Introduction by Stein Tønnesson

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The decision of the Cold War International History Project to publish Christopher E. Goscha's translation of Secretary General Le Duan's long 1979 statement about Sino-Vietnamese relations is a significant event. Until now, few Vietnamese documents of this kind have been made available to scholars. The latter tend therefore to analyze the two Indochina Wars and their role in the Cold War as a power game between Western powers, the Soviet Union and China, and to overlook Vietnamese perspectives. Goscha's translation brings one such perspective into the scholarly debate.

Goscha, a researcher with the Groupe d'Etudes sur le Vietnam contemporain (Sciences Politiques, Paris), consulted the document in the People's Army Library in Hanoi, copied it by hand, and translated it into English. He did so with full authorization. The text is undated, and the author's name is just given as "Comrade B." The content implies, however, that it was written in 1979, most probably between the Chinese invasion of northern Vietnam in February 1979 and the publication of the Vietnamese White Book about Sino-Vietnamese relations on 4 October of the same year.' It seems likely that the text was composed shortly after Deng Xiaoping's decision on 15 March 1979 to withdraw the Chinese troops from their punitive expedition into northern Vietnam, but before the defection to China of the veteran Vietnamese communist leader Hoang Van Hoan in July 1979.

How can we know that the man behind the text is Le Duan? In it, "comrade B" reveals that during a Politburo meeting in the Vietnamese Workers' Party (VWP, the name of the Vietnamese Communist Party from 1951 to 1976) he was referred to as Anh Ba (Brother Number Three), an alias we know was used by Le Duan. The document also refers frequently to high level meetings between Chinese and Vietnamese leaders where the author (referred to in the text as "I," in Vietnamese toi) represented the Vietnamese side in an authoritative way that few others than he could have done. We know Le Duan did not write much himself, and the document has an oral style (a fact that has made its translation extremely difficult). It thus seems likely that the text is either a manuscript dictated by Le Duan to a secretary, or detailed minutes written by someone attending a high-level meeting where Le Duan made the statement.

The document can be used by the historian to analyze: a) Le Duan's ideas and attitudes, b) the situation within the socialist camp in 1979, c) the record of Le Duan's relations with China in the period 1952-79.

From a scholarly point of view it is safest to use the text for the first and the second purposes since the document can then be exploited as an artifact, a textual residue from the past that the historian seeks to

reconstruct. As such it illuminates the views and attitudes of Vietnam's top leader in the crisis year 1979, and also some aspects of the situation within the socialist camp at that particular juncture. To use the text as a source to the earlier history of Le Duan's relations with China (the topic addressed in the text) is more problematic, since what Le Duan had to say in 1979 was deeply colored by rage. Thus he is likely to have distorted facts, perhaps even made up stories. As a source to events in the period 1952-79, the document must therefore be treated with tremendous caution, and be held up against other available sources. Two similar sources, resulting from the same kind of outrage, are the official white books published by Vietnam and China towards the end of 1979.2 A third source, with a series of documents from the years 1964-77, is Working Paper No. 22, published by the Cold War International History Project in 1998, 77 Conversations Between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964-1977, edited by an international group of historians: Odd Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Tønnesson, Nguyen Vu Tung, and James G. Hershberg. This collection contains 77 minutes of conversations or excerpts of such minutes between Chinese, Vietnamese and other leaders in the period 1964-77 (presumably taken down during or shortly after each conversation, but compiled, excerpted and possibly edited at later stages). The collection includes several conversations in which Le Duan took part. The editors of the 77 Conversations write that the minutes have been compiled from "archival documents, internal Communist party documentation, and open and restricted publications from China and other countries" (emphasis here).3 The editors do not tell which of the minutes were written, excerpted and compiled in China and which in "other countries." It would seem possible that some of these minutes were used as background material for the preparation of the white books in 1979, at least on the Chinese side. This would mean that the sources just mentioned are not altogether independent of each other. This fact and the obscure origin of the 77 minutes means that they too must be treated with caution. Their main function may be to offer clues to what the historian should look for when given access to the archives of the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties.

Le Duan's attitude

What does the text reveal about its originator, Le Duan? A striking feature of the text is its directness and the way in which the author comes across as an individual. This is not the normal kind of party document, where individual attitudes and emotions are shrouded in institutionalized rhetoric.4 Le Duan seems to have addressed himself to a small group of party leaders, with

the purpose of justifying his own actions vis-à-vis China and ensuring support for maintaining a hard line towards Chinese pressures, possibly fighting another great war. Le Duan speaks of himself as "I,"(toi) identifies each of his interlocutors on the Chinese side by name, and expresses his emotions towards Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders. The author really likes the word "I", and uses it even when referring to his talks with Ho Chi Minh. This is surprising since using toi in relation to conversations with the Uncle (Bac), would probably be considered arrogant, even for people who worked closely with him. The proper term in that connection would perhaps be "Chau" Throughout the document, it is Le Duan who does everything. The style is oral. It seems possible that the one who wrote down the text later deposited the document in the Army Library."

Despite the refreshing directness of the text, there is one thing the author almost does not do. He does not speak openly about internal disagreements among the Vietnamese leaders. The only other leaders mentioned by name are Ho Chi Minh and Nguyen Chi Thanh, who had both passed away long before 1979. There is not a word about Vo Nguyen Giap, Pham Van Dong, Nguyen Duy Trinh, Xuan Thuy, Hoang Van Hoan, or any of the others who had played prominent roles in Hanoi's tortuous relations with Beijing. Internal disagreements on the Vietnamese side are only mentioned on one occasion. Le Duan claims that everyone in the Politburo always was of the same mind, but that there had been one person who rose to question the Politburo, asking why Le Duan had talked about the need to not be afraid of the Chinese. On that occasion, says Le Duan, the one who stood up to support Anh Ba, was Nguyen Chi Thanh (the army commander in southern Vietnam, who had often been considered a supporter of Chinese viewpoints before his untimely death in 1967). The "comrade" asking the impertinent question was no doubt Hoang Van Hoan, and the fact that he is not mentioned by name may indicate that Le Duan's statement was made before this party veteran defected to China in July 1979.

As a background to the analysis of the text, we should first establish what is generally known about Le Duan's life (1907-86) and career. He came from Quang Tri in Central Vietnam, and based his party career on political work in the southern half of Vietnam. In the 1920s he became a railway worker, joined the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) at its foundation in 1930, and spent the years 1931-36 in a French prison. During the Popular Front period in France, he was free again to work politically and in March 1938 became member of the ICP Central Committee. In 1940 he was arrested once more, and belonged (with Pham Hung and Nguyen Duy Trinh) to the group of party leaders who spent the war years 1941-45 at the French prison island Poulo Condore. He was released in 1945 and during the First Indochina War he served as secretary of the Nam Bo (southern region) Party Committee (from 1951 the Central Office for South Vietnam; COSVN), with Le Duc Tho as his

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closest collaborator. After the Geneva agreement in 1954, which established the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel, he is known to have sent a letter to the party leaders, objecting to the concessions made. In 1957, after Truong Chinh had stepped down as secretary general of the VWP and president Ho Chi Minh himself had taken over the party leadership, Le Duan was called to Hanoi where he became acting secretary general. He was the prime mover, in the years 1957-59, for resuming armed struggle in South Vietnam, and gaining Soviet and Chinese support for that policy. The decision of the 15th Central Committee Plenum in January 1959 to move to active struggle in the South was a clear victory for Le Duan, and at the VWP's 3rd Congress in 1960 he was elected secretary general. It took more than 15 years before the next (4th) Party Congress was held in 1976, and Le Duan died in office, half a year before the 6th Congress in 1986.9

Le Duan was clearly the second most powerful Vietnamese communist leader in the 20th century, after Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from its foundation in 1945 to his death in 1969.

Le Duan must be characterized as an indigenous communist leader. He had not, like Ho Chi Minh, traveled around the world during his youth. He had not, like Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap and Hoang Van Hoan, worked closely with Ho Chi Minh in building the Viet Minh front and the National Liberation Army in the border region to China during the Second World War. He also did not belong to the group around Truong Chinh, who constituted the ICP's northern secretariat during the years from 1940 to the August Revolution of 1945. Ho Chi Minh's decision to leave the party leadership Le Duan in the years 1957-1960, and to endorse his formal election in 1960, must be interpreted as a way to ensure national unity. At a time when Vietnam was divided in two, and many southern cadres had been regrouped to the north, the safest way to ensure that the VWP remain a party for all of Vietnam was probably to make the leader of the southern branch the leader of the whole party. Presumably this was the motive behind Ho Chi Minh's choice. The relationship between Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan was never characterized by the same kind of warmth as that between the Uncle and other of his party nephews.10

Le Duan's text from 1979 shows that he combined an extremely strong national pride with an idea that the Vietnamese, as a particularly struggle-prone people, were playing a vanguard role in the world revolutionary struggle. The text does not reveal much admiration or respect for other nations than the Vietnamese, but it is deeply committed to the idea of national independence struggles, for all peoples, small and great. His pride comes out already in the first paragraph, where he says that after "we" had defeated the Americans, there was no imperialist power that would dare to fight "us" again. Only some Chinese reactionary figures "thought they could." The terms "we" and "us" here denote the big national we.

Le Duan's pride was of a moral nature, and the basic

dichotomy in his moral universe was that between fear and courage. He seems to have despised those who did not “dare” to fight. If it had not been for the Vietnamese, he claimed, there would not have been anyone to fight the Americans, because at the time the Vietnamese were fighting the US, the rest of the world were "afraid" of the Americans. The same kind of moral pride comes out in Le Duan's account of a meeting he had with Zhou Enlai in Hanoi, just after the latter had received Kissinger in Beijing. Le Duan says he told Zhou that with the new SinoAmerican understanding, Nixon would attack "me" even harder, but "I am not at all afraid." Later in the text, he comes back to the claim that "It was only Vietnam that was not afraid of the US." He also identifies the fearful. The first person to fear the Americans was Mao, he claims. The famous statement about the "paper tiger" is not present in this text. Mao is the one who always feared the Americans, discouraged the Vietnamese from fighting, and refused to offer support if this could entail a risk of US retaliation against China. When China had intervened in Korea, it was not a sign of courage; this was just something China had to do to defend its power interests.

Le Duan's admiration for courage reaches its crescendo in the following statement: "We are not afraid of anyone. We are not afraid because we are in the right. We don't even fear our elder brother. We also do not fear our. friends. Even our enemies we do not fear. We have fought them already. We are human beings. We are not afraid of anyone. We are independent. All the world knows we are independent."

On the basis of his moral distinction between courage and fear, Le Duan claims there was also a basic difference between Mao's military strategy and the strategy followed by the Vietnamese. The former was defensive, the latter offensive. The Vietnamese had not learned anything from the Chinese in terms of military strategy. The Chinese had always been very weak. They did little to fight the Japanese. After Le Duan's first visit to China (which he claims occurred in 1952), Ho Chi Minh asked him what he had seen. Two things, he replied: "Vietnam is very brave, and they are not brave at all." From that day on, Le Duan had sensed the basic difference between the Chinese and the Vietnamese: "We were entirely different from them. Within the Vietnamese person there is a very courageous spirit, and thus we have never had defensive tactics. Every person fights."

There is little in the text to indicate that Le Duan felt more respect or sympathy for the Soviet Union than for China, although the Russians caused less worry. He complained about the Sino-Soviet split, but his reason for doing so was that it strengthened US leverage in Vietnam. He complained that he had to explain so many things in China, going there "twice a year." Then he added that he had no such problem with the Soviets, since he just refrained from keeping them informed: "As for the Soviets, I did not say anything at all [...] I only spoke in general terms.""

Another important aspect of Le Duan's thinking is his

ideologically motivated distinction between, on the one side, "the Chinese people," and on the other reactionary Chinese figures. As has been seen he did not have much admiration for the Chinese in general, but he did not want to blame the whole Chinese people for the aggressive policies of their leaders: "We refer to them as a clique only. We do not refer to their nation. We did not say the Chinese people are bad towards us. We say that it is the reactionary Beijing clique.”

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Le Duan also distinguishes between individuals on the Chinese side, and here the criterion for judging people is their degree of understanding Vietnam. The one who understood the least was Chairman Mao, whom Le Duan seems to have thoroughly disliked: “...... the most uncompromising person, the one with the Greater Han heart and the one who wanted to take Southeast Asia, was mainly Mao." He felt more sympathy both for Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. Le Duan claims that Zhou Enlai had agreed, in the 1960s, on the need for a united front of socialist countries to back the struggle in Vietnam, but that Mao had said it was not possible. Zhou had helped Le Duan to understand what was going on in China, and had arranged for much assistance to be given to Vietnam: “I am indebted to him." Hua Guofeng had not understood Vietnam, but then again Deng Xiaoping had shown more understanding. This is somewhat surprising since we know from 77 Conversations that Deng was the one who most bluntly addressed the problems in the Sino-Vietnamese relationship in partyto-party conversations. Le Duan probably preferred Deng's straight, hard talk to Hua's evasiveness and Mao's eccentric allegories, Le Duan's admiration for Deng is confirmed by another source. In October 1977, he had told the Soviet ambassador in Hanoi that Hua Guofeng was one of those Chinese leaders who "does not understand us," but that Deng Xiaoping "treats Vietnam with great understanding." At that time Le Duan had predicted that Deng Xiaoping would win the Chinese power struggle and that this would lead Sino-Vietnamese relations to improve.12

That Le Duan retained some of his positive attitude to Deng in 1979 is surprising in view of the fact that it was Deng who had ordered the invasion of northern Vietnam. Le Duan claims that Deng had sincerely congratulated the Vietnamese in 1975, when Vietnam won its struggle for national unification, while some other Chinese leaders had been grudging. And in 1977, Deng had agreed with Le Duan about the need to start negotiations concerning border issues. Le Duan thought Deng was under pressure from other, less understanding Chinese leaders, and that he had to show resolve in relation to Vietnam to avoid accusations of revisionism: "...now he is rash and foolish. Because he wants to show that he is not a revisionist, he has struck Vietnam even harder. He went ahead and let them attack Vietnam" [emphasis added—ST]. 13

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The final aspect of Le Duan's attitude to be addressed here is his staunch internationalism. This may seem strange in view of his almost parochially nationalist attitude, but he understood Vietnam as the vanguard in a world-wide

struggle for national liberation. This is not like the olden days, he says, when Vietnam stood alone against China. Now the whole world is closely knit together: "... this is a time where everyone wants independence and freedom. [Even] on small islands, people want independence and freedom. All of humankind is presently like this. ... To harm Vietnam was [is] to harm humanity, an injury to independence and freedom... Vietnam is a nation that symbolizes independence and freedom."

1979

The next use that can be made of the document is for throwing light on the situation in the year when it was written. 1979 marks the main turning point in the history of the international communist movement. By 1977-78 it was at the apex of its power, with some thirty Marxist governments world-wide. In 1979-80, international socialism entered a period of crisis that would reduce, in a matter of twelve years, the number of Marxist governments to only five (China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam and Cuba). The "disastrous" events of 1978-80 did not only include the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, the Chinese punitive expedition into Vietnam, and the commitment of the Soviet Navy to the South China Sea, but also the election of the cardinal-archbishop of Krakow to the papacy and the founding of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the dismantling of collectivist agriculture and introduction of market forces in China, the creation of a de facto US-Chinese alliance in East Asia, the establishment of an anti-communist Islamist regime in Iran, the crisis in Afghanistan leading to the Soviet invasion of December 1979, and the destabilization of several newly established Marxist regimes in Africa through anti-communist insurgencies. This meant notably that the guerrilla weapon was turned around to become "low intensity warfare," directed against socialist regimes. "Inverse Vietnams" were created in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia and elsewhere; Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet regime took on so many international commitments that it went into a period of classic economic over-stretch.

As of 1979, of course, neither Le Duan nor any other communist leader could see the approaching disaster. They were accustomed to success, and still deeply imbued with the fundamental Marxist belief that socialism represented a more advanced stage in human development than capitalism. The White Book published by the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry in October 1979 claimed that "today the revolutionary forces have grown, and are in a most favorable position."4 The victory of the Vietnamese Revolution was still fresh in their minds, and had been followed by the establishment of socialist regimes in the former Portuguese colonies in Africa and, most recently, in Central America. US imperialism, claimed the white book, was sinking deeper and deeper into an irremediable and general crisis and could not even maintain its position in its apparently secure strongholds in Asia, Africa and Latin America.' The Soviet and Vietnamese communist leaders no doubt interpreted the

trouble in Cambodia and Afghanistan, the introduction of market forces in China, and China's alignment with the US, as temporary setbacks from the general course of global evolution, which was bound to further strengthen the socialist forces. It was not till the mid-eighties that socialist leaders began to realize that the trend had turned against socialism.

What does Le Duan's text reveal about the Vietnamese leadership's assessment of the general situation in 1979, and its expectations for the future? It shows that the Hanoi leaders were preparing for a larger war with China, and that Le Duan felt confident that Vietnam could survive such a war since the greater part of the Chinese army would be compelled to remain posted along the Soviet border. Le Duan prepared his comrades for a new drawn-out national resistance struggle, and saw Vietnam as playing a crucial role in defending all of Southeast Asia against Chinese expansionism. He intended to utilize the traditional strongholds of the Indochinese Communist Party in the north central provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Thanh Hoa (where a disproportionate number of Vietnamese communist leaders had come from) as rearguard bases for the struggle against the northern enemy: "In the near future we will fight China. We are determined to win," Le Duan exclaimed, and this (most probably) was after the end of the Chinese punitive expedition. To bolster the determination of himself and his comrades, Le Duan resorted to his pride in his struggle-prone nation: "... the truth is that if a different country were to fight them, it is not clear that they would win like this.... we have never shirked from our historical responsibilities. ... By guarding its own independence, Vietnam is also guarding the independence of Southeast Asian nations. Vietnam is resolved not to allow the Chinese to become an expansionist nation. The recent battle was one round only. ... if they bring one or two million troops in to fight us, we will not be afraid of anything. We have just engaged 600,000 troops, and, if, in the near future, we have to fight two million, it will not be a problem at all. We are not afraid. We will make each district a fortress, every province a battlefield. We have enough people. We can fight them in many ways. We are capable of taking two to three army corps to fight them fiercely in order to surprise them; thereby making them waver, while we still defend our land. If this is so desired, then every soldier must [give rise to or produce a] soldier and every squad a squad."

It seems that Deng Xiaoping made a clever calculation in March 1979, when he decided to withdraw the Chinese troops, so the fight against Vietnam could be left to the Khmer Rouge, and China could concentrate on economic achievements.

The record of Le Duan's relations with China

The third, more difficult, utilization we can make of Le Duan's document is as a source to the author's relations with China and the Chinese leaders in the whole period from 1952 to 1979. In the absence of more reliable archival

sources, it is tempting to make an attempt, but one should have no illusions as to the accuracy of what Le Duan has to say.

Le Duan tells that he first visited China to gain better health in 1952. In his account he was struck by the fact that the region he visited (which would probably have been Guangxi or Guangdong) had not waged any guerrilla struggle against Japan during the Japanese occupation despite of its huge population. This fact is used in the text to draw the basic distinction between Vietnamese courage and Chinese pusillanimity. Le Duan claims that Ho Chi Minh confirmed the impression. This story probably has more to tell about Le Duan's attitude as of 1979 than about what his real impressions were at the time. We don't even know from other sources that he went to China at all in 1952.

What he tells about his reaction to the Geneva agreement in 1954 is more reliable. At that time he led the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN) in southern Vietnam, and there is little reason to doubt his disappointment at having to ask his comrades to refrain from any further struggle and resort to only political struggle or regroup north of the 17th parallel. In his 1979 text, he claims to have had an emotional outburst in front of Zhou Enlai (probably on 13 July 1971) when the latter came to Hanoi to explain the Sino-American honeymoon. Le Duan had then spoken about his feelings in 1954, when he had been in Hau Nghia (north-west of Saigon, where the famous Cu Chi tunnel system would later be dug out). And he says Zhou apologized, admitting his mistake.16

What is less certain, however, is if he blamed China already in 1954. At that time, China, the Soviet Union and the North Vietnamese leadership stood firmly behind the agreement, and Le Duan may well have blamed his own national leaders more than Beijing and Moscow. It probably took some time before Le Duan discovered the crucial role played by Zhou Enlai in persuading the DRV leaders to accept the 17th parallel as the dividing line between north and south Vietnam. The one most likely to have told him would be Pham Van Dong, who led the Vietnamese delegation in Geneva.17

The formative period for Le Duan's negative attitude to China may well have been the late 1950s, when he led the effort to gain Soviet and Chinese support for the renewal of armed struggle in South Vietnam. At that time, Mao was launching his Great Leap Forward, which plunged the country into a crisis that was not conducive to fulfilling international obligations. Le Duan no doubt saw this.

In his 1979 text he returns several times to how Zhou Enlai and Mao tried to prevent the Vietnamese from resuming the armed struggle in South Vietnam. However, Le Duan does not mention the fact that the Soviet Union also believed in the Geneva agreement and discouraged the Vietnamese from doing anything that could make it easier for France and the South Vietnamese regime to disregard their obligations.18

Le Duan's text is not devoid of contradictions. First he quotes Zhou as having said that whether or not the

Vietnamese continued to fight was up to their own discretion. Then he accuses him of having "pressured us to stop fighting." The first claim accords well with Chen Jian's conclusion about China's Policy: "the Beijing leadership neither hindered nor encouraged Hanoi's efforts to "liberate" the South by military means until 1962."19 The second assertion seems more dubious. Le Duan also claims that he defied Chinese advice and went ahead with building armed forces in South Vietnam: “...we were not of the same mind. We went ahead and clandestinely developed our forces." It was only when "we had already begun fighting that they then allowed us to fight." What Le Duan conveniently refrains from mentioning, is the difference between the views of the south-based cadre and some of the North Vietnamese leaders.

When coming to 1963-64, Le Duan turns the tables. The Chinese are no longer being accused of trying to temper the Vietnamese urge to fight, but instead of imposing themselves, building roads to facilitate the expansion of Chinese power into Southeast Asia, and sending troops to pave the way for controlling Vietnam. The main culprit is Mao.

We know of three occasions when Le Duan met Mao. The first was in 1963 in Wuhan, where Mao (according to the Vietnamese White Book) received a delegation from the VWP. During that meeting Le Duan claims to have understood Mao's real intentions and to have warned him that Vietnam could well beat Chinese forces. Mao allegedly asked him: "Comrade, isn't it true that your people have fought and defeated the Yuan army?" Le Duan said: "Correct." "Isn't it also true, comrade, that you defeated the Qing army?" Le Duan replied: "Correct." Mao said: "And the Ming army as well?" It is then that Le Duan claims to have added boldly: "Yes, and you too. I have beaten you as well [or “and I'll beat yours as well"]. Did you know that? ... I spoke with Mao Zedong in that way," Le Duan asserts, and Mao just said: "Yes, yes!"

This is a tricky conversation to interpret. On the one hand it seems plausible that Mao asked the questions mentioned. Mao liked to tease people in such a way. But it seems highly unlikely that Le Duan would have challenged Mao so openly. From the 77 Conversations it appears that Le Duan rather behaved like an obsequious servant in front of his master during his next two meetings with Mao (on 13 August 1964 and 11 May 1970).20 In 1964 he said that "support from China is indispensable," and that "the Soviet revisionists want to make us a bargaining chip." In 1970 he asked for Mao's instructions, and ascribed Vietnam's successes to the fact that "we have followed the three instructions Chairman Mao gave us in the past," the first of which was "no fear, we should not fear the enemy.' .”21 The Le Duan that appears in some of the 77 Conversations seems quite another person than the one who turns up in the 1979 account-but then the memory of one's own actions normally differs from others' perceptions at the time.

There is a big discrepancy between what Le Duan (and