January 1968: Turning point in Vietnam
Tet offensive marked historic victory
By
Connie Harris
Editor's note: Jan. 30, 1999, marks the 21st anniversary
of the Tet offensive. The article below, written on the tenth
annivesary of Tet, is reprinted from the Feb. 3, 1978, issue of
Workers World.
U.S. imperialism has never recovered from a historic blow
launched against it 10 years ago--the Tet offensive of the
National Liberation Front (NLF) of South Vietnam.
Tet is the name for the Vietnamese new year, and it was in
January 1968 that the NLF launched a series of brilliant
attacks on the U.S. military that changed the course of the
Vietnam War.
The events of Jan. 30-31, 1968, alone demonstrate the
magnitude of what was later called by President Lyndon Johnson
a "general uprising." During these days, 140 towns and cities
were simultaneously attacked, as well as many military targets.
Thirty airfields were attacked, and 1,500 planes and
helicopters were destroyed. The U.S. Embassy in Saigon, so well
fortified that it was known as "Pentagon East," was attacked;
and sections of it were actually occupied.
For the NLF, Tet represented the fruition of years of
patient and determined work both military and political. Tet
was such a stunning military victory that countless South
Vietnamese people became convinced that the NLF would defeat
the U.S. Army. This conviction, coupled with the growing hatred
of the South Vietnamese people for the U.S. invaders who had
ruthlessly murdered whole villages of civilians, bombed cities,
and destroyed the countryside, created an enormous upsurge of
support for the liberation forces.
During the first week of the Tet offensive, 200,000 Saigon
troops deserted, many of them crossing over, with their
weapons, to the NLF. Many thousands of young people joined the
NLF en masse.
The triumph of a peasant army over the technologically
advanced forces of imperialism was, for the U.S., an
unprecedented defeat. In the months just prior to Tet, the U.S.
military expressed increasing confidence that the NLF had been
reduced to a mere ragtag army, hardly capable of launching even
a minor assault.
The generals boasted that spying techniques, electronic and
otherwise, were so infallible that NLF soldiers couldn't boil a
pot of rice without being detected.
Tet put an end to these grandiose falsifications, and
destroyed the U.S. military's illusions that it could wage a
successful counter-guerrilla war. Tet convinced working and
oppressed people around the world that the Vietnamese people
would defeat the armies of U.S. imperialism.
In the U.S. itself, just a few months after Tet, Lyndon
Johnson was forced to announce that he would not run for
re-election. While at first this only seemed reflective of an
attempt by the ruling class to continue the war with new
figureheads, subsequent events and information, particularly
the Pentagon Papers, revealed that Tet had caused a major
section of the ruling class to decide in favor of pulling out
of Vietnam--as one would from a losing business proposition--so
that they could more fully protect their interests in the rest
of the world.
This view put them in opposition to the right wing of the
ruling class, which for years after Tet refused to acknowledge
defeat, and continued to maneuver to find a military way
out.
Thus Tet, which foreshadowed the ultimate triumph of the
Vietnamese people, both exposed the weakness of U.S.
imperialism and further exacerbated it by sowing division in
the ruling class.
Tet showed that U.S. imperialism could be defeated. The
legacy of this victory has provided inspiration for subsequent
victories over imperialism, as it will surely inspire the final
victory yet to come.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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