Le Duan was a North Vietnamese leader, effectively second in command after Ho Chi Minh. He was also instrumental in developing strategies and tactics for destabilising and conquering South Vietnam. In 1956 Le Duan wrote an essay titled “The Path of Revolution in the South”:

“The present situation of division [in Vietnam] is created solely by the arbitrary U.S.-Diem regime, so the fundamental problem is how to smash the US-Diem scheme of division and war-provocation … If they want to oppose the US-Diem regime, there is no other path for the people of the South but the path of revolution…

The ardent aspiration of the Southern people is to maintain peace and achieve national unification. We must clearly recognise this longing for peace: the revolutionary movement in the South can mobilise and advance to success on the basis of grasping the flag of peace, in harmony with popular feelings. On the contrary, US-Diem is using fascist violence to provoke war, contrary to the will of the people and therefore must certainly be defeated.

Can the US-Diem regime, by using a clumsy policy of fascist violence, create a strong force to oppose and destroy the revolutionary movement? Definitely not, because the US-Diem regime has no political strength in the country worth mentioning to rely on. On the contrary, nearly all strata of the people oppose them.

Therefore the US-Diem government is not a strong government it is only a vile and brutal government. Its vile and brutal character means that it not only has no mass base in the country but is on the way to being isolated internationally. Its cruelty definitely cannot shake the revolutionary movement, and it cannot survive for long.

The proof is that in the past two years, everywhere in the countryside, the sound of the gunfire of US-Diem repression never ceased; not a day went by when they did not kill patriots, but the revolutionary spirit is still firm, and the revolutionary base of the people still has not been shaken. Once the entire people have become determined to protect the revolution, there is no cruel force that can shake it.

But why has the revolutionary movement not yet developed strongly? This is also due to certain objective and subjective factors. Objectively, we see that, after nine years of waging strong armed struggle, the people’s movement generally speaking now has a temporarily peaceful character that is a factor in the change of the movement for violent forms of struggle to peaceful forms. It has the correct character of rebuilding to advance later.

With the cruel repression and exploitation of the US-Diem, the people’s revolutionary movement definitely will rise up. The people of the South have known the blood and fire of nine years of resistance war, but the cruelty of the US-Diem cannot extinguish the struggle spirit of the people.

There are those who think that the US-Diem’s use of violence is now aimed fundamentally at killing the leaders of the revolutionary movement to destroy the Communist Party, and that if the Communist Party is worn away to the point that it doesn’t have the capacity to lead the revolution, the political struggle movement of the masses cannot develop. This judgment is incorrect. Those who lead the revolutionary movement are determined to mingle with the masses, to protect and serve the interest of the masses and to pursue correctly the mass line. Between the masses and communists there is no distinction any more.”