Leading the Development of the Resistance Economy, Strengthening the Great National Unity Bloc

The militia, self-defense force and communal guerrillas mainly developed from the youth movement and the campaigns of workers', farmers', youth and women's organizations. The district directly and widely developed communal guerrillas (separated from and not separated from production), including all those who were enthusiastic about killing the enemy, party members who had to join the guerrillas. Many armed propaganda teams (VT3) were put into operation in temporarily occupied rural areas, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, Catholic and ethnic minority areas.

Based on the bases built in previous years, the Central Office of the South directed the Eastern Inter-Zone to expand the Dong Thap Muoi base by strengthening the Cambodia-Vietnam border, connecting the Dong Thap Muoi base with the Kandal and Preyven bases (Cambodia), with Tuy Hoa and Hoc Mon; the Dong Thap Muoi base with Long Xuyen, the D and Phu My war zones...; the Western Inter-Zone connected the Can Tho and Bac Lieu bases with the Long Chau Ha and Western Cambodia bases; each province had its own base.

With the guerrilla motto of regaining the initiative for each province, the army and people of the South fought against enemy sweeps, protected base areas; fought surprise attacks; sabotaged and destroyed enemy means and war facilities, such as airports, roads, fuel depots, bomb depots, etc.; infiltrated deep into the enemy's rear, annihilated enemy forces and officers. In the first 6 months of 1952, the army and people of the South fought 2,028 large and small battles; killed and wounded 10,700 enemies, captured 224 enemies, and captured many modern means and weapons to equip the troops. Local troops, from passively fighting against sweeps, advanced to finding and fighting the enemy more (of the 2,028 battles, there were 715 battles against enemy sweeps, the remaining two-thirds were proactive battles against the enemy). After a very difficult period, by the end of 1952 " the movement was relaunched " [72]. But the guerrilla movement in the South still had many shortcomings. In the " Southern Situation Report " dated December 26, 1952, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam pointed out the limitations of the Southern military cadres, such as an unstable political stance, not thoroughly understanding the ideology of long-term resistance and self-reliance, not having a firm grasp of the battlefield, not fully assessing the enemy's capabilities; in combat, being influenced by the "ideology of eating big and fighting big".

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After our army and people won great victories on the Northern battlefield, on October 14, 1952, the Central Party Secretariat issued a Directive to promote propaganda work in areas behind enemy lines , aiming to lead the army and people in all areas of the country to rush forward to bring the resistance war to victory [67, pp.320-329].

In early 1953, after receiving the Directive and Resolution of the Party Central Committee on work in guerrilla and temporarily occupied areas, based on the practical situation of the battlefield, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam developed a plan and led the localities to implement it in the specific circumstances of the South. In March 1953, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam issued the document " Plan to implement the Resolution of the Central Office on work in guerrilla and temporarily occupied areas ", thoroughly informing each Party cell about the nature of the Southern battlefield and concretizing the Resolution of the Party Central Committee in the South. The Central Office for Southern Vietnam affirmed: "...the Southern battlefield is a guerrilla and temporarily occupied battlefield with no independent safe zones, only guerrilla base areas... Our leadership in the South must follow the motto of work in guerrilla and temporarily occupied areas. We must rely on that fundamental Resolution to guide the work on the entire Southern battlefield" [151, p.2]. The Southern armed forces must also thoroughly grasp the viewpoint: The Southern battlefield is a guerrilla battlefield. The war in the South is a guerrilla war... we must strive to study, criticize and self-criticize to firmly grasp the guerrilla warfare motto. The foundation of guerrilla warfare is the people.

Towards the end of the resistance war, the US imperialists increasingly blatantly intervened in the southern battlefield, helping France increase conscription, aggressively sweep and occupy, implementing the policy of "using Vietnamese to fight Vietnamese, using Indochinese to fight Indochinese", combined with political tricks, gathering religious organizations Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, reactionary parties to propagate and deceive the people to "anti-communist".

Faced with that situation, in August 1953, the Central Office of the South held a conference on enemy and puppet propaganda in the whole South to promote enemy and puppet propaganda work in accordance with the direction of the Party Central Committee. The conference resolution determined the importance of

of the enemy-puppet propaganda work: "For the Southern battlefield, which was a guerrilla battlefield and temporarily occupied, enemy-puppet propaganda was a particularly important work center;...a very important strategic task" [212]. The Resolution emphasized that Party committees at all levels in leadership and direction must firmly grasp the Party Central Committee's guidelines and policies on enemy propaganda, and must avoid right-wing, peace-seeking, and compromising thoughts.

Due to the disintegration of the enemy's organizational apparatus, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam directed localities to promptly re-establish the enemy's system from top to bottom, ensuring the successful completion of the task. Based on the five central tasks of the national battlefield set forth by the Party Central Committee in early 1953, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam adjusted closely to the Southern battlefield, setting forth five tasks of enemy propaganda work: puppet propaganda work; Cao Dai and Hoa Hoa propaganda work; European-African mobilization work; policies towards surrendered soldiers and prisoners of war; and combating conscription and forced labor [212].

In the Western Inter-Zone, in order to lead the concretization of the Resolution on enemy and puppet propaganda of the Central Office for Southern Vietnam, and at the same time to implement the Party's leadership to closely follow the reality of the Southern localities, the Central Office organized the Hoa Hao propaganda conference, outlining the general guidelines and policies for the work of mobilizing Hoa Hao compatriots. The Eastern Inter-Zone organized Cao Dai propaganda conferences for the entire region.

2.1.5.Leading the development of the resistance economy, strengthening the great national unity bloc

Building the resistance economy is an important content in the leadership of the Central Office of the South. Based on the reality of the Southern battlefield being bases, guerrilla zones, temporarily occupied areas intertwined, volatile, far from the Central, with many obstacles in supplying supplies, the Central Office of the South proposed the motto for implementing economic work to serve the resistance: promoting all production capabilities and conditions to ensure self-sufficiency, not relying on others, especially in base areas; production and savings must rely on the people, trust the people to solve all problems; increase production and savings, must take agriculture as the main thing...

From that motto, the Central Bureau set out the economic task for the entire South: "Actively protect the economy and resolutely implement the plan to increase self-sufficient production, break the enemy's economic siege, and at the same time actively attack the enemy's economy, focusing on attacking the enemy and using the enemy's military supplies as our own." The Central Bureau emphasized: "For the South, implementing and developing the self-sufficiency plan to the extent is economically fighting the enemy to that extent"[145; 146].

Under the leadership of the Central Bureau, the army and people of the South actively carried out the task of building a self-sufficient economy to serve the resistance war. In the Southeast, the Base Area Committee defined land areas for units and agencies to organize production with the goal of self-sufficiency in food and provisions for 3 months, 6 months to 1 year, reducing contributions for people in the base. In the liberated areas in the West, the 1951-1952 crop produced 440,000 tons of rice, an increase of 40% compared to the 1950-1951 crop, with a surplus of 140,000 tons. The Dong Thap Muoi region produced 133,560 tons of rice, with a surplus of 20,000 tons. Most of the provinces in the East such as Ba Cho, Thu Bien, My Tho, and Long Chau Ha were self-sufficient in basic food needs [145; 146].

Based on the specific characteristics and situations, the Central Bureau determined the financial and economic tasks for the Inter-Zones in the following years. The Central Bureau set out the specific tasks of building the resistance economy of the Eastern Inter-Zone: Mobilizing a strong self-sufficient production movement among the people, in the bases, in the troops and agencies; properly completing the temporary land allocation and rent reduction, that is, creating a movement of collective production and labor; guiding the exchange between the base areas and the guerrillas in accordance with the spirit of self-sufficiency, making the guerrilla area's economy less dependent on the enemy's economy; guiding the production of the people in the enemy's areas against the enemy's exploitation; consolidating and expanding transportation; developing small-scale clothing and animal husbandry industries; temporarily not issuing more Vietnamese currency; implementing the collection and expenditure of what is collected, fighting the enemy in currency, maintaining the value of the Vietnamese currency; create a movement of thrift, fight against luxury, build working style among team members, employees, and cadres; rectify economic organization,

amend working methods, rearrange staff to ensure implementation of economic policies,

grasp the production situation from afar [145].

On October 10, 1952, the Central Office of the South issued a Resolution on Finance and Economy , approving the program and plan for emulation to increase production and save in the Western Inter-Zone in 1953. The Resolution stated: "Production and saving work is a center of our work in the free zone, and is a very important work in the guerrilla zone at present" [124, pp. 1-2]. The Central Office clearly stated that the purpose of increasing production and saving is to improve people's lives to strengthen solidarity in combat; increase the amount of income to the national budget to ensure enough for the troops on the front line and gradually reduce the people's contributions; make the national economy prosperous, trade developed, and currency strong; strengthen the economic struggle against the enemy.

In the context of the enemy's increased pacification, attacks, and looting of the people's property and assets in the South, the above-mentioned production and increase results were a great effort of the Party Committees and the people and soldiers in the South, demonstrating the close direction and correctness of the motto of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and thorough practice of thrift set forth by the Central Bureau.

In addition to leading the army and people of the South to practice self-sufficiency, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam directed localities to temporarily grant land and implement rent and interest reductions. The Central Office directed Party Committees to actively mobilize farmers to realize their long-term rights to land, and mobilize landlords to donate land. This movement lasted for 3 years (1951-1953), bringing positive results in both production life and contributing to ensuring the policy of a broad united front in the South.

From the results achieved in 1951 - 1952, the Central Bureau advocated continuing to promote temporary land allocation, focusing more on efficiency. (From June 1952, 11 provinces in the South, namely Ba Cho, Thu Bien, Gia Dinh Ninh, My Tho, Long Chau Ha, Ben Tre, Vinh Tra, Can Tho, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Rach Gia, temporarily allocated 227,100.25 hectares of land to 341,513 people in the South) [145].

The temporary granting of land, rent reduction, and cancellation of debts owed by the people before the August Revolution in 1945 had the effect of promoting the movement to increase production, build combat communes, and the movement to nurture local troops, in developing "small peasant groups" and the Farmers' Association in a number of localities, mainly in the East. In the Southwest, the Party Committee and the Government of Bac Lieu Province temporarily granted 50,000 hectares to poor households in the liberated areas, and the suburbs of Bac Lieu town fulfilled 90% of the households in need of land. The Party Committee and the Government of Can Tho Province temporarily granted 45,000 hectares and Soc Trang 42,000 hectares, accounting for about 50% of the cultivated land in the liberated rural areas and the areas controlled by our guerrillas. In addition, Can Tho also temporarily handed over 9,600 hectares and Soc Trang 10,000 hectares of land from absentee landlords for farmers to borrow for cultivation [1, p.112].

Through the results of ideological mobilization work among farmers, the work of organizing and implementing land policies in the liberated areas of the Southwest region has the meaning of a real reform. Farmers are excited, their lives have improved significantly.

The Central Bureau also paid attention to the rent reduction and achieved many results. By 1953, most of the remaining landlords had their rent reduced, the rent level was reduced from 20 to 50% [121]. In the Eastern Inter-Zone, in the bases of Duong Minh Chau, Chau Thanh, Gia Dinh Ninh province, Dong Nai base of Thu Bien province, Long Dien - Dat Do of Ba Cho province, the form of rent almost disappeared, because most of the landlords no longer existed. In Moc Hoa base of My Tho province and Tan Hong of Long Chau Sa province (Dong Thap Muoi), there were only a few landlords left, the rent reduction was implemented in accordance with the Government's regulations. After a long time, the Party committees at all levels and local Party committees actively implemented the rent reduction policy, bringing practical benefits to farmers, contributing to promoting the spirit of production and fighting, joining the army, and contributing to the resistance war.

However, in the process of directing the masses to fight for rent reduction, many Party committees in the South revealed some limitations. In many places, local Party committees and authorities in guerrilla areas were lax in implementing rent reduction, so landlords, in many ways, took advantage of farmers' sentiments or relied on enemy forces to increase rent from 50

up to 100%. Because of lack of organization, education and leadership, farmers do not dare to fight. The Catholic and Khmer regions have not yet implemented the rent reduction properly, which is still too heavy, so the farmers' lives have not improved much.

The temporary land allocation also had its shortcomings. Some places did not have a firm grasp of land policies and took land from rich farmers (who were previously tenant farmers who had been lent land by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and divided it among poor farmers, causing conflicts among these groups of farmers.

Along with leading the implementation of land policies, the Central Office for Southern Vietnam promoted the consolidation and strengthening of national unity.

Leading the revolutionary movement in a large, divided area, always in a situation of "being surrounded and breaking the siege" with the existence and complicated activities of many political parties, religious organizations..., the Central Office for Southern Vietnam determined that one of the major tasks was to implement the strategic ideology of Great National Unity of President Ho Chi Minh and the Party Central Committee.

The Central Office for Southern Vietnam focused on propagating bourgeois intellectuals and patriotic landlords, helping them gradually abandon narrow-minded national independence concepts, understand the correctness of the Party's concept of national independence, and join the Front's ranks to participate in the resistance war.

With the motto of dividing the enemy, winning step by step, winning each part, the Central Bureau has stepped up propaganda and mobilization work among the parties. The Democratic Party has gone from competing with the masses, demanding to put people into the police force, demanding to take up the position of political commissar in the Military Zone, publishing propaganda books and newspapers that distort and oppose the Communist Party, a part of which plotted to establish an anti-communist "national bloc"... to closely cooperating, accepting the leadership of the Vietnam Workers' Party.

For religious organizations, the Central Committee advocated that they should win over, turn to the resistance or neutralize them. For Catholicism, they should win over priests who had a tendency to sympathize with and participate in the resistance, and arouse the national spirit.

of the religious people in the South, especially the Cambodian Catholics. To win over the Cao Dai followers who were dispersed by the reactionary propaganda activities of the Phuc Viet Party, the Central Office of the South proposed the policy: "For Cao Dai, we must neutralize them more than having them actively participate in the government because the Cao Dai ranks are chaotic and always have ambitions for the government..."[20]. In Cao Dai work, the Central Office directed to focus on controlling the youth and women. For the Cao Dai Tay Ninh section, the Central Office advocated building an agency and having financial policies and cadres to carry out propaganda work among the Cao Dai community, using the influence of landlord intellectuals who supported the resistance, encouraging the followers to return to the national struggle.

Regarding the Hoa Hao religion, the Central Bureau proposed the policy: towards the Hoa Hao people, one must be extremely patient and persistent in persuading, and towards armed groups, reactionary leaders, thugs, and those who committed brutal crimes, one must resolutely destroy them. The Central Bureau directed the organization of armed propaganda campaigns, mobilizing about 100,000 people to return to the resistance, actively participating in campaigns against conscription. By the end of 1952 and the beginning of 1953, the Lien-Viet Front had developed 2,194 members in 3 Hoa Hao districts. Party bases were established in Chau Thanh district (Long Xuyen), Tha Not (Can Tho) and in 16 communes in the Hoa Hao region, which were previously areas with many difficulties. Regarding the Buddhist organization for national salvation and Protestantism, the Central Bureau of the South directed the correction of mistakes, respect for their freedom of belief, and at the same time, orienting the masses to return to participate in the resistance.

With the policy of allying political organizations, implementing the strategy of great national unity and making use of patriotic intellectuals and dignitaries, respecting the role and contributions of religions, the Central Bureau recruited many great intellectuals and dignitaries, mobilizing and arranging them to participate and hold key and important positions in the Administrative Resistance Committee and the Front.

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