General Nguyen Chi Thanh - Outstanding strategic leader of the Vietnamese revolution

General Nguyen Chi Thanh - a steadfast, indomitable communist, infinitely loyal to the revolutionary ideal, a talented leader of our Party, a resourceful, intelligent, and brave commander of the Armed Forces, a famous general in the Ho Chi Minh era.

TALENTED LEADER, MILITARY MAN

General Nguyen Chi Thanh, real name Nguyen Vinh (Nguyen Chi Thanh was given by Uncle Ho to the young revolutionary Nguyen Vinh when he first met him in the Viet Bac resistance base in August 1945), the General was born on January 1, 1914 in a farming family in Niem Pho village, Quang Dien district, Thua Thien province (now Niem Pho village, Quang Tho commune, Quang Dien district, Thua Thien - Hue province.

Coming from a poor farming family, experiencing hard work, witnessing many sorrows of his homeland and country, the young man Nguyen Vinh nurtured the ambition to save the country. That was the motivation that urged him to soon participate in revolutionary activities, accept hardships, and sacrifice to save the people and the country.

When the resistance war against French colonialism entered its fiercest phase, in 1950, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh was assigned as Chief of the General Political Department of the Vietnam People's Army and Deputy Secretary of the General Military Commission. At the 2nd National Party Congress in 1951, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh was elected to the Party Central Committee and appointed to the Politburo. In 1959, he was promoted to the rank of General.

General Nguyen Chi Thanh (standing in the middle) with comrades of the Southern Liberation Army at the Central Bureau base. Photo: DOCUMENT

At the end of 1964, General Nguyen Chi Thanh was transferred to the South, holding the position of Secretary of the Central Office for Southern Vietnam and Political Commissar of the Southern Liberation Army. This was one of the key moments of the Southern revolution. During the years 1964-1965, the determination to fight the US was the iron will and sharpness of the Politburo, the Central Executive Committee of the Party, President Ho Chi Minh, comrade Le Duan and the Army generals, including the great contribution of General Nguyen Chi Thanh when he was assigned directly to the South to lead and direct the battlefield.

As the highest leader and commander on the battlefield, General Nguyen Chi Thanh gradually found solutions to make the Southern army and people believe in and determined to fight and defeat the US. From the battlefield experience and through reports from officers and soldiers directly involved in the fight, General Nguyen Chi Thanh proposed the slogan: "Hold America's belt and fight". From here, this slogan became the main motto in the way of fighting, organizing campaigns and practicing tactics to defeat the US.

With 30 years of revolutionary activities, General Nguyen Chi Thanh has shown himself to be an excellent practical leader of the Party and the Vietnamese revolution. In political, military or agricultural work, wherever and whenever, General Nguyen Chi Thanh has shown an exemplary spirit of daring to think, daring to do, daring to take responsibility. That noble quality has great significance for the cadres in the current context in order to build a country that develops rapidly and sustainably and firmly protects the socialist Vietnamese Fatherland.

In the practice of commanding the battlefield, General Nguyen Chi Thanh always asked himself and his cadres and soldiers about the resistance of the people of the South: "For the US, besides fighting firmly, how can we achieve a surprise that the US cannot know about? How can we, in a situation where material and means are still difficult to deal with their strategic plots, create a leap forward in building forces that the enemy does not expect?"

Thanks to this creative and very practical ideology and guiding principle, the Vietnam People's Army, with primitive, outdated weapons and a smaller number of troops, won against the US army - a giant, wealthy and most powerful army in the world at that time. This ideology became the guiding principle of operations that General Nguyen Chi Thanh summarized from the tradition of anti-invasion of his ancestors in history, as well as from the reality of the battlefield.

In early 1965, General Nguyen Chi Thanh advised the army and people of the South to remember and follow 10 core points, the first of which was "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle". Although his time directly leading and directing the army and people's fight on the southern battlefield was not long, as a man of practice, General Nguyen Chi Thanh skillfully combined theory with practice. He was not only a steadfast, resourceful, and talented leader, but also made an important contribution to the development of military art theory of the Vietnamese people's war. According to the plan, on July 6, 1967, he would return to the southern battlefield, but on that day he passed away due to a serious illness.

"FARMER GENERAL".

After completing the 3-year plan for economic development and reform, cultural development (1958-1960), the 3rd National Congress of the Party (September 1960) decided to bring the North into the period of building socialism. The Party and the Government implemented the policy of bringing farmers into collective farming in the form of work exchange groups and cooperatives. According to President Ho Chi Minh: Moving towards collective farming cooperatives is an extremely big, extremely new, and extremely good change. Therefore, at first, it was inevitable that there would be confusion and difficulties.

During the 4 years that the Party and State assigned him to be directly responsible for agricultural and rural development, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh made important contributions, contributing to creating a new wind in agricultural production in the North. At the time of taking on the new task, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh clearly determined that he must always draw on knowledge from reality to deeply understand the field he is in charge of.

The image of the general rolling up his pants and wading through the fields to examine the farming, survey the difficulties, and learn about the good production areas is no longer strange to the farmers with muddy hands and feet. He gradually built up the trust and affection of the farmers in the North, with the nickname: "Farmer General".

From the agricultural practices of the localities, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh said: “Expanding the area by reclamation and increasing the number of crops for the North of our country is an important and urgent direction in the near future. However, we can only reclaim about 1 million hectares more and the reclamation must go hand in hand with forest protection, soil improvement and erosion prevention. The basic rice growing area is exhausted and cannot be expanded much further… Therefore, the issue of intensive farming and increasing productivity is very important”.

When assigned by the Party to direct agricultural production with the requirement of consolidating and developing the agricultural cooperative movement, comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh actively went to study the reality of the cooperative movement and agricultural production. He went to many places, investigated the reality, studied many models of activities in localities, especially learning about the reality of Dai Phong countryside and the activities of Dai Phong Cooperative, Phong Thuy commune, Le Thuy district, Quang Binh province.

Through practical research, he drew lessons from the Dai Phong Agricultural Cooperative. At the request of comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh, the Party Central Committee launched an emulation movement with the Dai Phong Cooperative. In the minds of millions of people in the North, the "Gio Dai Phong" movement is still deeply imprinted, an agricultural model that comrade Nguyen Chi Thanh had painstakingly summarized and directed in practice. His contributions in the agricultural sector have contributed to building the North into a solid rear for the southern front.

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