Southern Regional Party Committee Leads the All-People, All-Around Resistance War

The South implemented the Party and President Ho Chi Minh's policy of all-people, comprehensive, long-term, self-reliant resistance. The Standing Committee of the Regional Party Committee assigned tasks to the Regional Party Committee members to directly take charge of the specialized departments of the Regional Party Committee.

1.2.2. The Southern Regional Party Committee led the all-people, all-out resistance war across the country.

Southern region

1.2.2.1. Developing the guerrilla warfare movement in conjunction with building the three types of armed forces

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After the National Resistance Day, following the Party's guidelines and President Ho Chi Minh's call, the Southern Party Committee set out three tasks for the Southern Party Committee : Launching guerrilla warfare, building fighting forces; Consolidating the Party, government, Front and national salvation organizations; Resolving conflicts occurring in some localities. The motto of operation is: Towards the countryside, taking the countryside as a fighting stronghold for the entire people, as a basis for building forces, government and building the Party [93, pp.104-105].

To carry out the assigned tasks, the Southern Party Committee advocated the leadership to accelerate the construction of bases: Dong Thap Muoi, war zone D, Rung Sac, Vuon Thom... as places for leadership agencies at all levels to establish and build resistance strength. The steady development of the system of interconnected bases during the first half of the resistance war was an extremely important factor contributing to ensuring the success of the construction of the organization and apparatus of the Southern Party Committee as well as the close leadership and direction of the battlefield situation.

Under the leadership of the Southern Regional Party Committee, the guerrilla warfare movement grew stronger and stronger. In the spring and summer of 1948, the Southern armed forces won major annihilation battles, notably the battles of La Nga, Lang Le - Bau Co (in the Southeast), and Tam Vu (in the Southwest).

After a period of leading the guerrilla warfare movement, on July 31, 1948, the first Congress of the Southern Party Committee was held. The Congress determined that the Southern battlefield was a guerrilla battlefield, the main task of the Southern Party.

The Ministry is to attack the enemy's strategic reserves and protect the resistance reserves. The Congress advocates stepping up the fight against the enemy's sweep of base areas; strengthening work in areas temporarily occupied by the enemy.

The policies of the Southern Party Congress promoted the resistance movement to continue moving forward. In the Letter to Comrade Le Duan and the Southern Party Committee, dated October 23, 1948, the Central Party Standing Committee praised: "The Southern resistance war truly had the nature of a people's resistance war, the people themselves rose up, rushed forward to defend themselves by all means with all initiatives and all capabilities" [63, pp.381-382].

Thoroughly grasping the spirit of the 6th Central Party Conference (January 1949), in January 1949, the Regional Party Committee held an expanded Southern Regional Party Military Conference, setting out the tasks for 1949: striving to develop guerrilla warfare in urban and temporarily occupied areas, especially in the Saigon - Cho Lon area, moving towards destroying the policy of expanding the puppet army and puppet government; continuing to reorganize the military force, urgently building the main force to meet new requirements...

Under the leadership of the Regional Party Committee, guerrilla warfare developed, especially in Ben Tre, Gia Dinh, My Tho, and Ba Ria. However, in many places, the guerrilla warfare movement was not yet thoroughly implemented; “among military cadres, the awareness of people's war was unclear, and guerrilla tactics were not fully understood, causing the militia movement to decline”[20, pp.20-21].

Faced with that situation, at the Military Conference of the entire South, on August 25, 1949, the Southern Regional Party Committee rectified and overcame the above shortcomings. The Regional Party Committee advocated that the South was determined to implement the general policy of the Party and the General Command: taking guerrilla warfare as the main strategy, mobile warfare as the auxiliary strategy, promoting widespread guerrilla warfare continuously to gradually advance to mobile warfare. The conference studied the document "Urgently building a strong military force for the entire South to advance to a general counterattack" presented by comrade Le Duc Tho. The document reminded Party committees at all levels and military leaders and commanders: "Can guerrilla warfare be developed?"

"Only by provoking war can we carry out a national armed resistance", "must

clinging to the people like tree roots clinging to the ground”[132, pp.6-9] …

After the Military Conference, the guerrilla warfare movement continued to develop in the South. However, after occupying the midlands and the Northern Delta, the enemy sent some troops back to the South to conduct sweeps and "pacification", so the resistance of the army and people of the South encountered many difficulties.

At the same time as developing guerrilla warfare, the Southern Regional Party Committee advocated promoting urban movements, especially in the inner city of Saigon-Cho Lon. In October 1949, the Southern Regional Party Committee organized a meeting with the Saigon-Cho Lon City Party Committee to promote the urban struggle movement. The Regional Party Committee advocated: The Saigon-Cho Lon City Party Committee must organize and launch a workers' movement, conduct public and legal struggles, demand democratic rights and advance to higher forms. In addition, attention must be paid to building secret organizations as the core leadership. Regarding the form of struggle in the inner city, the Regional Party Committee focused on propaganda work [20, p.9]. The Regional Party Committee also corrected shortcomings in the propaganda work of the Saigon-Cho Lon City Party Committee such as proposing the slogan "One Vietnamese kills one Frenchman" and pointed out that the struggle slogan was not suitable for the resistance situation [32, p.9]. The Regional Party Committee assigned the Saigon-Cho Lon City Party Committee the task of quickly re-establishing the Inner City Executive Committee, directly and closely directing the inner city struggle movement [20, pp.20-21].

Under the leadership of the Regional Party Committee and the Party Executive Committee in the inner city, the urban movement in Saigon-Cho Lon became increasingly vibrant. In 1949, the people of Saigon protested against "Bao Dai's return". In 1950, the people of Saigon-Cho Lon carried out a general strike, a general strike, and a general strike to protest the puppet government's killing of student Tran Van On (January 1950), took to the streets to protest against the US warships docking in Saigon, and to carry the red flag with a yellow star and a portrait of President Ho Chi Minh (March 1950).

Following the development of the resistance movement, the Southern Party Committee led the fight against the enemy on the enemy propaganda front. Implementing the policy of the expanded Central Conference (January 1948), in the face of the French colonialists' aggressive plot to "use Vietnamese to fight Vietnamese", dividing religions, weakening the strength of the Southern people's resistance solidarity, in 1948, the Southern Party Committee directed armed units to propagate activities in the inner city and temporarily occupied areas to propagate the Government's resistance line, clearly exposing the plots and crimes of the French invaders.

In early 1949, the Southern Regional Party Committee decided to strengthen the enemy agitation work. At the Southern Military Conference on August 25, 1949, the Southern Regional Party Committee pointed out the immediate tasks of the enemy agitation work: to disintegrate the enemy's spirit by deeply enlightening them about their rights and politics; to attack the enemy's real strength by enemy agitation work to act as our internal support in battles; to cause anti-war battles in the decrees; to take full advantage of the contradictions within the enemy's ranks and cause contradictions among them...[131; 132].

Implementing the Conference's policy, the Southern Regional Party Committee opened training courses for enemy propaganda cadres, organized many enemy propaganda conferences in each region and throughout the South. By early 1951, the Southern Regional Party Committee issued a directive on establishing a Party Committee's enemy propaganda committee to strengthen the direction of enemy propaganda work . On February 18, 1951, the Southern Regional Party Committee's Standing Committee sent Official Dispatch No. 21/TVX to the Provincial Party Committees of Region 8 and the Party Cells of the 3 Regions, requesting: "Special attention must be paid to enemy propaganda work, Party bases and mass organizations must know how to apply secret methods depending on the location and must find every way to preserve it" [32].

Implementing the policy of comprehensive resistance, along with conducting guerrilla warfare, the Regional Party Committee directed the people of the South to encircle the enemy's economy. In mid-1949, after receiving the Party's policy of encircling the enemy's economy to destroy the French colonialists' plot of "using war to feed war" disseminated by the Central special envoy to the South, the Regional Party Committee directed the Southern Administrative Resistance Committee to develop an implementation plan. The Resistance Committee

The Southern Administrative War issued Directive No. 14/CT to establish the Committee for the economic blockade of the enemy in the South .

In fact, the policy of economic encirclement of the enemy was essentially a wartime administrative measure, prohibiting the circulation of goods between the independent zone and the temporarily occupied zone. After a short period of implementation, although it caused difficulties for the enemy in the temporarily occupied zone, this policy revealed many limitations, not suitable for the resistance conditions in the South. In Zone 8, with the battlefield situation alternating between our controlled zone and the enemy-occupied zone, the implementation of the policy of economic encirclement of the enemy caused many adverse consequences for the liberated zone. In the large base area in the West, the policy of economic encirclement of the enemy caused agricultural products, seafood, and rice to stagnate, causing discontent and distrust among the people, reducing the prestige of the revolutionary government and reducing the strength of the resistance.

In conjunction with leading the resistance movement, the Southern Regional Party Committee promoted leadership in building three types of armed forces as the core for the entire people to fight the enemy.

In the spirit of the first National Military Conference (January 1947) and the second Central Cadre Conference (April 1947), the Southern Regional Party Committee focused on building main units, developing them up to regiments. In Zone 7: as of March 1948, the armed forces were organized into 13 regiments with a total of 19,556 soldiers. In Zone 8 , in November 1947, the main force was organized into 6 regiments, 2 battalions with a total of 10,264 soldiers. In Zone 9, by March 1948, 7 regiments and 1 battalion were established, with a total of 4,458 soldiers [20, p.49].

The main units are located in the province but are not under the command of the provincial military command or militia, but are under the direct command of the region and the leadership of the provincial party committees.

At the same time, the Southern Regional Party Committee also advocated promoting the building of guerrillas and local troops. In mid-1947, the Southern armed forces had developed, including: National Guard units; District concentrated guerrillas ; Militia

self-defense, hamlet and commune guerrillas. From this basic nucleus, the three types of troops later became increasingly

fully organized

By the end of 1948, the militia and guerrilla forces had developed everywhere. All districts had armed forces concentrated from platoons to companies with a total number of militia and self-defense forces of 270,593 [35, p.138]. To equip the armed forces, the Southern Regional Party Committee and Military Committee, then the Southern Command, advocated the construction of engineering workshops to manufacture weapons. By the end of 1949, the South had 58 workshops, including engineering workshops, militia workshops, and police workshops, along with many weapon production teams, with about 9,000 cadres and workers.

To overcome the fragmentation in command, on December 12, 1947, the Southern Regional Party Committee organized an Inter-zone Military Conference and decided to establish the Southern Military Committee, with Nguyen Thanh Son, a member of the Regional Party Committee, as its Chairman. In early 1948, the Government recognized the Southern Military Committee and at the same time appointed Nguyen Binh to replace Nguyen Thanh Son as Chairman of the Southern Military Committee [20, p.47]. Implementing the Directive of the Party Central Committee Standing Committee dated August 29, 1948, on the organization of the Southern Military Committee, in October 1948, the Southern Military Committee was transformed into the Southern Command. Comrade Le Duan, Secretary of the Regional Party Committee and Secretary of the Regional Military Committee [93]. With the establishment of the Southern Command, the Southern Regional Party Committee completed the task of unifying command over the armed forces of the South.

After 3 years of resistance, the armed forces of the South had made great strides in terms of numbers. However, the development of techniques and tactics was very slow, most of the military leaders and commanders lacked military knowledge and qualifications; the troops lacked conditions to study and practice combat, and mainly fought in a guerrilla style. Some military leaders (at the Regional level) still "disdained the militia force, or exaggerated the role of the militia to the point of "militarizing the National Guard" [20, pp. 20-21].

To overcome that situation, the Southern Military Conference, on August 25, 1949, reaffirmed the importance of the task of building militia and guerrilla forces in the conditions of resistance in the South; at the same time, emphasized the task of

build up the main force to move towards fighting large-scale mobile battles in the spirit of the resolution of the 6th Central Party Conference (January 1949).

After the Conference, the militia and guerrillas of the South increased rapidly in number. By September 1949, it had grown to 307,963 people; the guerrillas alone had 18,406 people [132]. The total number of soldiers in the self-defense and guerrillas forces reached 10% of the population. The militia coordinated with the army to fight independently in 1,614 battles, destroying 6,872 enemies, and capturing more than 900 guns of various types [20, pp.20-21]. The above achievements were assessed by the General Command: the organization of the militia and the commune guerrilla teams in the South were on the right track. The militia had the ability to fight to protect hamlets, the commune guerrilla teams were relatively selected with attention to quality [75; 93, pp.115-128].

Regarding the construction of the main force, on November 18, 1949, the Southern Command issued Directive 317 to establish main force regiments, battalions and independent companies. The units proceeded to merge regiments and establish main force regiments. However, the policy of establishing "large main force punches" encountered many difficulties right from the beginning because it was not suitable for the Southern battlefield conditions, the ability to ensure logistics as well as the command and combat skills of officers and soldiers did not meet the requirements of large-scale mobile combat, and in reality, it was not effective.

In building the armed forces, the Southern Party Committee focused on political training for soldiers and assigned cadres with political qualifications to be in charge of the regions. Political work among soldiers in all three regions 7, 8, and 9 developed and promoted the effect of raising political awareness and fighting determination of soldiers [20, p. 15].

1.2.2.2. Leadership in building the Party, the Front and mass organizations

The South is united and strong

Realizing the importance of Party building work for the resistance movement, the Southern Party Committee paid attention to consolidating, perfecting and improving the leadership capacity of the Party Committee.

In April 1947, the expanded Provisional Regional Party Committee Conference in Dong Thap Muoi set out the task of consolidating the Party organization from the Regional Party Committee to the grassroots level. After the Conference, the work of perfecting the Party organization system was accelerated to meet the requirements of leading the resistance war in the Southern regions. The Regional Party Committee members directly grasped the situation and directed the provincial Party Committees and key regions. Therefore, the Party Committee made remarkable progress in both developing Party members and building the organization. A typical example was the Gia Dinh Provincial Party Committee, in 1947, the number of Party members increased from 500 (in 1946) to 2,000. Most communes had Party cells [91, p.101].

In compliance with the Party Central Committee's policy on developing Party members, on August 28, 1947, the Standing Committee of the Southern Party Committee issued a Directive on Party development to rapidly increase the number of Party members and gather progressive elements of the nation and social classes. The Standing Committee of the Southern Party Committee reminded Party committees at all levels to be extremely vigilant against opportunistic and trendy elements who seek to infiltrate the Party ranks, "taking advantage of the Party's reputation to satisfy their own desires" [12].

Next, at the Conference to establish the official Regional Party Committee (December 1947), the Southern Regional Party Committee proposed the policy of building a Southern Party Committee with unified will and action . The Southern Regional Party Committee focused on building and consolidating subordinate Party committees, strengthening training, education, and improving all aspects of Party members and cadres, focusing on ideological work as well as theoretical training, fighting against "left" and rightist tendencies, meeting the requirements of the increasingly fierce resistance war.

After this Conference, the Southern Party Committee focused on directing the regions, provinces, and districts to open Marxist research classes for cadres at all levels, and to orient the political stance and ideology for the press and publishing agencies of the Party and mass organizations in the South. The instructions of the Southern Party Committee have raised the ideological and political awareness of party members and cadres.

However, the Southern Party Committee still has many limitations and shortcomings, such as localism, narrow-mindedness, lax discipline, "Party development in general

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