Ostensibly South Vietnam's army, in conjunction with the US army, was fighting against the spread of the communist rule of the North...but is that really want South Vietnam's citizenry wanted? It seems like a lot of villages hid Viet Cong guerillas, whether willingly or not, and obviously were the recipients of much brutality and destruction from US forces. It also seems like a lot of VC/NVA fought primarily for an end to imperialism more so than communism as an ideology. Did people in SV seek reunification and an end to imperialism like those in NV? If so, what was their drive in working with US forces? What were they seeking from the war?
Additionally, is this related to the war being termed the "American War" in Vietnam, as opposed to a civil war?
Thanks for your insight!
I am sure that u/Bernardito will have something to add to this, but I can definitely contribute something as well.
I think that your characterization of the Republic of Viet Nam (RVN; South Vietnam to Americans) is slightly off. The RVN was very much anti-imperialist, and always had been. It also was for the reunification of Viet Nam. However, the RVN was also determined to do so in a non-communist manner. Viet Nam had a long history of anti-imperial and radicalist practices, but they weren't always communist (Hue Tam Ho Tai discusses these a lot in her books). In the south in particular, were big nationalist movements that were not centered on communism. Communism became particularly popular for nationalist movements in the north because of Ho Chi Minh, but it should be mentioned that other major players in the communist movements were from the south. By the time of Second Indochina, the people had largely moved from north to south or vice versa due to their political inclinations (they had moved originally in preparation for a vote on government that had never ended up happening). As far as unification and indepedence were concerned, both governments had the same aims; as far as political ideology moving forward, the two differed. One could argue that the extent to which America inserted itself into the military and politics of the RVN could be considered colonialism itself (or at least neo-colonialism), but that's a slightly different discussion, I think.
As for "the American War" name. Not all Vietnamese people call it that, but I do think it has roots in the communists winning and unifying the country. Viet Nam after the war pretty much denied the existence of non-communist nationalist movements, and I think this naming is a reflection of that. The war has been framed as anti-imperialism against Americans, ignoring Vietnamese participation on both sides. In recent years, this total denial has lessened a bit.
According to the Pentagon Papers, "it is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diem—would have been much smaller than 80%." Ho Chi Minh's popularity as a leading of Vietnamese independence is certainly a factor—it is unclear if his popularity can mostly be attributed to that popularity or support of communism.
We don't really know the South viewed communism as like in the North, the South did not permit an independent and free press and censored political thought in opposition to the position of the government (though political opposition in the South was much more free to operate than in the North, where there was essentially no real opposition to communism that existed).
If you want to read more about the breakdown of the Geneva Accords and why both the North and the South wanted to violate the accords, Volume 1, Chapter 5, "Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954-1960," specifically Section 1, pages 242-69 of the Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers will be of interest to you.
The National Liberation Front's terror campaigns in the South Vietnamese countryside was well known and fairly well-documented. They went about conducting targeted assassinations and extrajudicial killings in villages that did not supply their forces or hide weapons and men for them.
The three most notable massacres they perpetuated are:
After the mass killings of civilians in Hue during the Tet Offensive, the idea of "tắm máu," or "bloodbath," largely took hold among the South Vietnamese population. People saw and heard about the mass graves and believed a communist victory would result in mass killings and assassinations. While I'm sure many in the South prior to the 1968 Tet Offensive would have been sympathetic to communism as a whole, any sympathy was clearly quashed after the Offensive. The NLF had hoped that the civilians across the South would rise up and join them, but that did not happen, really at all.
By 1975, any sympathy the South had for the North and communism had largely evaporated. The National Liberation Front, smashed by the Tet Offensive, was being staffed by volunteers from the North. To see how the South Vietnamese viewed communism, one can look at the mass evacuation from the northern and central regions of South Vietnam as the 1975 Spring Offensive gained ground.
During the retreat from the Central Highlands, the PAVN indiscriminately shelled refugees fleeing the offensive. 100,000 fled Ban Me Thuot, and an estimated 30,000-40,000 were killed or went missing. When the ARVN pulled back to the beaches of Da Nang, the North Vietnamese also shelled the beaches, which were full of soldiers and civilians attempting to board ships.
There are no hard statistics on just how many civilians the NLF killed, as the North did not keep exact records, but the most comprehensive study was undertaken by RJ Rummel. He estimated that from 1954 to 1975, North Vietnam and the NLF conducted between 5,000 - 29,000 targeted assassinations of South Vietnamese officials and were responsible for the deaths of approximately 21,000 - 78,000 civilians.
It is truly difficult to understand exactly what the South Vietnamese wanted, but it was clear the people did not want to live under communism. The South Vietnamese government wanted to remain independent and non-communist—there were those in the South Vietnamese government, chief of whom were Nguyen Cao Ky, who strongly advocated for a land invasion of the North, but this was never taken seriously—it was clear South Vietnam did not have the ability to conduct one.