Viet Bac
As Viet Bac , the Viet Minh referred to the northern border region of French Indochina to China, where the guerrillas formed during the Second World War . On the French side, there was also talk of Cao Bang's shelter .
background
The border region of Indochina with China was mostly populated by the ethnic minorities of the Tho and the Nung. Ethnic Vietnamese themselves were a small minority in the province. The area was shielded from the populous delta by its mountainous terrain. On the Chinese side, there were also inaccessible border regions in the provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan , some of whose populations had cultural affinities with the Tho and Nung. From the 1920s the area became a retreat for nationalist activists and politically persecuted people, as well as a transit area for Chinese exile.
Formation of the Viet Minh guerrillas
The plans to build an expanding guerrilla infrastructure began within the Indochinese Communist Party after the fall of France in May 1940. Ho Chi Minh established itself permanently in the village of Pac Bo in Cao Bang Province in February 1941. In 1943, the guerrillas fully controlled three of the province's nine districts. From 1943 there was increasing fighting with the French colonial troops. From this year on there was also a food shortage, which resulted in a smoldering famine in the region. At the beginning of 1945 the Viet Minh were able to maintain around 5,000 armed guerrillas. After the French came to power and were interned by the Japanese in March 1945, the Viet Minh grew rapidly. By June of the same year, they already had six provinces in the north of the country under their control. In June there were isolated skirmishes against Japanese troops. A few French internees were liberated by the Viet Minh and brought across the border to China. In the August Revolution , the Viet Minh finally took control of Tonkin and parts of Annam and proclaimed a sovereign state in the form of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam .
Indochina War
In 1949 the organization of the Viet Minh was transferred from small zones to larger interzones. The Viet Bac Interzone was formed from the existing Zones I and X. The interzone comprised the border with China and Laos and a large part of the northern delta. The organization in Interzones was abandoned in June 1957. The first commander of the Interzone was Le Quan Ba, while Chu Va Tan acted as political commissar.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam , Lanham, 2014, pp. 194–197
- ↑ Stein Tonnesson: The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945 , Oslo, 1991, pp. 117f
- ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam , Lanham, 2014, pp. 200-205
- ↑ Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954) , Copenhagen, 2011, p. 233