Written: December 19, 1967
First Published: December 1967 (English translation)
Source:
Mao Zedong, "Great Leader Chairman Mao's Message of Greetings to President
Nguyen Huu Tho", Peking Review, 52/1967 (December 25, 1967), page 5.
President Nguyen Huu Tho of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation:
On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of the founding of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, I extend the warmest congratulations to the fighting people of southern Vietnam on behalf of the Chinese people.
You are putting up a good fight! Relying on your own strength, you have under most difficult conditions badly battered U.S. imperialism, the most ferocious of imperialism in the world, and landed it in an impasse. This is a great victory. The Chinese people salute you.
Your victory once again demonstrates that a nation, big or small, can defeat any enemy, however powerful, so long as it fully arouses its people, firmly relies on them, and wages a people’s war. By their war against U.S. aggression and for national salvation under the wise leadership of great leader President Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese people have set a brilliant example for the oppressed peoples and oppressed nations the world over in their struggle for liberation.
The days of the U.S. aggressors in Vietnam are numbered. However, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct desperate struggles. They are bound to resort to military adventure and political deception in all their forms in order to save themselves from extinction. And the revolutionary people are bound to meet with all kinds of difficulties before final victory. Nevertheless, these difficulties can be all surmounted and no difficulty can ever obstruct the advance of the revolutionary people. Perseverance means victory. I am deeply convinced that by persevering in protracted war the Vietnamese people will surely drive the U.S. aggressors out of their country.
We firmly support you. We are neighbouring countries as closely related as the lips and the teeth. Our two peoples are brothers sharing weal and woe. The fraternal south Vietnamese people and the entire fraternal Vietnamese people can rest assured that their struggle is our struggle. The 700 million Chinese people provide a powerful backing for the Vietnamese people; the vast expanse of China’s territory is their reliable rear area. In the face of the solid militant unity of our two peoples, all military adventures and political deceptions by U.S. imperialism are doomed to fail.
Victory will definitely belong to the heroic Vietnamese people!
MAO TSE-TUNG
December 19, 1967