In addition to sabotaging the 13^th National Party Congress, hostile forces have recently enhanced their strategy to distort our country’s resistance wars against the French colonialists and the U.S. imperialists so as to make our cadres, party members, and people misunderstand national history and lose their faith in our Party and socialist regime.

Vietnam’s history of national construction and protection has been recorded by a large number of landslide feats and arms and significant achievements. Since the inception of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the country’s history has continued to be bolstered by great victories of the August Revolution in 1945 and the two resistance wars against the French colonialists and the U.S. imperialists as the most remarkable, epoch-making milestones of international significance.

Those victories have been acknowledged by history. However, with their wicked strategy and hatred, hostile forces, revisionists, and political opportunists have deliberately distorted and denied historical truth, while exaggerating mistakes and weaknesses with a view to causing doubts amongst a section of people, especially the young ones with limited knowledge of national history, undermining their faith in the Party, separating the Party from the people, and gradually removing the Party’s leadership role and socialist regime in Vietnam. Recently, a number of social networks, such as “Weekly TV,” “Voice of the People,” and “KTV” have broadcast special programmes to distort our country’s historical events, undermine the Party’s leadership role, and directly sabotage the preparation and organisation of the 13^th National Party Congress. In fact, they have turned over old information and events but employed a “new approach” to attract audience, with a focus on distorting the Land Reform, the Geneva Accords of 1954, and the resistance war against the U.S. imperialists for national salvation.

The Land Reform in North Vietnam took place between 1953 and 1956, with the aim of dispossessing feudal landlords and the bourgeoisie of land and distributing land to peasants. It was a necessary and unavoidable policy of the national democratic revolution in Vietnam as 90% of Vietnamese citizens were peasants at that time. Doing so would also help re-establish social equality and provide a foundation for building the socialist regime as a new political system. In its beginning, the Land Reform had achieved good results and given a strong mental incentive to our resistance war, thereby making contributions to the victory of Dien Bien Phu. The Land Reform had been carried out in 3,314 communes with over 8 million citizens. More than 700,000 hectares of land had been confiscated and redistributed to peasants, leading to the tremendous growth in agricultural production. However, in the process, due to impatience, the Land Reform in some places had been out of control or direction by our Party and Government, causing damage to our revolution and seriously threatening the great national unity block. Realising its mistakes, our Party bravely faced the truth, publicly admitted weaknesses, adopted drastic remedial measures, and always considered them as valuable lessons for the Party building. In his letter, which was posted on the Nhandan Newspaper on August 18^th, 1956, to the people in rural areas and cadres after the Land Reform in the North had been basically accomplished, President Ho Chi Minh wrote that “the Party Central Committee and the Government seriously took such mistakes and shortcomings into account and resolutely developed remedial measures to achieve a sense of unity amongst the people and cadres, stabilise rural areas, and foster production.” In fact, the people still kept their faith in the Party. Under the Party’s leadership, the great national unity block was consolidated as the basis for numerous victories of the Vietnamese revolution. Nevertheless, the hostile forces have always believed that the Land Reform in the North was just a “bloody purge” and that such mistakes derived from our Party’s following of Marxism-Leninism and the proletarian dictatorship.

The Geneva Conference on Indochina (1954) was commenced when our country’s resistance war against the French colonialists was in the final stage. At that time, our military and people’s strength was continuously developed while the French army was in passivity and kept suffering defeats. During negotiations at the Geneva Conference, our Party remained steadfast in the goal of peace, independence, democracy, unification, and territorial integrity. France shall acknowledge the national sovereignty of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. According to the Geneva Accords, peace was restored and the French military presence in Indochina was ended. Although our country was divided into two regions by the 17^th parallel, parties at the Conference emphasised that in any circumstance, it would be impossible to regard the 17^th parallel as a political boundary or territory. The two regions must be unified before July 1956 by a “free and democratic” general election. However, the U.S. and the puppet Government led by Ngo Dinh Diem knew that a majority of Vietnamese people would support the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; therefore, they sought every way to damage the Geneva Accords, “denounce and destroy communists,” and suppress religions. Besides, the U.S. more clearly exposed its plot to invade our country, while providing support for the government of the Republic of Vietnam and directly deploying military forces to Vietnam. Hence, we had no other choice than to conduct a resistance war against the U.S. imperialists to fulfil the Vietnamese people’s burning desire for peace, independence, unification and territorial integrity, under the motto: “the country of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are one.” Nevertheless, several reactionary social networks have used the Geneva Accords to claim that bringing Marxism-Leninism to Vietnam was the underlying reason for the war in Vietnam and that the resistance war against the U.S. was a “war of ideologies” or a “proxy war.” They have also devoted effort to misrepresenting the resistance war against the U.S., for national salvation led by the Communist Party of Vietnam as a mistake or a war without any winning or losing side. They have questioned whether it had been necessary to conduct a war for gaining national independence.

Such arguments are totally distortions aimed at undermining the people’s faith in our Party and socialist regime. It is a pity that a section of people have advocated those arguments and devious conspiracies by the hostile forces due to their limited knowledge of history or their personal purpose. Reality has proved the justice of our country’s resistance war against the U.S. imperialists, for national salvation. In that war, our Party promoted the strength of the great national unity block and gained support from friends and people around the world. Our military and people defeated the U.S. imperialists, gained national independence, reunified the country, built a socialist society, and obtained many other important achievements. It is worth noting that since our Party pursued the policy on national renewal and international integration, our country has acquired tremendous, comprehensive historic achievements in socio-economic, cultural development and defence-security consolidation. That is the most convincing answer to the hostile forces’ distortions of national history, our Party and Marxism-Leninism.

In order to foil the plot to distort national history by the hostile forces and political opportunists, first of all, it is necessary to further educate the people from all walks of life, particularly the youth on the history of national construction and protection. Doing so will help raise the national pride and the people’s responsibility for bringing into play the country’s glorious tradition and writing new pages in national history. Besides, enhancing the work of propagation and education will enable each person correctly to identify the hostile forces’ distortions of national history to avoid being enticed or trapped. Each cadre and party member must regularly improve their knowledge and political zeal, remain revolutionary vigilance, proactively combat distortions of national history, and become a soldier in the fight against “peaceful evolution,” “self-evolution,” and “self-transformation” pointed out by the 12^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution No.4. Last but not least, it is essential to resolutely, stringently handle distortions of national history by individuals and organisations to make contributions to maintaining political stability and defending the Socialist Vietnamese Homeland.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN MANH DUNG, MA

Sr. Col. NGUYEN DUC THANH, MA