202 { China’s Quest
initial period of “strategic defense.”^7 Throughout Hanoi’s long war with the
United States, it was important to Beijing that Hanoi cleave to Mao’s military
strategy. Otherwise, how could Hanoi’s success confirm the correctness of
Mao’s line? Since Vietnam’s war of national liberation was the prime display
of the correctness of Mao’s theory, it was important to Beijing that Hanoi ac-
tually follow Mao’s strategy.
The military strategy worked out by VWP General Secretary Le Duan
and his chief general Nguyen Chi Thanh differed from Mao’s model of pro-
tracted people’s war in several ways. One was by stressing large-unit battles
(battalion size and above; a battalion is roughly 1,000 men).^8 From Le Duan
and Thanh’s perspective, the VWP had available resources simply unavail-
able to Mao circa 1938 when he worked out his three-stage strategy of pro-
tracted guerrilla war. North Vietnam had an industrial base far superior to
that enjoyed by the CCP in China’s interior in the 1930s. Le Duan’s “south
first” strategy called for complete mobilization of the north’s economy for
war in the south.^9 Moreover, Hanoi had two powerful socialist allies, the
PRC and the USSR, able and willing to supply VWP forces. The CCP in the
1930s had had to deal with a much weaker and more isolated Soviet Union
which had to act cautiously in supporting anti-imperialist struggles. In the
1960s, the socialist camp was vastly stronger and more able to assist world
revolutionary movements. From these differences, Le Duan and Thanh
devised a strategy that mixed Maoist-style low-intensity, smaller-unit guer-
rilla warfare with aggressive assaults by big, well-armed units against the
enemy’s main forces. From the CCP perspective, this was a recipe for dis-
aster. By massing revolutionary forces and launching fixed battles against
superior enemy forces, revolutionary forces would suffer heavy losses. The
CCP had experienced the consequences of such tactics in 1926–1927 when
the Comintern had ordered CCP assaults on KMT-held cities. From the
CCP perspective, the VWP was in danger of making the same mistake. Of
course, Thanh’s mixed strategy also included Maoist-style guerrilla war.
When VWP leaders visited Beijing, they talked up this Maoist aspect of
Vietnamese strategy.
In December 1961, PLA Marshal and General Ye Jianying visited Hanoi
to discuss military strategy. The liberation wars in South Vietnam should
rely on protracted guerrilla warfare and avoid battalion-size fixed battles,
Ye argued. Big battles would allow the United States to target revolutionary
forces with overwhelming air and artillery bombardment, producing heavy
losses that could lead to demoralization.^10 DRV generals listened carefully
to Ye’s arguments, but Hanoi’s war in the south continued along the lines
of Nguyen Chi Thanh’s strategy of mixing low-intensity guerrilla war and
aggressive large-unit battles—at least until 1968–1969, when Hanoi gave pri-
ority to big battles. (Thanh died in July 1967.) The result of the VWP’s “big
battle” approach was generally what Beijing had predicted: extremely heavy