National Liberation Front

National Liberation Front (NLF), organization established in South Vietnam in 1960 with the aim of overthrowing the government of South Vietnam and reunifying Vietnam, and whose military arm was the Vietcong. The Geneva Accords of 1954, drawn up following the eight-year war between the French and the Communist-led Vietminh, divided Vietnam temporarily into northern and southern zones. The South Vietnamese government, or the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), was established in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) with support from the United States. Aligning itself with the nationalist cause of unifying Vietnam, the NLF was able to organize many South Vietnamese in opposition to the RVN. In close alliance with the North Vietnamese government, or Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the NLF fought the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and US troops in the Vietnam War, cooperating with regular forces of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), but also using guerrilla warfare and terrorism. The North Vietnamese forces and the NLF succeeded in removing the South Vietnamese government from power in 1975, and Vietnam was then reunified.

The NLF leadership came primarily from the Lao Dong, or Workers’ Party, the Communist organization that had led the Vietnamese struggle for independence from the French Empire. The NLF also embraced non-Communist nationalists, however. The NLF was composed mainly of native southerners, and viewed the creation of the South Vietnamese government as a subversion of the Geneva Accords. The accords called for national elections to be held in 1956 to reunify Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government, however, encouraged by the United States, blocked the elections because they would have led to Communist control of the entire country. The stated goals of the NLF were the removal of the Saigon government, the expulsion of the United States, and a coalition government of North and South Vietnam.

The NLF benefited from widespread opposition to the first president of the South Vietnamese government, Ngo Dinh Diem, whose harsh security and economic policies turned many peasants against him. The NLF, on the other hand, sought to redistribute land among the peasants, giving them a vested interest in the outcome of the NLF’s revolution. In the Mekong Delta region, a clear majority of peasants supported the NLF almost from the date of its establishment. Eventually the NLF asserted leadership over much of the rural population of South Vietnam.

The guerrilla fighters of the NLF generally had far higher morale than the soldiers in the ARVN, most of whom had been drafted. The NLF was able to infiltrate and place agents at all levels of the South Vietnamese government. While the NLF suffered severe losses in some campaigns, for example during the Tet Offensive of 1968, it was always able to regroup.

Functioning as the southern branch of the Lao Dong, the NLF participated in all policy-making during the Vietnam War. NLF representatives were involved in organizing all military activities in the south, and were partners with representatives of the North Vietnamese government at the Paris peace negotiations convened between 1968 and 1973. In 1969 the NLF created the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) of South Vietnam to serve as a counterpart to the Saigon government. The PRG was incorporated into the new unified government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in June 1975.