Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
already had, using the governmental machinery to underwrite themselves."
Putting aside the remarkable naivete regarding the forthcoming elections, what
is striking is the implicit assumption that we have a right to continue our
efforts to restructure the South Vietnamese government, in the interests of
what we determine to be Viemamese nationalism. In just the same way, the
officers of the Kwantung Army sought to support "genuine Manchurian
nationalism," thirtyfive years ago.
To understand more fully what is implied by the judgment that we must
defend the "nationalists" against the "Communists," we can turn again to
Pike's iIHeresting srudy. The nationalist groups mentioned by Sacks are the
VNQDD and the Dai Viet. The former, after its virtual destruction by the
French, was revived by the Chinese Nationalists in 1942. "It supported itself
through banditry. It executed traitors with a great deal of publicity, and its vio
lent acts in general were carefully conceived fo r their psychological value."
Returning to Vietnam "with the occupying Chinese forces following World
War II," it "was of some importance until mid 1946, when it was purged by
the Vietminh." "The VNQDD never was a mass political parry in the Western
sense. At its peak of influence it numbered, by estimates of its own leaders, less
than 1,500 persons. Nor was it ever particularly strong in either Central or
South Vietnam. It had no fo rmal structure and held no conventions or assem
blies." As to the Dai Viet, "Dai Viet membership included leading Vietnamese
figures and governmental officials who viewed japan as a suitable model for 25
Vietnam [N. B. fascist japan]. The organization never made any particular
obeisance either to democracy or to the rankandfile Vietnamese. It probably
never numbered more than 1,000 members and did not consider itself a mass
based organizarion. It turned away from Western liberalism, although its economic
orientation was basically socialist, in favor of authoritarianism and
blind obedience." During World War II, "it was at all times strongly projapanese."
In contrast to these genuine nationalists, we have the Vietminh, whose "war
was anticolonial, clearly nationalistic, and concerned all Vietnamese," and the
NLF, which regarded the rural Vietnamese not "simply as a pawn in a power
struggle bur as the active element in the thrust," which "maintained that its
contest with the GVN and the United States should be fought our at a political
level and that the use of massed military might was in itself illegitimate,"
until fo rced by the Americans and the GVN "to use counterforce to survive."
In its internal documents as well as its public pronouncements the NLF insisted,
from its earliest days, that its goal must be to "set up a democratic national
coalition administration in South Vietnam; realize independence, democratic
freedoms, and improvement of the people's living conditions; safeguard
peace; and achieve national reunification on the basis of independence and
democracy." "Aside from the NLF there has never been a truly mass-based
political party in South Vietnam." It organized "the rural population through