Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3
NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET – Sensitive
Although the Soviets issued in March 1956 a demand for GVN observance of the Accords, its diplomacy not only failed to bring about any action on behalf of the DRV, but elicited, in April 1956, a sharp British note condemning Hanoi for grave violations of the Accords. Hanoi received the British note about the time that Khrushchev proclaimed that the Soviet was committed to a policy of "peaceful coexistence." At the Ninth Plenum of the Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party, held in Hanoi that month, Ho Chi Minh lauded "de-Stalinization," but unequivocally rejected "peaceful coexistence" as irrelevant to the DRV. In November 1957, after more than a year of upheavals and evident internal political distress in North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan journeyed to Moscow for the Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries. That conference issued a declaration admitting the possibility of "non-peaceful transition to socialism" remarkably similar in thrust to Ho's 1956 speech. Further, Khrushchev's famous January 1961 speech was simply a precis of the Declaration of the November 1960 Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries. That 1960 Declaration, which formed the basis for Khrushchev's pronouncements on wars of national liberation in turn explicitly reaffirmed the 1957 Declaration. The parallelism of the texts is remarkable:
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HO CHI MINH SPEECH CLOSING NINTH PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE LAO DONG PARTY "...We have grasped the great significance of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This Congress has: Analyzed the new situation prevailing in the world, and pointed out the new conditions favorable to the preservation of peace and the advance toward socialism by the Revolutionary Parties of the working class and the laboring people. Clearly shown the Soviet Union's victorious road, giving us still greater enthusiasm and making us believe still more strongly in the invincible forces of the Soviet Union, the bastion of revolution and of world peace; Pointed out the tasks of the Communist Party in the ideological and organizational fields. The Congress particularly emphasized the application of Marxist-Leninist principles to collective leadership and opposed the cult of the individual. While recognizing that war may be averted, we must be vigilant to detect the warmongers' schemes; for as long as imperialism exists, the danger of war still exists. While recognizing that in certain countries the road to socialism may be a peaceful one, we should be aware of this fact: In countries where the machinery of state, the armed forces and the police of the bourgeois class are still strong, the proletarian class still has to prepare for armed struggle. While recognizing the possibility of reunifying Vietnam by peaceful means, we should always remember that our people's principal energies are the American imperialists and their agents who still occupy half our country and are preparing for war; therefore, we should firmly hold aloft the banner of peace and enhance our vigilance..."
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DECLARATION OF THE CONFERENCE OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS PARTIES OF SOCIALIST COUNTRIES "The communist and worker's parties are faced with great historic tasks...In present day conditions in a number of capitalist countries, the working class has the possibility to unite the majority of the people, when state power without civil war can ensure the transfer of basic means of production to the hands of the people... In conditions in which the exploiting classes resort to violence against the people, it is necessary to bear in mind another possibility—nonpeaceful transition to socialism. Leninism teaches and history confirms that the ruling classes never relinquish power voluntarily. In these conditions the severity and forms of class struggle will depend not so much on the proletariat as on the resistance of the reactionary circles to the will of the overwhelming majority of the people, on the use of force by these circles at one or another stage of the struggle for socialism."
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DECLARATION OF THE CONFERENCE OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS PARTIES OF SOCIALIST COUNTRIES "...The Communist Parties reaffirm the propositions of the 1957 Declaration concerning the question of the forms of transition of various countries from capitalism to socialism. The Declaration states that the working class and its vanguard—the Marxist-Leninist party—seek to achieve socialist revolution by peaceful means. Realization of this possibility would accord with the interests of the working class and all the people and with the national interests of the country... ...In conditions when the exploiting classes resort to the use of force against the people, it is necessary to bear in mind. another possibility—that of nonpeaceful transition to socialism. Leninism teaches and historical experience confirms that ruling classes do not relinquish power voluntarily. In these conditions the degree of bitterness and the forms of the class struggle will depend not so much on the proletariat as on the extent of the resistance of the reactionary circles to the will of the overwhelming majority of the people, on the use of force by these circles at one or another stage of the struggle for socialism. In each country the actual possibility of one or another means of transition to socialism is determined by the specific historical conditions..."
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