Lessons on “people's hearts and minds” in the Dien Bien Phu Victory

05/07/2024 13:28

Exactly 70 years ago, under the leadership of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh , our army and people successfully carried out the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, destroying the strongest stronghold of the French expeditionary army, and crushing the highest war effort of the French Government.

The Dien Bien Phu victory is not only an epic of the Vietnamese people's war in the Ho Chi Minh era, "recorded in national history as a Bach Dang, a Chi Lang, or a Dong Da in the 20th century, and entered world history as a brilliant feat, breaking through the stronghold of the colonial slavery system of imperialism" (I), but also marked the high development of Vietnamese military art and left many valuable lessons, including the lesson of building a "people's heart position".

The concept of “people’s hearts” can be understood as the organization, arrangement, construction, and creation of conditions in the general situation of the country to gather the spiritual strength of all classes of people according to the unified political goal, successfully implementing the requirements of the task of saving and defending the country, which is essentially the spiritual factor of the people gathered and promoted to create the strength to defeat the enemy. The issue of people’s hearts, “people’s hearts” is always an issue of primary importance in the cause of defending the country, fighting against foreign invaders, and in the strategy of building national defense strength to protect the Fatherland.

In the mid-twentieth century, the Dien Bien Phu stronghold was a strong military material institution of a world-class imperial army with a tradition of several hundred years of army. Such a military material force could only be defeated by a stronger material force. No matter how great the spiritual force, the "people's heart position", by itself and by itself alone could not solve all problems. The cruel law of war is "the strong win, the weak lose", to win, it is necessary to create strength, superiority over the enemy, especially when we had to deal with the French army which had absolute superiority over us in tanks and air force in the confrontation between the two main forces on the Dien Bien Phu battlefield...

But, it is true that the spiritual strength of Vietnam, the “people’s heart position” whose core is the spirit of patriotism, national consciousness, indomitable will, determination to fight, determination to win of the people is aroused, gathered, promoted in the common position according to the political goal of the Party, of leader Ho Chi Minh… that is the strength first and foremost the source, at the same time is also the extremely strong catalyst for all the strength to defeat the invaders of our nation in the 1953-1954 Winter-Spring Campaign in general, the Dien Bien Phu Strategic Battle Campaign in particular to reach its peak. Without that spiritual strength, without that “people’s heart position”, it would be very difficult to have the Dien Bien Phu Victory.

On May 7, 1954, the entire enemy stronghold in Dien Bien Phu was destroyed. The "Determined to Fight, Determined to Win" flag of the Vietnam People's Army flew over the roof of General De Castries' bunker, ending the heroic resistance war against the French, full of sacrifice and hardship that lasted for 9 years. Photo: Archive

In which, the spiritual strength, the "people's heart position" of our army and people that made the Dien Bien Phu Victory is the strength of modern Vietnamese patriotism, a patriotism that, while inheriting the patriotic tradition from thousands of years ago, has known how to innovate, develop and absorb new winds of the times in the 20th century, full of excitement of national liberation movements associated with social liberation and human liberation. It is also Ho Chi Minh's patriotism, which is in the climax of the August Revolution and the resistance war against France, when most of the resistance fighters had just been liberated from oppression, exploitation and suffering from high taxes and heavy levies; from the suffocating atmosphere of abject poverty, with the focus being the terrible famine in 1945 in Vietnam...

Then, the August Revolution of 1945 in our country broke out and succeeded, fundamentally changing the face of Vietnam. Our people gained independence and freedom and were extremely excited and happy with the newly gained achievements. Therefore, in order to protect the new regime, to protect the achievements of the newly gained independence and freedom, the people voluntarily accepted all sacrifices and hardships to achieve the final victory in the resistance war against the French and made the Vietnamese patriotism, the "people's heart" of our nation reach its peak, it had the power to drown and sweep away all the forces that invaded and sold the country at that time.

In particular, the Dien Bien Phu Strategic Campaign in 1954 was a large, long-term campaign in mountainous areas far from our free zone (from Viet Bac to Dien Bien Phu about 200km, from Thanh - Nghe - Tinh to Dien Bien Phu about 500-700km). The biggest difficulty of the Vietnamese Army and people in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign was ensuring logistics (rice alone needed about 80 tons/day).

To achieve victory, our army and people overcame many difficulties caused by floods and storms, proactively deployed long-distance transportation and supply routes to ensure timely supply of ammunition, food, medicine and new forces for the long-term campaign with unprecedented consumption and attrition. According to data from the Central Supply Council of the Front, during the entire 1953-1954 Winter-Spring Campaign, we mobilized nearly 40,000 tons of rice, thousands of tons of food, more than 500,000 laborers, 23,000 bicycles, more than 4,000 boats and other transportation forces.

Particularly for the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, implementing the policy of "The entire people, the entire Party and the Government must definitely use all their strength to support the Dien Bien Phu Campaign and must definitely do everything necessary to achieve victory for this campaign" (II), a mass material mobilization to support the frontline took place most vigorously and extensively in the resistance war against French colonialism.

With the spirit of “All for the front, all for victory” of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, from the beginning of December 1953, preparations for the Dien Bien Phu Campaign were carried out very urgently; from the Viet Bac free zone, Inter-zone 3, Inter-zone 4, the newly liberated Northwest region, to the guerrilla zones and guerrilla bases in the Northern Delta, all human and material resources were concentrated on Dien Bien, the entire powerful rear area was focused on the front.

People in the liberated and temporarily occupied zones enthusiastically and voluntarily contributed agricultural taxes, sold food, and contributed money to provide for the troops at the front; many families also brought rice seeds to provide for the troops; along with that, hundreds of thousands of laborers and youth volunteers were mobilized to serve the campaign. In particular, when the enemy destroyed the roads, youth volunteers, soldiers, and laborers on the frontline built roads and opened new roads; our army and people took advantage of both roads and waterways and used all means of transportation from primitive to modern to increase the capacity and volume of transportation and supplies...

Although the French used all their air power to destroy the transport route, with their brave and selfless spirit, the porters and the engineering and transport soldiers neutralized all the enemy's tricks. Under the constant threat of enemy aircraft, transport cars still crossed Pha Din Pass, rafts carrying from 200 to 300 kg of rice, supervised by porters, followed the Nam Na River over more than 100 rapids; bicycle groups, each carrying hundreds of tons of rice (the highest up to 352 kg), crossed hundreds of kilometers of steep mountain passes day and night to deliver goods to the front line...

According to statistics from the General Department of Logistics, the amount of food mobilized at the base was 20,056 tons of food, 907 tons of meat, thousands of tons of food. Only the amount transferred to the front was 23,056 tons of rice, 266 tons of salt, 1,909 tons of food. Particularly, "the people of the Northwest provided the front with 47% of the rice demand, 43% of the meat demand, 100% of fresh vegetables, 100% of boats and horses used, and provided 14% of the working days mainly from the midland to the front" (III) ...

Obviously, under the talented leadership of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, we have built and promoted the "people's hearts and minds position", mobilized all spirit and strength, lives and assets, the whole country united, the whole people fought the enemy, with the spirit of the whole people's resistance, comprehensive resistance... The combination of mobilizing on-site logistics capabilities and bringing them from the strategic rear contributed to quickly providing logistical needs for the campaign... This was "what" surprised the French army and was one of the important reasons why Navarre and his Command made mistakes about the enemy and accepted the disastrous outcome.

It can be said that: The Dien Bien Phu victory was the victory of all Vietnamese strength, both material and spiritual forces developed to the peak in the resistance war against France and directly expressed in the Vietnamese military strength to be able to defeat the French military strength. In which, the spiritual strength, the "people's heart position" that made the Dien Bien Phu victory was the strength of the Vietnamese people's hearts, the patriotism that made the August General Uprising and continued to be the driving force for the resistance war against France and Dien Bien Phu.

That shows why the Dien Bien Phu Campaign was so large-scale, took place over a long period of time, in a mountainous area far from the rear, with transportation and supplies being very difficult, the weather unfavorable, and the lives of Vietnamese soldiers very difficult and lacking. Especially having to fight against opponents with strong equipment, having to fight in fierce conditions, constantly tense... yet, the Vietnamese army and people still believed in victory, believed in the wise leadership of the "Uncle Ho" Government; at the same time, it also partly explained why the French failed, why the French were terrified. Something that in this war, from the French Government to their highest-ranking generals still could not explain.

Thus, the content of the “people’s heart position” in the Dien Bien Phu Victory deeply reflects the viewpoints of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought on the armed forces of the whole people, on the role of the masses in history; is the inheritance, development and elevation to a new height of the tradition of military art, the thought of “hundreds of families are soldiers, the whole people fight the enemy”, building the “wall of people’s hearts” of the nation in the new revolutionary period; at the same time, demonstrating the nature and solidity of the position, the strength of national defense and security, and protecting the Fatherland. Therefore, the thought of “Unity, unity, great unity” of President Ho Chi Minh is not only the red thread guiding the building of the “people’s heart position” of the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, but also throughout the 30 years of resistance against the French colonialists and the invading American imperialists.

Today, the cause of national construction and defense is facing many intertwined opportunities and challenges. The cause of national defense in the context of economic globalization has many new contents, not only maintaining independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity, but also protecting the Party, State, people and socialist regime; protecting political security, economic security, ideological-cultural security and social security; maintaining political stability of the country, preventing, repelling and defeating all plots and sabotage activities of hostile forces, firmly protecting all achievements of the revolution...

Therefore, the "people's hearts" position is still a solid foundation, a source of political and spiritual strength for the national defense; a part of the overall position of the whole country, connecting all territories and fields of activity of all classes of people towards the goal of protecting the Socialist Fatherland.

As a result, the lessons learned from the Dien Bien Phu Victory (including the lesson of “the people’s heart and mind battle”) have been deeply engraved in the Vietnamese military cultural tradition, cultivated, inherited and developed by generations of Vietnamese people to suit each specific historical period of the country and the Vietnamese people. To this day, this issue has been raised to a new level by the Vietnamese army and people and will continue to be further improved in the future.

According to QĐND

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