COSVN Party Current Affairs Committee Lays Out Immediate Missions and A Number of Urgent Tasks After Two Months of Implementing the Paris Agreement

The COSVN directive stated that the struggle between our side and the enemy was now extremely ferocious, difficult, and complex, both from the national and the class standpoint, and that this struggle was not just military but also political, economic, cultural-social, diplomatic, and legal, and that the struggle was now changing in a direction that would create a situation extremely favorable to us and extremely unfavorable to the enemy.

The directive clearly spelled out our shortcomings and errors after two months of implementing the ceasefire:

-We had not correctly assessed the situation, we had not exploited in a timely manner the great victories we had achieved, and we had not fully anticipated the stubbornness of the U.S. and the puppets;

-Our efforts to shift our guidance formulas and measures had not been rapid enough and were still confused and awkward;

-Our organization and implementation efforts had not reached the village level and had not reached down to the level of the masses;

-In addition, pacifist thinking, the desire to rest, to drink and celebrate, and our loss of vigilance had dulled our zeal for struggle, so that we had not responded to enemy actions in a timely manner.

The cable laid out the following immediate missions and responsibilities for all local areas: launch a large struggle campaign to demand the strict implementation of the Agreement that had been signed, while at the same time working hard to build up, develop, and expand forces in a way favorable to our side. Push the enemy back one step at a time in order to preserve peace. Ceaselessly advance our revolutionary movement and be ready to defeat rash, risky actions by the enemy should the enemy start a civil war.

With regards to the urgent immediate tasks to be carried out, the directive laid out the following:

1. Properly carry out the work of creating the correct understanding and thinking about the Paris Agreement. We must clearly recognize that this was a glorious great victory of historic significance that opened up a new era both for our nation and for the national liberation movement throughout the world. The agreement has been signed, but the enemy continues to violate it in crafty, sophisticated ways as well as in blatant, overt ways. For that reason, we must have absolutely no illusions, but we must also not simply allow the enemy to do whatever he wished. The agreement is a new factor, a new weapon for us to use to attack the enemy and to build up our own strength and power. We need to make calm, rational assessments and to avoid hot-headedness, over-eagerness, subjectivism, and passivity. We need to make active, aggressive preparations in order to change the balance of forces in every respect.

2. Initiate a struggle movement using the following formula: Closely coordinate the political, the armed, and the legal struggles, using political struggle as the foundation and armed struggle to provide support and backing, and exploit to the maximum extent possible the effectiveness of the legal struggle.

-In the conduct of the armed struggle, we must disperse our forces, employ them in a flexible manner, at just the right level, at just the right time, against just the right target, using them in a focused, rational, productive manner to create additional strength for the struggle movement being conducted by the civilian masses. When the enemy uses military force to attack us, we must resolutely destroy him. In the struggle we must continue to implement our slogans: peace, independence, democracy, prosperity, and national reconciliation.

-With regard to military proselyting operations, we must combine them with the legal aspects of the agreement in order to intensify our struggle.

-Actively and aggressively build revolutionary forces and consolidate and expand our liberated zones and our resistance base areas.

[…]

[Translator’s Note: This document can also be found in the first edition of Lich Su Bien Nien Xu Uy Nam Bo va Trung Uong Cuc Mien Nam (1954-1975) [Historical Chronicle of the Cochin China Party Committee and the Central Office for South Vietnam, 1954-1975] (Hanoi: Nha xuat ban Chinh tri quoc gia, 2002), 955-956.]