Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese Perspective | Animated History

Summary

Join Griffin Johnson on a captivating journey through the Vietnam War from the less-explored North Vietnamese perspective. This video reveals the motivations and enduring spirit of Vietnam against American forces, deeply rooted in a long history of resistance against foreign powers. The documentary delves into Vietnam's colonial past, the emergence of Ho Chi Minh, and the complex dynamics between the Vietnamese resistance and external forces, including the United States. It wraps up with reflections on the war's lasting impact and misguided perceptions of the conflict's core motives.

Highlights

• The Vietnam War stirs controversy, particularly the U.S.'s role, but often omits the North Vietnamese view. 🇻🇳
• Historical resistance against foreign powers fueled Vietnamese determination during the war. 🔥
• Ho Chi Minh's leadership was pivotal, prioritizing national liberation over communist ideology initially. 👨‍✈️
• The U.S. involvement shifted from potential ally to adversary due to its anti-communist stance. 🤝➡️⚔️
• The war's harsh realities were endured by Vietnamese civilians and soldiers, deeply impacting them. 😔
• North Vietnamese propaganda was effective in keeping morale high and supporting the war effort. 📢
• Despite winning the war, Vietnam faced immense post-war challenges and regional communism did not spread as feared. 🌍

Key Takeaways

• The Vietnam War is widely discussed with varying opinions, but often missing the Vietnamese perspective. 🇻🇳
• Vietnam's resistance is rooted in a long history of foreign domination, starting with China and France. 📜
• Ho Chi Minh emerged as a key leader, driven by anti-imperialist motives more than communism initially. 🔥
• The U.S., initially seen as potential allies, became adversaries due to conflicting interests post-WWII. 🤝➡️⚔️
• The war's brutal reality affected both Vietnamese soldiers and civilians profoundly, leaving lasting scars. 😔
• Propaganda played a significant role, helping the North Vietnamese maintain morale and unity. 📢
• The eventual victory for North Vietnam was a testament to their resilience, not just communist ideology. 🏆

Overview

The Vietnam War is a controversial subject in military history, often discussed from the perspective of American involvement. However, the perspective of the North Vietnamese, their motivations, and resilience against the foreign powers is less explored. Vietnamese determination was deeply ingrained through centuries of resisting occupiers like China and France, shaping their dogged resistance against the U.S. ✅

Central to Vietnam's fight was Ho Chi Minh, whose anti-imperialist ideology initially overshadowed his later communist stance. Americans, who initially collaborated with Ho during WWII, soon became adversaries as Cold War tensions rose. The North Vietnamese leveraged regional support and guerrilla tactics, reflecting their strategic resilience against overwhelming odds. ⚔️

Despite the substantial toll in terms of human cost, the North Vietnamese emerged victorious, reinforcing their national identity and resolve. The war left deep scars, not just on the battlefield, but in the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. This victory was not purely ideological but was a broader struggle for national sovereignty, contrasting with the American obsession over the spread of communism. 🏆

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Perspective Overview The chapter introduces the controversial topic of the Vietnam War, highlighting the contentious debates surrounding America's involvement, the justifications for intervention, potential mistakes, and the likelihood of success. Notably, the chapter points out that while these are prevalent discussions, the perspective of the Vietnamese people and their motivations during the conflict are often overlooked. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the Vietnamese viewpoint to gain a comprehensive understanding of the war.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Vietnam's History of Occupation The chapter titled 'Vietnam's History of Occupation' focuses on the resilience and steadfastness of the Vietnamese people in the face of prolonged adversity. Despite nearly two decades of intense guerrilla warfare, Vietnam's leaders followed a determined agenda that showcased their unwavering spirit of resistance. This chapter aims to provide insight into the motivations and strategies that empowered Vietnam to withstand the overwhelming force of the American military efforts, resisting all attempts at subjugation. The narrative emphasizes the tenacity and stubborn resolve of the Vietnamese, portraying their side of the conflict and highlighting the historical context of their struggle. The content supports viewers in understanding the broader dimensions of Vietnam's indomitable resistance against foreign occupation. Supporting the sponsors is encouraged as a means to uphold the channel's endeavors.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Rise of Communism and Ho Chi Minh The chapter discusses the rise of communism and the role of Ho Chi Minh in its development. Although it begins with a sponsorship mention, the main focus is on historical events.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Japanese Occupation and Aftermath This chapter discusses the historical context of Vietnam's attitudes during the war, emphasizing the long history of occupation and exploitation by foreign powers, beginning with China's thousand-year effort to annex Vietnam both militarily and culturally.
• 08:00 - 10:00: First Indochina War and Division of Vietnam The chapter discusses the decline of Chinese influence in Vietnam during the 19th century, amidst European colonial expansion. It highlights Vietnam's fleeting opportunity for independence, which is quickly extinguished by the arrival of French warships, marking the beginning of foreign domination.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Vietnam War: Guerilla Tactics and American Involvement The chapter discusses the Vietnam War, focusing on guerilla tactics and American involvement. It begins with the historical context, describing how the Nguyen Dynasty, ruling Vietnam at the time, was quickly defeated by a technically superior enemy, leading to Vietnam becoming part of French Indochina in 1884. The Nguyen court was reduced to a puppet administration, with colonial governors exercising significant power with little oversight from the French state. This power was often used to suppress any form of native resistance.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Public Perception and Propaganda The chapter discusses the oppressive conditions faced by Vietnamese peasants under colonial rule, highlighting their desperation for change and salvation. Despite numerous failed revolts and severe punishments, the colonial stronghold persisted. However, there were unseen beginnings of a new revolutionary movement emerging among the people.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Tet Offensive and War Impact The chapter discusses how the ideology of communism spread among Vietnamese intellectuals in the coffee houses of Paris, rather than in conventional centers of power like plantations or bureaucratic courts. These individuals, who were fortunate enough to pursue Western education, were drawn to communism's promise of freedom and equality. This new ideology rapidly gained popularity as it offered an alternative to the oppressive structures of capitalistic imperialism.
• 21:00 - 23:00: Conclusion and Aftermath of Vietnam War The chapter discusses the rise of the communist movement in Vietnam, which began to gain momentum in the early 1930s. Central to this movement was an unassuming figure, Ho Chi Minh, the son of a disgraced bureaucrat. Ho Chi Minh, before leading the communist movement in Vietnam, spent time in Europe, and possibly visited the United States and Britain, after leaving Vietnam in the 1910s.

Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese Perspective | Animated History Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi i'm griffin johnson the armchair historian mentioning the vietnam war is one of the fastest ways to spark controversy in any military history community opinions will rage back and forth about whether or not the usa was justified in its intervention what mistakes it made and if america really ever had a chance of victory but while topics such as these are very common what is much less talked about is the perspective of the vietnamese people during the conflict their motivations
• 00:30 - 01:00 the agenda of their leaders and how they endured nearly 20 years of bloody vicious guerrilla warfare this video will seek to explain their side of the story as well as provide context for the stubborn spirit of resistance that enabled vietnam to hold out against the american juggernaut despite all efforts to beat them into submission supporting our sponsors is the best way to support our channel
• 01:00 - 01:30 today's video is brought to you by conflict of nations a free online player versus player strategy game with millions of users worldwide command your own nation and lead your people to victory through weeks of planning strategizing and coordination with or against up to 64 real players at a time in addition armchair historian fans who sign up by clicking our special link below will receive 13 000 gold and a free month of premium subscription this offer is
• 01:30 - 02:00 only available for the next 30 days so click the link in the description below choose your country and start fighting your way to victory now to understand the attitude of the vietnamese during the war one must first be aware of vietnam's history of occupation and exploitation by foreign powers first there was china which spent a thousand years trying to absorb the nation through both conquest and cultural
• 02:00 - 02:30 assimilation however by the 19th century china was undergoing its own negative experiences with colonialism as powerful european empires began expanding into asia and destroying the old status quo with chinese influence on the wane it seemed as if vietnam might have a chance to stand on its own but a small squadron of french warships would promptly crush those hopes unable to resist this
• 02:30 - 03:00 technologically superior foe the win imperial dynasty ruling vietnam at the time quickly capitulated and by 1884 most of vietnam had become part of the greater colonial union of french indochina with the win court reduced to a puppet administration colonial governors operated with virtually no oversight from the french state and were allowed to use any and all means at their disposal to suppress any hint of native resistance often this extended to the
• 03:00 - 03:30 point of criminalizing the mere act of identifying oneself as vietnamese trapped in a thoroughly miserable existence the vietnamese peasants were desperate for a savior any savior but after decades of failed revolts and horrific reprisals the iron grip of colonialism remained as strong as ever yet unbeknownst to the peasantry the seeds of a new revolution were already being sown
• 03:30 - 04:00 not in the plantations or even in the courts of the wind bureaucracy but in the coffee houses of paris where the few vietnamese lucky enough to scrape together enough money to afford a western education were debating the merits of a strange radical new ideology known as communism unlike any political ideology at the time communism promised freedom and equality for those laboring under the yoke of capitalistic imperialism and so spread like wildfire
• 04:00 - 04:30 from the moment it was introduced from overseas becoming vietnam's dominant underground political movement by the early 1930s [Music] central to the communist movement in vietnam was the unassuming son of a disgraced bureaucrat called win sing or as he is more commonly known ho chi minh after leaving vietnam sometime in the 1910s ho chi minh drifted around europe visiting both the united states and possibly britain
• 04:30 - 05:00 as early as 1918 he was a dedicated anti-imperialist joining the group of vietnamese patriots which petitioned the french government for independence during the treaty of versailles in 1920 he was one of the many communists avidly following the progress of vladimir lenin's october revolution in russia the success of which proved beyond any doubt that the imperialist system could be overthrown through force of arms [Music]
• 05:00 - 05:30 inspired by lenin's success ho chi minh chaired the first meeting of what would become the indo-chinese communist party or icp in 1930 with the express goal of ending colonial rule of his native country but for all of his early efforts regime change in vietnam would not originate with the vietnamese but would instead be instigated from the most unlikely of sources imperial japan
• 05:30 - 06:00 in 1940 japan invaded vietnam as part of their efforts to establish the greater east asia co-prosperity sphere or in other words a series of client states under imperial domination in 1945 they officially annexed the country and expelled all western influences including the entire french colonial administration mere months later the japanese surrendered to the allies and with their collapse vietnam's
• 06:00 - 06:30 century-old political order had come crashing down leaving total chaos in its wake it was during this last chaotic year of the occupation that ho chi minh truly came into his own as leader he had returned to vietnam in 1941 to organize a major resistance movement against japanese forces known as the viet minh and by 1945 he was leading an army of at
• 06:30 - 07:00 least 10 000 communist gorillas his long-awaited revolution began on august 15th before even the ink on the japanese instrument of surrender had time to dry with the french colonial forces in vietnam having been disarmed by the japanese earlier that year there was a brief window in time where the vietmen had free run of the entire country but far from screaming defiance at the hated western imperialists ho chi minh was instead positively desperate to secure a friendship with
• 07:00 - 07:30 the united states this was due in large part to the activities of the u.s office of strategic services or oss which had made contact with the viet minh in 1945 and selected ho chi minh as their primary contact within vietnam part of what enabled the close relationship between america and the viet minh was their lack of a traditional communist agenda despite ho chi minh's unabashed belief in the ideology his
• 07:30 - 08:00 primary goal was always the liberation of vietnam as he himself stated at first patriotism not yet communism as a result both joseph stalin and mao zedong initially distrusted ho chi minh for his unwillingness to make class warfare a priority above national freedom this however struck a chord with american observers who were naturally sympathetic to the idea of an oppressed nation
• 08:00 - 08:30 throwing off the shackles of a domineering imperialist regime [Music] thus oss operatives celebrated alongside the peasantry when ho chi minh declared the democratic republic of vietnam on september 2nd 1945. in his opening speech he began with words familiar to every american
• 08:30 - 09:00 behind him on the podium stood oss major archimedes patty and as the speech came to a close a plane bearing u.s markings flew over the assembled crowd which greeted its appearance with thunderous applause all across the nation americans were seen as heroes and liberators and for a moment it seemed as if this would be the start of a glorious new relationship between east and west
• 09:00 - 09:30 of course we all know that this was never really an option the french wanted their colonies back and the newly elected president truman had no interest in cooperating with an openly communist regime after negotiations with the french broke down completely the vietnamese had no choice but to fight for their independence and the first indochina war began on december 16th 1946 during this time the wind dynasty attempted to reassert its control over the nation with the
• 09:30 - 10:00 13th emperor bao dai siding with the french and resuming his place as a puppet ruler over their occupied territories as the war dragged on the u.s began sending aid to the french but after their dramatic defeat at diane bien phu in 1954 they agreed to new negotiations with the vietnam the ensuing treaty split the country in two halves the drv in the north and the state of vietnam in the south baodai was then
• 10:00 - 10:30 unceremoniously ousted by his prime minister no din diem after a referendum determined that the state of vietnam should become a republic however this was hardly a triumph of democracy over imperialism for diem was utterly corrupt and the referendum was blatantly rigged diem even went so far as to deliberately ignore the french promise that the south would be allowed to vote on whether or not to reunite with the north under the drv
• 10:30 - 11:00 when it became obvious that the dm had no intention of allowing reunification drv-backed insurgents began popping up all over the south causing him to become even more anti-communist and in turn causing america to offer increasing amounts of aid to his administration however diem proved to be a fickle ally often refusing to cooperate with his u.s backers especially in regards to rural
• 11:00 - 11:30 development and land management in 1963 tensions finally came to a head when diem was abruptly assassinated in a military coup d'etat that was aided by the cia this combined with the gulf of tonkin incident in 1964 paved the way for a full-scale u.s invasion from the outset of war vietnamese generals knew that a
• 11:30 - 12:00 conventional victory was impossible america was simply too powerful to defeat using traditional battlefield tactics but the huge rural population of the south was already mostly under the sway of the drv-backed national liberation front or more commonly known as the vietcong or vc the vc in combination with the people's army of vietnam waged a successful series of campaigns against the disorganized south vietnamese until large numbers of american troops
• 12:00 - 12:30 began arriving in 1965 following american involvement the conflict began to shift into a war of attrition [Music] vietnamese defense strategy revolved around their extensive network of tunnels which many likened more to underground cities than mere military strongholds over 200 miles or 321 kilometers of tunnel were dug during the war with the largest system
• 12:30 - 13:00 at kuche being just 20 miles or 32 kilometers outside saigon their importance was summed up in the words of colonel chaolam we knew the americans were determined to find and destroy the tunnel system they understood as did we however kuche went so did the war it was our determination not to lose even one centimeter of the tunnels it was a contest of wills resulting in some very fierce fighting we made a tremendous sacrifice to gain victory two years after its
• 13:00 - 13:30 arrival the united states of america expanded its bombing campaigns across north vietnam in an effort to break their will to fight when a north vietnamese civilian saw the first b-57 bombers open their bombays over his home province of quang min his first thought was not to flee and panic but was instead why is a mother airplane dropping baby airplanes having miraculously survived the initial
• 13:30 - 14:00 attack he gathered his family and fled for the nearby caves he later recalled to a journalist people didn't talk about the meaning of the war we were really confused why the americans tried to invade our homeland we hadn't done anything to them [Music] sadly the citizens of vietnam had much more to fear than american bombs when vietcong gorillas went to ground among the rural peasantry u.s forces responded by declaring any villages with a suspected vc presence as free fire zones
• 14:00 - 14:30 then came the infamous melee massacre on march 16 1968 when at least 347 unarmed civilians were brutally executed by american soldiers although the heroic actions of a u.s helicopter crew saved a few innocent lives most were not so fortunate and mili would go on to become known as the worst war crime ever perpetrated by u.s soldiers in vietnam as traumatizing as the war was for the
• 14:30 - 15:00 civilian population it was arguably just as bad for the vietnamese soldiers on account of how long most were expected to serve on the front lines [Music] lake haudai head of surgery at a military hospital later recalled when we were called to go south everyone was very excited as it turned out while i only planned to stay for six months i ended up staying for eight years given these extended deployment times
• 15:00 - 15:30 vietnamese soldiers quickly became hardened to the horrors of war and had little mercy for any americans unfortunate enough to fall into their grasp american pilots were especially loathed due to their indiscriminate bombing campaigns and many were tortured to death after they bailed out over vietnamese territory
• 15:30 - 16:00 to keep their populace motivated and stave off the effects of war weariness the drv maintained strong and effective propaganda campaigns throughout the conflict the mastermind behind these campaigns was vo winzop a renowned military leader who had fought alongside ho chi minh since the 1940s people quickly formed long queues to purchase his newspapers and listen to loudspeaker broadcasts about the latest developments on the front lines with minimal access to international
• 16:00 - 16:30 news the people of the north were easily swayed by party rhetoric and quickly came to regard the war as a necessary and righteous struggle against yet another imperialist aggressor by contrast the urban population of the south could listen to four news reports and had a much more conflicted attitude towards the violence tearing apart their nation the success of the vietnamese propaganda machine was demonstrated following the tet
• 16:30 - 17:00 offensive of 1968 which caught u.s forces completely by surprise amidst the chaos vc infiltrators launched an attack on the american embassy in saigon penetrating the compound and opening fire on the chancery building with rocket-propelled grenades although the building withstood the assault the fact that such an attack had occurred at all was psychologically devastating to the usa proving that not even the capital city of south vietnam was safe from communist infiltration the tet offensive also brought the reality
• 17:00 - 17:30 of war to the urban population of the south leading many to lose confidence in the western-backed government by the early 1970s the endless jungle warfare had taken their toll on both sides but the drv remained defiant while u.s morale had plummeted to the point where soldiers were openly ignoring orders and deserting in record numbers desperate to at least preserve the status quo america began pouring resources into strengthening the south vietnamese army while pulling out its own
• 17:30 - 18:00 traumatized troops out of the conflict but it was too little too late and in 1975 a massive offensive by the drv known as the ho chi minh campaign smashed through the defenses around saigon and decapitated the republic after almost 20 years of war and millions of deaths the drv finally stood triumphant against all odds communism had won or had it while the sacrifices made by
• 18:00 - 18:30 the north vietnamese during the war allowed them to survive and eventually reunite with the south the conflict would leave millions on both sides scarred for life furthermore despite the expectations of the international community communism failed to spread throughout southeast asia after the fall of saigon rendering decades of u.s obsession with the domino theory utterly pointless despite the repeated entries of ho chi minh and extensive testimonies by oss
• 18:30 - 19:00 operatives in the 1940s america never fully grasped that it was the desire for liberty not communism that motivated the north vietnamese to fight on against the odds their support of the corrupt diem administration only furthered this rift in understanding and the resultant two decades of violence opened up a deep national wound between north and south that has yet to be fully healed
• 19:00 - 19:30 thanks again to our sponsor conflict of nations for making this video possible don't forget to click the link in the description below
• 19:30 - 20:00 [Music] you