Page:Pentagon-Papers-Part IV. A. 5.djvu/192

Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011  (born Dang Xuan Khu, party name translating as "Long March"), Secretary General of the Lao Dong Party, who openly espoused the Maoist version of communism, and who relied upon Chinese advisers. Truong Chinh saw land reform as a method of organizing the peasantry under the Lao Dong Party, less important for its economic or social ramifications than for its political and military significance. Truong had warned in 1947 that:

""If we neglect the organization of the people, we cannot mobilize the entire people and the army, and cannot enable them to take part in the resistance in every field. In 1918 Lenin wrote: 'To wage a real war, we must have a strong and well organized rear ....' These words constitute very precious counsel for us in this long-term resistance war." 21/"

As victory of the Resistance neared, Ho Chi Minh's internal reforms, as opposed to martial undertakings, In December 1953, for instance, he stated that:

""[The] two central tasks in the next years are to do our utmost to fight the enemy and to carry out land reform .... In 1954, we must pay particular attention to three great works:

"To combine land reform with strengthening of the armed forces ....

"To combine land reform with the training of cadres and the raising of their ideology ....

"To combine land reform with the development of agricultural production .... " 22/"

Moreover, Ho apparently countenanced harsh measures to carry out both "central tasks." He is reported to have stated his basic strategy to Party cadres in these terms:

""To straighten a curved piece of bamboo, one must bend it in the opposite direction, holding it in that position for awhile. Then, when the hand is removed it will slowly straighten itself." 23/"

When the Geneva Conference opened the way to Viet Minh dominion over North Vietnam, and held out the prospect to Tonkinese peasants of migrating to South Vietnam, hundreds of thousands were sufficiently apprehensive over religious persecution, or over "land reform" and other communizing campaigns to the North. There is considerable evidence that many of these fears were well-founded. On the heels of the withdrawing French Expeditionary Forces, Truong Chinh's teams of Chinese advisers toured from village to village to survey for land reforms, and these were followed by an infusion of Lao Dong Party cadres to village level. 24/ People's Courts were activated and the Campaign became the vehicle not only for land redistribution, but for Communist Party penetration into rural society, and a wholesale transformation of Rh