PEOPLE'S WAR PEOPLE'S ARMY By Võ Nguyên Giáp VõNguyênGiáp People’sWar,People’sArmy /VõNguyênGiáp Originaltitle:Chiến tranh nhân dân,quân đội nhân dân FirstpublishedinEnglishbyForeignLanguagesPublishingHouse,Hanoi,1961. PublishedbytheMarxistsInternetArchive(www.marxists.org), 2014. PEOPLE'S WAR PEOPLE'S ARMY By Võ Nguyên Giáp CONTENTS Forewordtothe1961English-language Edition ………………………………… 1 TheVietnamesepeople'swarofliberation againsttheFrenchimperialistsandthe Americaninterventionists(1945-1954) ………………………………… 3 People'swar,peoples army ………………………………… 17 Thegreatexperiences gainedbyourParty inleadingthearmedstruggleandbuilding revolutionaryarmedforce ………………………………… 33 DienBienPhu ………………………………… 77 Foreword to the 1961 English-language Edition We are very pleased to publish the English translation of a series of articles by General Vo Nguyen Giap, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Workers' Party, Vice-Premier and Minister for National Defence of the Democratic RepublicofVietNam,Commander-in-ChiefoftheVietNamPeople'sArmy. In these articles, the author introduces the liberation war waged by the Vietnamese people, the features of that war, and deals with the reasons for victory : mobilisation of the entire people, setting up of a people's army, merging of all patriotic organisations and people into a united national front, clear sighted leadership of the Party of the working class. It lays particular stress on the problem of organisation and direction of the revolutionary armed forces of Viet Nam. In a word, it is the combination of experiences gained by the Vietnamese people in the course of a long struggle against colonialism, for national independence, struggle which ended in 1954 with the brilliant Dien Bien Phu victoryandthesigningoftheGenevaAgreements. Publicationofthisbookismosttimely. It is true that since the end of World War II, the maps of Asia, Africa and Latin America have been subject to radical changes, other countries will soon be independent and colonialism is unquestionably doomed to collapse. It is no less true that great obstacles still stand in the way of the peoples struggling for their liberation. The Algerian war has just entered its seventh year. The so-called "U.N. action" in the Congo has turned out to be an imperialist plot against Lumumba's motherland. Cuba is subject to daily provocations by the U.S.A. Half of Viet Nam's territory is still under the heel of a new typecolonialism"madeinU.S.A." We hope that all our friends who, like us, are still suffering from imperialist designs and threats will find in the "People's War, People's Army" what we ourselves have found: furtherreasonsforconfidenceandhope. FOREIGN LANGUAGESPUBLISHINGHOUSE 1 2