Grandpa Ho's Army: how the red flag flew over Saigon
50 years ago, the Vietnam War ended, which lasted intermittently for 20 years. The hasty evacuation of the occupiers and their henchmen from Saigon put an end to this confrontation. Izvestia recalled how it was.
The two Vietnamese
For many years, the Vietnamese have been fighting against colonial dependence on distant and hated France. The rebels were led by Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Vietnamese Communists, a politician of Soviet orientation. In August 1945, the whole of Vietnam gained de facto freedom. Ho Chi Minh hoped that after World War II, the French would not claim colonial power over Indochina.
Chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Vietnam, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh. 1957
But the nine-year war of independence began, as a result of which Paris was forced to agree to the division of Vietnam into the North (controlled by the Communists) and the South (it remained pro-French). The United States supported the government of South Vietnam, which was flooded with American military advisers. A guerrilla war for the unification of Vietnam began there. At that time, the majority of Vietnamese in both the north and south clearly sympathized with the Communists.
War after provocation
Even during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, an influential "war party" arose in America, which insisted on an immediate invasion of Vietnam. In their opinion, it was impossible to stop the "Soviet threat" in Asia otherwise. On August 2 and 4, 1964, the so—called Tonkin Incident occurred - a clash between the American destroyer Maddox and North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is a convincing hypothesis (and many American researchers agree with it) that this battle was a provocation by the United States, which was given a reason to invade North Vietnam. At least, there was no attack by Vietnamese boats on August 4, almost all historians agree on this fact today. Thus, the aggression against the "red Vietnam" began with falsification.
The full-scale intervention of the US armed forces in the conflict began after the assassination of Kennedy, on the orders of President Lyndon Johnson, in the spring of 1965. By Christmas, about 200,000 American troops had been deployed to Vietnam. In the next few years, their numbers only increased. It seemed that Vietnam, which had no serious military industry, had no chance of defending its independence. In the early years of the new war, the armies of the United States and South Vietnam organized several offensive operations to the north, actively conducted bloody counter-guerrilla operations, and tried to cut off the rebels in South Vietnam from established supply bases in Laos. The battles were fought with varying success and with more American casualties than expected. The US authorities intended to transfer the hardships of the war to the army of South Vietnam, but this failed. For most Vietnamese, the Americans' activities in their country were simply an occupation.
Fraternal help
The Vietnamese policy of the Soviet Union turned out to be reasonable. It was held under the slogan voiced by Dmitry Ustinov, secretary of the Central Committee for the Defense Industry: "A brother does not leave a brother in trouble." The Soviet Union supplied the Vietnamese with anti-aircraft missile systems, tanks, airplanes, and small arms. Soviet military specialists helped Vietnamese soldiers and officers master this technique and influenced the actions of the headquarters. The Soviet MiG-17 fighters, mastered by Vietnamese pilots, created a lot of trouble for the Americans. They managed to shoot down one and a half hundred American vultures.
But the citizens of the USSR did not take direct part in the battles. Of course, Moscow helped with the means of diplomacy and propaganda — and also very effectively. "Hands off Vietnam," everyone knew that slogan in those years. The actions of the Americans were condemned all over the world. And the anti-war movement was growing in the United States itself. Intelligence also helped. In the early years of American aggression, Communist China also provided significant assistance to Vietnam.
Air alert during the Vietnam War. The picture shows an anti—aircraft missile system manufactured in the USSR.
But the use of modern anti-aircraft missile systems in Vietnam became decisive. American aviation suffered heavy losses, and Washington understood that in the event of a prolonged war, the level of technology that came from Moscow into service with the Vietnamese army would only grow, and the best American pilots would die...
Ho Chi Minh's successors
In 1969, North Vietnam launched its first large-scale offensive operation. The tension of the military confrontation increased. Ho Chi Minh died on September 2, and Tong Duc Thang and Le Duan became his successors in the government and in the party. Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Zyap played a crucial role in the development of the offensive. At that time, the soldiers of the army of "Grandpa Ho" (as leftists sympathetic to the cause of socialism called him all over the world) failed to complete the combat mission and capture the whole of Vietnam, but they demonstrated that they could attack, that they were capable of waging a modern war. For the Americans, this offensive was a serious warning.
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Vietnam Le Duan during a visit to a military unit. The year 1967
To win, the overseas guests lacked simple respect for their own allies. They treated all Vietnamese as second-class people. And the Vietnamese responded with hidden distrust. To them, they were just new colonialists who were going to enslave the Vietnamese people.
The army of criminals
The war crimes of the Americans quickly turned even those Vietnamese who were not supporters of the Communist party of "Grandpa Ho" against the Americans. The American Tiger squad specialized in fighting partisans. They were not only engaged in the torture and mass extermination of peasants in partisan areas. The Tigers cut off the Vietnamese prisoners' ears and made necklaces out of them. The use of chemical weapons was no less barbaric. American pilots sprayed 77 million liters of Agent Orange herbicide over the wooded area of South Vietnam, which was supposed to destroy the jungle where the guerrillas were hiding. 4 million Vietnamese died after spraying the poison. The consequences are still being felt in our time. People with congenital diseases are born, and premature deaths are not uncommon. Hundreds of American military personnel were also affected by the chemicals.
An American aircraft sprays the herbicide Agent Orange over the forests of Vietnam. The year 1966
Many American crimes in Vietnam are still little known. But millions of people remember that on March 16, 1968, soldiers of the Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion of the 20th Infantry Regiment of the US Army entered the Vietnamese village of Songmi and completely destroyed it. 504 civilians died, many after being tortured, and women after being raped. This tragedy is well-known. And how many similar cases are stored only by the bloody and scorched earth in the jungle?
Carpet bombing and napalm burning jungles and villages will forever remain in the memory of the Vietnamese. 500 thousand tons of napalm were poured on the Vietnamese. American pilots deliberately burned rice fields to cause famine. That is why food aid from the USSR was so important in those years.
Photo "Execution in Saigon". February 1, 1968
The symbol of the war was the photograph "Execution in Saigon", which won the Pulitzer Prize in the United States. It shows the chief of police of South Vietnam shooting a Viet Cong guerrilla. The brutality of the South Vietnamese military and police was part of the American plan to intimidate the enemy. But the Vietnamese proved resilient. They had been fighting in the jungle for decades, and they were patient and unassuming. In addition, they were united by the idea of expelling Americans from their native land.
The denouement of the confrontation
The Americans lost about 60,000 troops in Vietnam. In 1968, Republican Richard Nixon won the US presidential election. A key point of his election program was his promise to end the war on "honorable terms." The Americans at that time could not even dream of anything else, realizing that full control over Vietnam would cost them hundreds of thousands of soldiers' lives. In the early 1970s, the Vietnam operation became extremely unpopular in the United States. Anti-war demonstrations gathered tens of thousands of people and were held almost daily.
Soldiers of the Vietnamese People's Army at a camp during the Vietnam War. The year 1967
The capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, remained the stronghold of the Americans. In 1972, North Vietnamese troops launched a new offensive. South Vietnam has lost part of its territory. Negotiations between the warring parties soon began in Paris. On January 27, 1973, they signed a peace agreement under which the Americans pledged to leave Vietnam. In March, not a single American military unit remained in South Vietnam. Washington continued to provide military and financial assistance to South Vietnam. But without the support of the American army, the troops of South Vietnam were demoralized. And the "northerners" continued their offensive. Their army was replenished by residents of South Vietnam. In April 1975, Viet Cong troops approached Saigon. By that time, five South Vietnamese generals had committed suicide. In the Saigon area, North Vietnamese soldiers seized $5 billion worth of American weapons from opponents. On April 30, 1975, a red flag was raised over Saigon. Vietnam has become united again. These days, American society was shocked by the footage of the disorderly flight of diplomats and military personnel from the embassy in Saigon by helicopter. No amount of propaganda tricks could cover up the fact that the United States had suffered a painful defeat in Vietnam.
New Vietnam
In 1976, a new country appeared on the world map — the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which united both the northern and southern regions. And the city of Saigon was renamed in honor of Ho Chi Minh in the same year.
North Vietnamese soldiers at the Independence Palace in Saigon. April 30, 1975
The Vietnamese have defended the right to sovereign development. America plunged into depression for several years, and the international prestige of the Soviet Union grew. Vietnam has shown that Washington cannot claim world hegemony, and the communist idea is still capable of uniting millions of people. The victory of the "red Vietnam" predetermined the rapid development of this country: First, with the help of the USSR, and after 1991, as a result of successful market reforms that combined the power of the Communist Party with elements of private business. Half a century later, almost all the wounds of the war have healed, although in our time peaceful Vietnamese are sometimes blown up by mines, which the Americans tried to "stuff" the jungle.
The Vietnamese have found their way in both economics and politics. Modern Vietnam is one of the world leaders in economic growth and poverty reduction.
The author is the deputy editor—in-chief of the magazine "Historian"
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
