Rev Left Radio - Guerrilla History: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we talk 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.  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.  Support her on patreon by going to https://www.patreon.com/lunaoi.  Full episode, with intro and outro, here: https://guerrillahistory.libsyn.com/luna ----- Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio or make a one time donation: PayPal.me/revleft LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

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 born and living in Vietnam. I have my own channel named Luna Oh, you can find me on a YouTube channel, on YouTube, Luna O. I usually I make videos, teach you how to cook Vietnamese food, also how to, you know, like traveling vlog. So I travel in Vietnam and I make videos about that. And also I talk about politic 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 Jen 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 the Vietnam Fool. And yes, generally 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 in that battle actually also liberate. 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 we, in that, Divinful, victory, Vietnam and Laos, we work very close together. Because, like, yeah, the literal, though, the fortress of Vietnamville, it was located right, in the border between Vietnam and Laos. So that is 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, 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, of 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 positioning or the ability within the terrain here to defend both our interests in our positions within Vietnam as well as defending the Lausian border.

but that order was not given until after they had already begun entrenching themselves at Dienben-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 defensives across the country of Vietnam. Yeah, absolutely. So, though, 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 province by province, all right? And during from 1950, 1945 to 1953, we kept winning and winning and winning. All right. That was why at the point, 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 like during the last year that led to the the Indian full victory the French they

they knew that they knew that they were losing this battle and that was why like when the time in about

1953 when Hotchiming and Von and Zapp decided to go to be a 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 save face, to save the face for the French colonialism by like, okay, like bring everything that they got to be in full and try to defend this, because It's like if they can maintain that fortress, they can expand their hands to both the north of Vietnam and then to Laos. So they want to, that's very important to them. And Wang Zav and Ho Chi Ming, they knew. They knew that French is spending everything they got on the Yibin Fu, and we allow that to happen. We, because we believe that like this.

We made use of the arrogance of the French. that like they the French military that Navarre General they believe that the Indian Bainful 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 Vietnamese soldiers to find a way to that Bia Bainful and the strong point of the French

military at the time of that 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 De Beinfu to build the fortress over there. And if you read this book, People's War, People's Army,

written by Vauwianzak himself talking about the Deerbinfu alone. He talked about that a lot. Why we allowed the French to keep building them, military on the Indian full and why we 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 poise are like we knew that they were building the fortress in Vietnam full and we allowed that to happen because we had our secrets 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 forces managed to achieve and accomplish that surprised the French?

Sure. So we, again, we studied the pros and cons of the military, the French military. And their strong point is that, as you said, they had like strong supplies, aircrafts, and strong weapons. But their weaknesses, like, beautiful is isolated area and it's far away from all other bases of the French. It was why, like, once we can defeat them, like, they cannot sit 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. We made use of that strong point and turned it into a weak point. That was why we used a lot of anti-air props, artillery, to totally destroy their air force. 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 guerrilla tactics to bring supply to the info and how we turn from verily warfare into the mobile warfare. And that is a very big point of that victory. And the funny thing is that like my grandpa, he joined the guerrilla team. My grandpa was the one who volunteered to bring food and supplies to the Indian people, 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. So I'm sure the book by General Deap, 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 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? But 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 mount. 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 artillery, not necessarily the anti-aircraft guns, but the other artillery, the Hawitzers, 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, if they were in North Korea, what is now DPRK, again, they were captured. And then the solidarity between these countries led to them. I'm 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 you say whatever you want? Yeah, okay. I kind of want to introduce you the way that we study about this statement for in our schools.

All right. So we start from, well, Von Wenzap, the Great Area of Vietnam, he had a, you know, like, conclusion that, like, we can defeat difficult. Only if we have a support of our own people and we have to overcome all the difficulties to change all the weaknesses into our strong points and to fix all of that. to, so we, because we want to seek for victory. So because it been 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 Binhu,

we spent years building the roads over there. And one of the biggest kind of, one of the biggest invention of Vietnam Commonwealth at the time was the bicycle. And my grandpa joined one of those teams. It's a very, 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 walk. We walk from the local area area.

The farm, we call 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 would buy them if we can. And then we brought those bicycles back to Vietnam. And then we gave those bicycles to Vietnamese people.

And we modified it. We put more bamboo sticks and iron sick on it to strengthen it to make it carry a lot of stuff on it. And my grandpa was the one who, hey, from my hometown is Tang Hwa. And Tang Wai is the biggest bicycle team in Vietnam that joined the Binhu. That was totaled about 21,000 bicycles joining that Dian Bufu campaign. And 11,000 of them came from my hometown, Tang Hwa. My grandpa took one of those bicycle 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 Tanghua all the way to Diet Bienfu. And the way that how we like many stars alike, we form small teams like a team of a team of, five bicycles together we were in 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 the small team of five bicycle like that we have a whole huge team of 21,000 and we just literally walk up to the mountain all right and the second of 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 or any activities, they just drop nabang 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 song we at that time sang by the military, sang by the Vietnamese communist so yours, is this song.

Oh, Zoho Ta Nau, Kiao Fao Ta Vurt Qua Deo. Oh, Zoha Nao, Kiao Vurt Qua Nui. That was the song that the commonestani, sang when they grab those artillery up into the mountain to the being full. And that song came from our challenge, the channel 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 ha zota now it's like a strong song

to that 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 definitely did it I did do that Hoh Zoh, it's just like

Hoh Zoh is like the way we say the Vietnamese like, Hau Zoh, Zoh, it's like the written, like it's like you push back and then Zoh is when you push it back. Hurt like this. And Kiao Fao Tau

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 a 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 Dolbyzia. When he, when a team of 10 or 20 people were trying to carry it, the artillery up to the mountain, suddenly one of the string, you know, got like broken. And that Dolvinsian 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 battle of Divinful, we had only 24 artillery. And each of them, Harry, about three tons, up to three times. We cannot risk to lose any one of them. So Doving Zien, he sacrificed himself to save that artillery, to say 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 camp, to bring all of the material to Dienben Fu. The force of soldiers of Vietnam at Dienben Fu 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, sacks of rice for, you know, however far to get to the battlefield in order to supply 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 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 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 fascist weapons. But what happened in Vietnam during the 1940s, they actually worked together to exploit us even more. There was a famous saying in Vietnamese 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 French 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, even if you're down with that time. Both of my grandpa and my grandma lived through that time. They were about like 10, 15 years at that time. And my grandma had to be at the severe my nutrition all her life. Is that 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 nutrition that she had to go through during the 1940s. My grandpa, the one who joined the dead bit full, he was a teeny tiny man, teeny tiny man. And yeah, it was like my family was like the 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 Hojiming 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 rice, and we distributed rice 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 know 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, next 65. 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 Hachimin immediately called people to like, like something like, you know, like the French and the Japan causes starvation. Finally, when we won against them, we had our independence, now the French decided to come back and they want to, they want to enslave us once again. No, we'd rather sacrifice every time. 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 a 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's why we got the huge support from 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 persuasion 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 communists 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, like, because of the

Red scare is so strong over there, though the priority for you right now is to have homeless people, to have indigenous people, to fight war against the oppression and to fight for their struggles. That is very important. That's how you gain people over your sign. 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 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, um, I'd like to, um, I'd like to get us into the actual battle, um, a little bit. And, um,

I've read a little bit about how General Giapp's strategy initially had been to strike quickly to defeat the French. But as we know, we think of this as the battle of Diem B'Enfou, 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 Jaup 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, you know, to withdraw. draw 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 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 as something that took a long time, you know, to achieve. You mentioned how the supply. It 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 Vietnam 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. Von and Zap, he had the strategy of strike quickly and win 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 comes, 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. You can re-evaluate. or the thing that we did.

That was why we came up with a new strategy. It's strike 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. He's going to use a loss for us, and he changed the strategy. So, like, from then on, we had the decision, like, we only strike when we know for certain that we will. win. If there's any chance 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 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 cigarette hundreds of kilometers of changes

around the air being full so we can bring and run freely even though the aircrafts dropping nabang bombs on us we still can cigarette run under those changes

nearly like we almost like completely surround that the air being full 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 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, guess, let me just let you have the opportunity then to take us through the battle itself from, just kind of lay out what happened for us. So, you know, we talked about Gamben Fu 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 airstrip 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. 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 eventful fortress without letting the enemy know it. So when we decided to attack first, you know, when we decided to attack, the military, the friends, they immediately stand like lots of their aircrafts flying around

you need 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, 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. successfully shoot the aircraft. So like we had about, as I said, we had about 24 air theories and we successfully shot down over 50 aircrafts of the French and we, we even like, like, what do you

call it? We attacked, like we insert. It's not a reason, but like more than a hundred other aircraft were shot by us too. We're not totally shot down, but we're not totally shot down, but we heavily broken by our guns so like after we use our anti-aircrafts and our artillery to fight to shoot down their guns they the French immediately like all but the aircrafts to try to protect them as long as in this book like we can see that how they immediately how the all the airplanes stop flying around over us and and they went back to that portion They cannot lose, they cannot take the risk of losing those aircrafts 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 fight 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 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 happens so fast.

And the French military, they surrender so fast that after they already surrendered, after we took over David Fuchess, the American aircraft still dropping supplies onto the battlefield. And we just took over everything. Yay! They surrendered so fast. 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 1955, 54, but had been going on since the end of World War II. So we had this long extended fight. And China, right, the Chinese communists 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. 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 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 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 Chianghai sect 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's just a point that we can defeat them. The colonial French haven't yet come here. And then the Chiang Kai Shik was still far further in the north border. So in that matter, a few days are like, 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 20145, actually, Hooschiming got some help from the OSS. That later they became the CIA. Actually, Hosiming 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 French, but on the other hand, they already prepared to intervene in Vietnam if the French, the friends failed and they did it. So the things are like, Gnorsi, the fascist 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 Bidivou happened.

And after the victory of the Bid Biffel, you know, the Geneva Agreement, thanks to that victory, we force the French to go seat 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 jump in and then they have to like, they lie to us. They lied to us. That temporarily 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 exhibit into the to be in charge of the popular regime inside of Vietnam. But two years later in 1996, 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 Hohsi-Ming. And they knew that if that election happened, most of Vietnamese would just vote for Hohsi-Ming.

and vote for the re-divocation 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-Men, 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-Men 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-Men 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, 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 both the USSR at that time. China, they sent, mostly they sent rise to Vietnam. I remember that like, you know, they sent us like a thousand 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 hoshiming and mao actually had very close relationship with each other of Porchiming 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 Hooseming met Stalin in the 1950s when Hooszsche Ming suggested that to suggest 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 span out all our main power and supplies and all kinds of like that to fight against the imperialism and colonialism because they're going to they couldn't believe that we can win that's the main point. That was why the USA at that time

did not really want Vietnam to fight at all costs. But Mao agree with hoseming in that point mao actually persuaded Stalin to meet hoseming and mao actually sent a lot of help and supplies to vietnam to win against uh the french that's beautiful i wish i was a fly on the wall between the meeting of ho chamin 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 aided Vietnam at this time, and as the person that's located in Russia right now, I feel obliged to say this, but Soviet support didn't really come in for the Vietnamese until 1952, 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 Dienben 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, you know, a big thing, as well as some of the artillery was also so. 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 and 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 Glyn 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 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 democratic, and this is why the U.S. was so hell-bent on undermining Iyende in Chile, for example, because it was a democratic revolution.

And they wanted 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 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 trued 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 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 neither here nor there, just a point worth the 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 percent of the population would have voted for ho chie min so you know the american authorities were very well aware of the popularity of, you know, the Ho Chi Minh 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. November 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, 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,

you know, 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, 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 now still trying to to answer the question like how did we win it that was why like we so freaking proud of it and yes vietnamese people even to this day we still

give like analyzes about like how we made that happens and how kind of all all the odds that we had to overcome into that victory. And yes, and we would never forget that victory literally 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, you know, 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 in 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 Indochina 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, is a shining light in the battle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism. And I think that it's important for us to spend just a little bit more time talking about the legacy of, 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 core. 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 legitimate. dimensional that were required is so indicative of how it was a people's war. That's what made the difference. It's not that they did, you know, of course it was very, very helpful to have the artillery supplied from outside 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 you know 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 uh 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 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 scars. caused by the wars. And in my own family, speaking of from 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 bride that we have on our history, it's the deep sadness behind that because like what did we do to deserve this we just want like self-determination and freedom why why why why why 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 so

But we are forgiving people. It means 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 Bonnard Zab a few years ago.

At that time, he was a demonstration. 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 Vongenza. I was shocked like, is that you up there, doctor? Said like, yeah, I used to be the personal secretary of Great General Vongenza. So I was with my partner, American. He's the, he's American, you know. And he, my partner is, he said like kind of try 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 the day wrong is up he smiled and he say like just don't mention that it's just like it's okay the past is the past

just like just move on we are like good we have a good relationship with each other now and like 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 rush 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. now we will not take revenge and we want to move on beautifully said yeah what that was a excellent answer a very sobering answer brett that was a fantastic question um 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 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 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 David Fu is like this. The battle of the victory of Dick Winfield 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 mobile warfare from the World 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 Big Ben-Hu, 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 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 commonest one living in Vietnam. You can find me on YouTube at channel Luna-Oi or on Twitter. My account is Luna-Oi underscore BN.

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, very me. 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-washed 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%. 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. So maybe you can have a more comprehensive viewpoint about the capitalism, imperialism, and Vietnamese people

in general. Well, you certainly have a new, 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 pursuit of freedom and self-determination. Absolutely. Solidarity.