Gabriel Kolko's Anatomy of a War

"The other major interpretive approach offers a far more radical critique of American intentions and behavior. It depicts the United States as a global hegemony, concerned primarily with its own economic expansion, and reflexively opposed to communism, indigenous revolution, or any other challenge to its authority. Authors writing from this perspective typically characterize American intervention in Indochina as the necessary and logical consequence of a rapacious superpower's drive for world dominance. Although scholarly and polemical treatments of the war have been written in this vein since the late 1960s, Gabriel Kolko's seminal Anatomy of a War represents the most sophisticated and comprehensive formulation of the radical perspective. Kolko sees U.S. intervention in Vietnam as a predictable consequence of the American ruling class's determination to exert control over the world capitalist system. The U.S. political economy's need for raw materials, investment outlets, and the integration between capitalist core states and the developing regions of the periphery set Washington on a collision course with revolutionary nationalist currents throughout the Third World." ~ The Oxford Companion to American Military History [1].

 

Gabriel Kolko's book Anatomy of War is a chronological history of the Vietnam war, beginning with a brief explanation of the 1858 conquest by the French and ending with the end of the war in 1975. Kolko examines the Communist Party, the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), and the United States. [2] Kolko says that to understand the Vietnam War, "we need to know how and why the Communist Party was victorious in Vietnam and the United States failed." [3]

Kolko offers an unexpected perspective on the Vietnam War. Given our current political climate, I am used to hearing accolades to the United States' greatness [4]. Kolko, however, is critical of the United States' involvement in Vietnam. While he notes the United States was concerned over the spread of Communism, Kolko also sees America's involvement in Vietnam as imperialistic. [5] It was about the assertion of American dominance, an American attempt to prove its greatness to the rest of the world.

According to Kolko, the United States miscalculated. The Vietnamese were tired of Colonial rule, and the Communists were eventually able to gain control. First, the French took away land from the peasants. The Communists won the peasants' loyalty by promising a more equal distribution of land. Second, the Communist Party's top members were intellectuals. These intellectuals devised strategies; they were patient and did not act prematurely. Unlike the United States, they could wait until the time was right to attack. Finally, the Communists were part of the native population and understood the terrain and people. This is not to say they did not encounter problems. They were "hampered by poor communications" and were often attacked by the Vietnamese and United States' government, but they were frequently able to make adjustments. [6]

While Kolko praises the Communists, he criticizes the United States for supporting people like Ngo Dinh Diem. One gets the impression while reading Kolko's account that the United States had no business getting involved in Vietnam. One also gets the impression that if they had chosen a different country to prove their dominance, they might have been more successful.

Kolko does have a clear bias. He admits, "I was from its inception totally opposed to all American involvement in Vietnam" [7]. One wonders if he had not been opposed to the war at the time, if his history would look different. Would his history be more complimentary of the United States? Does his past color his view of the war? Can an historian write a history about something s/he experienced objectively? Should a history like this even be objective? And finally, given that Kolko lived through the Vietnam era, is this work in some ways a primary source?

The Author:

Marxist Historian Gabriel Kolko was born in Patterson, New Jersey in 1932. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1962. He retired in 1986 and is Professor Emeritus at York University in Toronto. His works include:

Not surprisingly the Right is extremely critical of Kolko's perspective on Communism and the twentieth century. Anders G. Lewis in his article "An Ugly Anti-American" illustrates the Conservative perspective. Kolko is "anti-American" and an "enemy of the state." He is criticized for influencing a school of radical historians and for his anti-war activities during Vietnam, namely traveling to North and South Vietnam during the War and organizing "aid shipments to the Communists, . . . [calling] upon fellow leftists to wage war against American imperialism, and . . . [backing] the Communist cause around the world." He is also accused of advocating, "the preposterous idea that America is a totalitarian nation, where the rich rule and the poor obey." At one point, Lewis describes Kolko's work as a fairy tale. [9]

Although Anders Lewis is hardly an unbiased observer, his criticisms, along with the passage from The Oxford Companion to American Military History above, do suggest that Kolko writes from what many would regard as a "radical" perspective. Being an intellectual during the War likely did shape his perspective of Vietnam, as did his Marxist viewpoint. I also wonder about Lewis' assertion that Kolko believed America's involvement in Vietnam was imperialistic at the time of the war. If that is true, has Kolko let his views during the war shape his history? Is he using his own personal beliefs to shape his historical interpretation? (I want to believe Kolko since I found Lewis repulsive, but it does trouble me.)

Since I was not alive during the war, I asked my mother for her perspective on the war. She regarded Kolko's complimentary words about Ho Chi Minh and the Communists as unusual. I think Anatomy of a War is very much a product of Kolko's lived experience. Whether or not this makes it a better history is open to debate. It would be interesting to see how Historians write about Vietnam one hundred years from now. Will they take Kolko's radical stance, the Conservatives' "America is the most wonderful country in the world" viewpoint, or will they analyze it from a more moderate perspective? And how many comparisons will they make between Vietnam and Iraq?


1. Andrew J. Rotter, et al., "Vietnam War (1960-1975)," in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, edited by John Whiteclay Chambers II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Oxford Reference Online, Oxford University Press, 8 December 2007, <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t126.e0967-s0005>, (8 December 2007). <return>

2. Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Experience, (New York: Pantheon, 1994), ix. <return>

3. Ibid, 3. <return>

4. I was born after the Vietnam War and am therefore unfamiliar with the protests that occurred. I am accustomed to hearing America's praises sung to the sky. Many history textbooks write as if America can do no wrong. I find Kolko's perspective refreshing. <return>

5. Ibid, 8. <return>

6. Ibid, 9. <return>

7. Ibid, xii. <return>

8. Book list from Soylent Communications, "Gabriel Kolko" in NNDB, Copyright 2007, <http://www.nndb.com/people/839/000159362/> (8 December 2007). <return>

9. Anders G. Lewis, "An Ugly Anti-American" in FrontPageMag.com, 8 July 2004, <http://online.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={B6561532-0F39-4D58-B794-8C1EA743B21F}> (8 December 2007). <return>