Organization and operation of the self- militia force under Vietnam People’s Army - the creative development of all- people warfare in Ho Chi Minh era

(Bqp.vn)- Vietnam’s military art is distinctively characterized by the tradition of all- people warfare. Since their very early days, all Vietnamese people from every walk of life have come together naturally and made a solid community to survive all hardships in their lives such as devastating natural disasters or brutal foreign invaders. Thus, whenever the country is endangered by any foreign enemy, it is not just the military force but the whole nation and the entire population that will stand up to protect it. And in that fight, each hamlet, village and residential area will function as a strong fortress to deter the ambition of the aggressors.

Militia groups transporting ammunition for the war of resistance against American invasion. (filed image)

Right from Ly and Tran dynasties, the method of organizing military force that composes of different forces and services as well as establishing of civil personnel books to monitor the number of men available for military enlistment “has been the norm in the military policy”. In those days, the Central Army was mainly royal troops stationed in the capital city whose duties were to protect the king and the court and operate as the key force to fight in battle field during wartime. Other types of troops were based in remaining regions and mainly tasked with local protection but could be deployed by the monarchy to join in combined operations. This model of military organization is aimed at ensuring the availability of the mobile forces and the stationed ones simultaneously, and that the capital city as well as localities especially key regions could be safe guarded at the same time. Elements of the armed forces "were not separately independent but constituted a unified organization that co-existed and promoted their functions from the central to local level".

Acting on these good traditions of national construction and protection, properly and creatively applying principles of Marxism - Leninism on revolutionary war into Vietnam’s practical conditions, our Party has proposed right guidelines and policies on building revolutionary peasant-worker armed forces consisting of many services and forces; while given out direction on “building a peasant- worker army”, “arming peasants and workers”, “organizing the self-defense force consisting of peasants and workers” to fight against the enemy. Having a thorough grasp of the viewpoint “It is pivotal to mobilize all the people, and make them armed”, the Party has been attaching great importance to building and boosting the significant role of the three-service armed forces in response to the demands of the people warfare and all- people national defense. For self-defense militia, the Party defines that this is an enormous force at the local level that provides multi-faced contributions: they can become a working and fighting force at the same time, combining with local security forces to maintain social order and political security. More importantly, they stay as a strategic force of the people warfare and the cornerstone of the “all people stand up to fight” campaigns at localities.

“The resolution on self-defense force” (March/1935) mandated that “the standing self-defense force consisting of peasants and workers is under the command of the Central Government, Military Central Committee of the Communist Party, operating under hamlet and village basis”. The mission of this revolutionary force is defined as: “to support the masses in their daily life and their struggles, to assist revolutionary organizations and revolutionary soldiers, to provide military training to revolutionary soldiers, to fight against the enemy of the working class and to successfully disseminate about the revolutionary movement, contributing to its complete victory”. This was the first time that the principles on building a para-political and military force of the Revolutionary Armed Forces had been basically set out with a relatively comprehensive content which reflected the Party viewpoints on classes matter, public matter and practical realities.

In fact, in the revolutionary movement 1930 - 1931, the self- defense force equipped with sticks, spears, hammers, sickles, etc successfully defended the mass movement, and the revolutionary government. The 8th Conference of the Central Committee (May/1941) pointed out directions and measures to mobilize entire public population into the Allied Front for Independent Vietnam (Viet Minh). They were the most enthusiastic and loyal persons in national liberation organizations who were chosen to form the Self-defense Force for National Salvation and Militia Sub-groups. The Self-defense force for national salvation was an organization “to protect the mass organizations in their struggles and to safeguard the revolution and in term of hierarchy the Militia Sub-groups is superior to the Self-defense force and inferior to official militia force”. From 1939 to 1945, the Self-Defense Force was widely built across the country, especially in the North and Central of Vietnam. Movements of the masses gradually transformed from political struggles into armed ones, closely combining political with armed ones. The self-defense units along with national salvation units and the Armed Unit of Vietnam for Dissemination and Liberation operated as the key forces supporting the partial armed uprising of the masses, conducting local guerrilla warfare, building and expanding revolutionary bases in Viet Bac, Dong Bac, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Ba To, etc.

After the resolution of the Northern Military Conference (April/1945), self-defense forces and militias were constantly expanded. These were the main forces to protect the Party and the public, greatly support the political struggle of the people; rapidly advance to be the core for guerrilla warfare, together with the masses and regular units to conduct partial military uprising to establish the government of the people. In the August 1945 Uprising, the self-defense forces along with Vietnam Liberation Army actively participated in battles throughout the North, the Central and the South of the country. With their leading role, the forces combined the armed struggle with the political struggle of the public, using revolutionary violence to seize power into people's hands. From a pioneering force in people's uprising, the self-defense forces had become the specialized instrument to protect the Party, defend the revolutionary achievements and safeguard the fledgling revolutionary government. For example, the Southern militias together with the regular army fought bravely to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure. The militias of the North in collaboration with the People's Public Security and National Defense Corps severely punished domestic reactionaries, making full preparation for the prolonged resistance war. Since then, the militia forces have fully grown, protecting the government and creating favorable condition for the Liberation Army units to develop into the regular army. After the implementation the Party’s policy on militarizing and arming the entire population, especially rearranging the combat self-defense forces and militia sub groups, the militia forces were widely expanded in villages and cities across the country. “Not a single hamlet or village having the root of the Party, the Union and the revolutionary mass association that does not organize self-defense force”. The number of militia also saw a soaring increase from “tens of thousands of people in the General Uprising August 1945 to about 1 million in early 1946”, the force lifted it up to the nationwide scale, forming a network spreading across rural and urban areas. So far, from a grass root level armed force under the command of the Allied Front for Independent Vietnam, militia, guerrilla and self-defense force have been gradually unified in term of organization and are a part of Vietnam people’s armed forces under the command of commune, district and provincial military commands and the direct leadership of Party Committees and governments at all levels.

The guerrilla warfare “is the fighting method of the oppressed peoples against imperialism”. In the resistance war against the French colonialists and the US imperialists, guerrilla warfare was applied earlier and became the basis for conventional warfare that then was intertwined with the conventional warfare to achieve great victories in the battlefield. The successful development of the people warfare is a vivid demonstration for the strategic position of guerrilla warfare and militia forces. During their development, militia and guerilla of the South collaborated with the regular troops and local troops to conduct guerrilla warfare and conventional warfare that defeated strategies of American imperialism one after another. From 1959 to 1960, the self-defense and guerrilla forces provided invaluable support to general uprisings of the Southerners, making significant contributions to defeating the US ambition to dominate the South by its new style colonialism. And it was those very uprisings that witnessed the brave and courageous engagement and undying devotion of the self-defense and guerrilla forces which served as the basis for the development of the people warfare in the South and led it to a complete victory. Guerrilla warfare mushroomed everywhere, supporting for public fights against the enemy’s forced population resettlement policy on establishing “Rural communities of development” and “Strategic hamlets”; operating independently or in coordination with local troops and regular units in the fights against the US tactics of “Helicopter transportation”, and “Armor transportation”, and other strategies of the US and Saigon regime; performing partial uprising, creating the liberated areas, pushing Saigon military and government on the verge of collapse. While on the one hand vehemently demanding for negotiation towards a general election and secretly arming themselves on the other hand, militia and the southerners created many flexible forms of armed struggles such as establishing anti-robbery teams, charitable groups, religious communities, hunting groups and national protection associations who led a normal life in the daytime but nocturnal at night to independently or jointly eliminate evils and reactionaries.

When American troops were flooding into the South, our armed forces had been promptly deployed to the battlefield to occupy and build solid defensive dispositions across mountains, forests and plains of the country. In urban areas, secret militias and covert self- defense troops accompanied by Special Forces and personnel of other agencies conducted active operation. In rural areas, concentration guerrilla and hamlet guerrilla forces were widely set up. The Southern militia had exhausted every single effort to effectively promote their role and position. This could be seen in either their small and independent operations or bigger ones when coordinating with the political forces, the local troops and regular units to break the firm grip of the enemy such as liberating strategic hamlets, breaching hamlets for population resettlement, fighting against enemy’s raid, attacking on enemy’s rears, destroying enemy’s traffic system, etc which caused heavy casualties and losses to the enemy. With militia and guerrilla functioning as the key forces, our troops had created “America destroy rings", “a kind of siege that is of great flexibility in the people warfare, aiming at isolating, harassing and decimating the enemy to create favorable conditions for operation of the regular units”.

As the local armed forces that had close connection to the grassroots, the militias and guerrillas stayed as on- spot fighting power in association with the local and regular units to defeat the rural pacification plan of the enemy, open offensive campaigns to crush up enemy’s pacification operations; at the same time, combined with the masses to conduct direct political struggles in both rural and urban areas. Together with other forces, militias and guerillas formed the intertwining fighting posture, exporting guerrilla warfare and local people warfare into towns, cities and the rears of the enemy, driving them into swamps of no escape, causing them confusion in strategies and crisis of tactics. As a result, the enemy had to disperse their forces to deal with on-spot situation which in turn created loopholes and opportunities for our main forces to conduct massive attacks and counterattacks to liberate the South and reunify the country.

During the war, militias and guerrillas created many ingenious ways to fight the enemy like combining primitive weapons and modern ones, dispatching small force to combat bigger one, using weak force to fight against stronger one, attacking on the weakest positions of the enemy. With flexible fighting art, Southern militia defeated many companies of the US army, destroying hundreds of armored vehicles, shooting down dozens of aircraft per a raid and burning thousands of tons of fuel, ammunition of the enemy.

Based on the collective wisdom of the people, the militias and guerrillas constantly made weapon enhancement like inventing new kinds of booby traps, grenades and land-mines which caused horrifying nightmares to the enemy. It was their activities that paved the ways and created favorable conditions for the regular army to launch important campaigns and decisive battles into high-profile targets and directions.

In the revolutionary cause, militia is always a large force that tirelessly engages in building and protecting the revolutionary government and has a vitally important role in building and protecting our rear bases. On the fronts of fighting, manufacturing and ensuring transportation, etc, militia provided endless contributions to the victories in battle fields that further reinforced its strategic importance.

From 1965 to 1973, Northern militia groups rapidly swelled (up to 12% of the northern population). They were commonly organized into platoons, companies, even battalions, regiments, and divisions and equipped with appropriate weapons basing on their missions. At this stage, militia force highly performed its strategic position in collaboration with the People's police force to maintain order and security, achieving many achievements in working and fighting, right as the motto “peasant cum fighter, worker cum fighter”. With their courage, intelligence and quick minds for scientific knowledge and military strategy, militia forces provided substantial contributions to strengthening the air defense network of multi-levels and multi-directions spreading at width and in depth that shot down more than four thousand US aircraft. Moreover, the force successfully safeguarded some important targets on its self. In particular, many coastal artillery units of militia from Military Zone 4 northwards were able to “independently or in coordination with other forces sink many commando vessels and warships of the enemy”. What is more, Northern militia groups also made important contributions to defeating the war of destruction led by US air force and navy, firmly protecting the North, effectively assisting frontlines in the South.

From the organization and operation of the force it can be said that militia troops not only well functioned as a effective coalition force but also served as precious human resources to supplement for regular and local army with experienced soldiers and officers. In addition to this, militia held credits for thousands of kilometers of repaired roads and new ones, tens of millions of trenches, as well as endless manpower flows into youth volunteers and conscripted laborers. Nowadays, the militia is still a powerful fighting force, making great contributions to the national construction and protection cause.

To sum up, it is undeniable that the militia, self-defense and guerrilla have absolutely lived up to the nice words of President Ho Chi Minh: “the force of the entire nation, invincible, and solid as an iron wall of the country. No matter how brutal our enemies are, they will surely be defeated by that iron wall”.

Major General, Ass. Prof. Dr. Vu Quang Dao, Former Director of the Institute of Vietnamese Military History