Vietnam War

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971

After SDS committed political suicide, and after the Jackson and Kent State shootings, one of the largest mass direct actions in US history took place under the slogan "If the Government won't stop the war, we'll stop the Government."

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971
Kauffman, L A

Korean workers riot in Vietnam, 1967

The riot by Korean workers at Vinnell Corporation, Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War.

MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam, the U.S. command for all its military forces in Vietnam – ed.) had also been directed to start a civilianization program on September 15, 1967. South Vietnamese workers would be substituted for U.S. military support personnel in certain logistical units. There were many advantages. American manpower could be trimmed as technical expertise was shared.

Mutinies - Treason pamphlet

PDF pamphlet from 2003 with articles on mutinies in Vietnam and Yugoslavia.

Despite the media and the respectable leaders of antiwar movements endlessly repeating the lie that US forces withdrew from the Vietnam War due to peaceful protests in the streets of American cities we are not fooled. The US withdrew from Vietnam because it’s military was on the verge of collapse due to widespread desertion, the killing of officers and small-scale mutinies.

1948-1991: US intervention and war in South East Asia

Noam Chomsky's very brief account of US military, economic and "diplomatic" action in Indochina in the last half of the 20th century

The US wars in Indochina fall into the same general pattern

1945-1957: Vietnam

Japanese Commander surrenders at Saigon, Vietnam, September 1945

Howard Zinn's short history of Vietnam from the defeat of Japan in 1945 through the installation of the US puppet government in Saigon to the beginning of the Vietnam War.

1957-1975: The Vietnam War

Howard Zinn's short history of the war in Vietnam from the beginning of the Communist insurgency in 1957 until the defeat of US and South Vietnamese forces in 1975.

Following the partitioning of Vietnam into the pro-independence Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North, and the US puppet state the Republic of Vietnam in the South in 1954 (see our short history of Vietnam from 1945 to 1957) elections were due to be held on re-unification.

18. The Impossible Victory: Vietnam

From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.

1961-1973: GI resistance in the Vietnam War

History of the widespread mutiny of US troops in Vietnam that brought the world's most powerful military machine to its knees.

The GI anti-war movement within the army was one of the decisive factors in ending the war.

[i]An American soldier in a hospital explained how he was wounded: He said

GI opposition to the Vietnam War, 1965-1973 - Howard Zinn

Historian Howard Zinn on the opposition to the Vietnam War by American soldiers. For a fuller introduction we recommend our article 1961-1973: GI Resistance in the Vietnam War

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1968-1972: Harass the Brass: Some notes toward the subversion of the US armed forces

With updates in 2001, this article outlines the story of the widespread resistance and near-mutiny within the US Army, Navy and Air Force during the Vietnam War. This resistance was a major factor in the eventual withdrawal of US troops.

1963-1974: The Olive-Drab Rebels: Military Organising During The Vietnam Era by Matthew Rinaldi

1971 Armed Forces Day demonstration, Texas

This article is a detailed account of soldiers' and sailors' resistance to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s.

It particularly concentrates on the organising efforts of left-wing groups both civilian and within the military.

For a more general overview of resistance, we recommend our article GI Resistance in the Vietnam War, 1961-1973.

1967-1973: GI resistance in Vietnam - a personal account by Dave Blalock

Vietnam veteran Dave Blalock was one of the defendants whose Supreme Court legal challenge overturned Pres. Bush's law prohibiting the burning of the U.S. flag. The following piece details his experiences in Vietnam.