bribing "laborers and young students to petition in support of Diệm's ascent to chief-of-state and in favor of deposing Bảo Đại". Some historians have questioned Diệm's critics' political relevance and sincerity. According to historian Robert Nathan, there was a shift in Vietnamese politics as a result of America's replacement of France as the primary foreign influence, and a burst of democratic and pseudo-democratic ideas and propaganda by pious people who were previously considered to be power-hungry politicians. According to Nathan, the adoption of democratic rhetoric by Hòa Hảo generals and their allies was meaningless because none of them rose to power. Moreover, the leaders of the Hòa Hảo were often dismissed by American officials at the time as "feudal" or "gangster", or of minor importance. Diệm's government abolished all of the Hòa Hảo civil organizations; their religious rituals were to be kept strictly private, and all public celebrations were forbidden. Diệm's forces, now called the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), spent much of 1956 fighting the Hòa Hảo insurgents, who continued to harass the government. Also, the Việt Minh established a few of their own units, disguising them with religious names like the "Hòa Hảo Liberation Company". The ARVN targeted the remaining Hòa Hảo rebels in the western Mekong Delta near the beginning of the year, inflicting crippling losses. Soái returned to Vietnam, but he and his 4,600-strong force surrendered in February. In April, a government patrol caught Ba Cụt, the last remaining rebel leader. After being convicted of a series of murders in court, he was guillotined in Cần Thơ on 13 July 1956, despite Lansdale's urges, as he worried that the execution would solidify Cụt's followers' hostility to the South Vietnamese government. Indeed, the bulk of Hòa Hảo followers joined the Việt Cộng, while the government obliterated Cụt's remaining guerrilla troops by May. By now, Sổ's younger sister Huỳnh Thị Kim Biên was the movement's new religious leader, and the Hòa Hảo were eventually destroyed by Saigon's considerably larger forces. ARVN's final operations in 1962 wiped out the Hòa Hảo military might. American historian Jessica M. Chapman argues that the infrastructure of the Hòa Hảo-controlled territories was not strong enough to function without foreign backing, as the previous French subsidies were the organization's "lifeblood". Post-Diệm Vietnam In South Vietnam, the overthrow of the Diệm regime in 1963 coincided with the outbreak of large-scale guerrilla warfare. Communist