Fight for the Pacific - US imperialist aggression against Vietnam

Fight for the Pacific 

Avarin

6. US imperialist aggression against Vietnam

American aggression also extended to Indo-China, Burma and Malaya.

The American publicist Gallett Abend, who usually reflected the views and aspirations of the American colonialists in East Asia, published in 1943 the book "The Charter of the Pacific", in which he shows that even at that time the American monopolies were hatching predatory plans also with regard to Indo-China, Malaya , Burmese.

Abend writes that the United States should be included among Burma's guardians after the war. He assured that after the war, "the eyes of the Malays will be turned to the United States." Abend recommended not to return Indo-China to France, but to place it, like Korea, "under the control of an international organization." Other projects being developed in Washington gave the French government only a limited mandate to manage Indo-China.

When the people created the independent Republic of Vietnam in Indo-China, the Wall Street bankers thought it more prudent to leave the dirty work of suppressing the people's movement in Indo-China to the French colonialists, supporting the heinous actions of the French aggressors in every conceivable way. Since the French government of social opportunists and Catholics had harnessed itself to the chariot of American finance capital, the American imperialists were confident that the doors to Indo-China would be wide open to them as soon as "order" was established there.

When it turned out that the troops of the French colonialists were unable to cope with the people of Vietnam, the American imperialists became impatient and began to directly intervene in the struggle against the peoples of Indo-China.

In the spring of 1947, the French imperialists began negotiations with Bao Dai, the former emperor of Annam, who had abdicated and transferred all prerogatives of power to the government of the Republic of Vietnam. Bao Dai, knowing the mood of the Vietnamese people, initially hesitated whether to accept the French offer to nominally head a puppet "autonomous" regime in the French-occupied areas of Vietnam. He wanted to bargain as much as possible from the French in his favor.

Then the American imperialists appeared on the scene. In September 1947, the well-known political saboteur Bullitt arrived in Hong Kong, where Bao Dai lived. He began to "work" Bao Dai, promising American support for the future puppet regime. Bullitt also visited the French-occupied territory of Indo-China.

Returning to the United States, Bullitt, in an article in Life magazine, emphasized the strategic importance of Indo-China to US imperialism and highlighted the potential importance of a railroad crossing Indo-China. Summing up the results of his reconnaissance trip, Bullitt posed the question: "Is it not time for the United States to take up the cause?"

As a result of the joint efforts of the French and American imperialists, in May 1948, the "Government of Vietnam" was born, headed by the Prime Minister, General of the French Army Nguyen Van Gua, who even forgot the Annamite language. On June 5, 1948, representatives of this puppet government and the French High Commissioner for Indo-China, Bollaert, on board a French cruiser, signed an agreement under which Vietnam "joins" the "French Union" and fulfills all other requirements, the purpose of which was to keep Indo-China as a French colony.

There was more than one puppet government in the world, but the imperialists gained practically nothing. The Vietnamese people and the government they created, headed by Ho Chi Minh, have since intensified their struggle for genuine independence and democracy.

Wall Street representatives increasingly multiplied their "concerns" about Vietnam. In November 1948 Senator Malon arrived in Indo-China. He reproached the leaders of the French colonialists for their "inability to deal with the natives", gave instructions to Pignon, the French high commissioner in Indo-China, and the "premier" Nguyen Van Gua. The colonialists again seized on Bao Dai as an anchor of salvation. He, having arrived on the French Riviera, continued to bargain.

The French imperialists finally agreed with him on the price of betrayal, and by the spring of 1949 this feudal lord agreed to lead the puppet regime in Vietnam. The unenforceable Franco-Bao Dai agreement was signed in Paris on March 8, 1949. According to this agreement, the French government, with the help of the institution of French advisers, retained full control over the domestic and foreign policy of the Bao Dai regime. The French imperialists also stipulated the right to maintain military bases in Vietnam and build new ones. To the French capitalists, Bao Dai undertook to return all the wealth they had stolen in the country. In a word, under the guise of a union state that is a member of the "French Union", Vietnam under this agreement remains in full measure a colony of French monopoly capital.

In view of the political failure of the puppet government, the Americans, already from the summer of 1949, were again developing various projects for more active intervention; they got the London government to agree to the inclusion of Indo-China in the "American sphere of responsibility."

In 1950, the government of Bao Dai - the "Emperor of the Cafe Shantans" - increasingly moved into the orbit of American imperialism. To hasten the penetration of American monopolies into Vietnam, the Washington government officially "recognized" the puppet government of Bao Dai. In January 1950, "special ambassador" Jessep conveyed to Bao Dai a message from the American government expressing readiness to establish "the closest relations" with the Vietnamese puppet government. In July 1950, a mission consisting of Malby and General Erskine visited Indo-China. This American general, with martyr frankness, declared that the American government's goal was to create an army in Indo-China that would be capable of not only subduing the people of Vietnam, but also to participate in the suppression of the people's liberation movement in other countries of Southeast Asia.

From the summer of 1950, the Truman government, heading for direct not only economic and political, but also military intervention in the countries of Asia and the Far East, began to send military aircraft, weapons, military instructors and advisers to Indo-China to lead the war against Vietnam. After the Truman-Pleven conference at the beginning of 1951, the French colonialists announced that Truman had promised to send large quantities of weapons to Indo-China. However, the facts have already confirmed that the US imperialists will have no more success in Vietnam than they had in China.

The war against Vietnam is being waged for the interests of the French-American Lazar banking group, for the colonial super-profits of the Indochina Bank, for the interests of US financial magnates who are hungry for Indochinese sources of raw materials and seeking to turn this country into a military springboard for attacking the People's Republic of China. To one degree or another, the French soldiers who are used as cannon fodder and shed their blood for the profit of French and American moneybags already understand this. The shameful colonial war in Vietnam is doomed to failure.

The combined efforts of American and French imperialism did not in the least shake the will to fight of the popular masses of Indo-China. They continue their heroic liberation war with even greater energy, with full confidence in the final victory.