1969–1976 opposition government and state in South Vietnam
For the Republic of Vietnam which is commonly known as South Vietnam, see South Vietnam. For the entity known from 1948 to 1949 as the Provisional Government of South Vietnam, see French Cochinchina.
The Provisional Revolutionary Government was preceded by the Vietnam Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peaceful Forces (VANDPF)[3][failed verification – see discussion] made up of anti-government forces and headed by Trinh Dinh Thao.[4] The Alliance was a collection of individuals who wanted a new South Vietnamese government but disagreed with the ever-present Northern Communist presence.[citation needed]
There had been talk of setting up an Alliance as early as 1966, but this was halted when South Vietnamese intelligence operatives arrested an influential anti-government organizer, Ba Tra. Ba Tra gave the South Vietnamese government extensive information on anti-government forces working in the city.[5] This setback was compounded by his identification of one of the key cadre in the financial division.[5]
Under torture, Ba Tra identified more figures in the underground, who were then arrested. By 1967, the entire Saigon organization had been sent further underground.[6] The Tet Offensive during 1968 triggered a wave of oppression, forcing many people into the forests and mountains. These people – businessmen, middle class, doctors and other professionals – started The Alliance.
The then-new American president,
American Armed Forces to withdraw from Vietnam. One of the tenets of Vietnamization was responsible government in South Vietnam. To prevent the Americans from installing their own government, a conference was held on June 6–8, 1969, off Route 22 in Cambodia's Fishhook region.[7]
1969–1975
The Alliance as well as other groups[
Vietcong "acquire a new international stature."[8]
There were delegates from the Vietcong, the VANDPF, the People's Revolutionary Party (the South Vietnamese communist party) and "the usual assortment of mass organizations, ethnic groups, and geopolitical regions."[7] Banners displayed prominently at the convention proclaimed that "South Vietnam is independent, democratic, peaceful, and neutral".[7]
The PRG reflected a number of
Vietnam Workers Party (the North Vietnamese communist party).[citation needed] Following the military and political results of the 1968 Tet Offensive and related military offensives in the South by Saigon and America, in which the Vietcong suffered serious military losses, the PRG was envisioned as a political counter-force that could influence international public opinion in support of reunification and in opposition to the United States and South Vietnam.[8]
The declared purpose of the PRG was to provide a formal governmental structure to the Vietcong and enhance its claim of representing "the Southern people".[9] Included in this strategy was the pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the war leading to reunification, organized during the initial phase of Vietnamization.
During the period 1969–70, most of the PRG's cabinet ministries operated near the Cambodian border. Starting on March 29 to late April 1970, the US and South Vietnamese offensives forced the
bourgeois.[11] Tạng complained to the higher members of the North Vietnamese government, but was rebuffed. Tạng later saw this as the point when the PRG turned from being an independent South Vietnam-based alternative government to being a mouthpiece for Northern Vietnamese communists.[12]
The central bodies of the PRG functioned as a
People's Republic of China
.
1975–1976
After the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, the PRG assumed power in South Vietnam and subsequently participated in the reunification of Vietnam.
In 1966, Lưu Hữu Phước wrote a military song March on Saigon [vi] (Tiến về Sài Gòn) as a propaganda to encourage the soldiers going to attack in Saigon in the Tet Offensive. The song was spread again during the fall of Saigon.
A youth representative of the PRG greets a young man from a Soviet-aligned unidentified African nation. Both are attending a 1973 World Youth Conference held in East Germany and organised by the Free German Youth.
1973 World Youth Conference held in East Berlin, 4 August 1973
