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he French reconquest of southern Vietnam and contribute to the construction of the DRV in the north. While searching for allies, the DRV government tried to build alliances or solicit support for their new state within Southeast Asia, with the United States, the Soviet Union and the Chinese (Chiang Kai-Shek government/the Guomindang). The very first efforts of this kind were made in the immediate aftermath of the August Revolution when Ho Chi Minh sent parallel series of cables to both Stalin and Truman asking for recognition and support.4 Nothing came out of either. Cooperation with Chiang Kai-Shek also broke down when he agreed with France to withdraw the Chinese occupation troops from northern Indochina.5 After the outbreak of full-scale war from 1947, the DRV government used Bangkok as its main diplomatic outlet.6 Although the Thai government did not recognize the DRV, it allowed the opening of a ‘Representational Office of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’ in Bangkok in the late summer of 1946. The office was set up with the help of Vietnamese nationals in Thailand and began to operate fully from 14 April 1947. The office was tolerated by the progressive national government of Pridi Banomyong. According to one Vietnamese author, the Bangkok office received money and funds from Pridi, who also allowed the Vietnamese to set up a war base at the frontier where soldiers could receive training before being sent back through Laos and Cambodia into Vietnam. Bangkok was a very important liaison point for the Vietnamese because the DRV’s diplomatic mission there could initiate and maintain contacts with other Southeast Asian countries and world powers through their Thai embassies. The office was not recognized as a legitimate legation or embassy but played a significant role in the DRV’s foreign affairs. Bangkok would function as the DRV’s main opening to the world until the conservative coup in Thailand in 1948, after which Rangoon took over some of Bangkok’s role. Thailand’s new ruler from 1948 deprived the DRV representative office of its diplomatic status, and it was forced to reduce its activity.7 During 1947, Bangkok was the scene of encounters between Vietnamese and American officials, as well as Vietnamese and Soviet officials. Ho Chi Minh’s encounters with American officials in France and Vietnam during 1946 had been characterized by a friendly and respectful atmosphere. The American attitude towards colonialism and the independence of the Philippines may have provided some of the Vietnamese leaders with hope that the United States could support them against France or at least put a moderating pressure on France.8 During early 1947, shortly after the outbreak of full-scale war between the Vietnamese and the French, the DRV launched a four-month diplomatic initiative to secure the support of the Truman administration. The initiative was led by Dr Pham Ngoc Thach, deputy minister in the Office of the President and one of Ho Chi Minh’s closest advisors. From April to June, Thach approached the Americans in Choosing sides 3 Bangkok with several proposals. Among these were calls for recognition, requests for assistance in mediating the conflict with the French, for loans for Vietnamese rehabilitation, for economic concessions to US businesses in Vietnam, and appeals for technical assistance and cultural exchange. However, just like Ho Chi Minh’s attempt to secure American support immediately after the August Revolution, Pham Ngoc Thach’s initiatives in the first half of 1947 failed.9 The DRV began constructing their fragile new state in a period of international turmoil. On the eve of the Cold War a growing fear of Communism was slowly spreading among American policy makers. Despite many favourable assessments from American officials in both Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, Ho Chi Minh’s government received no support for its case from the Truman administration and began to realize that it was necessary to turn to other countries for support. The DRV’s approaches to the United States must be evaluated within the context of the Vietnamese relationship with the French. In the aftermath of the war anti-colonial sentiments prevailed in the international arena with one distinct exception – the French attitude towards its former colony Indochina. In order to prevent a French re-colonialization of the area, the Vietnamese needed a strong and independent ally for support. Parallel to the approaches to the Americans, the DRV leaders also sought support from the Soviet Union. As in the case with the Americans, in the latter half of the 1940s, contact with Moscow was initiated and maintained largely through the DRV delegation in Bangkok. Ho Chi Minh had strong links with the Communist world from his prewar work with the Comintern, his role within the French Communist Party, and, not least, his long-term stays in Moscow. Still, in the immediate period after the August Revolution, the DRV government was not successful in securing material support from any of its future Communist allies.10 At that point Mao Zedong did not yet hold power in China and was far away. So was the Soviet Union. Soviet sources describe how the first encounters between Soviet and Vietnamese officials took place in early spring 1947.11 From 23 March to 2 April, a Soviet delegation led by comrades Zhukov and Plishevskii participated at the Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi.12 During the conference the Soviets met with Tran Van Giau, former leader of the August Revolution in Saigon and southern Vietnam, who led the Vietnamese delegation to the conference. Tran Van Giau described the situation in Vietnam as a disaster and appealed, on behalf of Ho Chi Minh, for assistance from Moscow. According to Giau, ‘the French were gradually tightening the rope around the virtually unarmed Vietnamese units,’[. . .] ‘and would crush the Democratic Republic completely within 4 to 5 months’.13 That would happen regardless of the fact that Ho Chi Minh and the Communist party had the full support and respect of the Vietnamese people. ‘Vietnam needs immediate assistance’, he continued and emphasized that the major problem was the lack of weapons. The Vietnamese government primarily needed money in order to purchase weapons through China. In addition, Tran Van Giau reminded the Soviet delegates that diplomatic support through the United Nations would also be very much appreciated.14 4 Choosing sides The meetings between Tran Van Giau, Zhukov and Plishevskii took place around the same time as Pham Ngoc Thach began his approaches to the Americans in Bangkok. However, in the first years after Second World War the Soviet Union was primarily concerned with developments in Europe. In postcolonial Asia, Moscow first and foremost paid attention to Indonesia,15 and of course China and Korea, but showed little interest in the national liberation struggle in Indochina before 1950. Soviet strategies in Southeast Asia Previous accounts of Soviet relations with Southeast Asia in general, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in particular, suggest that during the early years of the DRV’s existence the Soviet Union appeared to have been appropriately sympathetic to the Vietminh cause, although non-committal concerning any specific assistance the Vietnamese might expect.16 In the early post-war years the Soviet Union did not want to disturb its relations with Paris, where the Communists were part of the government until March 1947. This fact undermines the suggestions that the Soviet Union, as early as 1947, played the role as moderator for the Southeast Asian Communist parties. In his work Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia, Charles B. Mclane distinguishes between two separate developments when characterizing Moscow’s colonial strategies in the period from 1947 to 1950. From 1945 to 1947 Moscow seemed to follow a relatively moderate strategy. A change came, according to Mclane, towards the end of 1947, when Zhdanov presented a more militant line in Soviet foreign policies. This was further enhanced with the acceptance of Chinese views (Liu Shaoqi) through 1949 and early 1950 – views that were clearly more aggressive in terms of assisting Communist revolutions than the initial Soviet stand. Another equally important development according to Mclane was the shift of focus from Europe to Asia. This shift apparently began with the Calcutta Conference in 1948, and continued with the CCP’s establishment of the PRC in the fall of 1949.17 In the first years following the Second World War, Stalin’s attention was focused on Europe. Naturally enough, the Soviet leaders were much more concerned about their relationship with France, Great Britain and the United States than with the events in Indochina. There are no records of worldwide appeals on Vietnam’s behalf from the Soviet side. When negotiations between Ho Chi Minh and the French broke down in December 1946, and the Franco-Vietminh War broke out, the Soviet Union apparently never even considered intervening. Ignoring the fact that the Franco-Vietminh war was the first case of conflict between a colonial subject and an imperialist power in an Asian country, Moscow underestimated a war that would seriously affect the course of events throughout the East.18 The Soviet reluctance to get directly involved in the Vietnamese situation underlines how much importance Moscow attached to a reasonable relationship with the West European states, especially France, and the United States. Choosing sides 5 In a speech at the founding of the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) in September 1947 in Poland, Soviet Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov presented the so-called ‘two-camp’ thesis. He divided the world into two distinct camps, an imperialist one led by the United States and the other that of anti-imperialism, socialism and peace.19 Within that context the DRV was described as ‘associated’ with the anti-imperialist camp, and the

Vietminh war was termed ‘a powerful movement for national liberation in the colonies and dependencies’.20 The speech marked a watershed in Soviet post-war strategies. It affirmed a policy already decided upon by Stalin and the CPSU Central Committee and was an event that set the tone of international relations during the Cold War.21 In his speech Zhdanov encouraged Communists abroad to be more energetic in their ways of advancing the common goal. He underlined that through economic power the Americans aimed at organizing Western Europe and countries politically and economically dependent on the United States such as Near Eastern and South American countries and Chiang Kai-Shek’s China into an anti-Communist bloc. The Russians, on the other hand, were in the process of forming another bloc together with the so-called new democracies in Eastern Europe, Finland, Indonesia and Vietnam and with the sympathy of India, Egypt and Syria. With this division into blocs, Zhdanov announced what may be seen as the rebirth of the ‘two-camp’ view of the world that was characteristic of Soviet foreign policy in the late 1920s and early 1930s.22 Although the message inherent in Zhdanov’s speech was aimed at all Communist parties in the world, only the European Communist parties were present during the founding meeting of the Cominform. There were no representatives from any colonial or previously colonial country. To convey the message to these parties the Cominform decided to hold an Asian conference in mid-November the same year. But the message at this conference only partly reflected the new line in Communist policy. The key note address to the participants at the conference was delivered by Asia expert and historian Evgenii Michalovich Zhukov. He acknowledged the need for a more vigorous role for Communist parties in the colonies, an attitude that to a much larger degree reflected a way of thinking that was more characteristic of pre- than post-Zhdanov attitudes towards the Eastern question. At the same time, records from the conference did not confirm the idea of a more active Soviet policy towards the colonial world, but rather added more confusion to the state of Moscow’s intent in these countries.23 The same Zhukov who gave the opening speech at the Asian conference was the one who met with Tran Van Giau in New Delhi in late March or early April 1947 to discuss the situation in Vietnam. As an academic his role was more as an advisor than a policy maker, but his views on Soviet policies towards the colonies were influential in the post-war years. Vietnamese diplomatic initiatives in Bangkok and Moscow We have seen how the attempts made by Tran Van Giau to solicit support from the Soviet Union in the spring of 1947 were unsuccessful. Judging by previous accounts on the Soviet–Vietnamese relationship, the Soviet attitude towards the 6 Choosing sides revolutionary struggle in Vietnam was more sympathetic after the Zhdanov speech. Thus the picture ought to change after September 1947, but Soviet archival sources do not support this view. In the period after the Cominform meeting Moscow was equally hesitant once the issue of practical economic or military assistance was raised. At this time there was also considerable suspicion of Ho Chi Minh as a rightist deviator who had dissolved the Indochinese Communist Party.24 Pham Ngoc Thach, who during spring and summer had been in charge of approaches to the US government, met with the Soviet envoy to Switzerland, Anatolii Georgevich Kulazhenkov, in Bern in early September of 1947.25 Pham Ngoc Thach, then described as deputy state secretary of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Vietnam, was in Switzerland under the pretext of being treated for tuberculosis. His main aim was to make an illegal trip to France, where he was supposed to present his credentials to the leading French Communists Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos. He came to the Soviet mission in Bern to provide information about the current situation in Vietnam. Describing how the DRV government organized the fight against the French army, he emphasized the lack of weapons in the Vietnamese army. Military units did not have the necessary equipment, and the government did not have enough foreign currency to buy what they needed. There was also a lack of senior cadres to take the command. Owing to the situation the CCP decided to assist Vietnam and send in a group of military advisors.26 On the current situation in Southeast Asia, Pham Ngoc Thach underlined that during the fight for independence Communist parties had been founded in most countries and had an important influence among the populations. He emphasized Vietnam’s role as the proliferation centre of Communist influence in Southeast Asia. On his way to Europe Pham Ngoc Thach had met with Communist leaders in other Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Burma. He also told them that the Vietnamese Communist Party (‘Kompartii Vietnama’)27 had planned a congress of all Southeast Asian Communist parties in 1947, but that this had proved impossible due to the ongoing war between Vietnam and France. With regard to the French Communist Party (PCF) Thach reported that they had so far not discussed the question of Vietnam and had done nothing substantial to hinder the French imperialist war against the republic.28 Within the PCF the attitude towards support for the Vietminh changed in 1947. They offered only very prudent political and diplomatic support to the DRV in 1946 while the PCF was a member of the French government coalition and war had not yet broken out in Indochina. In the spring of 1947, however, the war had become a highly debated issue in France, and the PCF was evicted from the coalition. They now became gradually more sympathetic to the Vietminh but had neither any real power in France nor any influence over Ho Chi Minh. After the PCF left the French government coalition, the Soviet Union also started to voice some support for the DRV and blamed the civil war in Indochina on French reactionary circles and British imperialist manoeuvres. According to Moscow, the French government should bear full responsibility for the situation.29 Pham Ngoc Choosing sides 7 Thach also underlined the importance of the many different factions within the Vietnamese Communist Party and the fact that this party was not an entity as it is perceived in Europe. According to him, the two PCF leaders he had been in touch with had expressed the view that Vietnam should focus all its energy on the fight for independence and not give any concessions to the French imperialists.30 Describing the attitudes towards the United States and Great Britain, Pham Ngoc Thach claimed that they were hated in all Southeast Asian countries; however, in spite of this the US position was becoming increasingly solid. Countries were flooded with American goods, and the Americans pretended not to be against the fight for national liberation. They even encouraged it, assuming that as soon as the countries were free from English, French and Dutch influence, they would automatically fall into the hands of the Americans. According to the US military attaché in Siam, who proclaimed his sympathy with the Vietnamese people, the Americans could not interfere with the war and had no plans to assist the French. Pham Ngoc Thach also expressed his wish to visit the Soviet Union and personally inform them about the situation in Southeast Asia. However, he did not want a Soviet visa in his passport since that could create problems once he tried to return to Thailand (Siam).31 There are no records of direct support from the Soviet Union to the Vietnamese in 1948. However, the Southeast Asian Youth Conference that took place in Calcutta in February 1948 has been regarded as a turning point, and there has been much discussion on the role of the Calcutta conference in Soviet strategies towards Southeast Asia. According to one scholar, Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam received more Soviet attention after the Calcutta conference and full Soviet approval from the spring of that same year.32 The conference took place between 19 and 25 February, and 39 organisations from both Communist and non-Communist countries sent their delegations to participate in, or observe, its work. Many of the discussions at the conference circled around the ‘two-camp’ doctrine presented by Zhdanov in September 1947, and the general atmosphere revealed the spreading of militancy in the world Communist movement.33 Because of the outbreak of numerous Communist-led uprisings shortly after the conference, there have been allegations that Moscow used the conference to pass on instructions to the Southeast Asian parties. Two specific arguments stand in the way of such a possibility. The first is that the composition of the conference did not make it a suitable vehicle for revolutionary instructions. Most participants were non-Communists, and Moscow did not view meetings such as the Southeast Asian Youth Conference as a revolutionary tool, but more as an arena to project Moscow’s ideas on world affairs to Communist sympathizers and leftists. Secondly, there was the question of who would have been in charge of passing on these instructions. The Soviet delegation to the conference consisted of a group of Central Asians, none of whom held high-ranking positions in the CPSU. It is unlikely that any of these were trusted to pass on such instructions, and, in addition, there were few other Communist representatives to receive such instructions. The only known Southeast Asian Communist who attended the conference was the Burmese party leader Than Tun.34 8 Choosing sides The absence of materials on the Calcutta conference in Soviet diplomatic and Communist party records reduces the likelihood that this conference played an important role in distributing instructions from the Soviet Union to the Southeast Asian Communist parties. However, there

are still unexplored sources that might reveal more about the conference, such as those of the Soviet Youth Organization Komsomol.35 But even if the conference was not used to pass on instructions, it has been argued that it served a useful purpose within Soviet strategy. The reason for that was the emphasis put on discussing the Zhdanov theories and the fact that one participant after another spoke out in favour of militant anti-imperialism. Whether Moscow approved of the more militant course taken by the Southeast Asian Communists after Calcutta is difficult to establish through available materials. There was no fixed pattern in the Soviet response to the upcoming rebellions in Southeast Asia. Nor was there any to draw significant conclusions from Communist experiences there which might be applied to the rest of the colonial world. As such the overall conclusion must be that, to find explanations for the uprisings in the Southeast Asian countries in those years, it will be more fruitful to look at conditions within the countries themselves.36 Whether it was due to the Calcutta conference or not, from 1948 on meetings between Soviet and Vietnamese representatives took place on a more regular basis. The recurring theme at these meetings was the question of Soviet assistance to the Vietnamese, both economic and military. At a meeting in Moscow in late August 1948 between the deputy head of the Vietnamese information bureau in Bangkok, Le Hy, and M. Sh. Bakhitov, deputy head of the Southeast Asia Department (SEAD) in the Soviet foreign ministry, these issues were raised. The purpose of the meeting was, according to Le Hy, to report on the situation in Vietnam. Le Hy informed Bakhitov that at that point the Republic of Vietnam37 (‘Respublika Viet-Nam’) had already for three years fought against the French military intervention, supported by the British and the Americans and with the tacit approval of the Guomindang clique in China. Due to its geographic location (China in the north and French forces in the south) and the developing international political situation, Vietnam fought without any help or support – except moral – from the outside. For tactical reasons, the leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party had decided to disperse the party into different democratic and mass organisations to preclude it from officially standing forth as the leading force in the government and among the masses.38 Le Hy’s emphasis on the division of the party might have been his way of defending the official dissolution of the ICP in November 1945, which had caused suspicion in Moscow. During the meeting with Bakhitov, Le Hy also talked about the original purpose of his trip. He was on his way to Prague to open a Vietnamese information agency. The purpose of the office would be to strengthen the ties and improve contacts with progressive and democratic states. Le Hy would be in charge of the agency, and the staff would consist of three people – among them Australian Communist Alexander Brotherton. He also reported that he was forced to wait in Moscow for further instructions from his government. The purpose of his visit to Moscow was among other things to present an unofficial inquiry on behalf of the Choosing sides 9 Communist party circles in Vietnam whether the Soviet government and the party could help the Vietnamese Republic with weapons, ammunition and other kinds of equipment and present this as a loan. In case of a positive answer to the inquiry, Le Hy wondered whether the Soviet Union could send a plenipotentiary delegation to Vietnam for proper negotiations.39 Le Hy also had another request. He wondered whether the Soviet government would allow some Vietnamese students to come to the Soviet Union to study. He underlined the respect of the Vietnamese people for the Soviet Union and emphasized the fact that Ho Chi Minh had lived for nine years in the Soviet Union. He also added that the Vietnamese government reckoned that for the moment it would be inconvenient to address an official request for assistance from the Soviet Union. Because of this he had to present this request on behalf of the Communist circles in Vietnam and ask whether the Soviet Union could give any kind of assistance to Vietnam in any form that would be convenient for the Soviet Union. If it should prove impossible to get such support from the Soviet government, he would do it through the Soviet Communist Party. Bakhitov did not give any promises, but answered that some action would be taken to clear this up.40 Apparently the Soviets found the organization of Vietnamese representation in Thailand somewhat confusing. The role of Le Hy was the most prominent example. His claim to be an official representative of the DRV, and his approaches to the Soviets for support, seemed to be a source of concern to other Vietnamese officials. That also caught the attention of the Soviets in Bangkok. Sergei Nemtchin confronted Nguyen Duc Quy on the issue of Le Hy and was told that Le Hy had a limited task – to organize propaganda about Vietnam in Europe and that he was not an official representative of the Vietnamese government and took all decisions on his work independently.41 The confusion around the role of Le Hy could be part of the reason why Soviet envoy Nemtchin characterized the behaviour of Vietnamese diplomats in Bangkok as disorganized and amateurish.42 The August meeting with Le Hy was followed up in late September 1948 when the Soviet envoy in Thailand, Sergei Sergeevitch Nemtschin, met with the head of the Vietnamese delegation in Southeast Asia, Nguyen Duc Quy – who was a proper representative for the DRV. In 1948 the Soviet legation in Bangkok was the only Soviet representation in Southeast Asia. At that time Thailand and, from 1948, Burma were the only independent countries in the region, and thus the only possibilities for setting up representation. Thailand gave Moscow permission to set up the legation in exchange for the Soviet Union’s vote at the United Nations on Thailand’s bid to join. Thailand was accepted as a UN member, and Moscow formed its first formal diplomatic post in Southeast Asia by March–April 1948.43 The purpose of Nguyen Duc Quy’s visit to the Soviet envoy was to establish contacts with the representative of the Soviet Communist Party in Thailand. He assumed that the envoy, Nemtchin, was also the CPSU representative. Nemtchin, however, explained that that was not the case and that he only represented the Soviet state as such. While talking to Nemtchin, Nguyen Duc Quy also referred to the September 1947 meeting that had taken place in Switzerland between 10 Choosing sides Pham Ngoc Thach and Anatolii Kylashenkov. The lack of reference to Le Hy’s mission in this context further confirmed his unofficial status and accentuated Nguyen Duc Quy’s distrust of Hy. From the records of this meeting we have already seen how Pham Ngoc Thach presented a request from the Vietnamese government for assistance from the Soviet Union. In addition, according to Nguyen Duc Quy, Pham Ngoc Thach had also used the opportunity to deliver a direct request to the Soviet government from Ho Chi Minh, in which the latter sought support for a proposal that the United Nations intervene in the FrancoVietnamese conflict.44 In addition to Nguyen Duc Quy, another Vietnamese official, referred to as Chuong, was involved in the discussions.45 He is referred to in Nemtchin’s reply as a member of the Vietnamese government and a secretary of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party. His mission was to establish contact with the Soviet Communist Party, and he needed a visa to go to Moscow. Due to the situation, Nguyen Duc Quy wondered whether the Soviet mission in Thailand could act as a liaison between the Vietnamese and the Soviet Communist parties and assist Chuong in getting a visa to the Soviet Union. According to Nguyen Duc Quy, Chuong had two tasks to perform: one was to inform Moscow of the situation in Vietnam, and the second was to discuss assistance to Vietnam. Returning to conditions in Vietnam, Nguyen Duc Quy reported that the struggle was in such a phase that it was necessary to receive assistance from abroad since the Vietminh’s heavy weapons were insufficient.46 On a direct question of how to implement this assistance, Nguyen Duc Quy answered that the Vietnamese wanted the Soviets to help them raise money that was needed to buy necessary weapons from American smugglers. Vietnam would need about 2–5 million US dollars. However, with the ongoing French blockade it was too difficult to transfer money out of Vietnam. Nguyen Duc Quy explained that they did have an opportunity to buy weapons from American smugglers, overcome the blockade and transport these into Vietnam. On numerous occasions during the conversation Nguyen Duc Quy referred to ‘our party’ as if to assure Nemtchin that the Vietnamese Communist Party was in charge of everything in Vietnam.47 Throughout 1948 Vietnamese diplomats in Bangkok continued to approach the Soviets with requests for assistance, but without any apparent success. Toward the end of September 1948 Nguyen Duc Quy informed the Soviet attaché in Siam, Igor Grigorevich Ysatchov, that the Vietnamese Communist Party was about to send a request to the CCP for military aid – and as a part of that they would also ask for two senior officers to lead military operations. To solve the most immediate problems related to supplies of weapons, they had made a deal with Burma on intermediate landing of Vietnamese aircraft on Burmese territory for loading. The Vietnamese were also ready to buy Burmese weapons (US surplus weapons) and let aircraft drop them over Vietnam with parachutes. That would help overcome the French blockade.48 In the years before the establishment of the PRC contact between the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists remained limited, even though Ho Chi Minh, as Choosing sides 11 well as several of the other leaders

in Hanoi, previously had entertained close connections with the Chinese Communists in the 1920s and 1930s. During his time as an active member of the PCF in Paris, Ho met several of the men who would become central within the CCP, such as Zhou Enlai, Wang Ruofei, Xiao San and Li Fuchun. Ho had also worked in China for a long period in the mid1920s when the Communist International sent him from Moscow to Guangzhou, where he assisted Mikhail Borodin, the Comintern representative to the new Chinese revolutionary government led by the Guomindang.49 According to Chinese sources, from 1945 to 1949 assistance from the Chinese Communists to the Vietminh was mostly in the category of mutual assistance. One example was the incident in March 1946, when a unit from the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sought refuge in North Vietnam and was welcomed by the Vietnamese Communists. The unit had withdrawn into Vietnam to avoid a Guomindang attack, and Ho Chi Minh asked if they could help train his troops so they would be better prepared for a war against the French. That encounter was important for the future of Sino-Vietnamese relations. Although no evidence suggests that the CCP provided regular contributions to the Vietminh until 1949, the CCP sub-bureau in British Hong Kong seems to have provided them with some funds on a more irregular basis from 1947. Even the lines of communication between the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists were not very strong before 1950. The first direct line of telegraphic communications between the two parties was set up in the spring of 1947.50 Chinese aid was a welcome support, but the Vietnamese strongly emphasized that they were not interested in receiving aid only from the CCP. The requests for Soviet support continued. In early October 1948 Nguyen Duc Quy requested both military and economic assistance. At the time there was no military academy in Vietnam, and this had resulted in a general lack of officers to lead the fight against the French. Duc Quy therefore asked about the possibility of educating 50 officers – captains and lieutenants – in higher military academies in the Soviet Union. In addition he asked for stipends and educational opportunities within the area of economy, so that in turn the Vietnamese would be better equipped to run their own national economy.51 The immediate Soviet reaction was negative. Nemtchin explained that since the end of the Second World War Soviet educational facilities has been filled up with those who had interrupted their studies due to the war, and hence there was very little space for foreign students. Nguyen Duc Quy once again asked Nemtchin to pass a request for money and weapons to conduct the war to the Soviet Communist Party, upon which Nemtchin once again replied that since he was not a Communist party official, he could not pass on such a request.52 Renewed Soviet interest in Asia The Vietnamese Communists’ first attempts to establish relations with the outside world have the characteristic of a classic history of rejections. Their attempts to establish relations with the United States and the Soviet Union went on more 12 Choosing sides or less parallel tracks. A second wave of attempts to secure assistance from the United States or the Soviet Union was made through the DRV representative office in Bangkok during 1947. First, the Vietnamese representatives flirted with the Americans in the spring, hoping that the US stand on colonialism could secure support against the French. That attempt failed because those who favoured support to Ho Chi Minh did not have enough influence within the Truman administration, and the final lid on the possibility of American support came with the start of the Cold War, when the Americans already believed that the DRV was part of the Communist world. The unsuccessful attempts at establishing relations with the Americans were followed by an attempt to secure assistance from the Soviet Union in the fall of 1947. But Moscow was no more eager than Washington to assist the Vietnamese, and the DRV was rejected once again. Even after the French Communists were expelled from the government, Moscow remained reluctant to support the Vietminh in their struggle against the French forces. Thus, by the end of 1948 the Vietnamese Communists had to realize that their attempts to secure Soviet support in their war against the French had failed. Repeated requests and pleas to the Soviets both in Bangkok and Moscow had led to moral support at most. Europe was still the major target of Soviet foreign policy, and Stalin was not willing to risk that over support for the Vietnamese. In the late 1940s Vietnam was too far away and too insignificant to become the main focus of Moscow’s foreign policy. Thus, as one historian has put it, from 1948 onwards, the Vietnamese had to accept that in the coming years the success of the CCP and Mao Zedong represented their best chance to break the isolation in their war for independence.53 So, in short, one could argue that while the DRV’s relations with the world began in Thailand in 1945, and from 1947 were represented by Bangkok as the only diplomatic outlet for the DRV, the successful Vietnamese relations with the world began with the Communist victory in China in 1949, and the subsequent Chinese recognition of the DRV in January 1950. However, in 1949 the situation in Asia changed dramatically, and in 1950 the success of the Chinese Communists forced Stalin to pay more attention not only to China but also to Vietnam. In May 1949 Soviet analysts concluded that ‘the success of the People’s Liberation Army of China undoubtedly has a strong influence on the outcome of the Vietnamese people’s fight for national independence’.54 The role of both Moscow and Beijing in Asia was discussed during Liu Shaoqi’s visit to Moscow in the summer of 1949, when Stalin suggested that China take on the main responsibility for supporting revolutionary movements in the former Asian colonies once the People’s Republic was in place.55 2 Setting the stage The Soviet Union, China and the First Indochina War, 1949–1953 After the proclamation of the PRC on 1 October 1949, Stalin met with Mao in Moscow in December. When they discussed Vietnam, the Soviet leader underlined that the practical part of assisting Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communists was primarily a Chinese responsibility.1 The victory of the Chinese revolution had radically transformed international relations in East Asia. Not only did it destroy the existing international order based on the Yalta agreements and the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty, it also forced the established powers to face a new revolutionary state that had arisen from a civil war. When dealing with this new state, previous rules no longer applied, neither for the United States nor for the Soviet Union. Moreover, especially for Moscow this new order would seriously influence its policies towards East Asia. Earlier the Soviet Union had, by coordinating its policy with that of the United States, the potential to obtain economic and security advantages in East Asia. However, when the Chinese revolution finally succeeded, the Soviet Union was forced to adjust its policy to the objectives of the Chinese Communists.2 As a result, Stalin’s attitude in 1949 would prove to have serious consequences for the future relationship between Moscow and Hanoi. By resting its policy towards Vietnam on the role of China, Moscow limited its responsibilities as well as its opportunities, laying parts of the foundation for future frustration over the situation in Southeast Asia. In sum, the Communist victory in China contributed to increased attention to developments in the Far East both from the United States and the Soviet Union. To Moscow, this also meant that its attention was drawn more specifically to the situation in Vietnam. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the relationship between the Soviet Union and Vietnam in the first three years after the Communist victory in China. Focus will be on the impact of the Communist victory in China on Soviet–Vietnamese relations, the events surrounding Chinese and Soviet recognition of the DRV, the discussions on how and when to establish Soviet–Vietnamese diplomatic missions, and, finally, the Soviet, as well as the Chinese, economic, military and ideological role in the Franco-Vietnamese War. 14 Setting the stage Moscow and the Communist victory in China When Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the PRC on 1 October 1949, Beijing had already been in Communist hands since January that year, and the PLA was in control of most of Northern China but not yet the regions bordering Indochina. Mao’s announcement on 1 October was the result of a long civil war. The CCP came to power in 1949 with only 4.5 million members, but by the end of 1950 it had increased to approximately 5.8 million. The first major task for the new government was to stabilize the economy and consolidate the regime and to take control of the rest of the country. The PRC aimed to build a new society based on the development of agriculture and industry. The Guomindang was declared reactionary, and in principle all citizens were guaranteed rights such as free speech and free religion. The PRC planned land reforms, collectivization and heavy industrial development after the Soviet model.3 Mao Zedong’s first official visit abroad was to the Soviet Union. He stayed for roughly two months, from 16 December 1949 to 17 February 1950, and during his stay he discussed two items of particular interest with the Soviet leader. The first was the degree and form of Soviet assistance to the PRC, and the second was the new role of China in Asia and, in particular, Southeast Asia. Parallel to Mao’s visit to the Soviet Union, the DRV government sent out a declaration encouraging all states to recognize the DRV as the only legitimate government of Vietnam. As such, Chinese, Soviet and other countries’ recognitio

n of the DRV came at about the same time as the Sino-Soviet agreement was signed in Moscow.4 Once Mao was in power in China, Stalin, surprised but still pleased with the successes of the Chinese Communists, had no other option than to support the CCP. This support was primarily announced through the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, signed on 14 February 1950. The treaty was not the first of its kind between the two countries. A Sino-Soviet treaty was signed as early as during the Yalta Conference in 1945 between the Soviet Union and the Guomindang-led Republic of China. However, with the Communist victory the leaders of the new China were eager to renegotiate or abolish the existing treaty and establish a new one. The discussions around the treaty took place during Mao’s visit to the Soviet Union. Talks between Stalin and Mao in the latter part of December did not lead to an agreement, and it was only after the arrival of Zhou Enlai in Moscow on 20 January 1950 that a new treaty came within reach.5 The signing of the treaty was, of course, important to the newly founded Communist state, and in the end it was achieved after concessions from both sides. While in Moscow, Mao was joined by Ho Chi Minh. Ho had left Beijing for the Soviet Union together with Zhou Enlai in early February and arrived in Moscow just in time for the signing of the Sino-Soviet Agreement. During the meetings in Moscow with Ho and Mao, Stalin once again encouraged China to take the lead in promoting revolution in Asia, while at the same time emphasizing that the Soviet Union would provide the necessary assistance.6 A Vietnamese account of Ho’s trip to the Soviet Union fixes his arrival to 3 February7 and further tells that Setting the stage 15 Ho Chi Minh’s trip to China and the Soviet Union was kept secret because Guomindang forces still controlled most of the border regions to Indochina, and Ho feared for his security. During the trip through the Soviet Union Ho disguised himself as ‘an old man in indigo clothes, a white towel covering his beard, a knapsack on his shoulder, like other members of the delegation’.8 We do know that Ho and Stalin met at least once while Ho was in Moscow. According to the memoirs of the Chinese ambassador to Moscow, Ho Chi Minh attended the banquet held in honour of the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty. President Ho used that occasion to explain the situation of the Vietnamese revolution to Stalin, who apparently had little previous knowledge of what went on in that country. After listening to Ho’s account, Stalin apparently agreed to the strategy and tactics of the Vietnamese Communist Party. He advised Ho to pay attention to the whole western mountainous region of Vietnam, because control of that region would allow the Vietnamese Communists to control the whole country. Stalin also agreed to provide some aid to the Vietminh troops, more specifically a regiment of 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, several Molotova trucks and some medicine. In addition, China would arm one infantry division and an artillery unit. The Soviet aid would be conveyed through China to Vietnam.9 Stalin’s comment on how Soviet aid to the Vietnamese Communists would be facilitated by the Chinese shows how the Communist victory in China had an immediate practical impact on the Vietnamese situation. In more general terms, this victory meant the end of Vietnam’s ‘dark days’ and the beginning of a new era in Sino-Vietnamese relations. The most important change was the fact that northern Vietnam no longer faced the prospect of being surrounded by enemies. Communist China was about to become North Vietnam’s major ally and provider in the war against France. In addition, the new situation also implied, as we have already seen, the possibility of assistance, both economic and military, not only from China but hopefully also from the Communist bloc in general. In several ways, the establishment of the PRC functioned as a door opener to the Vietnamese Communists, who, since the outbreak of the Franco-Vietnamese war, found themselves increasingly isolated from the outside world. The Chinese Communist victory enabled the DRV to establish successful relations with, and obtain recognition from, the Communist world. However, on the other hand, the DRV’s inclusion in the Communist world meant a higher degree of isolation from the rest of the world and in particular, the West. But from a Vietnamese point of view, in early 1950 the most important task was to establish lasting relations with the Communist world and first and foremost with the Soviet Union. In Beijing, Soviet analysts argued that the victory of the Chinese revolution and the formation of the PRC was of immense importance to people all over the world but first and foremost to the people of the Far East and Southeast Asia. They emphasized that the formation of a friendly state such as the PRC at the northern border of Vietnam significantly eased the difficulties the Vietnamese were enduring. It facilitated the ongoing war of resistance and broke the blockade that so far had restrained the DRV’s contact with the outside world. Not least, it provided Hanoi with the opportunity to establish direct contact with the other 16 Setting the stage people’s democracies. In sum, Soviet analysts in Beijing concluded, the PRC victory was a vital factor that increased the DRV’s success both in the war of resistance and in the upsurge of the country’s national economy.10 Recognition On 14 January 1950, while Mao was in Moscow, but before Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh arrived there, the DRV government sent out, in response to a Chinese suggestion, a declaration inviting all countries to recognize the DRV as the only legitimate government in Vietnam. The DRV also recognized the PRC. Because of the war between the DRV and France and the international atmosphere in 1950, recognition of the DRV by China and the Soviet Union would have consequences beyond the Sino-Vietnamese and Soviet–Vietnamese relationships. This had to be considered before such steps were taken. Obtaining recognition of the two major Communist powers was of vital importance especially as an opportunity to obtain assistance in the struggle against France. Both Moscow and Beijing concluded that the advantages of recognizing the DRV outweighed the disadvantages. Beijing’s response came on 16 January, and Moscow replied two weeks later, on 30 January.11 However, it was first of all Beijing who wanted the recognition. Mao encouraged Ho Chi Minh to send out the declaration and then advised Moscow to follow the Chinese lead in this matter. The events surrounding Chinese recognition of the DRV is a story illustrating how Mao’s victory in China prompted closer relations between Hanoi and Beijing. In December 1949, about two months after Mao’s proclamation of the founding of the PRC, Ho Chi Minh sent two envoys to Beijing to seek advice on how to win the battle against the French. As a result of Ho’s request, the CCP Politburo held a meeting on 24 December to discuss whether the PRC should recognize the DRV. The overall conclusion at the meeting was that it would be more beneficial than harmful for China to form diplomatic ties with the DRV before an expected French recognition of the PRC. On 28 December 1949, therefore, the CCP Central Committee sent a cable to Ho Chi Minh and told him that they were ready to enter into diplomatic relations with his government.12 Once the issue of recognition was clarified with China, the Vietnamese went forward with their official announcement. On 15 January the first direct and formal request was sent to China. Mao, who at the time was in Moscow negotiating the Sino-Soviet Alliance treaty, soon stated that the PRC agreed to establish formal ties. He also instructed the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 17 January to forward Ho Chi Minh’s request to both the Soviet Union and the other members of the Socialist camp.13 Chinese sources tell the story of how Mao and Stalin discussed diplomatic recognition of the DRV. The Chinese leader told Stalin that China was ready to support the Indochinese people in their struggle for national independence. The Soviet leader, however, seemed slightly more reluctant to support the Indochinese struggle but agreed to recognize the DRV after the PRC had done so. Chinese sources also reveal that Stalin told Mao that Moscow too was willing to supply Setting the stage 17 the necessary aid to Ho Chi Minh.14 Unfortunately, Soviet documents from these meetings remain unavailable, and thus Stalin’s statements cannot be verified. A plausible explanation of Stalin’s hesitation could be the Soviet reluctance to alienate the French.15 As in the case of China, two different factors should be taken into account when discussing its readiness to assist the DRV. First, the fact that its position as an Asian power made it less dependent on the European powers and thus more free to conduct its own policy in its surroundings. Second, it is vital to take into account that China’s past influence in Vietnam played a decisive role in how the Chinese looked upon this neighbouring country. From a Chinese perspective, Vietnam was, without doubt, within its ‘sphere of interest’ – and just as the Chinese devoted themselves to the revolution in Vietnam, Beijing expected the Vietnamese to submit to Chinese advice. After the Communist victory in China, the Soviet press also paid more attention to Indochina, and often referred to Chinese influence within the Vietminh. Parallel to this there was also an increase in Soviet scholarly work on East and Southeast Asia with a particular focus on the victory of the CCP and its effect on the power balance in Asia.16 Soviet recognition followed 12 days after the Chinese, on 30 January, and the official statement was printed in the Soviet press on 31 January. Since the decision to recognize Ho’s government had been thoroughly discussed with Mao in December, t

he actual Soviet recognition of the DRV did not cause much discussion. From Moscow’s point of view, it was rather the slow routine of the DRV bureaucracy and discussions about diplomatic representation that caused trouble. On 14 February, two weeks after the official announcement in Pravda, the Soviets had still not received a confirmation from the Vietnamese, which is rather strange, since Ho Chi Minh was in Moscow at the time. Nevertheless, the lack of response from Hanoi was a source of concern in Moscow. Their reply to Ho’s request was delivered to the DRV representative in Bangkok, Nguyen Duc Quy, on 1 February, to be passed on to the DRV Foreign Minister, Hoang Minh Giam.17 Shortly after, on 3 February, Ho Chi Minh arrived in Moscow to discuss future assistance with Stalin himself. These discussions took place, as we have already seen, during the banquet that followed the signing of the Sino-Soviet treaty. According to Chinese sources, Stalin told Ho that he would have to depend mainly on Chinese assistance and that the Soviet Union would not sign an agreement with the DRV similar to the one the latter had signed with China. Ho Chi Minh returned with Mao to Beijing on 17 February.18 There are no descriptions of these meetings in available Soviet documents or any comments on Ho’s visit. The lack of written material, and a slow flow of information, could be why the foreign ministry officials were concerned with the lack of answers from the DRV leadership. During his stay in Moscow, Ho most probably conveyed his answer to the Soviet recognition of Vietnam to Stalin personally, and thus there would be no trace of this in the files. Given the fact that at the time the DRV had no permanent resident capital it would also be difficult for it to coordinate and convey a swift formal answer to Moscow.19 They might also have chosen to trust that their leader would take care of this business while in 18 Setting the stage Moscow. Thus, in the end this was just the worry of some petty bureaucrat in the Soviet foreign ministry and had no particular importance to the overall Soviet– Vietnamese relationship. Since the issue of recognition had already been settled, the parties started to discuss the exchange of representatives. Due to the situation in Vietnam, neither the Chinese nor the Soviets wanted to send diplomatic officials. The Chinese did, however, send Luo Guibo, at the time the director of the General Office of the CCP Central Military Commission, to serve as the CCP Central Committee’s liaison representative to Ho’s party. Luo’s instructions were to establish contact with the ICP,20 investigate the general situation in Vietnam and report his findings to Beijing so that the Chinese party leadership could make their decisions on assistance to the Vietnamese Communists. The plan for Luo was to stay in Vietnam for three months, but he stayed for seven years, until 1957. His first assignment was as the head of the Chinese Political Advisory Group (CPAG) in the DRV from 1951 to 1954, and the following three years until 1957 he served as China’s ambassador to the DRV.21 As seen above, the Chinese almost immediately established formal contact with the leadership in northern Vietnam. Moscow, however, did not establish such channels of information. Although Ho Chi Minh announced his desire to receive a Soviet ambassador in Vietnam, Moscow declined the offer and underlined that they saw the appointment of a Soviet ambassador to DRV as undesirable as long as the Vietnamese government had not yet established a permanent residence. Soviet attitudes indicate that the most important issue was the organization of Vietnamese representation in Moscow. This corresponded well with the main wish of the DRV – namely to have an embassy in Moscow. Available foreign ministry files in Moscow pay surprisingly little attention to the question of Soviet representation in the DRV. There might be a single reason for this attitude – namely the overall situation in Vietnam. According to both Soviet and Chinese sources, Moscow and Beijing chose to postpone the installation of ambassadors in Hanoi due to the unstable situation in the country.22 However, in the meantime, the question of representation had to be solved one way or another. In February 1950 the Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union, Wang Jiaxiang, informed Andrei Gromyko that Ho Chi Minh had already asked Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai whether the Chinese ambassador could represent Vietnamese interests in the Soviet Union until the arrival of the Vietnamese ambassador. The solution proposed by the Vietnamese and the Chinese was accepted by the Soviets on the terms that the Chinese embassy will be allowed to represent the interests of the DRV.23 However, the Soviets clearly explained that the Chinese ambassador could not take on the position of envoy (ambassador) for Vietnam since the principle of substitute officials was not an accepted diplomatic practice and could create an unwanted precedence.24 To the Vietnamese it was so important to be represented in the Soviet Union that they were willing to compromise their wish for their own embassy for a limited period of time and let the Chinese handle contacts with the Soviets on the DRV’s behalf because they had no other options at the time. The decision to appoint Nguyen Long Bang Setting the stage 19 ambassador to Moscow was already made, and the DRV was determinded to get its own diplomatic representation in order as soon as possible. While the arrangement with the Chinese secured Vietnamese representation in the Soviet Union, there was still the question of Soviet representation in Vietnam. In spite of the Soviet recognition of the DRV in late January 1950, information on Vietnam continued to come to Moscow mainly through unofficial DRV representatives in southern China25 and the Soviet embassy in Beijing. Instead of setting up an embassy in Hanoi under the present circumstances, the Soviets chose to keep in touch with Vietnamese officials through their consulate in Canton. The Vietnamese had set up an official delegation in the city, and information about conditions in Vietnam went via the consulate in Canton to the Soviet embassy in Beijing. So, in fact, the Soviet consul in Canton functioned as the Soviet representative in the DRV. However, this arrangement meant that the information about Vietnamese conditions that was sent to the Far East department in the Soviet foreign ministry was second- and third-hand information. Soviet foreign ministry officials did not gather first-hand information, at least not on a regular basis.26 Once the question of recognition and provisional representation was settled, it was time to sort out the future rank of representatives to the opposite country. This task should have been easy but turned out to be rather complicated. The PRC and DRV governments had already decided to exchange ambassadors. The Soviet foreign minister expected that the Soviet Union and DRV would do the same; consequently, this was the first intention of both countries. A week before the recognition took place on 23 January 1950, this was outlined in a letter from Vietnam to the Soviet Union and other people’s democracies. However, in a second letter sent in February that year, the DRV foreign minister referred to the exchange of diplomatic representatives without specifying their exact rank. Because of the special situation of the PRC ambassador acting as DRV envoy in Moscow, the Vietnamese found it natural to exchange envoys and not ambassadors with the Soviet Union. According to Soviet representatives at the embassy in Beijing, it was after a statement made by Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinski on 30 January 1950, in which he referred to the Soviet decision to exchange envoys with the DRV, that the Vietnamese went back on their earlier express wish to exchange ambassadors.27 The outcome was the exchange of ambassadors, and the first Vietnamese ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nguyen Long Bang, arrived in Moscow in April 1952, more than two years after the recognition. It took two and a half years more, and a Geneva agreement, before the Soviet Union was properly represented in Hanoi. The discussions and misunderstandings over the exchange of representatives might at a glance seem like a small, and quite trivial, issue. However, at the same time it illustrates the need of the Hanoi government to secure some kind of direct contact with both of its primary allies. That the Chinese ambassador would represent the DRV in Moscow clearly reflected the Stalin–Mao agreement that China would take main responsibility for colonial liberation struggles in Asia. At the same time, the discussion around the level of diplomatic exchange between 20 Setting the stage Moscow and Hanoi showed that the Vietnamese were anxious to establish high-level contacts with Moscow and thus probably avoid dependence only on China, but not on such a high level that it would irritate the Chinese. The exchange of envoys would be a way to avoid that problem and at the same time secure the Vietnamese direct and independent contact with Moscow. However, it is unlikely that the Vietnamese considered it an advantage to be represented through the PRC; it was rather seen as the only available option at the time. There is no doubt that recognition from China and the Soviet Union was of vital importance to the DRV leaders. The Western powers did, of course, see the situation from a different perspective. In Washington the main concern was the reports of an ever-growing Chinese assistance to the Vietminh. China’s new strength increased American fears of Communist expansion in the area. In Paris and London the Communist victory in China was seen primarily as a threat to European colonial possessions in Southeast Asia. From a French point of view this was reflected in an immediate concern for a possible direct Chinese intervention in the Franco-Vietminh War.28 The Soviet leaders

hip was rather satisfied with the impact recognition had on the Western powers and especially on the French government. During the spring of 1950 the Soviet foreign ministry reports referred to French newspapers that characterized the carefully constructed recognition of the Bao Dai government as a ‘bursting soap-bubble’ threatening not only the American reactionary policies in Asia but also the pro-American government in France. The French government was characterized as confused and impotent due to the fact that ‘when Ho Chi Minh’s government was recognized by the Democratic Republics the French government preferred not to react at all, in order to avoid further complications and not find themselves forced to once again attract public attention to the Indochinese question that thanks to the PCF has become critical to the French’.29 Yet another comment spoke of how Franco-American plans to include Indochina in their sphere of influence and their efforts to strengthen the international position of the state of Vietnam was upset by the Soviet recognition of the DRV. Contrary to the predictions in the French bourgeois press, the French government would not dare to break off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union or renounce the Franco-Soviet treaty of 10 December 1944. With reference to earlier comments made by former Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, the Southeast Asia department in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) emphasized the significance of Socialist education in the DRV. In addition, they argued that the DRV’s strengthened connections with the camp of peace and democracy would promote the further development of the anti-imperialistic, national liberation movements in the countries of Southeast Asia.30 Recognition formalized the relationships between the Soviet Union and the DRV, but did it alter the relationship between Moscow and Hanoi? The effects of recognition and its impact on relations should be evaluated both in terms of immediate and long-term results. The immediate result would first of all be a possible boost of self-confidence among the DRV leaders, as they were now Setting the stage 21 accepted within the Communist camp. In addition, recognition implied promises of future support, morally and financially. Since neither the Soviet Union nor the DRV installed permanent representatives in each other’s countries immediately, recognition in itself did not contribute to a more steady flow of information between them. In spite of this situation, recognition both increased the interest in the situation in Vietnam among Soviet leaders and also led to an increase in information about Vietnam arriving through other sources such as the Soviet consulate in Canton and the Soviet embassy in Beijing. During the first years after recognition the Soviet Union had no permanent mission in the DRV and relied mainly on reports sent by the Soviet consulate in Canton. During the early 1950s most of the information was, naturally enough, related to the war with the French. According to reports from Vietnam, the situation of the DRV was difficult. The larger cities and the most important lines of communication, as well as airspace and important ports, were controlled by the French. However, from the Soviet side, the Americans were seen as the most important aggressor as they financed the war on behalf of the French.31 To plan a policy towards Vietnam, the Soviet leadership needed information about the situation in both the northern and southern parts of the country, as well as information on the French and American positions in Vietnam. Recognition of the DRV by China, the Soviet Union and other Socialist governments was vital to the Hanoi government. The Soviet Union had been at full liberty to offer recognition to the DRV also at an earlier stage, but until the victory of the Chinese Communists Stalin had not been willing to offer the Vietnamese more than moral support at the most. With the changed situation on the Chinese mainland, Moscow was forced to devote more attention to Vietnam, and although Stalin granted Mao the practical responsibility for dealing with the situation in Vietnam, Soviet recognition and the possibility of future support made a huge difference to Hanoi. The fact that this happened only after the proclamation of the People’s Republic further underscores China’s important role with regard to Vietnam. The Franco-Vietnamese War When the Soviet Union and China recognized the DRV, the Franco-Vietminh war had lasted for more than three years. Not unexpectedly, the war and ways of assisting the Vietminh was one of the major topics in Soviet–DRV–China relations during the early 1950s. Developments in this period show that Beijing was much more involved in the affairs of the Vietminh than Moscow. As we have seen in the immediate postwar period, Stalin’s foreign policy attention in the latter part of the 1940s was directed primarily towards Europe, to the degree that Stalin’s focus on Asia up to 1950 was on developments within China. His first priority was the relationships with the United States, France and Great Britain, and all of these states were much more important to Kremlin than events in Indochina. When negotiations between Ho Chi Minh and the French failed to produce more than a modus vivendi agreement in September 1946 and full-scale 22 Setting the stage war broke out in November–December, the Soviet Union apparently never even considered speaking up on behalf of the newly founded DRV. The Soviet foreign ministry was regularly updated on developments in the war by Canton and through conversations with Vietnamese representatives in Southern China. Many of the details that came through the consulate were probably also available to Moscow through other, and quicker, sources. And both the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)32 and the CPSU probably had other channels of information.33 Still, the documents not only contained practical information on the progress of the war and the development of the economy, they also passed on the general sentiment existing among the Vietnamese people. The Vietnamese were eager to show the enthusiasm of the people, and the Soviet representatives willingly reported back to Moscow, even when the information presented had a clear character of propaganda. One such occasion was in April 1951, when a report presented to the Soviet consulate in Canton by DRV representatives described the mood amongst the people of Vietnam by saying that the repeated victories of the National Liberation Army had strengthened people’s belief in the final victory in the resistance war against the French and American imperialists. It added further that the population had begun to participate more actively in the mobilization of forces that would assist the Vietminh front and that when they met trouble such as destruction causing floods or sudden attacks by French forces, this did not decrease the enthusiasm of the population in their effort to support the front.34 No doubt, the Vietnamese hoped that their will to fight and overcome all obstacles could lead to more substantial Soviet support in the future. Parallel to information on developments in the war, Moscow was also updated on internal developments in Vietnam. In spite of the war economy, the Vietminh leaders wanted to start building a society in accordance with Socialist principles. During the latter part of 1950 and the spring of 1951, several conferences were held to strengthen the foundation of the government, and, according to the Vietnamese report, those attending the conferences had all been very excited about the outcome. It was also underlined how this was an opportunity to build a society that ‘draws on the multi-faceted experience of the people’s democracies also in a situation when the state in question is established in an occupied zone, and the opposite party, the marionette regime, is on the way to breakdown without any opportunities to strengthen its position’.35 This report shows some of the channels through which the Soviets received their information about Vietnam, but more importantly it gives an indication as to how the Vietnamese themselves wished to present the current development in their country. It is not unlikely that they hoped such an insight into the current situation would prompt some kind of Soviet assistance. The autumn border campaign in 1950 was the first example of active Chinese assistance to the Vietminh army. Shortly after recognition, Ho asked the Chinese for military experts to train and advise the Vietminh army before and during battles. The Chinese agreed to send advisors but refused to send field commanders, and on 17 April 1950 the Chinese Military Advisory Group (CMAG) was formed. The CMAG consisted of advisors to the People’s Army of Vietnam Setting the stage 23 (PAVN)36 headquarters, three full divisions, and finally, an officers’ training school. Altogether the CMAG would count 281 people – of which 79 were advisors and their assistants.37 The first major task for the CMAG was assisting the PAVN while planning and conducting the autumn border campaign in the summer/fall of 1950. Ho Chi Minh presented the idea of such an offensive in June 1950. The aim of the campaign was to clear out the French forces that occupied the northern part of Vietnam bordering China. With the French expelled from the area, the lines of communication with China would be open, and it would become much easier for the PAVN to receive both supplies and manpower from China. In spite of heavy losses on the Vietnamese side and the fact that the campaign exposed severe deficiencies within the PAVN with regard to both planning and command structure, the campaign was considered a success.38 In the early months of 1951 the optimistic mood after the success in their autumn border campaign, in which Chinese material and practical assistance had played a significant role, inspired the Vietminh to launch a large

-scale regularunit assault on the French positions around Hanoi in the Red River delta and the border region to China. The attack was a major setback, and the Vietminh lost around 6,000 soldiers.39 Because this second campaign turned out to be rather catastrophic, the military situation in the DRV continued to be difficult throughout the latter part of 1951. Although several civilian tasks such as strengthening of government positions and, not least, the formal establishment of the Vietnamese Workers Party (VWP) had been successfully completed during 1951, the army had not been able to gain control over more vital territory. The larger cities and most important lines of communication remained in the hands of the French, who also had control over the airspace and the sea. This situation was, according to the Soviet embassy in Beijing, primarily a result of the increased American interest in Indochina. Whereas they earlier only assisted the French, the Soviets now claimed that Americans had become the ‘principal aggressor’ in the Indochinese war.40 The difficult military situation was not the only concern of the Soviets in Vietnam. The country’s economic base remained extremely weak, and there was no industry to speak of. Once again the Soviet embassy pointed to the role of China and underlined that in the current situation it would be very difficult for the DRV government to continue the war on its own and therefore needed outside assistance, in particular from its closest neighbour – the PRC.41 In addition to the CMAG, the Chinese also participated in a campaign initiated by Ho Chi Minh to consolidate and strengthen the DRV government in 1951. Early that year the Chinese set up a civilian counterpart to the CMAG, the CPAG. The group was led by Luo Guibo, future ambassador to the DRV, and was set up to handle different sections within the North Vietnamese bureaucracy. It had sections for military affairs, finance and economy, public security, culture and education, united front, party consolidation and land reform. Altogether it consisted of over 100 advisors, who during that first year helped Ho Chi Minh set up laws and policies on matters ranging from finance to treatment of minorities.42 24 Setting the stage The two advisory groups, CMAG and CPAG, both played vital roles in consolidating the areas under Vietminh occupation and its military forces. They were both part of a larger programme initiated by Ho Chi Minh and were made possible by generous Chinese military and manpower assistance. In addition, they both showed China’s interest in and willingness to contribute to the cause of the Vietnamese Communists even during a time when they were deeply committed to another Asian war – in Korea. During 1952–53 the French turned to a more defensive strategy in the war against the Vietminh. This change was mainly due to a lack of manpower that constrained their military effectiveness. The French attitude opened up new possibilities to the Vietnamese, and in early 1952, this time initiated by the CMAG, the PAVN began planning a large campaign in the northwest territory of Vietnam. There were two main reasons for targeting this region in particular: First, the French defences there were considered to be rather weak and the odds for a Vietminh victory were good. Second, if the Vietminh could secure this area under its control, the chances of an attack from its rear would be very unlikely. The whole plan for the northwest campaign was followed closely in Beijing, and Luo Guibo’s strategies were approved by CCP Central Military Commission before the Vietnamese went into action.43 In contrast to the Chinese, the Soviets apparently were not involved in the planning and financing of the PAVN campaigns during the Franco-Vietnamese War. However, the Chinese had asked Moscow for advice and approval before the autumn 1950 campaign started. While visiting the Soviet Union between 17 August and 22 September 1951, Zhou Enlai mentioned the plan for a Northwest campaign to Stalin. Zhou was then in Moscow to seek Soviet economic aid. According to one scholar, Stalin approved of the campaign and suggested that if the Vietminh could succeed in surrounding Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh could bring up the issue of peace talks with France. Stalin further added that if Paris rejected any form of negotiations, the Vietminh could move southwards after taking control over Hanoi.44 In April 1952 the DRV sent its first ambassador to the Soviet Union. Nguyen Long Bang was born in 1904 and had been an active revolutionary in Vietnam in the mid-1920s.45 With Nguyen Long Bang’s arrival, the Soviet leaders now had a direct source of information from Vietnam. Due to the war the Soviets had yet to set up representation in Vietnam, and when the DRV ambassador came to Moscow, he was met with questions on whether the DRV had been able to decide on a capital in the liberated areas of Vietnam. In response to this, Nguyen Long Bang informed them that although the liberation army had control over several towns, the DRV did not yet have a permanent capital. Until a decision was made, the central governmental and party establishments would have to periodically move from one place to another, principally within the limits of the three provinces Thai Nguyen, Bac Kan and Tuyen Quang. The ambassador also added that the towns within this area were almost completely in ruins.46 The Soviets were already familiar with the Chinese military assistance to the DRV, but Nguyen Long Bang could add more details to the tale. In his report to Setting the stage 25 the Soviet foreign ministry handed over on 14 May 1952, he stated that 80 per cent of the weapons used by the PAVN were supplied by the Chinese. Parts of the Vietnamese army in the northern regions of the country were rather well equipped with light infantry weapons.47 What they did need were machine guns and automatic weapons. He also emphasized the vital role of the Chinese advisors in planning attacks and teaching soldiers and officers. The DRV army’s military operations had gained a much higher standard since the Chinese came to help.48 The facts presented by the DRV ambassador were well received in Moscow, and the Soviet leaders seemed rather pleased with the Chinese taking on all the practical and economic issues related to Vietnam. Although Stalin assured Zhou Enlai that he approved of the forthcoming campaign, Ho Chi Minh found it best to talk to the Soviet leader himself. He went on a secret trip from Beijing to Moscow in October 1952 to attend the Nineteenth Congress of the CPSU. Before the meetings took place Ho and Stalin corresponded about the circumstances surrounding Ho’s visit. Because of the situation in Vietnam, Ho was very reluctant to publicly announce his arrival in Moscow, as he explains in his letters to the Soviet leader. Throughout the exchange of letters the tone between the two leaders was extremely polite, and even to a certain degree loving, this in spite of accusations that Stalin distrusted Ho Chi Minh.49 In a letter of 30 September 1952, Ho first informed Stalin about his plans to travel to Moscow and attend the 19th Party congress incognito. He underlined that he did not want attention drawn to his visit, because he feared that the enemy (French) could use the opportunity to attack the Vietminh forces. However, if he would be unable to make it to the Party congress himself, he would like to send Nguyen Long Bang as his representative. Nevertheless, he intended to visit Moscow to inform them about the situation in Vietnam and discuss questions related to the struggle and the work within the Vietnamese Communist Party with Stalin. Stalin replied with a cable on 2 October 1952, in which he welcomed Ho to Moscow and said that he approved of the idea of travelling incognito. In his reply on 17 October, Ho informed Stalin that he wanted Liu Shaoqi to participate in the discussion about Vietnam.50 During his stay in Moscow, Ho Chi Minh met with Stalin and Liu Shaoqi on 28 October to discuss the current policies of the Vietminh.51 On 19 November Ho wrote in his farewell letter to Stalin that he would work hard on the implementation of land reform and the war. Since the details of these discussions remain unavailable on the Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese side, the actual details of the talks remain unknown; however, taking into account Ho’s words in his letter of 19 November the Vietnamese leader most probably sought Stalin’s support.52 By the summer of 1953 the practice of Chinese military assistance to the DRV was well established. The current state of China’s role in Vietnam was discussed during a meeting between the Soviet ambassador to Beijing, Vasilii Vasilievich Kuznetsov, and Zhou Enlai in June 1953.53 At the time, the army under Ho Chi Minh’s control was continuously gaining strength and manpower. These forces had Chinese advisors, and DRV officers were educated in China. From a Chinese point of view, the main problem was the lack of people to join the armed forces. 26 Setting the stage As in Korea, most of the population lived in the southern part of the country. However, Zhou Enlai underlined, ‘we are not going to send our forces to Indochina’.54 The Chinese attitude showed that in 1953 the Chinese were as involved as they wanted to be in Vietnam. They had no intentions of participating in the battles along the same lines as they recently did in Korea. Available sources suggest that the Soviet Union’s involvement in the FrancoVietnamese War was minimal and that the interest did not increase even with the conclusion of the Korean War. Throughout 1953, the DRV government was preoccupied with the conduct of land reform – a campaign that was fully supported by the Chinese contingent in Vietnam and that to a large degree was formed after the Chinese model. One has, however, to keep in mind that the North Vietnamese campaign took on a less rigid form than the Chinese reform. Through the land reform

campaign, the DRV leaders showed how much they depended on the Chinese experience to form their future state. Although Vietnamese nationalists/Communists had talked about land reform since the 1920s, it was only with Chinese guidance they had gotten so far.55 Recognition and new challenges With the proclamation of the PRC in 1949, Stalin emphasized China’s important role as the leading Communist power in Asia by indicating a division of labour between Moscow and Beijing. The Soviet Union would deal with Europe, and China would take charge of developments in Asia. However, Stalin’s division of labour proposal should be viewed with some suspicion. Even if the Sino-Soviet relationship functioned well at the time, Stalin’s previous experience with independent Communist leaders, more precisely Tito, suggests that he would not allow Mao any independence in the region. It is equally unlikely that he would regard positively the rise of a strong and independent Vietnamese leader such as Ho Chi Minh. And as a result, during the last years of his life, Stalin did not want to put the Soviet Union at risk by directly sustaining revolutions in Asia. He left this burden to China, with regard to both Korea and Indochina. The major change in Moscow’s view on the Vietnamese situation came with the victory of the CCP. Events surrounding the recognition show how both China and the Soviet Union were considered important partners by the Vietnamese. During the first few years of the 1950s the triangular relationship between Moscow, Hanoi and Beijing seems to have functioned satisfactorily in the view of all three countries. The DRV received large amounts of assistance from China, and to a lesser extent from the Soviet Union through China, in the form of equipment, officers and advice. The Soviet Union could follow the situation in Vietnam from a distance, content with the fact that the aid it provided through China was well applied, and did nothing to harm Moscow’s relations with more important countries in the West. The PRC secured its own strong position in the Communist world, and especially within Asia, acting as provider of equipment and advice to a struggle that would prevent French or even American domination in Vietnam. While the PRC was important because it secured Vietnam’s northern border, the Setting the stage 27 DRV served as a buffer between the PRC and possible takeover of South Vietnam by imperialist states. From a Soviet point of view, this form of cooperation was indeed very advantageous, and it was possible to pursue it because in the first few years of the 1950s Moscow was clearly superior to Beijing within the Socialist camp. The approach relieved the Soviets of heavy burdens in countries far away, and it allowed the Chinese a certain amount of liberty in the foreign policy conduct towards Indochina. The one party that suffered most from this arrangement must have been the DRV and its leaders; however, even to them the picture was not entirely grim. They had managed to establish an important link to the Soviet Union and awakened at least marginal interest in their cause among the Soviet leaders even though it was through Chinese channels. Later on, the Vietnamese leaders would regret that they had been unable to forge close relations with Moscow in this period and hence had became too dependent on China. In retrospective, Moscow might have shared these regrets wishing that it had not made its own relationship with the Vietnamese so dependent on Beijing. 3 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 While both 1951 and 1952 had been bad years for the Vietminh, by 1953 the situation was about to change. With the end of the Korean War that summer, the Chinese could now be more attentive to the needs of the Vietnamese Communists in their struggle with the French. In 1953 and early 1954, in response to French military changes, the Vietminh made significant changes in its military strategy; the implementation of these changes eventually led to the battle at Dien Bien Phu in the spring of 1954, and subsequent negotiations at Geneva during that summer.1 Parallel to the changes in military fortunes, the governments of France, the Soviet Union, China and the DRV became gradually more positive to seeking a diplomatic solution to the conflict.2 The main aim of this chapter is to evaluate the Soviet role in the period leading up to the conference and during the negotiations in Geneva, primarily with focus on its position vis-à-vis its Chinese and Vietnamese allies. Providing advice to the Vietnamese Communists was an important task for both the Soviets and the Chinese, and while Moscow was in charge of the stage directions, the Chinese dealt with all the practicalities. The active role assigned to Beijing also meant that, on certain occasions, the Soviet leadership allowed its Chinese comrades to make at least some vital decisions, although only within certain predefined frameworks discussed with the Soviets in advance.3 By taking on the role as the active party, Beijing’s policy considerations would exerted a significant influence on Soviet policies and therefore became one of the most important Soviet tools during the conference. Another central focus in this chapter is Moscow’s overall agenda, which was not only about the future situation in Indochina. An equally important driving force behind Soviet strategies and diplomacy during the Geneva conference was the need to secure Moscow’s foreign policy interests, both in Indochina and in other parts of the world. To what extent was this position compatible with its commitments to its Chinese and Vietnamese allies? Together with the PRC, the Soviet Union shared a common desire to end the wars in the region, and during the conference the two countries followed a line of consultations and close cooperation. Moscow was the more moderate partner of the two and expected less from the final outcome than the Chinese and much less than the DRV.4 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 29 In the aftermath of the conference, strategists in Moscow and Beijing were accused of restraining the DRV while at the same time letting international strategic considerations take precedence over their ideological commitment to support the struggle of a fellow Communist party.5 Without doubt, issues other than the future interest of the Vietnamese Communists played a significant role as part of Moscow’s plan in Geneva; notwithstanding this, Soviet policy makers also worked out their plans based on what they considered to be the best possible solution for Vietnam and the future strategy of the VWP. Is it possible that partition in itself did not trouble the Soviets, simply because they viewed the final outcome of the conference as advantageous to Hanoi based on the notion that the North now would be able to consolidate and rebuild its strength before taking further steps to achieve reunification? This chapter attempts to further elaborate this question. Preparing for the conference After the end of the Korean War in the summer of 1953 the Communist powers launched what has been labelled a ‘peace offensive’. The beginning of this initiative was the proposal of 26 September from the Soviet Union to the governments of France, Great Britain and the United States to organize a five-power conference, with the participation of China, to discuss ways of easing international tensions. On 8 October the Chinese endorsed the Soviet suggestion. Three months later, Beijing followed up with another proposal in which they emphasized that the problems in Asia needed to be resolved through direct discussions among the big powers. The final endorsement of the Soviet proposal came at a four-power conference in Berlin at the end of January 1954, at which it was decided to convene an international conference at Geneva to discuss the restoration of peace in Korea and Indochina during the summer of that year.6 On 8 May the Indochina phase of the conference opened, and more than two months later, on 20 July 1954, the Geneva agreements were signed. The signing of the agreements marked the end of the Franco-Vietminh war and the beginning of French withdrawal from Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). During the conference, Vietnam was divided into two zones, with separate administrations. The southern zone, the State of Vietnam (SVN) was ruled by the Americansupported Ngo Dinh Diem, and the northern zone, the DRV, by Ho Chi Minh and the Communist party.7 One of Moscow’s main aims before and during the conference was to actively integrate the PRC into the club of the Four Great Powers – the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. That was an acknowledgement of the role China was playing both in Korea and, more recently, in Vietnam. Moscow’s emphasis on the Chinese role was not only displayed through Sino-Soviet cooperation in preparations for the conference but also in Soviet–American encounters. The Soviet insistence on bringing China into the conference as an equal partner, even in spite of American protests, indicates the degree of importance the Soviets were willing to attach to the role of China in reducing international tensions in Asia.8 30 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was in charge of Soviet preparations for the conference, argued in a meeting with the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, during the Berlin conference that the Soviets would not agree to any accusations against China on the question of Indochina. He pointed to the fact that the war in Indochina began several years before the establishment of the PRC and thus was a result of the unsatisfactory policies pursued by the French, and not the fault of the Chinese. Molotov reminded Dulles that at the beginning of the Berlin conference he had told French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault that the Soviet Union and the PRC could assist w

ith mediation in the Indochinese question. However, he remarked, since then the French had not said anything except on general issues.9 Thus, the status of the PRC and their role during the conference became a major issue alongside the more practical question of how to organize day-to-day work during the conference. In March, several conversations took place between Charles Bohlen, the US ambassador to the Soviet Union, and Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vasilii Vasiljevich Kuznetsov on the subject of China’s role in Geneva. Bohlen insisted on keeping all discussions within the sphere of the four Great Powers, whereas the Soviet Union wanted the leaders of the PRC to be consulted on several issues. In 1954 the United States had not yet recognized the PRC government and considered Chiang Kai-Shek’s Republic of China in Taiwan to be the legitimate representative of China. Moscow’s insistence on keeping the Chinese informed soon led to trouble. A Soviet comment regarding the organizational aspects of the conference stating that ‘the Soviet Union had been discussing organizational questions regarding the conference with Beijing’, and that ‘the People’s Republic of China agreed with the Soviet position’, seriously provoked the Americans.10 Ambassador Bohlen made it clear to the Soviet Union that they might well consult China if they wanted to but should keep in mind that the it was the four Great Powers which were responsible for the conference and that the PRC only had participant status. Replying to this, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Kuznetsov underlined that the Soviet Union had no intention of ruining the agreement made in Berlin and further argued that discussing these practical questions with China would make organization of the conference easier.11 The Berlin communiqué, the official announcement following the Berlin conference published on 19 February 1954, declared that during the Geneva conference the PRC should have a position equal to that of the four Great Powers.12 In spite of these Soviet arguments, Washington kept insisting that the four powers, not five, would remain responsible for organizing the conference and added that once the conference began, all participating countries would have an equal status.13 Once the Berlin conference was over, Soviet officials began preparations for the conference in Geneva, which was scheduled to open on 26 April. Korea was the first item, and the session devoted to the Indochina problem was scheduled to begin on 8 May. In Moscow, the Southeast Asia department in the Soviet foreign ministry was in charge of compiling preparatory materials for the Soviet delegation to the conference.14 While Moscow was discussing organizational questions The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 31 with the Americans, the Chinese began preparing for the trip to Geneva. The new leaders in Beijing were about to participate in their first international conference; and in meetings with the Soviets during preparations for the conference, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai assured the leaders in Moscow that China would do its best to cooperate with the Soviets.15 The Chinese were excited by the prospects of participating at the Geneva conference and not least the acknowledgement of the ‘new’ China that was inherent in this event. Since its foundation, the PRC had been excluded from many activities of the international community, and the fact that it would now participate at an international conference alongside the Great Powers signalled that it had emerged as a major power.16 It was in this atmosphere that the Chinese began their preparations for the conference. The main architect behind the Chinese preparations was Zhou Enlai. In several speeches to his associates Zhou analysed the prospects, indicating that while it would probably be difficult to achieve a peaceful settlement in Korea, the chances of reaching agreement on the Indochina issue were much better. Zhou further argued that the main reason why it could be possible to reach consensus on the Indochina issue was the differences that existed between France and the United States. Based on this, Zhou wanted to create a Communist strategy that would appeal to the French while at the same time alienating the Americans. The idea that France was the key to an agreement was followed by the Chinese throughout.17 In early March, China’s preparations for the conference had already come quite far, and by 2 March the Chinese had already worked out a preliminary document on how to proceed during the conference. The document, entitled ‘Preliminary Paper on the Estimation of and the Preparation for the Geneva Conference’, maintained that the Chinese should primarily attempt to exploit the differences between the Western countries. They should try to reach an agreement even if only a temporary one and should continue to strive for the restoration of peace in Indochina even if it might be a long-term struggle. The most important task was to avoid a fruitless conference. The Chinese were also prepared to negotiate even if fighting was still going on, and such a situation should be exploited to increase the differences between the United States and France, as well as to increase internal pressure in France. From a Chinese point of view, that could prove to become very valuable for the success of the national liberation struggles in Indochina.18 During the Geneva preparations China left nothing to chance. The best example was the case of Huang Hua, who was appointed spokesman for the Chinese delegation. In early March, Huang was recalled from the Chinese negotiation team at Panmunjon, where negotiations for the Korean conflict took place, to Beijing, to contribute his knowledge and expertise in international negotiations to the Geneva team. To make sure that he would be able to handle the different questions that were likely to be posed in Geneva, a mock meeting with the press was organized to test his ability to answer properly.19 Alongside national planning procedures, coordination of policies and strategies between the Soviet, Chinese and North Vietnamese leaders was the most 32 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 important part of the preparations. The Chinese played an active part in pushing preparations forward, not least with regard to the Vietnamese. In mid-March, Zhou Enlai told Ho Chi Minh to hurry up and start preparations. The Chinese premier emphasized to the Vietnamese Communists that the current international situation and military developments in Vietnam were advantageous for the DRV to conduct a diplomatic struggle. Furthermore, no matter what came of the Geneva conference it would serve the cause of the Vietnamese struggle to actively participate. Zhou also encouraged the Vietnamese to make up their mind on where a demarcation line should go in case a ceasefire was within reach. At the end of March, Ho left for Beijing and flew on to Moscow. The three parties had their first meeting to discuss strategies for the conference on 1 April 1954, when Zhou Enlai, Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong met with Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Foreign Minister Molotov in Moscow.20 Soviet proposals for the restoration of peace in Indochina were on the table by mid-March. Although no Soviet records of these meetings are currently available, it is safe to assume that the memorandum served as a basis for negotiations between the three parties. The document consisted if three parts and the first part outlined the basis on which the Soviet delegation would negotiate. The Soviet delegation must establish the right of the representatives of the DRV to participate at the conference. If the Western powers agreed to this, the Soviet delegation should leave it to the Vietnamese and Chinese delegations to show initiative in putting forth suggestions on the conditions for establishing a ceasefire or the restoration of peace in Indochina. Finally, the Soviet delegation should strive for the establishment of ceasefire conditions in Indochina that would be acceptable to the Ho Chi Minh government, as well as strive for the opening of negotiations between the DRV and France on further steps to establish peace. Thus, Soviet policy makers concluded that, while supporting and standing up for the legitimate interests of the DRV, the Soviet delegation should at the same time pursue the goal of strengthening the relations between the Soviet Union and France.21 These statements from Moscow underlined how the Soviet Union intended to assign the difficult task of dealing with the Vietnamese Communists to the Chinese delegation. At the same time Soviet policy priorities were quite clear: the goal of improving relations with France and, as a part of that, preventing German rearmament by undermining the establishment of the European Defence Community (EDC) should not be sacrificed to secure gains for the DRV. The Soviet plans were further divided into three separate positions. The first part was labelled the maximum programme. As indicated by its name, this was the preferred solution seen from a Soviet point of view. Its first condition was a full ceasefire in the whole territory of Vietnam. In the sphere of Franco–Vietnamese relations it required French recognition of the full sovereignty and independence of the DRV, withdrawal of all French forces from the territory of Vietnam within six months, the establishment of a French–Vietnamese commission to discuss all questions of the restoration of peace in Indochina and to supervise the fulfilment of the conditions of the ceasefire, including mutual exchange of prisoners of war. From the Vietnamese side it would be expected that the DRV The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 33 recognize the presence of French economic and cultural interests in Vietnam (use of the French merchant fleet, trade/commerce, etc.) on conditions subject to the agreement between the governments of France and the D

RV. The DRV government must present a declaration saying that they would not prosecute persons who had worked for the French expeditionary corps in the war against the DRV. The final point in the first position was directed towards the United States, demanding that their interference in the matters of Indochina must come to a stop.22 The second Soviet position was more moderate than the first, and therefore a much more likely basis for negotiations. The section demanding a full ceasefire had been replaced with a demand for a full stop in military actions on the whole territory of Indochina, and full French withdrawal was limited to the territory north of the 16th parallel. In this position, Moscow also put forth the first mention of a referendum to reunite Vietnam as soon as all French forces had been withdrawn. However, just as in the first position, the second position contained a clause that the ‘U.S. interference in the matters of Indochina must come to a stop’.23 Finally, the document contended, the Soviet delegation should resort to the third, and final, position emphasizing that in case it turns out to be impossible to reach agreement on the basis of the suggestions of the second position, go for a solution that military actions should stop on the condition that the French forces are drawn back to specific places in Vietnam which had already been decided upon by the two parties involved. After reaching a ceasefire, they should decide on a commission composed of representatives from France and the DRV which would work out conditions that would secure a peaceful regulation of the Vietnamese problem. The commission would also be responsible for observing the conditions of the ceasefire. In the last point of the third position, the Soviets underlined that one should provide recommendations for both parties to resolve difficult questions and to prevent a resurrection of military actions.24 In the very last comment on the prospects for successful negotiations, the Soviet memorandum concluded that ‘in case we reach no agreement on the Indochinese problem, we should submit for consideration to the conference the suggestion recommending that France and the DRV begin direct negotiations on how to re-establish peace in Indochina’.25 From mid-March 1954, when these instructions were on the drafting table, and until the conference began, issues might have been added or removed. Still, this draft does give several clues as to how the Soviet delegation intended to pursue peace in Indochina during the conference. The most noticeable difference between the first position and the final outcome of the conference is the absence of suggestions regarding the three most important features of the Final Declaration, namely the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, the all-Vietnamese elections to be held within two years and, finally, the establishment of the International Control Commission (ICC).26 In the second position, which was the closest to the actual Final Declaration of the conference, the Soviets took a more moderate stand. Most important in this 34 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 position was, of course, the very first mention of possible partition at the 16th parallel. However, there were several elements in this position that were difficult to negotiate with the Western powers. The most difficult aspects of the second position were probably the tough stand on US interference and the uncertainties around the future of the non-Communist part of Vietnam after the proposed elections. And although a partition at the 16th parallel was indicated in the suggestion on how and when the French forces would withdraw from Vietnam, an actual division of the country into two distinctly separate parts was not mentioned directly in either of the three negotiation positions in the Soviet memorandum. While preparing for the conference, Soviet policy makers safeguarded their positions by introducing several alternative options for negotiations. Such a strategy was reflected in the three-stage instructions from mid-March. The strategy document also reveals that to Moscow the most important aspects of the negotiations were to establish contact between the Vietnamese Communists and the French government and to make sure that in case none of the other suggestions were accepted by the Western powers, it would at least be possible to reach an agreement between these two parties. It is also worth noticing that in the third and final position the Soviets had abandoned the clause prohibiting US interference. That further indicates how far Moscow was willing to go to reach consensus with the Western powers over the Indochina issue. On a more general level the thorough planning in the spring of 1954 also shows that the Soviet leaders were determined to achieve a solution before the closure of the conference, even if it meant going back on some of their initial wishes laid out in the socalled ‘maximum programme’.27 During the spring of 1954, Soviet analysts continued to work on ideas similar to the three ‘positions’ outlined above. The continued emphasis on several of the main aspects of these positions indicate their importance in the discussion of Soviet strategies for the conference. This was primarily reflected during plans for discussions with the Chinese, and also the Vietnamese, during the next few months.28 By early April, the Soviet position seemed clearer and more articulated. One reason could be information obtained by the Soviet ambassador in Paris on French ideas for possible solutions to the Indochina problem at the end of March. However, these solutions were presented not by the government in power but by a foreign policy advisor to the coming French Prime Minister, Pierre Mendés-France. According to this advisor, France would agree to the following conditions: a ceasefire in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, free elections controlled by neutral countries in Vietnam, and introduction in Vietnam, for a limited period of time, of forces from neutral countries to control the implementation of these free elections; in addition, France wanted to secure its economic and cultural interests in Vietnam after an election. Further, the French acknowledged that a new regime was necessary in Vietnam based on the election results, and that it was necessary to prevent repressions against those who had collaborated with the other side during the war. One should, however, note that during this The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 35 conversation emphasis was on regulation of the situation in Vietnam, and for Laos and Cambodia it was only a question of obtaining a ceasefire. France wanted to keep the monarchy in Laos and Cambodia and underlined that the political regime in these countries was not a topic for discussion with regard to the restoration of peace in Indochina.29 The meetings between the Soviets, Chinese, Vietnamese and North Koreans took place in Moscow between 1 and 3 April, but the participants were not able to reach any final decisions on strategies for the Indochina phase of the conference. Thus, the Soviets planned more specific questions that would be raised in future talks with Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh. Among these were the question of whether Laos and Cambodia would participate with their own delegations and, if not, whether representatives from these countries could be included in the DRV delegation. If the conditions were acceptable to the DRV, the Soviet Union suggested that the Communist side not initiate a proposal for ceasefire, but support France if she suggested that. Likewise, a settlement was dependent upon French support for the DRV’s independence and non-alignment, the withdrawal of all French forces, the DRV’s recognition of French economic and cultural interests in Vietnam, and a guarantee that the DRV abstain from prosecution of those who had collaborated with France.30 These conditions were all very similar to those proposed by Mendés-France’s foreign policy advisor – thus a policy that at least with time would be acceptable to the French. The Soviet leaders were also eager to determine Zhou Enlai and Ho Chi Minh’s attitude to all-Vietnamese free elections. In the Soviet plans for negotiations in Geneva, the only mention of elections was the possibility of a referendum in the part of Vietnam south of the 16th parallel, and no suggestions of common elections for the whole country. Another issue that would have to be sorted out was the Chinese and North Vietnamese attitude to partition of Vietnam at the 16th parallel as suggested in the Soviet plans. In case the Western powers suddenly should suggest a coalition government in Vietnam the Soviet leaders saw a need for a unified strategy. And finally, Moscow also wanted to discuss whether the Communist bloc should develop their own strategy for the partition of Vietnam which would grant advantages to the DRV, such as recognition of the country’s independence and sovereignty, the withdrawal of French forces, etc.31 All the issues mentioned above were, to some degree, open to discussion, but on the question of the United States’ presence in Vietnam, the Communist bloc had made up their minds: ‘any agreement on Indochina, also a ceasefire, shall contain a clause on the end of U.S. interference in Indochinese affairs’.32 And as a part of the strategy to avoid a deeper American involvement in the affairs of Indochina in general and Vietnam in particular, the Communist side attached great importance to how to present their case in Geneva. Under no circumstances should it be possible to interpret Communist actions and statements ‘as if the People’s Republic at present is providing assistance to the DRV’.33 The Soviet Union feared that an acknowledgement of Chinese assistance to the DRV could complicate the negotiations. 36 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 The final offensive Information on developments in th

e Franco-Vietnamese war was a vital part of Soviet planning. In 1954, Moscow had no official representative in Vietnam, but there are indications that Soviet officers visited the southern part of China bordering Vietnam, or even Vietnam itself, to gather intelligence on the military situation. At the end of March, Soviet Lieutenant General Petroschevskii, who worked as military attaché at the Soviet embassy in China and military advisor to the PLA, reported to the Soviet ambassador in China, Pavel Fjodorovich Iudin, on his conversations with Chinese officials regarding the situation in Indochina. He informed Pavel on the status of the Vietminh and French forces at Dien Bien Phu, as well as more details on Vietminh strategies for April. Highlighting the importance of Chinese assistance and support, Petroschevskii quoted the Chinese point view on the current and future situation in Indochina. According to Petroschevskii, the Chinese emphasized how the people of Vietnam had expressed their wish to see Chinese volunteer units fight together with the Vietnamese People’s Army in order to liberate Indochinese territory, just like we did in Korea. That would be impossible. To bring Chinese armed forces into the territory of Indo-China could complicate the international situation, and would be unfavourable for the national-liberation movements in Thailand and Burma.34 Petruschevskii added what seems to have been a Chinese opinion on how to solve the Indochinese problem. His Chinese conversation partner outlined three different ways to resolve the situation; the first option was to hold free elections for a government among the whole population of Vietnam, after the withdrawal of occupational troops, in which case most votes would be secured for the Democratic Republic. The second option would be a Korean solution with the partition of the country into two separate parts, and the third option would be to leave the situation in its current position.35 Lieutenant General Petruschevskii gathered this information just before the Moscow meeting between the Soviets, Chinese and Vietnamese in early April. Parallel to the preparations for the Geneva conference the Vietminh began attacking the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. We have already seen how Chinese military advisors played a crucial role in the planning of Vietminh strategies in this period. In the period from 1950 to 1953 the Chinese had invested much money and manpower in strengthening the Vietnamese Communist forces. The Chinese attitude stood in stark contrast to what we have seen from Moscow. While the Chinese concluded that a victorious Vietnamese army would help secure success at Geneva, Moscow was reluctant to provide overt assistance to the Vietnamese in this crucial period leading up to the conference, even when confronted with rather small requests from the Vietnamese. One example of Moscow’s reluctance can be traced to January 1954, when the Vietnamese sent a request for trucks and regular cars to be used during the spring. The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 37 Reviewing the request, Deputy Foreign Minister Valerian Aleksandrovich Zorin came to the conclusion that, since it was not a question of weapons but about means of transport, ‘it should be possible to satisfy the request of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers Party, and supply these trucks with the help of the Chinese’.36 There had earlier been requests for weapons such as the overt hints in the May 1952 report from the Vietnamese ambassador, Nguyen Long Bang, in which he underlined what kind of weapons the Vietminh lacked.37 However, judging by Zorin’s comment regarding the trucks, no weapons had been delivered or would be delivered from the Soviet Union to the Vietnamese Communists. The decision to set up a strongly fortified garrison at Dien Bien Phu had been made by the French General Henri Navarre. Navarre was assigned to the post as commander of the French forces in Indochina in May 1953 and immediately began to work out a new three-year strategy aimed at winning back the advantage on the battle field. The plan was supported by the United States, who was now free from the burden of Korea and concentrated all its worries on the consequences of a French loss in Indochina. With a dramatic increase in US military and financial support to France, the French began to send additional forces to Indochina. General Navarre’s plan consisted of a three-stage strategy intended to reverse the balance of forces and strengthen the French military position. During the fall and winter of 1953–54 he aimed to secure the strategically crucial Red River delta, and during the spring of 1954 he wanted to pacify the Communistcontrolled areas in central and south Vietnam, in order to finally launch a general offensive to pursue, and destroy, the Vietminh main forces in the north.38 The first Vietminh attack on Dien Bien Phu came in January 1954. The attack, planned by the CMAG, came before the French had firmly established themselves in their positions. The Vietminh suffered heavy losses during this ‘human wave’ attack both because they had trouble moving artillery pieces fast enough and because the French troops moved much faster than expected. But because of the problems during this first attack, the CMAG and Vietminh decided to change tactics. Rather than searching for ‘a quick solution’ they would go for a strategy of ‘steady progresses’. As a part of this steady progress strategy, the Chinese supplied the Vietminh with anti-aircraft guns that would enable the Vietnamese to break French air superiority and incapacitate the Dien Bien Phu airstrip. In addition to providing the anti-aircraft guns, the Chinese taught the Vietminh soldiers how to use snipers to disrupt French troop activity and to undermine the French morale. The Chinese also sent engineering experts who had served in Korea to assist in the construction of trenches in the areas surrounding the French garrison. The Vietnamese used these trenches to approach the French positions without the risk of being exposed to French firepower.39 The success of the Vietnamese Communists during the Dien Bien Phu campaign was to a large degree a result of the enormous practical and logistical support from the PRC. However, one should not disregard the enormous effort made by the thousands of Vietnamese men and women who carried out the battle and, not least, provided the necessary support for the front lines.40 The victory at 38 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 Dien Bien Phu was regarded as imminent both by the Vietnamese and the Chinese. Beijing explains the Chinese support, emphazising how ‘Mao wanted a victory at Dien Bien Phu in order to strengthen the Communist position at the negotiating table’.41 And in that regard the timing was perfect. The Vietminh launched its final offensive on 1 May 1954, and six days later, on 7 May, the French capitulated. The Indochina phase of the Geneva Conference was scheduled to open the day after – 8 May.42 Negotiating in Geneva On several occasions, Chinese sources underline the close cooperation between the Soviet Union and China before and during the conference and add significant information on the topic currently unavailable in Russian archives. Both Soviet and Chinese sources emphasize the mutual understanding between Moscow and Beijing on the importance of China’s role during the conference. Still, the Soviet Union was clearly the ‘older brother’ in Geneva, and during the conference sessions Zhou Enlai always sought advice, and received approval, from Molotov before presenting the parties with new suggestions. The reason for this good cooperation was that the Soviet and the Chinese views were consistent; they both wanted to end the war in Indochina. However, their expectations from the conference were different. Whereas the Soviet Union was pessimistic and did not expect too much, China, on the other hand, wanted to strive to achieve results. The Chinese underlined that just the very fact that the PRC, the DRV, and North Korea were allowed to participate was in itself a victory.43 To Moscow, however, the participation of China, North Korea and the DRV at the conference was among the prerequisites for the negotiations.44 In the spring of 1953 General Vo Nguyen Giap, Commander-in-Chief of the PAVN, had moved his troops into Laos but withdrew after a few months. In October 1953 his troops once again entered Laos, and by January 1954, units of PAVN controlled more than half of Laos and small areas of northern Cambodia. Giap’s offensives were meant to support the liberation movements in these countries.45 While in pre-conference consultation with both Beijing and Moscow, the Vietnamese Communists apparently agreed that a settlement following the principle of temporarily dividing Vietnam into two zones was acceptable. However, the victory at Dien Bien Phu made the Vietnamese believe that they were in a position to squeeze more concessions from their adversaries at the conference table. According to Chinese sources, the head of the Vietnamese delegation, Pham Van Dong, announced at the conference that in order to settle the Indochina problem, ‘the Vietminh would ask for establishing its virtual control of most parts of Vietnam (through an on-the-spot truce, followed by a national plebiscite, which they knew that they could win), and, while denying the existence of Vietminh troops in Laos, pursuing positions for the “resistance forces” in Laos and Cambodia by treating the settlement of the Laos and Cambodian problems as part of a general settlement of the Indochina problem’.46 The statements from The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 39 Pham Van Dong caused considerable trouble among the Communist delegations at the conference. On several occasions, the Chinese had to use considerable pressure to stop the DRV foreign minister from undermining the possibility

of a settlement.47 On 24 June 1954, while in Moscow during a three-week recess of the Geneva conference, Foreign Minister Molotov gave a preliminary report on the work of the conference to the CPSU Central Committee Plenum. The conference had now finished its first phase. During this phase it had mainly discussed the Korean question, on which it had not been able to find common ground, but the participants had also begun discussion of the Indochina issue. Underlining that the discussion on Indochina was still at a very early stage, Molotov remarked that the political negotiations had yet to begin. Until now the parties had concentrated on discussing the terms of a ceasefire.48 However, one of the major problems with regard to establishing a ceasefire was the Vietnamese refusal to admit that their troops had taken active part in fighting in both Laos and Cambodia.49 According to Foreign Minister Molotov, the delegation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had during the Geneva conference, acknowledged that on the territory of Laos and Cambodia there had previously been a certain number of Vietnamese volunteers, that participated in the national-liberation movements of these countries, but that these volunteers had at one time been withdrawn. They had also admitted: if we find out that also today there are any Vietnamese volunteers in these countries, also these remaining volunteers will be called back. On this point one cannot but see the aspiration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to cooperate with all means in order to re-establish peace in all of Indo-China.50 Molotov’s report to the CPSU Plenum was not entirely truthful. What he did not say in the report was that Vietnam was cooperating with regard to the volunteers not only because they wanted to withdraw their forces in the neighbouring countries but rather due to very strong pressure from both their allies, in particular the Chinese. While Soviet documentation on negotiations during the conference remains scarce, the Chinese have released more detailed information on the day-to-day negotiations in China. One feature that stands out from the Chinese materials, and that is further reinforced by the lack of materials on the Soviet side, is the immense task of restraining the Vietnamese. Available materials show that this task was to a very large degree managed by the Chinese. In Molotov’s report above, cooperation with the DRV is portrayed as uncomplicated, whereas the actual situation was somewhat different. When the three delegations from the Soviet Union, the PRC and the DRV met on 5 May to finalize the Communist stand on the peace settlement in Indochina, they agreed to pursue an overall settlement including all three Indochinese countries. But the Vietnamese reluctance to withdraw, or even admit to the fact that 40 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 they had troops in Laos and Cambodia, complicated the Chinese wish for a friendly atmosphere that would encourage continued discussions at the conference. The leader of the Chinese delegation, Zhou Enlai, therefore met with Pham Van Dong on 8 May and urged him to issue a statement that the Vietminh would arrange to release all seriously wounded enemy captives at Dien Bien Phu. Zhou also contacted Wei Guoqing, the chief Chinese military advisor at the Vietminh headquarters and told him that Geneva should at all times be updated on the Vietminh handling of this matter.51 However, at the same time the Vietminh victory also strengthened the Chinese belief that they could achieve a result in Geneva. A member of the Chinese delegation, Wang Bingnan, said that when he heard the news of Dien Bien Phu ‘we spread it to each other. We were very much encouraged and felt more confident in solving the Indochina issue.’52 As a result, the Chinese delegation came to Geneva with ambitious instructions from the leadership in Beijing. Their main aim during the conference was to exercise active diplomacy to break the American policy of isolation and embargo against China, as well as strive to reduce world tensions. Further, they should try to conclude agreements so as to set a precedent for solving international problems through Great Power consultations. Under all this lay the most basic objective of the Chinese government, namely to prevent an internationalization of the Indochina conflict. The Chinese would at all costs try to avoid a situation similar to the one they had experienced in Korea.53 The Chinese side has also argued that Moscow had only a limited interest in Indochina, and that to the Soviet leaders it was more important to undermine German rearmament than to continue revolutionary war in Southeast Asia.54 An examination of available Soviet documents supports the view that China played the most active role in Geneva. Both Soviet and Chinese sources point to an active Chinese Foreign Minister, Zhou Enlai, as the man who secured a settlement at Geneva. However, a settlement of the Indochinese problem was of great importance to the Soviet Union as a means to prevent a possible outbreak of war in Indochina, and not only in terms of its impact on policies elsewhere.55 Moderating the Vietnamese stand became even more important after the new French Prime Minister, Pierre Mendès-France, took office on 16 June. Mendès-France had promised to resolve the situation in Indochina within 20 July, or resign. With the new climate and a renewed French eagerness to reach an agreement on Indochina, the Soviet Union and the PRC used all their influence on Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong to convince them that now was the time to negotiate with France, and that they should not insist on keeping the demarcation line on the 14th or 15th parallel.56 The idea of partition was initially presented by the Chinese. They hoped for a partition at the 16th parallel but realized that such a solution would cut off one of the essential French colonial highways, and decided to be willing to accept a partition at the 17th parallel.57 With Pierre Mendès-France in charge, Zhou saw an opportunity to reach agreement in the midst of French distress over the situation in Indochina. Moscow fully agreed with Zhou’s stand in this question. It was time to settle The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 41 while Mendès-France was in power, also probably because it now seemed possible to get a negative vote in the French National Assembly on the European Defence Community. The United States exerted much pressure on the French, and both Moscow and Beijing feared that if the Vietminh continued to present the French Prime Minister with unacceptable demands, the French government would collapse.58 A collapse of the Mendés-France government could possibly lead to a worsened situation in Indochina and ruin the chances of a settlement at that point. Soviet analysts further argued that the one of the main aims of Mendès-France’ threat to resign unless agreement was reached in Geneva was to put pressure on the Soviet Union, the PRC and the DRV in order to improve the French position in the negotiations. Through conversations with close associates of the prime minister, diplomats at the Soviet embassy in Paris were given the understanding that the Mendès-France government needs a certain amount of ‘help’ to achieve a cease-fire in Indochina on conditions ‘honourable’ to France and announced that in case they did not succeed, Mendès-France would resign and a new government would take power, which would probably contribute to an internationalization of the war in Indochina.59 Such an outcome would, according to the informer, not be in the interest of either the French or the Soviets. Thus, with the threat of yet another change of government in France, combined with the failure of the conference participants to reach agreement on the Korea question, the pressure to reach an agreement on the Indochina issue would become even greater. As earlier, the problem was the DRV attitude, and their refusal to admit the existence of their forces in Laos and Cambodia. At a meeting between the Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese delegations on 15 June, Molotov, Zhou Enlai and Pham Van Dong agreed that the Communist camp should adopt a new policy with emphasis on the complete withdrawal of all foreign forces, including the Vietnamese volunteers from Laos and Cambodia. These concessions would in turn be used to opt for a more beneficial situation with regard to the division of Vietnam into two separate zones. According to Chinese sources, Molotov and Zhou had discussed this in several private conversations, whereas Pham Van Dong needed to be persuaded and pressured to concede to this new strategy.60 To Hanoi, the question of forces in the two neighbouring countries was difficult because the Vietnamese Communists did not regard Cambodia and Laos as clearly foreign states and because for military logistical reasons, Indochina had to be considered one battlefield.61 In every sense of the word, Moscow considered China to be in charge of dealing with the Vietnamese Communists, as well as to add the necessary pressure to secure their consent for the negotiating strategy. Therefore, during the conference the Chinese delegation and Zhou Enlai in particular, invested much effort into reaching consensus with the Vietnamese comrades. In later accounts of the 42 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 conference, the Soviets put particular emphasis on the Chinese role underlining that ‘the Chinese delegation presented a number of specific suggestions, and played a vital role in reaching a settlement on the peaceful regulation in Indochina’.62 Moscow further emphasized that this was particularly important in July, during the last stage of discussing the Indochina question. At that point there was a sharp increase in closed sessions and unofficial meetings between the parties, and the general opinion was that these meetings played an important role in t

he work of the Geneva conference. It was during these sessions and meetings that the Soviet and Chinese delegations did a tremendous amount of work in order to bring together the views of the opposing sides. According to the Soviet evaluation of the conference, it was in particular the strong effort of the Chinese delegation that led to a favourable decision in the question of reaching a ceasefire in Indochina.63 One very important meeting between the Chinese and the Vietnamese took place during the conference break at Geneva, when Zhou Enlai travelled to the Chinese city of Liuzhou to meet the leaders of the VWP.64 Realizing the difficulties of discussing only through telegraphic exchanges, Zhou took this opportunity to personally discuss the problems of the conference with the Vietnamese leaders. However, before meeting with the Vietnamese leaders, Zhou Enlai met with the new French premier, Mendès-France, and promised him to help persuade the DRV to speed up negotiations. Thus, it was with the hope of concluding a peace settlement the Chinese leaders began the meeting with the Vietnamese on 3 July. Zhou’s key argument during the meetings was the danger of a possible direct American intervention in Indochina. It was of vital importance to prevent an internationalization of the war, which could eventually lead to American involvement and create a situation similar to the one the Chinese had met in Korea.65 The result of the Liuzhou meeting was a general consensus between the Chinese and the Vietnamese on the strategies for the next phase of the negotiations in Geneva. During the meeting, the two parties agreed that they would propose the 16th parallel for the regroupment of troops, and that the 17th parallel should be proposed as the provisional military demarcation line. In addition, the Vietnamese side wanted general elections to be held within six months at the latest, whereas the Chinese proposed two years. The Chinese proposal was unpopular with the Vietnamese, who felt that the ‘situation would be very difficult, once our troops had withdrawn to the North and we had to wait two years for the election’.66 However, upon Ho’s return to Vietnam the VWP Central Committee issued an instruction on 5 July (to be known as the ‘July 5th Document’) which apparently reflected the agreements reached in Liuzhou. It also included the new strategy in which the Indochina problem would be solved through a ceasefire based on a temporary division of Vietnam into two zones, as well as the suggestion of a nationwide election that would take place after the withdrawal of the French forces and, eventually, lead to a reunification of the whole country.67 Ho’s acceptance of these conditions, and his emphasis on the danger of American intervention, shows the strong Chinese influence. The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 43 Certain that they had reached consensus with the Vietnamese, the Soviet and Chinese leaders focused their attention on presenting a deal in Geneva that Mendès-France could accept. When briefing Molotov on the discussion during the Liuzhou meeting, Zhou admitted that Ho Chi Minh had agreed to the possibility of accepting the 17th parallel as the provisional demarcation line, if it should prove impossible to reach consensus over the 16th parallel. However, at the same time Pham Van Dong was still reluctant to carry out the agreements reached in Liuzhou, and Zhou once again met with Dong to reach a compromise that could be presented in the negotiations. During the meeting, Zhou emphasized both the danger of an American intervention and the need to act while Mendès-France was still in power in France to make Dong agree to the present plan for establishing the demarcation line. Finally Dong yielded, and at the end of the conversation Zhou had apparently promised to Dong that once the French had withdrawn their troops, ‘all of Vietnam will be yours’.68 The Chinese performance during the Geneva conference was decisive, not only in the eyes of the Western powers but also to the Soviets. In his report to the Central Committee Plenum in late June, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov once again praised China’s role and emphasized that the most important aspect of the Geneva conference was the participation of the PRC, for the first time, on equal terms with the other Great Powers – the USSR, the United States, Great Britain and France. China’s participation in the discussion of both questions – the Korean and the Indochinese – is important not only because the new, democratic China has now entered the international arena and assumed its rightful place among the Great Powers, but also because the Geneva Conference clearly shows that without the participation of the People’s Republic of China, it is no longer possible to solve a number of international problems, and in particular those that concern the situation in Asia.69 This statement was made even before the conference had reached a final settlement and showed the extent to which Moscow appreciated China’s effort in Geneva. The Soviets also went as far as to characterize the Chinese participation in Geneva as the ‘actual international recognition of the People’s Republic of China’.70 At the Geneva conference the Chinese also had the opportunity to establish new contacts, in particular with countries that had yet to recognize the new Chinese regime. The first meeting between Chinese and American officials took place in Geneva, and the conference also improved Chinese relations with the countries of both South and Southeast Asia, in particular with the Indians.71 How close were relations between the Soviets and the Vietnamese on the eve of the conference? The Soviet Union and the DRV had no bilateral meetings either before or during the conference. All meetings were at least tripartite and took place with Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese representatives present – and the occasional North Korean. In contrast, we have seen that there were several Sino-Vietnamese strategy meetings without the Soviets attending. An obvious 44 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 question then is how close Sino-Vietnamese relations were on the eve of the conference? The very fact that everything went through the Chinese might indicate two things: first, that Moscow had other priorities in Geneva, in addition to reaching an acceptable solution to the problems in Indochina. Second, it could also mean that Moscow considered this still to be mainly China’s responsibility. To this day it remains difficult to evaluate the status of Soviet–Vietnamese relations during the Geneva conference because of the continuous presence of China whenever the Soviets and the Vietnamese met. The setting further confirms the picture of China playing the vital role of intermediary all through the conference. It also shows how Moscow used the Chinese to achieve their own goals during the conference and that such a strategy was acceptable to the Chinese because to them the most important underlying aspect was to be accepted as an equal partner among the other Great Powers. In addition, the Chinese had in contrast to the Soviets, a clear geostrategic interest in securing the situation in Indochina. Geneva and the future of Soviet–Vietnamese relations In the early morning of 21 July 1954, the Geneva conference reached a settlement on the Indochina problem, just in time for Mendès-France’s deadline.72 The result of the Geneva conference was a settlement of the war in Indochina based on two separate but connected agreements: the Cease-Fire Agreement and the so-called Final Declaration. The first agreement was a ceasefire signed by the representatives of the belligerents: Ta Quang Buu, Vice Minister of National Defence for the DRV, and Brigadier General Henri Deltiel for the French Union Forces in Indochina. This agreement contained provisions for the regroupment of troops, and under its terms the troops of the PAVN (the Vietminh) would regroup north of the 17th parallel, while French union forces would regroup south of it.73 In anticipation of the reunification elections, the provisions of the Agreement stated that the ‘civil administration in each regrouping zone shall be in the hands of the party whose forces are to be regrouped there in virtue of the present Agreement’.74 In addition, the provisions agreed upon in the ceasefire part of the Agreement stated that there were to be no troop reinforcements, no augmentation of weapons, no military bases and no foreign military alliances on the part of the administration of either zone. The conference also clearly recognized Laos and Cambodia as independent, sovereign states. The second agreement, the Final Declaration, was dedicated to Vietnam’s political future. It took note of several particulars of the ceasefire prohibiting any increase in troop levels, armaments, foreign military aid or the signing of alliances. The declaration also stated that the 17th parallel should not be interpreted in any way as a political or territorial boundary, and that free general elections by secret ballot were to be held two years later in July 1956 under the supervision of an ICC.75 The ICC consisted of representatives from India, Poland and Canada, with India holding the chairmanship. It was established at the time of the ceasefire to provide for control and supervision, while the actual responsibility for the The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 45 execution of the Agreement rested with the parties. Consultations between representatives of the two zones to prepare for the elections were to start on 20 July 1955. However, this declaration was not signed by any of the heads of delegations, only verbally endorsed by some of them.76 The agreement also provided for a joint commission composed of an equal number of representatives from the two zones, whose task was to facilitate the execution of those provisions of the Cease-Fire Agreement conc

erning the joint action of the two parties.77 Moscow considered the Geneva conference a success. Within the international context, Moscow had three equal issues on the agenda in Geneva: first, to promote Soviet objectives in Europe, more specifically to put pressure on the French government and thereby remove the threat of the proposed German rearmament through the EDC. Second, to remove the threat of escalation in Indochina through a US military intervention, and third, to introduce the PRC to the international diplomatic scene and possibly also reduce the tensions in China’s relationship with the West, especially the United States. The Soviet policy with regard to all three issues was a success. The most notable was probably the effect it had on the future of European military cooperation. In France, the slow progress at Geneva led to a government crisis and subsequently to the establishment of a government headed by Pierre Mendès-France, who was not enthusiastic about the idea of the EDC. On 30 August 1954, the French National Assembly refused to ratify the EDC proposal and thereby undermined the plans for German rearmament at that point.78 Sino-Soviet cooperation during the conference was also a huge success. With their common desire to end war in the region, Moscow and Beijing shared the responsibility of advising the Vietnamese Communists both before and during the conference. Together the two powers exerted a restraining influence on the DRV, thereby illustrating how international strategic considerations took precedence over the ideological obligation to support the struggle of a fellow Communist party. From the Soviet policy makers’ point of view, the Vietnamese situation was a problem that needed to be solved in order to pursue larger and more important goals. And while the situation in Indochina was the problem, China was the means to solve it. The increased attention to China, and Beijing’s eagerness and possibility to put pressure on the Vietnamese, was seen as a great benefit in Moscow. The change of government in France made the situation easier and gave the Communists a better opportunity to put positive pressure on the French while they at the same time tried to alienate the Americans. However, while Moscow wanted a conference to solve the problems of both Korea and Indochina, it did not want to sacrifice anything else to achieve results in Asia. They used the Chinese fear of American invasion and a Korea-like situation to make the Chinese pressure the Vietnamese. Moscow and Beijing had the same goals in Geneva, but for very different reasons. Both sacrificed a swift Vietnamese reunification in order to safeguard their own priorities. Moscow’s priorities were a better relationship with the West and the French rejection of the EDC. Beijing needed to prevent an American intervention, a second ‘Korean War’, and, not 46 The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 least, to secure their southern border by the establishment of a Communist state between themselves and the imperialists. In later accounts of the conference and its results, however, the Chinese and the Vietnamese were bitter to both China’s and the Soviet Union’s performance at Geneva. In a conversation between Mao and Pham Van Dong in midNovember 1968, Mao claimed that the Chinese had made a mistake when going to the Geneva conference in 1954. He emphasized that President Ho Chi Minh had not been satisfied that he had to give up the South, and, Mao continued, ‘[. . .] when I think twice, I see that he was right. The mood of the people in the South at that time was rising high. Why did we have the Geneva Conference? Perhaps, France wanted it’. Pursuing Mao’s argument Zhou Enlai added that the suggestion to hold a conference had come from Khrushchev, who had wanted to solve the problem in Indochina. Without directly criticizing the Soviet involvement, Mao argued that the general public opinion had been in favour of such a conference but that it had been unfavourable to the Vietnamese Communists, who could have seized the whole country, had they not been forced to withdraw to the North. According to Mao, the Chinese and Vietnamese lost an opportunity by agreeing to participate at the Geneva conference.79 In spite of how the Chinese evaluated their own participation during the Geneva conference in later accounts, the preparations for and the actual conduct of the Geneva conference have shown that Moscow regarded China as an integral part of Soviet policies towards Vietnam. Once preparations for the conference began, Moscow’s first priority was to secure the participation of both Beijing and Hanoi at the negotiating table. Soviet policy makers soon realized that without the active participation of China it would not be possible to conclude an agreement in Geneva. But is it true that only strategic considerations played a part when Moscow elaborated its policies towards the conference and its main objective – Indochina – or is it possible that Soviet thinking with regard to Vietnam also reflected the ideological views of the Kremlin leadership? There is no doubt that Soviet conduct at Geneva has shown how self-interest played an important role in Soviet foreign policy-making both before and during the conference. However, if ideological considerations did play a role, it would, in this case, be in consensus with, and not in opposition to, the self-interest of the Soviet leaders. While on the one hand, the conference gave Moscow the perfect opportunity to introduce a new and by all means large player from the Communist camp, it also permitted the Soviets to play their policies of ‘splitting the unity among the imperialist powers’ together with their Chinese ally. Such a policy was reflected in how they tried to ally with the French and alienate the Americans. One possible reason why Moscow found it rather easy to accept an agreement that seemed disadvantageous to the Vietnamese Communist leaders could have been based on what Moscow (from a Communist ideological point of view) thought was both possible to achieve and, not least, appropriate for the DRV at the time. To Moscow, the idea of consolidating the North while waiting for elections to reunite both zones was fully compatible with how a Communist The end of the war and the Geneva conference, 1953–1954 47 society should develop. In other words, Moscow was satisfied with the results of the conference, both in terms of their larger strategic goals both in Europe and Asia and with regard to the prospects for future development of Communism in Vietnam. As such, Geneva served the Soviet leaders well but would have serious implications for future relations between Moscow and the Vietnamese Communists. One can only assume that the conference most probably added to Hanoi’s suspicions that the Soviet leaders were ready to sacrifice the DRV whenever that could benefit Soviet foreign policy interests. 4 Together for Communism? Sino-Soviet cooperation and the rebuilding of North Vietnam, 1954–1957 The main concern of Moscow’s Vietnam policy in the first few years after the Geneva conference was how to succeed with their ‘peace offensive’ towards the West, while at the same time strengthening their relations with China. However, during 1955 and 1956 these two policy goals were not always easy to reconcile, especially not without at times sacrificing the best interests of the Vietnamese. While focusing on China’s role, the Soviet leaders failed to understand the seriousness of the developments that took place within the Lao Dong from early 1956 onwards. Publicly the Lao Dong leadership still promoted political struggle within the Geneva framework, but privately more and more individuals within the party leadership viewed a strategy of limited military actions as a possible supplement to the political struggle. From that point onwards Moscow gradually encountered an increasing distrust among the leaders in Hanoi, who feared that their Soviet allies were content with a more permanently divided Vietnam. Thus, in the latter half of the 1950s Moscow wanted a well-functioning relationship with the DRV, and to achieve that there was no way around China. China played an important role in Vietnam during these years, not least because of its contributions to the reconstruction of Vietnamese society, in terms of both money and manpower. Cooperation with China soon became a condition for Soviet engagement in Vietnam, and Beijing’s announcement in late 1955 of partial Chinese withdrawal from Vietnam was viewed with much concern in Moscow. Nonetheless, Moscow continued to emphasize both the importance of a well-functioning Sino-Soviet partnership in Vietnam and China’s vital role as the main provider and organizer of ‘aid and advice to the Vietnamese friends in deciding important questions in their foreign and domestic policies’.1 Four topics were particularly central in these first years after the Geneva conference: the reconstruction and consolidation of Vietnam; the struggle to implement the provisions of the agreement reached in Geneva, especially the consultations for and holding of all-Vietnamese free elections; the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party and its effect on Moscow’s relations with the Lao Dong and the CCP, with particular emphasis on its impact on the North Vietnamese land reform campaign; and finally Hanoi’s discussions about a new, and more militant, strategy for reunification. Together for Communism? 49 Reconstruction and consolidation in Vietnam After the conclusion of the Geneva agreement, the North Vietnamese had their hands full with the reconstruction process, and emphasis was on consolidating the state north of the 17th parallel, rather than political developments in the South. In the North, the Lao Dong had a solid grip on power, and its leader, Ho Chi Minh, was a popular and charismatic leader. It was the Communist forces originating from the Vietminh who took po

wer in the North after the Geneva partition. By 1954 the Lao Dong’s control over the police, the military, the administration and the people at large was almost total, and accordingly there was no real opposition in that part of the country. Ho Chi Minh was in a favourable situation as the unquestioned leader of most of the people north of the 17th parallel and, in addition, some groups south of it.2 Even so, some groups resisted, such as many of the Catholics in the North. In the early months after Geneva almost 1 million Catholics, encouraged by the Catholic hierarchy and organized by Ngo Dinh Diem’s American advisors, fled from the North to the South.3 In the first months after the Geneva conference contact between Hanoi and Moscow consisted mostly of official communiqués referring to the Soviet assistance to the DRV during the negotiations at Geneva. The few appeals for assistance were made discreetly, and Moscow’s assistance was kept on a low level. As long as the situation in Vietnam was calm, Moscow saw no need to interfere. Until the end of the Franco-Vietminh war the unstable situation in Vietnam had been considered a hindrance to a further elaboration of Soviet–Vietnamese contacts. However, with the new situation after the partition of Vietnam, the Soviet Union was able to establish an embassy in Hanoi, to maintain close contact with the DRV leaders. The first Soviet ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Aleksandr Andreevich Lavrishchev, arrived in Hanoi in late September 1954.4 The establishment of a Soviet embassy in the DRV enabled Moscow to opt for a more active policy in Vietnam and relieved the Soviet leaders of their dependence on Chinese intelligence from Vietnam. Ambassador Lavrishchev’s main priorities should, according to Moscow, be to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, provide analyses of the degree of foreign presence in Vietnam and assess the chances of a reunification within the Geneva framework. More specific instructions were given on the need to carefully study both capitalist and Communist presence in Vietnam. The growing American influence in Southeast Asia was a serious concern, especially as a result of US efforts to include most of the countries in the region in a defence pact – the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).5 In addition, Moscow wanted the embassy to give priority to the study of the Soviet Union’s closest ally in Vietnam – the People’s Republic of China. The embassy should take particular interest in China’s role in Southeast Asia as such, with emphasis on the continuation of friendly relations between China and the DRV.6 Soviet policy makers were, of course, well aware of the close relationship that existed between the Vietnamese and Chinese Communists. But at the same time, the instructions do indicate that from a Soviet point of view the absence of 50 Together for Communism? such relations was seen as a possibility, and could be exploited to Moscow’s advantage. With regard to the internal developments in Vietnam, the Soviet foreign ministry focused on the political, economic and military situation. In politics, the main study object would be the Lao Dong, with emphasis on the condition of its ideological policy and organizational work, conditions within the leadership, and its contact with the mass organizations, primarily the Lien Viet (Unified National Front).7 Moscow also signalled its willingness to provide the DRV government with the ‘necessary assistance [. . .] to strengthen the democratic system in the country’. Financially the Soviet Union should assist in the restoration and development of the economy and the carrying out of land reform. Militarily Moscow should give ‘necessary assistance [. . .] to strengthen the forces of the People’s Army’. In addition, Moscow revealed its intention to establish formal relations between the two countries in both the economic and military fields.8 Although the Soviet leaders showed their intent to support and advice the North Vietnamese both economically and to some extent militarily, they maintained that the Lao Dong would remain the authority on internal Vietnamese affairs. However, contrary to this attitude the instructions to the Soviet ambassador contained a number of suggestions aimed at future North Vietnamese policies towards the South. According to Soviet policy makers, the DRV’s most important task was the reunification of Vietnam within the Geneva framework, to be achieved through free general elections as stated in the Final Declaration of the Geneva agreement. The North Vietnamese should adopt a policy of establishing, as well as strengthening, already established relations with all patriotic, religious and political organizations in the South. From a Soviet point of view the aim of this policy would be to unmask, and then subsequently isolate, the government of Ngo Dinh Diem as well as the parties, organizations and officials supporting it. It was also important to eliminate possible provocation by the United States and France in Indochina. The main aim of the two states, as the Soviets saw it, was to prevent general elections in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.9 In South Vietnam the consolidation of the new state proceeded somewhat differently from what we have seen in the North. In June 1954 the United States pressured Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai to appoint Ngo Dinh Diem Prime Minister, and in July Diem returned to Saigon to formally take control of the government. From an American point of view, Diem was a logical choice for the premiership of an independent Vietnam. He was anti-French and had impeccable credentials as a nationalist and, even more importantly, as a staunch anti-Communist. He was also a devout Catholic and had long administrative experience.10 Once in position, it was soon obvious that Diem lacked many of the qualities required for the imposing challenges he faced in a divided Vietnam. He loved his country but was an elitist who had little understanding of the needs and problems of the Vietnamese people. His ideals were taken from an imperial Vietnam that no longer existed. In contrast to the leader in the North, he had no plan for modernizing the nation or mobilizing his people. He lacked the charisma of Ho Chi Minh, as well as broad support among people in the South.11 Together for Communism? 51 Diem’s position in Saigon was insecure. Without support from the United States Diem would not have been able to cope with the enormous problems he confronted in his first year. The first crisis came with the massive exodus from the North to the South, consisting mostly of Catholics who, encouraged by Diem with promises of land and livelihood, fled from the northern Communist regime. Thereafter followed the sect crisis lasting until the spring of 1955. During his first year in office Ngo Dinh Diem consolidated his power in all possible areas. He eliminated his main opponents – the three sects – and as American advisors gradually replaced French officials in South Vietnam, Diem’s position was solidified.12 In the aftermath of Geneva, the DRV economy was far from strong enough to finance the costly reconstruction of the country, and the Lao Dong leaders found it natural to turn to the Soviet Union and China for assistance. The requests for assistance in the fall of 1954 were modest. They ranged from military assistance to fulfil the ceasefire agreement to appeals for immediate aid to prevent famine. Most of the appeals for assistance were, after some internal discussion, eventually sanctioned by Moscow. When DRV Prime Minister Pham Van Dong asked permission to use Soviet ships to transfer North Vietnamese forces back from the South, the Head of the Southeast Asia Department in MID, Kirill Vasilevich Novikov, declared that he would not recommend providing such assistance to the DRV.13 But Novikov’s recommendations were not followed. Higher officials within the MID bureaucracy sanctioned the request from Hanoi. Thus, in the end Soviet ships were used to carry both North Vietnamese forces and civilians, and at a later stage to transport rice from China to the DRV.14 It was Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov who disagreed with Novikov and approved the assistance to Hanoi. During the 1950s Molotov was the Soviet foreign minister who showed the most interest in Vietnam. He had personally met several of the Vietnamese leaders, and we have already seen that he played an active role both during preparations for the Geneva conference in the spring of 1954 and during the conference itself. As one of the engineers behind the agreement, Molotov was well acquainted with the current situation and also aware of possible future complications in Vietnam. We have not gained access to his personal papers, but his active involvement in the decision-making processes concerning Vietnam, compared with his successors in the foreign ministry, Dimitrii Shepilov and Andrey Gromyko, indicates that he had a special interest in a successful development in the area. In addition to transport assistance, the North Vietnamese also requested more direct military assistance. Pham Van Dong stated that he would be pleased if a group of Soviet military colleagues would arrive in Vietnam to assist in the implementation of the ceasefire agreement.15 Moscow was aware of the DRV’s need for advice and suggested that a group of advisors should be dispatched to Vietnam. The decision was not made without concern for possible Chinese reactions. Chinese military advisors had been active in Vietnam since 1950, and the Soviet leaders did not want to risk any complications with the Chinese. As a result Moscow decided to engage the military advisors as assistants to the Soviet 52 Together for Communism? military attaché in Hanoi.16 The Head of the Southeast Asia Department in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Kirill Novikov, did not specify what kind of complications with the Chinese that could be feared. However, base

d on what is know about the Chinese role in Vietnamese military affairs on all levels, it would be safe to assume that he was afraid the Chinese could be offended if the Soviet Union offered military assistance without coordinating it with Beijing in advance. In the autumn of 1954 the Soviet Union and the DRV had not yet signed any formal agreements on either economic or military assistance. Assistance was given on request and in most cases without further discussion, but no long-term plans for assistance was made until Ho Chi Minh’s first official visit to the Soviet Union as DRV head of state in July 1955. With regard to support to reconstructing the country, Moscow constantly reassured the leaders in Hanoi of the priority given to the rebuilding of North Vietnam. However, the Soviet leaders emphasized that this was considered very important not only by the Soviet Union itself but also by the other members of the Socialist camp.17 The leaders in both Moscow and Beijing realized that in order to substantially support the Vietnamese, Sino-Soviet cooperation was vital. The Soviet leaders argued that they saw economic as well as technical assistance to the DRV as an important factor in the struggle for the reunification of Vietnam. But Moscow had no intention to assist the DRV without any backing from the rest of the Socialist camp. The absence of a Chinese statement on aid to the DRV was viewed with special concern.18 From the very start of the official relationship between Moscow and Hanoi the Soviet government underlined that cooperation with China was a significant factor in Soviet economic and military assistance to Hanoi. At the same time this was one of the first occasions when these two countries actively cooperated to rebuild society in a small Communist state, and in that regard, from a Soviet point of view, the DRV would become a test case for Sino-Soviet foreign policy cooperation. Such a picture was further strengthened by the fact that this cooperation continued even when relations between Moscow and Beijing began to deteriorate, and also when the Chinese announced their decision to withdraw from North Vietnam. Economic assistance was the most important part of Soviet policies towards Vietnam in the early years after Geneva. The first formal economic assistance agreement between the two countries was signed in July 1955. The signing took place during DRV President Ho Chi Minh’s visit to Moscow from 12 to 18 July 1955. It was mainly an aid programme under which the Soviet Union promised to assist North Vietnam in a large number of projects. But economic assistance was only one of several subjects during Ho’s visit, and before the meetings with the DRV delegation began, Soviet negotiators were coached on what to discuss with the Vietnamese. The instructions outlined before these meetings would also become the basis for Soviet engagement in Vietnam in the years to come. They touched upon political, economic, military and cultural relations between Moscow and Hanoi. They outlined the Soviet position in most areas of the relationship through suggestions on how to respond to requests forwarded by Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues.19 Together for Communism? 53 In general terms the Soviet negotiators had clear instructions: support would be given within the framework of the Geneva agreement, and the Soviet Union would raise the question of political regulation in Vietnam at the next Big Four meeting in July 1955. The instructions also contained assurances to Ho Chi Minh and the other North Vietnamese delegates that the Soviet government was ready to provide, in cooperation with the Chinese friends, ‘the necessary support to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the struggle for independence and reunification of the country, as well as in the case of the economic and cultural reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’.20 However, Moscow said nothing on the issue that was of most interest to Vietnam, namely the reunification of the two Vietnams. In 1955 unification was not on the agenda as far as the Soviets were concerned. In the first years after Geneva, Soviet economic support for the DRV was very low key. The kind of assistance provided was identical to that given to other members of the Socialist bloc, and by no means more important. It might even be that Soviet financial assistance to some non-Socialist developing countries exceeded that given to the DRV, even though the Hanoi leaders had eagerly committed themselves to the ideals of the Socialist world.21 Moreover, during the first two years after Geneva, the general policy of the Lao Dong seems to have made little difference in the economic relations between the Soviet Union and the DRV. Agreements like the one signed in July 1955 were renewed on a regular basis, and there was no significant increase in the amount of aid given during the first years after Geneva.22 Military cooperation and Chinese withdrawal While the economic relationship was fairly well-established by the summer of 1955, the question of military relations between the two countries was much more delicate. A clear-cut example can be found during the negotiations in the summer of 1955. The instructions to the Soviet negotiators were clear: if Ho Chi Minh should raise the question of establishing a joint Sino-Soviet economic and military mission, he would be told that ‘such a step would not be expedient, as there had already been established a practice of cooperation in these fields between the Vietnamese and the Chinese’.23 Is it possible that Moscow had already gotten the impression that the Vietnamese were suspicious of Chinese intentions and therefore opted for a stronger Soviet engagement, also militarily? If that was the case, in 1955 Moscow did not seem to be sensitive to the Vietnamese wishes with regard to practical military support. Nevertheless, this did not exclude the possibility that the DRV could receive technical aid from the Soviet Union. The question had also been raised earlier. In a telegram from General Antonov, at the General Staff in the Soviet Ministry of Defence, to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs V.A. Zorin in early June 1955, General Antonov underlined the inexpediency of establishing a joint Sino-Soviet military mission to coordinate questions related to the construction of the armed forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) in Hanoi.24 His argument was 54 Together for Communism? rooted in the Chinese military presence. Antonov emphasized that ‘at present PAVN has Chinese military advisors. These advisors know the peculiarities of the country and its army. They have many years of experience in advising the Vietnamese friends on questions of constructing the armed forces, including the instruction and education of troops.’25 Antonov’s answer indicates that the military command in Moscow was unwilling to engage in Vietnamese military affairs. It preferred the military mission in Hanoi to remain strictly Chinese and did not want to give promises of military aid to the Vietnamese. In spite of General Antonov’s views, the Vietnamese military leaders continued to meet with both Chinese and Soviet officials to discuss military affairs. On 27 June 1955 a Vietnamese military delegation led by Defence Minister Vo Nguyen Giap made a secret trip to Beijing. While there, they discussed the reconstruction of the DRV armed forces, as well as future war plans with Chinese Defence Minister Peng Dehuai and Lieutenant General Petroshevskii, a senior Soviet military advisor in China. We first met Petroshevskii when he delivered reports from Vietnam during the preparations for the Dien Bien Phu offensive in the spring of 1954.26 A similar trip to Beijing, also led by Giap, took place in mid-October 1955, and this time the Vietnamese general discussed the same questions also with the Soviet general Gushev, of the General Planning Division of the Soviet General Staff.27 Thus, in the late summer of 1955, when Beijing announced its decision to withdraw the military advisors who had been sent to North Vietnam in July– August 1950, the Soviets were forced to rethink their own position in Vietnam and their efforts to provide support for the Vietnamese Communists. The withdrawal was supposed to be carried out in three phases – first in September/ October 1955, at the end of 1955 and finally in the spring of 1956. At the request of the North Vietnamese leaders the military advisors would be replaced by military specialists assigned to help with the modernization process in the PAVN. Thus, this decision did not mean an end to the close ties between the People’s Liberation Army and the PAVN.28 Although Beijing was prepared to continue its military assistance to the DRV, the decision to withdraw the advisors caused concern both among the Vietnamese and the Soviets. Soviet ambassador Zimyanin informed his superiors in Moscow of the Chinese plans to withdraw all political and economic advisors working in the DRV before the end of 1955.29 To prevent a total Chinese withdrawal from the DRV, Moscow turned to Beijing with a plea to retain Chinese assistance to the DRV. However, the situation must have been seen as somewhat delicate, since the decision was to present the Soviet discontent to Beijing in ‘a tactful way’ and make them understand that the Soviets were in favour of more long-term assistance from China to the DRV.30 In early December 1955 the Chinese Ambassador to the DRV, Luo Guibo, informed the Soviets that the Chinese advisors would be allowed to stay only until the end of 1955.31 According to Chinese scholar Chen Jian, on 24 December 1955 the Chinese Defence Minister, Peng Dehuai, informed his Vietnamese counterpart, Vo Nguyen Giap, about the decision to call back the CMAG. The group had been Together for Communism? 55 in Vietnam since July 1950, but by mid-March 1956 all members of the group had returned to China.32 It is difficult to say whether the Soviet leaders

knew about the Chinese decision in advance. If so, it could explain why they emphasized the Vietnamese need for Chinese assistance, even before Beijing made the final decision to withdraw all military advisors. What does seem clear, however, is that the Soviets relied on the Chinese presence in Vietnam, politically and economically, as well as militarily. A Chinese withdrawal in any of these fields would complicate the situation for the Soviets and deprive the DRV of muchneeded resources. With no Chinese presence the Soviets might be forced to engage themselves more deeply in Vietnam. The above account shows that in the mid-1950s the Soviet Union still preferred to leave the major part of the responsibility for military affairs to China. Why were the Soviet leaders willing to give away influence to the Chinese in such an important field? Apart from the costs of taking on such a responsibility one reason could be that at the time, in spite of the growing Soviet interest in the country’s political affairs, Vietnam was not of primary interest to the Soviet Union when it came to active military engagement. The Soviets were of course much more concerned about the military situation in Eastern Europe.33 By leaving the military responsibility to the Chinese, the Soviets would retain their control within the Communist sphere without being directly responsible, and at the same time they would avoid the risk of getting too greatly involved. Another reason can be traced to the state of Sino-Soviet relations in Vietnam in 1955. Although it has been claimed that tension between the two had started to surface, the further record of Sino-Soviet cooperation in Vietnam indicates that with regard to Vietnam, the relationship between Moscow and Beijing was still functioning. The two powers agreed on the necessity of assisting the DRV. Beijing had long military experience in Vietnam, and it was therefore natural to both the Soviet Union and China that the present arrangement continue. In addition, the Soviets wanted a peaceful, not military, reunification of Vietnam. Sino-Soviet relations and the Geneva agreement The Soviet leaders considered the implementation of the agreement, as well as the existence and work of the ICCs in all three Indochinese countries, as an important part of its strategy in this area in the latter part of the 1950s. As co-chairman of the Geneva conference, the Soviet Union was perceived by many, and among them the Vietnamese, as having a special responsibility for the implementation of the agreements. According to the provisions in the Final Declaration of the Geneva conference, general elections should be held in all of Vietnam in July 1956. The purpose of the elections was a reunification of the two zones under a government freely chosen by the Vietnamese people. Consultations for elections should start on 20 July 1955, between competent representatives from both the zones.34 The Soviet Union strongly emphasized the diplomatic struggle for the fulfilment of the Geneva agreement, both through public statements and through 56 Together for Communism? the promotion of the work of the three ICCs. At the same time the Hanoi government worked hard to initiate consultations, but in spite of all efforts the elections were not held. The reason was the attitude of the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem and his American allies. The prevailing assumption in both the North and the South was that the Communists would most probably receive enough votes in both zones to gain the upper hand in a future national government.35 Without Diem’s consent it would be impossible to hold the consultations. In the North the Lao Dong continued, in spite of the unfavourable situation, to fight for implementation of the Geneva agreement. To succeed, however, Hanoi depended on the full support of its Communist allies. While Hanoi strove to initiate consultation talks, Ngo Dinh Diem continued to consolidate his regime in the southern zone. The prospects for consultations and an achievement of a solution through diplomatic means were not good. The French were getting ready to pull out completely, leaving no one in charge of implementing the provisions agreed upon. The Diem government, which was supposed to succeed the French and undertake their obligations with regard to the agreement, refused to participate, claiming that since South Vietnam was not a signatory of the Geneva accords, it had no obligations whatsoever. During the autumn of 1955 Diem further consolidated his power.36 On 23 October 1955 he arranged a referendum in South Vietnam, by which he dethroned the former emperor Bao Dai and had himself elected president. Shortly afterwards he broke off economic relations with France, left the French Union, and finally proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) on 26 October 1955.37 The referendum provoked no major protests from either the Soviet Union or China, indicating that the two Communist powers accepted the idea of a divided Vietnam. In other words, during the autumn of 1955 Hanoi was alone in protesting both Diem’s refusal to hold consultations and the referendum. To both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets, it was now clear that the government of Ngo Dinh Diem would stay in power for a while. During the spring of 1956 the Lao Dong leaders were worried not only because of the reluctant attitude of the South Vietnamese government but also by the French position in this matter. On 3 April 1956 the French gave formal notice of their withdrawal from Vietnam and announced that they would dissolve their High Command by 15 April. On 9 April DRV’s Prime Minister Pham Van Dong sent a letter to the Geneva co-chairmen, insisting that the Diem regime take over France’s legal obligations in regard to the agreement. In reality the French were forced out of Vietnam. Disagreements between the French and Diem over the French presence in Vietnam and the American readiness to take on support of the South Vietnamese was the background for French withdrawal.38 From a South Vietnamese point of view it would be more convenient to have Americans than French in the country. Both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets were negative to the French withdrawal.39 As long as the French had formally been responsible, there had been a certain chance of a fulfilment of the Geneva agreement. With the French gone and the Americans gradually taking over their role, the hope for a peaceful solution was diminished.40 Together for Communism? 57 When the Chinese proposed to convene a second Geneva conference in early 1956, the North Vietnamese soon supported the proposal, hoping that it could help to improve the political situation in Vietnam. The Soviets, although positive to such a meeting, were not convinced that it would be possible to convene as long as the Western powers were reluctant about the idea. Since it was clear at the time that no elections would be scheduled by July, North Vietnamese were searching for new solutions. Truong Chinh in this regard expressed the Vietnamese point of view in a meeting with Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister V.V. Kuznetsov during the Twentieth Congress in Moscow in February 1956. Encouraged to report on the current situation in Vietnam, Truong Chinh emphasized that ‘in the present situation the necessary conditions for conducting these elections do not exist. At the same time the CC has pointed to the necessity of using all forces in order to keep the initiative in the political struggle for the regulation of Vietnam’s political problems.’41 Hanoi’s suggestion in order to keep the initiative was to postpone the elections. The Lao Dong leaders feared that disbanding entirely the idea of holding elections could provoke a strong reaction from the people of Vietnam. ‘To inform people of this now, would’ – according to Truong Chinh – ‘result in a serious worsening of their spirits’.42 Based on this the Vietnamese acknowledged, during the spring of 1956, that ‘to insist on a full implementation of the Geneva agreement will be difficult’.43 Accordingly, they claimed that from a tactical point of view it would be necessary to ‘on the one hand, continue the fight for a fulfilment of the agreement, but on the other hand, to take new steps’.44 The new steps were basically a plan with two alternatives that was presented to the Soviet and the Chinese ambassadors in Vietnam. Both alternatives would provide a solution within the Geneva framework, and both were based on a postponement of the date for the elections to May 1957. In the first alternative, labelled the ‘maximum plan’, the North Vietnamese expected that the Diem government and the French fulfil the provisions of the Geneva agreement and that Diem take over the French obligations. The goal of this plan was to achieve full implementation through the postponement of elections. The second option, labelled the ‘minimum plan’ or ‘modus vivendi’, implied that the opposite side would fulfil only the basic provisions of the agreement such as securing democratic freedoms and normalizing relations between the two zones. In response to the two plans, the Soviets and Chinese agreed that Hanoi would eventually have to make concessions, but not when it came to questions of principle. Since a postponement of the elections would count as a very large concession, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese were unreservedly positive to the North Vietnamese suggestion.45 In the spring of 1956 the Soviets and Chinese agreed that the best solution in Vietnam at the time, taking into account that there would not be any general elections in the foreseeable future, would be to hope for a new Geneva conference.46 At the same time, neither the Vietnamese nor the Chinese attempted to put any pressure on the other powers that had participated in Geneva 58 Together for Communism? to call for a new conference. The outcome of the North Vietnamese initiative was just some further meetings between the two co-chair

men of the conference. Parallel to these developments, the Soviet embassy in Hanoi advocated what seems to have been a more active policy to secure fulfilment of the Geneva agreement. Expressing concern over the situation that was developing in the region, and especially the attempt of the United States, Great Britain and France to undermine the agreement, the Soviet ambassador suggested that the Soviet Union, China and the other Socialist states should strive to exploit the existing disagreements between these powers, and especially India, in order to strengthen the influence of the Socialist camp in the region.47 One of the suggestions Zimyanin advanced was that the two co-chairmen, during their scheduled meeting, could support the Indian suggestion that Ngo Dinh Diem take on the French obligations with regard to the agreement, thus guaranteeing that South Vietnam would not join SEATO and also creating conditions that the ICC would be able to work under. Under such conditions it would be possible to agree to the British suggestion of a postponement of the elections, especially because political consultations between South and North Vietnam had yet to begin.48 Zimyanin’s thoughts were not reflected in the message that eventually resulted from the meeting in London between the two co-chairmen on 8 May 1956. In the public message issued, the two foreign ministers, Andrey Gromyko and Lord Reading, emphasized the need to preserve peace in Indochina and proclaimed that the co-chairmen and the ICC would continue their responsibilities. The 8 May message left the world in no doubt that the Communist powers would allow Vietnam to stay divided. After the meeting, DRV Prime Minister Pham Van Dong sent a letter to Ngo Dinh Diem on 11 May demanding the normalization of relations between the two zones.49 On several occasions the Chinese appeared to be more determined to hold on to the Geneva agreement than the Soviets. The London Talks in May had made quite clear that there would be no general elections in July 1956, or even in the very near future. This had, of course, been clear to all concerned parties for a long time, but the message from London put an end to the last drop of hope. Still, the Chinese continued to voice their commitment to fulfil the pledge and underlined that they would strive, together with the North Vietnamese, ‘for the full implementation of the Geneva Agreements’.50 The Chinese lack of actual commitments with regard to the agreement, stood in contrast to that of the Soviet Union, who still held the position of co-chairman of the conference together with Great Britain and therefore could not just make promises without any plans of keeping them. In the end, however, both Moscow and Beijing let the election deadline in July pass in silence. Neither the Soviets nor the Chinese wanted to provoke another crisis in Vietnam over the question of national reunification and may even tacitly have considered a continued partition of Vietnam to suit their interests. Policy makers in both Moscow and Beijing had more pressing issues coming up – the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, and China first and foremost on the domestic arena. Together for Communism? 59 Hanoi and the Twentieth Congress Nikita Khrushchev’s secret speech at the Twentieth Congress of CPSU in February 1956 had an immense effect on the Communist world and not least on the Sino-Soviet relationship. Khrushchev’s overall arguments in favour of a peaceful transition to socialism and his insistence that war between the two world camps could be avoided led to drawn-out discussions in both Hanoi and Beijing. The new Soviet foreign policy line endorsing peaceful coexistence would be difficult to adapt to China’s more offensive attitudes.51 But to the Chinese the hardest pill to swallow was the lack of consultation in advance. Mao and his fellow CCP leaders felt deeply offended by the manner in which their Soviet comrades handled this matter.52 Within many Communist parties the revelations would have significant implications for how they viewed the role of their own leadership. Just like the Chinese participants, the two Lao Dong representatives at the congress, General Secretary Truong Chinh and Politburo member Le Duc Tho, were both totally unprepared for the revelations in Khrushchev’s speech. In the period immediately after the congress, the Lao Dong leaders in both private conversations and public speeches acknowledged the new Soviet foreign policy line. However, they never revealed in detail how the resolutions of the congress would affect their own policies. In later political analyses the Soviets accused the Vietnamese of sharing the Chinese point of view with regard to the Twentieth Congress, accusing the Central Committee of the Lao Dong of sharing ‘the points of view of the leaders in the Chinese Communist Party and the Albanian Workers Party on the personality cult question. They did not agree with the decisions of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU condemning the personality cult of I.V. Stalin, but preferred to pass this over in silence.’53 The discussions between Soviet and Vietnamese officials in the period after the congress further confirm the Vietnamese unease, and not least their reluctance to take a definitive stand with regard to what happened during the Twentieth Congress. Hanoi’s first official reaction to the speech came in an editorial published in the Lao Dong daily Nhan Dan on 28 February 1956. It stated that the DRV fully supported the results of the CPSU congress but added that the Lao Dong ‘would further endeavour to study Marxist-Leninist theory and to apply it creatively to the concrete situation in Vietnam, to combine this theory with the practice of Vietnam’s revolution’.54 Comments in the editorial indicate that the Lao Dong had not yet decided whether they wanted to accept the whole concept of this new Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Before giving their full endorsement, the Lao Dong leaders wanted to properly discuss how this new foreign policy line could be applied to the specific situation in Vietnam. During the spring of 1956 the Lao Dong leadership had several discussions about the Twentieth Congress, and on 31 March the Politburo in Hanoi issued a communiqué that fully supported the resolutions of the congress. In the end of April, after the extended 9th Plenum of the Lao Dong Central Committee, Nguyen Duy Trinh, a member of the LD CC, presented the results of the 60 Together for Communism? discussions and the evaluations of its implications for the Vietnamese situation to Moscow. In his conversation with Soviet ambassador Zimyanin, Trinh reported that the Plenum ‘unanimously and warmly approves the decisions of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU’.55 This was the official version, but the truth was that Hanoi’s approval was a result of long discussions within the party. Its background can be found in the months preceding the 9th Plenum. Starting in mid-March 1956 the Central Committee was evaluating a proposal from Le Duan, Secretary of the Regional Party Committee in the South, which contained suggestions for a new strategy in South Vietnam.56 This new strategy included preparations for a resumption of the armed struggle, and a 14-point plan for military consolidation of the Nam Bo region, the southern part of South Vietnam, including the surroundings of Saigon.57 The Lao Dong CC had extended its 9th Plenum to thoroughly discuss the resolutions of the Twentieth Congress and their impact on Vietnam’s domestic and international situation. During the Plenum the discussions were separated into two interlinked parts. The first part was dedicated to the examination of the principal questions of the DRV’s foreign and domestic policies and the international situation in the light of the decisions of the Twentieth Congress. The second part of the Plenum focused on a discussion of questions related to the party work of the Lao Dong based on the resolutions of the Soviet congress, the report from the CPSU CC and Khrushchev’s secret speech on the cult of personalities and its consequences.58 Le Duan’s suggestions for a new strategy towards South Vietnam could have been discussed in either of the two sessions. The discussions during the Plenum shed some light on developments within the Lao Dong during this period. They indicate that the North Vietnamese considered seriously Khrushchev’s revelations of misconduct within the Soviet party, and immediately focused on their own internal party life to ascertain whether similar errors had been committed. The Lao Dong leaders acknowledged that mistakes had been made also within their organization and pointed to the role of Ho Chi Minh. A certain degree of personality cult had been developed around Ho, but according to discussions at the Plenum, not to the same degree as around Stalin.59 Moscow was not able to extract much information on Hanoi’s future policies towards South Vietnam from their knowledge about the Plenum. The discussions centred mostly on the domestic policies of the DRV and the situation within the Lao Dong. The only remark targeting directly the Southern situation concluded that ‘the general line of the Vietnamese people’s fight to strengthen the DRV and reunify the country by peaceful means, which had been outlined in the programme of the Fatherland Front, was the correct line to follow’.60 The decision to continue the political struggle indicates that those in favour of Le Duan’s proposed strategy did not officially prevail in the spring of 1956 and that the further strategy of the Lao Dong would be at least close to the new Soviet line.61 As a result, the discussion on Southern strategy would continue through 1956, and while Soviet leaders steadily continued on a course of action in which accommodating the US was more important than the peaceful reunification of Together for Communism? 61 Vietnam, Hanoi’s hardliners promoting a more militant strategy gradually gained