Twenty years ago the Vietnamese succeeded in expelling the last contingent of imperialist armed forces from their country. They scored a victory for all humanity by finally wresting control of their own country after continual colonial and imperialist domination by the governments of Japan, then France, then the United States. Oppressed people the world over cheered as helicopters plucked the final remaining U.S. personnel from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon in April 1975. This was a victory, too, for the millions throughout the world who mobilized in opposition to the war waged by Washington.

The war took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese and 60,000 U.S. soldiers. Washington engaged more than 8 million U.S. military personnel in the effort to dominate Indochina during the course of the war. The tonnage of bombs dropped over Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam was greater than had been dropped anywhere in the world in all previous wars combined. The U.S. government made the Vietnamese pay a high price for their determination to control their own country. But Washington's mighty military machine, pounding a small country year after year, could not defeat the popular resistance.

It remains an historic accomplishment for the workers and farmers of Vietnam that they are free of direct imperialist domination. The people of Vietnam today confront similar challenges as workers and farmers around the world do resulting from the crisis of the capitalist system. But the fact that the U.S. rulers no longer dominate their country gives the workers and farmers of Vietnam a tremendous advantage in fighting against the ravages of capitalist exploitation.

As the anniversary of the war's end gives rise to much discussion, it is worth studying the real record of the war, a bipartisan effort from beginning to end, and of the antiwar movement that mobilized millions. Behind the musings of some of those looking back now, like Robert McNamara, who headed the Pentagon during part of the war, is an attempt to obscure the facts and justify U.S. policy, even while describing it as "mistaken."

One of the most important lessons we can learn by studying the history of the war in Vietnam is the impact working people can have when they mobilize to defend their interests, even against those with substantially greater military power and monetary resources. In the end, all the efforts of the "best and the brightest" who prosecuted the war were defeated by the tenacious resistance of the Vietnamese people and by the determined action, and sometimes extraordinary effort, of ordinary people who organized against the war in the United States and in other parts of the world. The most powerful military machine, the major imperialist nation on earth, was defeated.

The Vietnamese people showed the world it can be done, and that is a lesson worth taking to heart.  
 
 
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