Be strong in peace just as one fights in war!
Vietnamese people!
We have at last thrown out the imperialist and colonial rulers who sought to control and to oppress us. We have won a glorious victory, and the celebrations still sound throughout our land from the north to the south, as a people fired with victory embrace each other with joy. They are right to do so, to celebrate such a triumph, one for which we have all worked so hard. The peasants have produced diligently for the war effort and incurred the most horrific of French reprisals: they have formed the backbone of our nation. Monks have studied, learned, and taught, forming the intelligentsia which will lead us forwards towards enlightenment. Workers have labored to produce war material and to keep our armies fighting. Infantry have braved the harshness of the trenches, in the most wretched and terrible of conditions. Artillerymen have dragged their guns over the highest mountains, to defeat the enemy. Cavalry have ranged long and far despite their exhaustion, to liberate the people. Women have borne new children for the cause and formed new Red Women, the base of our new society, destroying the corrupt old order. Citizens of Vietnam, you rightfully can take pride, each and every one of you, in your honorable and diligent conduct under the banner of Lenin and the eight-fold path!
And yet our struggle is not yet over. The capitalist and imperialist nations are a hundred, two hundred, years ahead of us in industry. If we do not catch up to them within a decade, then we will be lost. The French are still there, planning to invade our nation, and who knows if the British capitalists in London will decide to attack us to destroy a competitor to their rubber supplies....? What about the Japanese, seemingly far off in distant Tokyo but with a navy which could destroy our shores? If Vietnam is to be free, if Vietnam is to be independent, then Vietnam must be strong! We must achieve the impossible, wiping the sweat from our tired brows, in the name of the construction of the socialist society. Duty compels us to sacrifice all for the nation in both peace and war, to bear any suffering, any load, all in the interests of national preservation.
We ask of you a hard task. We ask you to cut expenditures and to make economies, to prevent the consumption of goods which can otherwise go to our economic development. Coal is needed for export: let us use wood to fire our fires. We need to dedicate our money to the purchase of foreign machines to make the nation strong: we cannot spend it on cotton or silk. Let us let our clothes grow thread barren, in the interest of economies, and let us wear them not as a sign of shameful poverty, but rather of patriotic duty. Our bellies may rumble as we eat gruel to provide for exports of rice, but let us do so with the knowledge that every grain that we grow will make the nation stronger. Let our schools, our temples, our monasteries be adorned with gardens to provide for their needs, and let us labor dutifully to expand production. No one in Vietnam shall grow hungry and starving like in the colonialist period, for there is work for every hand, desperately needed work, but we must harden ourselves for a struggle which will be hard and dolorous, but one which is necessary for the good of the nation. In time, we will be rich and strong, as the profits which the capitalist classes once siphoned for themselves will be directed towards the people, but for now, the duty of the nation stands above all else.
Vietnamese! Remember the commandments of the Buddha. Crave not, want not. That is the road towards suffering. Steel yourself and live a life of modesty and discipline, on the route towards enlightenment and socialism. In following the eight-fold path, we shall live in dignity, scorning the decadent richness that has corrupted the capitalist nations. Look at the French soldiers who we have defeated, weakened by plenty and by luxury. The capitalist world turned its back on the liberating force of the eight-fold path, choosing base materialism. We shall focus instead on the edification of socialism and enlightenment, and our noble people shall in times of peace just as in times of war achieve triumph. Alongside us stride proudly upright the Laotian and Soviet people, and together we march towards a juster, fairer, society.
So just as you labored for the independence and the unification of the nation, work hard, with valor and enthusiasm for the building of Socialism and the achievement of enlightenment! Miners, for you more coal, farmers, more rice and rubber, workers, more machines to make the nation strong. Only ceaseless toil will lift our nation from its position of weakness and vulnerability into a redoubt of the Socialist and Enlightened world! Be the heroes of peace, as well as war, in the vanguard of the development of Buddhist Socialism.
We have at last thrown out the imperialist and colonial rulers who sought to control and to oppress us. We have won a glorious victory, and the celebrations still sound throughout our land from the north to the south, as a people fired with victory embrace each other with joy. They are right to do so, to celebrate such a triumph, one for which we have all worked so hard. The peasants have produced diligently for the war effort and incurred the most horrific of French reprisals: they have formed the backbone of our nation. Monks have studied, learned, and taught, forming the intelligentsia which will lead us forwards towards enlightenment. Workers have labored to produce war material and to keep our armies fighting. Infantry have braved the harshness of the trenches, in the most wretched and terrible of conditions. Artillerymen have dragged their guns over the highest mountains, to defeat the enemy. Cavalry have ranged long and far despite their exhaustion, to liberate the people. Women have borne new children for the cause and formed new Red Women, the base of our new society, destroying the corrupt old order. Citizens of Vietnam, you rightfully can take pride, each and every one of you, in your honorable and diligent conduct under the banner of Lenin and the eight-fold path!
And yet our struggle is not yet over. The capitalist and imperialist nations are a hundred, two hundred, years ahead of us in industry. If we do not catch up to them within a decade, then we will be lost. The French are still there, planning to invade our nation, and who knows if the British capitalists in London will decide to attack us to destroy a competitor to their rubber supplies....? What about the Japanese, seemingly far off in distant Tokyo but with a navy which could destroy our shores? If Vietnam is to be free, if Vietnam is to be independent, then Vietnam must be strong! We must achieve the impossible, wiping the sweat from our tired brows, in the name of the construction of the socialist society. Duty compels us to sacrifice all for the nation in both peace and war, to bear any suffering, any load, all in the interests of national preservation.
We ask of you a hard task. We ask you to cut expenditures and to make economies, to prevent the consumption of goods which can otherwise go to our economic development. Coal is needed for export: let us use wood to fire our fires. We need to dedicate our money to the purchase of foreign machines to make the nation strong: we cannot spend it on cotton or silk. Let us let our clothes grow thread barren, in the interest of economies, and let us wear them not as a sign of shameful poverty, but rather of patriotic duty. Our bellies may rumble as we eat gruel to provide for exports of rice, but let us do so with the knowledge that every grain that we grow will make the nation stronger. Let our schools, our temples, our monasteries be adorned with gardens to provide for their needs, and let us labor dutifully to expand production. No one in Vietnam shall grow hungry and starving like in the colonialist period, for there is work for every hand, desperately needed work, but we must harden ourselves for a struggle which will be hard and dolorous, but one which is necessary for the good of the nation. In time, we will be rich and strong, as the profits which the capitalist classes once siphoned for themselves will be directed towards the people, but for now, the duty of the nation stands above all else.
Vietnamese! Remember the commandments of the Buddha. Crave not, want not. That is the road towards suffering. Steel yourself and live a life of modesty and discipline, on the route towards enlightenment and socialism. In following the eight-fold path, we shall live in dignity, scorning the decadent richness that has corrupted the capitalist nations. Look at the French soldiers who we have defeated, weakened by plenty and by luxury. The capitalist world turned its back on the liberating force of the eight-fold path, choosing base materialism. We shall focus instead on the edification of socialism and enlightenment, and our noble people shall in times of peace just as in times of war achieve triumph. Alongside us stride proudly upright the Laotian and Soviet people, and together we march towards a juster, fairer, society.
So just as you labored for the independence and the unification of the nation, work hard, with valor and enthusiasm for the building of Socialism and the achievement of enlightenment! Miners, for you more coal, farmers, more rice and rubber, workers, more machines to make the nation strong. Only ceaseless toil will lift our nation from its position of weakness and vulnerability into a redoubt of the Socialist and Enlightened world! Be the heroes of peace, as well as war, in the vanguard of the development of Buddhist Socialism.
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