RUSSIA, REVISIONISM AND VIETNAM

Why have the Vietnamese leaders abandoned People's War?

An important part of the explanation lies with Soviet political influence. NLF/DRV leaders look to the Russian regime for ideological guidance.

To understand the significance of Soviet influence in Vietnam we should consider the class character of the Russian state. There was a great socialist revolution in Russia over 50 years ago. For the first time, as a result of this earth-shaking struggle, the working class seized power. This revolution, led by the Russian Bolsheviks (Communists) headed by V. I. Lenin is a vast treasure-house of experience and theory for workers and students who want to fight this system.

But the Russia revolution has been reversed. Workers no longer run things in the land of the soviets. Now the state is controlled -- just as the U.S. government is run -- by a handful of capitalists, a small group of billionaires who oppress most people. Russia is now no longer socialist. It's a capitalist country. (Space prevents us from discussing this point further. For more on this, read the PLP book, Revolution USA).

Nowhere is the anti-worker character of the Russian regime made clearer than in its foreign police. An example is Indonesia. After pro-U.S. fascists slaughtered 500,000 workers, peasants and reds, the Soviets moved in and bailed these mass murderers out of financial difficulties and granted extensive military aid.

Soviet foreign policy, like U.S. foreign policy, has two aims: a) making money (thus they dabble in Mideast oil-politics), and b) suppressing revolutionary communism. (In many instances, Russian agents have cooperated with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to smash guerrilla forces.)

Stopping revolutionary communism -- that is the aim of the Russian government in Southeast Asia.

During the past decade the once-admired Soviet Union has become a notorious and hated enemy of working class forces around the world. For anyone to say that this anti-revolutionary force has achieved communism -- the stage of socialist development where all class distinctions are gone -- this would be like saying that U.S. forces in south Vietnam constituted a Red Army. Nevertheless the Vietnam Courier (an official DRV publication) has no shame:

Since the end of the war (W.W. II), the Soviet people (which means: the Soviet government) have recorded tremendous achievements... and completed the building of socialism and are successfully laying the material and technical foundations of communism. (Vietnam Courier, 11/7/69, our emphasis).

And in the same issue:

On the occasion of the 52nd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Vietnamese people ... wish that under the leadership of the CPSU the Soviet people will record ever greater and more brilliant successes in the building of material and technical bases of communism and in the struggle for world peace and the independence of nations! (ibid., our emphasis).

The Vietnamese leaders glorify this right-wing regime. They say it's a great socialist -- almost classless -- state. Either Vietnamese leaders are crazy -- and they're not crazy -- or else something is very, very wrong.

But perhaps the Vietnamese leaders just respect the Russians on paper. Maybe it's just nostalgia on their part, nostalgia for the once-revolutionary Russia of years ago. In what practical ways do Vietnamese leaders back Russian counter-revolutionary politics?

First of all, statements like the two quoted above are of great practical use to the Russian rulers. Praise from the Vietnamese provides a handy "red" cover for the Soviet skunks. It covers their stink. It gives these counter-revolutionaries an undeserved lease on life.

Second, NLF/DRV leaders do give the Russians forthright practical help. Thus when the Russian rulers invaded Czechoslovakia, only two "non-Soviet bloc" regimes backed them. One was Cuba. The other was the DRV.

It is well known that Russian political influence was used to help persuade NLF/DRV leaders to substitute negotiations for People's War. Of course, this pleases U.S. leaders. Because of this and other Soviet "good deeds," U.S. rulers are getting very cozy with their Soviet counterparts. A reporter asked Nixon the following question:

... you said in the recent past that you thought the U.S. might put some pressure or use the Soviet Union, to seek to enlist the Soviet Union's help in Vietnam, and (have you tried to do this?) (our emphasis)

Nixon answered:

Mr. Lisagor, as you know, the Soviet Union is in a very delicate and very sensitive position as far as Vietnam is concerned. I do not divulge any confidences from the Soviet Ambassador in indicating that this is the case ... what the Soviet Union does in the Vietnamese conflict is a very difficult decision for them as related to (their objective of) ... leadership for the Communist world. On the other hand, it is well known that the Soviet Union was helpful in terms of getting the Paris peace talks started ... And I think I could say that, based on the conversations that the Secretary of State and I have had with the Soviet Ambassador, I believe at this time that the Soviet Union shares the concerns of many other nations in the world about the extension of the war in Vietnam, its continuing ... What it can do, however, is something that only the Soviet Union would be able to answer privately, not publicly. (New York Times, 3/5/69, our emphasis).

GIVE THEM ENOUGH AID AND THEY'LL HANG THEMSELVES

An important source of Soviet political influence in the DRV and NLF is their material support. That aid is tremendous.

With any aid there comes political influence. This is a very important fact of political life. Some think you can fool the Soviet leaders, or the U.S. government. "You can slyly take their goodies -- and use this money to support the very things these oppressors hate." Those who try this can only trick themselves. First, aid makes it very hard to attack those who do the giving. Among other things, the aid might be withdrawn. And also, getting aid softens your attitude towards those who give it. In Vietnam, Russian aid considerably warmed the hearts of militants who started out hostile toward Soviet leaders while unclear about what was wrong with them politically. Second, aid increases the political strength of those within the given movement who agree with the giver. Third, aid, especially military aid, creates dependence on the giver for more aid.

Here is a related example of this strategy in action:

(After the U.S. had made a request, the) Soviet Union had been of some help in the North, Vietnamese ... the officials said they believed the Russians had withheld some material support from the North Vietnamese and had urged Hanoi to use political rather than military means to gain its objectives American officials said the Soviet Union did not appear to be enthusiastic about the North Vietnamese operations in Laos because success for Hanoi might open up opportunities for greater Chinese Communist influence in Laos. (New York Times, 10/31/69, our emphasis)

WHAT THE SOVIETS WANT IN VIETNAM

The Soviet leaders have at least three important aims in Vietnam. First - they want to build up even better relations with the U.S. Again, this is pretty well known. Even Nixon, the old Russia hater, is moved by this new-found love:

So our attitude toward the Soviets is not a high-handed one of trying to tell them that you do this or we won't talk. Our attitude is very conciliatory, and I must say that in our talks with the Soviet Ambassador I think that they were thinking along this line too. (New York Times 3/5/69.)

Second, as an imperialist power with needs like those of U.S. imperialism, the Soviet government wants to be "in on" the plunder of Asia. Thus, the Soviets have a somewhat competitive relationship with the U.S. But both the U.S. and Soviet governments realize that their main enemy is revolution. Both governments are absolute enemies of the working class. Third, and most important, the Russians want to defeat revolutionary communism in China.

Officials count on Soviet support in arranging a settlement. They think that Moscow would favor a compromise that would vindicate neither U.S. intervention in Vietnam nor the guerrilla warfare habitually endorsed by Communist China. (New York Times, 4/6/69)

And they aren't just thinking about the immediate future; they're thinking far beyond. Another Times article noted that many DRV leaders are politically pro-Russian and that this will help the Soviet government because:

As it develops its Asian policy after the end of the war in Vietnam, Moscow has made it clear that it is striving to counter the political and economic incursions of China. (New York Times 10/27/69.)

So while the Soviet imperialists' desire to exploit Asian workers will mean growing friction with U.S. imperialism, Russian leaders' goals of reversing the Chinese revolution can only lead to greater imperialist unity. The U.S. government has always wanted Vietnam to be a bastion against workers' power in China. Indeed, this is what's behind the negotiations. In history there are many examples of movements changing sharply -- being transformed politically into their opposites. Thus the socialist revolution in Russia has been totally reversed--and tragically the People's War in Vietnam is now being reversed.

The U.S. hopes the negotiations will help bring about tremendous changes in Vietnam. The talks are clearly negating People's War. Soviet political prestige has been greatly increased. Negotiations, the transformation of People's War into war-to-influence-negotiations, and increasing Soviet political influence, all help isolate revolutionary communists in Vietnam, confuse those in the middle, and strengthen the hand of sellouts among the leadership. (We are sure this is only temporary!) The U.S. leaders hope that the combination of maintaining the war and at the same time negotiating, will at the very least help guarantee that the DRV and any future coalition regime in the south (assuming one results from the talks) become Yugoslav-type governments: pro-U.S. and pro-Soviet ,completely opposed to revolutionary working class power.

"Hawk" politicians tend to be somewhat conservative in their approach on this, that is, cautious about moving too fast -- just as, earlier, Johnson wanted to hold out for a little more before starting talks. "Doves" like the openly racist Senator Fulbright are bolder. Thus in an April, 1970 Senate speech, Fulbright criticized Nixon for moving so slowly to consummate the deal. After all, this racist argued, north Vietnamese control of southeast Asia is an excellent way of containing the influence of revolutionary forces in China. '

The Soviet imperialists have more than 30 divisions of troops. poised at the Chinese border. Their U.S. imperialist counter-parts are fighting against working people in several Asian countries -- including Cambodia. U.S. and Russian rulers are putting together the forces for an anti-Chinese communism crusade -- should this prove necessary. That means there could well be a huge war involving China vs. Russia and the U.S. Imperialist "peace" In Vietnam, with the U.S. and the Russians holding onto bases in a now -- "pacified" Vietnam (a Vietnam closely linked politically with the Russian rulers) -- such "peace" could well precede an all-Asia war.

WHAT IS REVISIONISM?

We discussed the effects of Russian aid to Vietnam earlier in this chapter. We called that section

GIVE THEM ENOUGH AID AND THEY'LL HANG THEMSELVES. By using this title, we did not mesh to imply that Vietnamese leaders are being forced to sell out. Nobody made them accept Russian aid in the first place. They are very experienced people, very sophisticated politically. So they were very well aware that no aid comes without strings attached. Therefore the leaders in Vietnam, and not the Russians, are the main ones responsible for the sellout strategy of negotiations for taking the "people" out of "People's War

The DRV/NLF leadership is dominated by revisionists. We are not just using the term "revisionist" as a curse, and it's not, as anti communists say, a word "dogmatic" Marxist-Leninists use to castigate their more "creative" brothers. In every revolutionary movement, forces develop from within that oppose the movement's basic aims. This has happened time and again within the world communist movement. Thus "revisionists" are those who call themselves communists but who in practice strip communism of its revolutionary working-class character.

In order to have a better understanding of this let's first consider what revolutionary communists are after.

SOCIALISM MEANS WORKERS' RULE!

The goal of communists is to lead the working class to seize and hold state power to serve the needs of working people. It is impossible to "sneak this in the back door." Socialism can be achieved only by the revolutionary action of millions of workers and their supporters.

The capitalist class, or bourgeoisie, which now runs things, owns the means of production -- factories, mines and mills. But workers do all the work. Without the working class nothing can move -- they produce everything, transport everything. And they are sharply exploited and oppressed right at the point of capitalist production.

Because they're always getting shafted, workers fight back daily many ways. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. But always, when push comes to shove, the government is in there fighting for the capitalists, the owners.

Chase Manhattan has a friend in The White House.

Thus, in building toward the goal of working class revolution, reds realize the crucial necessity of exposing present capitalist governments -- like the Russian regime (it claims to be socialist)or the U.S. regime (it claims to be everything) as workers' bitterest enemies. Whatever their size or shape, regardless of whether they're headed up by "nice doves" or by the "meanest hawks" it makes no difference. They're controlled by giant banks and corporations. They can't be reformed. The capitalist class -- which these governments serve -- must squeeze everything out of the workers or it will die. So the main task of their governments is to preserve their profits. Owners' profits mean workers; losses. That's why these governments must defeat workers' movements that threaten the bosses.

Thus the capitalists use their vast state machine to try to reverse every gain workers make and smash workers' movements -- to turn everything to their advantage, to profit from the people's suffering. They use their vast network of newspapers, radio and TV stations, and the schools they control to back them up and divide the People -- by spreading racism, for example. Thus we are really living under a class dictatorship -- a dictatorship of the rich parasites over the working people. And it is am, urgent practical task, a life and death question for hundreds of millions: the international working class must smash the bosses' governments and build a whole new society, here in this country and all over the world, which will deprive the rich of every drop of power.

The fact that PL urges workers to take the long view, to build for socialist revolution, doesn't mean we're against day-to-day struggles. The point is to link these everyday fights to socialist revolution, to make them an important part of the struggle for workers' rule. Thus we take part in and help build struggles in every phase of life, in every place the rich oppress the people -- from the army, to the factories, to the schools. These fights can win real improvements, and we fight for that, but we also go further. We try to approach these reform fights -- because that's what they are, fights to make some changes, to win some relatively minor gains -- we try to approach these day-to-day struggles from a revolutionary communist standpoint, with a revolutionary communist spirit. This means using every struggle to expose the government's divisive influence, to unify workers and their allies while smashing the government's pro-bees ideas and practices -- like racism against black, Chicano, Chinese or Puerto Rican people -- and exposing the capitalists and their government as workers' bitter enemy. While helping organize the people to fight back, it's vital for reds to point out how every aspect of life under capitalism provides living proof: workers must smash the bourgeois state and set up one run by and for the working class. The job of reds is to help involve millions of workers in creating a vast school of communist education -- out of capitalist society itself. Led by the revolutionary communist party, workers must study every phase of capitalist life -- of the class struggle -- to learn to make socialist revolution. This study can't be done Just through books. The main "research" has to be done outside, in real life, in the very midst of all the oppression, the corruption, and the magnificent and growing class struggle.

That's what it means to link everyday reform struggles to fighting for socialist revolution. That's what it means to imbue even minor fights with the spirit of revolutionary workers' rule, to make them Part of the process of establishing workers' power.

This can't be done by isolated communists, each operating on his own. For just as the bosses have their state machine, working people need a "general staff" of their own -- dedicated to serving the people, rooted in everyday struggles, learning from the people and heading the revolutionary socialist fight -- a party to help show the way and show, every hard step of the way, how each vicious act by the U.S. government points to the need for workers' rule.

This, in essence, is what the revolutionary communists stand for.

Power to the workers.

WHAT DO THE REVISIONISTS STAND FOR?

We explained earlier that revisionists cut the revolutionary guts out of communism. To justify this they pose as great fighters for reforms. This claim is a lie.

Revisionists "struggle" for reforms in a profoundly anti-revolutionary way -- with a million ties to "liberal sections of the ruling class" on whom they rely, advocating an approach of wheeling and dealing with 'friends at the top" and "leaving it to experts" instead of mass struggle. They try to mislead the mass movement into fighting for the wrong changes, in the wrong way -- and if, despite them, things go forward, they switch tactics and (praising themselves for what the people have done despite them) urge a sellout solution. And all the while they build on the anti-worker ideas people learn from capitalist society -- like racism and nationalism, or like solving problems through drugs. If nevertheless, real mass-based struggles develop overwhelming strength, they fight desperately for a non-revolutionary solution -- something other than workers' rule -- and do their best to keep things from advancing. In this way, they act to kill the movement with stagnation, since that which stands still dies. (For more on revisionism, see Appendix II, at end of this pamphlet).

What does this mean in terms of Vietnam? For we've said the Vietnamese movement is now led by revisionists.

REVISIONISM IN VIETNAM

Socialism is just as crucial a goal in Vietnam as everywhere else. Unless state power is held firmly by revolutionary workers and poor peasants, the imperialists will regain their hold. Thus Vietnamese working people must be won to transform the independence fight into a fight for socialism. Instead, the so-called 'communist" leaders of this movement have made socialism a rarely-mentioned, never-explained, basically hollow and far-off goal.

Of course it follows that the south Vietnamese PRP or "communist" party does not right for socialism. Instead it functions as they key leadership of the independence struggle of the NLF.

The revisionism of these "communist" leaders is clear from the history of the struggle. These misleaders sold out the fight in 1954, turning over half the country to U.S. rule. They told the poor peasants and workers to rely on imperialist-run elections and not to fight back. All through the '50s they urged the fighters to take on U.S. imperialism unarmed. When the movement reached a high point, around 1966-1967, they tried to resolve things by going backward -- moving the struggle away from total U.S. withdrawal (not to mention socialism) into a "fight" for negotiations. And now, under their mis-leadership, the People's War stagnates.

For a period of time, in the first half of the Sixties, it's true that the Vietnamese leaders helped build the NLF. But all the while, the revisionists among them were pushing ideas -- like nationalism, all-class unity, relying on U.S. "dove" politicians and other illusions -- reactionary ideas that have now allowed them to reverse the fight. Thus, with a vast base for People's War build up, these "reds" are squandering the militant base of support, using anti-imperialist workers as poker chips at the bargaining table. The demand for immediate withdrawal has been sold out. This is how revisionists, for all their talk about fighting for reforms, actually sabotage reform struggles.

Let's look at the wrong ideas, the illusions that the Vietnamese leaders have pushed:

ILLUSION #1: NATIONALISM -- Nationalism teaches that the most important ties are those that bind the people of one nation -- workers and bosses alike. NLF/DRV leaders are extreme nationalists. They talk all the time about a "war of national salvation" to "free the fatherland" from foreign aggression. But the main thing about the war -- that it's a class war on a world scale -- is hidden by the leaders.

Nationalism says that "all Vietnamese are brothers" and shouldn't "hassle over divisive theories." (Similarly, various nationalist forces in the U.S. also try to repress the left by appealing to "unity" -- under the nationalists' leadership, of course.) But the ruling ideology in capitalist society -- including Vietnam -- is pro-capitalist ideology.

Unless these ideas are sharply beaten in the people's movement, capitalist forces will win. Defeating capitalist ideas requires a lot of "haggling" over how -- in theory and practice -- to serve working people. Thus this "stop the haggling" bit means: let enemy ideas rule the people's movement.

Nationalism views all "members" of the oppressor nation as enemies regardless of class. Based on this wrong view, Vietnamese leaders make almost no attempt to win over U.S. GIs. Nevertheless, these soldiers are mainly working class, and many are black. They're almost all anti-war. They rebel time and again. he U.S. army has great revolutionary potential. And NLF leaders could speed up the process. Careful work would have to be done, putting forth a working class line. But they hardly ever even issue a leaflet.

Many heroic struggles for independence have been reversed by nationalism. A tragic example is Indonesia. Another is Algeria. The Algerians fought a magnificent war against French imperialism. It ended with France officially "out." Then Algerian capitalists took over, since "we're all brothers." These nationalists brought French capitalists back in -- with the Algerian nationalist leaders serving as the "cover." The Algerian working people are really worse off than ever. After all that fighting, they are saddled with the once-"revolutionary," now-just-plain-capitalist-nationalists. They thought they'd dumped one master. But they got back two.

Of course, many working people have nationalist ideas. But that's no reason for communists to build these ideas. And if communists fight in their practical, day-to-day work, for the necessity of workers' seizing power, they will have to fight "patriotic" ideas. For the rulers will use these very ideas to fight the reds.

In Vietnam the "communists" are the "best" nationalists.

ILLUSION # 2: ALL-CLASS UNITY -- This idea is closely related to nationalism. It is a vividly practical result of the nationalist outlook. After all, nationalism teaches that people of nation share unbreakable bonds. There is an ancient proverb: "Better to be kicked by one of the family than to be befriended by outsiders." The NLF and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (led by the NLF) constantly refer to forming a coalition government "reflecting national concord and the broad union of all social strata." Thus one PRG revolutionary calls for a regime to:

encourage industrial trading bourgeoisie to contribute to the development of industry, small industry and handcrafts (Proceedings of the South Vietnamese Congress of People's Representatives: p. 35)

And in the same resolution, they note that

Industrialists and traders are entitled to freedom of enterprise, and to resist any oppressive competition by foreign monopoly capital. (Ibid.)

This means that not only will there be a flourishing development of "domestic" capitalism, but "foreign" capitalism will be allowed. (They just aren't supposed to commit excesses against "domestic" capitalists; but everything a capitalist does excessively shafts workers.) This is not a good approach.

ILLUSION # 3: U.S. IMPERIALISM AND OTHER CAPITALIST REGIMES AREN'T THE DEADLY AND PERMANENT ENEMY OF ALL WORKING PEOPLE -- Every time the leaders made a deal, Vietnamese working people got shafted. This happened in 1945. A cease-fire was used by the French to build up troop-strength in the French-Indochinese war. It happened again in 1954, with the U.S. using the Geneva deal as a cover for taking over the south. Nor have the present negotiations made the U.S. government act any "nicer" in Vietnam. But the Vietnamese leaders are going further this time. They're advocating "working together" with U.S. imperialism after the war. Thus we are told:

[A key PRG aim is] to establish diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with all countries, including the U.S., irrespective of political and social regime, . . .to accept aid with no political strings attached, from any country, in terms of capital, technique, and specialized services. (Ibid., p. 57)

This is like Algeria all over again.

When you think about it, the Nixon administration certainly is cautious. What threat does such a program hold for U.S. imperialism?

And this program is not just words on paper. Vietnamese peasants and workers are being mobilized behind this complete sellout of their class interests.

The NLF/DRV goes on to urge a foreign policy of "peaceful coexistence" and "neutrality." There is no discussion of the need for all workers and oppressed people to fight to overthrow their oppressors. The U.S. government is attacking working people all over the world with the most bitter fighting, perhaps, in Vietnam itself -- and these guys talk about "peaceful coexistence?! And what sort of neutrality is possible in a class-divided world? Who can be neutral in fact?

Nobody can. If you stand aside you side with the status quo, you oppose workers. What an immense betrayal -- not just of the Vietnamese but of all oppressed people. And what a terrible example to other movements.

And a year ago, Kiem, an NLF Paris negotiator, told the press that the NLF is "looking forward" to normal and friendly economic and diplomatic relations with the U.S. after the war. (N.Y. Times, 5/26/69)

Looking through the PRG and NLF documents, we could find no mention of the U.S. imperialist attempt to encircle China. There is also no mention of the Russian border raids against China -- border raids backed up by the best troops in the Russian army. Keep in mind U.S./Soviet attempts to crush the Chinese socialist revolution. Keep in mind also these imperialists' desire to use the Vietnamese to help do this. In that context, these omissions concerning Vietnam's giant next-door neighbor are very serious indeed.

A BRIEF SURVEY OF WHAT HAPPENED IN VIETNAM

Here in our estimate is an outline of what happened in Vietnam since 1954, from the standpoint of what revisionists have done:

1954-1960: The DRV dragged its heels, implicitly discouraging the development of People's war. Remnants of the old Vietminh probably did a lot of hard political work and the working people fought despite the DRV.

1960-1965: The DRV leaders belatedly "approved" the struggle. They aided in forming the NLF. People's War developed strongly, knocking the hell out of U.S. imperialism.

1965-1968: When People's War defeated the U.S. government's attempted "special war," the U.S. imperialists invaded heavily, and began bombing the DRV. The DRV leaders brought the north in, also heavily. Why? First, to help combat the huge troop build-up. Second, and most important, to take more direct political leadership of the war. Those who'd been carrying on People's War for ten years in the south were less "reliable." Revisionist leadership within the NLF was thus bolstered.

From '65 to '68, People's War grew in intensity., By '68 the popular base in south Vietnam was gigantic. The DRV/NLF revisionists had been vastly bolstered by Soviet aid and influence. Now that they could better wage the internal struggle against more left-wing forces, the DRV/NLF leaders switched to the "reckless" line of the Tet. This was really just a negotiations ploy, as were the few later offensives. The later period has seen negotiations demoralize and squander the lives of the revolutionary working people.

******

Examining this history, we were puzzled by something. Many of those who died during Tet must have been the most left-wing, the most firmly revolutionary. That stands to reason. Many of them must have been tremendously experienced as well. It was surely obvious to these people that Tet had no hope of becoming a successful general counter-offensive, that "stage three" of People's War was still far ahead. Why then did they fight?

The only answer we could think of was: nationalism. To many of these people, steeled in years of struggle, rooted deeply in the masses of working people -- to many it was surely clear that this would fail. Only an unwillingness to go against "their brothers" -- the revisionists who were squandering workers' and peasants' lives in a chess game with imperialism -- can explain what they did.

The Vietnamese working people are learning from these mistakes. When the masses of politically aware workers and peasants fully grasp these lessons, they will be able to fight back harder than ever before.

Next Section: Conclusion -- Drive The U.S. Out Of Asia! Build Internationalism! Fight For Workers' Power

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