National Liberation Front (Vietnam)

National Liberation Front (Vietnam) (NLF), organization formally established in South Vietnam in 1960 with the aim of overthrowing the government of South Vietnam and reunifying Vietnam. The official name of the NLF was the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam).

The Geneva Accords of 1954, drawn up following an eight-year war between the French and the Communist-led Viet Minh, divided Vietnam temporarily into north and south 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. Many Vietnamese regarded the Saigon government as illegitimate. 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 U.S. troops in the Vietnam War (1959-1975). 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 independence struggle against France. 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. Supporters of the NLF believed that the South Vietnamese government and the United States therefore violated Vietnam’s right to self-determination. 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. Diem overturned a popular land reform program implemented by the Communists during the war against France, and he drafted young men into the ARVN. He also removed peasants from their ancestral villages, placing them in controlled communities in an effort to prevent the peasants from engaging in any Communist activity. Diem’s actions 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 farmers and villagers 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 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, from army platoons to the presidential palace, which indicated the extent of its popular support. While the NLF suffered severe losses, 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 policymaking 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.