked in the same spirit. The cadres and combatants of these units did
not wait until they were in a solid position to start work, but daringly
and resolutely started work and in the process gradually learned how to
work properly. They can work well now.

Under the conditions in which we are advancing directly from small-scale
production to large-scale socialist production, we must radically get rid
of the old and build the new and must create a new production force, new
economic installations and a new superstructure. Furthermore, we must be
resolute in our acts and have a very high level of creativity and positive—
ness. We must not remain passive and refuse to act because of difficulties.

From now on and in the coming years, we must mobilize the largest force
possible from among our troops to do economic work. We must concentrate
our efforts on building at all costs typical production installations.

To this end, general department agencies, military regions, armed services
and branches and combat-ready forces must concentrate their respective
forces on the assigned work according to their capabilities and duties.
They must be daring in thought and action and know how to work to achieve
the greatest benefit for the fatherland and make their country prosperous

111



As for the method of conducting a war, in the past liberation war we fought
an enemy who had already gained a foothold in our country and subjected all
of our people to his yoke of domination. Therefore, we had to carry out
propaganda to make the masses understand the situation; organize them to
wage political struggle and stage uprisings; coordinate political struggle
with armed struggle, offensives with uprisings, and wars of resurgence
with revolutionary war; and coordinate the fight to wipe out the enemy with
the struggle to win back our people's rights.

In a war for national defense, we will fight any enemy who invades our coun-
try. We will have to exterminate the enemy and defend our entire socialist
fatherland. Therefore, the method of conducting a war will not be similar
to the way we did it before. However, we will apply proper experiences
gained during the past liberation war to suit specific situations.

I have just offered some ideas about the similarities and differences
between the liberation war and a war for the defense of the fatherland so
we will realize that in applying our present military science and art, we
must know how to utilize past experiences and, at the same time, must try
to develop our military science and art and move ahead. If we fail to make
progress, we will be left behind in the ever-changing world. We must fur-
ther advance, closely follow the development of the situation, and discover
things that take on the force of law regarding the war for the defense of
our fatherland so as to contribute to effectively exercising leadership
over the building of our all-people's socialist national defense now as
well as over the conduct of a future people's war under modern conditions
for the defense of our socialist fatherland, should such a war occur.

At this juncture I would like to mention another point: to correctly handle
questions involving our present military science and art, our army's cadres
must have a correct political insight and a comprehensive understanding of
the situation at home and abroad and must have a correct political direc-
tion compatible with our party's ideological viewpoint as reflected in

the Fourth Party Congress resolution. First of all, we must realize the
strength of our country, our armed forces and the world revolutionary
movement .

Since Vietnam's victory, the revolutionary offensive of the world revolu-
tion has advanced a step further. The imperialists have been weakened,
and the U.S. imperialists' strength is declining. We must clearly realize
this common strength of the world revolution. Our country's strength in
the course of building and defending socialism is closely linked to the
ever-growing strength of the system of socialist countries and three revo-
lutionary currents. Our country's strength in the coming years will be

a combined strength of our entire country advancing to large-scale social-
ist production under the Fourth Party Congress resolution. In the next
several decades the strength of our country and the world revolutionary
movement will greatly change and develop considerably.

70



A--Established and firmly consolidated the absolute, direct and overall
leadership of the Communist Party over our People's Armed Forces. This
has become the most basic principle in building our People's Armed Forces.

B--Built a stable and strong party organizational system in the army serv-
ing as the nucleus in leading the army to fulfill all the party's tasks.
There are many good-quality party members within the army throughout the
country. Many party members have become heroes-~valiant combatants worthy
of their role as vanguard combatants. The grassroots party organizations
[toor chwes cow sowr dqangr] are becoming increasingly stable and strong,
are highly capable of providing leadership over combat and construction
activities, are deeply engaged in all activities of army units and are
stalwart fortresses under any circumstances. Party committees have been
constantly improved; are capable of providing overall leadership; are
gaining an increasingly deeper understanding of military science, art and
techniques; and have become the firmly united nuclei of party organizations
[dqangr booj] and army units. The internal ranks of the party's organiza-
tions within the entire party are constantly united and of one mind and
rally closely behind the party Central Committee and the central military
party committee. This is a firm basis for unity within the party's inter-
nal ranks and coordination in combat.

C--Built a perfected system for organization of political work from top to
bottom to carry out ideological and organizational work, educate and moti-
vate the masses within the armed forces, contribute to implementing tasks
under the party's leadership and build our armed forces and make them
stable and strong politically and spiritually, and develop their greatest
strength so that they can successfully fulfill all tasks.

D--Built a contingent of cadres in accordance with the party's cadre
policy. Cadres must be carefully selected, numerous, of high quality, and
must meet the standards of party cadres in the armed forces. The structure
of the contingent of cadres must be increasingly perfected so as to meet
the requirements of developing the armed forces. Cadres must be absolutely
loyal to the party, have thorough political awareness, haye organizational
and leadership capabilities, have increasingly higher technical and pro-
fessional standards and be capable of firmly grasping and successfully
implementing all the party's political and military tasks. Our army's
cadres, who matured during the anti-French war of resistance, further devel-
oped during the anti-U.S. war of resistance. Their activities are closely
connected with the socialist revolution in the north. They have high
socialist awareness; a high sense of collective ownership; a high sense

of organization and discipline; and a certain level of cultural, scientific
and technical knowledge.

E--Satisfactorily educated our troops in Marxism-Leninism and the party's
lines and policies. We must use the education of revolutionary objectives
and the party's political and military lines through various periods to

constantly consolidate the working class' stand and increase national and

25



guidelines and policies of the party Central Committee and Political Bureau
in order to correctly solve all problems concerning the actual building of
our armed forces.

If we can do so with regard to all our armed forces in general and to each
unit, locality and branch in particular, this implies that we have thoroughly
comprehended the party's absolute, direct and comprehensive leadership over
the People's Armed Forces involving the most fundamental problems.

[1430 GMT 5 Jun 77 OW]
[Text] Second Experience

The building of the People's Armed Forces must always firmly depend on the
strength of all of the people throughout the country and on the combined
strength of the new social system.

Our People's Armed Forces are the offspring of the revolutionary movement
in our country led by the party. They are also the product of our country's
new social system since we regained revolutionary administrative power.
The source of strength of our armed forces lies in the great strength of
our people and in the combined strength of the people's democratic system
and socialist system which has been set up and developed in our country
over the past several decades. Thus, to depend on the strength of all of
the people, on the political strength of the revolutionary masses led by
the working class and on the combined strength of the new social system,
to build and develop our armed forces is a conventional requirement. This
is the basic difference between the popular nature and revolutionary char—
acter of the People's Armed Forces and the unpopular nature and counter-
revolutionary character of the armed forces of the reactionary exploiting
classes.

It was on the basis of the political strength of the masses in the period
prior to the August Revolution that our party gave birth to our People's
Armed Forces. When our party emerged and assumed the historic mission of
leading our nation in the revolution under the party's banner, our people
did not yet have their own armed forces. Our party made great efforts in
propagandizing among, and awakening, the masses and in building political
strength to lead the masses in waging a political struggle. Only on this
basis was it able to gradually organize a revolutionary armed force. The
first Red self-defense teams in the Nghe-Tinh soviet movement and the
fighting organizations during the period of preparation for the general
insurrection--the Bac Son guerrillas, the national salvation troops, the
Vietnam liberation propaganda troops, the Ba To guerrillas, the Cochin-
chinese guerrillas and other guerrilla teams in many regions--were all
formed on the basis of the masses' political strength built and led by
our party from its founding to the general insurrection in August 1945.

11



in their coordinated attacks involving armed services and branches on var-
ious scales, including the greatest scale of the Ho Chi Minh campaign.

Our guerrilla combat tactics were extremely lively. We used all types of
weapons from rudimentary weapons used in olden times such as spike traps
and stone-launching snares to weapons of the 20th century. Our guerrillas
were very valiant and resourceful in their attacks. They always held the
initiative, maintained secrecy and launched surprise attacks in which the
enemy was totally taken unaware. Therefore, no enemy lair was considered
to be sacrosanct. Enemy troops and officers were constantly haunted by
death.

From these characteristics we can see some essential points that were also
key experiences in the military art of our People's Armed Forces. These
included thoroughly comprehending the revolutionary line, task and methods
and the manner of conducting revolutionary wars set forth by our party

in the military-strategic, campaign and tactical fields according to a
combined strategy in order to create the largest combined strength of our
people's war. This was the most basic, essential factor determining our
victory in the last armed struggle. We had to use this as the basis for
solving problems regarding our military art. We relied on the entire peo-
ple's strength, developed the entire nation's strength in the fight against
the enemy, formed both local and mobile forces, spread the enemy's forces
thin, decimated and wiped out enemy units and moved toward completely
defeating the enemy. Not only did our troops fight the enemy but our peo-
ple also discharged their tasks in the rear by insuring aid to the front-
line. Both our troops and people fought the enemy. Therefore, although
the enemy had numerous troops and great combat strength, they actually
could achieve little and could not cope with an entire nation that stood
up in well-organized units to fight the enemy under their vanguard party's
leadership. Our army and people thus created a highly effective combat
posture in our people's war.

We thoroughly comprehended strategic and offensive rules in carrying out
strategic and tactical attacks and in launching military campaigns and
closely coordinated counterattacks with attacks after correctly assessing
our strengths and weaknesses and those of the enemy. We knew how to posi-
tively limit the enemy's strengths and exploit his weaknesses, prevented
the enemy from carrying out his favorite combat methods and forced the
enemy to face attacks of our own choosing, thus preventing him from devel-
oping his combat strengths because of his disadvantages. The enemy had to
apply combat methods that were not consistent with his organization, equip-
ment and training. Therefore, we could launch repeated attacks against
the enemy although our forces were smaller than the enemy's and equipped
with fewer modern weapons.

We should also note the fact that, due to the afore-mentioned balance of
forces between ourselves and the enemy, our offensive strategy involved

30



———

In developing the advantages of the Revolutionary Army's organizations,
gradually increasing the level of economic knowledge, gathering additional
production experiences, and gradually renovating labor tools, our army will
certainly be capable of making positive contributions to accelerating the
increase of the social work force's productivity. In the recent past,
despite the fact that they still encountered difficulties and lacked expe-
rience, several army units achieved high productivity and were recognized
by various ministries and sectors.

Being an important work force, our army can produce annually large quanti-
ties of goods for society. In particular, by motivating youth to join the
army according to the military obligation system which carries out produc—
tive labor in coordination with military training and combat readiness
training, our army is capable of producing a large quantity of surplus goods.
This combatant force is discharging its military obligations; it is made up
of vigorous youths who earn in accordance with their duties and enjoy only
subsistence expenses and allowances commensurate with the level of arduous—
ness or complexity of their work or the degree of unwholesomeness of the
areas where they are assigned; and they do not work directly for themselves
or their families but for society--of course, they and their families are

a part of society. In a sense, we can say that this is the communist-type
of labor. Lenin said: Communism begins when common workers concern them-
selves, in a spirit of sacrifice and regardless of arduousness, with increas-
ing labor productivity and safeguarding small amounts of wheat, coal, iron
and other products, which do not go into their own hands or those of their
close relatives, but into the hands of their distant relatives--that is,

the hands of the entire society, the tens and even hundreds of millions of
people who are united in a socialist country.

Our army labors to develop a communist-type economy. This type of labor
creates a large quantity of surplus goods for society. Here lies the advan-
tage of the revolutionary armed organization performing economic activities.
It is a goal that we can attain, if we follow the examples of the very val-
uable experience of many fraternal socialist countries.

In implementing the military obligation system, a fairly large group of
youths will join the army every year and will be trained and fostered so
they will become not only stalwart combatants but excellent socialist work-
ers--that is, outstanding workers of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
There will be many combatants leaving the army every year after they com—
plete their tasks in the army and they will join the working class’ contin-
gent. Thus, our army can contribute to rapidly increasing the quantity and
quality of workers of working-class backgrounds and contribute to effecting
a change to the class structure in our country. This contribution is not
only of great economic significance but of profound political and social
significance.

99



implemented and that the entire army is closely united around the party
Central Committee, is absolutely loyal to the revolutionary cause of the
party and people and successfully fulfills all tasks entrusted to it. We
must firmly grasp the requirements of increasing the party members’ quali-
fications and the quality of the corps of party members and base ourselves
on actual situations in building the corps of party members within the
army and making it increasingly stable and strong. Party members within
the army must carry out all the party members' five duties and symbolize
the new socialist man in the army and the outstanding revolutionary soldier.
We must closely coordinate the building of the corps of party members with
the building of the new-type man, the party's grassroots organizations, the
corps of cadres and army units and agencies in all aspects. We must con-
stantly improve the meetings and activities of party organizations and
assign party members to combat and leadership positions, and to positions
of vanguard fighters in the revolutionary mass movement, thus helping them
to mature through training.

We must enhance the party members' qualities in all aspects, satisfactorily
perform the task of admitting new members to the party and resolutely and
promptly expel from the party those who fail to meet party members'
qualifications.

We must vigorously develop the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union's organ-
izations within the army. Almost all combatants and grassroots cadres in
our army are youths. The Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union is an efficient
arm and trustworthy reserve force of the party, a school of communism for
the youth. We must strengthen in all aspects the organizations of the
Youth Union within the army, develop their activities and enable them to
organize youth into a shock force, which will take the lead in all fields
of activity throughout the whole army and will successfully implement all
our party's tasks in the new stage.

[1430 GMT 30 Jul 77]

[Text] In building our army politically, we must develop the political
task and build political agencies and a political cadres' corps in accord-
ance with the new situation and tasks. With the development of revolution-
ary tasks and the army's tasks, the building of political agencies and a
political cadres’ corps and the methods of carrying out the political task
must also develop. We must review our, armed forces' extremely rich expe-
riences in performing political tasks over the past several decades and,

at the same time, study and apply them and develop the efficient implemen—
tation of the political task under the new conditions. The political task
must be developed in line with our armed forces' new developments in struc-
ture and organizational scale, weapons and technical equipment, and mil-
itary science and art. We must carry out the political task in all activ-
ities of our troops, in military training, in combat readiness training,

as well as in productive labor and economic construction. In doing so we
must go into the daily life of the masses and the thoughts, sentiments,
aspirations and practical deeds of cadres and combatants.

92



"The more the revolutionary organizations develop and the more active the
masses are in political struggle, the firmer will be the basis for our
organization of the armed forces and for our armed struggle." (Truong Chinh:
President Ho and the Military Problems of the Vietnam Revolution; Quan Doi
Nhan Dan Publishing House, Hanoi 1971, pp 14-15) The constant growth of

the political strength of the people is inexhaustible and is the basis for
development of the People's Armed Forces in each era. The giant strides
made by our People's Armed Forces during the first year after the seizure

of administrative power--from August 1945 to nationwide resistance beginning
in December 1946--were based on the mighty political forces of the people
throughout the country which grew and developed under our party after our
people developed from a dominated people to an independent people, and from
slaves to masters of the country.

During the resistance against the French the regular troops, regional troops
and guerrillas and militia drew their strength from the inexhaustible
reserve of all the people throughout the country, mainly the working people
in the free zones and even in the zones temporarily occupied by the enemy.
During the resistance against the Americans the giant strides made by our
People's Armed Forces were based on the powerful political forces built on
the strength of socialism in the north, including the new-type socialist
men coming from the working class, the collective peasantry and the social-
ist intelligentsia.

In the south the political strength of the masses in the people's democratic-
national revolution grew continuously through different periods and in ail
of the three strategic regions--mountainous, rural, delta and urban. This
was the basis for the rapid and steady development of the armed forces from
small to large, from weak to strong and yet not in the same manner as during
the anti-French resistance, but by leaps and bounds, because we controlled
the socialist north, which was the result of the nationwide revolution after
the anti-French resistance.

The political strength behind the People's Armed Forces was the solidarity
of all the people. This strength was rooted in the worker-peasant alliance,
bolstered by the working class and continuously nurtured by our party and
President Ho Chi Minh. These political forces ceaselessly developed in
ever greater numbers and their revolutionary consciousness increased with
every passing day. Their organization became increasingly stronger and
their operating methods richer in the course of the successful development
of the revolution and the revolutionary war. Just as the rising of the
water level raises a boat higher, each step forward by the political forces
created conditions for the further development of the armed forces.

The lesson to be drawn is that the building of a powerful People's Armed
force must be based on the political strength of the masses. The task of
pbuilding the armed forces must be closely linked to the building of the

political strength of the masses. Coming from the people and relying on

12



One of the important tasks in the Second Five-Year Plan and subsequent plans
ig that we must redistribute the work force throughout the country and send
millions of workers from urban areas and populated delta areas to sparsely
populated mountain areas in order to build new economic zones. Remote,
rugged, wild and sparsely populated forest and mountain areas usually are
strategic areas which are important to the economy and national defense.

As countless difficulties and hardships emerge during the initial pioneer-
ing period, we must dispatch army units to these areas and strengthen the
development of revolutionary armed organizations so as to contribute to
solving problems related to this very difficult task. The fact that hun-
dreds of thousands of our troops are engaged in the reclamation of vast
areas of wasteland and building new economic zones is in itself a redistri-
bution of the work force. However, more important is the fact that our
troops should take the lead in reclaiming wasteland in order to prepare
conditions so that hundreds of thousands and even millions of people can
gradually be sent from the delta to newly reclaimed areas. Moreover, large
numbers of our troops engaged in production in economic sectors should also
contribute to redistributing the work force in various sectors of our
national economy.

In line with economic developments, industry and agriculture will develop
on a large scale. The number of industrial workers increase in highly
developed countries which have large-scale production, and they usually
account for 70 percent or more of the total work force. As an immediate
goal, our army must concentrate on the agricultural front, but in the long
range, it must concentrate on industry and capital construction. Thus,

our army's large work force, which will be concentrated in industry and
capital construction, will make a large contribution in redistributing the
work force and building a comprehensively developed industrial and agricul-
tural structure for our country's large-scale socialist production.

Along with reorganizing the work force and satisfactorily organizing and
managing the economy, we must renovate our labor tools. This is a basic
factor which leads to big leaps forward in labor productivity. Our people
and army must fully utilize all labor tools of different technical levels--
from rudimentary to improved and modern tools--so as to produce a large
quantity of products for society. However, our renovation must be planned.
While striving to conduct a scientific-technological revolution and per-
forming economic activities, our army will gradually contribute to renovat-
ing labor tools and proceed from work in which manual labor is prevalent

to work with mechanized and automated machinery. This is also a require-
ment in building large-scale socialist production. In our People's Armed
Forces, this process is correlated with results achieved by our army's
agencies for scientific and technological research, with the level of
skills and capabilities in producing labor tools by the national defense
enterprises and enterprises of the military regions, military corps, and
armed services and branches, and with the cooperation between the army and
the state economic sectors.

98



The long-term objective in the army's economic construction plan is to make
an important contribution to building the material-technical base for
socialism by working with all the people to successfully fulfill the task
of bringing our country's economy from small-scale to large-scale socialist
production in accordance with the resolutions of the Fourth Party Congress.
At the same time, the army must coordinate with the different state eco-
nomic sectors to basically resolve the problems of the material-technical
base. These two goals are closely connected and respond to the requirements
for national construction and defense.

Our army can directly contribute to building the country not only by merely
doing projects assigned it by the state. If it succeeds in supplying an
ever greater part of its own essential needs, it will also be directly con-
tributing to building the country. Proceeding from the economic construc—
tion line and the orientations and tasks for immediate and long-term eco-
nomic development set forth by the Fourth Party Congress and on the basis
of its present and future conditions and capabilities, our army must make
efforts toward increasing contributions to the development of the national
economic sectors. This will respond both to the country's pressing require-
ments after 30 years of war and destruction and to the basic demand of the
building of a material-technical base for socialism in our country.

In the next few years, from now until the end of 1980, our army must deploy
a great force on the agricultural, forestry and fishery fronts. At the
same time it must engage in industry, capital construction, communications
and transportation, and make important contributions to the successful
implementation of the Second Five-Year Plan and supply its own needs in
grain and foodstuffs and part of its needs in consumer goods and other
necessities.

As we have only about 4 years to implement this Five-Year Plan, we must move
very quickly. The guiding thought is to attack and be determined to win
in this plan. Only by doing this can we create conditions and establish
a base for strong development in subsequent plans. On the agricultural,
forestry and fishery front, we must resolutely penetrate vast virgin areas
to rapidly expand the cultivated and animal husbandry sectors. We must
grow rice, subsidiary crops, industrial plants and forests on tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands of hectares, exploit forest and mari-
time products on a large scale and raise domestic animals and poultry
according to industrial methods. In this way, we will contribute to con-
siderably increasing the country's grain and foodstuffs, supplying ever
larger quantities of raw materials to industry and goods for exports and
consumption and to expanding the state's accumulation.

Our army must positively participate in the capital construction front.

We can and must mobilize a relatively large force so as to join with the
state construction workers in building factories, water projects, hydro-
electric plants, basic projects in the new economic zones, new state farms

103



Our people have a tradition of producing fine weapons. Our forefathers
relied on technical advances in copper smelting to produce copper weapons,
for instance the Co Loa copper arrow [legendary weapon of the year 257 BC],
and in iron smelting to produce iron weapons. The Tran [13th century king]
Dynasty had firearms, the Ho [13th century king] Dynasty its own guns.
Nguyen Hue had gunboats of large tonnage, capable of transporting hundreds
of elephants and cannons.

In our era, by bringing our country's industry to the modern world's level,
we will certainly be able to gradually advance in building our modern
national defense industry. Our success in performing this task will be
based on the development of our country's economy in the next few decades
and on our abundant labor force of tens of millions of people including
outstanding scientific and technical cadres and numerous skilled technical
workers that we now have or will train. It will also be based on our coun-
try's rich and latent resources which we will exploit and on the fraternal
socialist countries’ assistance and cooperation.

Even during the past war, we did not cease to develop our contingents of
well-informed scientific and technical cadres and of technical cadres and
workers in the various sectors of the state and the army. If we continue
to positively train such contingents through appropriate policies, we will
certainly be able, within 15-20 years, to increase both their numbers and
quality to meet the requirements for modernizing the economy in general
and for modernizing the all-people national defense and our People's Armed
Forces in particular. We must rely on our people's positive spirit and
creativity and find many ways and means to achieve our objective, and we
must do this at all costs. On this matter as well as on many other matters,
we must do some good thinking and have a perspective that is compatible
with the objective requirements both for the immediate and the distant
future. Only by so doing will we succeed in grasping the resolutions of
the party congress in our actions.

2. Maintaining Well, Using Properly and Developing the Efficiency of All
Existing Kinds of Weapons and Equipment in the Immediate Future

Most of our modern equipment, weapons and material-technical installations
were acquired from the fraternal countries during the war or through sei-
zure from the enemy. We must use them well to ensure our training, combat
readiness and economic construction. We must recover, assess and classify
them in order to formulate plans for their repair, storage and use. We
must maintain well everything necessary for combat readiness and daily
training, develop its efficiency and use it in a most thrifty manner. We
must preserve well everything to be kept for future fighting, making sure
it does not get damaged or lose its effectiveness. We must develop the
efficiency of any equipment that can be used for economic construction to
rapidly produce material wealth for society.

66


and acts in a future war and any possible war situation. These predictions,
which must be made after extensive scientific research, are of practical
value in guiding all present preparations by our armed forces and people.
In order to positively defend our fatherland, we must carry out many tasks
including building a modern all-people's national defense and closely coor-
dinating the economy with national defense; this must be reflected in the
strategies regarding the national defense, economy, division of labor and
building of projects. We must form a clear concept and begin our work
promptly to avoid onerous expenses and passivity in the future.

We must make preparations for all of our people so they can take part in
the defense of our fatherland in a practical and concrete manner. This
very great task must be correctly carried out throughout the country.
Practical preparations for all of our people, our armed forces and our
economy must be effectively carried out. Preparations must be made for a
large number of youths, who must have a certain military training level,

so they will be able to rapidly replenish the army according to require-
ments in a modern war. Our economy must be well protected and continuously
run and developed even under fierce war conditions so as to meet all the
requirements of national defense. All of our armed forces must be combat
ready. Under normal conditions, thanks to their combat readiness, they
can promptly help in controlling natural calamities such as floods, typhoons
and so forth.

We must strive to effectively apply our military science and art so as to
contribute to resolving the aforesaid practical questions; to protecting
our people, our economy and our armed forces; and to maintaining our
strength in the fight to defeat any enemy in any war situation.

In the new stage, we must concentrate our military science and art on
correctly performing the following major tasks:

j. Strive to satisfactorily summarize war experience in the shortest
time--experience in wars against both the French and the Americans. The
review of past experience must be closely coordinated with the study,
development and application of experience under new conditions so as to
fulfill new tasks. Satisfactory performance of this task will have great
significance for the development of our military science and art in the
new stage and for educating cadres, training troops and compiling ordi-
nances. This can also help us make contributions to the treasure of expe-
riences of revolutionary movements in other countries.

2. Make pressing and penetrating studies of fundamental questions involv-
ing the building of our all-people's national defense and the war in defense
of our socialist fatherland, such as the study of firmly grasping our coun-
try's overall situation--the strength of our system and country, men, tra~
ditions, history and geography. We must coordinate with the state sectors
in conducting studies and fundamentally assessing our country's overall

72



of troops: the main force, the regional force and the militia and self-
defense forces.

Our party advanced its first correct view on military organization since
its emergence with the organization of the Vietnamese revolution. The
party's political thesis of October 1930 pointed out: We must arm the
workers and peasants, form a worker-peasant army and organize the worker-
peasant self-defense force. The party said: The worker-peasant self-
defense force, which is distinguished from the guerrilla force, is not

the Red army. We cannot immediately organize the Red army and the guerrilla
force whenever we want to. As for the self-defense force, we probably
should organize it immediately when a revolutionary campaign is launched,

no matter how weak the campaign is. Thus, the party not only determined

the class nature of the People's Armed Forces and the leadership of the
Communist Party over the People's Armed Forces, but also properly decided
on its organizational form--the People's Armed Forces consist of the worker-
peasant self-defense force, the guerrilla force and the Red army. It can
be said that this was the preliminary viewpoint on the organization of the
three categories of troops.

Later on, during the formation of the Vietnamese Liberation Troop Propaganda
Unit in December 1944, President Ho Chi Minh clearly stated in his directive:
Because our resistance is an all-people's resistance we must mobilize and
arm all the people. Therefore, while gathering forces for setting up the
first army unit, we must maintain the armed forces in the localities,
coordinate their activities and provide every assistance to them. Thus,

at a very early date our party made known its views on arming all of the
people, having them engage in the war of resistance and building the army
and the regional armed forces.

During the process of leading the revolution and the people's war, our
party always firmly grasped and creatively applied the rules for organizing
the three categories of troops in line with the requirements of the polit-
ical and military tasks and with the characteristics and situation of the
revolution in each period. The fact that the people's war became highly
developed and scored extremely glorious victories in our country proves
that our party's view on organizing the three categories of troops was
absolutely correct. This is the most appropriate form of organization
needed for realizing the principle of arming ali of the people and involv—
ing all of them in a war fought in various forms in all areas of our coun-
try in order to create a firm combat posture and effectively carry out

our revolutionary methods, our methods of conducting the revolutionary war
and our creative and unique military art. The people's war viewpoint is
the basic viewpoint in our party's military line. It is the application
of the Marxist-Leninist concept, "the masses make the history," in revolu-
tionary struggles, revolutionary wars and revolutionary armed struggles.

We must motivate all of the people to rise up and fight the enemy. As the
entire nation rises up, all of the people must be organized into appropri-
ate properly equipped military organizations imbued with the correct combat
methods. By doing so, we will create an invincible force.

17



oT

{1430 GMT 2 Aug 77]

[Text] Our country's requirements in the new stage demand that the build-
ing of the fatherland be accompanied by its defense, and that economic con-
struction be coordinated with national defense consolidation. All economic
construction activities and productive labor achievements of our armed
forces are significant to both the economy and national defense, and are
intended to meet the requirements in building the rear [xaay dwngj haauj
phwowng] and building the army. Let us give an example: in performing
agricultural activities, our army contributes to positively resolving a
very basic, long-range economic task in our national economy, particularly
the task of the 1976-1980 Five-Year Plan. In performing this task, our
army is indeed increasing the strength of our national defense, building
the rear and building the army's material base.

An army is strong only if its troops have enough food. Only if we succeed
in solving the food problem can we solve many other problems. Food is
always a strategic matter for our people and army in the economic and mil-
itary fields and in times of peace and war. In producing consumer goods
such as clothing, shoes, sandals, medicine and other necessary commodities,
our army not only carries out its economic construction task but builds the
army's material base; carries out its rear service task; and resolves the
troops' food, clothing and housing problems. In carrying out transport and
communications activities, our army supports economic circulation activities
and our people's needs to move around throughout the country and accelerate
economic development. In so doing, our army also carries out military
transportation and communications activities, and prepares to transport
mobile troops, technical equipment and weapons whenever necessary. In
carrying out national defense industrial activities, our army builds the
material-technological base for a modern army and contributes to building
the material-technological base of socialism.

Of course, different requirements exist for the economy and national defense.
Therefore, we must closely coordinate economic activities with national
defense and vice versa. This is an objective for building large-scale
socialist construction in our country. Our army enjoys more favorable con-
ditions than the other forces to accomplish this coordination.

In assigning economic tasks to the army, we must always pay attention to
coordinating’ economic activities with national defense and coordinating
the building of a prosperous and powerful country with pbuilding the army's
material-technological base. At the same time, through economic construc-
tion, our army--together with the other economic sectors--will be able to
contribute to implementing the coordination of economic construction
requirements with those needed for consolidating national defense.

Through analyzing the aforementioned points, we realize that with the advan-
tages enjoyed by the revolutionary military organizations shifting to

100



weak, the regular troops occasionally had to help the regions build up
their militia and self-defense forces, push forward the guerrilla warfare
and guide the regional troops.

Regular troops had to be organized on an increasingly greater scale. During
the war of resistance against the French, we built regular troops up to

the level of army corps [daij doanf], and not only did we build the infan-
try but we also built and developed necessary technical armed services.
Toward the end of the fight against the Americans we built our regular
forces up to the scale of corps [quaan doanf]. After the resistance against
the French and during the resistance against the Americans we gradually
built and developed various armed branches in the army while building and
developing the air defense corps, the naval corps and strategic transport
brigades. The scale of development of these armed services and branches
was based on the requirements of the party's political and military tasks,
our equipment and weapon strength and our capacity for training cadres

and combatants, and not according to any subjective wish.

The three categories of troops are a form of organization that was tested
during the 1945-1954 anti-French resistance, during the 1954-1964 peaceful
reconstruction period in the north and during the 1964-1975 anti-American
resistance, both the fight against the U.S.-puppets in the south and against
the war of destruction in the north. Therefore it can be concluded that

it is a form of organization of our People's Armed Forces that is compatible
both with the requirements for the liberation war and national defense war
in our country.

Today we do not defend merely one liberated zone or the north as before,
but we have to defend a whole country, the socialist Vietnam fatherland,
with long borders, vast territorial waters and continental shelves and
many offshore islands. We must defend our political security, social
order and our people's peaceful reconstruction of the country. That is
why we all the more must have three powerful categories of troops. How-
ever, the scale of organization and development of each category of troops
must be studied and carried out in an appropriate manner, because there
are similarities as well as differences between the war for the defense of
the fatherland and the liberation war.

After the anti-American resistance, all of our three categories of troops
have grown phenomenally. From this basis we must develop our three cate-
gories of troops to a new level compatible with the requirements, possi-
bilities, situation and conditions of our present task of building and
defending the country.

22



That is why we must continue the traditions and experiences of armed forces
building gained by our nation during its past history of national construc~
tion and defense, and gained by our party during the past armed insurrection
and liberation war. In addition, we must develop these traditions and expe-
riences in a manner compatible with the tasks, requirements, conditions and
circumstances of the present building and defense of the fatherland, with
the peacetime consolidation of the all-people national defense, and with a
possible people's war for the protection of the socialist fatherland should
the enemy invade our country.

Our cadres and fighters, particularly high-ranking army cadres, must study
our nation's history, the history of our forefathers' struggle against for-
eign aggression and the history of armed forces building during peacetime.
For instance, we must study the way the Tran Dynasty of the 13th century
built its national defense and armed forces that enabled it on three occa-
sions to defend the fatherland, defeating the powerful columns of the
Mongolian and Yuan imperialists, then the world's mightiest aggressors.
There are many policies of that time that we must deeply study such as the
policies of turning peasants into reservists, insuring that soldiers are
skillful, and setting up mobile military units that produce their own
weapons.

Particularly, you comrades must know well the party history, our country's
history of revolution and revolutionary war and our People's Armed Forces'
building and fighting history. For decades, together with all the people,
our armed forces fought a revolutionary war and liberation war and defeated
the cruel imperialist enemies of the era. This struggle constitutes a
treasure of extremely rich experiences. We must grasp the lessons of the
party conducting the people's war and building the People's Armed Forces
and must endeavor to learn from past experiences to creatively apply them
in the new circumstances and conditions of the new stage.

From past experiences we must derive appropriate lessons for currently
building our armed forces. It is wrong not to know how to continue our
traditions and experiences. However, it would also be wrong to continue
but not to develop them in a manner that is compatible with new circum-
stances and conditions and that responds to the new requirements and tasks.
Continuation of past experiences according to the dialectical viewpoint
means continuation combined with development.

We must also pay sufficient attention to learning from the fraternal and
other countries in the world. We must learn from their experiences as
well as knowledge. Regarding knowledge, we must primarily learn from
their modern military science and technique and their production and eco-
nomic construction procedures. Regarding experiences, we must mainly
learn from their experiences in building modern armies and in conducting
wars for national defense under modern conditions.

51



Today, during the period of peaceful national construction, it must be the
key force of the country and people in defending peace and the socialist
fatherland and at the same time one of the party and state's shock forces
on the economic and national construction front.

As one of the powerful forces of the state of proletarian dictatorship and
of socialist revolution in our country, our People's Armed Forces have the
advantage of having a revolutionary military organization that can be
developed in economic construction. They are in the best position to coor-
dinate economic development with national defense consolidation. They are
large in number, of high quality, tightly organized and of a fine revolu-
tionary nature, and share a glorious fighting tradition and a high sense
of organization and discipline.

They comprise three categories of troops, which are deployed in all regions
throughout the country and in all production installations of society.

They can exercise a positive influence on central and regional economies
and on production at the grassroots level. They have organizational struc-
tures and operational procedures of various scales--big, medium and small--
not unlike those found in the operational procedures of large-scale social-
ist production and big industry.

They are experienced in leading, motivating and organizing the masses in
carrying out complex tasks under many different circumstances. They have
a definite material-technical base and managerial skill and have mastered
many types of relatively modern equipment. Moreover, they are being
replenished yearly with young, healthy and enthusiastic youths who have
been trained under the new regime.

These are strong points that can be developed in economic construction,
thus contributing to creating an economic structure of large-scale social-
ist production in our country.

By using the armed forces in economic work, our party and state can rely
on a large and powerful labor force with a revolutionary military organ-
ization which can be concentrated in important and key branches and enter—
prises in difficult and vital areas so as to pring about a powerful devel-
opment in economic construction. For instance, if we should urgently have
to solve pressing problems on the agricultural production front, rapidly
increase the crop acreage or resolve food and foodstuff problems, we could
use a large force of troops to clear tens of thousands, and even hundreds
of thousands, of hectares of virgin land that would otherwise present many
difficulties or where we would not yet be able to send our people.

Within the sphere of one region--a province or a district--if we should
have to rapidly complete some key project, such as a water conservancy
project, we could gather provincial or district regional troops and militia
and self-defense forces to finish it within a short time.

96



Of course, we must also clearly perceive the limits of our experiences in
the face of the new tasks of our country's revolution. We must recognize
all new requirements in consolidating national defense in peacetime and in
a war to defend our socialist fatherland should such a war occur. We must
also perceive the new conditions and situation of our country and the world
and the tremendous development of science and technology in general, and
military science and technology in particular, in the next several decades.

We must strive to study the advanced experiences of the armies of the fra-
ternal countries and other countries in the world. We will certainly be
able to successfully resolve any new problems related to the building of
our armed forces in today's era.

[1430 GMT 22 Jun 77 OW]

[Part II, published in TAP CHI QUAN DOI NHAN issue No 6 of 1977, subtitled:
"New Stage of the Revolution, New Stage of Building the People's Armed
Forces, a Few Guiding Thoughts That Must Be Grasped"]

[Text] 1. New Tasks of the Revolution, New Tasks of the People's Armed
Forces

We all know that the strategic task of our country's current revolution,

as stated by the Fourth Party Congress, is to carry out the socialist revo-
jution and socialist construction in the whole country. The military task
of our revolution in the new stage, also affirmed by the party congress,

is to consolidate national defense; maintain political security and social
order; and insure that the country is always ready and capable of smashing
all aggressive and counterrevolutionary acts. Due to this shift in politi-
cal and military duties there have been basic changes in our People's Armed
Forces’ tasks.

From being People's Armed Forces charged mainly with fighting for national
liberation over the past few decades to building itself into People's Armed
Forces charged with defending and building an independent, unified and
socialist Vietnamese fatherland, our People's Armed Forces must fulfill
well the two great tasks entrusted them by the party. They are: to stand
combat-ready to defend the fatherland--a political task of foremost impor-
tance--and to build the economy and socialism--a very important political
task. This is a historic turning point, a very new development for our
People's Armed Forces.

Certainly all of us know what these changes mean. We must all understand
the new developments, new requirements, new capabilities and new conditions
of building the People's Armed Forces. We must grasp the ideas, the stra-
tegic policies and the guiding thoughts of the party Central Committee and
Political Bureau on building and use of the People's Armed Forces in the
new stage. We must be imbued with and fully apply the fundamental spirit

34



The "Three Categories of Troops" organization is the most effective form
for motivating and organizing all of the people to fight the enemy, to
militarize all of the people and to turn all of the people into combatants.
It enables us to build a highly effective combat organization in the people's
war throughout our country. We have both a widespread force everywhere and
key forces in important areas. We have both local forces to opportunely
fight the enemy anywhere and mobile forces to fight the enemy wherever we
choose to fight. With this combat organization we have people to fight
the enemy anywhere in our country and can turn our country into a huge
battleground, a dragnet in which the enemy will be trapped and attacked.
Wherever the enemy launches an attack it will be counterattacked, inter-
cepted, decimated and wiped out.

In the wars of aggression against our country, all the enemies sought ways
to concentrate their military forces on wiping out our nerve centers and
large main force units in an attempt to crush our people's war of resistance.
However, no enemies succeeded in realizing this scheme because their forces
were constantly besieged, split up and attacked on the large battlefront

of our people's war. They were forced to spread their forces thin every-
where to cope with the attacks by the three categories of troops of our
People's Armed Forces and with the varied, multifaceted struggles of our
people.

The "Three Categories of Troops" is a form of organization of the armed
forces suitable to the requirements of revolutionary methods, the methods
of conducting revolutionary wars and the military art of the Vietnamese
people's war. With this form of organization we can step up the people's
war in the localities and basic-level units, effectively support the
political and military tasks of each locality and of all areas throughout
the country, opportunely coordinate the armed struggles with our people's
| political struggle and combine armed attacks with uprisings by the masses
and the wiping out of enemy troops with the people's struggle to win back
| the right to be masters in all three strategic areas. In addition, we can
accelerate guerrilla warfare everywhere and conventional warfare on an
increasingly larger scale and closely coordinate the various forms of
struggle, combat methods and the power of various types of rudimentary,
relatively modern and modern weapons, thus creating a comprehensive over-
all force to decimate and wipe out the enemy. This form of organization
| of the armed forces is consistent with the special rule of the Vietnamese
revolutionary war and with the requirements and general rules of war.

The nature of war consists of armed struggles, a direct confrontation of
two military forces, two armies. If we want to achieve victory in war we
must have a strong military force with increasingly larger scales of mil-
itary unit organizations capable of wiping out increasingly larger enemy
military units and launching key strategic violent battles with large
concentrations of military forces in order to overwhelmingly crush the
enemy troops. Such is the practice recorded in the military history of
the East and the West, in the past and at present, in the world and in our

18



If we organize about 10 percent of our population into militia and self-
defense forces, we will have an unprecedentedly great militia and self-
defense force in our country, a mammoth force of tremendous strength that
will be utilized for fighting and wiping out the enemy, defending our
grassroots units and maintaining public order and security. This force
will serve as an assault force in production in grassroots units and the
reserve force for our people's army and, together with a well-trained reg-
ular and modern standing army, will form an invincible military force
capable of wiping out any aggressor and steadfastly defending the independ-
ence and freedom of our socialist fatherland.

At present, agricultural workers make up the majority of our country's
workers with a comparatively small number of industrial workers, while the
number of militiamen in general is larger than that of the self-defense
force. However, in the next several decades, the opposite will be true.

Due to our national economic development, the industrial-agricultural struc-
ture will gradually be built and the number of industrial workers will grad-
ually increase and work in the agricultural sector and in rural areas as
well. In the future, we probably should not differentiate the militia force
from the self-defense force, but instead should use the common term "militia"
to designate these forces and distinguish them from the army. The organiza-
tion of the militia and self-defense forces in general must be flexible and
go up to the battalion and regimental levels. At present, in a number of
localities, village-size cooperatives have organized militia companies with
specialized production teams. At the districts' concentrated production
units, the organization of the militia force has reached the battalion
level. This organizational method has enabled us to have better militia
forces capable of assuming more important tasks.

In order to militarize the militia force organizationally and to streamline
the leadership and command over production work or to enable the militia
force to assume great projects, we can organize the militia force into
divisions. This is a method of using military organizations to increase
productivity under our country's present conditions.

[1430 GMT 5 Jul 77 OW]

[Text] With the districts reorganizing production and becoming agricultural-
industrial or forestry-agricultural-industrial economic units and utilizing
machinery in agriculture, there are not only production cooperatives of
different trades and crafts in the districts but agricultural and engineer-
ing clusters directly supporting agricultural production. Thanks to this,
the militia and self-defense forces are growing in number, quality and

scale and may be organized into battalions, regiments or larger units.

We must continue to study the organization of forces to make them compat-

ible with large cooperatives and production clusters of districts so that
we may be able to set up stronger mobile forces on a district-wide scale.

62



During the past half century, under the party's leadership, our people and
army completed one big project: defeating the imperialist aggressors and
their lackeys, recovering independence and freedom for the fatherland and
creating conditions for taking the whole country to socialism, thus making
a worthy contribution to the world revolutionary cause. During the next
few decades, we must--and certainly we can--complete another big project:
overcoming backwardness and poverty, fulfilling the task of building a
material-technical base for socialism in our country and building a pros-
perous and strong socialist Vietnamese fatherland.

The aforementioned questions concerning the building of the armed forces

to safeguard and build the fatherland are based on practical and scientific
grounds. They reflect our party's correct leadership, the great creativity
of the revolutionary masses, our cadres and fighters and the favorable con-
ditions and circumstances for our country's revolution and the world's
revolution now and during the next few decades. That is why we will cer-
tainly be able to complete that project.

While building our armed forces, we must see what lies immediately ahead
as well as what is in the distant future. Only by visualizing the distant
future can we formulate correct guidelines for current activities and
correctly resolve immediate practical problems without being adventurous
or deluded, or being conservative or old-fashioned.

Sometimes things develop in an orderly fashion and sometimes by leaps and
bounds. The revolution sometimes moves rapidly forward, achieving in 1 day
what would normally take 20 years; sometimes surpassing the greatest expec-
tations. The rapid 10-day victory of the general insurrection in August
1945, 15 years after the birth of our party and its leadership of the
national liberation struggle, the historic Dien Bien Phu victory after 9
years of anti-French resistance, and the lightning-fast victory in 55 days
and nights of the general offensive and uprising of the spring of 1975
after 30 long years of armed insurrection and liberation war are examples
of marvelous leaps forward of the revolution after years of orderly
development.

The march of history and the victory of the revolution are objective neces—
sities. However, victory does not come by itself. It is achieved only
by the conscious actions of the whole party, army and all of the people
struggling resolutely. The building of our People's Armed Forces with the
aforementioned objectives is no easy task nor can it be completed within
a short period of time. The history of mankind has developed according
to objective laws independently of man's wishes. However, it is man who
creates his history. It is the same with the development of the armed
forces. According to their law, our armed forces must certainly advance
to the summit of their development in the course of Vietnam's inexorable
development into a powerful socialist country.

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[1430 GMT 1 Jun 77 ow]

[Text] At present, along with the complete success of the cause of national
liberation and the entire country's advance to socialism, national independ-
ence and socialism have become one and the Vietnam fatherland and socialism
have been integrated into one. We must protect and build the socialist
Vietnam fatherland, successfully build socialism in our country and continue
to contribute to the revolutionary cause of the world's people. We must
transform our armed forces into a very sharp tool for the party and state
of proletarian dictatorship to eliminate exploitation, to prevail together
with the entire people over backwardness and poverty and to steadfastly
protect the socialist Vietnam fatherland.

The present invincible strength of our armed forces derives from the strug-
gle for these noble objectives in our country's revolution. Our cadres and
combatants must uphold socialist patriotism, resolutely struggle to the end
for the complete victory of socialism, continuously heighten the spirit of
proletarian internationalism and must outstandingly fulfill all tasks
entrusted by the party, the state and the armed forces in the new stage.

With its correct and creative revolutionary line, our party has created
and developed the great combined strength of the revolution. This is the
combined strength of national independence and socialism, of our nation
and of the three revolutionary currents of the era. In the past anti-U.S.
resistance, this was the combined strength of our country and the revolu-
tionary movement in the entire world, of the socialist revolution in the
north and the democratic national revolution in the south, of the rear and
the frontline, of the political forces associated with the armed forces,
of the political struggle and the armed struggle in all the three strategic
areas, of the three categories of troops, of the military and political
struggles and the diplomatic struggle, and of all the factors that create
the fighting strength of the People's Armed Forces.

Grasping the party's concept of combined strength, we must constantly and
comprehensively build the armed forces in the political, spiritual, ideo-
logical and organizational aspects as well as in regard to weapons, mili-
tary science, military art and military technique. Our armed forces have
always closely coordinated the military struggle with the other forms of
struggle of the entire people and have striven to contribute to building
the combined strength of the revolution and revolutionary war in order to
build on this basis a powerful People's Armed Forces.

At present we must strive to contribute to building the combined strength
of the socialist revolution and to the socialist construction in our entire
country so as to create a steady basis for building the combined strength
of the People's Armed Forces in the new stage of our nation.



guarantee for increasing the efficiency of our army's organized command.

We must urgently and definitely resolve in a relatively short time such
urgent questions as supplementing, perfecting and completing the compila-
tion of our army's system of official regulations and get them promulgated
so they will be carried out throughout the army. We must educate our cadres
and combatants fully and extensively so they will correctly observe the
regulations. We must insure the material conditions necessary for their
implementation, conduct strict control and correctly carry out rewarding
and punitive measures.

Another major question related to increasing the efficiency of organized
command is to build, streamline and perfect the army's agencies at all
levels and develop their effectiveness. We must systematically and effec-
tively build our army's agencies. Agencies must be places which bring
together cadres with extensive specialized skills in specific fields and
branches, who are capable of making studies and reviews, detecting new
developments and providing guidance in organizing the implementation of
tasks.

Cadres of agencies dealing with strategic and campaign matters must have
a broad vision of strategic nature, bring out strategic matters and assist
their leaders and commanders in building an army which can be combat-ready
while engaged in economic activities. :

I have just mentioned some major questions that we must resolve over a
long period in order to build our People's Armed Forces into the most
powerful People's Armed Forces in our nation's history. We must build the
Vietnamese People's Army into a socialist army with a steadily rising level
of standardization and modernization, which reflects the overall strength
of an independent, reunified and socialist Vietnam.

As an immediate goal, our people throughout the country are striving to
successfully fulfill the norms of the 1976-1980 Five-Year Plan set forth
by the Fourth Party Congress. The People's Armed Forces must closely
correlate the building of their forces with the fulfillment of this state
plan. We must positively contribute to implementing this plan and must’
satisfactorily resolve the following pressing issues:

We must continue to strengthen national defense; increase the combat readi-
ness posture of our armed force so they can meet requirements in all situa-
tions; improve organization; further increase the quality of the standing
army; and properly assign troops that should stand combat-ready and troops
that should engage in economic construction. We must push ahead in imple-
menting the regional military task; strengthen the building of the militia
and the self-defense and reserve forces; standardize the training of the
cadres' corps; rapidly complete the review of the war experience; acceler-
ate ideological studies; build an all-people's national defense; build the
People's Armed Forces in the new stage; and build military science, art

94



poverty and backwardness and to make our people prosperous and our country
strong. Through the practice of properly performing both the task of main-
taining combat readiness to defend the fatherland and building the economy
and the country, our army must become a big school that contributes to
training our youths into new-type socialist men who fight and produce well.
This is also a big task that the party and the state have entrusted to

our army.

By performing well the aforementioned tasks in the new stage, our army will
become not only a sharp tool of violence for the state of the proletarian
dictatorship but also an economic organization, a labor force that produces
material wealth for society, not only combat and production units but units
that educate and train new-type men. Clearly this is a new development in
the tasks and functions of our army, reflecting a new concept and a new
development of the theory of building the People's Armed Forces in the
present period of peaceful construction and national defense.

As army cadres, you must understand this well and must go deeply into and
ponder over it. Together with the central military party committee and
the Defense Ministry, you comrades must assume responsibility for making
the units and‘ organizations throughout our armed forces thoroughly see the
party's intentions and become imbued with its concept and theory so as to
whip up the highest and strongest revolutionary offensive spirit on the
two fronts of combat readiness for national defense and economic and
national construction with the same enthusiastic mettle as during the
past fight for national salvation.

The troops must consciously and seriously implement the regulations on
combat readiness as during the wartime and must carry out the production
orders as strictly as they carried out the combat orders. The party organ-
izations in the army and the army cadres at various echelons must lead,
command and guide the troops in their training and maintenance of combat
readiness as seriously as during the wartime, and must lead, command and
guide them in carrying out economic construction as urgently as during
combat.

In short, we must understand all the political and military tasks in the
new stage of the revolution and our People's Armed Forces' extremely great
duties and requirements. We must endeavor to build the People's Armed
Forces in a manner compatible with the gravity of the tasks of defending
and building our fatherland in the new era of the nation, with the national
duty and international position of the Vietnamese revolution in the new
stage and with the trust of our party and people.

39



economic work, our army can make many positive contributions to building
the country and to large-scale socialist production. These contributions
to the state economic sectors in the different fields of social life--
economic, political, national defense, cultural and social--will be ever
greater. By so doing, our army also takes part in building a steadfast
all-people's national defense, a solid rear base for people's warfare and
the army itself. However; our army will encounter weaknesses and difficul-
ties when shifting to economic work, particularly during the initial period.
It must endeavor to overcome them.

Because army organizations are formed and developed according to the rules
of armed struggle and fighting while economic organizations are built and
developed according to economic and production rules, when part of the
army shifts to economic work, some organizational inconsistencies appear.
Therefore, the Political Bureau's resolution concerning the army's economic
work pointed out, when the army is engaged in economic work, we must, in
general, maintain it a military organization but some changes are also
required to suit the situation. We must organize army units according to
the tasks, requirements and characteristics of each type of force. Those
forces primarily in charge of economic work must have an organization dif-
ferent from that of the combat-ready forces. Army units doing economic
work and having different tasks in different sectors--agriculture; forestry;
fishery; industry; capital construction; construction of factories, houses,
municipalities and cities; building of roads, railroads; laying of pipe-
lines; and construction of airfields, water conservance and hydroelectric
projects--must have their own organizations which are suited to each task
and each sector.

We must rapidly resolve the question of organizing leadership and command

to do economic work and organizing production-support agencies and (?special-
ized, technical production agencies). Our army's weakest point and its
greatest difficulty in economic work is that it lacks know-how, economic
experience, knowledge of economic rules, organizational science and economic
management science corresponding to large-scale socialist production and
modern production science and technology. We still lack labor tools, par-
ticularly modern mechanized labor equipment. Crude labor tools are still
prevalent.

The problem is that we must study harder. Economic studies will play a
decisive factor in our army's fulfillment of its economic task. We must
conduct studies in a revolutionary offensive spirit and with a "determined
to fight and to win" will and practical methods. We must learn from the
state economic sectors, strive to acquire assistance.from various sectors
and achieve solidarity with them in a spirit of comradeship and socialist
cooperation. We must urgently and intensively produce many labor tools,
including crude, improved, semi-modern and modern tools so as to rapidly
meet the requirements of productive labor tasks, to increase labor produc-
tivity and economic efficiency and to produce great wealth for society.

101



to do so. But nevertheless we had to take such a course of action, which
was correct and necessary, because we could not have achieved victory
otherwise.

Thanks to the assistance of the Soviet Union, China and other fraternal
socialist countries we were able to solve the problem of equipping our army
with modern weapons. During the anti-U.S. war of resistance our backward
national economy was predominantly one of small-scale production and our
material bases were small. However, our army had modern weapons and supply
and technological bases, a product of the modern, large-scale production of
fraternal socialist countries. Our army made great strides as regards
material and technical equipment, whereas our national economy could not
develop at such a great pace.

Our country is now advancing toward socialism, and our people are striving
to build our country into a prosperous and strong socialist country. Only
if we succeed in building a strong socialist economy can we have the mate-
rial conditions for building a strong national defense, strong armed
forces and a strong army. We cannot build our national defense and army
without relying on our economy. Therefore we must include the question of
building our armed forces within the entire project of national construc-
tion. Building the armed forces is for the purpose of protecting and
building the country which, in turn, creates the most basic conditions for
building the armed forces.

It may be said that if coordinating the task of fighting with the task of
building the armed forces was a rule of development for our armed forces
in the last war, we must now build a prosperous and strong country as the
basis for building powerful People's Armed Forces and coordinate the task
of standing combat-ready with the task of economic construction. This is
a rule of development of our armed forces in the present peaceful period.
This rule affects all activities of our armed forces, from policy to organ-
ization and use of forces, and it affects the implementation of tasks from
ministerial agencies, military regions, army corps and armed services and
branches to grassroots units. The standing army, in discharging the tasks
of being combat-ready or the economic construction tasks, must correctly
solve problems involving these rules, which take on the force of law con-
sistent with specific duties and situations.

During the last war, because we had to build our armed forces while per-
forming combat tasks and because of urgent combat requirements, we had to
build our armed forces according to the most mandatory requirements in the
shortest time so as to quickly defeat the enemy. This was a correct and
necessary move that we had to adopt at that time. Now that we live in
peace we must build our People's Armed Forces not only according to imme-
diate requirements but also according to the long-range requirements of
the tasks of protecting and building our fatherland. Therefore we can
and must build our armed forces in a basic, comprehensive, systematic and
uniform manner.

42