General Nguyen Chi Thanh: "political general" and "strategic general"

General Nguyen Chi Thanh has been recognized as an outstanding leader of the Party and the People's Armed Forces. He has made great contributions to the building of the armed forces and the creative development of the military art of the Vietnamese people's war - especially in the direct confrontation with the American expeditionary force.

"Political General"

Some people also consider General Nguyen Chi Thanh a political general. That is not wrong. He is an excellent political leader of the Party and the army. In 1950, when our people's resistance war against the French colonialists entered a fierce phase, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh was sent to the army, taking on the position of Director of the General Political Department, Deputy Secretary of the General Military Commission.

In building the army and directing operations, General Nguyen Chi Thanh always attached importance to the human factor, the spiritual factor, inheriting the humanistic military ideology of Ho Chi Minh with the motto: "politics is more important than military"; "people first, guns later" was instructed by him from the early days of establishing the Vietnam Propaganda Liberation Army (December 1944). He also made an important contribution to building the discipline and regime of political work and promoting the strength of political work in the people's armed forces, making political work truly the soul of the army.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh (right) and General Vo Nguyen Giap discuss the war situation on the southern battlefield on July 5, 1967. Photo courtesy

In the first years of rebuilding the North after the long and arduous resistance war, in his position as head of the Party's Agriculture Committee (from late 1960 to 1964), comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh went close to the grassroots to research, discover, build and replicate new models in agricultural production such as Dai Phong Cooperative (Phong Thuy commune, Le Thuy district, Quang Binh province), creating the Dai Phong Gio emulation movement that spread throughout the North. The vibrant emulation movements aimed at building and bringing the North to socialism such as the Song Duyen Hai movement in the mechanical industry, Bac Ly Drum in the education sector, and the Three-First Flag in military units... all had the contributions and practical direction of Politburo member, Party Central Committee Secretary, and National Defense Council member - General Nguyen Chi Thanh.

Propose sound strategic ideas, direct creative tactics

When the revolutionary war in the South was entering its most fierce and fierce phase, the Party again trusted and appointed comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh to take on important positions: Secretary of the Central Bureau for the South, Political Commissar of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (1964 - 1967). This was the time when the US massively brought many military forces and modern means of war into the South, increased aid to build puppet troops and puppet government apparatus, determined to turn South Vietnam into a new type of colony.

The question that was raised at that difficult time was: "Can we fight the Americans in the South? How to fight the Americans?" To thoroughly answer that question, General Nguyen Chi Thanh and his comrades at the Central Office for Southern Vietnam studied the inheritance and development of the tradition of fighting the enemy, the quintessence of military art of our ancestors, comprehensively analyzed and compared our and the enemy's positions and strengths on the battlefield and on the international level to affirm the determination to dare to fight the Americans and be confident of defeating the Americans, building a way to fight the Americans: "destroy the enemy along with developing guerrilla warfare", "fight the enemy along with destroying strategic hamlets, expanding liberated areas", "combat combined with enemy agitation to disintegrate each piece of the enemy", "just fighting the enemy is not enough, we must also do good political work among the masses"...

On the battlefield, he directed the troops and guerrillas to implement the tactics of "staying close, fighting close", "sticking to the enemy's waist and fighting". By successfully implementing that way of fighting, the revolutionary forces in the South in general and the concentrated armed forces in particular defeated the "dividing line" intention of the US - puppet, minimizing the enemy's artillery power on the battlefield. The resounding victories of the army and people of the South in the battles of Binh Gia, Ba Gia, Dong Xoai... proved that this way of fighting was completely suitable and highly effective.

In just a short period of time (1964 - 1967), General Nguyen Chi Thanh, together with the Central Bureau, the Military Commission and the Regional Command, led and directed the launching of a widespread people's war movement, fighting the enemy with "two legs, three prongs", in all three strategic regions, developing the political force of the masses while simultaneously building an increasingly strong main force, creating "iron fists", dealing fatal blows to the invading American expeditionary army and the Saigon army in the dry season campaigns of 1965 - 1966 and 1966 - 1967, creating momentum and strength for the revolution in the South to develop to new steps.

Comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh also put forward the strategic idea: "Defeat the will to invade, defeat the belief in victory of the US army and government". This is the key point to win the war against the invasion of weaker countries in terms of comparative indicators of military force, firepower, economic potential... Small and weak countries cannot set the goal of completely destroying the invaders but must put first the goal of winning and ending the invasion, pushing the invaders out of the sacred Fatherland. From the reality of the battlefield, General Nguyen Chi Thanh and the Central Office of the South gave strategic instructions: "The US army entered South Vietnam in a passive, losing position, the balance of power could not be changed; we just continue to attack, only by attacking can we continue to maintain the initiative and continue to make the US and the puppet regime passive and weak"...

The conclusions of General Nguyen Chi Thanh gave the heroic resistance of the Southern people the confidence to fight and defeat the American expeditionary force.

The great contributions of General Nguyen Chi Thanh in theory and practice of directing Party and political activities for the building of our army are valuable lessons. The history of military art and Vietnamese history also recognizes him as a general whose strategic decisions influenced the entire situation of the direct confrontation with the powerful American expeditionary army on the southern battlefield.

According to News