Viet Cong
The Viet Cong was an epithet to call the communist movement and united front organization in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, it fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the Viet Cong controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the Viet Cong was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.
| National Liberation Front of South Vietnam | |
|---|---|
| Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam | |
The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. | |
| Also known as | Việt Cộng (VC) ⓘ |
| Leaders | Liberation Front:
|
| Dates of operation | 1954–1959 (as southern Viet Minh cadres) December 20, 1960 – February 4, 1977 |
| Merged into | Vietnamese Fatherland Front |
| Allegiance | Vietnamese Fatherland Front |
| Group(s) |
|
| Headquarters | |
| Active regions | Indochina, with a focus on South Vietnam |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Allies | State allies:
Non-state allies: |
| Opponents | State opponents:
Non-state opponents: |
| Battles and wars | See full list |
North Vietnam established the National Liberation Front on December 20, 1960, at Tân Lập village in Tây Ninh Province to foment insurgency in the South. Many of the Viet Cong's core members were volunteer "regroupees", southern Viet Minh who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Viet Cong called for the unification of Vietnam and the overthrow of the American backed South Vietnamese government. The Viet Cong's best-known action was the Tet Offensive, an assault on more than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Viet Cong. Later communist offensives were conducted predominantly by the North Vietnamese. The organization officially merged with the Fatherland Front of Vietnam on February 4, 1977, after North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government.