Guerrilla History - The Battle of Dien Bien Phu w/ Comrade Luna

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we talk to a very special guest, one whom many of you are probably familiar with-Comrade Luna of the YouTube channel LunaOi!  We discuss the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and its impacts both within Vietnam as well as in liberation struggles globally.  Definitely something we've all been wanting to discuss! Comrade Luna is a Vietnamese communist living in Hanoi.  She runs the YouTube channel LunaOi (https://t.co/ibUYXNtQlg?amp=1), which covers Vietnamese foods, culture, and travel, as well as communist theory and political discussion.  Well worth checking out!  You can also follow Luna on twitter @LunaOi_VN, and support her on patreon by going to https://www.patreon.com/lunaoi.     Guerrilla History is the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history, and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.  If you have any questions or guest/topic suggestions, email them to us at [e-mail]. Your hosts are immunobiologist Henry Hakamaki, Professor Adnan Husain, historian and Director of the School of Religion at Queens University, and Revolutionary Left Radio's Breht O'Shea.   Follow us on social media!  Our podcast can be found on twitter @guerrilla_pod, and can be supported on patreon at https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory.  Your contributions will make the show possible to continue and succeed! To follow the hosts, Henry can be found on twitter @huck1995, and also has a patreon to help support himself through the pandemic where he breaks down science and public health research and news at https://www.patreon.com/huck1995.  Adnan can be followed on twitter @adnanahusain, and also runs The Majlis Podcast, which can be found at https://anchor.fm/the-majlis, and the Muslim Societies-Global Perspectives group at Queens University, https://www.facebook.com/MSGPQU/.   Breht is the host of Revolutionary Left Radio, which can be followed on twitter @RevLeftRadio and cohost of The Red Menace Podcast, which can be followed on twitter @Red_Menace_Pod.  Follow and support these shows on patreon, and find them at https://www.revolutionaryleftradio.com/.     Thanks to Ryan Hakamaki, who designed and created the podcast's artwork, and Kevin MacLeod, who creates royalty-free music.

You don't remember Dinn-Vin-Vin? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. The podcast that acts is a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.

I'm your host, Henry Huckamacki, joined as always by my co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm well. Great to be with you, Henry. It's always nice to see you. And I'm also joined, as always by Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-hosts. of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing today? Hey, what's up? Doing okay. Yeah, I'm doing well. We've got a very interesting recording time for everybody today because we are joined, we're going to be joined by Comrade Luna from Vietnam. So due to the time zones that we're recording across, you know, Vietnam, Russia, United States and Canada,

we had to get very creative with our time that we are recording at in order to make it work for everybody. So we've got very, very early morning here. You've got late night there, kind of mid-morning for Luna. So it'll be an interesting recording. But we're going to be talking about something that I've been wanting to do an episode on. I know that we've all wanted to do an episode on this for some time. And that is the Battle of Dienben Fu. Even in our introduction of our show, you know, listeners will have just heard it. We have Malcolm X saying, you remember Dien Ben-Fu. This is something that was very relevant in the popular thought,

the consciousness of other revolutionary and national liberatory movements worldwide. And something that I think is a little bit underthought about nowadays, in particularly the Imperial Corps, where the legacy of this battle, perhaps in my mind, is intentionally swept under the rug a little bit because of the implications that it might have. But before we start talking about, you know, the battle itself before we bring Luna in, we'll do our introduction.

Brett, why don't I turn to you and get your initial thoughts about the Battle of Jen Ben-Fu and maybe, you know, the importance of this battle, why we thought that it would be a good topic to talk about on guerrilla history. Yeah, I mean, when we're talking about the history of Vietnam, talking about the Vietnam War, talking about French colonialism, this battle does get brought up. But at least, you know, in my work, I've never been able to, as of yet, fully dedicate a whole episode to the battle itself. And this battle is crucially important. It happened, you know, mid-20th century. It was a major blow for European colonialism. It was the prelude to what we in the U.S. called the Vietnam War, but was really a war of resistance against American imperialism. and so it's historically potent it's situated chronologically in right after world war two

right during and right after the successful chinese communist revolution right before the vietnam war and it was it was the end of french indochina and that allowed laos cambodia and eventually vietnam to become free independent country so it rippled throughout history i think even in the U.S. military, Dien B.N. B.Fu is shorthand D.B.P. was used for many years afterwards to allude to any defeat of Western forces by Eastern forces, you know, quote unquote, this East versus West dynamic. And obviously that is rooted in chauvinism within the U.S. military as well.

But it has that ripple effect for history. It has that effect within the Western. militaries and it continues to be of relevance to this day and as we'll find out with with luna many of the people who fought not only in uh dnban foo but went on to fight in the vietnam more are still alive or have immediate family who are still alive and remember it and it's and i you know can't imagine that it doesn't have a profound impact on the culture as a whole so just a fascinating battle with deep historical implications and we couldn't ask for a better guest to to talk about it with yeah i think the brett covered a lot of the key reasons why it's significant for wider global

history of course it's going to be very interesting to hear from luna a perspective that is not very common for us you know in the first world global north particularly in the u.s to actually hear how vietnamese people remember you know this battle what significance it has for them what place it has in their own national history and the historical narratives that ground their identity as a post-colonial nation and you know to hear the history from the other from another side in this case the other side the victorious side as it as it happens and you know what significance it has for them that's going to be very interesting i think for me i'm i expect to learn a lot from hearing that because it hasn't been very commonly told, you know, in our public consciousness in the global north.

I think the other important point just to build on what Brett said about the wider ramifications and resonances of this battle is to remember, for example, revolutionaries around the world were inspired precisely by this defeat of French colonial forces. So the founders of the FLN in Algeria met together. pretty much, you know, that summer, you know, after to launch, you know, armed struggle against French colonialism in Algeria, in North Africa, because something that had not been contemplated as possible in the years since World War II when there had been movements in North Africa for freedom and national liberation. They had never dreamed, however, of being

able to militarily confront French colonial occupation and settler colonialism. So when news of the defeat of the French at Diem Ben-Fu circulated, it really inspired the nine leaders of the FLN, principally Ben Bella, to form the FLN and to actually wage arm struggle against French occupation. I think we've heard of the Vietnam syndrome, you know, in the U.S., the defeat of the U.S., but in fact, actually the French, I think, also had a Vietnam syndrome, and they were looking to restore the prestige of their military after this colossal defeat in places like Algeria. And so they were deeply invested in suppressing any armed resistance because they did not want to repeat and they wanted to restore their honor.

So some of the viciousness of what we see in films like the Battle of Algiers. And if you read the history of the struggle where 800,000 to over a million Algerians died in the war for their own liberation, part of the viciousness was because the French military was stinging from its defeat in Indochina and wanted to suppress any possible resistance in Algeria. So these were connected kinds of histories globally. The repercussions were felt on both sides of the colonial divide from the colonized to the colonizers. And that's why it's so important to think about it. So I'm really looking forward to hearing both about the internal Vietnamese kind of perspective on it

and also thinking a little bit more together about the significance of this battle in global anti-colonial history. Just to do due diligence to ensure that the listeners know exactly what's going on here. When we're talking about the Battle of Jamban Fu, his bread alluded to, this came at a very interesting time in history. So what is now Vietnam had been originally part of French Indochina, starting back in, I believe, 1858, something along those lines, in any case, was part of French Indochina for a very long time. Up until 1940, when Japan invaded French Indochina. and captured it during the duration of World War II. After World War II ended in the Japanese were, of course, defeated.

And it's worth mentioning that in 1945, there was a huge, huge famine in Vietnam that killed upwards of two million people. Ho Chimen always emphasized that this famine was due to the exploitation and outsourcing of the resources of Vietnam to the Japanese to the Japanese. Japanese during this period of time, but a very brutal famine. And it's worth underscoring that point because can you imagine what would happen if we had the equivalent of about 6 million people in the United States died today based on a population basis due to a famine would be unbelievable. You know, it would be written about all the time. But this is something that happened immediately after their, the Japanese were being pushed

out of the country at the end of World War II. Immediately afterwards, time in 1946, the French came back in to try to reestablish control over Vietnam and reabsorb it into French Indochina. And that's when this national liberatory movement took place. Now, the Battle of Dianben Fu itself was the end battle of the first Indochina war, which is the war that took place between the Vietnam War, and the French to try to establish national liberation of Vietnam. So this battle took place in 1954.

Dienben-Fu is this climactic battle of the war. It's what we're going to talk about during the interview, so I don't want to say too much about the battle. But this battle had huge ramifications. The Vietnamese, of course, were victorious during this battle. We're going to talk about that during the interview. But the repercussions were felt not only by these national, Libertory movements elsewhere in terms of the importance of that.

But even in France, the Battle of Dienben-Fu's result was such an embarrassment for the government in France that the government actually fell. And basically a caretaker manager came in to run the government as they got out of Vietnam and tried to reestablish post-war France. So huge repercussions, both in terms of liberatory movements looking to this as a model to try to emulate, as well as even in France, this had huge repercussions. And we can talk a little bit more about that. Hopefully we'll talk about that during an interview in the interview if we have time. But there's some very interesting things that happened after the war in France as well that I might like to talk about.

But guys, is there anything else that we want to add before we get to the interview itself, Brett, Adnan, any final points? No, other than just to, again, just to reiterate the fact that, you know, the Vietnam War, as we know it in the U.S., we have this very clear, like go to Wikipedia, you have the beginning and the end date of the so-called Vietnam War. But in reality, this is a prelude in the sense that the U.S. was also deeply involved and that the loss by the French, French basically cemented America's entrance into a more explicit all-out war. So these things are processes. They're not really confined by beginning and end dates. And as we'll see throughout, I'm sure, this discussion, the U.S. was involved in Vietnam well before the so-called Vietnam War started.

So just important to remember that from that perspective. Yeah, I think that's important to remember that in the post-World War II period, the U.S. essentially involved in attempting to promote and reestablish some of the colonial control in places where it felt it couldn't itself dominate. It, you know, wanted to have the restoration of some of these colonial empires, at least as a bulwark against the spread of communism, right, and of Soviet influence geopolitically. And so while it may have ideologically been supposedly, against the old form of European colonialism, it ended up having to try and restore, promote and support colonial powers in various parts around the world because they didn't want these newly

independent countries to turn, you know, radically militant third world nationalism and aligned with the Soviet Union. So the U.S. was totally involved in supporting and buttressing French power. And it's really just a loss at the Mbemphu that required the U.S. to get in directly So that's a very important point that Brett made, and we'll definitely have to talk about that. As far as France, it's very important and interesting to know that part of the reason why somebody like DeGal came back in and you have the end of the earlier republics is because as a kind of military figure, he was there to restore and make sure that the French colonial empire didn't completely collapse after this terrible lawsuit in Indochina.

and so conservative forces really promoted this kind of strong man to be a bulwark against the loss of the rest of the rest of the French colonial empire in West Africa and in North Africa. And so it had dramatic political consequences in France as well. Very important points that both you, Henry and Brett raised there. Yeah. I think on that note then we'll wrap up this introduction. We'll get right into the interview with Comrade Luna from Vietnam. Just to mention that comrades, we're going to mention again where you can find Luna, but many of you probably already know. Luna has her fairly popular YouTube channel Luna Oi. So it's worth checking out. I'll have that in the description box below this episode. So feel free to click on that. You'll be

able to find all of her information. But without further ado, let's get to our interview with Comrade Luna. We're back on guerrilla history. We're joined by Comrade Luna in Vietnam. Hello, Luna. How are you doing? Hi, everybody. Yeah, I'm good.

I'm Luna. I'm a Vietnamese communist born and living in Vietnam. It's very nice to be here and talk to you, like to talk to all you guys today. I am Vietnamese, as I said, Vietnamese communist morning living in Vietnam. I have my own channel named Luna Oh, you can find me on a YouTube channel, on YouTube, Luna Ewe. I usually make videos, teach you how to cook Vietnamese food, also how to, you know, like, traveling vlogs. So I travel in Vietnam and I make videos about that.

And also, I talk about politics stuff. I usually answer questions about Vietnam and what's going on in Vietnam. That's my main purpose of being here, of running my own channel. It's nice to meet you all. It's nice to meet you too. I know that we're all fans of your work, and so I was really excited when I was able to get in touch with you and invite you on to the show.

So we're going to be talking about the Battle of Jan Ben-Fu. We talked about it in our intro segment. Before we talk about the battle itself, I'm wondering if we can first talk about how the battle is perceived within Vietnam, in terms of national consciousness, in terms of patriotism surrounding the battle, and then we can talk about the battle itself afterwards. But I'm just curious about how it's thought of in Vietnam before we talk about the actual battle. Yeah. Vietnamese, we are sure, absolutely proud of this victory. And we study about this victory Like all through like middle school

To high school and to university And we have like, you know Like we have a national celebration On the Victory Day of Get Beautiful And yes, certainly speaking We are very proud of this victory And Generations of Vietnamese have been learning about this

Like for a long time And yeah, I mean like that One of the key things that I think a lot of Americans might not know if they know anything about this at all is, and I guess we'll probably get into it as we talk about the battle itself, but that the victory against the French in that battle actually also liberated the entirety of French Indochina, which included Cambodia and Laos. So is it remembered, yeah, is it remembered differently between those different countries or do all of the countries share a general enthusiasm about. what happened in that time. I do believe so. In that Vietnamville victory, Vietnam and Laos were very close together

because like the literal the fortress of Vietnam it was located right in the border between Vietnam and Laos. So that acts like Vietnamese communists and Laosian communists like we work closely together and then we both celebrate that kind of victory. And even to this day the three countries,

countries, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, we still remain a very tight relationship with each other, and we have each other a lot. So, yeah, I do believe that there is speaking, we have come kind of the same perspective, the same understanding about that victory. One thing I'm going to follow up since we just mentioned Laos is when the French sent in Henri Navarre, who was the overall commander of, yeah, the French forces in Indo-China, when he first went in, he thought that his, one of his missions was to also defend the border of Laos, which is what eventually ended up leading to the battle of Jen Ben-Fu, because they were trying to cut off supply lines between Laos and Vietnam. Only later did they decide, you know, we don't exactly have

the troops, we don't exactly have the supplies, we don't exactly have the position, positioning or the ability within the terrain here to defend both our interests and our positions within Vietnam as well as defending the Laotian border. But that order was not given until after they had already begun entrenching themselves at Dan Ben Fu. So I think that something that's worth reiterating the fact is that the French military was trying to do quite a bit here and that was one of the things that ended up giving the Vietnamese forces the upper hand in this battle is that the French were trying to do so much. So I think it's worth, you know, maybe talking a little bit about that in terms of what the strategic goals were of the

French expeditionary forces leading up to the battle because, of course, this war had been going on for nine years at this point. Yeah. And really in an ever-expanding area, you know, the Vietnamese were pushing the French forces back and all of that, but the field of warfare was really expanding between these countries and the goals went from being, you know, strategic defensive in the north and strategic offensive in the south, from the perspective of the French, of course, to all of a sudden having like entire borders locked down by the military in addition to these, these offensives and defensive across the country of Vietnam.

Yeah, absolutely. So we call it the resistance against the French colonialism. That's literally we called it, that nine years in Vietnam from 1945 to 1954. And from 1955 to 1953, the Vietnamese, like, our military, we chose a strategy, like, we tried to liberate the spot by spot, like, broke, province by province, all right? And during from 1950, 1945 to 953, we kept winning and winning and winning. All right. That was why at the point that like from 1953 to 1954, the French, this is our perspective. All right, I'm talking

about our perspective understanding of that. So our conclusions are like, during the last year that led to the Indian full victory, the French, they, they knew. They knew. that, they knew that they were losing this battle. And that was why, like, when the time in about 1953, when Hacheming and Von Wenzap decided to go to the, to send soldiers to that border between Vietnam and Laos to try to liberate that area. The French military, the Navarra like Zero, he wanted to, what did you say it? He wanted to do. He wanted to to save face, to save the face for the French colonialism by, like, okay, bring everything that they got, do it being full, and try to defend this,

because if they can maintain that fortress, they can expand their hands to both the north of Vietnam and then to Laos. So they want, that's very important to them. And Von and Zav and Hoichimbing, they knew. They knew that French is spending everything they got. on the eventful and we allow that to happen we because we believe that like this the we we made use of the arrogance of the french that like they they the the french military that navarre general they believe that d'nbinful is like a very isolated area and

there was no road there was no way to get there and there was like it was impossible for for Vietnamese soldiers to fight away to that being full. And the strong point of the French military at the time of that, like they had a lot of aircraft and they used aircrafts to transfer military and supplies and guns in and out of that. And we didn't have any aircraft at that time. And that was why they were so arrogant and they chose the airfield to build the fortress over there.

And if you read this book, People's War, People's Army, written by Vaughianzac himself talking about the Dienfou alone, he talked about that a lot. Why we allowed the French to keep building their misery on Dianbeufu and how we fight, how we found our way to bring our militaries and supplies and artillery there to attack them, surprisingly, something like that. And yeah, the points are like we knew that they were building the fortress India and Bainful, and we allowed that to happen because we had our secret strategies

and weapons that we can defeat them at that place. Yeah, maybe it would be really useful to hear a little bit more about not only the French arrogance and belief in their air superiority and their belief that there weren't any anti-aircraft potentials that allowed them to feel secure in what otherwise would seem to be a vulnerable location in a valley. They didn't expect that they could be challenged and they thought they could resupply themselves.

So what is it that the Vietnamese force? forces managed to achieve and accomplish that surprised the French? Sure. So we, again, we study the pros and cons of the military, the French military. And their strong points is that, as you said, they had, like, strong supplies, aircrafts and strong weapons. But their weaknesses, like, Guilf is isolated area, and it's far away from all other bases of the French.

That was why, like, once we can defeat them, they cannot seek support from other places as quick as, like, quick enough. And also, like, they heavily rely on their aircraft, like, air force. So if we can defeat that, we totally control them. That is our strong point here. Like, we made use of that strong point and turned it into a weak point. That was why, like, we use a lot of anti-air props, artillery, to totally destroy their air force.

And seriously, I really need a support. I really encourage you to read this book, like in detail all the strategy and tactics that we use. And today I also want to focus a lot about how we use our Verilat tactics to bring supplies to the info and how we turn from Verilat warfare into the mobile warfare, and that is a very big point of that victory.

And the funny things are like, my grandpa, he joined the guerrilla team. My grandpa was the one who volunteered to bring food and supplies to the ambient food. Battlefield. I'm very proud of that. And rightly so. That's a wonderful lineage to carry on. I understand that the French didn't believe even that the Vietnamese forces had anti-aircraft guns. And in fact, actually, you mentioned that it was such a remote area that they probably didn't think that they could be brought into that area.

Yeah. So I'm sure the book by General Diab. Yes. details how they brought anti-aircraft guns and artillery through the forests in parts. I understand that they were dismantled in some cases so that people could carry them through the dense underbrush and up over mountains and to place them then in a position to be able to fire down upon the forces, the French forces in the valley. So that was quite a feat of organization that was not anticipated by the French colonial army. You might if I hop in and just piggyback on that a little bit?

Not only from my reading when we're doing background research, not only did they disassemble and carry them over the mountains, I saw some instances of where they actually dug tunnels through the mountains to place the artillery in a position where, the French basically wouldn't be able to see it and it was already like inherently entrenched kind of like at the inside of a man-made cave as it were you know this tunnel that went right through the mountain and something else regarding the artillery that's worth mentioning before I let Luna say whatever you want to say Luna is that a lot of the the artillery not necessarily

the anti-aircraft guns but the the other artillery the howitzers were were pieces that were captured American pieces, both from American artillery that was supplied to the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, as well as in the war in Korea. These guns that were captured as, you know, the American forces and American supplies were being pulled out, they kind of got left behind, were captured by, you know, the communists in China. or, you know, in, if they were in North Korea, what is now DPRK, again, they were captured. And then the solidarity between these countries led to them basically supplying the Vietnamese with these American-made artillery pieces to turn against the French who were using quite a bit of American equipment. So it's just something that's interesting for the listeners.

Luna, why don't she say whatever you want? Yeah, okay. I kind of want to introduce you the way that we study about this deep in our schools. All right. So we start from, well, Vonnegut, the Great Area of Vietnam, he had a, you know, like, conclusion that, like, we can defeat Dipidifu, only if we have a support of our own people. and we have to overcome all of the difficulties to change all the weaknesses into our strong

points and to fix all of that too because we want to seek for victory. So because it being full was like in the middle of nowhere in the jungle, very isolated, there was no roads in a way. So we built roads. Before we start to really send our militaries and support to Dick Minful, we spend years building the roads over. there. And one of the biggest kind of, one of the biggest invention of Vietnam Comedy at a time was the bicycle. So, and my grandpa joined one of those teams. It's a very,

you just just go Google it and see like the beautiful bicycle. We changed, we modified those normal bicycle into carry up to 600 pounds of supplies. And we watched. And we watched. And we watched. We walked from the global area, the farm, we called it like the back place to bring the supplies and guns and medicines to the infant food. And my grandpas was one of the team. So what we did was like the Communist Party of Vietnam is they will receive bicycles from China or from other countries, you know, as like the support. And then we will buy them if we can. And then we brought those bicycle back to Vietnam. And then we gave those bicycle to Vietnamese people.

And we modified it. We put more bamboo sticks and iron stick on it to strengthen it to make it carry a lot of stuff on it. And my grandpa was the one who, he from my hometown is Tanghua. And Tangwai is the biggest bicycle team in Vietnam that joined the Dimit Fu. That was total about 21,000 bicycle joining that Diet Binhu campaign, and 11,000 of them came from my hometown, Thanhua. My grandpa took one of those bicycles, and he loaded it off with rice and food and all kinds of things that he can find. He joined the team, and then he walked. He literally walked for months from my hometown, Tang Hwa, all the way to Diedbienfou.

and the way that how how we how we like many sets alike we form small teams like a team of five bicycles together we were they were like that's five bicycles would be in charge of like taking care of each other and having each other walking through like the multi-plates or something like that so yeah from the small team of five bicycle like that we had a whole huge team of 21,000, and we just literally walk up to the mountain, all right? And the second one thing is that like to carry the artillery up to the mountain, that we have to do it in total secret because the aircrafts of the enemies day and night, they fly around over our heads. and if they saw any suspect like aerial, any activities,

they just dropped nabam bombs on us. That was why we had to do it in total secrets, and we usually had to do it at night. And that was kind of fun stories out like, you know, that one of the most famous songs we at that time sang by the military, sang by the Vietnamese communist soldiers is this song, That was a song,

Khao Fao Ta Vauta Vood Qua, Delo Zoho Ta Vood Qua Nui. That was the song that the communist soldiers sang when they grabbed those artillery up into the mountain to the Biafu. And that song came from our Chanishina, the Chanishina singing from my hometown. It came from the fishermen, they worked together to grab the net like this, you know, to grab the net up from the river to the boat. And they needed some kind of song with a strong rhythm.

Everybody can sing that song at the same time and know on what note they should push the net. So like when we sing it like, hazo ta now, keofa ta but quah down. It's like a strong reason. It's a very famous song, and it's like, we call it, like, one of the red music. Can you tell us what those lyrics mean? What is the main chorus of the song? So, yeah, yeah, I did it. I did do that.

Ha, Zoh, it's just like, Ha, Zoh. It's like the way we say the Vietnamese, like, ha, zo. Ha, zo. It's like the rhythm, like, Ha, it's like you push back, and then zo is when you push it back. How is like this. And, and, and, Kiao Fowda, it means like, hey, together, bring this artillery across this hill. Together bring this artillery across this mountain and just symbol, the lyrics just very simple like that. The point is to raise some kind of mood and then the written, strong rhythm, everybody can, you know, it's very stressful job.

And lots of people died during this time. And that was a real story of our, we call it our national hero. His name is Dolbyn Ziet. When a team of 10 or 20 people were trying to carrying the artillery up to the mountain, suddenly one of the strings got like broken. And that Tauving Zian hero, he used his own body. he threw his own body under the will of that artillery. He died to save that artillery because it was too important to us.

The total bed of Divin Fu, we had only 24 artillery. And each of them Harry about three tons, up to three tons. We cannot risk to lose any one of them. So Toving Zien, he sacrificed himself to save that artillery. to say like how important it was to our military force. I think that that song was the first piece of live music we've had on the show. So, you know, it was very nice and raised my morale anyway. It's an early morning recording for me just as a result of us being in Vietnam, Russia, Canada, and the United States for this recording.

But thank you for that, Luna. That was very lovely. I just want to mention briefly before I turn it over to Brett that you mentioned that this kind of mass popularity of the movement, this mass sentiment, was very, very important. And just to underline that point, according to the Vietnamese news agency during this campaign to bring all of the material to Dienbenfu, the force of soldiers of Vietnam at Dianbenfu was about 55,000 soldiers. But 260,000 civilians took part in moving 27,400 tons of rice in order to support them. So as you mentioned, this very much was a mass movement, a popular movement, and that was something that was absolutely essential to the success at this battle, you know, that would not have been successful if you didn't have these people carrying, you know, stacks of rice for, you know, however far to get to the battlefield in order to support. apply the soldiers for the upcoming siege, which, of course, we will talk about the battle itself. But I think that it's worth underscoring that importance of the mass support of this movement. Brett, anything that you want to say?

Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, Luna, salute to your grandfather. That's amazing that you have that family connection to such a historic battle and fight. And as we've been stressing throughout this conversation thus far, the role of regular people and the role of trained guerrilla war. warriors obviously served this battle and would go on to serve in the fight against the American imperialists successfully as well. But before the French and before the Americans were the Japanese, can you talk a little bit about how the fight to push out the Japanese before the end of World War II contributed to, you know, the militarization and the guerrilla

warfare among the North Vietnamese that would go on to be an asset in the fight against against the French colonialists? Yes. This is a direct result of our communist revolution happened in August, 1945. So in the World War II, when Vietnam were heavily occupied and exploited by both the fascist Japanese

and then the colonialist French. So the final thing is that, like, the French soldiers, they were supposed to de-weaponize, and to kick out the fastest of hands. But what happened in Vietnam during the 1940s are like they actually work together to exploit us even more. If there was a famous saying in Vietnam is that like,

you know, like we're under in our neck, there was one kind of heavy string around it, chain around it. But now when the friends came, they're supposed to help us. to de-weaponize the Japan, but actually they put a second chain on our neck. That it led to, that was a direct reason why two millions of Vietnamese people died of starvation during just five years from 1940 to 1945.

It was a really horrible time in Vietnam without time. Both of my grandpa and my grandma lived through that time. They were about like 10, 15 years ago at that time. And my grandma had to be at the severe my nutrition all her life. It's like when, you know, like when we did the cremation, when she died, you know, like all of her bones just totally like turn into like dust, turn into ash. Because she, because of the man, my nutrition that she had to go through during the 1940s. My grandpa, the one who joined the deep bit full, he was a teeny tiny man, teeny tiny man.

And yeah, it was like my family was like the, my family had to bear the direct consequences during that time. It was very bad. So because we were bearing a really terrible living conditions at that time in the 1945, before the August revolution happened. The way that Hozhiming and our communist army, our communist force, gained the support from the people, it was similar like this. The soldiers, the communist soldiers, they went to the rice storage owned by the French and by the Japanese. We broke it, we stole the rights, and we distribute the rights to hungry people. That was why we gained the support from millions of Vietnamese people at that time, even though we didn't even know how to read and write.

Over 90% of Vietnamese people didn't know how to read and though at that time. We did not understand what communism meant at all, but because of communists gave them rise. That was why we had to support by the war. That was why we had successful communist revolution in the matter of just a few days in August, 1935. So, based on that huge support we got from that revolution. And right after that, when we gained our independence in 1945,

the French immediately came in. And Horsiming immediately called people to like, like something like, you know, like the French and the Japan causes starvation. Finally, when we won't against them, we had our independence. Now the French decided to come back, and they want to enslave us once again. No, we'd rather sacrifice everything. We would never be enslaved again by the colonialist French. We sacrificed everything.

That was how we raised the patriotism of Vietnamese people. there is support of Vietnamese people because we experience the starvation caused by the French of course we can or we will not support them and they're trying to go back here

so yeah that that's why we got the huge support for Vietnamese people I just wanted to pop in to say that's absolutely fascinating and the point you made about how the communist won over millions of regular people

not through abstract arguments and persuasive with words, but through actually meeting their material needs and what's more of a material need than food in your belly. That lesson is still applicable around the world. And in the American context, although very, very different, there's still a deep ignorance about what socialism and communism mean. And we can argue all day and put together our persuasive essays about why people should be socialist or communist, but it's really in those moments of crisis when the socialist and the communist come out to help regular people in need that you win over more sympathy

than you ever could with a million essays and a million words. So I think that that lesson is still applicable around the world and it's fascinating. Yeah, exactly. That is why when I talk to on my channel, you know, when I talk to Congress from the West, especially from the Imperial Corps, like the USA, I always tell them like if you want to win over the mass, you have to help them. You have to give them, like, basic needs and actual material support. Do mutual aid. Build dual power structure. Do something to help them. You, maybe you should not talk about what communism means at first, because of the risk care is so strong over there. Though the priority for you right now is to have homeless people, to have indigenous people, to fight more against the oppression.

to fight for their struggles. That is very important. That's how you get people over your side. Not just like, just talk abstractly. Like what like was Stalin? Like, um, male or like argue about Stalin or Mao or Angols or like Lenin. Like maybe that's not our priority right now because we are endangered by capitalism, imperialism.

People are literally dying and starving because. because of a totally preventable disease. You need to do something to help them. Amen. Well, I'd like to get us into the actual battle a little bit. And I've read a little bit about how General Giapps' strategy initially had been to strike quickly to defeat the French. But as we know, we think of this as the battle of Dien Bimphu, but it's not something that happened very quickly in a matter of days, but is something like a siege that took place over the course of two months, basically.

And that General Jop had to change his strategy because it seemed that the French may have learned about the tactic and started preparing. for it and he had to revise the entire plan and come up with a whole new military strategy that proved successful but that he himself indicated was a very difficult decision to try to withdraw the original plans and come up with an entirely new one and so I'm just wondering how the Vietnamese teach and talk about the strategy of the battle the fact that that it was a two-month-long siege and what was significant or important in Vietnamese national historical memory about the fact that this wasn't some quick victory, but it's something that took a long time, you know, to achieve. You mentioned how the supplies that started months

in advance with, you know, people bringing rice and other supplies, but the battle itself didn't just happen quickly. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that. Yes. We, had prepared for the battle of the event for at least 14 months before the battle actually happened. Yes. And the battle happened in 55 days and nearly two months, as you said. And the thing is that at first, the thing is that at first when the French, they were building their fortress. It's not finished building yet. Vong in that he had the strategy of strike quickly and win, try swiftly and win swiftly. That's his first strategy, yes.

And during the time when they were building, they haven't had strong force over there yet. That strategy worked. But over time, when the enemy kind of completing building that fortress, that strategy didn't work anymore because they were too powerful. And we were losing so many people. We were losing so many our crisis weapons. So literally during a fight, Zero Zab, decided to call everybody back, to hide all the artillery, go back, leave this battle, and then re-evaluate all the things that we did.

That was why we came up with a new strategy. It strikes surely and advanced surely. yes because like the enemies now reach to the point that they are powerful enough that we cannot win against them swiftly anymore is it going to use a loss for us and he changed the strategy so like from then on we had like we we had the decision like we only strike when we know for certain that we will win if we there's any chance that we will not win no we will hide and we will not fight it and to slowly prepare, prepare. And when we bring the artillery up to the mountain,

we had to dig tunnel for that artillery and 10 people who run it. So two trying to protect that artillery at all costs. And what else should I say? Oh, oh, we even duck. Thousands of our men duck in total secret, hundreds of kilometers of changes around the air beam full. So we can bring and run freely, even though the aircrafts dropping Naba bombs on us,

we still can secretly run under those changes. Nearly like we almost like completely surround that day and beingful fortress with our changes and we run through it. That was why, like until the very last minute of the, attack, the enemy still surprised that we actually surrounded them in that kind of scale. And we, mostly we won. We had, we had our victory because of that, like, surprising factor. They could not expect us to do that. Well, I know that we have a bunch of follow-up questions. But before we do that, I guess let me just let you have the opportunity then to take us through

the battle itself from, you know, just kind of lay out what happened for us. So, you know, we talked about Damienfou was in a valley. The Vietnamese forces had the high ground in this battle, unlike in a lot of previous battles where the French had actually done a pretty good job of finding high ground, even given, you know, their numerical inferiority in many of those battles. The French were pretty good at keeping the high ground. In this battle, they voluntarily took the low ground for some inexplicable reason other than the fact that there was an old air strip in this valley that was, I mean, from my reading, I couldn't find any other reason why they would want to occupy low grown that was surrounded on all sides, basically, by hills. But, you know, I'm not the military strategist here. also you know the french were employing a tactic that had previously worked for them this hedgehog defense

which again not the military strategist but as my understanding is it's to build multiple very heavily fortified um they had about 49 45 or something like that right right right and allow the forces just to slow down the attacking force is not really to stop them to allow them to get past these fortified areas and then basically attack them from all sides to kind of cut off the advancing force from what's behind by having these interspersed reinforced areas. And then, you know, we have trench warfare a la World War I that was taking place. I mean, it's a very, very interesting battle. So Luna, why don't I just turn it over to you instead of me blathering on and have you say, you know, take us through the battle from, what do you think

are the key points that people should know about it? The key point is that like, well, as I said, we secretly dig those hundreds of kilometers of changes around it. So we already had our military surrounded that the Vintful fortress without letting the enemy know it. So when we decided to attack first, you know, when we decided to attack, the military, the France, they immediately stand like lots of their aircrafts flying around.

to look for us and to bomb us. And when we use our anti-aircraft gun to shoot, one of the airplane, it creeps like the we can, like, the zero. As I said, like, we can see that the enemy was surprised, totally surprising. They panic. It creeps them out a lot because, like, certainly, like, they didn't even know that we can bring those anti-airgraphs up to this hill and actually use them to sustain. successfully shoot the aircraft. So like we had about, as I said, we had about 24 artillery

and we successfully shot down over 50 aircrafts of the French and we, we, we even like, like, what do you call it? We attack, like we insert. It's not a reason, but like more than a hundred other aircrafts were shot by us too. We're not totally shot down, but we're heavily broken by our guns. So, like, after we use our anti-aircrafts and our artillery's to fight, to shoot down their guns, the French immediately, like, all but their aircrafts to try to protect them. In this book, like we can see that how they immediately,

how all the airplanes stop flying around over us and they went back to that They cannot lose, they cannot take the risk of losing those aircraft themselves. And then from that point, after we scare them out by our anti-aircrafts and our artillery, it was so much easier for our regular soldiers to just like shoot and find them in an open battlefield like that, you know? And yes, we just like, it costs a lot of our manpower. That was a fact. It was a fact.

But like, thanks to that 24 artillery and all of other anti-aircrafts, our, the main power of Vietnamese against the French like two over one. So we just like, yeah, slowly win over the battle feel like that. It's like the last day of the fight, it happened so fast. And the French military, they surrender so fast that after they already surrendered, after we took over David Focharest, the American aircraft still dropping supplies onto the battlefield. And we just took over everything. Yay!

They surrendered so fast. Like, we just took over all the supplies coming from the American aircraft. It's kind of funny. Yeah, that's absolutely hilarious. And it leads perfectly into this next question, because I want to talk about allies on both sides. We understand that this entire fight against the French, obviously it culminated in D.M.B.N. Fu in 1954, but had been going on since the end of World War II. So we had this long extended fight. And China, right, the Chinese Communist won, beat out the nationalists, pushed them to Taiwan in 49. And so that obviously also perks up the U.S. imperialists as far as what's going on in the region. We have this new huge threat coming out of China. China. We have the communist movement rising in Vietnam. And so we think of the U.S. entrance into the war after the French loss, but that is not true. There's overlap. And the U.S. was, by all, by my understanding, the biggest ally for the French. And at one point, underwrote up to 80% of French expenditures fighting the Vietnamese. So it was huge. And the air support was huge as well. But I assume also, and I don't have deep knowledge on this front, but that China, was an ally on the other side.

So can you just talk about the role of China and the U.S. in this conflict altogether? Sure, sure. It's a very complicated time, I have to say. At that time, you know, like back to a little bit about in 1945 when we had our communist revolution. At that time, Vietnam was, Vietnam, we were facing the three big enemies at that time. We were facing already existed fascist Japanese army. we were facing the coming back of the colonialist French

and we were also facing the Chiang-Ka-Sex army from China yes that's the three biggest threat that we had to deal with the time it was like so I always say like we were so damn lucky that we can have a successful revolution in just a matter of a few days in August

because in that few days the Japanese, the pastured Japanese they were weakening So it was a point that we can defeat them. The colonial French haven't yet come here. And then the Chiang Kai-shek was still far further in the north border. So in that matter of few days, there was no real strong enemy in Vietnam. So we took that chance and we had successful.

After that, okay. After that, the French came back, as you know. And at that time, even in 1990, in 45, actually, Hooschiming got some help from the OSS. That later they became the CIA. Actually, Hoziming got the help from the OSS to have a successful revolution

because at that time we share the same purpose of defeating fascism, all right? But right after that, after we gain our independence, the USA immediately turned, like, change their sign, and then they decided to support. the French. During all the time from 1945 to 1949, the U.S. can see that. The U.S. did see that

the French they were losing. That was why and the U.S. they wanted to take over to keep the Indochina, to keep Vietnam, to weaken the socialist movement in Asia. And because they because we were siding with the USSR at that time, too. They were scared. That was why they want to keep Vietnam. They want to separate Vietnam and either China from the socialist movement.

That was why, like, on one hand, they supported the friends, but on the other hand, they already prepared to intervene in Vietnam if the friends, the friends failed and they did it. So the things are like, Gnorsi, the fastest person, of the puppet regime of Vietnam, he went to the USA in 1950, and he spent two years over there to seek for the health from the USA,

and he did get help. So actually, when he came back to Vietnam, he already got to support from the USA even before the battle of the inevitable happened. And after the victory of the influential, you know, the Geneva Agreement, thanks to that victory, we forced the French to go,

sit with us in the Geneva Agreement. And thanks to that victory, we had our own seat in that meeting. Of course, the USA, if you read about it, that you say immediately jumping and then they had to like, they lie to us. They lied to us. It's just a lie to us. Temporally, we would set a border in the 17th parallel, you know. And after two years in 1956, There's going to be an election that whole Vietnamese population will join and vote to vote for the separation or the unification of Vietnam. That's what it was sad and agreed to in that Geneva agreement. And that kind of agreement paved the path for the USA to officially put more to the zip into the to be in charge of the populat regime inside of Vietnam. But two years later in 1956, that election never happened.

It was written officially in one of the documents of the U.S. that the state departments are like, they were scared of the good reputation of Hoosiming, and they knew that if that election happened, most of Vietnamese would just vote for Hoosiming and vote for the reification of the north of the south. That was why that election never happened. That was why it led to the nearly 20 years long resistance against the U.S. the Vietnam War. Yeah, really quick. I want to see if you can say anything else about China's involvement. I'm just particularly interested in that after the revolution. But I just did want to say as well, there's this heartbreaking element of this entire affair where Ho Chi Minh, in the early days, at least against the fight against the French colonialists,

appealed to the U.S. on their own anti-colonial grounds, right? Ostensibly, they fought for liberty against the British, whatever. We know that that's a more complicated reality in the U.S., but still, Ho Chi Min had said, based on what you guys say you believe, you should be on our side 100% because we just want the same liberty and freedom and control over our own lives that you say that you believe in. And so, Ho Chi Min was eventually disillusioned and saw that the U.S. is not about high ideals. it's about geopolitical power and wealth and greed and control.

But, you know, that is worth mentioning. But yet, I'm just before we move on, I just am curious about how much help that the North Vietnamese got from communist China after 1949. Yeah, absolutely. We had a lot of help from China and most of the USSR at that time. China, they sent, mostly they sent rise to Vietnam. I remember that like, they sent us like, oh,000. and seven tons of rice to Vietnam right around the deep with food victory, and that's a big half.

They also sent us, like, you know, kind of tanks and guns and artillery with all their help, the USSR too. And the thing is that, like, at that time, Ho Chi Ming and Mao actually had very close relationship with each other, of Ho Chi Ming and Stalin and Mao actually met each other. in the USSR in the 1950 51 or something like that wow yeah and they met and then they had a lot of support from both china and in the USSR and yeah our relationship was really good back then at that time another thing is that like a little bit of side point about the USSR too when hoseming met Stalin in the 1950s, like 9050, when Horsi Ming suggested that like the USSR maybe should

help Vietnam in our struggle against a French, something like that. And actually, Stalin didn't really, at that time, like, how to say this? the USSR at that time wanted Vietnam to keep the north something like that because like they didn't want us to to span out all our manpower and supplies and all kind of like that to fight against the imperialism and colonialism because they could not believe that we can win that's the main point that was why the USSR at that time did not really want Vietnam to to fight at all costs. But Mao agreed with Ho Chi Ming in that point.

Mao actually persuaded Stalin to meet Ho Chi Ming. And Mao actually sent a lot of help and supplies to Vietnam to win against the French. That's beautiful. I wish I was a fly on the wall between the meeting of Ho Chi Minh Stalin and Mao. wow this isn't really a question so guys feel free to jump in afterwards it's just a couple of quick points luna you mentioned that the soviet union also uh aided vietnam at this time and as the person that's located in russia right now uh i i feel obliged to say this but soviet support didn't really come in for the vietnamese until 1952 um which as you mentioned mao was more

supportive right from the beginning, not quite the beginning after the civil war in China, but the Soviet Union took a little bit of time to see kind of how things were unfolding before they really started to throw their weight in behind the Vietnamese communists, which is a bit strange, but, you know, because there was a lot of other national liberation struggles where kind of at the same time, the USSR was a little bit more willing to jump in early on, whereas in this case, for some reason, they waited until, you know, the war was two-thirds over by this point. But nonetheless, Soviet arms and vehicles, there was, I think, 400 Soviet trucks that were deployed in the Battle of Genben Fu itself, which were pretty

crucial for transporting things around the perimeter of the battlefield. You know, other than that, We were talking, as you mentioned, bicycles and hand-carrying things. So having 400 trucks at the disposal was certainly a big thing, as well as some of the artillery was also a Soviet origin. But the other thing that I want to mention before I let the guys hop back in is that you mentioned that there was this proposed election, which this is just something for listeners to look up. We also had something very similar in Korea where there was a proposed, Korea, peninsula wide election that was due to take place. And it was widely understood that the communists were going to be victorious in this election, between the north and the south, like widely understood that the communists were going to be successful. But that process was

undermined that election never did take place. The U.S. ensured that it didn't take place. and that led to, of course, the, you know, the partitioning of Korea where the communist forces were in the north, and then this U.S.-backed military regime was in the south. So if listeners want to hear a little bit more about that, I did a couple of interviews with Glenn Ford about North Korea on the David Feldman show. Brett, I know you did an episode with Stephen Gowens, where you also mentioned this on Rev Left. So listeners, if you want to listen to that, there's a little bit of a historical parallel here in terms of, of this election that, you know, would have come out in favor of the communists not being allowed to take place because, of course, one of the big charades is that communism can't come about

democratically. Socialism cannot come about democratically. This is why the U.S. was so hellbent on undermining Ianda in Chile, for example, because it was a democratic revolution. And they wanted the, you know, the idea of communism to be associated with violent revolution. which is a little bit less palatable to the American audience. So anyway, just something a little bit interesting. Guys, anything you want to say? Yeah, I think that's a key lesson in general for the facade of bourgeois democracy because even in developed capitalist states,

there is a presentation of these states as fundamentally democratic, but we all know that the moment any movement finds any success, even electorally using the democratic mechanisms of these states, to advance a socialist or anti-imperialist politic, that facade of democracy falls away. We've seen it all around the world over and over and over again, and we will see it here in the inside the U.S. if there is any movement able to get to, like,

they can't even allow Bernie Sanders-style social democracy. Like, imagine what capital would have done in the U.S., if even Bernie won. You would have seen capital strikes, you would have seen the media joining up with a big industry to foment a certain sort of narrative against blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we have to know that these are tried and true methods that have been tried around the world. And so whenever democracy will come out in favor of U.S. interests or

Western capitalist interests, it's allowed. Whenever democracy is not, it's not allowed. And so you force socialist and communist movements into a more revolutionary confrontation, and then you point at them and say, see, they can't do it democratically. I mean, it's the whole game. But that's just, that's neither here nor there, just a point worth of making. Indeed, and I just wanted to point out that no less an authority than Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American president, you know, later wrote about the negotiations in Geneva that Luna mentioned that had provisions for elections. He wrote, I have never talked with or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that if elections, had been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80% of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh.

So, you know, the American authorities were very well aware of the popularity of, you know, the Ho Chi Min and the Communist Party and that they would have completely lost in any Democratic government, so they, of course, could not allow it to happen. And it is so ironic as, well, perhaps it's not really so ironic, but it's just sort of a curious twist of history as, you know, Brett had mentioned that, you know, when Ho Chi Minh declared the Vietnamese liberation in September 1945, I think it was, you know, that the opening lines of his speech to the people assembled in Hanoi, I think it was half a million people

there to hear his speech. He said, all men are created equal. The creator has given us certain inviolable rights, the right to life, the right to be free, and the right to achieve happiness. It sounds an awful lot like, you know, the Declaration of Independence, you know, it was definitely an appeal to say, hey, U.S., you should support us, you know, but instead, of course, the U.S. pursued its Cold War-type policies to try and stop communism. And so, you know, this battle of D.M. Ben-Fu that we've been talking about, really has such great significance in the history of anti-colonialism and it's the proud heritage of the Vietnamese people to have struck this blow but then they suffered mightily as a

consequence of this great victory i'm wondering if in vietnam you know it's such an important part of national history of vietnam and it's taught and you mentioned that students learn about it in grade school and junior high and high school and college, they always come back to this as the fundamental event for the liberation of Vietnam. Do people in Vietnam perceive or understand, how do they perceive the significance and the importance of this globally?

Like outside of Vietnamese's national history, do they have a sense of how much this meant to people struggling all over the global south against colonialism and how it is regarded? Yes. Yeah, we know, not like perfectly, but we do know that this victory has like a very powerful meaning in the global scale. And that is why we're so proud of this. Because we're not like, just like, hey, this is a victory not just for our people. Is this a victory the thing that like, even like the world trying to study it? Even people, still trying to answer the question like how did we win it that was why like we so freaking

brown of it and yes vietnamese people even to this day we still give like analysis about like how we made that happens and how kind of all the odds that we had to overcome into that victory and yes and we would never forget that victory literally uh led to the Geneva Agreement, which led to our separation of our country for 25 years, that led to the Vietnam War. So, yeah, this is a whole chain of events that all Vietnamese, like, people like me, like we all know very clearly about. This is a battle that was widely held up by other national liberation movements. It's even mentioned by, you know, American revolutionaries. In our intro of our show, we have Malcolm X saying, you remember Dien Ben Fu, and of course, I'm going to keep saying this through the episode.

But it's interesting that this battle that in the U.S., I don't recall this ever being brought up during our high school history classes or anything like that. I only found out about it and reading books about, I have several books about the Vietnam War that I read when I was in high school. And this was always mentioned in kind of like the preambulatory section of the books. You know, because the first Indochina War wasn't really talked extensively about in these books about the Vietnam War. But it was always brought up in passing in the preambles of these Vietnam War books that I read. And only later on did I really look more into the first Indo-China War as its own war and the Battle of Jen Ben-Fu itself. But yet, despite the fact that in the U.S., this really isn't super well-known history, I mean, like I said, I don't recall this ever being brought up, like even in passing in any high school history class, revolutionary movements and anti-imperialist movements, national liberatory movements worldwide, including revolutionaries within the U.S., continued to hold up this battle for decades and decades after this battle took place as a, a shining light in the battle against colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism.

And I think that it's important for us to spend just a little bit more time talking about the legacy of the Battle of Den Ben-Fu on national liberatory movements and revolutionary movements worldwide. Because it really is important and it really is held up by these movements, despite the fact that it's almost like censored out of history by the bourgeois narrative, particularly in the Imperial Corps. Is there anybody that wants to jump in on that point and expand further on it? Well, just I actually did hear about it in my high school global world history class. I think I had a very liberal anti-war teacher who did bring it up because he was very much

against the, you know, the war in Vietnam, and he was of that 60s generation. So sometimes you might get a little bit of a sense. of it, but we didn't get the details of it. And it's so interesting to hear from the Vietnamese memory of their history of what went into it. So I think the first part of our discussion about all of the logistical dimensions that were required is so indicative of how it was a people's war. That's what made the difference. Is not that they did, you know, of course it was very, very helpful to have the artillery supplied from outside. side that the French didn't really know or understand about the anti-aircraft guns. But what really

defeated the French was not that military hardware. It was the fact that this was a people's war that politically had already been won because the people stayed with the cause of liberation for nine years and did not waver in their determination to see the end of colonial oppression. So that's, I think, a very, very important lesson about this battle. I mean, the battle is important to Vietnam, but it's important to the globe because it taught people a lesson that you could resist colonialism, even though it may have seen that the odds were against you and that you didn't have all of the implements of war. But ultimately, that's not what was most decisive. And unfortunately, the United States did not learn the lesson.

of this battle and decided to attempt to impose its colonial and imperial control over Vietnam, which just led to more death, devastation, and destruction. But in the end, again, what was proven by this battle is that you cannot win a colonial war. Ultimately, it will fail. Yeah, what you were saying is 100% true because we can, I mean, this is a world historical victory against French colonialism. But then it was followed up by a world historical defeat of American imperialism, back-to-back championships, if you will. But the other side of that, of course, is the immense suffering and loss and death that regular, everyday Vietnamese people had to accept and endure just in order to kick these assholes out of their country so they could have something like self-determination. And so, Luna, I'm wondering from your perspective, we've talked about the popular.

positive impact of Bien Ben-Fu, particularly on the culture as far as national pride goes. But how has the suffering and the loss from the fight against the French colonialists and the subsequent fight against the American imperialist gone on to influence or impact Vietnamese culture at large? That's a very good question. And Vietnam is, we still full of scar. caused by the world. And in my own family, speaking of my own life experience,

the grandparent on my mother's side volunteered to join the Debianfou campaign. The grandpa on my dad's side joined the Vietnam War and he died in Ted Offensive in the south of Vietnam. So I am literally from the family that took part in the both war against the French. and against the USA, I have to say that it leaves a lot of scars on millions of Vietnamese people to this day. And whenever we learn about our own history, it's not just like, you know, the brow that we have, the bright that we have on our history. It's the, again, it's a deep sadness behind that. Because, like,

what did we do to deserve this? We just want like self-determination and freedom. Why millions of us have to die for that cause? Like, it should have been the obvious thing. And even to say, there are about four millions victims of Asian Orange in Vietnam, which millions of injuries from the war. But we are forgiving. people.

Meza, like, we will not forget our history. We will never forget our history. But we forgive. This is what I got from. I literally, I had so lucky for me, I had a chance to talk to the personal secretary of Great General Wang Wienzap a few years ago. At that time, he was a dermatologist,

and I had a skin infection, and I went to his tiny clinic near my house. I look up there and I saw a picture of him with Great General Vonnegut. I was shocked like, is that you up there, doctor? He said like, yeah, I used to be the personal secretary of Great General Vonnegat. So I was with my partner, American. He's the, he's American, you know. And he, my partner is like, he said like kind of tried to like say maybe sorry for,

He said, sorry for what he'll say, this to Vietnam or something like that. And actually, that doctor, the person of Deraong, is up. He smiled and he said, like, just don't mention that. It's just like, it's okay. The past is the past. So just move on. We are like good. We have a good relationship with each other now.

And I just like, yeah, like, just let's the past be the past and we should move on in the future. So even him, like we don't hold any grush over against like Americans or friends, something that. We will remember what the colonialism and imperialism did to us and we will make sure that you could never do that again to us. But it doesn't mean that we will forever hate you or like something like that. No, we will not take revenge and we want to move on. Beautifully said. Yeah, that was an excellent answer, a very sobering answer. Brett, that was a fantastic question.

Luna, we're going to wrap this up now, but before we go out, I have two things that I'm going to have you do for the listeners. First is if you have any final thoughts that you want them to know, not constrained by any questions that we ask, you take as much time to say anything that you want to get on the recording before we cut it. And also then, after you do that, let the listeners know how they can find you on social media as well as find your YouTube channel. So the floor is yours. So my final talk about the battle of Daytonville is like this. The battle of the victory of the windfall is like the proof from

Vietnamese people to the world that we are not we are not just good at guerrilla warfare. We are also good at an open battlefield. We are also good at the mobile warfare. And we again, like we are even really good at combining them together how to have a moral warfare from the war la warfare and actually we use this static kind of a lot in the American war we call it like the American war not the Vietnam War we call it like the resistance against the invasion of the USA yeah so and I hope that this you know the victory of Deep Banu and then the victory of Vietnam against the USA in 1975, I hope that this could become like an influence for the oppressed people all over the world to believe that you can win. You can win. Just fight for it. Maybe you

will not see the victory in your lifetime. But if you're fighting today, your children will see that victory. Your children will have the chance to live under freedom, true freedom and liberation and self-determination. And yes, I hope that we will become one of the rare example of like people oppressive in the world that we can win. That's it. Excellent. And again, I am, yeah, again, I am, I am Luna. I'm a Vietnamese communist, wanting living in Vietnam. You can find me on YouTube at channel Luna Ewe. Or on Twitter, my account is LunaE underscore Vien. That's it. Excellent. And of course, I'll link to all of that in the show description. So listeners, if you're listening and you want to follow Luna, which you absolutely

should be, just look in the show notes and you'll be able to click on stuff to follow Luna wherever she's doing stuff. Luna, thank you for coming on the show. It was an absolute pleasure. I know I had been wanting to bring you on for quite some time. I'm glad that we were able to get this done. I really enjoyed the conversation. I hope that you did too. Thank you so much for Amy. It is absolutely very nice conversation. And the things are like, it's great that like they are more and more people from outside of Vietnam, try to listen to the perspective for an actual Vietnamese living in Vietnam because usually our own history being wide. wash by the West a lot and I'm very tired of it. And that is why the main purpose of me having

my own channel is to bring to you a different perspective. You don't need to agree with me 100%. That's no, that's not my purpose. I just want to bring you a different kind of perspective so you can challenge your own, you know, like already existed understanding and conclusion about my own country. you can have a more comprehensive viewpoint about the capitalism, imperialism, and Vietnamese people, in general. You certainly are a different perspective, and we're delighted that you were able to give that to our audience. So thank you so much. I just wanted to redouble that. You're an essential and effective voice on the international left, and it's an honor to speak with you.

So thank you and salute to your entire family who gave it all in the people. pursuit of freedom and self-determination. Absolutely. Solidarity. And listeners on that note, we'll be right back with the wrap-up. Listeners, we're back with the wrap-up for Gorilla History's episode on the Battle of Dien Ben-Fu. We just finished our interview with Comrade Luna from Vietnam. Great conversation.

A lot of things. that we covered that I really wanted to know a lot about a few things that we want that we didn't have time to get to but it was a very enlightening discussion nonetheless and one that I really, really was happy to get on tape and be able to put together along with you guys. So guys, I'm going to turn to you right away for our initial impressions coming out of the conversation that we just had and perhaps we can kick a few things around before we wrap up this episode. I'll turn to you first. What were you, what are your initial impressions after this interview with

Conrad Luna? Well, I just learned so much about a different perspective and even more than just the particulars and the content. To me, it was very affecting in some ways to feel the pride and the power of the memory of this battle and how it continues to sustain, you know, a kind of anti-colonial, fierce independent resistance of the Vietnamese people that they carry with them today. That's really very inspiring. And, you know, we need more, and we need to remember more examples of this where there have been successes against the forces of imperialism and colonialism. You know, we're witnessing today some examples of the rollback of U.S. Empire. And it's interesting to think about this era of anti-colonial liberation that was

was launched in some ways by the battle at D.M. Banfu that led to decolonization and national liberation globally in Africa, other parts of Asia. I think people would do well to go back and listen to our episode with Leo Zelig about decolonization in Africa and to realize that in many ways this process was inspired by the heroic struggle and the victory of the people of Vietnam, and that's something that came across so powerfully in talking with Luna. As far as the actual specifics, it was a great point that she made about how this was actually not guerrilla warfare. So, you know, when Malcolm X says, you remember Jim Bemphu, you know, and they put some

guerrilla action on them, in fact, actually what's interesting is this was kind of a set piece battle where they mobilized their forces and they attacked a base. It wasn't a kind of attack and disappear into the jungle kind of situation. This was, you know, two months of sustained siege on the fortress and the base at Diem Bimphu. So it's kind of interesting, and that's perhaps in some ways that made it, you know, the eight preceding years were guerrilla warfare that helped sustain, you know, the struggle and eroded, you know, the power of French colonial military forces. But there wasn't some massive kind of victory or defeat that really demoralized completely French. you know the french uh colonies but this provided that and so that's kind of in some ways the power of it is that it was a victory that was different from sort of the long years of of guerrilla warfare

and that's kind of interesting to remember i think just the last thing that i would say came out of the conversation very powerfully uh for me was also the broad people's war what it takes to wage a people's war and that it wasn't just what happens at the battle but everything that goes into, you know, its success, the supplies, the moving of the resources, and how it required hundreds and thousands of people to be part of it. And that is, of course, the reason why it was successful is because of the, you know, fact that the entire society really was waging the struggle against the French, not just the military age combatants, but, you know, the whole society mobilized together. So I was very impressed with the importance of that.

in this perspective and of these stories of national sacrifice and heroic stories like the story that Luna told us about, you know, when pulling one of the siege guns or the artillery guns that they were bringing to the mountains to attack the valley of Diem. Ben-Fu, you know, these martyrs, basically, you know, who sacrificed themselves to make sure that they could, they wouldn't lose one of these crucial guns. This is the kind of importance of national memories and heroes of national liberation. These kinds of stories are very important for subsequent generations. So I thought it was amazing. Some really important things that you brought up at Don, and I know Brett is probably going to build on many of them, but I just want to make sure that I mentioned one point again that

I mentioned, I think in passing during the interview, but it's worth making sure that the listeners catch on because you also brought it up. This was not, by and large, guerrilla warfare in this battle. There was literally trench warfare, World War I trench warfare. Listeners, if I'm wrong on this point, feel free to tweet it at me because I do like getting the feedback, but I am not aware of any other major battle since World War I that used trench warfare style tactics until Dien Ben-Fu. There may have been, but I am unaware of any other major battle between World War I and Dien Ben-Fu, where people were literally entrenching themselves meters apart from each other.

Both sides, you know, shooting artillery. Of course, the Vietnamese actually had about twice as much artillery as the French did during this battle, which, as we mentioned during the interview, was unexpected by the French. But nonetheless, artillery falling left and right as these people were hunkered down in their trenches for weeks and slowly advancing meter by meter to meet the next trench, to get into hand-to-hand combat, to capture that trench, only to do the same thing over and over and over again. This was a slog. This was not a hit-and-run operation. And it's worth mentioning that because, again, we a lot of times get the impression, which in a lot of cases, was true that the Vietnamese tactics were confined to guerrilla warfare. In a lot of cases, that was what their tactics basically were, you know, in a nutshell. But this was very different.

This was very different. And it's worth mentioning that and for the listeners to be able to look that up. And again, fact check me on that. I would like to hear if there was any other major battles that used trench warfare style tactics between World War I and Jian Ben Fu. Brett, I'll turn it over to you now for your first thoughts. Yeah, I don't have too much to add, just adding to the guerrilla point, absolutely correct. But we do see, and it's mentioned in the interview, this evolution, right, from explicit guerrilla warfare and all that that entails, including this deep connection with the people in the territory and how that allowed those forces to evolve to a point to be able to engage in more traditional warfare against by all accounts. a much better equipped and larger military apparatus. So, you know, as processes go, these things are deeply connected,

and I find that to be fascinating. Another element of the conversation I really thought was interesting was, you know, in America specifically, we know about the Vietnam War. Those of us who love history and study this stuff probably know about NBN Fu and French colonialism. But the aspect of like Japanese fascist imperialism as preceding this attack by the French to regain control of Indochina was interesting, and the role that the communist revolution in China played in the ultimate outcome of this, you know, because the revolution

itself was successful in 49, so we're right in the middle of this protracted fight against French colonialism. And Luna even mentioned that the Vietnamese forces had to deal with the Japanese, the French, the Americans, and the Chinese nationalists at certain points along that border. And if you look at a map where DNBN Fu is located right in the northwestern part of the country, it's very close to Laos and is obviously one of the reasons why it was strategically chosen by the French to have this battle. And it's very close to their northern border and the southern border of China. So it's not just two countries as it so often is. It's multiple countries on these multiple fault lines.

And I found that to be interesting. Another aspect that really stood out to me was the debating between the USSR and the newly communist China led by Mao and Stalin respectively about how to approach this particular battle. And there was this more hesitation on the part of Stalin, but more urgency and optimism on behalf of Mao. And we see sort of which line eventually won out and how there was this funding and attempt to help from both countries. to the communist forces in Vietnam. I found that to be very interesting. The deep family ties that Luna expressed was also, I mean, I should have expected it,

especially with the country that's not a huge country and a relatively recent history, as she pointed out, so many people have deep family ties to this conflict. And Henry, you pointed out how similar things obtained in Russia with regards to the fight against Nazi Germany. So, you know, that really brought it home and brought a human element to a conflict, whether that's the fight against the French or the subsequent fight against the Americans, that human element is so often washed out of the equation, not to mention the entire perspective of the Vietnamese, of course, has washed out a perspective when it's taught in Western and American schoolrooms. So that was interesting.

And then the legacy lives on, right? the Communist Party that was built and forged and turned into a fighting force to repel the French and then the Americans, they took over Vietnamese society and that legacy continues to live on to this day in the way that their society is structured, which could never have happened under colonialism or imperialism or imperial domination and control. Their fight for decolonial, anti-imperialist self-determination was the prerequisite for them building up a more robust socialist society. And we should never forget that. And that's why as socialist, as Marxist, as communists, we also support decolonial struggles. And we must always support anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles. And this entire episode drove that home even further. Yeah, I'll give my quick thoughts. And then we'll go around the horn for each of your just closing thoughts very quickly before we wrap this up. I mentioned in the intro that this battle led to regime change even in France.

This, of course, is not nearly as important as the impact of the legacy of this battle on these national liberation movements worldwide, which we've been trying to drive home basically this entire episode. After all, I believe that there was 14 changes in government in France during the course of the first Indochina war, which was like eight, eight and a half years, almost nine years long this war. And there was, again, I believe 14 changes in government. during the course of this war. So the fact that this battle alone was responsible for a change in government isn't necessarily, you know, huge news in the history of France, at least compared to, as I said, the legacy of this battle on movements worldwide, where it really was inspiring and almost used as a blueprint for a lot of these liberatory struggles for freedom and for, you know,

these revolutionary movements. That, of course, is far, far more important. I think that it's something that's interesting is just looking at the role of Navarre, Henri Navarre, the French ruler, not ruler, the military commander in Indochina. He had been brought in in 53. Prior to that, there had been a bunch of other generals who all were fairly incompetent.

Navarre was brought in in May of 1953 with the objective of reaching their strategic objectives with dignity within 18 months. And despite that, within one year, less than one year, the war had ended in catastrophic defeat for the French. the Battle of Dan Ben-Fu started in March of 1954, and it ended just under two months later at the beginning of May, 1954. Now, Henri Navarre, after the war, this is just another interesting aside, when he went back to France, wrote a book about his experiences in Indochina,

and he blamed much of it on intellectuals in France and communists within France. So a little bit of an interesting aside that even after this catastrophic defeat, which was purely a military defeat, he still was blaming communists at home in this case. But nonetheless, just briefly before I turn this back over to the guys, the change in government that I was referring to was when the government of Laniel, forgive me on pronunciation of French, resigned and Pierre Mendes France came into power with the support of the Communist Party of France. And he was this basically transitional leader for about eight months, I believe, where they undertook some positive steps in getting out of Indochina and reestablishing better relations with the Vietnamese people for this short period of time. But it didn't last for long. As a

non mentioned in the intro, this ultimately set the stage for de Gaulle coming back into power. And that is another interesting story. But again, just to reiterate this point, and this is the final thing I'll say before we go around the horn once more between you two guys. The implications within France are small compared to the implications within Vietnam, as we've mentioned multiple times. The legacy lives on within Vietnam. Every family or almost every family has stories, personal stories, about individuals of their families that fought in this battle. Or even if they didn't fight in the battle itself,

they took part in the battle, even if it was riding a bicycle carrying rice to support the effort in this battle. Without those people, this would not have been successful. So the legacy lives on within Vietnam and the legacy of this battle and the successful struggle against colonialism and imperialism is something that still inspires revolutionary movements worldwide today. And I think that that is the most important thing that can be taken out from the Battle of Jen Ben-Fu.

Guys, let's go around once more for your final thoughts. Adnan will go to your final thoughts quickly first and then Brett. Well, I just mean, I think this had a lot of implications geopolitically, as we've been talking about, and I guess the last thing I would point out is that this battle took place just one year before that Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia, that is in some ways the birth of the non-aligned movement, the geopolitical organizing of the third world to pursue their independent interests and on the global stage. And it was very important, um, that the 10-point declaration promoting world peace and cooperation,

the Dasasila Bandung, was very much a kind of rejection of colonialism and the importance of preserving and protecting these new post-colonial nations that were starting to emerge, including, of course, Vietnam, which at this point was divided between northern, North Vietnam and South Vietnam, both of whom sent delegations to the conference, but that it established this principle of anti-colonialism and of non-interference in third world states that they should enjoy sovereignty

that was a consequence in some ways of this anti-colonial struggle really reshaping the politics of the globe at this moment. and inspiring the anti-colonial independent direction in some ways of the third world, the emerging third world. Yeah, I could not say it any better. I think we've said all we need to say. I want to just reiterate that I really think it's important for people to go subscribe and listen to and engage with Luna and her channel and her voice.

I think she's really important for the international and the American left. She has lots of pointed critiques. and they're all really well rooted and just her story and her lived experiences in Vietnam are also of crucial importance and add a very important component to her politics

and we can all learn from that. So definitely go check that out and just to end it here, if you want to find anything I do, you can go to Revolutionary LeftRadio.com, find all the shows, Twitter, Patreon, everything like that. And yeah, hope we can talk to Luna again.

That was really fun. Absolutely. Thank you, Brett. Just as a brief mentioned before Adnan, I have you tell the listeners where they can find you. You mentioned Bandung. For the listeners that are interested, we did a Patreon exclusive episode on the Bandung conference quite a few months back at this point. But it was a very interesting episode. And I encourage folks that want to help support the show monetarily because the show actually isn't free to run despite the fact that many of you think it might be.

It was a very interesting conversation that we had about the Bandung conference, and I would recommend going back and listening to that. Or if you're on Patreon and haven't heard it yet, just scroll back up and listen to that bonus episode that we did. Adnan, how can the listeners find you and your other podcast? They can follow me on Twitter at Adnan A Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. And check out my other podcast, The M-A-J-L-I-S. If you're interested in the Middle East, Islamic world, Muslim diasporic culture, you know, check that out. It's on anchor.fm, the muddh list and on all the other platforms. And what's the next thing that they're going to hear on the muddhist?

Because we're actually not recording, you know, a million months in advance right now. So we actually kind of know what the next thing that they'll be hearing is. Well, we are thinking about doing an episode on Dune and sort of Islam in popular culture since at this time of recording, there's a lot of discussion about the movie and Frank Herbert's sci-fi fantasy novel series. So that's one thing that might be upcoming soon to look for that. All right. I'm looking forward to that myself, even though I'm. I haven't read the book or seen the movie and probably won't. But nonetheless, listeners, if you want to find me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck-1995, H-U-C-K-1-9-95.

Follow the show on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A underscore pod with two R's. And you can support the show monetarily on Patreon, patreon. Patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, G-E-R-R-R-E-R-E-R-E-R. R-R-R-I-L-A history, where we have bonus content for people that are able to support the show. And we really do appreciate that. And even if you're not able to support the show on Patreon, do send the links of our episodes to friends, family, comrades, give us a review on Apple Podcasts, if that's where you're

listening to your podcast, anything that you can do to help get the word out. We do this. We don't really make any money on it. We do this for political education purposes, and we do appreciate all of the support that we've seen from listeners. So without further ado, listeners, we're going to wrap up this episode on the Battle of Dienben-Fu that we did with Comrade Luna. Check out her channel. And until next time, solidarity. I'm going to be able to be.

Thank you.