TRANSCRIPT, HO CHI MINH'S PRESENTATION AT THE LIUZHOU CONFERENCE (EXCERPT)

JULY 05, 1954

(1) Premier Zhou not only has participated in the struggle in Geneva, but also come here to make the important report. His presentation is very thorough, to which I am very grateful. In the past 30 years, since the establishment of the Communist Party of Indochina, we have always received support from the CCP Central Committee and also the personal help from Premier Zhou Enlai.

(2) The supplementary opinions of the other [Chinese] comrades are also very good, to which I agree completely.

(3) Now Vietnam is standing at the crossroads, either going to peace, or going to war. The main direction [of our strategy] should be the pursuit of peace, and we should also be prepared for [continuously] fighting a war. The complication of our work is that we have to prepare for both aspects in our strategy. For the ordinary people, and even for our cadres, this issue will appear extremely complicated. Our slogan in the past was "to carry the resistance through to the end," and why now we want to pursue peace? Our cadres will ask "which is correct?" I agree that the primary issue is to persuade our cadres. There are many difficulties in this regard. But [to solve this problem] will first of all depend on the efforts by us the Vietnamese comrades. In addition, we will also depend on the help of the Chinese comrades.

(4) What the [Vietnamese] Workers' Party Central Committee will need to do is how to persuade high-ranking cadres... We do not have much time in this regard. Our problem is that we do not have enough cadres, but the work facing us is too much. In order to take over Hanoi and Haiphong we will need to have a large group of cadres. My main concern is that we do not have so many cadres, and, in comparison, I am not so concerned by other difficulties.

(5) Finally, I represent this conference to thank Chairman Mao and the CCP Central Committee.