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How did the Vietcong gain support from Vietnamese people in the 1950s to the 1960s?

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They didn’t need to gain it, they had it because they were of the people. They were descended from the Viet Minh who fought the French and the Japanese.

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They didn’t. The Viet Minh had some popular support as they were fighting to expel the French. But after the negotiations in Geneva that established a North and South Vietnam, the citizens could move to whichever country they wanted to live in. Over a million Vietnamese moved south. Less than 50,000 moved north.

Since very few of the Vietnamese were enamored with communism, but the communist felt that they knew what was best for everyone, they left a cadre of guerrilla fighters behind when they moved north. These were called Viet Cong.

The Viet Cong were able to recruit some people to fight against a very Trump-like corrupt government that was bent on self-enrichment and not building a vibrant democracy. With logistical support from the north and indirectly from USSR, the south’s future looked uncertain. So the south asked the US for help.

When the tide looked like it was turning against the Viet Cong, they committed their first strategic blunder; they adopted terrorist tactics. Anyone who has read Che Guevara’s or Mao Zedong’s books on guerrilla warfare would know that a guerrilla army without popular support will fail. No Army that terrorizes the populace will be supported by the populace.

The rest, as they say, is history. But the most telling bit of history is that it was not the Viet Cong that eventually conquered South Vietnam but the North Vietnamese Army. After Tet of ‘68, the Viet Cong had become so hated that they could not recruit. So the only effective communist fighting force in the South was the North Vietnamese Army.

One need to read American histories of that war with a high degree of scepticism. The Vietnamese war was extremely unpopular among the American intelligentsia (as it should have been). These same intellectuals wrote the history books often portraying the war in a way that supported their political opinions rather than presenting a balanced view of history.

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They used whatever worked.

The South was not a nation but a section of Vietnam into which the people who had supported the French colonialists or who opposed the Viet Minh for their Communist ideology concentrated after the French gave up Indochina. The division was tentative pending a general election in 1956 which would decide the future of the country politically. The U.S. was able to postpone the elections indefinitely and attempted to establish a strong government in the South which would become a permanent state, one that was non-Communist and aligned with the U.S. and it’s allies.

By 1960, the South Vietnam Government was not proving to be effective. The many factions in the South were not in agreement as to how they wished to be governed and the huge population involved in traditional rice culture was indifferent about political concerns. Corruption was rampant and some factions were nearing a state of civil war. The Viet Cong was the product of both the disorder in the South and the determination of the North to re-unify the country under Communist government.

In guerrilla war, the insurgents require the support and non-interference of the general population to succeed. The Viet Cong used grievances against the Saigon Government to gain adherents and atrocities against those who cooperated with or supported the Saigon Government to dissuade interference. They received intelligence and logistical support and recruits from supporting populations. They also received most of their material support from North Vietnam and strategic level policy decisions as well as military efforts. They were so severely reduced by the casualties which they suffered in the 1968 Tet Offensive that afterwards the North Vietnamese mostly replaced them in the warfare conducted. They liked to portray themselves as liberators but they were just another group of people trying to achieve power, by any means necessary.

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It was very easy. Carrot and stick. First of all anywhere in the world you’ll have willing recruits from the populace when foreign troops are walking around blowing stuff up. Doesnt matter why or who. Second if theyre propping one side up its easy to argue rhat side is the bad guys.

When that failed.. terror. The US or ARVN coildnt live there forever. Well actually I mean villages could and were relocated to hellish refugee camps. So it was an impossible situation and rhe true victims of Vietnam were the hapless VN peasants in S VN caught between the US and US backed ARVN and the VC ans NVA backed by China and Russia but much more low key.

A good example is when the US first started bringing major amounts of troops in aroind 64/65. Rhe US had a program where medics would visit vilages and give aid to a few hundred people in a day. Or perhaps inoculate the children. Hearts and minds. So they inoculated one village. The VC came that night and chopped the arm of each kid that had been innoculated off. The message being. - any interaction or help from the US is complicity/colloboration and a death sentence from the VC. Ironically if a VC or NVA was captured by the US as they were actualy guests in VN they eventually had tk turn the men over to the ARVN. The ARVN almost always executed anyone who was VC or NVA. For one the argument being the men were traitors.

So it really was an impossivle situation for most S VN at the time. Young men were gonna be drafted or have to join the VC. You couldnt not take a side. The peasants basically had to just kowtow to whover controlled the area including at night.

This meant that unfortunately alot like Afghanistan only the cities were anywhere remotely safe and even then they werent safe by any normal definition - you just were safer.

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Tough question. History reflects that both nationalism and violence were used in equal parts to gain support of the Vietnamese people to fight first the French and then the Americans. But it goes back well before the 50’s and 60’s. I recommend reading up on Vietnam’s history going back to the early 1900’s to get a better understanding. A very abbreviated explanation: After WW2 Ho Chi Minh was one of the Vietnamese leaders, becoming their beloved leader, to advocate Vietnam becoming a free country, which meant getting rid of the French who had colonized Indo China since the 1800’s. So there was support for the Vietnamese resistance, the Viet Minh under the leadership of General Vo Giap, and nationalism was pushed to the people that they should have their own country and not be under the French. But most Vietnamese were poor farmers and in many ways who ran their country had little affect on them so they were not necessarily supportive of the Viet Minh, since it meant sending their men to fight and die in battle. So the Viet Minh, and later the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese after the country was split, used more brutal tactics, forcing men to fight for them and taking food and supplies from villages. This is a very brief explanation.

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Complicated question

They were murderous to those in villages that did not support them.

On the other hand they were Vietnamese and Americans weren’t.

The real issue is what happened to the local VC after 1975 when the North took over.

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Being on one’s own turf (and recruiting from one’s children) does draw sympathy. How much actual ideological sympathy they gained is hard to tell. Often locals just want to be left alone.

There were other ways. One was simply that they were predictable. You knew what you could do to get them to stop bothering you. The ARVN were often erratic and when they foraged they caused trouble. While the Americans tended to use to much firepower and the fact that it landed on a neutral by accident did not make him less dead.

The VC were never “nice” and they should not be credited with that. They were however smart.

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They wooed the Vietnamese peasantry to fight the US military whenever US transport planes used Agent Orange to spoil crops in order to prevent the Vietnamese peasantry from supplying crops to the Vietcong.

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This is a complicated situation. Most of the Vietnamese wanted to live an average life without interference from anyone. They were somewhat passive and thus vulnerable. In some ways they remind me of the Philippines today.

Nevertheless read the excellent book “Street Without Joy” and you will understand the situation.

Street Without Joy - Wikipedia

Also read:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Cassidy/publication/235101418_Back_to_the_Street_without_Joy_Counterinsurgency_Lessons_from_Vietnam_and_Other_Small_Wars/links/00b495232feb5c405f000000/Back-to-the-Street-without-Joy-Counterinsurgency-Lessons-from-Vietnam-and-Other-Small-Wars.pdf?origin=publication_detail

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During this time Communists fought for independence, the French and US henchmen

image

were traitors against independence and reunification.

Vietnamese people hate them, because Vietnamese people have patriotism in the tradition.

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