ALLIANCE
27
HO CHI MINH AND THE VIETNAMESE
REVOLUTION
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Lenin and Stalin On Colonial Revolution - Reply to An Independent
Marxist. . .
NOMENCLATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
A SHORT CHRONOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. PRE-COLONIAL VIETNAM - TOWARDS ORIENTAL DESPOTIC STATE. 21
2. ENTRY OF THE FRENCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3. THE CLASS FORCES OF VIETNAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4. EARLY NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS - THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATS.
. 32
5. HO CHI MINH AND THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST PARTY. . . .
. . . . . . 34
Early Career of Nguyen Ai Quoc-Ho Chi Minh
The Thanh Nien - Proto Nationalist - Communist Organisation
The Destruction of The Purely Revolutionary Democratic Forces
6. THE MARXIST-LENINIST VIEW OF THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION;
IS DISTORTED BY REVISIONISTS AT 1928 COMINTERN CONGRESS. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 40
7. THE WORKER'S MOVEMENT
IN VIETNAM AND THE FORMATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Formation Of A Party
The Rectification Insisted Upon by the Comintern
The Comintern Swings to the Right Line of the Seventh Congress
8. THE OPPORTUNISM OF THE FRENCH POPULAR FRONT STRATEGY . . 52
9. THE REVISIONISTS ENCOURAGE THE BOURGEOISIE - THE DISSOLUTION
OF THE ICP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
10. FRENCH RULE ONCE AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
11. THE 1953 GENEVA CONFERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
12. THE PARTITION OF VIETNAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
13.TOWARDS ONE STATE -THE CLASS POSITIONS IN THE SOUTH . . . . .
74
14. THE CLASS BASIS OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE STATE - THE DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM (DRV) - REVISING THE DEFINITION OF THE WORKING
CLASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
15. THE STAGE OF ARMED REVOLT AGAINST THE SOUTHERN COMPRADOR STATE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.. . . . . . . . . . 81
16. THE ARMED STRUGGLE AGAINST USA IMPERIALISM . . . . .
. . . . . . . 82
17. THE CLASS BASIS OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM .
. . . 85
17. PRESENT DAY VIETNAM BEHOLDEN TO THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REFERENCES & BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Foreword :
As the main leader, who guided the struggle of Vietnamese
peasants and workers to achieve national liberation from foreign imperialism,
Ho Chi Minh occupies a unique place in history. The national liberation
was achieved in several gigantic steps - first against a French rule; then
against a combined French and Japanese imperialism; then against French
imperialism again; and then finally against USA imperialism. These heroic
feats are in no doubt, and both Ho Chi Minh and the Indochinese Communist
party are deservedly honored as twentieth century nationalist warriors
against imperialism. But, questions are often raised about Vietnamese
Communism. The following views are commonly raised :
The most outstanding feature
in the growth of Vietnamese communism has been its internal fusion of two
separate movements: an anti-imperialist movement integral with Vietnamese
patriotic traditions, and a Communist movement..The Janus face of Vietnamese
Communism has been the central difficulty of those who seek to identify
its nature.
Huynh Kim Khanh "Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945"; Ithaca USA; 1982;
p.20.
This Janus
face, of Vietnamese communism,
is described by that same scholar, as being a graft
of Marxism-Leninism placed onto a scion
of Vietnamese nationalism. This is offered as an explanation of the Indochinese
Communist party policies. How should Marxist-Leninists see Vietnamese
Communism? Certainly if the prostitution that is now rampant in today's
Ho Chi Minh City, is to stand for Socialism
- then Marxists-Leninists have a duty to explain how it can!
Despite attempts to obfuscate and complicate matters
by revisionist and pseudo-academics, Marxism-Leninism stands by a clear
set of principles, that are the product of the theory and practice of revolutionary
battles by the world's proletariat
and peasantry. Can it be simply "grafted" upon something else, and remain
Marxism-Leninism? Of course Marxist-Leninists are aware that to put its
principles into practice, Marxist-Leninists must be flexible and apply
the principles according to the country in which they are practicing. Stalin
endorsed this view just as did Lenin.
"The nationally peculiar and nationally specific features in each
separate country must unfailingly be taken into account by the Comintern
when drawing up guiding directives for the working-class movement of the
country concerned".
J.V. Stalin: 'Notes on Contemporary Themes' 1927,
in: 'Works', Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 337
But as to a simple graft, of Marxism-Leninism, onto
a stock of Nationalism - definitely is unlikely to yield a Marxist-Leninist
plant. What plant came of the ICP policies?
The Democratic Republic
of Vietnam (DRV) was founded in northern Vietnam in September 1948;
and then in 1953, the imperialists partitioned the states of North and
South Vietnam at the Geneva Peace Conference. These were unified into the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976. But, the nature of Vietnamese
communism and its state has puzzled many. We are not aware of any detailed
Marxist-Leninist analysis of Ho Chi Minh, and his legacy in modern
Vietnam. Some brief analyses provided by Marxist-Leninists, suggest that
Vietnam did not, ever proceed beyond the first stage of the national democratic
revolution. This was claimed by the Communist League of Britain.
They depicted Ho Chi Minh's close comrade-in-arms, Le Duan, (General/First
Secretary of the Vietnamese Workers Party (now the Vietnamese Communist
Party) from 1960 until his death in 1986, as pursuing an essentially Maoist
line :
"Leduanism follows Maoism in departing from Marxism-Leninism in putting
forward the programme of the peaceful transition to "socialism" through
state capitalism, by the formation in cooperation with the national capitalists,
of joint state-private enterprises. Participation in these according to
LeDuanism, remouds the national capitalist ideologically into workers",
:
"Our Party guided the workers and peasants to establish a national
united front with the bourgeoisie".
Le Duan: 'Leninism and Vietnam's Revolution', in:
'On the Socialist Revolution in Vietnam', Volume 1; Hanoi; 1965; p. 34
The Communist League also pointed out the programme
of peaceful transition into
socialismvia the process of
forming joint stock companies with capitalists was not a Marxist-Leninist
principle :
"Leduanism also follows Maoism in putting forward the programme of
the peaceful transition to 'socialism' through state capitalism, by the
formation, in cooperation with the national capitalists, of joint state-private
enterprises. Participation in these, according to Leduanism, remoulds the
national capitalists ideologically into workers",
"The national bourgeoisie.. are willing
to accept socialist transformation, therefore our Party's policy is peacefully
to transform capitalist trade and industry, gradually to transform capitalist
ownership into socialist ownership, through State capitalism, and to transform
the bourgeois from exploiters into genuine workers through ideological
education and participation in productive labour".
Le Duan.: ibid., Volume 2; p. 39.
We present a more detailed analysis of Ho Chi Minh and
the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), which supports this overall
analysis. The starting point for Marxist-Leninists, must be the attitude
to the revolution in colonial and semi-colonial countries. In this point
at least, we are in full agreement with Ho Chi Minh himself, who claimed
that he became an adherent of the Third International, but only after understanding
Lenin's positions in the Theses
on Colonial and semi-colonial countries.
INTRODUCTION :
Nationalism and Socialist Revolutions in Lenin
and Stalin's Works
- A Short Reply to Ken Post - An Independent
Marxist'.
In previous issues, we have analyzed the Marxist-Leninist
approach to colonial and semi-colonial countries in considerable detail,
and we refer the interested reader to those issues. Marxist-Leninists hold
that the liberation of colonial and semi-colonial countries, requires a
two stage revolution, passing from the stage of national liberation (The
National Democratic Revolution) through to the second stage - the Socialist
revolution. This passage from one stage to the next must be uninterrupted,
without a Chinese Wall,
between the two parts. This overall strategy ensures the maximum opportunity
for forming all potential and necessary allies in this massive task:
"It is possible to conquer the more
powerful enemy.. only by taking advantage of every, even the smallest,
opportunity of gaining a mass ally, even though this ally be temporary,
vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand
this fail to understand even a grain of Marxism."
Lenin: 'Left-wing" Communism, an
Infantile Disorder' 1920, 'Sel Works', Vol 10; Lond; 1946; p. 112.
"The Communist Party of each country
must unfailingly avail itself of even the smallest opportunity of gaining
a mass ally for the proletariat, even if a temporary, vacillating, unstable
and unreliable ally."
J.V. Stalin: 'Notes on Contemporary
Themes' 1927, 'Works', Volume 9; Moscow; 1954; p. 337.
As Stalin states,
after the victory of the first stage, the proletariat, having mobilized
the largest force possible, should then be able to :
"Push aside the national bourgeoisie, consolidate its hegemony and
assume the lead of the vast masses of the working people in town and country,
in order to overcome the resistance of the national bourgeoisie, secure
the complete victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and then gradually
convert it into a socialist revolution".
J.V. Stalin: 'Questions of the Chinese Revolution' 1927, 'Works', Volume
9; Moscow; 1954; p. 225.
Indeed unless that happens, the revolution will be crushed,
says Stalin:
"The revolution will be unable to crush the resistance bourgeoisie,
to maintain its victory and to push forward to the victory of socialism
unless.. it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of
the proletariat as its principal mainstay".
J.V. Stalin: 'The Foundations of Leninism' 1924, 'Works', Vol
6; Moscow; 1953; p. 112
Most Marxist-Leninists agree, although still, some Marxist-Leninists,
cannot accept the full implications of these remarks. Those of a Maoist
persuasion, refuse to accept the implications, because of their adherence
for the revisionist so called New
Democracy theory of Mao
Ze Dong. The revisionist theory of New
Democracy, is discussed at length
elsewhere. [See Joint Statement Alliance, Marxist-Leninist
Communist Party (Turkey); Communist League:'Upon Unity & Ideology -An
Open Letter to Ludo Martens;' London; 1996. At: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/Anti-Martens-a.html
]
Two other aspects however, demand some limited
specific attention here.
Firstly : Is a revolution possible without
a national bourgeoisie, or if there is only a small
bourgeoisie?
Secondly : Are nations only formed out of
feudalism, and did Stalin try to revise the concept of the Asiatic Mode
of Production?
1. When only a weak or small national bourgeoisie
exists.
A self proclaimed Independent
Marxist- Ken Post - has
produced a magnum opus
in three volumes on the Vietnamese movements, a most useful source. He
takes the view that in Vietnam, at best there was a very small national
bourgeoisie. In this he is in
agreement with many others. But he goes so far as to say it was non-existent,
although he himself, is inconsistent here. Nonetheless he makes
the following valid point:
As for the national
bourgeoisie', the basic question
in Viet Nam was whether such a thing really existed at all, in the sense
in which such a class force in India gave strength to the Congress Party
and in China to the Kuomintang (KMT).
Post K: "Revolution, Socialism, & nationalism In Vietnam";
Vol 1; London; 1989; p. 57.
It is true that the Vietnamese national bourgeoisie
was small, and it is true that it was not comparable to the forces of either
the KMT or Congress. Ho Chi Minh, reflects this point, when he underscores
the small size of the working class, stating:
In all the colonized countries,
in old Indochina as well as in young Dahomey, no one understands what a
class struggle, a proletarian force.. A workers'
organisation is... In the eyes of the natives, Bolshevism, signifies either
the destruction of everything, or emancipation from the foreign yoke. The
first meaning given to this term, pushes the ignorant and fearful masses
away from us; the second leads them to nationalism. One is just as dangerous
as the other.
Cited; Khanh Ibid; p. 62.
That the working class was small was admitted in the
printed views of one of the charter groups of the Indochinese Communist
Party - Thanh Nien - under Ho Chi Minh's
leadership:
It would be useless if
not harmful: To Preach the revolution
in the name of democratic or Communist principles, for the Vietnamese people
have not yet received any political education.
And Vietnamese society:
Did not yet possess a true
capitalist class..
If anything Vietnamese society was:
Made up of heterogenous
classes, all of whom were deprived by the French administration of their
rights and revenue.
Vietnam was not yet ready for a class revolution for:
The actual circumstances
oblige the Vietnamese people to foster the national revolution and not
a class revolution. That is why it is a duty of the rich, the poor, the
mandarins, and the members of the public to unite with one another in order
to assure the triumph of the national revolution.
Thanh Nien: 24 October 1927; Cited by Khanh Ibid; p. 86.
In reality, where the national bourgeoisie is weak,
this assists the workers and the peasantry who are organised, in moving
from the first stage of the national liberation to the second stage uninterruptedly.
The actual size and nature of the Vietnamese national bourgeoisie is dealt
with below. But here we address the root question for colonial type countries.
These are: What
is a Marxist-Leninist party to do when there is a very small national bourgeoisie?
And: What is the party to do
if there is a very small working class?
Post draws attention to how troubled Frederick
Engels was, upon the correct strategy in such colonial type countries.
He cites Engels' hesitations
as to whether these countries can achieve socialism in the absence of aid
from the more developed countries :
Colonial possessions like
India and Algeria might at best achieve a nationalist revolution, but then
as semi-civilized'
countries would have to wait until Europe and North America were reorganized'
after socialist revolutions there and then follow in their wake.
F.Engels Letter to Kautsky, 12 September 1882, Cited by Avineieri ed
1969; p.473.
[EDITOR May 2002: Engels does make this point, but in more careful
detail as the translation in the Works shows: "Marx & Engels Collected
Works; Volume 46; 1992; Moscow; pp.320 323.
But the full impact of the revolutionary movements against
imperialisms, was yet to come. It was for that reason that the tactics
and strategy for the colonial and semi-colonial countries could only be
properly worked out by later leaders, and not by Engels. In fact, both
Lenin and Stalin considered the cases of the very under-developed
countries carefully. They recognised the different levels of development
across the colonial world. Lenin knew of course, there were countries where
the industrial proletariat is weak, as Stalin states:
Lenin pointed out:
There can be no question
of a purely proletarian movement,'
where, There is practically
no industrial proletariat.' Lenin;
Why were the Supplementary Theses needed? In order to single out from the
backward colonial countries which have no industrial proletariat such countries
as China and India, of which it cannot be said that they have practically
no industrial proletariat'. Read
the Supplementary Theses,
and you will realise that they refer chiefly to China and India...
How could it happen that Roy's
special Theses were needed to Supplement
Lenin's theses? The fact is that Lenin's Theses were written and published
long before the Second Congress opened.. prior to the discussion in the
Special Commission of the Second Congress. And since the Second Congress
revealed the necessity for singling out from the backward countries such
countries as China and India the necessity for Supplementary
Theses' arose.
Stalin: "Concerning Questions of the Chinese Revolution",Works, Vol 9,
Moscow, 1954; p.236-238.
Lenin's Report
and Theses at the 2nd congress of the CI advised that in the absence of
a significant working class in the backward colonial-type countries, the
leadership of the national democratic revolution by the working class should
be exercised by the working class of the developed capitalist countries
and in particular by the working class of Soviet Russia. In that case a
capitalist stage may
be avoided:
If the revolutionary victorious
proletariat carries on systematic propaganda among them, and if the Soviet
governments render them all the assistance they possibly can.. the backward
countries may pass to the Soviet system, and after passing through a definite
stage of development to Communism without passing though the capitalist
stage of development.
Lenin. Report on the Commission. Ibid, Vol 10: p.243.
If the victorious revolutionary
proletariat conducts systematic propaganda among them and the Soviet government
come to the aid with all the means at their disposal-in the event it will
be mistaken to assume that the backward peoples must inevitably go through
the capitalist stage of development. Not only should we create independent
contingents of fighter and party organisations in the colonies and the
backward countries, not only at once to launch propaganda for the organisation
of peasants' Soviets and strive
to adapt them to the pre-capitalists conditions, but the Communist International
should advance the proposition, with the appropriate theoretical grounding
that with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward
countries can go over to the Soviet system, and, through certain stages
of development to communism, without having to pass through the capitalists
stage.
Lenin. Report on the Commission. Ibid, Vol 10: p.243.
Post will accept this, it seems, when Lenin speaks upon
this matter, but not Stalin. Post's
attempt to draw a division between Lenin and Stalin on this question, is
nonsense. Stalin, in addressing the People's of the East, distinguished
in 1925, At least three categories
of colonial and dependent countries:
Firstly countries like
Morocco who have little or not proletariat, and are industrially quite
undeveloped. Secondly countries like China and Egypt which are under-developed
industries and have a relatively small proletariat. Thirdly countries like
India, which are capitalistically more or less developed and have a more
or less numerous national proletariat. Clearly all these countries cannot
possibly be put on a par with one another.
J.V.Stalin. "Tasks of University of Peoples of East." 1925. 'Works';
Vol 7; Moscow; 1954 p.148.
What was Stalin's prescription for the first or second
type of country, fitting Vietnam? We see that it was not any different
from Lenin's:
Lasting victory cannot
be achieved in the colonial and dependent countries without a real link
between the liberation movement in those countries and the proletarian
movement in the advanced countries of the West.
Stalin; Ibid; p. 148.
Obviously when there is no socialist country able to
provide aid, the situation becomes extremely serious for such a country.
After the fall of the USSR following Stalin's
death, only the People's Republic
Of Socialist Albania (PRSA) was left. But this was itself in a somewhat
embattled and precarious situation, and did not have too many spare resources.
It is perfectly in keeping with Lenin and Stalin's
views then, that the overwhelming support given by the progressive peoples
and proletariat of the world, did in fact, assist the successful national
liberation of Vietnam during the protracted war. But this still left the
problem of the transition to socialism un-resolved and un-assisted, and
we would argue, in Vietnam this was never performed.
2. Regarding Transition from pre-nation to
nations, and Oriental Despotism
Another series of questions are raised by Ken Post,
namely is there any possibility of a National Democratic Revolution, even
taking place in a state where there is no feudal mode of production?
Post states that for Stalin and Marxist
Leninist Orthodoxy, that it
was impossible to form nations under feudalism or its equivalent. The self-styled
Independent Marxist'
Ken Post, makes the usual case - Stalin
creates an orthodoxy
that stifles reality and controls all corners of the Communist International.
Post first disputes that Vietnam was ever a feudal
state at all - he argues that it was a central state apparatus under Asiatic
Mode. This allows him to set up a Straw
Stalinto attack, who maintains
that nations can only arise when capitalists attack feudalism. For his
attack on a straw Stalin, Post wants a Stalin to somehow stand alone and
separate from Lenin.
Post wants the impression that Stalin countermanded
any possible evolution of a nation from a feudal'
or centralised state of the type evolved under the Asiatic Mode of Production.
Post cites Stalin, stating in 1929, that the struggle of capitalists against
feudalism, was necessary for nations to arise:
How could nations have
arisen and existed before capitalism, in the period of feudalism, when
countries where split up into separate independent principalities, which
far from being bound together by national ties, emphatically denied the
necessity for such ties.
Stalin JVS: "The National Question & Leninism"; Vol 11; Moscow
1954; p.351;
Rendred here as only a partial citation by Post p.87 Volume 1; Ibid.
But, Independent Marxists must understand that even
Stalinists
can read. What do we find when we do read? Further examining Post's
partial citation, we find that Stalin in the original,
has just before Post's
partial quote, introduced the term modern
nations:
One of the grave mistakes
you make is that you lump together all existing nations and fail to see
any fundamental differences between them. There are different kinds of
nations. There are nations which developed in the epoch of rising capitalism,
when the bourgeoisie, destroying feudalism and feudal disunity, gathered
the parts of nations together and cemented them. These are the so-called
modern
nations.
Stalin: "The National Question & Leninism"; ibid; p. 350-351.
Stalin does then, go on, to the quote that Post has given in isolation,
as we have cited above. But, following that quote Stalin has this to say:
Of course the elements
of nationhood - language, territory, common culture etc. - did not fall
from the skies but were being formed gradually, even in the pre-capitalist
period. But these elements were in a rudimentary state, and at best, were
only a potentiality, that is they constituted the possibility of the formation
of a nation in the future given certain favorable conditions. The potentiality
became a reality only in the period of rising capitalism, with its national
market and its economic and cultural centres..
Stalin: "The National Question & Leninism"; Ibid; p. 351.
So Post is right in stating that Stalin does link, explicitly,
the development of capitalism and the modern nation. It is fortunate then,
for Marxist-Leninists, or Stalinists
(and perhaps even for Independent
Marxists), that Stalin goes
on to quote the position of Lenin; in What
The Friends of the People
Are, And How They Fight The Social-Democrats.
Says Lenin against Mr Mikhailovsky:
..The actual merging of
all such regions, lands and principalities into a single whole. This merging..
was brought about by the growth of exchange between regions, the gradual
growth of commodity circulation, and the concentration of the small local
markets into a single, all Russian market. Since the leaders of this process
were the merchant capitalists, the creation of these national ties was
nothing but the creation of bourgeois ties.
Cited by Stalin In Ibid; p. 352.
That Post himself understands that there may be a difference
between a modern nation
using Stalin's terminology, and
other forms of national consciousness; is seen in his own assessment
of Vietnam prior to the entry of French imperialism:
The final product of many
centuries of pre-colonial Vietnamese history may therefore be seen as a
Khinh nation with a centralised state, but not as a Vietnamese nation state.
Post Ibid Volume 1; p. 104.
Post is anxious to argue that the Indochinese Communist
Party (ICP), conformed to a vague
Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy,
when it did not use the formulation chosen/favoured by Post; ie that the
essential transition of the Kinh pre-nation, to a Kinh
nationhad already occurred,
but within the Asiatic mode. Post also argues that since the Vietnamese
national bourgeoisie did not exist, the ICP had to find a "patriotic"
vehicle, based in the "masses":
Almost timeless patriotic
spirit, which in class terms was in the custody of the masses, rather than
that of a national bourgeoisie, and which could also be dissociated from
the old regime. Post Ibid
Volume 1; p. 104.
He also states that this vehicle was in the mass custody,
of the peasantry and not the working class:
Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy
led the (ICP) to seek a national sentiment which could serve as a major
driving force in the predicated first stage of the revolution, and also
as a base for this among the peasantry.
Post Ibid Vol 1; p. 107.
Post further states that, as according to him, "there
was no Vietnamese bourgeoisie", the ICP were applying a meaningless
theory anyway. Besides he says, "there was never was any feudalism".
And thus he says, there cannot be any struggle against feudal
remnants. The only potential
theoretical solution to all these problems, says Post, was one that was
forbidden
by Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy.
This solution was that of the Asiatic Mode of Production:
On the other hand the Kinh
(ie the Forbears of the Vietnamese nation -ed) the Kinh had evolved as
a nation without a rising bourgeoisie, thus refuting the received idea
of what should have historically occurred. Moreover the process had not
been part of the transformation and overthrow of a feudal
system, doctrinally regarded as inimical to the emergence of a nation,
but within what might much more accurately have been categorized by the
forbidden concept of Asiatic
mode of Production'.
Post Ibid; p. 106.
What exactly is Post's
point here? Post wishes to assert that "Stalin foisted an incorrect position
upon the ICP", namely that there was a national capitalist class; and that
therefore the first stage of the revolution had to deal with remnants of
feudalism. He also wishes to smear Stalin as having fostered a cover-up
of Marx's views on Oriental Despotism.
Post arrives at these conclusions from this chain of following logic:
a) Since, he asserts, there was no national capitalist class in Vietnam,
there could not be a first stage of national liberation struggle, in alliance
with the National capitalist class;
b) He asserts, that Stalin's
dogmatism foisted the Vietnamese Communist Party with the incorrect view
that there had to be such a class;
c) Post then asserts that to buttress this incorrect view, Stalin insisted
that there had to be a remnant
of feudalism- and that this
was equally incorrect:
It seems almost certain
that the ICP's First Central
Committee in 1930 followed Stalin's
May 1927 specification of China as dominated by survivals
of feudalism', the exact phrase
(di kich phong kiem) used of his own country by Tran Phu.
Post Ibid; p. 87.
d) Finally Post asserts that this was all linked to Stalin expunging'
the possibility of an alternative to feudalism,
because he denied Marx's solution
for the existence of a centralised state in the East that bore features
dissimilar to that of feudalism , the Asiatic Mode of production. In short,
according to Ken Post, Stalin had :
In 1939, in his Dialectical
and Historical Materialism,
expunged the Asiatic mode from the armoury of Marxist theoretical concepts.
Post Ibid; p. 87.
Incidentally, Post himself, draws back from characterising
the pre-colonial history of Vietnam:
I do not intend to enter
into any debate concerning the appropriate label to place on pre-colonial
Viet Nam.
Post Ibid; p.87.
It does seem a little strange, that the rooster which
has crowed so loudly, then goes back to sleep! So be it. We point out that
Stalin in Dialectical And Historical
Materialism hardly expunges
the mode of Asiatic production! He simply says, (and it is appropriately
short, in a small section that comprises a twenty five page introduction
to this topic, that Post might think needed 25 volumes perhaps), that there
are :
Five main (The emphasis
is in the original-ed) types of relations of production are known to history:
Primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and Socialist.
Stalin: "History of the CPSU(B)" - Chapter Four part 2; Moscow; 1939;
p. 123.
Is this really disputable? Given the overwhelming sway
over the entire world social and political and economic formations that
the feudal to capitalist transition of the Western world, has played -
how can this be sensibly disputed? Elsewhere and hopefully in the near
future, we will reply more fully on the subject of the Asiatic Mode,
both to Post and the other similar assertions made by others, including
Karl A. Wittfogel. ( Wittfogel K.A. "Oriental Despotism"; New York;
1981 ).
[Since Alliance 27 was published, we have web-published
"Oriental Depsotism", a part of "The Development of Society" by Communist
League: at: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/OrientalDespot1.htm
].
But we will here only comment on three matters,
in relation to Post's use of
the Asiatic Mode of Production in this context.
Firstly, we must note that Post is himself
content to assert that the structure of a centralized
stategave:
An element of continuity
in Vietnamese history which had played a part in fostering a sense of national
identity..
Post; Ibid; Page 87.
That being the case, it should be adequate, to remind
the Independent Marxist (Independent
- of what we wonder?), that Stalin in his original work on the nation had
already pointed out that in the East, that it was possible to form states
that were multi-national, by other routes than via the standard
feudal to capitalist route. In reality, these states resemble those of
the Eastern bureaucracies. Stalin here is mainly talking of Eastern Europe,
including Russia - a state that both he and Lenin had used, as examples
of Oriental Despotism. Stalin described them as follows, as having arisen
from a:
Historically formed, powerful
and well organized aristocratic military bureaucracy... That is how matters
proceeded in the East. This special method of formation of states could
only take place where feudalism had not yet been eliminated, where capitalism
was feebly developed, where the nationalities which had been forced into
the background had not yet been able to consolidate themselves economically
into integral nations.
Stalin: "Marxism & The National Question"; Vol 2; p. 314 Moscow;
1946.
Such a state certainly existed in pre-colonial Vietnam,
and Post himself cites data to that effect. It is true that Stalin uses
the term above, feudal.
It is further true, as Post remarks, that the term feudal
remnantswas used by Stalin
in relation to China (See our third point below).
The second comment is that of a historical
correction. It is true that this term and concept of Asiatic
Mode Of Productionwas contested
in the 1930's, but it was not contested by Stalin. It was contested
by Godes and Yolk, in an ideological debate in the 1930's. These
hidden revisionists argued, that it was immaterial whether the Asiatic
mode of production existed in reality, it was necessary it repudiate it
for political reasons:
YOLK : I want to warn against
this theory. What is really important is to unmask it politically, and
not to establish the pure truth',
as to whether the Asiatic mode
of Production' existed or not.
"Dikussia ob Asiatskom sposobe proizdostvo"; Moscow/Leningrad; 1931;
p.89
The rather remarkable political
reasons given, were that it
was objectionable to Asian bourgeois nationalists, and so tended to alienate
the latter from the Asian communist parties (Ibid; p.34). But such
a denial of the historical materialist approach to state formation adopted
by revisionists such as Yolk, is not equivalent to a demonstration that
Stalin was attempting to revise Marx. Given everything that Stalin had
already written upon the bourgeois nationalists movements, (eg They are
bound to renege, they are weak etc) it is hardly credible that Stalin would
have used such reasoning.
Those that cannot understand that a hidden class
battle, was going on inside the USSR, after the open defeat of Trotskyism
and Bukharinism are not able to extricate themselves from simple errors.
The easiest thing for them to do, is to equate all that happened in the
international movement and the USSR as Stalin's
will! This speculative type
of comment, is routinely made without any evidence whatsoever. It is simply
the bourgeois sanctification of dumping
upon Stalin, that allows this
shallow-ness to pass as historical analysis.
The third and final comment is that, we contend
that the term feudal remnants
replaced the more correct form of remnants
of Oriental Despotismfor one
main reason. Once imperialism entered the scene - all prior bets
as to the paths of development were off. The introduction of imperialism
short-circuited the future development and introduced elements of feudalism,
as known from the form it took in Western Europe, in the form of rural
comprador landlords with private property.
Erudite Independent
Marxistssuch as Ken Post, doubtless
do not need reminding, that the sine qua non of Oriental Despotism,
is no or limited private property in land. As Marx put it in correspondence
to Engels, just as he and Engels were together re-formulating the concept
of the Asiatic Mode of Production from earlier less systematic observations:
Bernier rightly sees all
the manifestations of the East - he refers to Turkey, Persia, Hindustan
- as having a common basis - namely the absence of private landed property.
This is the real key, even to the Eastern heaven
Marx To Engels Letter 2 June 1853. Collected Works, Volume39; Moscow
1983; pp 333-334.
But one of the first things the imperialists did to
stabilise their rule, after forcing and effecting their military entry
into the future colonies, was to establish a land tenure loosely based
on their feudal'
notions. There is good evidence that once having arrived in India for example,
the British introduced a land tenure system alien to the original mode
of production. The same happened in Vietnam, under the French:
One important characteristic
of the Vietnamese colonial economy - in which it differed form Algeria
or Zimbabwe - was the presence in the main area of colon settlement, Cochin-China,
of a substantial indigenous, Vietnamese, Landlord class - the wealthy dien
chu' who lived off the labour
of their own tu dien'.
This landlord class had already begun to merge under the Nguyen (ie a pre-colonial
ruling class of Oriental type- editor). But from the beginning of the French
occupation it began to include new elements -drawn from the interpreters-secretaries,
messengers, soldiery and other collaborating categories whom
the French thought it prudent to attach to themselves by enabling them
to acquire the best land, credit and influence".
Hodgkin T: "Vietnam The Revolutionary Path"; London; 1981; p. 178.
Moreover the rapid penetration of imperialism, ensured
that the basis of production was that of commodity and market relations.
The economy was rapidly geared to the classic goal of imperialism, the
production for export of raw materials and foodstuffs:
This development of new
classes and class relationship was associated with the transformation of
an ancient pre-colonial economy producing mainly for domestic consumption
into a colonial economy geared to production for export.. The basic export
was rice.. In pre-colonial Vietnam the export of rice was forbidden...
From the earliest days of the colonial era western Cochin China began to
be developed as a region producing rice for the world market - 57,000 tons
exported in 1860; 3000,000 in 1880; 1,200,000 in 1920; 1,900,000 in 1928...
During this period the level of rice consumption of the Vietnamese actually
fell."
Hodgkin Ibid; p.178-9.
Is Post really denying for instance that things such
as corvee (forced labour) and such things, as still existed under
French rule in Vietnam, are not feudal
remnants? He himself cites facts
like:
The landlords extracted
half or more of the crops each year from their tenants, in some areas 70%
, plus cash payments, unpaid labour ad gifts on such occasions as the Landlord's
birthday or Tet (The Lunar New Year). They and the rich peasants also acted
as moneylenders .... etc etc!"
Post Ibid; p. 32.
That Stalin was drawing on correct Marxist theory in
this question, can be shown by further reference to the fountain head of
Marxism - Marx himself. Thus in discussing the impact of British imperialism
upon the Indian Oriental Despotic state, Marx everywhere elaborates the
erosive nature of imperialism upon prior state structures and villages.
He talks of the introduction of the material
foundations of Western society.
We will only give one citation to illustrate this, though plenty more can
be found:
England has to fulfill
a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating- the
annihilation of old Asiatic society and the laying of the material foundations
of Western society in Asia."
Marx: "Future Results Of British Rule In India"; Marx-Engels "Articles
On Britain" Moscow;1971; p.198
This ensured that there was a capitalist ethos that
developed, and this with time would lead to a small national capitalist
class - some of it arising from transformed landowners; and this all resulted
in a working class. There were still feudal remnants married to oriental
despotic remnants - a marriage hosted by foreign imperialists.
To quickly buttress the general view here, we will
show that Post himself offers further data that supports this general analysis.
We will repeat some of this in the main text, but it is convenient to cite
this here.
A). There was an small but definite working class:
The expansion of capitalism
after the First World War inevitably meant a growth of the working class
which it had created ... The figure always given is 221,000 for Indochina
as a whole in 1929... What must be clearly understood is that only those
employed in European - owned establishments were counted.. Excluded were
the many thousands more who worked in Chinese and Vietnamese establishments
and plantations, the dockworkers and masses of coolies
who carried goods in all market places, construction workers and any other
sort of daily paid labour.. A figure of 1 million might be more appropriate."
Post K., Ibid; p. 28.
B). A vigorous commodity market had been established with the result
that there was a true money based economy:
Vietnamese underdevelopment
was determined above all by the 4,170 francs invested by private enterprises
between 1924 & 1938, compared with only 490 million from 1888 to 1918.
Much of this went into mining and industry .. but rubber was also a major
concern... Mining was a major sphere of capital investment after the First
world war. Capital also went into manufacturing which basically meant agricultural
processing, above all rice-milling in Saigon and production of consumer
goods such as textiles, sugar and matches. The biggest single such enterprise
was the cotton mill at Nam Dinh at Tonkin employing at peak periods as
many as 5,000 workers.
Post K; Ibid; p. 25-26
C). The penetration of finance capital was wide ranging:
Formed in 1875, largely
with capital from the giant Banque de Pais et du Pays Bas, the Bank of
Indochina, was given the power to issue currency for the new Indochina
and was thus tied closely to the colonial state apparatus... This became
even clearer in 1931, when the Bank's
monopoly over the issuing of currency was renewed for another 25 years
while at the same time the French state took up 20% of its shares. By the
late 1930's the Bank controlled a formidable range of enterprises in Indochina,
particularly in manufacturing but also in transport, finance and mining..
It was not the only big financial house in Indochina."
Post Ibid; p. 27.
D). There was a large landowning class who spread out from this base
and into the liberal professions and trade and industry. They were at times
in contradiction with, even - the Bank of Indochina:
The big landowners of Indochina..
Represented the only sphere in which a substantial number of Vietnamese
could expect to become really rich... rice from Cochin China was the biggest
part of the Indochinese exports reaching a peak of 2,390,000 metric tonnes
in 1928.. From this substantial material basis the Cochin China landed
interests could even resist the Bank of Indochina, as they did when the
revaluation of the piastere in May 1931 ... threatened to result in a decline
of trade with other Asian countries. Moreover, from it they also spread
to the liberal'
professions and to some extent into trade and manufacturing."
Post Ibid; p. 28.
All this is adequate to suggest that a national capitalist
class, even if weak was arising. We argue that there was a small - but
a definite national capitalist class - which had arisen by virtue of the
contact with imperialism, by virtue of the natural development of commodity
production given the presence of imperial France.
Post is clearly driven to hasty conclusions, only
upon an automatic repugnance of any scientific consideration of the Stalin
era, as others have sought to provide. Post makes clear his admiration
for the Vietnamese struggle in several places:
The Vietnamese revolution
(is) the single most dramatic manifestation of the world liberation movement."
Post K. Volume 3: "Socialism in Half a Country"; London; 1989; p.1.
His general intent is to defend Vietnam, and to blame
Stalin, for any errors that have occurred in Vietnam. For the bourgeois
world, an Independent Marxist
must indeed be... independent
of the label - and - potential stigma of - Stalinist'.
Yet we recommend Post gets to a good library where the relevant
volumes of Stalin may not yet have been burnt. His admiration for the Vietnamese
revolution, may then have a more practical value for the Vietnamese people.
We Possess
our life, but we must know how to give it up,
Shall we remain silent and thereby earn the reputation
of cowards?
As long as there exist people on this earth, we shall
exist.
As long as there is water, we must bale it out.
Lanh Co circa 1880.
Cited by Hodgkin; p. 172.
Following Ho Chi Minh's
own usage of his many various names, we will refer to :
HO CHI MINH Until 1945 AS NGUYEN AI QUOC,
and as HO CHI MINH From The Period After 1945.
Furthermore, we may refer to either Indochina and Vietnam
as interchangeable up to 1945.
208-111 BC Kingdom of Au Lac, conquered by Chinese warlords.
Repeated invasions lead to long periods of Chinese and Mongol rule.
But repeatedly they are fought off by rebellions:
39-43 AD The Trung Sisters Rebellion,
246 The Lady Trieu Rebellion;
1287-88 The General Tran Hung Dao Rebellion
10th century AD Vietnam-Annam by now known as independent
entity of the Kinh people. Centralised Oriental Despotic State
established, which is centralised, with village communes, & known
as the kingdom of Dai Viet (Great Viet).
1075-77 Definite victory over the Chinese emperor, who fails
to re-establish rule.
1075 Chinese system of exams for a Confucian bureaucracy.
1042 Canal and dyke building introduced into the code of laws.
1628-1788 Vietnam divided in the Secession period into two halves.
1788-1802 Tay Son Revolt. Led by Nguyen brothers, of
whom one becomes Emperor briefly.
1787 Nguyen Anh assisted by French under terms of Treaty of
Versailles : French and Vietnamese monarchy exchange military support for
territory. He takes the name Gia Long.
1802 Nguyen Emperor Gia Long re-unites Vietnam into one whole.
1858 French Admiral Fleet bombarded Da Nang, the first major
act of aggression by the French against Vietnam.
1859 French invade Cochin China.
1861 Treaty of surrender (Treaty of Saigon) signed by
Emperor Tu Duc, following battle of Ky Hoa .
1882 French occupy Tongking.
1884 French occupy Annam, linking Cochin Chian with Tonking,
Cambodia (Kymer) and Laos.
1884 Vietnam administratively divided by French into Annam,
Tongking and Cochin China.
1885-1888 Rebellion against French of Emperor Ham Nghi;
this is the first of the Can Vuong Monarchist rebellions; the second
was that of Phan Dinh Phung (1885-1895); the third was of Bai Xay (1885-89)
and the last was of De Tham (1890-1913).
1920 Tours congress of French Socialist Party, attended by Nguyen
Ai Quoc
April 1925 : The ECCI takes the route of Bolshevisation.
February 1930 Formation by fusion of three groups, of Indochinese
Communist Party (ICP); also the Yen Bay Mutiny; & French
destruction of the VNQDD.
August 1930 Nghe-Tinh Soviet movement starts. Ends August 1931.
October 1930 First Conference of Vietnamese Communist Party,
adopts name Indochinese Communist Party.
April 1931 ICP joins Third International.
1933 Ho Chi Minh goes to Moscow.
July 1935 Seventh World Congress of Comintern.
September 1939 Second World War
November 1939 Sixth Plenum of ICP calls for national liberation
revolution. Sets up National United Indochinese Anti-Imperialist Front.
June 1940 Collapse of France
August 1940 Franco-Japanese Treaty.
May 1941 Eight Plenum ICP; Viet Minh founded; Truong Chinh Secretary
General.
December 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.
January-June 1942 Japanese occupy South East Asia and Pacific.
May 1944 Viet Minh prepare for insurrections.
9 March 1945 Japanese coup against French in Vietnam.
May 1945 Ho Chi Minh returns from China.
August 8th 1945 USSR declares war on Japan.
August 14th Surrender of Japan
18th August 1945 Insurrection in Saigon
2nd September 1945 Ho Chi Minh reads Vietnam's
Declaration of Independence in Hanoi.
July 1951-July 1953 Talks & Armistice;
but war continues.
February 1953 French government contacts DRV delegation via
Vietnamese Imperial house.
November 1953 President Ho makes peace overtures via Swedish
journalist.
February 1954 USA & USSR & Britain & France announce
Geneva meeting: China & involved
nations' to settle Korean question
and Indochinese conflict.
13 March : Final assault on Dien Bien Phu
April 1954 : Pentagon considers replacing French ground troops.
May 1954 Geneva Talks. DRVN led by Pham Can Dong (Deputy
PM & Foreign Minster). July 1954 Cease fire. Denounced by Emperor
Bao Dai. Demarcation Zone at 17th Parallel divides Vietnam.
October 1954 French forces leave.
1955 USA aids Saigon government of Ngo Dinh Diem.Diem rejects
Geneva & refuses elections in July.
October Diem defeats Bao Dai in referendum & proclaims himself
head of Republic of Vietnam.
December Land reforms in North.
1960 J.F.Kennedy takes USA Presidency.
December North Vietnam forms National Liberation Front for south Vietnam
(Viet Cong).
1963 November Diem and brother Nhu shot in coup inspired by
USA.
Kennedy assassinated. Johnson becomes President.
1964 Tonkin Gulf Incident provocation; extraordinary war powers
granted to Johnson by Congress.
1965 February Operation Rolling Thunder : USA blanket bomb North
Vietnam.
December US troops reach nearly 200,000.
1967 By December 500,000 troops of USA in Vietnam.
1968 January North Vietnamese launch Tet Offensive.
March Johnson advised by chiefs of staff to negotiate.
November Nixon becomes President.
1969 Paris talks commence.
March Nixon starts secret bombing of Cambodia.
September Ho Chi Minh dies. Le Duan is Secretary of Workers'
Party.
November My Lai massacre revealed.
1970 Paris talks - Kissinger and Le Duc Tho
April Invasion of Cambodia;
May Huge demonstrations across USA anti-war; Kent State Massacre by
US troops against demonstrators in Ohio.
1972 April Nixon intensifies bombing of North Vietnam;
June The Watergate scandal erupts.
1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign;
April President Ford calls war finished.
April North Vietnamese forces capture Saigon;
1977 Carter comes to presidency. Pardons 10,000 US Vietnam War
draft evaders. Real talks begin with Secretary State Holbrooke.
1. PRE-COLONIAL VIETNAM - TOWARDS AN ORIENTAL
DESPOTIC STATE
Ancient Vietnam's
history dates back to the earliest rice based cultures from pre-historic
times, an assertion possible from bronze and polished stone tool artefacts
(Post Ibid p. 82.). But the Kingdom of Au Lac, at an even higher
level of development, still could not prevent conquest by Chinese warlords
in 208 BC, and further invasions from the Northern Chinese neighbors occurred
in 111 BC. But it is a culture that is known as independent, since it developed
separately from Chinese rule in about the 10th Century - after
approximately 1000 years of rule by China.
The Kinh people (Forebears of the Viet peoples)
had established a centralised state which ruled over a system of village
communes. They called their kingdom Dai Viet (Great Viet). Both
the features of a central state, and of village communes
- were enhanced under Chinese rule. Therefore, it can be stated
that Dai Viet developed some of the key features of an Oriental Despotic
State : An increased bureaucracy (based on Confucianism), irrigation
schemes with flood control techniques and a water economy. In 1075 the
Chinese system of exams for the bureaucracy were adopted, and canal and
dyke building introduced into the code of laws by 1042.
But repeated risings against the Chinese rule continued,
and were led by such revered figures as the Trung Sisters (39-43
AD) the Lady Trieu (246 AD), and General Tran Hung Dao (1287-88).
All these early leaders of the Vietnamese, were later to be invoked by
Le Duan, in 1975. These struggles - first against Chinese invaders, and
then against the Mongol invasion and occupancy, were to achieve a definite
victory when the Chinese emperor could not re-establish in battle, his
rule in 1075-77.
The Kinh rulers proceeded to build a more stable
state, and one more clearly Vietnamese as opposed to Chinese. The communally
produced rice economy was the basis of the state. By the 14th
century, the language had become more clearly distinguished from Chinese,
by the adoption of the written form known as nom, a simplification
of the Chinese alphabet-character system. All the land belonged to the
Emperor, but it was put at the disposal of communes. Through a system of
notables, they controlled the use of land through a village council with
periodic re-allocation of land. Thus it is possible to say that there was
an Oriental Despotic form of land administration and state. The
bureaucracy formed a powerful caste within the state, conforming to Confucian
principles, and were later described by historians of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam as salaried executives
of the existing ruling class.
(Post Ibid; p. 89).
Repeated wars with neighboring states - the Cham
Kingdom, resulted in a dynastic succession to the throne, by the Ly
usurper to the Emperor. But following this the Ming Chinese
dynasty invaded and occupied then Vietnam from 1407-1428. This was
resisted by Loi Le, whose success in throwing off Chinese rule led
to a dynasty lasting 350 years. As Emperor Le Thai To, his edicts
were promulgated, forbidding private expropriation of land, and giving
new prominence to hydraulic works. But even so, later on, by the 16th
century, there had been significant erosion into the communal land, and
therefore, despite these proclamations, private land was in the hands
of the nobility.
The Vietnamese state surged Southward, and it swallowed
the Cham Kingdom, and this even allowed some expansion for the poorest
peasants, who had been trapped'
in the old communes. But the dynasty became debauched, and was overtaken
by the two noble families of the Nguyen and Trinh. They divided
the state into two halves, and each ruled in their own corner. But they
warred against each other also. As the neighbor Kymer state collapsed,
the Nguyen moved into its territories, occupying what later became Saigon,
in 1690.
By the year 1540, Portugese traders had probably
first entered Vietnam, in search of trade for silk, ebony, aloes, sugar,
musk, cinnamon and rice. Missionaries entered also, paving the way for
the full penetration of imperialism. One, Alexander Rhodes, over
the years 1630-1645, contributed a lasting achievement. He romanized the
script, forming the simplified Quoc
ngu'. (Hodgkin, Ibid; p.
76). Other imperialists were not far behind. By 1660 the Dutch had entered,
and they playing divide and rule, supported the Trinh dynasty, against
the Portugese backed Nguyen.
However the rack of the peasants under the numerous
oppressions, soon led to cracks. By 1771, a massive series of peasant rebellions,
some of them involving seeds of a Utopian
Socialist ideology, like that
of Nguyen Huu Cau, (Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 84) had culminated
in that known as the Tay Son revolt, (Meaning Mountains
of the West'). In origin it was
spontaneous like most of the rebellions over the period, but soon became
led by three brothers Nhac, Lu and Hue broke out. All brothers took
the name Nguyen at the beginning of the revolt, and originated in
the peasantry but had become traders. The movement raised a red flag as
a banner, and adopted the slogan Lay
cua giau chia cho dan ngheo'
(Seize the property of the rich
and distribute it to the poor').
(Hodgkin Ibid.; p. 85).
This was eventually to lead to the re-unification
of Vietnam. In the struggles, Nguyen Hue fought off both the Nguyen regime,
and the Trinh regime, and also the newly re- invading Chinese armies. Finally
Nguyen Hue, fought off the counter-rebellions, and took the name Quang
Trung as emperor. But his death was followed by a counter-revolution,
and the throne was re-taken by a representative of the old Nguyens, Nguyen
Anh. He was heavily influenced by the French priest, the Bishop of Adran,
Pierre Pigneau de Behaine. (Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 94).
It was this priest, who persuaded the court of the
French king Louis XVI to sign the Treaty of Versailles in
1787. This exchanged military support to Nguyen Anh, for the cessation
and sovereignty to the French of the islands of Tourane (Da Nang) and Paulo
Condore and a grant for complete exclusive trade with the
kingdom of Cochin-China'. The
French assisted Nguyen Anh's
military battles against the victorious Tay Son led finally by Quang Trung.
The death of Quang Trung yielded the victory to the old Nguyen dynasty.
The role of the communes had already been renewed
and increased by Quang Trung, who had tried to carefully cut down the noble
class.
But, the resurgent Nguyen dynasty under Nguyen
Anh, was supported by the small landowners and the nobles, whom he
raised again. In any case, despite all this, the entry of foreign imperialism
was assured. This now led to the final pre-colonial dynasty - that of the
Nguyen descendant, who now re-named himself as Gia Long. He was
able now, to re-unite the two parts of Vietnam and the name was
changed from the Chinese derived term - An nam - to Viet Nam.
The new dynasty restored all power to the landowning
bureaucratic class, and drove towards full absolutism under his descendant
Minh Mang. The new capital was Hue. The Confucian system
was re-entrenched, and many Chinese institutions were copied to strengthen
central rule.
During this period, Chinese mercantile influence
was heavily established, especially in the mining industry. This was the
most important industry in Vietnam in the 19th Century, and
concentrated on gold, silver, copper lead, zinc and tin (Hodgkin; Ibid;
p.113). In fact in the 19th century, the Chinese expatriate
merchants formed the dominant- if not the only - members of the merchant
class. They dominated foreign trade, concentrating on luxury gods such
as silks, satins, Indian cottons, porcelain, tea, drugs. But there was
a small group of Vietnamese traders, who were confined mostly to internal
trade - rice, slat, sugar, arec, nuoc mam, alcohol, textiles, pottery,
sampans (Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 114).
The French began their infiltration with missionaries.
As noted above, they were instrumental in forming an alliance with Gia
Long. The missionaries established a mass base in Vietnam from about the
1830's. By 1841, this had resulted in 350,000 claimed converts (Thomas
Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 121). Over the next 25 years, there followed open warfare
between the dynasty and missionaries. The Nguyen dynasty balked at the
increasing influence of the Christians and the missionaries were at various
times expelled. The earlier amiable relationship of the Treaty of Versailles
had soured.
It is true, that the Vietnamese at first were interested
in establishing trade with their sugar, and were at times favorably disposed.
The trade that had been rising with Britain, now fell off in favour of
the French. But this willingness to trade steadily changed. By the year
1852 there had been several abortive military missions to Vietnam. Steadily
escalating tensions finally led to an invasion in 1858.
The missionaries tried to entice the French Government
into action. Guizot had already in been aware in 1843, before the
British annexed Hong Kong, that the French needed a point
d'appui
(point of application) to rival and counter-act other European Imperialisms
(Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 126). At first the French Government was rather hesitant.
The Admirals of the French fleet were less so, and in 1858 the Admirals
bombarded Da Nang, the first major act of aggression by the French against
Vietnam. Continued pressure and, his own greed - finally convinced Napoleon
III, to overcome all hesitations, by the year 1858 - the year of the first
serious French governmental intervention. The pretext of missionary persecution
was taken. In reality, the pretext of Gia Long's
Dynasty's persecution of the
missionaries allowed the French fleets to carry out their intentions, and
to invade. Admiral's Rules were
established in Vietnam.
The process of land alienation from Vietnamese peasants
to French and Vietnamese landowners began in the early days of Admirals'
rules, and it took place on an increasing scale above all in Cochin-China.
The Emperor by this stage, no longer tried to fight off invasion. The logic
of imperialism and its superior forces - were no match at that stage for
an essentially declining Oriental Despotism. Emperor Tu Duc was reviled
by his people:
Since I grew Up, King Tu
Duc has spoiled everything, People are hungry, but their moans don't
reach his ears.. Since the coming of Tu Duc, the harvest is lost,
Wrote the poet Nghe An (Hodgkin; Ibid; p.140).
A folk song of the Rebellion
of the Yard of the Ten Thousand
Years', referred to the walls
of the emperor's mausoleum being
constructed; and went :
Ten Thousand years, and
what are those ten thousand years?
The walls are made of the workers'
bones, and the moats are filled with the peoples'
blood.
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 141.
The peoples'
rebellions continued but to little avail.
There were several phases of invasion. The period
1858-1885 - is characterised as a phase of conquest and initial weak resistance.
But a more serious resistance culminating in the Can Vuog movement (Loyalty
to the King) of 1887-1897, ensued. A humiliating treaty of surrender was
signed by the Emperor Tu Duc named the Treaty of Saigon, following
the loss of a battle at Ky Hoa in 1861. The first anti-French peoples rebellion
led by Nguyen Huu Huan and Truong Cong Dinh, in 1859, during the battle
of Saigon, continued on after the Treaty. The partisans were disowned by
the monarchy, were defied by Truong Cong Dinh. The rebellions failed.
A large indemnity was paid by the Monarchy to France,
three ports were opened to the French including Da Nang, and the Mekong
was opened to the French. Cochin China was basically conquered. The next
period took the French into the Northern parts of Vietnam and the conquest
finally of Nam Bo. It was in part, a process further prolonged by the reluctance
of the Chinese, to oversee quietly the French incursion to their immediate
South.
The Can Vuong movement of deposed king Ham
Nghi was a pro-Monarchist anti-French rebellion that is dated from 1885.
It also was un-successful, and Ham Nghi was captured in 1888 and the puppet
Dong Khanh had already been installed in 1885. But rebellions continued.
However, the French process once begun, was un-stoppable at this juncture
in time, and the Can Vuong was finally crushed in 1896. By the time of
the formation of the Indochinese Communist party, colonialisation was complete:
By 1930 the area of land
concession obtained by the French was 104,000 hectares in Tonkin, 168,400
hectares in Annam .. and 605,500 hectares in Cochin China.
Thomas Hodgkin; "Vietnam :The Revolutionary Path"; London; 1981; p.177
3. THE CLASS FORCES OF VIETNAM
I) Classes In The Countryside - Land Owners -The
Chief Component of The Comprador Class; And Rural Proletarians -Poor Peasants:
The French carefully nurtured their agents in the countryside.
By 1883, the French had established collaborators in the Mandarinate and
the land owning class, especially by granting lands by bribing cooperation.
The wealthy dien chu were helped to continue and intensify the exploitation
of their poor dependent landless peasant , the tu
dien' ; or the share-croppers
ta-dien'.
This was a distinguishing feature of French colonialism in Vietnam as opposed
to its presence in Algeria:
One important characteristic
of the Vietnamese colonial economy - in which it differed form Algeria
or Zimbabwe - was the presence in the main area of colon settlement, Cochin-China,
of a substantial indigenous, Vietnamese, Landlord class - the wealthy dien
chu' who lived off the labour
of their own tu dien'.
This landlord class had already begun to merge under the Nguyen. But from
the beginning of the French occupation it began to include new elements
-drawn from the interpreters-secretaries, messengers, soldiery and other
collaborating categories whom
the French thought it prudent to attach to themselves by enabling them
to acquire the best land, credit and influence".
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 178
Given the fleet's
role, the first governors were all admirals. Admiral De La Grandiere exercised
the principle right of the sovereign'
in large-scale land alienations, in order to widen the comprador landlord
class:
Land belonging to the peasants
who had fled from their villages at the time of the
French occupation .. was sold, or in some cases, given to French colons
and Vietnamese collaborators. When the original owners of the lands came
back as ordered.. They were often forced to become tenant farmers or sharecroppers
(ta dien) on their own land.
.. The foundations of the new French-Vietnamese landowning class in Nam
Bo were laid."
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 154.
The economy was being geared to the classic goal of
imperialism, the production for export of raw materials and foodstuffs
. The whole enterprise was being devoted to the export of rice. Land was
the basis for the French exploitation:
"Land was the most important resource the French had for funding a
colonial administration and exploiting the nation... Despite local resistance
the French made huge land grants to a few French settlers, and even more
to their numerous Vietnamese collaborators: minor bureaucrats, servants,
cronies, and those useful to the state apparatus France imposed on the
region. Land became capital for France's
consolidating of colonial power, and after 1900 the Mekong Delta in Cochin
China and to a smaller extent , in Annam, became the source of additional
grants. ... creating an extremely unequal landownership throughout Vietnam,
the profound transformation of the existing land system, and the replacement
of the domestically ordered traditional order with one subject to rice
export.. No less onerous to the Peasantry was the French monetization of
the rural economy by means of land taxes and of monopolies on salt and
other obligations and necessities, for which peasants had to pay with cash
- .. forcing them into the hands of the usurers".
Kolko G; "Anatomy Of A War"; New York; 1985; p. 14-16.
This development of new
classes and class relationship was associated with the transformation of
an ancient pre-colonial economy producing mainly for domestic consumption
into a colonial economy geared to production for export.. The basic export
was rice.. In pre-colonial Vietnam the export of rice was forbidden...
From the earliest days of the colonial era western Cochin China began to
be developed as a region producing rice for the world market - 57,000 tons
exported in 1860; 3000,000 in 1880; 1,200,000 in 1920; 1,900,000 in 1928...
During this period the level of rice consumption of the Vietnamese actually
fell.
Hodgkin Ibid; p.178-9.
At the same time as the grueling field work laid on
the peasants, an enormous tax squeeze was imposed (Hodgkin Ibid; p. 154).
The peasant was left starved and heavily exploited:
The peasant, out of the
80 francs which the last in a series of French intermediaries obtained
for 100 kilos of white rice, received only Fr 10.20 , or 12.75%."
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 179.
To complete the misery of the peasantry, Chinese money-lenders
and Indian Chettis (Nattukottaichetty) money lenders and the French Credit
organisations (eg Credit Mutuel Agricole) bled the peasants further, aggravating
the ruinous taxation. The taxes levied were so onerous - in order to disenfranchise
the peasantry even more. The remaining were the older traditional direct
taxes, but there were also indirect taxes on opium, salt and alcohol.
The French sought to develop
mines, rubber, tea and coffee plantations, and a few manufacturing plants
of textiles, cement vegetable oils, bricks, bottles, alcohol, sugar, cigarettes,
matches. The plantations were mainly French owned - some 90% of them"
Hodgkin Ibid, p. 182.
The heart of the newly created comprador landlord
class was in the main geographical area of the French colon'
settlements - Cochin China:
Cochin-China was essentially
landlord's country, with 85%
of the total rice fields owned by some 65,000 large and medium landowners
(with 5 hectares and upwards) while the remaining meaning 125 was shared
between 183,000 small peasants (with less than 5 hectares) in 1930. As
against these the mass of landless ta
dien', estimated at 354,000
families, 57% of the total rural population working the large estates.
..(In Northern and central Vietnam).. There was a much larger body of small
peasants, some 900,000 in Tonkin, more than 600,000 in Annam, who between
them owned rather less than half of the total ricelands with an average
holding of one half to two-thirds of a hectare. Here too there was a mass
of landless peasant families, estimated at almost a million in Tonkin,
800,000 in Annam, many of whom worked as ta
dien' in large estates... there
were some 175,000 large and medium landowners, 2% of the land owning population
owning between them 40% of the land in Tonkin, and 9000 large and medium
landowners owning 25% in Annam.
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 179.
The plantations created a new rural proletariat or
landless peasantry that was becoming proletarianised. But there was
also an urban working class, though it was small. By 1929 the mines employed
over 50,000 workers and the rubber plantations about 40,000. But on the
whole , Industry was limited in the interest of French banking and exports
from France. A corvee (Forced labour - using so called coolies'
- or workers selected by vindictive purpose by village notables or mandarins)
was maintained under French colonial administration.
The material basis for the comprador class included
two other elements. One was the administrative civil servants of the Mandarinate.
In the area of Bac Ky, especially, this became the backbone, being
totally French appointed mandarins. They were:
Mainly agents of the colonial
government. These middle aged mandarins .. Obtained their sinecures not
by professional competence or devotion to public service, but as rewards
for their loyalty to the French. The earlier literati mandarins were steeped
in the traditions of Confucianism, the French -appointed mandarin had at
most some training at the College du Protectorate... Their notoriety for
corruption was rivaled only by their obsequiousness to their French masters.
The Bac Ky collaborators were united in their praise of Great
France (Dai Phap) and their
hatred of Vietnamese anti-colonialists."
Khanh Ibid, p. 40-41.
The third main part of the comprador class was
the Chinese merchants:
The Chinese bangs'(
ie national groupings-ed)... dealt directly with the French authorities."
Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 176.
The Vietnamese bourgeoisie
.. described.. As rickety'
seems only to have begun to
emerge after the First World War... But they were prevented by the
French colonial regime from developing any form of national capitalism,
and as compradores for the French capitalist interests played a much inferior
part to the Chinese.
Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 187.
ii) The Comprador Capitalists Class's
Political Representatives
The political leaders of the Comprador and landlord
classes, became two ideologues named Nguyen van Vinh and Pham
Quynh. They organized themselves at the end of World War I, into the
Khai Tri Tien Duc (Association for the Intellectual and Moral Advancement
of the Annamese) or AFIMA . In fact this was founded at the
initiative of Governor General Albert Sarraut and Louis Marty the
Director of the Secret Service, and thus was initially intended to be a
comprador agency.
The second collaborationist grouping was based on
the Dang Lap hien (Constitutionalist Party) founded in Nam Ky,
in 1919. At its inception, it had some potential for progressive expression,
but became cowed very quickly. It included leading landowners and professionals:
Near the end of World War
1, a small but vocal group of French educated Saigon intellectual centered
around the wealthy newspaper publisher Bui Quang Chieu, formed the first
open political organisation in Vietnam the Constitutionalist Party. ....
with limited political goals. Their original objective was to persuade
the political governor to provide greater opportunity for Vietnamese to
compete against French and overseas Chinese in manufacturing and commerce.
W.J.Duiker; "The Communist Road to Power In Vietnam"; Colorado, 1981;
p.11
It never had a constitution or membership list, and
was never organized. This goals were protecting of job and some reforms
to allow them to be assimilated
as they put it, into French life. They wished to be naturalized as Frenchmen.
They were headed by leaders such as Nguyen Phan Long and Vuong Quang
Nhuong, Bui Quang Chieu. At times between 1920 and 1926, they took
a position that appeared to be progressive (see below), and they even participated
in anti-colonial activities.
But by the end of the 1920's they had completely distanced themselves
from the increasingly clearly revolutionary factions, that were led by
the then named Nguyen Ai Quoc (later to be known as Ho Chi Minh).
They became a convenient shield of the French as pressures mounted, and
as such, they formed the Cabinet of a short lived French sponsored government
of the Secessionist Republic of Cochin China (1946-1947). Then, but only
briefly, Nguyen Phan Long served as Prime Minster in 1950, during the Protracted
Resistance', with the puppet
Emperor Bao Dai.
iii) The National Bourgeoisie
There is little doubt that this class was extremely
small and had little power. They had apart from the obvious limitation
of being suppressed by foreign French imperialism, they had little chance
to develop with the capture of the leading mercantile opportunities prior
to that by the Chinese merchants. Nonetheless, it did exist:
Apart from commerce in
which they had been involved since the 17th century, they succeeded
in establishing some small scale enterprises in transport printing, construction,
and some processing industries, textiles, sugar rice distilling, But they
were prevented by the French colonial regime from developing any national;
capitalism, and as compradores for French capitalist interests played a
much more inferior part of the Chinese.
Hodgkin Ibid; p. 187.
To deny its existence seems fool-hardy, especially given
the positions taken in later periods by the DRV. Although a school of thought
exists that denies this, as we discuss in the Foreword, it is significant
that the Vietnamese state and its own leading authorities have never denied
this. On the contrary, they have been quite explicit about its positive
role, in the struggle for national independence. Even the debunkers of
the concept of an Indochinese national bourgeoisie, themselves acknowledge,
that a rise'
to a degree of independence from French interests was observable in the
landowner class:
The big landowners of Indochina..
Represented the only sphere in which a substantial number of Vietnamese
could expect to become really rich... rice from Cochin China was the biggest
part of the Indochinese exports reaching a peak of 2,390,000 metric tonnes
in 1928.. From this substantial material basis the Cochin China landed
interests could even resist the Bank of Indochina, as they did when the
revaluation of the piastere in May 1931 ... threatened to result in a decline
of trade with other Asian countries. Moreover, from it they also spread
to the liberal'
professions and to some extent into trade and manufacturing.
Post Ibid; p. 28.
This same ambiguous phenomenon in the landowning classes
is noted by other writers of the period also:
It was in the big cities
that the seeds of a new stage of Vietnamese nationalism began to take root.
The first shoots ironically appeared in the social class most closely tied
to the colonial regime - the affluent commercial bourgeoises of Cochin
China. Near the end of World War 1, a small but vocal group of French educated
Saigon intellectual centered around the wealthy newspaper publisher Bui
Quang Chieu, formed the first open political organisation in Vietnam the
Constitutionalist Party. .... with limited political goals. Their original
objective was to persuade the political governor to provide greater opportunity
for Vietnamese to compete against French and overseas Chinese in manufacturing
and commerce."
W.J.Duiker; "The Communist Road to Power In Vietnam"; Colorado, 1981;
p.11.
This became the Constitutionalist Party who quickly
came into line:
But they were careful to
avoid any demand for national independence and appeared content to strive
for a gradual increase in Vietnamese autonomy within the broad framework
of continued French rule.
Duiker; Ibid; p. 11.
Most of the affluent commercial and professional people
who formed the basis of the thin National bourgeoisie, were located in
Saigon:
At the upper end of the
spectrum was an increasingly affluent commercial and professional bourgeoisie
composed for the most part of bankers, land speculators, absentee landlords...
engineers, agronomists, doctors and merchants. This group benefitted substantially
from French economic policies.... most appear to have been self-made'
men.. Saigon was the one city where fortunes could be made quickly, even
by enterprising Vietnamese.
Duiker Ibid; p. 9.
iv) The Working Class
By the outbreak of the First World War, the class of
proletarian workers had already come into being. Under colonial rule, it
never developed a Labour aristocracy, and thus small, it did have the advantage
of being homogeneous. Its numbers were small in comparison to the peasantry,
but still of the order of between 500,000 to 1 million. Estimates vary:
The expansion of capitalism
after the First World War inevitably meant a growth of the working class
which it had created ... The figure always given is 221,000 for Indochina
as a whole in 1929... What must be clearly understood is that only those
employed in European - owned establishments were counted.. Excluded were
the many thousands more who worked in Chinese and Vietnamese establishments
and plantations, the dockworkers and masses of coolies
who carried goods in all market places, construction workers and any other
sort of daily paid labour.. A figure of 1 million might be more appropriate.
Post K., Ibid; p. 28.
The figure of 1 million derives from sources such as
Le Thanh Koi, and appears to be supported by a number of the more progressive
writers (Hodgkin; Ibid; p.184). The importance of the forced labour, the
corvee - and the proletarianisation that this process forced, was emphasized
by Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) in the 1920's (Cited Hodgkin Ibid;
p. 184). They were mainly from the North and center of the country and
were landless peasants who had been procured by the mandarins. The mandarins
and the village notables provided the men for this corvee which theoretically
was fixed at 30 days per year in 1897, and supposedly abolished by law.
But they were still used expensively in the railroads, roads, and rubber
plantations.
The intensive exploitation of the mines, the rubber
plantations , and the colonial type light industry, provided fuel for the
development of trade unions. Strikes in the plantations had started even
before World War One (Hodgkin; Ibid.; p. 219). It was Ton Duc Tuang,
a militant who returned from France in 1920, who seriously undertook the
organisation of these. He had participated in the strike at the Ba Son
arsenal in 1912. He prepared the ground for the 1925 strike at the
same arsenal, which was a naval base. He had organized the underground
union since 1920. Despite French troop intimidation, the several thousand
workers won all their demands.
In conclusion there was a small but significant class
of workers, who had no party representing their interests until the Indochinese
Communist Party was formed.
This class fed the revolutionary movement with a number
of its leaders. But before
that it fed the early national movements, as noted below. The best
of the Confucian literati - those that had not joined the French appointed
mandarin system, were often anti-colonial in sentiment. The Franco-Annamite
system so called, of education for the small minority of Vietnamese, led
to a small but capable intelligentsia. They were frustrated by the limits
of colonialism and were to provide fertile ground for anti-imperialism.
4. EARLY NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS - THE
NATIONAL DEMOCRATS
As this section will show, there was no seriously
organized , mass based party that could effectively challenge the French
using the slogans of bourgeois nationalism alone. The organisations discussed
below, all had their primary base in the petit bourgeoisie and the more
enlightened Confucian literati - those that had not joined the French Mandarinate.
But the ability of these organisation to combat French imperialism was
limited. It was this that would allow the monopoly of the Indochinese Communist
Party in the battle for National liberation.
The Constitutionalist Party, as discussed
above, was not a consistent supporter of independence and it very quickly
drew its demands back to accommodate French imperialism. Objectively, then
it could not serve as the vehicle for French nationalist expression. The
contradiction in its own positions, came to a head over the granting of
a rice monopoly of exports for twenty years to a French consortium:
One serious attempt of
the Constitutionalists to challenge French economic power, over the decision
of Lieutenant-Governor Maurice Cognacq to grant a twenty-year monopoly
on rice exports from Saigon to the French consortium Homberg',
produced a split within the group. The ultra-collaborators who saw their
interests a rice landowners bound up with the French, left the party and
their leader Le Quang Trinh founded his own rival newspaper in March 1924,
e Progres Annamite';
whose sole concern it was to
provide a focus of loyalty to the colonial government'.
Hodgkin; Ibid; p.217.
Perhaps the most serious potential party that could
represent the interests of any nascent national capitalist class, was formed
in 1927 by Nguyen Thai Hoc, and was called the Vietnam Quoc Dan
Dang (V.N.Q.D.D.) Their antecedents lay in several groups in
the region of in Bac Ky, who were inspired by Sun Yat Sen. But after
the February 1930 mutiny at the Yen Bay garrison was brutally put
down (see below), the V.N.Q.D.D. were effectively destroyed and no longer
played any role. Any surviving militants that the army and police did not
murder, on the whole joined, the by then established Indochinese Communist
Party.
The Confucian literati in general, took an
anti-colonial line. Reflecting this, a number of movements were started.
Most were located and were interested primarily in the concerns of the
city petit bourgeoisie. They attracted mainly teachers and intellectuals.
In the main, these groups were unable to consolidate the aspirations of
the masses.
One of the best of the other many small groups that
arose, was perhaps Dang Thanh Nien (Youth Party or Jeune Annam).
It planned to buy back Indochina from the French, but despite this naivete
it mobilized a number of the young and intelligentsia.
Of a higher caliber still, was Viet Nam Nghia
Doan (Vietnamese Corps for Righteousness) who later became part of
Tan Viet Cach Menh Dang (Revolutionary arty of the New Vietnam) who
later became part of Tan Viet (New Vietnam) and then became part
of the unified Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). Again it was led
by Confucian literati - Le Huan, Ngo Duc Ke, and Tranh Dinh Thanh.
Clearly the tempo of struggle against the French
rule was rising by the mid 1920's.
Phan Boi Chau was another son of a literati,
a scholars' family. He joined
the anti-French movement while still in school in 1874. His path crossed
monarchism, and enlisting foreign (Mainly Japanese and even Chinese and
German) aid in liberation, and wound through individual terror. He first
participated with Nguyen Thanh (a former leader of the monarchist
Can Vuong movement crushed by the French, as discussed above) in
the formation of the Dong Du (Eastern Study), and the Duy Tan
Hoi (Renovation Society) which was formed in 1904. Initially the goals
of the movement certainly entailed monarchist revivals, and to this end,
even wealthy monarchist landowners in Cochin China like Nguyen Than Hien,
adhered to Phan Boi Chau at first (Hodgkin; Ibid; p.193).
But this movement then turned its attention to Japan
as a possible savior of Vietnam against the French. In Japan he met Sun
Yat-sen who influenced him tremendously. The Japanese betrayed him,
in signing the Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907. One of the clauses of this
treaty was to expel Phan Boi Chau and his associates. He returned to Vietnam,
where many of his initiatives were based on individual terror and anarchist
actions. A poorly organised rising in Hanoi in 1908, led to severe repressions.
He left for Hong Kong, and later Canton. A period in prison there, was
followed by three risings in Vietnam. These were the Nam Bo (Cochin-China)
rising of 1916); the Duy Tan plot of 1916; and the Thai Nguyen insurrection
of 1917-1918. All failed. Again he fled to China.
But he was kidnapped and brought back to Vietnam
by French agents. In the autumn of 1925 the trial of Phan Boi Chau took
place. The student masses were successful in releasing him from prison
and obtaining his amnesty. He then settled in Canton, China, where he turned
to gradualism, and counseled the youth to proceed
slowly and to transform Vietnamese society from within the framework of
French colonial rule (Khanh Ibid; p. 37).
In March 1926 the funeral took place of Phan Chu
Trinh - a leader of another reformist faction of the Confucian literati.
Vast crowds in Saigon wore black arm bands, and many suffered reprisals
for attending his funeral. The funeral was transformed into a mass rally
that demanded liberation. Similarly, even the return of Bui Quang Chieu,
the leader of the Constitutionalist Party, from France, was marked
by huge rallies to welcome him back. This party then had not shown its
reactionary colours clearly, and he demanded liberalizations.
But by the end of the 1920's most of the liberal
anti-colonial Confucian literati based groups had withdrawn from the struggle
for national liberation. Aside from the V.N.Q.D.D. - who in contrast, had
been physically repressed and annihilated by 1930, most of the others simply
fell by the wayside. In contrast, some good elements did regroup themselves,
whilst in exile in China. The Tam Tam Xa (Heart to Heart Association),
was formed in China in 1923. Led by school teachers who had gone there
to learn how to wage an anti-French struggles they came across Ho Chi Minh
in 1925 (See below) and became part of the Thanh Nien Cong San Doan (Communist
Youth Corps).
5. HO CHI MINH AND THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST
PARTY.
I) Early Career of Nguyen Ai Quoc-Ho Chi Minh
The figure who would later become known as Ho Chi
Minh, was born in 1890. His birth name was Nguyen Sinh Cung,
he was the son of a determined anti-colonial mandarin ( a government bureaucrat,
a civil servant), who was victimized for his anti-French views (Lacouture,
Jean, "Ho Chi Minh"; London; 1969; pp.15-17). He had a poor childhood,
but one heavily influenced by his entire family's
anti-colonial spirits.
Schooled in both French and Quoc Ngu (The romanized
transcription of Vietnamese, which became the Vietnamese national language),
his involvement began in a small way in the insurrectionist activity of
1908, while at school. He taught briefly, and then he went to sea in 1911.
He arrived in Paris in 1913. He worked in kitchens, and then as a self-employed
photographer. He soon joined the Vietnamese Overseas workers movement Lao
Dong Hai Ngoai.
In Paris, he took the name Nguyen Ai Quoc -
meaning Nguyen the Patriot'.
Coming into touch with the then Socialist Party, he became a member
of the French Jeunesses socialistes
- or The Young Socialists.
Ho and a friend Phan Van Truong - drew up a an eight
point programme for Vietnam's
liberation which they tried to present to the Conference Secretariat of
the Peace Conference. They were denied entry. The Plan was in fact:
A plan inspired by President
Wilson's Fourteen
Points' and was extremely moderate:
permanent representation in the French parliament; freedom of the Press;
freedom to hold meetings and form association; political prisoners to be
granted an amnesty and released form goals; government by statute in place
of government by decree; equality of legal rights between French and Annanese...
Lacouture; Ibid; p. 26.
At this stage then, Nguyen Ai Quoc, was still
a liberal progressive democratic nationalist. Although President Wilson
and the Conference refused to accept his presence, the Socialist Congress
at Tours of 1920, embraced him. His address castigated French colonialism
in Indochina. The Tours Congress took the decision to affiliate to the
Third Communist International. Ho welcomed this decision, and he
voted for the motion to affiliate. Nguyen Ai Quoc later said that his attitude
to the Third International was decided by the reading of Lenin's
Theses on Colonial and Semi-colonial Countries. In his own words:
Initially it was patriotism
not Communism, which had prompted me to believe in Lenin and the Third
International. Gradually advancing step by step, as the struggle developed,
coupling to a theoretical study of Marxism-Leninism with practical work,
I had come to realize that only Socialism and Communism are capable of
bringing freedom to the oppressed and working people around the world.
Ho Chi Minh: "The Path Which led Me to Leninism"; 1960 ; 'L'echo du
Vietnam": Lacouture; Ibid; p.31.
Nguyen Ai Quoc, now joined the Communist group of Marcel
Cachin and Frossard. He proceeded to publish his first book,
Process de la Colonisation Francaise'.
He then set up the Intercolonial
Union; becoming the founder
editor and distributor of its organ Le
Paria', which was printed from
1922-till 1926.
By 1922, he was in Moscow, perhaps attending the
Fourth Congress of Comintern (Lacouture; Ibid; pp 40-41). But he went for
a more extended period just after the death of Lenin in January 1924. Ruth
Fischer spoke highly of him at a later time. It appears that Dimitrov became
a leading mentor of Nguyen Ai Quoc. It seems, that of the leading members
of the Comintern, only M.N.Roy was not favorably impressed. Stalin's
view is not recorded to our knowledge (Lacouture; Ibid; p. 42). His participation
in the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (17 June - 8 July 1924) is
recorded in transcripts, where he attacked L'Humanite
(The organ of the French CP) for errors related to the colonial question.
His second speech dwelt on the importance of the peasantry.
In the next major step in his career, Nguyen Ai Quoc
was sent to China as part of Mikhail Borodin's
Comintern mission, in December 1924- January 1925. Canton was a revolutionary
center for the Vietnamese as well as for the Chinese. His role in Borodin's
mission was to contact the Vietnamese followers of Phan Boi Chua
- who had been exiled, and was in Canton (See above). Nguyen Ai Quoc, quickly
won a number of this clique over, and organized the first revolutionary
cell for the Annamite or Vietnamese movement. Another target for conversion
to communism, was the predominantly nationalist organisation -TAM TAM
XA (Union of Hearts). Tam Tam Xa had adopted individual terror tactics
that Nguyen Ai Quoc disparaged.
By June 1925, Nguyen Ai Quoc and two Vietnamese revolutionaries
had set up : VIETNAM THANH NIEN CONG SAN DOAN (Vietnamese Communist
Youth Corps); or THANH NIEN.
During this period, Nguyen Ai Quoc was also active
in other forums, setting up the Pan-Pacific Workers Union, and attended
its first Congress in 1927. And the Congress
Against Imperialist War of 1928
- the later with Madame Sun Yat-Sen, Nehru and Hatta and Tha Thu Thau,
who went on to become a Trotskyite.
ii) The Thanh Nien: Proto National-Communist
Organisation
The Thanh Nien, published a news-sheet by the same name.
Thanh Nien quickly became a very active publishing and teaching house for
revolutionaries from Vietnam. It was not a Bolshevik party, and reflecting
this, its line was in many aspects very loose. It claimed to be consciously
working towards the formation of such a party, and certainly had strict
discipline. Thanh Nien insisted upon the need for revolutionary theory,
and demanded its members study history. But it was still decidedly somewhat
eclectic. Thus, alongside praise of the Bolsheviks of the USSR,
there were recommendations towards Confucius,
despite the full knowledge on the party's
part, that Confucius had been totally reactionary:
The monarchs venerated
Confucius not only because he was not a revolutionary, but also because
he conducted intensive propaganda in their favour... If Confucius lived
in our days, and if he persisted in those views, he would be a counter-revolutionary.
It is possible that this superman would rather yield to the circumstances
and quickly become a worthy follower of Lenin. As far as we Vietnamese
are concerned, let us perfect ourselves intellectually by reading the works
of Confucius and revolutionarily by reading the works of Lenin.
Khanh Ibid. P. 80.
This may have been in order not to alienate the mandarins,
some of whom were anti-French. Nonetheless, on one line there was full
clarity in Thanh Nien and this reflected Nguyen Ai Quoc's
insistence. This was on the current stage of revolution in 1925 onwards.
It was quite clear, that this stage reflected was the primacy of the
National Revolution, over the social
revolution. ie It believed
that the National Democratic Stage of revolution was being fought now.
This was Nguyen Ai Hoc's
view. But some confusion about the line existed. As Thanh Nien expressed
it:
It would be useless if
not harmful:
To Preach the revolution
in the name of democratic or Communist principles, for the Vietnamese people
have not yet received any political education..
And Vietnamese society:
Did not
yet possess a true capitalist class..
If anything Vietnamese society was:
Made up of heterogenous
classes [all of whom were deprived by the French administration of their
rights and revenue.
Vietnam was not yet ready for a class revolution for:
The actual circumstances
oblige the Vietnamese people to foster the national revolution and not
a class revolution. That is why it is a duty of the rich, the poor the
mandarins, and the members of the pubic to unite with one another in order
to assure the triumph of the national revolution.
Thanh Nien: 24 October 1927; Cited by Khanh Ibid; p. 86.
This obfuscating of class boundaries, is anti-Marxist-Leninist
and cannot be considered a correct weighing of class forces. No mention
is even made of comprador or collaborationist forces, and no assessment
is made of the nascent'
capital, and no indication given of the landowners and their positions
vis-a-vis imperialism is made. However, the conclusion of all this, was
to emphasize the national revolution. In this the overall conclusion was
undoubtedly correct at this juncture. That this above synopsis of the line
accurately reflects the views of Nguyen Ai Quoc can be seen from
his own statement:
The goal of the first period
is the overthrow of the despotic government. In Vietnam, whether the people
have been bestialized, dehumanized, exploited and subjugated, it is necessary
to.. unite them in one powerful bloc, raise them against their tyrants
and lead them to the reconquest of their rights.. The goal of the second
period is the intensive exploitation of the triumph of the revolution.
Thus after having kicked the French out, of our borders, we must destroy
the counter-revolutionary elements, build roads for transportation and
communication, develop commerce and industry, educate the people and provide
them with peace and happiness.
9 April 1925, Cited Khanh; Ibid; p. 84.
Elsewhere, Nguyen Ai Quoc insists on the leadership
of the Marxist-Leninist party, such as in the 1926 book entitled The
Road To Revolution. Lacouture
summarizes Nguyen Ai Quoc as putting the following views for the Vietnamese
Revolution:
1.The revolution was a
task for the broad working class and peasant masses, not for a handful
of men. Hence the need to organise the masses.
2. The revolution must be directed by a Marxist-Leninist party.
3. The revolutionary movement in every country must be in close touch
with the international proletariat. Action must be taken to ensure that
the working class and the toiling masses were able to tell the Third International
from the second.
Lacouture; Ibid; p. 46.
But, elsewhere over this period, Nguyen Ai Quoc was
careful to emphasize the need to tailor-down'
the concepts that were put before the masses. As he said in an article
to L'Humanite:
In all the colonized countries,
in old Indochina as well as in young Dahomey, no one understands what a
class struggle, a proletarian force.. a workers'
organisation is. In the eyes of the natives, Bolshevism, signifies either
the destruction of everything, or emancipation from the foreign yoke. The
first meaning given to this term, pushes the ignorant and fearful masses
away from us; the second leads them to nationalism. One is just as dangerous
as the other.
Cited; Khanh Ibid; p. 62.
There is no doubt that there is a tendency to avoid
class-based terms by Nguyen Ai Quoc, throughout this period. The motto
for the Thanh Nien remained:
First make a national revolution;
then make a world revolution.
Cited Khanh Ibid; p.87.
This being so, the classes that were to be involved,
were elsewhere itemized a little more clearly, than they were in the first
quote given:
The conflict in colonized
Vietnam .. Is one between the French colonialists and the most
oppressed elements (workers and peasants;
the other social groups.. Were intermediary elements
who could be at best be friends,
allies
or fellow travelers
of the revolutionary workers and peasants. The
workers and peasants are the roots of the revolution. The students small
merchants and small landowners are also oppressed but not as miserable
as the workers and peasants. These three groups are only the friends of
the workers and peasants.
Cited Khanh Ibid.; p. 85.
Nonetheless, a clear description of class forces is
lacking. However the central role of the peasantry, in a country like Vietnam,
was seen by Nguyen Ai Quoc very quickly. In fact, early on in his career,
at the Fifth Congress of Comintern, Nguyen Ai Quoc had emphasized the role
of the peasantry:
The revolt of the colonial
peasants is imminent. They have already arisen in several countries.; but
each time their rebellions have been drowned in blood. If they now seem
resigned, that is solely for lack of organization and leadership. It is
the duty of the Communist International to help them get together.
Lacouture; Ibid; p. 43.
His views on the peasantry, were not un-noticed by the
Comintern, which was soon to fall into the leadership of the hidden
revisionists Otto Kuusinen and Dimitri Manuilskii. They were about to turn
the line of the Comintern on the revolution in colonial and semi-colonial
countries drastically to the Ultra-Left. We analyze this below.
Thanh Nien now fell victim to the counter-revolutionary
Chang Kai-Shek who stormed the Communist Party China in Canton.
Nguyen Ai Quoc fled to Moscow. The Canton resistance fell, and Thanh Nien
activities in China ended. By mid-1929, the Canton apparatus was defunct.
It had achieved the first steps in welding a national movement, that could
act as the force to liberate Vietnam. The paucity of the national capitalist
class, and of the organisations that could represent them, meant that the
Thanh Nien could take an initiative. But, the absence of the Marxist-Leninist
vanguard became ever more urgent.
iii) The Destruction of The Purely Democratic
Revolutionary Forces
The party that represented the interests of only
the nascent bourgeois nationalist capitalist class, was formed in 1927
by Nguyen Thai Hoc, and called the Vietnam
Quoc Dan Dang (V.N.Q.D.D.) As discussed earlier, the
organisation had always had a tendency toward adventurist terrorist tactics.
It was mainly urban based, and petit bourgeoisie in composition, though
it had many other classes and strata involved, including the literati,
military elements and rural notables and landlords.
Two events, both in February 1930, forced
the French military and police to destroy this organisation. The first
was a successful assassination of The Director of the General Office of
Indochinese manpower - Bazin. His murder triggered widespread repression
and murder on the part of the French. The Central Committee bar two were
arrested. But then the V.N.Q.D.D. launched a mutiny at the Yen Bay
garrison which was brutally put down. This was a desperate move, on the
part of an enormously weakened party with little reserve.
Secondly, the Chairman, Nguyen Thai Hoc,
now called a general insurrection
knowing it was likely to fail. An emergency conference agreed with him
Massive aerial bombardment of the population was instigate after the one
day it took to suppress the initial mutiny. All leaders of the V.N.Q.D.D.
were rounded up, and many executed, including Nguyen Thai Hoc.
Yen Bay prompted the collaborationists to fully reveal
themselves as such. Both the main collaborationist organisations - AFIMA
and the Constitutionalists fell quickly in to a vociferous support of the
French.
The elimination of all other parties, determined
to pursue the course of national liberation - left the followers of Nguyen
Ai Quoc, with no serious opposition. There was no single unified Party,
of either nationalist stripe, or of Communist stripe. The elements of the
Indochinese Communist Party and Vietnamese Patriotism became very blurred,
and one that became further complicated by the Comintern. A duality
arose within one party:
Communism was to evolve
a dual character in Vietnam, being both a national liberation movement
governed by traditions Vietnamese patriotism, and an affiliate of the international
Communist movement, profoundly affected by the vicissitudes of the Comintern.
Depending on international and local circumstances, sometimes the Vietnamese
Communist movement would be directed by revolutionary patriots, who insisted
on the primacy of national liberation, and at other times by proletarian
internationalists, who tended to well disposed to sacrifice the cause of
Vietnamese revolution to the common international revolutionary intent
as determined by the Comintern.
Khanh; Ibid; p. 99.
We must now, examine Comintern decisions in this period.
6. THE MARXIST-LENINIST VIEW OF THE NATIONAL
DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION; IS DISTORTED BY REVISIONISTS AT 1928 COMINTERN CONGRESS.
Nguyen Ai Quoc had been impressed with Lenin's
appreciation of the conditions in colonial countries. Lenin had pointed
out that in countries where the industrial proletariat is weak, the working
class needed allies:
Lenin pointed out:
'There can be no question of a purely proletarian movement,' where,
'There is practically no industrial proletariat." Lenin;
Why were the Supplementary Theses needed ? In order to single out from
the backward colonial countries which have no industrial proletariat such
countries as China and India, of which it cannot be said that they have
'practically no industrial proletariat'. Read the "Supplementary Theses",
and you will realise that they refer chiefly to China and India...
How could it happen that Roy's special Theses were needed to "Supplement"
Lenin's theses? The fact is that Lenin's Theses were written and published
long before the Second Congress opened.. prior to the discussion in the
Special Commission of the Second Congress. And since the Second Congress
revealed the necessity for singling out from the backward countries such
countries as China and India, the necessity for 'Supplementary Theses'
arose."
J.V.Stalin:"Concerning Questions of the Chinese Revolution", "Works",
Volume 9, Moscow, 1954; p.236-238.
Lenin saw the absence of a significant working class
in the backward colonial-type countries with which he was primarily concerned,
as a potential problem. But it could be solved he said, by the native working
class and its party, being assisted by the working class and its party
of Soviet Russia and of the proletariat of the developed countries:
If the revolutionary victorious
proletariat carries on systematic propaganda among them, and if the Soviet
governments render them all the assistance they possibly can.. the backward
countries may pass to the Soviet system, and after passing through a definite
stage of development to Communism without passing though the capitalists
stage of development.
Lenin. Report on the Commission. Vol 10: p.243.
Stalin, agreed with Lenin , on the significant distinctions
between various undeveloped countries. Thus, Stalin when addressing the
People's of the East had distinguished
by 1925, At least three categories
of colonial and dependent countries:
Firstly countries like
Morocco who have little or not proletariat, and are industrially quite
undeveloped. Secondly countries like China and Egypt which are under-developed
industries and have a relatively small proletariat. Thirdly countries like
India, which are capitalistically more or less developed and have a more
or less numerous national proletariat. Clearly all these countries cannot
possibly be put on a par with one another.
J.V.Stalin. "Political Tasks of the University of Peoples of the East."
May 18. 1925; Ibid.
Stalin's solution
for some of these countries, included the tactic of the alliance with the
poorest and middle peasantry. This tactic derived directly from Leninism.
But in this period, Stalin did put forward a new variation, he became the
leading proponent of the Workers and Peasants Parties.
It was precisely these parties that the hidden revisionists now
disrupted. In Alliance 23, we described how the Communist International
was hijacked from Marxist-Leninist control (Alliance 23; The Theory of
the 'Black nation' in the USA"; 1996; Canada.) This occurred at the 1928
6th Congress of Comintern. Following the death of Lenin, the
control of the Comintern was exercised initially by Zinoviev. After his
exposure as a revisionist, it had passed briefly to Bukharin. But in the
exposure of Bukharin-ite right revisionism, the control of the Comintern,
fell into the hands of the hidden revisionists Otto Kuusinen and
Dmitri Manuilsky.
The Communist International now proceeded to implement
a disastrous Ultra-Left Turn. As part of this Ultra-Leftism, all
non-pure
Communist organisations, such as the Workers and Peasants
Parties were destroyed. The 6th Comintern Congress in
1928, was dominated by Otto Kuusinen, who later showed himself as a proven
open revisionist. His participation at the infamous 20th Party Congress
of the CPSU confirms this. For the moment however, he remained as a hidden
revisionist.
The line of the Comintern regarding the colonial
revolution, was subverted by Kuusinen on several aspects. It became now,
a revisionist line in contradiction to both Lenin and Stalin. Lenin had
said that the Communists should support the truly revolutionary sections
of the bourgeoisie in national liberations movements:
We Communists should and
will support bourgeois liberation movements in the colonial countries ..
when these movements are really revolutionary.
Lenin, Report of the Commission on the national and Colonial Question,
Ibid, vol 10, p.241.
The Theses of the 1928 Congress only paid lip service
to this, and to the need to find genuine national-revolutionary movements
to work with; and to the division of the colonial bourgeoisie into the
comprador and national section. The Theses even speak of a radical
profound objective contradiction of interest between the national bourgeoisie
and imperialism. However
the essence of the Theses was that no section of the bourgeoisie could
be a significant ally:
The national bourgeoisie
is incapable of offering any serious resistance to imperialism.. The national
bourgeoisie has not the significance of a force in the struggle against
imperialism.
Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies,
6th Congress CI, in "International Press Correspondence", Vol 8, No.88,
Dec 12th, 1928. p.1666, 1667.
The Theses then draw the correct conclusion that:
Without the hegemony of
the proletariat.. the bourgeois-democratic revolution (in a colonial type
country) cannot be carried through to the end."
Ibid, p.1666.
But, according to the CI, and in opposition to Lenin,
any bloc was to be rejected:
It is necessary to reject
the formation of any kind of bloc between the Communist Party and the national-reformist
opposition (in a colonial-type country-Ed)."
Theses, Ibid, p.50.
In his Report Kuusinen now attacked the Workers and
Peasants Parties (WPP) of India, that had been so successful:
For a time some comrades
considered the advisability of labour
and peasant parties'.. It is
now clearer than before that this form is not to be recommended, especially
in colonial and semi-colonial countries. It would be an easy matter for
the labour and peasant parties to transform themselves into petty bourgeois
parties, to get away from the Communists, thereby failing to help them
to come into contact with the masses."
O.Kuusinen, Report on the Revolutionary Movement in The Colonies and
Semi-Colonies, 6th Congress, CI In :"International Press Correspondence",
Volume 8, No. 70; October 4th, 1928, 1230-1.
Of course, the some
comradesreferred to cryptically
by Kuusinen, was aimed at Stalin. Stalin
favoured the formation of such parties in the colonial type countries:
In countries like Egypt
and China.. a revolutionary bloc of the workers and peasants and the petty
bourgeoisie.. can assume the form of a single party, a workers and peasants
party, provided however, that this distinctive party actually represents
a bloc of two forces - the Communist Party and the party of the revolutionary
petty bourgeoisie.. In countries like India.. a revolutionary anti-imperialist
bloc.. can assume, although it need not always necessarily do so, the form
of a single workers' and peasants'
party, formally bound by a single platform."
Stalin, "The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples' of the
East",Vol 7; Moscow,1954; p.149,150-1.
This attack on the Workers and Peasants Parties (WPP),
was entirely in line with Trotsky in June 1928, and submitted to
the congress:
The cardinal question for
us here as everywhere and always, is the question of the communist party,
its complete independence, its irreconcilable class character. The greatest
danger on this path is the organisation of so-called Workers
and Peasants Partiesin the
countries of the Orient..
Stalin advanced the formula of the two-class
Workers' and Peasants'
Partiesfor the Eastern countries..
it is a question here of an absolutely new, entirely false and thoroughly
anti-Marxist formulation of the fundamental question of the party and of
its relation to its own class and other classes.. Without a relentless
condemnation of the very idea of workers and peasants parties for the East,
there is not and cannot be a programme for the Comintern.
L.Trotsky : "Summary and Perspectives of the Chinese Revolution", In
"3rd International after Lenin", London; 1974; p.162-3, 171. Volume 9,
no.48; September 11th; 1928; p.1037.
In his Main report to the Plenum, Otto Kuusinen renewed
the attack on the WPP in India, implying that their development had held
back the development of the Communist Party India, alleging that they had
carried out "hardly any work" among the peasantry:
Our greatest weakness there
(ie India) is the act that we are not yet firmly enough established as
a Communist Party. A good many Indian Communists have worked in the ranks
of the WPP. We have advised that them to endeavour to induce these parties
to reorganise themselves, to assume another organisational form in keeping
with the principles of Leninism. But not the two-class character of these
parties was the worst thing; much worse was the fact that hardly any practical
revolutionary work has been done yet among the peasantry.
Kuusinen: Report on the International Situation and the Tasks
of the CI, 10th Plenum ECCI, In "International press Correspondence" Vol
9, No.40, Aug20th, 1929; p.847.
As we concluded in Alliance 5, this profoundly
disrupted the national liberation & social revolution in India (http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/All-5table.htm
). These discussions had enormous repercussions on the Indochinese Communist
party strategy also.
Indochina, had an overwhelming preponderance of peasants
in its population. They were amongst the most exploited and among the most
militant of the population. To down-peddle their capacity for revolution,
as insisted upon by Kuusinen and the revisionist led CI, was to limit the
Indochinese revolution. It is these facts that explain the otherwise un-interpretable,
later absence of Nguyen Ai Quo from the revolutionary scene in Vietnam,
after he had forged the united Indochinese Communist Party in 1930.
The tension between the national'
and the social revolutionary'
ends of the spectrum within Thanh Nien, and its heir the ICP, came into
conflict, and was spurred on by Kuusinen's
new revisions of Lenin's Theses.
Two factions emerged within the Thanh Nien, that would carry over
into the ICP. The first was a so called Indochinese
factionwhich stressed the
issues of class conflict; and a so called Vietnamese
faction which stressed the
issues of nationalism. (Khanh Ibid; p. 116).
In reality the first was a potentially Marxist-Leninist
faction; represented by figures such as Ngo Gia Tu, Nguyen Van Tuan, and
Tran Van Cung from the Bac Bo area of Vietnam, who were misguided by the
Comintern into left adventurism.
In reality the second faction was a national bourgeois
faction, represented by such figures as Nguyen Ai Quoc.
7. THE WORKER'S
MOVEMENT IN VIETNAM AND THE FORMATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
(i) Formation Of A Party
The working class was small in number - but it was densely
concentrated in industrial zones:
By 1929, the extractions
industries employed 30,000 workers including 25,000 in the coals fields
of Tonkin, 3,500 in the cotton mills at Nam Dinh, and 2,000 in the Franco-Annamese
Weaving Company.
Lacouture; Ibid; p. 50.
Furthermore a strike wave in 1928 had shown that the
proletariat was organized.
Nguyen Ai Quoc, had already set up the organisation
called the Thanh Nien, discussed above. By 1926 Thanh Nien, had
taken the line that it was necessary to establish a Marxist-Leninist party
in Vietnam. However it did not take active steps to do so, until
their hand was forced by calls from outside. According to the account of
Tran Van Giau for Hanoi University -Nguyen Ai Quoc was in Siam during this
period.
The Kuomintang coup displaced the Thanh Nien from
Canton. It was mainly directed from within Vietnam in this period. But
the First, and last, Congress of the Thanh Nien, was held in Hong Kong.
Here a jolt was given by Tonkin delegates who proposed to form a party.
They were rebuffed. The majority felt it was premature, and reflected the
Vietnamese
nationalist faction (Khanh Ibid; pp.116-122). But by the end of the Conference,
a letter was sent to the Comintern asking for approval to establish a Marxist-Leninist
organisation. But events moved fast.
The Tonkin delegates, the Indochinese
faction, boycotted the remaining part of the conference, and returned home
to proceed to establish a party. They established independent cells, in
Tonkin and North Annam, and proclaimed the formation of Indochinese
Communist Party (Dong Vuong Cong San Dang), on 17 June 1929.
This surprised the Thanh Nien. Nguyen Ai Quoc's's
comrade in the Thanh Nien, Lam Duc Thu responded by forming the
Communist Party of Annam (Annam Cong San Dang). Meanwhile, a third
and separate organization was also set up by the Revolutionary party of
New Vietnam (Tan Viet Cach Mang Dang), who created the League of Indochinese
Communists .
The Comintern learning of this situation, instructed
Le Hong Phong to weld unity. At the same time, the Thanh Nien, located
Nguyen Ai Quoc in Siam, where he was supposed to be in secret. It was they,
and not the Comintern, who alerted him to the new situation (Hodgkin; Ibid;
p.238). At about the same time the Comintern issued a directive dated 27
October 1929, entitled On the
Formation of a Communist Party In Indochina,
which called for one party:
The Comintern judged that
Indochina already had an independent workers'
movement.. The maturity of the
revolutionary movement in Indochina, the hatred of the vast popular masses
against French imperialism, and especially the development of an independent
workers movement and the existence of various Communist groups are creating
the necessary conditions and the urgent necessity for the formation of
the Indochinese Communist Party."
Khanh Ibid; p. 124.
Nguyen Ai Quoc called a special meeting in Hong Kong,
to arrange a fusion of the parties that had newly arisen, at what is now
called the Unification Conference. On January 1930, Nguyen Ai Quoc
returned to Hong Kong. By 3 February 1930 the three parties had been united.
The name chosen was Vietnam Cong San Dang, or the Vietnamese Communist
Party. But under Comintern pressure, this was later to be changed in
October 1930, to Dong Vuong Cong San Dong or the Indochinese Communist
Party (ICP). A manifesto was published on 10 February with ten
points, that encompassed the bourgeois
democratic revolution including the agrarian revolution:
1. To over-throw imperialism,
the feudal system and the reactionary bourgeoisie in Vietnam.
2. To win complete independence for Indochina;
3. To form a government made up of workers, peasants, and soldiers;
4. To nationalize the banks and other imperialist concerns and place
them under the control of the proletarian government;
5. To confiscate the agricultural concessions and other estates owned
by the imperialists and bourgeoisie reactionaries, in order to share them
out among the poor peasants;
6. To introduce the eight hour working day;
7. To abolish compulsory loans, the poll tax, and the other iniquitous
taxes afflicting the poor;
8. To accord the people democratic liberties;
9. To provide education for all;
10. To achieve sexual equality'.
Lacouture Ibid; p.54-55.
It is likely that Nguyen Ai Quoc emphasized the peasant
aspect of the alliance between workers and peasants at the expense of the
workers. On arriving back in Vietnam, Nguyen Ai Quoc had made some verbal
cautions about the term worker:
The situation doesn't
call for sweeping phrases about the
workers. Our first task must
be to overthrow the French colonists and set the nation free, and for that
we must arouse a sense of patriotism in every single person.
Lacouture Ibid; p.55.
But the tension remained between the interpretation
of the Indochinese
faction with the emphasis upon a class struggle, and the Vietnamese
faction including Nguyen Ai Quoc, with an emphasis on nationalism. Both
these factions, one under Comintern guidance, had forgotten'
the dialectical fusion of the two thrusts, as advised by Lenin and Stalin.
Despite the outer unity then, the contradictions
remained inside the ICP. Initially, Nguyen Ai Quoc's
influence was higher. Thus although the ICP was committed to be the vanguard
of the proletariat, in the fourth clause of its Summary
of Party Strategies, the statement
given was:
The Party must do its best
to maintain relationships with the petit-bourgeois intellectual, and middle
peasant groups such as Thanh Nien, Tan Viet, Nguyen An Ninh factions etc.
to attract them to follow the proletariat. As concerns the rich peasants,
medium and small landowners, and Vietnamese capitalists who have not shown
themselves to be clearly counter-revolutionary, we must make use of them,
or at least neutralize them. Whichever organization has demonstrated its
counter-revolutionary character (Such as the Constitutionalist Party etc)
must be overthrown.
Khanh Ibid; p. 126 From Ho Chi Minh Hanoi 1976 (In Vietnamese).
This contradicted the prescriptions of the 6th
Comintern Congress, as did the ICP's
fourth clause in the Summary
of Party Strategies:
While making propaganda
for the slogan An independent
Vietnam,we must make propaganda
for, and establish contacts with the oppressed peoples and the world proletariat,
especially the French proletariat.
Khanh Ibid; p. 126 From Ho Chi Minh Hanoi 1976 (In Vietnamese).
The plan as laid out in clauses four and five were not
in contradiction with the strategy and tactics of Lenin and Stalin. But
they were in contradiction with those prescribed by Manuilsky and Kuusinen.
A call to heel was to come quickly.
ii) The Rectification Insisted Upon by the
Comintern - Disrupting The National Democratic Phase of the Revolution.
The Comintern quickly denounced the Unification Conference
as unprincipled',
and ordered a special conference, now termed the First Plenum of the
Central Committee in Hong Kong in October 1930, to rectify'
the situation.
The landlords are a class
which does not participate in the cultivation of the land, nor does it
live like peasants. They use their land in order to get their share of
the corps, that is they oppress and exploit the peasants. Although it is
true that some of them have a few hundred hectares of land, while others
five to seven thousand hectares, all of them belong to the landlord class,
the enemy of the peasants. They must be overthrown and their land confiscated.
Khanh Ibid; p.127; citing Resolutions from Vietnamese party texts.
But this ignored the differentiation of some rich peasants
from the landlord class, and ignores the fact that some of the landlords
had already expressed and shown anti-French intent, as shown earlier (See
p. ). It therefore tended to narrow the potential anti-imperialist front.
2. Renouncing the united front with anti-imperialist national bourgeoisie:
While it is true that there
exists such a group, they cannot be on our side, nor can we make use of
them... The Party must do its best to destroy their influence among the
masses. (We have to unmask them, exposing their wishy-washy attitude with
regards to the imperialists and landlords and with regard to the workers
and peasants). To say that the Party at least ought to neutralize them
is to tell the Party not to advocate the struggle of the workers and peasants
against the native bourgeoisie. The party cannot have such a policy.
Khanh Ibid; p.127-128; citing Resolutions from Vietnamese party texts.
Again this was contrary to the Marxist-Leninist line
established previously, and it was an ultra-left error that would tend
to narrow the anti-imperialist front.
3. Renouncing the name Vietnamese Communist Party
Calling the Party the Vietnamese
Communist Partywould exclude
Cambodia and Laos. At the same time, it is wrong to leave the working class
of those two countries outside of the framework of the Party, for although
the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian proletarians differ in their linguistic,
customary, and ethnic background, in political and economic aspects they
must maintain intimate relationships.
Khanh Ibid; p.128; citing Resolutions from Vietnamese party texts.
This also tended to disrupt the national liberation
struggle, and it ignored the history of the region's
previous national struggles. It caused much resistance inside the Party,
but was adopted finally. The name was changed to the Indochinese Communist
Party, until the ICP was dissolved formally in 1945. When the party was
in state power, it adopted the name of the Vietnam Workers Party (Dang
Lao dong Viet Nam).
To enshrine the stamp of the Comintern, the ICP at
the First Plenum adopted the Political Theses of the ICP. These
were drafted by Tran Phu, and insisted upon the tactics specified above,
although it agreed that the current stage was the stage of the bourgeois
democratic revolution. Despite
this agreement',
the Theses insisted that the national features were no longer as important,
owing to the independence'
of the masses:
Struggle of the worker-peasant
masses has taken on a very clearly independent character and is no longer
influenced by nationalism as it used to be.
Cited in Khanh Ibid; p. 130.
As one historian of the party, Khanh, comments, in toto
these changes were serious:
This subordination of Vietnamese
patriotism to left wing Communist sectarianism almost caused a fatal collapse
of the ICP.
Khanh Ibid; p. 141.
iii) The Nighe Tinh Xo-Viets (Soviets)
In the wake of the Yen Bay massacres, in April, 1930
the CC of the ICP had already met in Hong Kong to discuss the Comintern's
issues as seen . But, shortly after this, spontaneous eruptions of peasant
anger resulted in the formation of Soviets, in Northern Annam province.
An international economic depression had made conditions for the peasantry,
even worse than before. There was a sharp decline in the price of rice.
Even the colonial capitalists were divided and fought over the Bank of
Indochina's debt recovery programme,
as illustrated in its revaluation of the Vietnamese piaster to the French
franc (Khanh Ibid; p. 145). Under the ensuing publicity, even in France,
some awareness of the situation in Vietnam forced the future Premier Daladier,
of the Popular Front Government to propose the creation of a commission
on the colony. But the parti
colonial' still had sway.
A definite revolutionary upsurge took place with
the participation of workers at the Phu Rieng rubber plantation in Nam
Ky, and at textile mills in Bac Ky, and sawmills at Ben Thuy. Unrest spread
rapidly throughout the country. But the heart of the upsurge was in the
North, at Trung Ky. Armed self-defense militia emerged. By 12 September,
1931 6,000 peasants staged a hunger march and ended by expropriating large
estates and establishing Red Villages (lang do),or peoples'
Councils, or soviets - called Xo-Viets. The movement spread fast.
However governmental control was never challenged at the provincial seats.
An immediate police and military crack down on the
party was started. Open terrorism was conducted in the countryside. In
response the peasant movement was led into adventurist policies, and an
anti-intellectual'
and anti-wavering'
campaign was started by the cadre of the area (Khanh Ibid; p.159). The
CC of the ICP, however criticized the formation of the Soviets by the cadre
of the Trung Bo, on the grounds that the level of preparation was not high
enough. But the CC correctly called for and organized national support
for them, now that they had been established (Hodgkin; Ibid; p. 254).
By the summer of 1931, the movement was essentially
over. In several villages the peasants turned against the communist cadres.
Many cadre had been destroyed, and the ICP was severely disrupted in the
area. The French captured all the important party leaders by April 1931.
Some surviving cadre even wrote to the French party and the Comintern announcing
the dissolution'
of the party, although this was not the case. But by 1932, the French colonial
administration were announcing the end
of the communist threat'. Approximately
10,000 cadre were imprisoned (Khanh Ibid; p. 160).
In Hong Kong, Nguyen Ai Quoc was arrested, as were
other Comintern agents in Singapore Joseph Ducroux, and in Shanghai, Noulens
[Also known as Ruegg]. It appears that the British were not interested
however in helping the French pull their chestnuts out of the fire, and
seem to have assisted in Nguyen Ai Quoc's
escape from prison, and proclaimed him dead from Tuberculosis. Nguyen Ai
Quoc secretly made his way to China and then Moscow.
It is not clear whether the Nghe Tinh Soviet movement
was primarily a spontaneous eruption, or was deliberately fostered. There
is no doubt that in recognition of the lack of preparations, the ICP CC
tried to forestall the outbreak of soviets elsewhere (Khanh Ibid; p.165).
But in all likelihood, elements of the ICP were nurtured by the general
ultra-left policies of the Comintern rampant at that time. The failure
of the movement of Soviets, allowed the Comintern to remove Nguyen Ai Quoc
from control of the ICP. The French Party was placed in control, as well
as the Siamese Communist Party and the Communist Party China (CCP).
The Nguyen Ai Quoc faction within the ICP in the
period between 1930-135, was in the minority and virtually silent.
In fact it is strange that Nguyen Ai Quoc himself, was not even visible
in party circles until 1939. His death'
was even commemorated by comrades of the ICP in Moscow. It is apparent
that he was in disfavor with the Comintern. It is also on record
that he was in Moscow under-going further training. Yet he had been an
extremely high ranking official of the Comintern prior to the 1928 6th
World Congress of the Comintern.
The theoretical positions of Nguyen Ai Quoc were
now systematically attacked by the ICP. He was termed a petit-bourgeois
hangover' for his adherence to
the national independence of Vietnam. His strategy was severely critiqued.
He was also blamed for the premature risings of the Soviets of Nghe An:
The services that Nguyen
Ai Quoc has rendered to our party is great, but our comrades nevertheless
should not forget the nationalist vestiges of Nguyen Ai Quoc and his erroneous
instructions no the fundamental questions of the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary
movement ad his opportunistic theories.. Nguyen Ai Quoc did not understand
the directives of the Communist International; he did not fuse the three
communist organisations of Indochina from top to bottom... the pamphlet
Political Principles (Party
Strategies In Summary) and the statutes of the unified party did not follow
the exactly the instructions of the Communist International. Nguyen Ai
Quoc otherwise advocated a reformist and collaborationist tactic: neutrality
toward the bourgeoisie and the rich peasantry,
alliance with small and medium
landowners; etc. it is because
of these errors that from January to October 1930 the ICP followed a strategy
opposed on several points to the insurrection of the Communist International,
despite the fact that it led the masses energetically to the revolutionary
struggle. Equally it is because of such errors that the policy followed
that the Soviets of Nghe An was not in the line of the party.
Bolshevik review: In Vietnamese; Dec. 1934; Cited Khanh Ibid; p.185
iv) The Comintern Swings to the Right Line of
the Seventh Congress
Nguyen Ai Quoc attended the Seventh Congress of the
Comintern. But Le Hong Phong was named the official ICP delegate
to the seventh Congress of Comintern. There Le Hong Phong was elected to
the CC of the Comintern. Upon Le Hong Phong's
death, in 1940, Nguyen Ai Quoc took over the functions relating to the
Comintern. Nguyen Ai Quoc strongly endorsed the line of Dimitrov and the
Seventh Congress. The discrepancy between Nguyen Ai Quoc's
line and the Comintern did not any longer apply, since the Comintern had
swung over to a rightist position on the issue of united fronts (Both
the Communist League and Alliance have analyzed these events previously:
See Alliance 12; Dimitrov at http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ALL12-DIMITROV.HTM
Compass: United Front Subversion at: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/COMPASS111-UNITEDFRONT.HTM
) .
The line of Nguyen Ai Quoc was now supported by the Seventh
Congress. In contrast, the line that had been adopted in the interim by
the ICP, was in conflict with both the Comintern and Nguyen Ai Quoc.
While Nguyen Ai Quoc and Le Hong Phong had been in
Moscow, the ICP held its first Party Congress in Macao March 1935. It had
taken a line that was not supported by Nguyen Ai Quoc. Later commentary
notes this:
The book Great
Dates of the Vietnamese Workers Party.. States that the Macao Congress
had decided that the time and circumstances were strongly in favour of
revolution. In particular the conference had decreed:
It must not be forgotten
that only armed warfare-the supreme form of class warfare- can lead to
the overthrow of the oppressors.. In the years 1930-31 we won considerable
success despite our setbacks.
Lacouture Ibid; p. 61.
A footnote to the section in Great
Dates of the Vietnamese Workers Party
published by Hanoi, states that the Macao Congress was incapable of:
Appreciating at their rightful
value the changes which had occurred in their country and the world.
This certainly was Nguyen Ai Quoc's
position. Again, the conflict between the 6th Congress position
of the Comintern and Nguyen Ai Quoc is well known. Lacouture, in his biography
points out that Nguyen Ai Quoc was:
In almost open conflict
with the leadership of the ICP as a result of its decision to hold the
first party congress (Macao March 1935) while and Le Hong Phong were away.
Lacouture Ibid; p. 61.
But Nguyen Ai Quoc's
line was now bolstered, by the line of the Comintern Seventh Congress,
which was summarized by Nguyen Ai Quoc, in a report dated 1939:
The Party cannot at present
put forward excessive demands (national independence parliament) without
risk of falling into the Japanese trap. For the time being it is advisable
to claim only democratic rights:
1. Freedom to organise, freedom of assembly; freedom of the Press,
freedom of speech, a general amnesty for all people sentenced on political
grounds, and the entitlement of the Party to operate within the law.
2. To achieve these ends it is essential that we do our utmost to build
up the Democratic Front;
The latter includes not only Indochinese, but progressive French people
as well; it embraces both the workers and the national bourgeois.
3. In its dealing with the bourgeoisie the Party must show considerable
tact and flexibility. Let every effort be made to incorporate it into the
Front, to rally those elements which are capable of being won over to the
cause and to neutralize the fluctuating elements. None of them must remain
outside the Front...
5. As a means of bolstering its strength.. The Democratic Front must
maintain close contact with the Popular Front in France, which is also
fighting for freedom and democracy..
6. The Party must... establish close relations with the French Communist
Party". Lacouture Ibid; p. 61-2.
Since Indo-China
was a colony of the French, the attitude and the behaviours of the French
Communist Party are relevant to this analysis. The line of the French CP
had been in flux, resulting in an obviously different position from their
previous one.
8. THE OPPORTUNISM OF THE FRENCH POPULAR FRONT
STRATEGY
It is impossible to discuss the shift in position of
the French CP, without recourse to consideration of the Comintern position.
In the Comintern, there had been a shift from an ultra-left position
to one that was right-ist - with an unprincipled adoption of the
new United Front positions. These were, in contrast to the Marxist-Leninist
tactics previously defined, to adopt a conciliatory position in class alliances
and not utter a word of criticism. This took practical expression, with
the Leon Blum Communist backed Popular Front Government in France.
The Marxist-Leninist line on United Fronts,
followed that originally formed by Lenin in the early days of the Bolshevik
party:
We need a United Front...
we adopted the united front tactics in order to help the masses to fight
against capital...and we shall pursue these tactics to the end. "
V.I.Lenin: "We have Paid Too Much"; In: 'Selected Works' Volume 10;
London; 1946; p. 305.
But this correct tactic was dropped by the Comintern
over the years 1928-1935. First of all, the line was turned into a Ultra-left
direction, one that denied any possibility of united fronts. Then it was
modified into an Ultra-right direction, with not even the right of open
criticism by the Communist Party. This perversion of United Front tactics
was exemplified in France.
During the 1930's, the foreign policy of the
dominant sections of the French and British imperialists was, to appease:
to assist in deeds, while deploring in words, the aggressive expansion
of the German, Italian and Japanese imperialists. The aim was to bring
the fascist imperialists into conflict with the Soviet Union. They hoped
that the world's only socialist state would be destroyed while their German,
Italian and Japanese rivals would be so weakened as to enable them, the
western European imperialists to dominate the whole Eurasian land mass.
But this appeasement
necessitated an unprecedented demagogic deception of the people. This invoked
the trustworthiness
of Hitler and Mussolini: the desirability of concessions to them in
order to save the world from war:
the need for non-intervention
in the Spanish Civil War (that is, an embargo on the sale of arms to the
legal Republican government, while the German and Italian imperialists
poured in arm and troops to aid the Spanish fascists).
The most serious threat to appeasement
in 1933, was undoubtedly the rapid development in France of the united
front against fascism. This was being built from below by the French Communist
Party. The imperialists countered this threat with the cooperation of the
leaders of the Labour and Socialist international, the Nazi secret service
and the press of many countries. The plan was to gag and bind the anti-fascists
in the united front being built from below, by perverting it into a united
front from above-a prelude
to its destruction.
As a part of the tactics of building a united front
from below, the Communist International long before 1935, had recommended
that Communist Parties approached the Social Democratic Parties, with proposals
on a principled basis, in a process of isolating,
the leaders of the Social-Democratic parties:
In the twelve years since
1923 we addressed the Socialist Party 26 times. Each time we met with a
refusal, sometimes even a rude
one.
M. Thorez: Speech at 7th World Congress of the Communist International
in:
"Report 7th Congress", 'Speeches' Part 4; London: 1936: p.30.
On February 19th, 1933 - eight days before the Reichstag
fire set by the Nazis, the Bureau of the Labour and Socialist International
issued a statement, declaring the readiness of the Social-Democratic Parties
affiliated to it to form fronts, directed against fascism with the Communist
Parties ('International Press Correspondence Volume 13: March
9 th., 1933; p.262). In response, the Executive Committee of the Communist
International maintained that a united front - in deeds and not words -
could be set up only from below":
This declaration stands
in sharp contradiction to the whole of the previous actions of the L.S.I
and the social democratic parties. The whole policy and activity of the
L.S.I. hitherto justifies the C.I. and the C.P.s in putting no faith in
the sincerity of the declaration, of the L.S.I. Bureau. The Executive Committee
of the Communist International, firmly believes that; the social - democratic
and non-party workers, regardless of what attitude the social-democratic
leaders adopt in setting up the united front, will overcome all obstacles
and, together with the Communists, set up the United front not in words
but in deeds."
(Ibid; p.262).
But the Executive Committee
of the Communist International called upon all Communist Parties to make
yet another attempt to set up a united front of struggle with the social-democratic
workers through the medium of the social-democratic parties. On the international
scale indeed, nothing whatever came of the L.S.I declaration of February
19th, 1933. A month later, on March,18th-l0th,1933, the Bureau passed a
resolution advising affiliated parties not to conclude united front agreements
until and unless agreement on their form had been agreed between the two
Internationals, and the conference of the L.S.I. in Paris in November 1934
repealed this resolution and left each affiliated party to take such action
as it thought fit.
On July 15th, 1934, however taking its stand on the
L.S.I. declaration of February 19th, 1933, the National Council
of the French Socialist Party voted to accept the public proposal of the
French Communist Party for a united front "against war and fascism", adding:
"It welcomes it all the more as it hopes to see in this unity of action
a means of preparing the organic unification of the two parties."
The price which the Communist Party paid for the conclusion
of the united front pact, on August 27th, 1934 was to prove fatal
to the cause anti-fascism and to the fight against war; this was to abstain
from criticism of the Socialist Party for the duration of the agreement:
"In order to conclude the pact, we had agreed to a concession with
regard to criticism. .. We subscribed to the following text:
'During the common action, the two parties will reciprocally abstain
from attacks and criticism.'"
M. Thorez: Speech at 7th World Congress of the CI, in 'Report of the 7th
World Congress of the Communist International': 'Speeches, Part 4'.
- London; 1936: p.31
The bourgeois Radical Socialist Party was led by
Edouard Daladier, who had resigned as Prime Minister in February 1934
at the demand of fascist rioters. He would later accompany Chamberlain
to Munich, to partition Czechoslovakia with Hitler and Mussolini. In the
interim however, on July 14th 1935 he agreed to extend, by its participation
the Socialist Communist united front, into a wider anti-fascist
People's Front
with an extension of the non-criticism
pact.
In the General Election of May 3rd, 1936, the People's's
Frontwon a decisive majority
securing the election of 146 Socialists
136 Radical
Socialists, and 72 Communists.
On June 4th, 1936 the Socialist
leader Leon Blum became, the Prime Minister. Blum selected a cabinet
consisting of Socialists
and Radical Socialists
with no Communists. It became obvious within a few-weeks of the formation
of the People's Front,
government, that in its foreign policy it was determined to line up completely
with the appeasement
policy of the British Conservative government, headed then by Stanley Baldwin.
The Foreign Secretary of the People's
Frontgovernment, Yvon Delbos,
in fact, became popularly, known as the
British Under-Secretary for French Affairs.
On June 19th, 1936 the British government dropped
the sanctions imposed by
international agreement against Italy in connection with that country's
invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The French People's
Frontgovernment followed suit
on June 23rd, announcing this to the Chamber of Deputies, Delbos stressed
he had complete faith, - in Hitler's protestations of friendship
for France:
We have no intention of
doubting the word of a man who during four years knew the horror of the
trenches.
When the Spanish fascists, headed by Franco, began their counter-revolutionary
war against the Republican Government of Spain in July 1936, the French
People's
Frontgovernment issued on August
2nd an appeal to the British and Italian government urging:
The rapid adoption and rigid
observance of an agreed arrangement for non-intervention in Spain,
and four, days later, on August 6th, imposed an embargo on the export of
arms to
At a mass meeting in Paris, on September 6th
1936, three days after the fall of Irun to the fascist forces, Blum declared
with tears in his eyes, that his heart was with the Spanish people, but
if the People's Front
government had sent arms to Madrid:
The most immediate consequence
would have been a competition in the supply of armaments to both sides.
When interjectors pointed out that Italy and Germany
were known to be sending massive armed support to the Spanish fascists,
in violation of the International non-intervention agreement, Blum replied:
There is not a single proof,
not a single piece of evidence, to show that the agreement has been violated.
On December 9th, 1936 a joint Socialist Party -Communist
Party communication said:
The representatives of the
Communist Party emphasized their confidence that the government presided
over by Comrade Leon Blum will pursue in close and fraternal collaboration
the application, of the programme of the People's
Front.
On January 14th, 1937 the People's
FrontGovernment proceeded to
extend its policy of non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War by a Bill
to ban volunteers for Spain.
On June 21st 1937, after its financial reform Bill
had been rejected by the Senate, the Blum government resigned. It was succeeded
by a new People's
Front government headed by
the Radical Socialist Camille Chautemps. It included Socialist Party
members but no communists.
At the Socialist Party Conference in July 1937, by
which time the fiction that Germany and Italy were observing non-intervention
in Spain could on longer be sustained even by the widest stretch of the
imagination, Blum defended the People's
Frontgovernment's
policy of non-intervention
on the grounds that it had saved
peacedeclaring:
I recognise that mistakes
have been made, that we have suffered certain disappointments. But above
all I ask you to reflect on the fact that for a year Europe had been kept
free of war.. Is non-intervention a lie?.... Yes! Yes! A thousand times
yes if you like. But in spite of this I am not sure that this lie, this
fiction has not enabled us to avoid the catastrophe.
On March 13th , 1938 Blum returned to head
a new peoples'
Frontgovernment composed again
of Socialist Party members and Radical Socialist Party members, but no
Communists. It lasted less than a month resigning on April 8th,
1938 when its financial Bill was once more rejected by the Senate.
On April 10th 1938, Blum returned to head
a new People's
Frontgovernment , of Socialist
Party members and Radial Socialist Party members, but again no Communists.
It lasted less than a month, resigning on April 8th 1938 when
its financial reform Bill was once more rejected by the Senate. In September
1938 Daladier, as the head of a People's
Front government dedicated to
anti-fascism
made his infamous journey with Chamberlain to Munich to meet Hitler and
Mussolini and sign approval for the handing over of Czechoslovakia to the
Nazis.
The People's
Front had completed its allotted task. The anti fascist movement in France
had collapsed in disillusionment, but the Communist Party had nobly carried
out the policy of taking no action which would break up the People's
Frontand the People's
Frontgovernment ceased to exist,
This was now done for them. After abolishing in October 1938, the 40 hour
week which was the main positive achievement of the People's
Frontadministration, in November
the People's Front and The
Peoples Front government ceased
to exist, when on November 11th th government party, the Radical
Socialist Party, formally left its association with the united
Front.
In the summer of 1939, the united
Frontalso ceased to exist,
when the Socialist Party withdrew from it. On August 27th, 1939,
all organs of the Communist Party were banned, and shortly after the outbreak
of the phoney waron September
3rd 1939, the Party itself was outlawed and the mass arrests
of Communists began.
At the seventh World Congress of the Communist International
just four years earlier, in 1935, Cachin had declared:
The People's
Front .. was initiated by our Communist Party.. These tactics of the People's
Front, which we have already implemented and which we intend to intensify
by all the means at our disposal, present a certain danger. Nevertheless,
when one is in a well steered-ship, one can always escape the rocks.
M.Cachin: Speech delivered at 7th World Congress of the Communist International.
In 'Report of 7th World Congress of the Communist International';
'Speeches: part 3'. London 1936: p. 8, 10.
In fact of course the "Anti-fascist
People's Front" was steered by the west European imperialists through Munich
to fascism and war.
The French Popular Front Government and Indochina
As one commentator, Khanh the historian of the ICP,
puts it:
For Vietnam, the French
popular Government was a source of false hopes.
Khanh Ibid; p. 208.
Despite the general assumptions that the Popular Front
government would liberalize the colonial policy, this did not materialize.
Blum as Prime Minister, was known to have in the past been critical of
the colonial outrages such as Yen Bay and Nghe Tinh. The minster of Colonies
was Marius Moutet, who was also a supposed Friend
of the Indochinese. In the past,
he had been an ally of Phan Chu Trinh. In regard to the French colonies,
the 7th clause of the Popular Front agreement did indeed state:
A parliamentary commission
(would be created-ed) to investigate the political, economic, and moral
situation in the overseas French territories, especially in French North
Africa and Indochina.
Khanh Ibid; p. 209.
In February 1937, the parliamentary commission was formed,
and included two well known authors who had attacked the French regime
in Vietnam also - Andree Viollis and Louis Roubaud. Several thousand political
prisoners were released. The unpopular Governor-general was replaced by
Jules Brevie . A labour code was passed on 30 December 1936 which reduced
hours, abolished night work for women, forbad child labour under 12 years
of age, and granted annual leave and a 6 day week. But the movement towards
freedom was not supported.
Hopes faded fast amongst the liberation fighters.
The arrest of prominent leaders of the Indochinese
Congressmovement - Nguyen van
Tao, Ta Thu Thau and Nguyen An Ninh - was followed by Blum's
refusal to accept pleas on their behalf. By autumn of 1936, even the labour
code was annulled.
The Indochinese Congress Movement.
While Trotskyism and Marxism-Leninism were battling
for ideological leadership in the world wide arena, in Indochina an unusual
united front developed. This was between Marxist-Leninists (Nguyen van
Tao, and Duong Bach Mai), two Trotskyites (Ta Thu Thau and Phan van Hum)
and other progressives. They formed in Nam ky, a group known as La Lutte.
La Lutte between 1933-1936 operated in the South
with other Trotskyites - the Octobrists, and the ICP. These Nam
Ky groups came together under the leadership of La Lutte, under the hopes
that the Popular Front
Blum government would allow some freedoms. Papers were published, such
as La Lutte Tranh Dau (The struggle) & Mai (Tomorrow) & Tan van
(News). Study groups were organized, and this led to the creation of the
Indochinese Congress,
which was influenced by the news of such an organisation in Morocco. The
purpose of the Indochinese Congress, was to collect
the wishes of the peoplefor
the parliamentary commission. (Khanh, Ibid, p. 213).
La Lutte also succeeded in elections to the Municipal
Council of Saigon, and the Colonial Council of Cochin China, in the years
1933, 1935, and 1937 (Khanh Ibid, p.199). Throughout this period, the masses
were to some extent, being organized; and within a month 600 action committees
were organized throughout Nam Ky. These coordinated a strike wave, led
in large part by the ICP. Bac Ky also was being actively organized. Here
the ICP was most dominant. Again numerous communist papers were published.
At this time a significant development occurred, namely the collaboration
of the VNQDD with the ICP. Old VNQDD members released from prison, like
Tran Huy Lieu, To Hieu, Tuong Dan Bao joined the ICP. Even the ex-founder
of the VNQDD Pham Tuan Tai left a Political Testament, dying in Hanoi.
This contained this advice:
He analyzed the causes of
the party's defeat , gave reasons
for his adherence to the Communist cause, and urged his former partisans
to follow his example in joining the Communist Party:
The only party capable of
leading the masses in their effort of liberation form the yoke of the imperialists
and capitalists."
Khanh Ibid, p.217.
Meanwhile in Trung Ky the Indochinese
Congresswas being prepared.
The Surete (French secret police) noticed how the nationalists came under
the sway of the communists. The ICP had turned their back on the ultra-left
steps, previously demanded by the Comintern up to 1935. The aim now was
to forge a national liberation struggle under Communist leadership of all
social strata, into a people's
front- Mat tran nhan dan.
For the first phase of the national liberation struggle,
this goal almost conformed to the goals of the Leninist-Stalinist
strategy of national liberation. Where it did not adhere was the insistence
that all the bourgeoisie could be drawn into a progressive Peoples
Front; and on the insistence
on destroying various mass movements.
The New Line of the ICP was given by Le
Hong Phong, the ECCI representative with the ICP and head of the Overseas
Leadership Committee, in July 1936, following the 7th Comintern
Conference. The new line, broadly followed that of Nguyen Ai Quoc.
Ai Quoc stated this line, later in his report to the Comintern, in 1939:
At this time the Party should
not put forward demands which are too high (independence parliament etc)
in order not to fall into the trap set by the Japanese fascists. It ought
not to confine itself to demanding democratic rights (such as) freedom
of association, assembly, press, and speech, amnesty of political prisoners,
and it ought to fight for the right to conduct legal activities for the
Party... This front should include not only Indochinese, but also progressive
Frenchmen, not only the working people, but also the national bourgeoisie.
With regard to the bourgeoisie the Party ought to use a good deal of tact
and flexibility. It ought to do its best to draw the bourgeoisie into one
front, win over those elements, that can be won over, neutralize the wavering
elements. None among them ought to be left outside the front; for this
would mean pushing them into the hands of the enemies of the revolution
and strengthening the reactionaries.
Khanh Ibid, p. 219
On 29 September 1939, the ICP CC issued the directive
that:
The situation in Indochina
will lead to the issue of national liberation.
Khanh Ibid, p. 251
At the 6th Plenum in November 1939, it was stressed
that:
National liberation was
the foremost task of the Indochinese revolution.
Khanh Ibid, p. 251.
This assessment was of course correct. But some
ultra-Right moves were made in association with this. A hint of
this can be seen in the following wording:
To survive the peoples of
Indochina have no alternative than to overthrow the French imperialists
and resist all types of aggression - white or yellow- in order to achieve
their national liberation.. All questions of the revolution, including
the agrarian revolution must be resolved with this goal [national revolution]
in mind.
Khanh Ibid, p. 252.
To supposedly facilitate this overall strategy of national
revolution, the ICP in 1937 dissolved all the clandestine mass organisations
that had been set up - The Red Workers Unions, the Peasants Association,
the Communist Youth Corps, the Red Aid Society - in order to accentuate
and emphasise legal and overt political activity (Khanh Ibid, p. 220).
In addition it postponed the agrarian revolution explicitly to obtain a
broad front:
It only opposed high land
rents exorbitant interest rates, and to confiscate land owned by the colonialists
and traitors.
Khanh Ibid, p. 222.
The policy now was to win over progressive
elements in the landowner class, to broaden the National United Front (Khanh
Ibid, p.252). The 1936 change in the line of the ICP, was signaled by a
open letter to all the existing political parties. This outlined a 12 point
program for a broad front. It contained moderate demands - equal eligibility,
voting rights, enactment of a labour code, general amnesty for political
prisoners, but it was not believed by the bourgeois parties. The party
therefore launched a propaganda campaign to ensure that it was not seen
as being Separatist.
The ICP, only it said, wished for a strong,
free and happy Indochina. It
went so far as to state a unity with the French Socialist Party the French
Radical Socialist Party and the French league of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen:
Here in Indochina we ought
to unite with all the French groups and elements which show sympathy towards
us. In the same vein, our Central Committee has decided to unite its forces
with those of the local forces of the French Socialist Party the French
Radical Socialist Party and the French league of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen. Khanh Ibid,
p. 223.
Various fronts were formed over this period, including
the Indochinese Democratic Font (1936-1939) (Mat tran Dan chu Dong-duong).
Following this the Indochinese Anti-Imperialist National United Front
was formed at the party Congress of 1936. Both Pham Van Dong and
Vo Nguyen Giap played an especially prominent role in its leadership.
But until 1944, in the main, the calls for a united front by the ICP was
ignored, by the bourgeois elements and the petit bourgeois parties, especially
in Nam Ky and Trung Ky where there was no reply. In Bac Ky there were mass
demonstrations in Hanoi.
It is likely that the abandonment of the old two-edged
line (ie First the national democratic revolution, sliding immediately
into the socialist revolution), left many of the party militants confused
and uncertain (Khanh Ibid, p. 223). The cadre that were used to the pseudo-left
policies of the Comintern of the previous period, did not easily accept
the new line. This was understandable, given those elements in the ICP
who now adopted ultra- rightist positions, such as:
Running after a number of
bourgeois and landowning individuals.
Khanh Ibid, p. 224.
In this period, the United Front between various Trotskyite
elements and the ICP broke. Despite the fact that the united front had
led to successful election strategies, the ICP Central Committee insisted
that the United front be broken up, calling the Trostkyites agent
provocateurs. Also at this stage,
Moutet banned the Indochinese Congress and arrested the principal leaders
of the La Lutte. Until 28th September 1939, when it itself was
banned, the ICP was left in the field. It was at this stage that at the
Third Plenum in August 1937, the ICP reaffirmed the policy of the Indochinese
Democratic Front - to take the legal and open route as far as possible.
The French occupation by Germany, left France so weak,
that it could not maintain its imperialist position in Indochina. The Germans
invaded France in June 1940, assisted by the Vichy regime of Marshall
Petain. The French colonists were already divided into a pro- and anti-French
wings. The latter faction advocated collaboration with Japanese imperialism.
Even before the fall of France, the Japanese influenced policies in Vietnam.
The Tonkin Railway (from Haiphong to Yunnan), which
blocked supplies to the Kuomintang, was now obstructed by Japanese troops
who entered Canton,. These supplies had already been slowed by Japanese
pressure on French diplomats. By February 1939 the French entered Hai Nan,
and some islands belonging to Indochina.
Only three weeks after the outbreak of war, on 26th
September 1939, the ICP was banned by Georges Catroux the Governor-General.
The ICP had for about a year been preparing an underground resistance.
Between 6-8 November 1939, the Sixth Plenum of the party was held
in Ba Diem in secret, as discussed above, led by the Secretary General
Nguyen Van Cu
(Khanh Ibid, p. 252).
Nonetheless, despite the banning, in November 1940
an insurrection was launched in Nam Ky, banking on French weakness. This
proved abortive, having been launched prematurely against a counter-manding
order from the Central Committee which arrived too late. An ensuing French
repression took many Communists into prisons. Already by the end of 1939,
the main leadership was in prisons, but the repression that followed the
abortive rising was even worse (Khanh, Ibid, p. 250; 253).
Meanwhile the Japanese took advantage of the French
collapse to demand the closing of the Tonking-Canton border. Catroux accepted
their ultimatum within 24 hours, but he was then replaced by the Petain
government, by Admiral Jean Ducoux. The Japanese were now in effective
charge, as recognised by the Franco-Japanese Treaty of 30 August 1940.
This recognised the:
prominent position of Japan
in the Far East'; in return for
a nominal Japanese recognition of French sovereignty over Indochina; and
granting her certain military
facilities in Tonkin for the liquidation of the China incident.
Hodgkin, Ibid, p. 291.
By September 1940 the Japanese occupation was complete.
By May 1941, the Japanese had transferred territory of Laos, West of the
Mekong, and the entire Cambodian province of Battambang to Thailand (which
had become a comprador state to the Japanese). This was a transfer of 70,000
square kilometers (Khanh Ibid, p. 239). Finally by the Darlan-Kato Accord
of 29 July 1941, an agreement was signed that incorporated Indochina into
a common'
defense pact.
This new reality, further fostered the Vietnamese
National revolution. In the same period, both the French and the Japanese
fostered their own comprador agents. The Japanese assisted the growth of
two religious sects the Cao Dai (High
Tower', incorporating Confucian,
Taoist, and Buddhist asa well as Christian beliefs), and the Hoa Hao.
Both of these had developed a large peasant based following, and aroused
some fear on the French authorities parts.
The Cao Dai was formed in 1925, and by 1932 had a
large following. When in 1941, the French closed some temples, the Japanese
took the Cao Dai under their protection. Similarly, the Hoa Hao, founded
in 1939, was banned by the Surete, and the Japanese again took it under
their patronage.
In their own favour, the French tried to win over
the diverse ethnic groups of the area. They put forward the mythic notion
of the Indochinese nation
composed of Annam, Laos and Cambodia. They also minimized the wage
differences between the French and Indochinese. They even in 1942, promulgated
progressive measures for work conditions in Indochina for the native working
class, and tried to start a Youth
movement'
But although the Japanese fostered these anti-French
elements, while the French attempted to curry favour also, the true Vietnamese
patriots were organizing successfully. The ICP quickly won over the French
led youth movement'.
By June 1944 their new organisation - the Dang Dan chu Viet Nam (Vietnamese
Democratic Party) had won over large sections of the urban petit bourgeoisie.
When the Comintern changed to a rightist line on the
Popular Front, it was inevitable that the line of Mao Ze Dong would be
favored. Accordingly, the ICP was placed under the guidance of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), in August 1940 (Post K : Volume 1 "An Interrupted
Revolution"; Ibid; p. 122). Key personnel including Vo Nguyen Giap and
Pham Van Dong, were sent to Yenan for political and military training (Khanh
Ibid; p. 282).
By 1941, the ICP had made some further key decisions,
ratified at the 8th plenum held in 10-19 May 1941, at the cave
of Pac Bo in Cao Bang province. Nguyen Ai Quoc had now returned to Vietnam,
having been absent from it for 10 years. The Plenum re-emphasized the national
question. It resolved:
To employ an especially
stirring (thong thiet) method of appeal to awaken the traditional nationalism
in the people (particularly the Vietnamese people).
Khanh Ibid; p. 260.
It declared that the Indochinese revolution was no longer
a bourgeois democratic revolution
but a national liberation revolution.
This meant that the hitherto twin goals - both the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist
tasks - could be de-linked, and separated:
The Indochinese revolution
is at present no longer a bourgeois democratic revolution that solves the
anti-imperialist and agrarian problems., Rather it is a reovlution to solve
only one urgent problem, that of national liberation. The Indochinese revolution
during this period is therefore a revolution of national liberation.
Khanh Ibid; p. 260.
The ICP justified this move, as follows:
To put aside the bourgeois-democratic
revolution and put forward the national liberation revolution does not
mean that the Indochinese proletariat neglects the agrarian tasks and it
also does not mean that it takes a step backward. It means only to take
a shorter step in order to try to take a longer one., Everyone knows that,
at the present stage, unless the French and the Japanese are overthrown
not only will the nation remain in slavery forever, but the agrarian question
will never be solved. Therefore, during this period, in order to solve
the task of national liberation, it is not possible to put forward a second
task that is not necessary for the entire people, yet is harmful to the
first task.... At this time if we put forward the slogan of overthrowing
the landlords, distributing lands to the peasants, not only will we lose
an allied force who would support us in the revolution to overthrow the
French and the Japanese, but we would also push that force to the side
of our enemy as the rear guard of our enemy.
Khanh Ibid; p. 260-261.
This is contrary to the Marxist-Leninist position. Marxists-Leninists
struggle for national liberation as the first step, whilst recognizing
that before the successful conclusion of the first step, inevitably the
wavering bourgeois and feudal elements (even if they favor national liberation)
will flinch and attempt to sabotage the revolution. In that circumstances
the only solution is to rely on eh peasantry and the proletariat to take
the revolution successfully towards the first step. And then to extend
the sweep of the revolution into the socialist stage without a break int
between. As shall be seen, the ICP certainly did not do that.
The 8th Plenum also took a decision to
create the Viet Nam Independence League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong
Minh) commonly known as the Viet Minh. Fittingly, the ICP although
it still accepted the name Indochinese,
argued that he revolutions of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam should be dealt
separately. In theory, there were to be set up parallel liberation leagues
in each of the three that would together form , a Federal League of Independence
of Indochina. This all formed part of a policy for the ICP to find
the way back to the nation(tim
ve dan toc).
At the 8th Plenum, the previous 6th
Plenum November 1939 decisions to move towards a National United Front,
were therefore given a substance by the 8th Plenum. The Viet
Minh Front was intended to cross many classes, including the feudalist
elementsso long as they were
patriotic:
Principles of the Bylaws
of the Viet Minh : United all the socialist classes revolutionary parties,
patriotic groups of the people in order to expel the Japanese and French,
render Vietnam entirely independent and create a Democratic Republic of
Vietnam. Khanh Ibid; p. 264.
It is true that the wording of the Viet Minh strategy
at times, in some places makes it sound Marxist-Leninist. Thus General
Vo Nguyen Giap, in his work, La
Guerre du Peuplesays:
Our National United Front..
must be established on the foundation of the alliance of the workers and
peasants, and placed under the leadership of the working class.
Khanh Ibid; p. 265.
But there was no attempt to move the struggle forward
and to the left, if the masses surged. The 8th Plenum did make
resolve to prepare for an armed
insurrection (Khanh Ibid; p.
269) at that time and placed it as the central task. After the spring of
1943, guerrilla preparations were made for such an insurrection. By 1943
as the objective world situation changed, in the wake of the USSR defence
at Stalingrad, the ICP CC accelerated its'
preparations for an insurrection.
The Viet Minh gained strength in the urban petit
bourgeoisie and the urban bourgeoisie (Khanh Ibid; p.273). In June 1944
the Viet Minh sponsored the Vietnamese Democratic Party, which was
meant to be a mass base for the intelligentsia. Other mass groups were
sponsored also. By late 1943, the ICP had set up some base areas in the
bordering areas of China, in Cao bang (Khanh Ibid, p.275-277). The Viet
Minh also tried to exploit the differences between the Gaullist French
and the Vichy French inside Vietnam (Khanh Ibid, p. 284-5). In the midst
of this general forward movement, yet another premature insurrection was
halted by Nguyen Ai Quoc, as he returned from 13 months imprisonment in
China (Khanh Ibid, p. 288).
Nguyen Ai Quoc Is Re-Arrested
Following the 8th Plenum, Ai Quoc journeyed
to establish some Northen bases, towards Chian. He was arrested by the
war lords of the Kuomintang, and held by in Chingshi from August 1942 to
September 1943. Over this time he appears to have made some compact with
the Kuomintang allowing their Vietnamese proteges some role in the future
development towards Vietnamese freedom from France and Japan and enthrallment
to China. Ai Quoc agreed to:
Help organise the Revolutionary
League .. To group the followers of Prince Cuong De and the VNQDD and give
political leverage to the Kuomintang.
Post K; vol 1; Ibid; p. 123.
During this time he established links with various agents
of the USA, in the form of the Office of Strategic Security (OSS) - the
wartime ancestor of the CIA.
On 9 March 1945, the Japanese demanded that French Indochinese
be made into a Japanese possession. They attacked all French strongholds
without waiting for a reply. All French were made prisoners. On 11 March
emperor Bao Dai, declared the:
Independence of Vietnam,
the re-unification of Tonkin with Annam, the abrogation of the Treaty of
Protectorate with France, and Vietnam's
willingness to collaborate with Japan.
Khanh Ibid, p. 293.
There now ensued a period known as doc-lap
banh veor pseudo-independence.
The emperor was kept on the throne. A comprador
government headed by a reluctant Tran Trong Kim, a Confucian scholar, was
formed. But Japan did not formally recognize this government. But Japan
did cede in July 1945, on month prior their own surrender in the Second
World War, Haiphong, Hanoi and Danang, and the province of Nam Ky to Vietnam.
The emperor then rescinded the treaties of 1862 and 1874 with France.
In the aftermath of the Japanese dismissal of the
French, the Vietnamese people did not respond well to the overture of the
Japanese. A comprador group was formed called Alliance For A Great Viet
State (Dai Viet Quoc Gia Lien Minh), but this did not win significant support.
Many other groups did spring up, some of which may have been to a small
extent pro-Japanese (Khanh Ibid; p. 298).
But a major famine took hold in Vietnam that overshadowed
this. The Decoux Government during the war, agreed to supply Japan with
the entire exportable surplus of rice and corn during 1942-43. The colonial
regime then extracted this from the peasantry. By 1943 year end the peasants
were starving. Bac Ky was especially hit. By March 1945 about 2 million
Vietnamese ahd died of starvation. The only forces to attempt to fight
the famine were the Communists - with their Vanguard Youth organisation
Thanh Nien Tien Phong. They collected money and rice (One million piastres
and 1,595 tons) to send to the North in July 1945.
It was the combination of the Japanese take-over,
the national vacuum of leadership, and the Japanese surrender, coupled
to the famine that led to the General
Insurrection of August(tong
Khoi Nghia thang Tam).
On 9 march 1945, the ICP CC held a special enlarged
conference. The party published
The Historic Directive,
entitled Our Action in Relation
to the Franco-Japanese Conflict.
This laid out the bones of the August Insurrection. It predicted that the
French would lose to the Japanese. This loss would result in a coup d'etat
in favour of the Japanese imperialists. In this circumstance it was advised
that the French were no longer:
Our concrete and immediate
enemy. The French resistance
in Vietnam was termed then the progressive'
and objective ally'
of the Vietnamese revolution. The Japanese were the main enemy and thus
whosoever fought them was an objective ally."
Khanah Ibid; p. 304.
As the Bao Dai-Tran Trong Kim government flailed, the
ICP continued to organise. The 5 months of the Japanese pseudo-independence
allowed both a military force of the ICP to emerge clearly - the Vietnamese
Liberation Army (Viet Nam Giai Phong Quan); and the Viet Minh political
mobilization to spread. In the rural areas, the old colonial based village
notables turned over the seals of office to the Viet Minh. By June 1945,
the Viet Minh had a Liberated
Zoneof 6 provinces consisting
of one million people. It was headed by a Provisional Leadership Committee
headed by Nguyen Ai Quoc.
The Viet Minh organised against the famine, in this
process winning many supporters in the peasantry. They resorted to the
confiscation of Japanese granaries by armed force. These actions undoubtedly
assisted the growth of the ICP :
It is not an exaggeration
to say that the campaign against the famine was largely responsible for
the Viet Minh rise to power in Bac Ky and Norther Trung Ky."
Khanh Ibid, p. 314.
Throughout this time, the Viet Minh Front tried to gain
the support of the American OSS, the French Gaullists and the Chinese Kuomintang.
The USA tried to first foster a joint Chinese-Indochinese state - but had
been rejected by Chiang Kai-Shek (Khanh Ibid, p.316). The guerillas of
the Viet Minh and the OSS had met in the jungles fighting the Japanese
and it is recorded that Nguyen Ai Quoc was very fond of the Americans.
As Khanh comments :
Although the Viet Minh tended
to exaggerate the Front's connection
with the Allies,
in order to gain prestige and influence among the Vietnamese public, only
the uninformed or malicious could say that such claims had no basis.
Khanh Ibid, p. 318.
But ultimately the USA did not carry through its support
to Vietnamese independence as we shall see. By July 1945 the Viet Minh
were in large degree in control throughout Bac Ky and were widely seen
elsewhere. The upper echelons were also pro Viet Minh by now:
Several bourgeois families
bought Viet Minh bonds by the tens of thousands of piastres. Children of
the upper class families who wished to participate in revolutionary activities
were no longer discouraged by their parents.. In the government offices
newspapers of the Viet Minh would circulate.
Khanh Ibid, p. 321.
The Japanese surrendered on 10th August 1945
after two massive atomic bomb explosions at Hiorshima and Nagasaki (See
Alliance 30 part (iii) 'On Atomic Diplomacy': at http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/All30iii.htm
). On 13 August the Viet Minh Provisional Leadership Committee of
the Liberated Zone issued Military Order No 1. This declared the uprise
ing. On 16 August Vo Nguyen Giap led the Liberation Army toward Hanoi.
As Khanh put it:
Power simply fell into Viet
Minh hands. With few exceptions there were no haggles, no fights and little
shooting.
Khanh Ibid, p. 324.
9. THE REVISIONISTS ENCOURAGE THE BOURGEOISIE
- THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ICP
On 30 August the Emperor Bao Dai abdicated in favour
of the provisional government. The Declaration of Independence of Vietnam,
was read on 2 September in Hanoi's
Ba Dinh Square by Ho Chi Minh, declaring an end to French rule. It used
terms that were consciously drawn from the USA Declaration Of Independence.
Only six years later was it openly acknowledged
that Ho Chi Minh, was in fact the same person as Nguyen Ai Quoc. This latter
name, was the one by which the masses knew him. The subterfuge of the name,
was to facilitate the sabotage of the revolution that was about to take
place upon 11 November. The name Nguyen Ai Quoc was a historic name
that reeked too strongly of revolution. This name was thus discarded.
Along with the name was discarded the very robes of socialist revolution
- the party was discarded.
The 2nd September declaration had stated
that the revolutionary objective
was bai phong phna de'
ie anti-feudalism and anti-imperialism. But on 11 November 1945
the Central Executive Committee of the ICP declared that it was:
Ready to put the interests of the nation above class interests.
It proceeded to show this was indeed true, by
dissolving itself. The ICP now stated the requirements that
were now relevant for revolution in Indochina:
2. Whereas the essential
condition for the completion of the great task of national liberation is
the solidarity and unity of our great people regardless of class or party;
3. To demonstrate that the members of the Communist Party are the vanguard
fighters of the nation, ready to put the interests of the nation above
class interests and to sacrifice partisan interests for the sake of the
common interests of the Nation;
4. To destroy all misunderstanding outside and inside the country which
may obstruct the prospect of liberating our country; "
Khanh Ibid, p. 328-9.
The Central Executive Committee of the Indochinese
Communist Party met on
11 November 1945, (it) resolved that the Indochinese Communist Party
dissolve itself (Khanh Ibid, p. 328-9). The faithful (tin doc) of communism
who wish to go on with their ideological study shall adhere to the Indochinese
Association for the Study of Marxism.
Khanh rightly points out
that this was An exceptional
act.
In this unusual atmosphere, elections were held that
would form a Provisional National Coalition Government. This contained
both ex-communists and the open representatives of the bourgeoisie. There
were at least 30 other parties in existence. Accordingly the programme
that was implemented was very far short of any socialist steps. The Bank
Of Indochina was not nationalised, and its funds not seized. Various decrees,
incorporating limited reforms were carried out including a programme for
arms production, to abolish the opium, salt and Alcohol taxes, to foster
literacy. In addition the government fought famine by a concerted food
campaign and relief, assisted by a bumper May 1946 harvest.
Apologists for the ICP, such as Post, state that
the ICP was forced to dissolve itself in order to prevent the invading
Kuomintang forces:
The situation tended to
be determined by a foreign presence the large number (180-2000,000) of
Kuomintang troops who from October 1945 stationed themselves.. Down to
the 16th Parallel... Traveling in their baggage train came politicians
of the old VNQDD and the Viet Nam Revolutionary League.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 135.
But as Post himself admits, the ICP had decided not
to fight them. Already the United National Front [composed of
Cao Dai, Hoa Hoa and Trotskyites - the latter of the International Communist
League (ICL)] was prevented from fighting the arrival of British and Indian
troops led by General Douglas Gracey. The United Front was in fact opposed
by the Viet Minh and Tran Van Giau and Ho Chi Minh. Several leading members
of the ICL were simply assassinated by the ICP (Post Volume 1: Ibid; p.
130). As Post puts it :
There can be little doubt
that Ho and some of his immediate associates believed that the US government
would resist a restoration of French colonial administration in Indochina
after the end of the war.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 131.
In reality by 6 March 1946 the Vietnamese was brought
into a new Indochinese Federation and this in turn was brought into a wider
French Union. An agreement between France and China meant that in return
for French cessation of pre-war claims on territory, the Chinese moved
their troops (Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 137). Even as the agreement was signed,
the French were landing troops off Haiphong. During this time, the VNQDD
and the Revolutionary League were crushed by military force by the Vietminh.
But at the same time, the Viet Minh joined in another United Front with
remnants of these organisations and Bhuddist and Catholic groups and other
Democrats.
During this period, Ho Chi Minh attempted to negotiate
in France at Fontainebleau, the terms of the new state and the French withdrawal.
But despite two months, no agreement was reached. Tension rose as war was
expected. By March 1947, the French had re-invaded the major part of the
country and the Viet Minh were forced into their guerilla retreat into
Viet Bac. By 23 November 1946, the French launched a massive air and naval
attack on Haiphong. The Viet Minh now re-launched their guerilla war.
10. FRENCH RULE ONCE AGAIN
The period from 1946 to 1951 saw the continued armed
struggle against French imperialism. The French again used various compradors,
including Cao Dai and Hoa Hoa warlords, and Chinese merchants (Post Volume
1: Ibid; p.149; 151). France forced the former emperor Bao Dai into the
role of Head of State of the supposed new autonomous state of Cochin China,
where a state for all of Vietnam was declared in May 1948. The Viet Minh
launched guerilla war with General Vo Nguyen Giap at its head. The Northern
province of Viet Bac Zone, formed the base of the Democratic Republic
Vietnam (DRVN).
Using claims such as being able to wage war, the
DRV made significant anti-Marxist-Leninist concessions. Thus it made peace
with the feudal landlords:
We must make common cause
with the feudal landlords to unify the national resistance front, therefore
the slogan of rural revolution cannot be used. We can only carry out land
reform on the principle that the landlords make concessions, agreeing to
this for the sake of their tenants.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 155.
At the same time assurances were made to the landowner
that wage policy would not leave land uncultivated due to the
high cost of labour" (Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 155). Moreover landlords
were given compensation for lands used in absentia by revolutionary committees
(Ibid). President Ho maintained publicly to the French press that the DRVN
was only operating under Sun Yat Sen's
Principles:
Implementing the People's
Three Principles' of Sun Yat
Sen which the French reactionary colonialists mistook for the class
principleof Karl Marx.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 160.
Over this time, in January 1950 the PRC and then the
Soviet Union recognized the DRVN. In retaliation the US government recognised
the supposedly independent'
states of Viet Nam- Cochin China, Laos, and Cambodia - all of which were
created as part of the French Union.
In February 1951, the ICP held its second Congress
and re-named itself the VIET NAM WORKERS PARTY (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam).
Again this significant change of name was a signal. As Ken Post notes:
It is significant that a
new name was to be adopted, which might continue to imply to non-members
some break with the orientations of the past.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 164.
Consistent with this reassurance'
towards the components of the bourgeoisie, the party blurred the differences
between nations and class struggle. As the General Secretary Truong
Chinh stated it, there was no difference between the two:
All strata of our people,
all revolutionary classes in our country are in the same position, they
have no other way to safeguard their interest... they have no other way
of resolving the class antagonisms in the country .. for us this war of
resistance is an advanced form of national struggle and class struggle.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p.165.
Accordingly the class basis was somewhat confused. In
some places the report of the CC stated:
The power of the Vietnamese
revolution is the people whose essential elements are the working class
and the peasantry. The driving forces of the Vietnamese revolution are
the working class, peasantry and petty bourgeoisie. The leading class of
the Vietnamese revolution is the working class.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p. 169.
Elsewhere however, the driving forces included the national
bourgeois, and patriotic personages and landlords. The most immediate influences
were those of the Maoist formulation of the New
Democratic State Post Volume
1: Ibid; p. 169). The CC of the ICP distinguished between the states of
Eastern Europe where:
All the necessary conditions
for the dictatorship of the proletariat exist
and those like China and Vietnam, where only
a people's democratic dictatorship
could exist.Post Volume 1:
Ibid; p.170.
This was viewed as a transitional
step towards socialism, which
was thought to be more speedily achievable in China than in Vietnam:
Our country's
road to socialism is long and winding. To want to transform our society
totally and to destroy the system of exploitation of some people by others
immediately in one moment is an illusion.
Post Volume 1: Ibid; p.170.
The formulations of the Workers'
Party followed those of Mao, as the manifesto wording of March 1951 on
the state character shows:
During 1953, the Vietnamese struggle for independence
took a new turn. Major battlefield victories were lost on the diplomatic
front, and led ultimately to the formal partition of Vietnam for 13 years.
The struggle waged by the DRVN had been successful, marked by the battle
of Dien Bien Phu which was a notable turning point, in May 1953.
This battle resulted in the surrender of the French army of 16,000 to the
guerrillas led by Giap. The French were now forced back to Hanoi, deserting
much geographic area. There are clear indications that the USA imperialists
had been aware , as were the French themselves, that this humiliating defeat
was about to take place. As Karnow comments:
After Giap's
opening salvoes at Dienbienphu, the French claimed that only American military
aid for the battle would bolster their diplomacy at Geneva.. But the join
chiefs of staff agreed.. That the Indochina conflict was ...
a serious diversion of limited US capabilities....
By Late April it was clear that there would be no attempt to salvage the
French at Dienbienphu.
Karnow, Stanley, "Vietnam -A History"; Vermont; 1983; pp.197-198.
The USA imperialists decided that the time had come
for them to be the dominant foreign imperialism in Indochina. Already some
political diplomatic steps had been taken to partly bolster the French
imperialist position, as an interim step, before the USA could formally
adopt their full role in Indochina.
This interim position, was the peace negotiations
between the DRVN and France, brokered between the USSR and the CPC on the
one hand, and Britain and the USA on the other. On 10 May , for the DRVN,
the deputy Prime minster Pham Van Dong put proposals for a speedy foreign
troop withdrawal, progress towards democratic elections, a cease-fire supervised
by various countries.
Molotov, represented the now revisionist USSR,
and Chou En Lai represented the revisionist PRC. Both of these two
disappointed the DRVN, by accepting USA and French demands for : Separate
agreements on Laos and Cambodia; and the principles of DRVN troop withdrawal
from these countries; and the demand for territorial rights within Vietnam
- with a division between the DRVN and the Southern so called Cochin-China
part to be on the 13th Parallel. Upon French insistence, and
with support from Molotov, a demarcation zone was finally made at the 16th
parallel, and the timing for the withdrawal of troops was extended to 2
years. Elections - to re-unify'
the country - were to be held in July 1956. In the meantime the French
based regime was to be headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. (Khanh Ibid; p.215-220).
But this agreement was not signed in full. Only the
clauses relating to a cease-fire in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were signed.
For the remainder it was simply stated that the DRVN agreed to the conditions.
The DRVN correctly recognized that the struggle was now focused upon
USA imperialism. Ho Chi Minh recognised that the French were now being
assisted by the USA. Ho Chi Minh accordingly, significantly altered the
aims of the struggle. Even before the Geneva Conference had ended, at the
Sixth Plenum of the CC of the Worker's
party, Ho Chi Minh presented the New
Situation and the New Tasks.
This stated that:
We must take a firmer hold
of the banner of peace to oppose the US imperialists policy of indirect
interference in and prolongation and expansion of, the war in Indochina.
Our policy must change in consequence: formerly we confiscated the French
imperialist properties, now as negotiations are going on we may.. allow
the French economic and cultural interest to be preserved in Indochina...
Formerly we said we would drive out and wipe out all French forces; now..
we have demanded the French have accepted a date be set for the withdrawal
of troops.. In the past our aim was to wipe out the puppet administration
and army with a view to national reunification; now we practice a policy
of lenience and seek reunification through nation-wide elections.
Post Ibid; p.217.
The Viet Minh continue to work within the perspective
of a broad united front in the North of the country, to unite both lower
and upper echelons of society:
As Chinh said of the programme
of the new Front .. The ten
main points.. are in accordance with the aspirations of the entire people,
and they take into account the interests of all strata, of all parties
and groups. Not only do they take into account the interests of the labouring
masses but also that of the upper sections of Vietnamese society.
Post Ibid; p.253.
But severe dissension within the Workers Party as to
the correctness of diluting the class struggle at this point was seen by
the response to the land reforms that were initiated in the North. The
Tenth Plenum September 1956 made clear that a 'leftist trend' had taken
the class conflict into the villages and, that the leadership repudiated
this as being 'excessive' (Post Ibid; p.278).
12. THE PARTITION OF VIETNAM
The French puppet Regime of Bao Dai called a
well known conservative Ngo Dinh Diem to its leadership as President of
the Council of Ministers. The USA had correctly, and favorably assessed
Diem's potential for becoming
a comprador for the USA . Diem was heavily supported by the USA, who resisted
the pressure from French Prime Minister Mendes France to remove
Diem. It was the USA diplomat, Foster Dulles, who marked the seal
of approval of the pro-USA comprador career of Diem (Post Ibid; Vol 1;
pp 224-226). As President of the Republic of Viet Nam, Diem led the puppet
regime. A so called Campaign Of Denunciation of Communist Subversive Activities
was started. Under USA pressure limited peasant reforms were started also
(Post Ibid; Vol 1; pp 243). But these did not extend very far as Diem protected
the landlords, and even resisted the degree of reforms suggested by the
USA advisers, limiting reforms to holdings of up to 100 hectares instead
of 50 as suggested (Post K: Volume 2; "Vietnam Divided"; Aldershot;
1989; p. 108).
During this period substantial USA aid converted
the former French colony into a USA neo colony (Post K: Volume 1; p.244-45).
Increasingly the fiction that there were to be democratic free elections
in both parts of Vietnam, was seen to be so. The Diem regime had no intention
of such an election. As this became clearer, finally in 1959, the DRVN
launched yet another armed struggle. Over this period the vicious nature
of the comprador regime led by Diem gave raise to major opposition to Diem,
from within the South part of Vietnam. This resistance included the peasantry,
a large section of the organised Buddhists, and also sections of capital
that were not favored by the Diem family and/or USA capital that had entered.
Even the USA realised the degree to which the Diem
regime and his corrupt family had raised the hopes of many of the people
to unite with the North Vietnamese state. They tried to restrain him. His
assassination was indirectly assisted by the USA who failed to guarantee
his security against a coup led by Generals of the otherwise, incompetent
South Vietnamese army, in November 1963. Diem was replaced by one of the
Generals named Minh, who lasted as head of state until January 1964, and
was followed by General Khanh. These two were far more to the taste of
the USA Ambassador Lodge. The death of Diem was closely followed by the
assassination of President Kennedy, and the take over of the USA Presidency
by Lyndon Johnson.
13. TOWARDS ONE STATE -THE CLASS POSITIONS
IN THE SOUTH
The Diem state had established a pro-USA comprador
state in the South of the country, which limited the previously pro-French
capitalists. However, French capital was by no means immediately rendered
insignificant:
Just over 84% of the new
foreign capital invested in manufacturing in the period 1958-60 was French.
Attempts... to interest American business concerns in investment in the
South met with little response, although banks like Chase Manhattan etc..
Made significant appearances in Saigon.
Post K: Volume 2: "Viet Nam Divided"; Aldershot, 1989; p.87.
However the general tenor of the state was pro-USA comprador
capital:
Trade deficits and US Aid
1956-70 .. Annual deficits were more than covered by economic assistance..
The most immediate effect after 1954 was upon French exporters, by 1960
the proportion of South Vietnamese imports supplied by them had dropped
from 76% to 22.4%. Imports from the USA, conversely, had risen from 7.8%
to 19.3% and from Japan from 3% to 17%.
Post K: Volume 2: "Viet Nam Divided"; Aldershot, 1989; p.88-9.
The Diem regime moved to the establishment of a repressive
Fascist regime. In its dealing it established an oligarch rule that favored
those elements of the capitalists class linked to itself directly, or to
USA imperialism. In fact the Diem regime tried to establish a State led
capitalist that took the form of being anti-small local capital:
Although forced to opt for
reliance on capitalist initiatives in late 1957, the Diem power bloc's
relations with both local and foreign business were sufficiently uneasy
and its desire to assert its authority sufficiently great to ensure that
it would attempt a more active role...
Post K: Volume 2: "Viet Nam Divided"; Aldershot, 1989; p.96-97.
Diem ... displayed ambivalence
concerning both the role of foreign aid and investment and that of local
capitalists.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p. 97.
The response of the government
of Diem and Tho in the late 1950's was in fact to being to extend the role
of the state in capitals accumulation & investment. Already in laying
down policy on foreign investment in 1957 the rights of state participation
in enterprises up to 51 percent was reserved....
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p. 98.
As part of this process, the bureaucracy and army was
built up and the state became a corporatist vehicle for the Diem oligarchy.
But, those many elements that were not so favored by the Diem regime, found
an objective reason to look Northwards. These elements favoured the Workers
Party attempt a re-unification of the Vietnam state. Among these elements
and classes, the common stand was the alienation from the Diem fascist
state.
This had two primary components that were not favoured
by the Diem oligarchy:
i) A Native Vietnamese capitalist component:
In 1959, a consulting agency headed by Paris based Father
Louis Joseph Lebret had concluded that the capitalist base in South Vietnam
was indeed weak. But it did exist (Post Volume 2: Ibid; p.85).
However it was mainly based in the small petty bourgeois
sector of manufacturing:
Vietnamese private capital
also played a part.. And just over 48% of the total new investment in manufacturing
in the period 1958-60 was by local businessmen... these elements formed
the petty bourgeois sector of manufacturing, numbering perhaps 300,000
persons and thus still very significant.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p.87.
As described above, unless this section had developed
any links with Diem clique, they could not go forward. They had an objective
reason to look to the DRV for leadership.
ii) The Resident Chinese - or Hoa capitalists
The Hoa for generations dominated the rice milling industry
in Cochin China, but their influence was broader than rice and was growing:
The first modern rice mill
was opened by one of them in Cholon in 1878; by 1952 there were 31 owned
by Hoa, seven by Kinh (Vietnamese-ed) and 3 by French. In the southern
provinces, the balance was different, 145 Khinh and 44 Chinese, but the
bulk of the milling and control of rice exports was in the hands of the
big Hoa merchants. Around the rice trade there developed the whole trade
in imported goods, much more widely consumed in the colony than in Annam
or Tonkin.. By 1956 they probably controlled 80% of all retail trade and
40% of manufacturing enterprises, and more than 50% of capital invested
in business of all kinds was theirs. Moreover their share was if anything
growing, between 1953 and 1955 the number of Hoa shops increased by 4%
and of artisan workshops 13%.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p.101.
The Hoa were therefore objectively anti-Diem. But, their
loyalties were divided however, as they were also looking towards China,
rather than towards North Vietnam. They were only therefore, a limited
potential ally, towards the Workers Party.
2. The Poor and Middle Peasantry.
As discussed previously, several circumstances ensured
that the peasantry, at least the poor and middle peasants - were in favour
of the DRV. In response, the USA advisers had recommended land reforms,
but the Diem clique watered these down to insignificance. Especially in
comparison to those that had occurred in the North, in the DRV, under the
leadership of the Workers party.
For instance, the Diem reforms'
excluded the lands of the Catholics; the limiting hectare ceiling was increased
from 50 to 100 hectares; the landlord could select what land to retain;
and in any case many landlords flouted the regulations. In total, by fixing
the limit at 100 hectares only affected the amount of redistributable land
to only 20% of the ricelands, and to only 2,468 landlords. The remunerated
landlords chose to be paid in French francs, and some transferred into
small capitalists (Post Volume 2: Ibid; p.108).
All this meant that the peasant of poor to middle
status undoubtedly got poorer and was aware of the land reform events in
the North. Thus the peasantry as a whole, excepting the larger elements
favored the re-unification under the leadership of the Northen based Workers
Party. Since an:
estimated 85.5 % of the
labour force in the South were peasants, so the experiences of that class
under the Diem regime were almost certainly decisive for any force which
might seek to bring it down.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p.126.
The peasantry were an important base for the North Vietnamese
Workers Party, when they wished to move the national democratic revolution
to the South.
This was a small section of the population:
The working class in the
South was very small.. Around 225,000 that is less than 6% of the total
labour force.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p. 131.
Nonetheless, the working class was not quiescent, even
the workers in the rubber plantations were organised in favour of strike
in 1958. Indeed:
The rubber plantation workers,
despite frequent attentions from the state security forces, remained one
of the thorns in the government's
labour side.
Post Volume 2: Ibid; p. 132.
Thus the small Southern working class was an objective
ally of the Workers Party of the DRV.
Of the classes listed, the latter two (ie the poor and middle peasants,
and the working class) were the strongest and most consistent allies to
the DRV and the Workers Party in the North of the divided country.
14. THE CLASS BASIS OF THE NORTH VIETNAMESE
STATE - THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM (DRV) - REVISING
THE DEFINITION OF THE WORKING CLASS
The leading elements of the Workers Party now introduced
a major revision of Marxist Leninist theory. Truong Chinh,
General Secretary (from 1951), Chairman of the National Assembly's
Standing Committee, and Deputy Prime Minster, and a leading Party theoretician
revised even the notion of the working class:
Because the party is a party
of the working class, once a person, regardless of their social background
joins the Party, they already become a member of the working class.
Truong Chinh: "Thoroughly Grasp the Party Line in the Rural areas in
order to have a good rectification of errors"; ND, 15.1.1957; p.4; Cited
by Post Volume 2; Ibid; p. 66.
This revision was crucial to introduce, for the revisionist
leaders of the Workers Party. This was because they had absolutely no intention
of alienating those capitalists who had remained in the North. The National
Assembly was elected in late 1946. The Assembly represented a class alliance
of an extremely broad front, one in which it was stated that all the members,
regardless of their past, who those who approved
peace, unity, independence and democracy.
The extreme anxiety to swing the doors of the united front wide, is signified
in comments such as those of Ho Chi Minh, the President of the DRV,
who expressed it as below:
We are ready to unite with
whoever from North to South approves peace unity, independence and democracy,
regardless of with whom they collaborated in the past.
See Post Volume 2; Ibid; p.15.
The Prime Minster from 1955, Pham Van Dong, stated
to the Sixth Session of the First National Assembly in 1956:
Our system is in essence
a system which serves the people, the working people and other strata of
the people.. it is concerned about all patriotic people who try hard to
contribute to the revolution.
Post Volume 2; Ibid; p.16.
But it is easily demonstrable that by the people
and other stratawhich it meant
to serve, the ruling elements of the DRV in reality meant the capitalist
classes. The adopted industrial policy shows this well. The DRV established
the National Planning Council in October 1955. The policy was to
insert socialist elements.
These were:
some state owned or cooperative
production ('to be put' - ed) into all sectors of the economy."
Post Volume 2; Ibid; p.19.
The Enterprise statute in 1955 ensured there was class
peace' in the factories:
An agreement between owners
and workers in an enterprise.. Constituted an undertaking to observe governmental
policy towards private enterprises, to develop production, to improve techniques
and to conserve both capital and labour power.
Post Volume 2; Ibid; p.19-20.
So despite the facade offered by the name of the Workers
Party, the state was being run
by the Northern based capitalist class. Even in spite of the Enterprise
Statutesetc, by the end of
1957, still the most prevalent industrial force was individual or capitalist
industry. This can be seen in the table below (From Post Volume 2; Ibid;
p.21).
_________________________________________________________________________
State Cooperative
Capitalist Individual
Agriculture
0.14 9.86
10.0
80.0
Manufacturing
28.4 7.2
14.2
50.2
External Trade
95 -
-
5.0
Internal Trade
Wholesale
52.6 -
39
8.4
Retail
25.8 14.3
30.2 29.3
Transport
Goods
50.2
49.8
Passengers
52.2
47.8
_________________________________________________________________________
The summation of this period was supposedly as being
to widen'
the range of socialist economy:
The development of state
owned and co-operative economy coupled with the preliminary transformation
of private capitalist economy have brought good results. They help the
restoration of production, stabilisation of the market, finance and currency,
help to widen the range of operation of various laws of socialist economy,
limit the various laws of capitalist economy.
"Economic restoration & Cultural Development"; 1958; p. 31; Cited
Post Volume 2; Ibid; p. 19.
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Pham Van
Dong when he said in 1956:
No longer being dominated
or limited by the colonialists, encouraged and assisted by popular power
for the first time in the history of our country the private economy will
benefit from conditions and perspectives to its development which must
permit it to contribute to the production of a great number of goods indispensable
to daily, to production and to export, and to contribute the growing prosperity
of the national economy.
Cited Post Volume 2; Ibid; p.42.
The Land Reforms
Several waves of land reform occurred during and after
the Geneva negotiations. The Third Session of the National Assembly of
the DRV promulgated the Agrarian Reform Law of 1954. The purpose
of the laws as stated, were to mobilize the peasantry:
Only by implementing land
reform giving land to the tillers, and liberating the productive forces
in the countryside from the feudal yoke can we do away with poverty and
backwardness, strongly mobilize the huge forces of the peasantry to develop
production and speed up the Resistance War to complete victory.
Ho Chi Minh: "Report to the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic
Of Vietnam"; Third Session Dec 1-4 1953; In "Ho Chi Minh On Revolution-Selected
Writings" Editor B. B. Fall; Boulder USA; 1984; p. 265.
In the process undoubtedly some left wing elements came
up against the reluctance of the Party to infringe upon the rights
of the rich peasantry. This was seen in the subsequent labeling of sabotage
of the line of expropriation:
Land reform is a class struggle
against the feudalists, an earthshaking fierce and hard revolution. Moreover
the enemy has frenziedly carried out sabotage work. A number of our cadres
have not thoroughly grasped the land reform policy or correctly followed
the mass line. The leadership of the Party Central Committee and of the
government is sometimes lacking in concreteness and control and encouragement
are disregarded. All this has caused us to commit errors and meet with
shortcomings".
Ho Chi Minh In "Selected Writings"; Ed Fall, Ibid; p. 304
In a process designed to confuse white with black, insistent
exhortations to bond with the class enemy in alliance were made:
We have to correct such
shortcomings as : not relying fully on the landless and poor peasants,
not uniting closely with the middle peasants, and not establishing a sincere
alliance with the rich peasants.
Ho Chi Minh In "Selected Writings"; Ed Fall, Ibid; p. 305.
By the Ninth Plenum of the CC in April 1956 a full retreat
and rectification was being planned. Restoration of property and rights
of those who had been mistakenly
labeled as rich peasants
was to make amends:
The status of those who
have been wrongly classified as landlords or as rich peasants should be
reviewed. Party membership, rights and honour should be restituted to Party
members, cadres, and others who have been wrongly convicted. With regard
to landlords we should abide by the eight-point regulation when dealing
with them and party attention to those landlords who have taken part in
the Resistance and supported the Revolution or those whose children are
enrolled in the army or working as cadres. Wherever land area and production
output have been erroneously estimated a readjustment is required.
Ho Chi Minh In 'Selected Writings'; Ed Fall, Ibid; p. 305.
As for the North alone, since
the restoration of peace it had been liberated completely and has stepped
into the transitional period to socialism. In the South, we are carrying
on the task of a national people's
democratic revolution and are struggling for national unity.
Ho Chi Minh: 'Reconstruction & Errors"; In Ho Chi Minh "Selected
Writings"; ed B. B. Fall Ibid; p. 316.
At the 10th Plenum of the CC in September,
both Ho and Giap acknowledged further that the left wing of the party had
relied on the poor and destitute peasants and gone after the rich peasantry
as though they were landlords (Cited Post Volume 2; Ibid; p. 275). Grave disruption to the party
was acknowledged. As a consequence Truong Chinh was stripped of office
as Party General Secretary and replaced by Ho Chi Minh. A peasant rising
began which was put down. Immediately following this the Rectification
Of Errors Campaign began (Post Volume 2; Ibid; p. 282). Many prisoners
were released, estimated at about 12,000. With all the disruptions, rice
production fell which was serious for the precarious stocks of the North.
Clearly there were some separate factions within
the Workers Party. That led by Truong Chinh appears to have been a pro-Chinese
faction, favoring an especially close relationship with the CPC. That led
by Ho Chi Minh, Giap and counting also Pham Van Doc, was a pro-USSR faction.
It appears that Le Duan steered a more centrist path, not overtly allying
to either faction (Lacouture; Ibid; pp215-220). Of course both these factions
- and both these guiding countries
- were revisionist- and not Marxist-Leninists.
15. THE STAGE OF ARMED REVOLT AGAINST THE
SOUTHERN COMPRADOR STATE
It was only in 1959, that a final decision was made
to launch the armed revolt in the South against the Diem regime. This decision
was taken at the 15th plenum of the CC in January 1959.
Until 1959, Ho Chi Minh
had discouraged his Southern comrades from engaging in armed struggle against
the Diem regime, arguing that the situation was not ripe
for insurrection.
Karnow; Ibid; p. 237.
This reluctance of Ho Chi Minh, was remarkable given
the fact that Ho Chi Minh had clearly recognised that the Geneva Agreement
was being implemented one-sidely, in favour of the USA comprador state
established by Diem:
Today while peace has been
restored, we are continuing to fight for the correct implementation of
the Geneva Agreement,. According to figures already checked, we have been
recently able to affirm that the other side has violated the agreement
2,114 times, including 467 times in South Vietnam. Here are some shocking
figures: 806 dead, 3,501 wounded, and 12,741 persons arrested groundlessly
.
Ho Chi Minh: "Leninism & The liberation of Oppressed Peoples";
Originally printed Pravda April 18th 1955; In 'Ho Chi Minh On Revolution'
Ed B. B. Fall; Boulder; 1984; p.258. (Written in 1955).
The Southern authorities
savagely massacre our compatriots and all patriotic and peace forces in
the South. Within only one year they committed more than 3,000 crimes and
violations of the Geneva Agreement. At least 4,000 patriots were killed
or wounded and over 19,000 arrested. In addition to these terrorist acts,
the Diem administration also feverishly carried out the US political line
with a view to turning South Viet-Nam into a US colony and military base..
Permanently incorporated in the sphere of the South East Asian aggressive
organisation (SEATO).
Ho Chi Minh; "Tenth Anniversary of the National Day of the Democratic
Republic of
Vietnam, Sept 1955"; In Selected Writing Ed: Fall Ibid; p.295.
The remaining cadre in the South, who were being attacked
viciously by Diem, argued against Ho Chi Minh's
reluctance to call for armed revolt in the South. The case for armed revolt
was put especially by Le Duan, secretary General of the Lao Dong.
Le Duan was formerly of the South, and had secretly returned to the South.
By the 15th Plenum, it was no longer to possible to deny that
there had to be an armed revolt in the South, in order to achieve re-unification
of the country since the Geneva schedules for talks had long passed:
The objective support to Hanoi, in the Southern based
National Democratic Revolution, was given by those classes discussed above,
including the Hoa Chinese classes (See pp.75-77).
These would later wield significant power in the
unified state that was to be created - see below.
16. THE ARMED STRUGGLE AGAINST USA IMPERIALISM
Despite the fierce police regime established by Diem,
even the South Vietnamese army rebelled against him. A coup was attempted
in November 1960, but was put down. However clearly dissent was rife.
At the Third national Conference of the Workers'
Party in September of 1960, on behalf of the Central Committee , Le
Duan expressed the need for a United Block of workers peasants and soldiers,
in alliance with all patriotic classes:
To ensure the complete success
of the revolutionary struggle in South Viet Nam, our people there, under
the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist party of the working class, must
strive to establish a united bloc of the workers peasants and soldiers,
and to bring into being a broad National United Front directed against
the US and Diem and based upon the worker -peasant alliance. This front
must rally all the patriotic classes and sections of the people, the majority
and the minority nationalities, all patriotic parties and religious groupings,
together with all individuals inclined to oppose the US-Diem. The aims
of the struggle of the National United Font agaisnt eh the US and Diem
in the South, are peace, national independence democratic freedoms improvement
of the living conditions of the people and the peaceful reunification of
the Fatherland."
Cited : Post Volume 1; Ibid; p. 351.
By December 1960 the National Liberation Front
in South Vietnam had been established, and its leader named as Ngueyn Huu
Tho. As a Front:
Its'
aim was to bring together a disparate collection of elements opposed to
Diem: various peasant, youth, religious, cultural, and other association
founded by the Vietminh during the war against the French; and remnants
of the Cao Dai, Hoa Hoa and Binh Xuyen.
Karnow Ibid; p. 238-239.
The Front held its first conference on 19-20 December
and adopted its manifesto and programme. The NFL manifesto incorporated
the Workers party perspective, calling for the NFL to:
Undertake to unite people
from all walks of life, all social classes, nationalities, political parties,
organisations, religious communities, and patriotic personality in South
Vietnam without distinction of their political tendencies, in order to
struggle and overthrow the rule of the US imperialists and their henchmen
- the Ngo Dinh Diem clique - and realise independence democracy, rising
the standard of living, peace and neutrality in South Vietnam, and advance
towards peaceful reunification of the fatherland.
Cited Post Volume 1; Ibid; p. 353.
A Ten point programme outlined this in detail. Appealing
to each component class of the NFL was a specific set of promises. In regards
to the peasants a reduction of land rents was promised and a guarantee
to all land already distributed. Further land reforms were promised also.
Workers were not promised more than protection from wage cuts, and ill
treatment and dismissals. Capitalists were promise abolition of the economic
monopoly of the USA and the restriction of competitive imports, and ending
of production taxes. Soldiers were promised an end to conscription and
family aid to those resisting USA imperialism.
By 1961, President Eisenhower had resigned
to President Kennedy of the USA. Kennedy refused to withdraw from
Vietnam. Diem asked for more troops. A growing miliary investment in Vietnam
was kept secret. Against warning from the more perceptive of the US establishment
like Senator Mike Mansfield, the Kennedy government refused to disengage
(Karnow Ibid; p. 268). But the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge,
engineered the coup by senior officers that dislodged Diem. Diem was murdered,
as Cabot Lodge delivered him into the hands of a coalition of his generals,
in November 1963.
But his successors did not help the USA. When Lyndon
Johnson took over the Presidency, on November 22 1963, the USA was
already heavily embroiled in Vietnam. The generals had after three months,
themselves been toppled by General Nguyen Khanh. But in turn he
gave way to General Duong Van Minh in another power battle. Aid was now
pouring in to the tune of nearly $2 million a day.
Shortly after, in 1964 a naval fleet of the US violated
North Vietnam's coastline in
an attempt to bait the North Vietnamese into action (Karnow p. 362-370).
The Tonkin Gulf incident was blatantly a public exercise designed to present
the US navy as having been unprovokedly
attacked by the North Vietnamese. This was a public camouflage behind which
the US Congress give Johnson a mandate to pursue the war. It was also an
evasion of the US Constitutional requirement to declare war (Karnow; p
345-362).
The so called reprisals
were limited in scale
said Johnson. In reality 64 sorties were sent against North Vietnamese
patrol boats downing 25 vessels with severe loss of life. As Karnow states:
Subsequent research by both
official and unofficial investigators has indicated with almost total certainty
that the second Communist attack in the Tonkin Gulf never happened;
Karnow; p 362-70.
Meanwhile Khanh and his co-ruler Van Minh had precipitated
South Vietnam into spasms of protest at various restrictive laws. Khanh
was forced to resign An ensuring power struggle erupted. By October Phac
Khac Sun was able to take control for a period. But internecine struggles
between the generals continued.
Johnson was now committed to a bombing campaign over
North Vietnam. The Vietminh forces had been deployed throughout South Vietnam
now, and was successfully engaged in a guerrilla war. The bombing of North
Vietnam began in February 1965, and the scale of it was of immense proportions:
By the time the Nixon administration
signed cease-fire agreement in January 1973, the US had dropped on North
Vietnam an area the size of Texas, triple the bomb tonnage dropped on Europe,
Asia and Africa during World War II.
Karnow; p.451.
Air Vice Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky took over power
by spring 1965, but lasted only a short period giving way to General Nguyen
Van Thieu in the farcical elections of 1967 (Karnow; p.451). All the regimes
of the Comprador generals were corrupt and led to huge outpouring of dissent.
In particular the Bhuddist priests were well organised and ran very public
campaigns against USA imperialisms.
By then Johnson had sent in marines and begun to
plan of a long protracted ground war. The peasants took the brunt as the
USA tried vainly to distinguish friend from foe. The fish of the Viet Minh
swam unimpeded in the water of the peasantry, supplied from the North via
the long arduous Ho Chi Minh Trial.
It is of interest that the Chinese CPC were arguing
that the North Vietnamese could not win. They pressed that they apply the
lessons of protracted war
of China. Le Duan and the Workers Party rejected their advice. Indeed,
Giap later charged that the Chinese were collaborating with the USA:
The Chinese government told
the USA that if the latter did not touch or threaten China, then China
would do nothing to prevent the attacks (on Vietnam). It was really like
telling the US that it could bomb Vietnam at will, so long as there was
no threat to the Chinese people.. Later when the US began systematically
to bomb North Vietnam, the Soviet Union proposed to send air units and
missile forces to defend Vietnam. It was the Chinese leaders that prevented
it fro doing so.. After Nixon signed the Shanghai Communique, this showed
that the Chinese leaders were clamoring for an American presence in Southeast
Asia, even in South Vietnam.. When we recount all these events and link
them to the war in the Southwest (ie Kampuchea) we can see the treachery
of the Chinese leaders.'
Pike D; "Vietnam and the Soviet Union;" Boulder USA; 1987; p. 87-88.
On January 30th 1968, the Tet Offensive
was launched. Surging into more than 100 cities in the South, including
Saigon. In October 1968 all bombing raids were halted in the North and
the full participation of the National Liberation Front was achieved in
the Paris negotiations. The talks were to drag on for five years. In the
meantime, on 3 September 1969 Ho Chi Minh President of the DRV died.
President Nixon would take the war against Vietnam
into both neighboring countries like Cambodia and Laos, and against the
massive numbers of the USA people - especially the youth who erupted into
rebellion against the war. Kent State University demonstrators were met
with the state troopers in May 1970 who killed four youths. Cambodian incursions
by USA troops began in April 1970.
By April 29 1975 the Vietcong liberated by armed
force the South.
The unified Socialist republic was proclaimed in
June 1976.
16. THE CLASS BASIS OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC
OF VIETNAM
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam was founded in June
1976 by the unification of North and South Vietnam. Its state is based
- as was explained by Le Duang, First Secretary of the Vietnamese
Workers' Party (since September
1960)- on a united front
of classes which includes the national capitalist class:
The national bourgeoisie
has its good side, therefore the proletariat must establish a united front
with them ... Our Party guided the workers and peasants to establish a
national united front with the bourgeoisie.
Le Duan: "Leninism and Vietnam's Revolution", In: "On the Socialist
Revolution in Vietnam"; Volume 1; Hanoi ; 1965; p 34.
The Vietnamese Worker's
Party (now called the Vietnamese Communist Party) put forward the programme
of the peaceful transition to socialism
by the formation, in cooperation with the national capitalists, of joint-
state-private enterprises, i.e., through the establishment of state capitalism:
The forces of the national
bourgeoisie are willing to accept socialist transformation; therefore our
Party's policy is peacefully to transform capitalist ownership into socialist
ownership through State capitalism,
Le Duan: "Leninism and Vietnam's Revolution", In: 'On the Socialist
Revolution in Vietnam'; Volume 1; Hanoi ; 1965; p 39.
The same programme was applied in the South after unification.
As Le Duan told the 4th Congress of the Party in December 1976:
The private capitalist enterprises
will soon be subjected to socialist transformation through joint state-private
enterprises,
Keesing' s Contemporary Archives, Volume 23; p. 28, 277.
More details of this programme had been given in a government
statement published on November 2nd 1976:
Capital would be contributed
by both the state and private share-holders, and the latter would be represented
on the managing board,
Ibid.; p. 28,278.
In addition:
Private capitalists would
be allowed to exploit plantations.. to maintain cattle-breeding, poultry-breeding,
& fish-rearing establishments, to produce building materials, to act
as building contractors, and to conduct business in river, off-shore and
road transport. A number of private traders would be used as agents for
state-operated trade. The state would grant bank credit to private enterprises
at reasonable interest. rates... Taxes on enterprises which had to invest
in new equipment would be reduced.
Ibid.; p. 28, 279.
In November 1976 Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Co
Thach told a meeting in Paris of the National Council of French Employers
that under a new code for foreign investors:
Investments would be guaranteed
for 15 years; profits might be repatriated, and in the event of nationalisation
compensation would be paid and investors would have the right to repatriate
their capital. Industries producing only for export might be completely
foreign-owned, while in those producing for the Vietnamese market the state
would hold at least 51%, of the shares".
Ibid.; p. 28,280-281.
In December 1977 Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Nghi
admitted to the National Assembly that there had been:
Grave shortcomings in the
implementation of the plan. Hundreds of thousands of people are now unemployed
in the cities. Such negative phenomena in society as corruption, bribery,
bureaucracy and so on remain problems.
Keesing's Contemporary Archives ,Volume 24; p. 28, 909.
In 1986 a new code of foreign investment was introduced:
The current code governing
foreign investment .. was hailed as being comparatively liberal... The
new code should lift the foreign joint-venture stake from 49% to 99%, while
granting to it, the right to have foreign managers.
Quarterly Economic Review of Indochina, No. 1, 1986; p. 13.
It is hardly surprising that in this environment, the
supremacy of capitalist relations would soon establish their usual corruption
and stench. This is detailed below.
17. PRESENT DAY VIETNAM BEHOLDEN TO THE INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY FUND.
Following the liberation of South Vietnam, Vietnam started
a war with Cambodia; and then incurred a war with China in 1979. We will
deal with this period in a subsequent issue of Alliance. However it suffices
here to say that the economic burden of the war of Liberation against the
USA, was therefore naturally immensely increased for Vietnam. Only in 1989
after the evacuation of Cambodia was Vietnam able to overcome the effects
of a world boycott on trade with it.
In 1977 the Workers party began to take over the
property of the Southern bourgeoisie. A lot of them were Chinese, as the
Chinese bourgeoisie in the South were still dominant despite the persecution
from Diem's regime, and they
were exporting a large amount of capital. Disruption of both agricultural
and urban economy occurred.
When Nguyen Van Thieu in
1966 seized power in Saigon, a small coterie of Chinese worked with him
to play the leading role in exploiting South Vietnam corruptly. Wealthy
Chinese began exporting large amounts of capital well before 1975.
Kolko.G:"Vietnam - Anatomy of A Peace"; London; 1997; p. 22.
But despite this:
between 1976 and 1980 Vietnam's
agricultural policy had emphasized food other than rice, and by 1980 overall
production had increase to 61% above that of 1976.. Rice .. yields increased
steadily.. Agricultural output grew a fifth from 1979 to 1982.. Industrial
output also grew 54% from 1981 through 1985.
Kolko.G: "Vietnam - Anatomy of A Peace"; London; 1997; p. 24.
But there was very little in the way of centralised
economic planning. Many provinces of Vietnam appeared to have entirely
their own policies. Thus in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), party officials
permitted the Chinese bourgeois to regain control:
Such independence made it
possible for the party in Ho Chi Minh City, led by Nguyen Van Linh
and Vo Van Kiet, to permit the local Chinese merchants after 1981
to reimpose their control over the regional economy leading to its rapid
growth. Linh was a key Politburo member, and Kiet was also Chairman of
the.. State Planning Commission, his assistant was Nguyen Xuan Oanh.
Kolko; Ibid; p. 25.
Nguyen Xuan Oanh, was an American trained academic who
became a functionary of the International Monetary Fund, and returned to
Saigon in 1963 to become the Vice President of the Southern Diem regime,
and was placed in charge of the economy. In February 1965, as acting prime
minister he gave Saigon's endorsement
of the America blanket bombing of the North. After a coup, he then spent
the next years:
In Saigon preparing a plan
for Vietnam's postwar economy
which as a US intelligence expert later described it, was
very similarto that which he
was later to convince Linh and Kiet to adapt.
Kolko; Ibid; p. 25.
This plan was in essence
to:
1. Use local Chinese to create and supervise mixed trading companies,
in what a Pentagon analyst called unfettered
market capitalism.
2. Cooperate closely with the IMF which Oanh had been working for.
Although Linh was dismissed from the Politburo for
his pro-market views, he was then re-admitted to the Politburo in recognition
of his work in Ho Chi Minh City, and from June 1985 turned national policy
to the IMF. They reduced state subsides to state enterprises and began
so called socialist accounting.
By 1985 a serious economic disaster had arisen:
Retails prices between 1979
and 1985 rose consistently, nearly doubling in 1982 alone... In September
Phuong organised a currency reform which produced a disastrous hyperinflation
and far graver difficulties.. Prices over the next year increased at least
700%, and there was a disastrous decline in output of every sort. Phuong
was fired.
Kolko; Ibid; p.27.
In the midst of this crisis, Linh was made Secretary-General
of the party. All the opponent of the market line were either replaced
or were silent. Linh introduced the policies of doi
moior Renovation. This
policy was unable to achieve very much except worse crisis. At this stage
the IMF entered the Vietnamese situation more decisively. It praised the
policies that Linh and Kiet had introduced into Ho Chi Minh City. These
two had relied heavily on the advice of Nguyen Xuan Oanh. The IMF had in
1985 blocked credits to Vietnam for failure of payment of arrears. But
in August 1987, the Politburo adopted the IMF advice
and instituted:
elimination of subsidies,
budget controls, adjusting the exchange rate and pricing system, and (further-ed)
decentralizing decision making. It also began to impose hospital and school
fees and to alter the state investment policy... It introduced a contract
responsibility systemfor state-owned
industries similar to the one China and the Soviet Union had introduced.
Kolko; Ibid; p. 33.
By late 1994 the IMF concluded that Vietnam:
Had made remarkable progress
in the transition to a market-based economy..
At the end of 1995 the World bank, surveyed the extent to which 28 former
Communist
nations had conformed to its cumulative
liberalization index.. Vietnam
was the sixth highest, far more liberal than the capitalist Russia. Few
economies in transition to market orientated systems,
the IMF wrote in July 1996, have
achieved relative macroeconomic stability more quickly.
Kolko; Ibid; p. 34.
By 1997, at a time when President Le Duc Anh and the
Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet were stepping down, even the Vietnamese official
army press:
Issued a frank report on
10 years of unrest and moral decline in central Areas blaming inept officialdom
& the market economy... cataloguing problems across.. an area considered
the cradle of Vietnam/s revolution.. military
Zone Fourextending from central
Quang Binh province to Thanh Hoa.. Including .. growing discontent, political
instability and falling traditional moral standards.. During the reform
process when the negative side of the market economy has penetrated all
fields of life all corners of rural and urban areas, many complicated incidents
occurred in the area of Military Zone Four...
Guardian Weekly; Sep 28th 1997; p. 4.
The Current state of Vietnam is a capitalist state.
Its' condition is directly traceable to the nationalist deviation of Ho
Chi Minh. Despite having defeated foreign imperialism in open and guerrilla
warfare, and having freed their country by force, the leaders of Vietnam
have allowed their people to be once more enslaved. Enslaved by Vietnamese's
bourgeoisie, and enslaved by foreign imperialists - the IMF and the Chinese
of Vietnam in alliance with the Overseas Chinese-Network emanating from
Beijing.
VIETNAM NEEDS TO BUILD TRULY MARXIST-LENINIST
PARTY!
LONG LIVE THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE & THE
VIETNAMESE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!
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