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<h1 id="reader-title">Vietnam Will Win: Leadership and Democracy</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <em><strong>Wilfred
Burchett - February 14, 2018<br>
</strong></em></div>
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<p>To mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1968 Têt Offensive,
CounterPunch is serializing Wilfred Burchett’s <em>Vietnam
Will Win</em>(Guardian Books, New York, 1968) over the
next few weeks. Readers can judge for themselves the
validity of the facts, observations, analysis,
conclusions, predictions and so on made by the author.
The books is based on several visits to the Liberated
Zones controlled by the National Liberation Front (‘Viet
Cong’) of South Vietnam in 1963-64, 1964-65 and in
1966-67 and close contacts with the NLF leadership,
resistance fighters and ordinary folk. Wilfred
Burchett’s engagement with Vietnam began in March 1954,
when he met and interviewed President Ho Chi Minh in his
jungle headquarters in Thai Nguyen, on the eve of the
battle of Dien Bien Phu. He was also on intimate terms
with General Vo Nguyen Giap, Prime Minister Pham Van
Dong and most of the leadership of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam during the country’s struggle
against French colonialism and American imperial
aggression. Wilfred Burchett was not writing history as
a historian, with the benefit of hindsight, access to
archives etc. He was reporting history as it was
unfolding, often in dangerous places. He was an
on-the-spot reporter, an eyewitness to history. In his
reporting, he followed his own convictions, political
and moral. The book he wrote after his first two visits
to the Liberated Zones, <em>Vietnam: Inside Story of
the Guerilla War</em>(International Publishers, New
York, 1965) concludes with this short sentence: “The
best they [the Americans] can do is to go home.” <em>Vietnam
Will Win</em> confirms that.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it took another seven years (1968-75) of
death and devastation – and the extension of the war
into Cambodia and Laos – for the U.S. to finally leave
Vietnam in ignominy in April 1975. So here, chapter by
chapter, Wilfred Burchett exposes the futility of
fighting a people united in their struggle for
independence, liberty and unity. It also explains,
soberly and factually, why they were winning and how
they won.</p>
<p><em>George Burchett, Hanoi</em></p>
<p><strong>Leadership and Democracy</strong></p>
<p>Deep in the jungle, there was a full-scale model of a
corner of a military post surrounded by rows of barbed
wire leading to a moat and a section of two-yard-high
earthen ramparts studded with watchtowers. Inside the
ramparts an inner system of trenches and fire-points
zigzagged back toward bamboo and thatch barracks, arms
depots, radio center and a headquarters building
dominating the others. I had seen the whole complex set
out in a sandpit model a few days earlier and listened
to explanations of the nature of the buildings and the
disposition of the defenses. What I was looking at now
was an exact replica of a fortress in nearby Binh Duong
province marked down for attack.</p>
<p>I stood with the commander and the political officer of
the regiment assigned to the job. We were a few yards
away from a key blockhouse which dominated this part of
the ramparts. The surrounding jungle was completely
quiet except for the chatter of flocks of parrots and
the flute-like chirruping of a couple of gibbons. Apart
from my companions, there was not a soul to be seen. At
the sound of a whistle three men bent double with the
weight of heavy charges dashed forward, fixing “satchel
charges” against the first row of plaited creepers which
represented the “barbed wire.” Within the twinkling of
an eye they laid their charges and tiny red flags and
faded away. A shot from the direction of a watchtower
warned they had been spotted. A volley of machine-gun
fire-both shot and volley simulated by banging on empty
condensed-milk cans-replied, and another trio dashed
forward to repeat the “satchel charge” operation at any
second, then the third row, each time planting the
little red flags to mark the “gaps” while
machine-gunners propelled by their elbows moved up close
to the “gaps” that would have been torn in the barbed
wire by the “satchel charges.” Assault troops followed,
hugging the ground and almost invisible as they snaked
forward in the dim light filtering through the heavy
jungle canopy.</p>
<p>“Machine guns” were rat-tatting away in all directions
as the last trio dashed through the “gaps” and placed a
massive pack charge against the base of the blockhouse,
hurling in a couple of grenades and dashing back before
the “explosion.” A real bugle sounded and the first wave
of assault troops rushed through the breach, the leading
trio carrying an ingenious combination bridge-ladder
bamboo scaling device, a key weapon in the main assault.
As the bridge section was hurled across to straddle the
moat, the ladder hinged to it automatically swung up to
come to rest against the blockhouse wall, the first
assault troops clambering over it the moment it hit the
wall.</p>
<p>The rapidity with which the bridge-ladder was hurled
against the walls and the first shock wave was over the
top, hurling dummy hand grenades, had to be seen to be
believed. Within seconds the first and succeeding waves
were fanning out along the inner trenches and heavy
machine guns had been set up on the ruins of the
blockhouse aimed at the watchtowers, while 57-mm
bazookas were trained on the inner defense
installations. The assault developed at lightning speed,
troops spreading out in a dozen directions but
converging around the main defense positions. Whistles,
bugle calls, shouts indicated that a position had been
taken, reinforcements were needed or there was a wounded
man.</p>
<p>Regimental commander Truong – I never learned his full
name – stood straight as a ramrod checking the various
phases with a stopwatch, like an Olympic trainer. When
the NLF flag fluttered atop the headquarters building,
he looked at his watch and said, “Eight-and-a-half
minutes. Not bad for the first time. We usually like to
complete such operations in 15 minutes and with average
opposition, that is about what this one will take,
unless there are surprises. Within minutes of the flag’s
appearance, a group had formed around one perspiring,
stocky young man who I had noticed as particularly
active in urging the assault teams forward. By the time
we got there an animated discussion seemed to me to be
getting quite heated. I asked what was going on.</p>
<p>“The commander of the assault company is being severely
criticized by some of the men,” he replied, “because in
earlier briefings and in the sandpit model, one
machine-gun position had been overlooked according to
the defense dispositions here and the layout of the
trenches did not correspond exactly. The team that was
supposed to seize the radio room as first priority did
not make it in time because of this. Such errors can be
costly. Our attacks depend on split-second timing,
taking the defenders by surprise and completing the
operation seconds before the enemy has time to react.”</p>
<p>All around the “compound” there were smaller groups
engaged in similar intense discussions. At one group the
medium-weapons support platoon was being criticized
because one of their machine guns had not been moved
forward at the same rhythm as the shock troops despite
urgent whistles from the latter when the unsuspected
“enemy” machine gun was discovered.</p>
<p>“We will have a summing up discussion afterward,”
Truong said. “But sometimes unbeknown to the lower
echelon commanders we include small errors like the
enemy machine gun and the trench layout mistakes in
order to check the vigilance of the troops, to encourage
their critical faculties and also their capacity and
initiative in adapting themselves to unexpected
situations. We don’t want an army of automatons, but
teams of intelligent, adaptable human beings. We develop
fighters of high morale and of great courage, but
courage should be used intelligently. ‘Courage with
intelligence’ – that is one of our slogans. Our troops
should be ready to lay down their lives at any moment if
absolutely necessary, but they are absolutely not to
sacrifice their lives uselessly. ‘Determined to fight,
determined to win,’ is one of our main slogans, but
fight to win and live to fight and win again and again
is also an essential concept in our ideological
training. For a higher cadre to endanger the lives of
the men under his command through carelessness is
unpardonable and that is why we encourage the strongest
criticism during the preparatory phases of an operation,
from the men who have to face the enemy bullets. Apart
from anything else, this is also a good way of training
future cadres drawn from the ranks.”</p>
<p>Later I watched a heavy-weapons support company
assigned to the assault battalion – the regiment’s
remaining two battalions were to be deployed to ambush
enemy reinforcements – go through training exercises.
There was the same extreme realism, the same insistence
on perfection of movement and split-second timing,
ability to change positions under enemy fire, to respond
to urgent signals from the assault forces, speed in
assembling and dismantling mortars and heavy machine
guns on their base plates and tripods and in changing
positions by the anti-aircraft gunners, as model planes
strung high up in the trees and manipulated by jungle
creepers circled and dived.</p>
<p>A couple of days previously I had been with the same
men, grouped around a sand pit model of the whole
triangular system of forts that was to be attacked.
Among the obstacles were three tiers of barbed-wire
fences, a yard-and-a-half-deep moat and two-yard-high
earthen ramparts. I took part for only a few hours in a
discussion that would last several days. We were
interrupted briefly by planes that bombed the area, the
first of the bombs landing a hundred yards or so from
the sandpit, but the U.S.-Saigon command was obviously
not aware of what was going on as the planes never
returned.</p>
<p>The main problem being discussed while I was there was
whether the attack should be concentrated on one
blockhouse with diversionary attacks on others, or
whether there should be concentrated attacks on several
simultaneously.</p>
<p>Specialists on demolitions and on cutting gaps in the
rows of barbed wire and the chief of the heavy-weapons
platoon were listened to with great attention when they
outlined the problems from their viewpoint. A scout who
had conducted reconnaissance missions was questioned
several times on details of the fortifications,
including the exact depth and width of the moat, the
height of the ear them ramparts.</p>
<p>“The bridge-ladders for crossing the moat and scaling
the walls are built specifically for each operation,”
explained Truong. “They are based on absolutely precise
reconnaissance: the bridge section must be of the exact
width and the ladder section the exact height required,
otherwise the scaling operation, a key part of the
assault, can turn into a disaster. They also have to be
light enough to be carried by two men, but strong enough
to support a man on every rung. After the operation we
take them apart and use them as stretchers.”</p>
<p>During the discussions over the sandpit and later after
the mock assault, it was impressive to see the complete
equality between commanders and men, the freedom with
which the rank and file criticized their superiors, and
the natural way in which the latter accepted this
criticism, patiently replying point by point until
everyone was satisfied.</p>
<p>Thuong Chien, the regiment’s political officer,
explained that in discussions before an operation,
commanders and men were on an absolutely equal footing;
that as long as any rank-and-file soldier raised any
objection to an operational plan, discussion must
continue until he was satisfied. During the operation
discipline was total, the rank and file were expected to
carry out allotted tasks and execute every command of
their superiors without fail. But after the action was
over, commanders and men were back on the same equal
basis, in the critical summing-up sessions which
followed each operation.</p>
<p>“In that way we combine democracy with leadership,”
Thuong Chien said, and he went on to outline some basic
precepts of the Liberation Army. “Commanders and rank
and file are of the same social and class origin, mainly
peasants. We are united by hatred of the oppressors and
foreign aggressors. We live, study and fight together.
Morale is high primarily because of the complete
democracy within our armed forces. You have seen part of
a typical nonoperational discussion. Often it is only
after long, complex discussions that unify of views is
achieved. In this way the rank and file know that
nothing is being imposed from above, that every
suggestion to avoid losses while keeping the main aim in
view is welcomed. The command has the benefit of the
ideas of the whole collective. Such discussions are a
concrete expression of courage and intelligence. For
every action that we plan, similar discussions take
place at which every phase of the projected operation is
analyzed – the preparation, the actual attack, the
results. From such critical summing-up meetings we draw
conclusions for the next action. Everyone takes part and
this produces the best resulting line with an old
Vietnamese saying, ‘Three idiots make one wise man.'”</p>
<p>For several weeks on each of two different occasions, I
lived and traveled with regular Liberation Army units,
spending part of the time at regimental, battalion and
company headquarters, and in one regiment I spent
several days living and traveling with a ten-man squad.
The unity and harmony within the various units, the
relations between commanders and men were something
wonderful to behold. I have shared a soldier’s life with
armies in many parts of the world, starting in 1941 with
the Kuomintang troops during the Sino-Japanese war, and
with the troops of many other armies since, in over a
quarter of a century of reporting wars. But I have never
experienced the quality of relations that exist within
the ranks of the NLF forces in South Vietnam. To say
that they are those that exist between members of an
ideally happy family may seem banal, but it is difficult
to think of a better comparison, especially in
illustrating the solicitude that commanders at every
level display towards men under their command and the
affectionate relations between the rank and file
themselves and between them and their commanders. The
fact that commanders and men dress alike, eat the same
food, sleep in the same sort of hammocks, share the same
bamboo huts in base areas and are in general
indistinguishable was impressive enough; even more
striking was the complete equality of men and officers
in every circumstance. In the very lively discussions
which often took place, it was impossible to decide who
was the commander and who the commanded.</p>
<p>Did such familiarity and equal status result in any
loss of respect or lack of confidence in the leadership
at various levels? I was assured it did not. On the
contrary, a commander was there just because he had the
confidence of his men, was elected by them, and had
proved himself. The moment he lost the confidence of his
men, he could be removed by majority decision of those
he commanded.</p>
<p>A day or two after having joined the ten-man squad,
after our evening meal of rice and salted fish, most of
the squad members joined others from the platoon to
which the squad was attached, and set off, myself and my
interpreter following them down a narrow jungle trail to
a little clearing, where everyone squatted down on his
heels with a tiny bottle lamp in front of him. Although
it was a clear night, one had to strain his eyes to spot
even a single star glinting through the thick leafy
canopy. The participants were platoon members of the
Liberation Youth Association. Each pulled out a small
notebook, and one, who my interpreter whispered was the
‘chin tri vien’ (political representative), spoke for a
few minutes in a low voice. In the same subdued tones,
others followed in what was obviously a very serious
discussion. Although this was a base camp, there was an
enemy post less than two miles away. I asked why they
did not meet in the bamboo barracks. “Other comrades
need to rest; we are meeting in a rest period when noise
is not permitted,” the interpreter whispered back.</p>
<p>The theme of the discussion was the difficulty in
getting to real grips with the enemy. It was around the
beginning of 1965 when the Saigon forces were in full
disintegration following the Binh Gia defeat. “The enemy
is no longer falling for our tactics of attacking enemy
posts and wiping out enemy reinforcements,” the
interpreter said, summarizing the gist of the
discussion. “In recent weeks they tend to cut their
losses and when we attack a post, the enemy command
prefers to lose it and abandon territory rather than
lose more effectives by sending reinforcements to fall
into our ambushes. But to win the war we have to wipe
out the enemy forces. They have even withdrawn from a
number of smaller posts that we intended to attack,
abandoning lots of territory and concentrating in bigger
posts with a battalion or more in each. The enemy’s
divisional commanders are trying to preserve their
troops in this way. This is a new situation for our
forces and the ‘chinh tri vien’ says we will have to
adopt new tactics. We shall have to go after the enemy
in his garrisons; we can no longer count on him coming
to us, his morale is too low. We must be prepared to go
right into their posts, even big complexes of posts, and
destroy them. To do this we must improve our technique,
face up to new problems. We must perfect the speediest
and most efficient way of laying mines, achieve greater
precision in coordinated assaults and acquire the
technique of rapid and complete destruction of the
enemy’s artillery positions inside the posts We must be
prepared to move more swiftly than ever, especially
after the attack, because these big posts are further
away from our jungle bases than those we have been
attacking till now. Our troops should be able to travel
lighter after an attack because from now on we need no
longer pay attention to carrying off enemy arms but to
wiping out his effectives and his artillery and base
installations.”</p>
<p>The rest of the discussion was of a technical nature,
everyone taking part by raising his notebook when he
wanted to speak. From then on the only difference
between men and commander was that the ‘chinh tri vien’
decided who spoke in case two raised their notebooks at
the same time. The platoon’s military commander took his
turn with the others and apart from the fact that he
seemed to be listened to with a little more deference,
he could not have been spotted. Suggestions were made to
lighten equipment by having the kitchen staff prepare
meals in advance at the closest possible point
consistent with safety to the takeoff place for the
attack, so that the troops would not have to carry
rations. The food could even be left in a cache with a
guard. A demolitions expert pointed out that as heavier
charges would be necessary to blow up such bases, the
comrades in the regimental arsenal should try to produce
more powerful explosives without increasing the weight.
Someone suggested that as the enemy’s morale was
obviously low, those in charge of propaganda should
redouble their efforts to reach the puppet troops in
their new bases to warn them they would not be safe
there and had better think of deserting. Several
disagreed with this and said that it was better not to
warn the enemy of what was in store for him but first
make sure of dealing a very heavy blow, wiping out one
of the big bases and then using the result to carry out
propaganda in the others. It was agreed to ask the
company commander to arrange more frequent meetings at
company level as soon as the lust of the new type of
targets was selected. This was the only decision taken.
The meeting lasted just one hour, then all of them
pocketed their books, picked up their lamps and went
back to the barracks.</p>
<p>“Discussion on this will continue now every night among
the entire squad, not just those who are Liberation
Youth Association members,” explained my interpreter.
“The war is really entering a new phase and everyone
will be expected to make his contribution to how the new
problems should be tackled. The political representative
will make a report on this meeting to the ‘chinh tri
vien’ at company level, and he will make a synthesis
report of the discussant of the three platoons directly
to the regimental command. A similar synthesis report at
regimental level will go directly to our high command.”</p>
<p>Back at the regimental command, relating my impressions
of the excellent relations between commanders and men
and the very high morale of the troops at every echelon
down to the squad, the political officer, Thuong Chien,
said that in the viewpoint of the high command, the
“three major factors in still further improving the
fighting spirit of the Liberation Army are to give
correct leadership and correct political education; to
pay great attention to improving tactics and technique;
and to pay great attention to constantly raising the
material and cultural living standards of the troops,
ensuring a steady improvement in everything from food
and sports to poetry and music.”</p>
<p>As for the high morale, he added, “This is because of
correct leadership at the top which directs political
education based on a clear distinction between enemy and
friends. This is the greatest source of our troops’
combativity. A logical consequence of this is that we
are based on the people. We fight for the cause of the
people and we are supported on every hand by the people.
This support has been a great factor in our rapid
development and a great source of satisfaction to our
fighting men.</p>
<p>“Commanders and men have all risen from the ranks of
the people. None of us have been formed in academies or
institutes. The question of superior morale is one of
political and ideological attitude. That is why we never
cease stressing the importance of political leadership
and education and genuine democracy within our armed
forces. Only when a fighter has correct politics and
ideology can he freely accept the absolute iron
discipline which we demand on the battlefield; only when
a commander has correct politics and ideology can he
behave like a real leader of men on the battlefield and
freely accept the democratic spirit we demand off the
battlefield.”</p>
<p>This combination of leadership and democracy obviously
has nothing in common with the sort of example cited by
Régis Debray in <em><a
href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394171217/counterpunchmaga">Revolution
in the Revolution</a>, </em>in which combatants
during the Spanish Civil War “argued about their
officer’s orders in the heat of battle, refusing to
attack such and such a position, or to withdraw at a
given moment, holding meetings under enemy fire to
decide what tactic to follow…”<a href="#_edn1"
name="_ednref1">[1]</a> Leadership on the battlefield
in South Vietnam means that the commander directs the
implementation of decisions arrived at by the most
democratic process possible, every detail of which has
been agreed on beforehand by those taking part in the
attack. If the decisions are wrong it is a collective
responsibility. If the implementation fails due to bad
leadership, the leader will be changed.</p>
<p>One thing noted during actions in which I involuntarily
took part, due to surprise encounters with U.S.-Saigon
troops, as well as in training exercises and barracks
life, was the absence of the sergeant’s bark. In action
everyone seemed to know what he had to do, even in a
surprise situation, and commands were like urgent
exchanges of a few words at a noise level just
sufficient for the communications to be understood.
Whistles are used for obviously coded signals and bugles
for assault. One rarely hears a shouted command,
doubtless partly because of long years of living
“integrated with the enemy,” as one commander expressed
it, but also because discipline and confidence in the
leaders is such that a commander does not have to shout
in order to impress. The quietness with which everything
is handled among the NLF units is a characteristic that
has impressed all who have visited them. It is something
very special, and inseparable from the harmonious
relations between commanders and men, which in turn is a
consequence of the constant stress on ideological
attitudes.</p>
<p>Virtually every regimental, battalion and company
commander of the Liberation Army with whom I talked had
started as a rank-and-file soldier in the self defense
guerrillas, proving himself first of all as a guerrilla
leader and then graduating through the regional troops
to the regular army. By the time he took over a platoon
or a company of the Liberation Army, he was a veteran
resourceful commander of a quality, even from a purely
military viewpoint, infinitely superior to his opposite
number in the Saigon forces or in the U.S. Army when it
arrived.</p>
<p>There are three types of armed forces. Local
self-defense guerrillas whose main job is to defend
their own villages, pin down local enemy forces in
nearby posts, keep those posts permanently encircled,
carry out propaganda and “persuasion” work among the
enemy. In early 1965, as the Saigon forces were
withdrawn from encircled posts all over the country, and
the military tasks of the self-defense guerrillas became
much lighter, the young women started taking over,
releasing men for service in the regional troops and the
regular army. In the early days of the insurrection,
women served also in the latter two bodies, but from
1965 onward they were encouraged to go back and form the
backbone of the self-defense guerrillas and production
teams. The self-defense guerrillas are part-time
soldiers, serving in rotation in tasks which demand
permanent posting of troops, such as encirclement of
enemy posts, but otherwise taking part in production.
They are armed mainly with rifles, but by 1965 there was
a sprinkling of automatic weapons in every village and
plenty of hand grenades and mines. Most villages have
their own small arsenals for at least making mines. The
local guerrillas are responsible also for maintaining
and constantly extending the “passive” explosive “booby
traps” to “platoons” of bee-handlers releasing swarms of
vicious outsize bees to attack hostile intruders.</p>
<p>Regional troops are full-time soldiers, much better
armed than the self-defense guerrillas and functioning
in a defined geographical area, usually a district or
group of districts. Their job is to deal with enemy
forces stationed in the same area, break up enemy raids,
lay ambushes, encircle bases, attack posts within the
region. The regular Liberation Army deals with the
enemy’s mobile reserves, initiates offensive operations
and attacks major enemy concentrations. When the enemy
employs mobile forces in a sweep operation into
NLF-controlled territory, then all three branches of the
NLF forces coordinate their activities. Each branch has
its standard assigned role, valid for whole phases of
the war, and it changes only when the situation changes.</p>
<p>In step with the development of the “mind behind the
gun,” there was also a steady evolution of military
tactics, each phase of which a commander had to master
before he could become even a platoon leader. After the
transition from passive to active defense, there were
diversionary actions in one area to prevent the enemy
from concentrating on one particular village or
district. After strategic hamlets were set up under the
guns of military posts in their immediate vicinity,
there were night attacks against these posts. For the
NLF forces this represented a big step forward. And as
the regular forces developed, there was a combination of
night attacks by regional troops and self-defense
guerrillas on enemy posts with major battles waged the
following day by the regular army, usually fighting from
fixed positions, as they ambushed enemy reinforcements
with the “attack enemy posts – wipe out enemy
reinforcements” tactics. At the battle of Binh Gia, the
Liberation Army went over to war of movement and had
clear-cut victories in several classical daytime
battles. By that time (the first weeks of 1965), the
Liberation Army was making skillful use of feint attacks
and diversionary actions, maneuvering enemy battalions
into positions that enabled them to launch the decisive
attacks, usually with such a sudden and devastating
concentration of fire that the outcome was decided in
the first few minutes of-the action.</p>
<p>Every new phase required new qualities of leadership,
new demands on grasp, initiative, ingenuity and
intelligence. If a commander could not keep up with the
new tasks, he dropped back into the ranks with no hard
feelings, and another came forward.</p>
<p>This was possible because of the complete unity of aims
of the whole collective. Promotion does not come easily.
Soldiers advance in as tough a military school as the
world has ever known, and perhaps the toughest. South
Vietnam’s peasant guerrillas, who have been fighting off
and on four more than a quarter of a century, provide
the Liberation Army with inexhaustible, rich resources
of unequalled leadership cadres.</p>
<p>Within the Liberation Army, general education goes hand
in hand with military and political training, and this
facilitates the grasping of modern techniques. No
book-learning alone, no military academy, could provide
the qualities of leadership that experience and
political and military training have given commanders in
the NLF forces. And no armed forces, except those
fighting on for such just aims, could dare to introduce
the same system of democratic leadership as the
guideline for its armed forces.</p>
<p><strong>Notes.</strong></p>
<p><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[1]</a> Translation
from Régis Debray, <em>Révolution dans la Révolution</em>,
Paris, François Maspero, 1967, p. 124.</p>
<p><em>George Burchett comment: I was present when <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9gis_Debray">Régis
Debray</a> and my father first met in our flat in
Paris. My father apologized for criticizing him in his
book while he was in prison in Bolivia and unable to
respond. They became excellent friends.</em></p>
<p><strong>NEXT: Chapter 5 – Winning Hearts and Minds</strong></p>
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<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/14/vietnam-will-win-leadership-and-democracy/"
rel="bookmark">Vietnam Will Win: Leadership and
Democracy</a></h1>
<span class="post_date" title="2018-02-14">February 14,
2018</span> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a></span> </div>
<div id="post-99665" class="post_box post-99665 post
type-post status-publish format-standard
category-articles-2015" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/12/vietnam-will-win-building-an-army/"
rel="bookmark">Vietnam Will Win: Building an Army</a></h1>
<span class="post_date" title="2018-02-12">February 12,
2018</span> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a></span> </div>
<div id="post-99640" class="post_box post-99640 post
type-post status-publish format-standard
category-articles-2015" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/09/vietnam-will-win-the-making-of-a-soldier/"
rel="bookmark">Vietnam Will Win: the Making of a
Soldier</a></h1>
<span class="post_date" title="2018-02-09">February 9,
2018</span> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a></span> </div>
<div id="post-99509" class="post_box post-99509 post
type-post status-publish format-standard
category-articles-2015" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/07/vietnam-will-win-the-politics-of-strategy/"
rel="bookmark">Vietnam Will Win: the Politics of
Strategy</a></h1>
<span class="post_date" title="2018-02-07">February 7,
2018</span> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a></span> </div>
<div id="post-99439" class="post_box post-99439 post
type-post status-publish format-standard
category-articles-2015" itemscope=""
itemtype="http://schema.org/Article">
<h1 class="headline" itemprop="headline"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/02/vietnam-will-win-introduction/"
rel="bookmark">Vietnam Will Win: Introduction</a></h1>
<span class="post_date" title="2018-02-02">February 2,
2018</span> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/wilfred-burchett/"
rel="nofollow">Wilfred Burchett</a></span> </div>
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