PAVN

The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) had its beginning in 1930, in a mountain cave near the China border, with Vo Nguyen Giap and thirty-three others. Giap, with Ho Chi Minh's help, built up this minuscule army from a semi-guerrilla status into a force numbering over one million in the regular army and another three million in paramilitary elements. Pike discusses in depth the relationship of this small, underdeveloped country to Russia, to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, to China. He also accounts for Hanoi's victory in the Vietnam War and discusses the North Vietnam strategy that has proved so successful against three of the world's greatest powers.