In the North, the Geneva Accords meant the withdrawal of French troops from the cities of the northern half of Vietnam and international recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  From 1955 to 1957, the emphasis of the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was on the reconstruction of an economy whose infrastructure was severely damaged by the French Indochina War of 1946 to 1954. At the same time, the first steps toward the construction of a socialist society were undertaken in 1954, and they were intensified and expanded beginning in 1958.  A land redistribution program of 1954-55 brought agrarian reform to a stage beyond the limited reform of 1946, as we will discuss in the next post.  By December 1957, 40% of manufacturing and retail trade and nearly half of transportation were under collective or state ownership.  Lower-level agricultural cooperatives were formed, encompassing 43.9 percent of peasant households by 1959.  Fifty-three percent of craftsmen joined cooperatives by 1959.  State factories increased from 15 in 1955 to 107 in 1959 (Duiker 2000:473-81, 503-8, 521-23; Prina 2008: 70-71; Ho 2007:166-73, 181-84). 

      The socialist project of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam registered significant gains.  Agricultural production increased from 3.6 million tons in 1955 to 5.2 million tons in 1959.  Illiteracy was eliminated.  School enrollment increased from 540,000 in all of Indochina in 1939 to 1,522,200 in North Vietnam alone in 1959-60.  University enrollment increased from 582 in Indochina in 1939 to 8,518 in North Vietnam in 1959-60.  The number of hospitals in North and Central Vietnam in 1939 increased from 54 in 1939 to 138 in North Vietnam alone in 1959; village health centers, from 138 to 1,500; doctors, from 86 to 292; and nurses, from 968 to 6,020.  By 1959, North Vietnam had 169,000 public health personnel working in the countryside (Ho 2007:166, 182, 184).

     Speaking to the National Assembly on December 18, 1959, Ho reported that class dynamics were developing favorably.  The landlord class had been dislodged from power, and the working class was expanding in size and leadership capacity.  Many peasants were forming cooperatives, and the worker-peasant alliance was strengthened.  Revolutionary intellectuals were contributing to socialist construction, and for the most part the national bourgeoisie accepted socialist transformation (Ho 2007:166, 183-84).  
                                                        
     In his December 18, 1959 address, Ho reported on a draft of an amended Constitution.  He noted that amendments to the Constitution were required, inasmuch as the Vietnamese Revolution was passing to a new stage.  He described the one and one-half year process in the development of the Constitution.  In July 1958, the first draft of the amended Constitution was presented for discussion by high- and middle-level leaders in the army, mass organizations, administrative departments, and the Party.  Following changes introduced through this discussion, the draft was distributed for the entire people to discuss.  For a four-month period beginning on April 1, 1959, the draft was discussed in government offices, factories, schools, and other organizations of the people, in the cities, towns, and countryside.  This popular consultation led to further changes in the draft.  The Committee for the Amendment of the Constitution also received many letters expressing the views of many people and organizations, including Vietnamese nationals residing abroad.  The Committee was now presenting the draft of the amended Constitution to the National Assembly for consideration and approval (Ho 2007:162, 175-76).

     In his report, Ho summarized the important characteristics of the draft of the amended Constitution.  The amended Constitution recognizes the Vietnamese state as “a people’s democratic state based on the worker-peasant alliance and led by the working class” (quoted in Ho 2007:168). The Constitution affirms that “The Democratic Republic of Vietnam will advance step by step from people’s democracy to socialism by developing and transforming the national economy along socialist lines, transforming its backward economy into a socialist economy with modern industry and agriculture and advanced science and technology”  (quoted in Ho 2007:170).  Thus, the state will seek to eliminate non-socialist forms of property, characterized by individual ownership by workers and ownership of means of production by the national bourgeoisie.  The state will seek to expand socialist forms of ownership, in the form of state ownership, producer’s cooperatives in agriculture and craft industry, and joint ventures with national bourgeois merchants and industrialists.  The formation of cooperatives as well as joint ventures is done on a voluntary basis.  The state encourages movement in this direction, but it does not mandate it (Ho 2007:170-71). The amended Constitution affirms that the organizing principle is democratic centralism, allowing for the fullest development of democratic participation, while at the same time following the principle of centralism in order to enable the leadership of the people in the construction of socialism (Ho 2007:173).  Given that Vietnam is a multinational country, the Constitution recognizes autonomous regions (Ho 2007:169).  The amended Constitution affirms citizens’ rights to work, study, freedom of opinion, freedom of religious belief, and gender equality (Ho 2007:173-74). 

     Prina describes the Vietnamese conception of socialism as one that gives emphasis to the formation of a new person through education and ideological work, which is done by members of the party, who by their example cultivate revolutionary virtues.  Through this process, the peasants can come to understand the advantages of cooperative work over individual work and the importance of industry for the nation as a whole.  The formation of the new person is attained without authoritarianism and through educational and ideological work. It is central to socialist transformation, because the human being is the foundation of socialist reconstruction.  The formation of the new person also includes a transformation of the daily life in the villages, so that customs of gender oppression can be eliminated and a society characterized by the equality of men and women can be developed (Prina 2008:70-78).

      In the development of the socialist project of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, we can observe the important components of socialism: the development of new constitutions through a process of active popular participation; the development of structures of popular political participation, involving local citizens councils that elect delegates to provincial and national assemblies, which are alternatives to bourgeois representative democracy; agrarian reform, taking land from an agricultural capitalist class that, acting in alliance with the core bourgeoisie, orients production toward a peripheral role in the world economy; the development of state ownership, cooperatives, and joint ventures, while at the same time leaving space for small-scale private ownership or even large-scale private ownership that is consistent with a national development plan; decisive state action to protect the social and economic rights of the people in such areas as education and health care; the development of a new person that understands and is committed to the revolutionary and socialist transformation; the protection of the rights of ethnic minorities; and the promotion of gender equality.  And we can see that socialism is a process that unfolds step-by-step, with each step taken insofar as national and international political conditions permit.  As we observe the various popular revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we find that these characteristics, in varying degrees and in one form or another, are present.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, North Vietnam

     The collapse of the Geneva project for the reunification of the country through elections, the repressiveness and anti-popular policy of the Diem government, and increasing US military aid (see “South Vietnam” 5/20/2014) led to the reemergence of the armed struggle in the South.  

     Because of the repression by the Diem regime, there emerged by 1957 the widespread view among the masses and the Party leaders of the South that the continuation of the armed struggle would be necessary.  Clandestine networks were formed.  Consciousness-raising activities among the people were carried out.  Armed self-defense units were organized (García Oliveras 2010:140-44; Duiker 2000:516). 

     During the campaign of repression against communists by the Diem regime, 120,000 civil leaders and combatants from the South had gone to the North in order to regroup under the protection of the North and to prepare for the continuation of the armed struggle, in the event that the general elections unifying the country were not held.  In 1959, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party endorsed a political-military struggle for the liberation of South Vietnam.  It called for the creation of units of leaders and combatants, all natives of the South, to be sent to the South, supplied with arms and equipment.  In accordance with this recommendation of the Party, the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam created in May of 1959 the Office of Studies of Military Aid to the South, under the authority of the General Chief of Staff.  As a result, 500 men, all natives of the South, supplied with 7000 arms, were transported to the South (García Oliveras 2010:140-41, 144-45; Duiker 2000:516-17). 

     In 1960, the armed struggle was renewed.  Armed guerrilla groups ambushed and annihilated South Vietnamese Army units, with women and children helping with information and supplies.  The first uprising occurred in the Ben Tre province, a rich province of the Mekong Delta with 600,000 inhabitants.  The week-long uprising resulted in the destruction or surrender of 20 posts of the South Vietnamese Army, and structures of popular power were developed in many localities.  A second uprising in Ben Tre involved an attack on the provincial capital in which 60,000 people participated.  Similar uprisings occurred throughout 1960 in many other localities in the South (García Oliveras 2010: 146-48; Duiker 2000:518-19). 

     By the end of 1960, half the villages and towns of the South were under popular administration.  In order to organize this administration, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) was created.  The NLF was established on December 20, 1960 at a conference of representatives of various progressive social sectors of the South. The conference was organized by the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, and it was held in a collection of small buildings in a forested area in South Vietnam near the Cambodian border.  The conference created committees at the level of the town, district, and province, and it named Nguyen Hu Tho, a lawyer of great prestige in the South, as president.  Like the Vietminh (see “The Vietminh and the taking of power” 5/13/2014), the National Liberation Front consisted of progressive groups representing various social classes, political parties, and religions.  It proposed universal suffrage, improvement in the standard of living of the population, greater access to education and health care, an independent economy that responds to national interests, and agrarian reform.  It proposed the elimination of all foreign influence and the establishment of a democratic, national coalition government.  It advocated the overthrow of the Diem regime by means of armed struggle.  It directed the formation of popular armed forces, which enabled the peasants to defend themselves and their villages against the government army, using weapons captured from government soldiers (García Oliveras 2010:117, 149; Prina 2008: 24, 54-56, 85, 135; Duiker 2000:525-26).

      In addition, in order to manage military operations, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party re-established the Central Office for South Vietnam, which had operated in the South during the war of national independence of 1946-54 and had been closed following the Geneva Conference of 1954.  In February 1961, paramilitary units in the Mekong Delta and the Central Highlands were merged to form the People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), which would function as the military arm of the NLF.  The PLAF would be called the “Viet Cong” by the Saigon regime, and so it would be known to the world. Benefitting from hostility to the Diem regime as well as from the return of southern militants from the North, the PLAF grew to 15,000 troops by the end of 1961.  It had carved out a liberated base area in the Central Highlands, and it had established roots in villages and towns throughout South Vietnam (Duiker 2000:526-28). 

     Thus, we see that important dynamics emerged during 1959-60: mass sentiment in support of rebellion; the emergence of popular organizations in the South in preparation for a renewal of armed struggle; a call by the Party, a nationwide organization with most of its leaders in the North, for a retaking of the armed struggle in the South; a decision by the government in the North to provide support for the struggle in the South, sending trained cadres from the South and supplies; popular uprising and the taking of power in localities in the South; and the organization by the Party of political and military structures, giving organization and unity to the spontaneous movement of the people, while including progressive sectors of various political currents.  The struggle thus possessed the necessary combination of spontaneous popular movement, providing energy; and leadership by a vanguard party, providing direction.  We must keep in mind that the territory of South Vietnam was part of the pre-colonial empire of Vietnam.  From the Vietnamese nationalist point of view, North and South Vietnam were not separate nations; all of Vietnam was seen as one nation and one people.  In accordance with this nationalist perspective, the people and the Party were retaking the armed struggle in pursuit of the goals of national reunification and national sovereignty, a collective decision taken in light of the evident failure of the Geneva Accords and the violation of the accords by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States.

      Even though the NLF included various political and social sectors of the South, and even though it was supported by the majority of the people in the South, the program of the NLF was unacceptable to the United States, because it was incompatible with the neocolonial world-system.  It called for agrarian reform, which, if implemented in a radical rather than limited form, would dislodge the landowning bourgeoisie and break the peripheral role of the nation in the world-economy.  And it envisioned national unity, which, given prevailing political tendencies in the North, would strengthen the political dynamics in favor of radical agrarian reform and true independence.

     During the period of 1961 to 1964, in response to the rapid growth of the PLAF and the success of the nationalist guerrilla struggle, the United States began to utilize Special Forces known as the Green Berets, which were heterodox military forces that had been trained in counter-guerrilla activities.  The Special Forces trained South Vietnamese troops, and they took direct part in combat in coordination with South Vietnamese troops.   Operating principally in the Mekong Delta and in a zone of ethnic minorities near the Laotian frontier, the Special Forces carried out a pacification program, involving forced relocation of the people to “strategic hamlets,” which were enclosed by bamboo fences of 2.5 meters in height, and where the people were required to present identification cards and could leave and enter only at fixed hours.  Some have described the strategic hamlets as concentration camps, whereas others have called them self-defense communities.  They were hampered by inefficiency, and US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was persistently frustrated by the slow rate in which they were established.  Ultimately, most were infiltrated or dismantled by the PLAF (García Oliveras 2010: 116, 117, 143-44, 149-55; Duiker 509, 518, 528-31; McNamara 1996). 

     US strategy included clandestine activities in North Vietnam. Sabotage directed against the transportation, electrical, and water systems began in July 1954, several weeks prior to the signing of the Geneva Accords.  Clandestine activities directed against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were expanded during the period of 1961-63.  These activities were carried out by principally by South Vietnamese operatives, following plans developed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and authorized by the President.  From the point of view of the Kennedy administration, clandestine activities had the advantage of communicating to North Vietnam the seriousness of US commitment and intentions, without having to submit them to public debate in the United States (García Oliveras 2010:139-40, 190-92; McNamara 1996:103-5, 129-30).

     As a result of widespread popular discontent, the failure of the pacification program, and equivocating US support for Diem, there was a coup d’état, to some extent encouraged by the United States, that deposed and murdered Diem in 1963.  But this worsened the political situation.  For the next two years there was a succession of 10 governments, until there was established in 1965 the National Directory Council, headed jointly by Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky (Prina 2008: 28; García Oliveras 2010:119-22; McNamara 1996:52-61, 75-85).

     Neither the Special Forces in the South, nor the clandestine activities in the North, nor changes in the government of South Vietnam could turn the tide of the political-military popular struggle directed by the NLF.  By 1964, the NLF controlled 80% of the territory of South Vietnam, dismantling strategic hamlets in areas under its control.  And the NLF had the support of the great majority of the population of the South.  By 1965, it was clear that the US war carried out by US Special Forces in cooperation with the South Vietnamese army had been lost, a fact that was confirmed thirty years later by Robert McNamara (García Oliveras 2010:155-63; Prina 2008: 54-56, 135; McNamara 1996:166, 187).

      Given the failure of the US war, and given the refusal of US leaders to accept what they understood as the fall of South Vietnam and possibly Southeast Asia to communism, the stage was sent for US escalation, involving the commitment of US ground troops and the bombing of the North Vietnam.  Meanwhile, in the North, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was seeking to construct socialism.  We continue this unfolding story in subsequent posts.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

McNamara, Robert S., with Brian VanDeMark.  1996.  In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.  New York: Random House, Vintage Books.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam, strategic hamlets, Special Forces, Green Berets

     Following World War II, the United States turned to a permanent war economy, justified by the ideological construction of the Cold War.  The Cold War ideology defined communism in the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe as totalitarianism and as expansionist threats to Western democracy, and it interpreted radical Third World national liberation movements as manifestations of communist subversion and expansionism.  We will discuss the anti-communist ideology and its central role in the shaping of US policy in Indochina in subsequent posts.

     Following the Cold War dictates of the containment of the spread of communism, the United States (and Great Britain) recognized the government of former emperor Bao Dai in 1949, when the French established it as an alternative to the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by the Indochinese Communist Party (see “Indochinese Communist Party” 5/12/2014; “The Vietminh and the taking of power” 5/13/2014; “Vietnam declares independence” 5/14/2014).  Direct US economic aid to the Bao Dai government, including the sending of military and civilian advisors, began in 1951. By 1953, US aid to France covered 60% of the costs of the French Indochina War; by 1954, US aid reached 80% of the war costs.  US generals participated directly in the development of war strategies, and high US officials, including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Vice President Richard Nixon, traveled to Indochina (García Oliveras 2010:80, 91-92). 

     Prior to the Geneva Accords of 1954, however, the US government was reluctant to involve itself extensively in the conflict.  But in 1955, the United States became more actively involved, placing its hopes on Ngo Dinh Diem, who had been named Prime Minister by Bao Dai in 1954.  Diem had travelled to the United States from 1950 to 1953, presenting himself as an independent nationalist alternative to the communists led by Ho Chi Minh.  After the Geneva Accords, Diem and the United States began to define South Vietnam as a separate and permanent government, and they ignored the Geneva proposal for national elections unifying the northern and southern zones of Vietnam.   In November 1954, for example, General J. Lawton Collins, sent to Indochina by President Eisenhower, declared that the United States would give all aid possible to the government of Diem, asserting that it is “the legal government of Vietnam.”  In order to try to give some legitimacy to the Diem government, elections of questionable validity were held, with less than 15% of the people participating (Prina 2008:21-23; García Oliveras 2010:105-7; Ho 2007:139-40; Duiker 2000:468-69).

      During the Diem regime, popular demonstrations and protests emerged.  They represented a wide variety of political organizations and religious groups, and they were harshly repressed (Prina 2008:24; García Oliveras 2010:118). 

     The government of Diem was a repressive regime (García Oliveras 2010:155).   US historian William Duiker writes:

     The Diem government reversed agrarian reforms that had been implemented in territory previously controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and subsequently placed under the control of the Bao Dai government by the Geneva Accords.  The Democratic Republic of Vietnam had distributed land to many peasants, first through the limited agrarian reform program of 1946, and then through the more extensive agrarian reform program of 1954 (as we will discuss in a subsequent post).  During the agrarian reform, many landlords fled to the cities, living under the protection of the French occupation forces.  However, after the Geneva Accords and with the support of the Diem government, many landlords south of the seventeenth parallel returned to their villages and reestablished political and administrative control, re-taking possession of the land (García Oliveras 2010:115).

     In relation to the issue of land distribution in South Vietnam, Duiker writes:

     By 1956, US aid to South Vietnam reached 250 million dollars, including more than 21,000 tons of arms.  A South Vietnamese army was rapidly trained and equipped, reaching 150,000 troops by 1956 as well as thousands of security guards, militias, and police stationed in urban and rural areas throughout the territory.  Following 1956, US aid continued to increase.  The number of shipments of arms rose from 82 in 1956 to 187 in 1959.  A highway network and ports were constructed.  By the end of 1957, South Vietnam had 46 airports (García Oliveras 2010: 141-43).

     In this context of a repressive government in alliance with the landholding class and supported by the United States, an armed struggle emerged in the South, as we will discuss in the next post.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Bao Dai, Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam, South Vietnam

     The Geneva Conference was convened on April 26, 1954, and peace talks on Indochina began on May 7, the day following the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu (see “The French-Indochinese War” 5/16/2014).  Participating in the peace talks were delegations from France, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union as well as the governments of Bao Dai and the French Indochinese associated states of Laos and Cambodia.  The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (see “Vietnam declares independence” 5/14/2014) demanded full sovereignty for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; the withdrawal of French troops from Indochina; and the holding of free elections in the newly independent nations.  But the Western powers were insistent on the division of Vietnam into two temporary zones, one under the authority of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the other under the control of the Bao Dai government.  The division of Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, who wanted to reach a settlement that would avoid direct US military intervention.  Zhou Enlai, the head of the Chinese delegation, persuaded Ho Chi Minh to accept the division.  Ho understood it to be a temporary division in preparation for nationwide elections that would unify the country.  On July 21, the “Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam” was signed by France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  It defined the seventeenth parallel as the line of demarcation between the two zones, and it prohibited the establishment of new military bases in the country (García Oliveras 2010:100-1; Duiker 2000:452, 455-59; Ho 2007:134-37).

     Significant political questions were formulated and incorporated in a separate document, the “Final Declaration of the Conference of Geneva.”  The Declaration recognized the total independence of Cambodia and Laos in the French Union.  It also recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, located north of the seventeenth parallel, and of the government of the emperor Bao Dai, located south of the parallel.  It recognized that the final solution of Vietnam remained undefined, pending general elections to be held in July 1956 that would reunify the country, and it mandated consultations between the two zones for implementing the elections.  The Final Declaration was presented on July 21, and all expressed support, but US Undersecretary of State Bedell Smith rose to say that his government could not sign the agreement in its present form.  In the end, none of the participants signed the Final Declaration that had emerged through the negotiations, so that the 1956 elections in Vietnam were simply a proposed project without obligatory commitment by any government  (García Oliveras 2010:12-13, 102-4; Duiker 2000:459). 

     All parties agreed that Ho Chi Minh would win overwhelmingly the proposed elections, as US President Dwight Eisenhower later confirmed in his memoirs, and this factor was driving US opposition to the Final Declaration.  A few days following the conference, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced that the United States would promote the development of non-communist states in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  At the same time, Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunch anti-communist who had been named Prime Minister by Bao Dai, maintained that South Vietnam would not negotiate with communists concerning the holding of elections.  His government closed offices in South Vietnam that had been established by the Vietminh for promoting the proposed national elections of 1956 (Duiker 2000: 459, 468-71; García Oliveras 2010:102-4).  

     Ho Chi Minh viewed the Final Declaration of the Geneva Accords as the foundation for the reunification of Vietnam.  Accordingly, from 1954 to 1960, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam repeatedly called for the holding of national elections, in accordance with the Final Declaration.  It was not until February 14, 1959, that the Vietnamese Workers’ Party (formerly the Indochinese Communist Party) approved a resolution calling for an armed struggle in the South as a strategy of national reunification, which was the first step in the establishment of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) on December 20, 1960.  In the internal political dynamics of the Party from 1954 to 1960, Ho Chi Minh was a persistent voice saying, “give peace a chance,” but by 1960, even he had abandoned hope in the peaceful reunification of the country (Duiker 2000:460-61, 467, 470-71, 495, 508, 511-16, & 524-25; Fall 1967: 271-72, 275-76, 285-86, & 294).

     We will discuss South Vietnam and the NLF in the following posts.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

Fall, Bernard B., Ed.  1967.  Ho Chi Minh On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920-26.  New York: Frederick A. Praeger.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Geneva Conference, Indochina

     In spite of Ho Chi Minh’s efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the issue of Vietnamese independence, the French government was oriented to the re-conquest of Vietnam (see “France seeks re-conquest of Vietnam” 5/15/2014).  When the French commander sent an ultimatum to the government of Vietnam on December 17, 1946, Ho Chi Minh responded on December 19 with a declaration of a war of national resistance and with a call to the people to rise up and defend the independence of the nation (Duiker 2000:393-98).  

     The Vietnamese forces were able to defend Hanoi for two months, before withdrawing before the superior firepower of the French.  At first, the Vietnamese government was relocated to the outskirts of Hanoi, but by April 1947, the government was relocated to the mountainous zone of Viet Bac.  In the first years of the war, President Ho Chi Minh often moved clandestinely, avoiding French efforts to assassinate him.  The government adopted a strategy of guerrilla resistance, but also including larger operations when the conditions were favorable.  In October 1947, the French launched an offensive against the government base of operations in Viet Bac, but the offensive was a failure, resulting in the death of many French soldiers (Prino 2008:50; García Oliveras 2010:48-50; Duiker 2000:406-13). 

     In spite of the setback, the French continued with plans to retake its former possession.  In 1949, the French established a Vietnamese government with limited sovereignty in the Associated States of Indochina, under the authority of former emperor Bao Dai.  Thus, there were two governments claiming authority: a revolutionary government led by Ho Chi Minh, and the puppet government of Bao Dai.  By 1953, the army of the puppet government, trained by the French with US financial aid, had reached 200,000 troops; and French troops numbered 250,000.  However, the revolutionary government took control of more territory, such that by 1953 nearly all of the north was under its control, except for Hanoi and the large cities.  And in those areas under French control, popular organizations were maintained, and there were strikes by workers and protests by students, professors, political personalities, and merchants. In a desperate attempt to reverse the deteriorating situation, the French and puppet armies destroyed entire villages, relocating people to concentration camps.  Animals were killed, and rice fields were destroyed.  But the French and their puppets could not reverse the tide.  In the battle of Dien Bien Phu, which lasted for 55 days from March 13 to May 7, 1954, the forces of the revolutionary government directed by General Vo Nguyen Giap obtained a decisive victory.  More than 1500 French soldiers were killed, and 4000 were wounded; nearly 16,000 French soldiers were killed, captured, or listed as missing in action, and all of the French officers surrendered.  In addition, by May 1954, the revolutionary government had control of 75% of the national territory (Prino 2008:51-54; García Oliveras 2010:51-87, 91, 96; Duiker 2000:430-35, 441-43, 448, 452-55).     

     Beyond the military and political gains within Vietnam, the international political climate had changed by 1954 in favor of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  The victory of the Chinese Revolution had established the Popular Republic of China in 1949.  By 1950, China, the Soviet Union, and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe had recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  Ho Chi Minh was able to undertake a diplomatic trip to China and the Soviet Union, and Vietnam subsequently received military equipment and advisors from China.  In France, as a consequence of the failure of the French military occupation to effectively re-conquer its former colony, there emerged popular opposition to the Indochina War (García Oliveras 2010:68-71, 75, 85; Duiker 2000:414-23). 

     Early in 1954 at an international conference in Berlin, the major powers agreed to hold another conference in Geneva in order to discuss issues related to international peace, including Korea and Indochina.  The Geneva peace talks began immediately following the decisive victory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu, as we will discuss in the next post.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, French-Indochinese War

     With Vietnamese independence established in fact, the French immediately took steps to retake control of Indochina.  The French war of re-conquest began in the south, and it began before the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence.  The first French detachment had departed for Vietnam on August 16, 1945.  On August 23, French parachutists arrived in the southern region, seeking to make contact with French colonists and to communicate that the French government would recognize neither the independence nor the unity of Vietnam.  In early September, French troops, with the support of an Indian division of the British Army, disembarked in Saigon.  They proceeded to immediately liberate and arm thousands of French who had been imprisoned by the Japanese.  The French and the British, supported by Japanese troops, began an offensive on October 21 in the Mekong Delta.  These troops later advanced to the central region of the country (García Oliveras 2010:44-45).  

     The French developed a plan for the secession of Cochin China and the establishment there of a puppet government.  Located in the Mekong Delta, the French colony of Cochin China had extensive rice fields and French-owned rubber plantations, and it was the richest and most economically developed region of the country.  Three-fifths of French properties in Indochina were located in this region (García Oliveras 2010:45).

     On February 28, 1946, the French and Chaing Kai Shek arrived at a negotiated settlement for the release of French troops imprisoned in China.  The liberated French troops penetrated northern Vietnam in order to join in the French war of re-conquest.  Meanwhile, French reinforcements proceeding from France disembarked in the south (García Oliveras 2010:45-46).

      Ho Chi Minh undertook negotiations with the French.  Ho insisted upon the independence of Vietnam, but he was prepared to accept a transition period of several years.  He rejected French claims for the separation of Cochin China, demanding the unification of Vietnam and the nullification of the French colonial division of Vietnam into the protectorates of Tonkin in the north and Annam in the central provinces and the colony of Cochin China in the south.  The French proposed the formation of an Indochinese Federation that would be headed by a French governor and that would have authority to represent Vietnam in all international relations, but that would include a degree of autonomy for Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:353-59).

     On March 6, 1946, Ho Chi Minh and French negotiator Jean Sainteny signed an agreement, according to which France would recognize Vietnam as a free state with its own government, parliament, and army, which would form part of an Indochinese Federation that would pertain to the French Union.  It was agreed that the destiny of Cochin China would be determined by popular referendum.  It also was agreed that 15,000 French troops would enter Hanoi and that the 200,000 troops of Chaing Kai Chek would withdraw from Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:362-65).

      But in signing the accord, the French were to some extent driven by an interest in the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Vietnam.  Believing that they could easily attain the military re-conquest of Indochina, the French remained oriented to retaking full control of Indochina rather than implementing the March 6 accord and its promise of limited sovereignty for Vietnam.  In June and July of 1946, Ho Chi Minh and a Vietnamese delegation traveled to Paris in an effort to avoid a new armed conflict through a negotiated implementation of the March 6 accord.  But prior to the arrival of the delegation, the French Government recognized the secessionist Autonomous Republic of Cochin China, thereby reneging on the March 6 agreement to decide the status of the territory through referendum.  In the Paris talks, the two sides were far apart concerning the degree of autonomy that Vietnam would have as a free state in the French Union.  Meanwhile, the French government was moving toward the creation of an Indochinese federation of puppet governments, and French troops continued to engage in military actions in Vietnam.  The Vietnamese delegation suspended the talks and returned to Vietnam.  In a final effort to attain a negotiated settlement, Ho Chi Minh remained in Paris. Ho signed an agreement with French Minister of Overseas Territories Marius Moutet on September 14, which reinforced the accord of March 6, thus avoiding a total breakdown of the talks.  But Ho’s efforts toward peaceful negotiation of Vietnamese independence could not succeed, inasmuch as an independent Vietnamese government headed by Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh Front, and the Indochinese Communist Party was incompatible with French imperialist interests  (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:367-81). 

     On November 20, French troops opened fire on Vietnamese troops in Haiphong and Lang Son, leaving thousands of civilian casualties in Haiphong.  On December 17, the commander of the French troops sent an ultimatum to the Vietnamese government, demanding that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam turn over security functions of Hanoi to the French.  On December 19, Ho Chi Minh issued a call to the nation, noting that the French have decided to re-conquer the country and calling upon the people to struggle against French colonialism and to save the country.

On the evening of December 19, Vietnamese militia units launched attacks against French installations in Hanoi.   The French-Indochinese War had begun (García Oliveras 2010:47-48; Duiker 2000:389, 393-98).

      It would be a difficult struggle for the Vietnamese, but they would prevail, as we will see in the next post.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, French-Indochinese War

     Japan had surrendered on August 13, 1945.  On August 16, the Vietminh established a National Liberation Committee, with Ho Chi Minh as chair, to lead a popular insurrection to take power and to form a provisional government.  From August 16 to August 25, popular uprisings occurred in all the cities and towns of the country.  Local authorities fled or turned power over to the revolutionaries; members of local popular committees, supported by armed militias, occupied the administrative posts.  By August 25, the revolution had de facto control of the entire country, and Ho Chi Minh discretely entered Hanoi on that day.  On August 29, the puppet emperor Bao Dai abdicated, presenting the imperial seal to a delegation representing the National Liberation Committee.  On September 2, 1945, before a crowd of one-half million people, continually shouting “independence,” in Ba Dinh square in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:39-40; Ho 2007:180, 222; Prina 2008:49-50, 81; Duiker 2000:303-24).   

     The Declaration began by citing the “undeniable truths” of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America: “All men are created equal.  They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  And it cited the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen emitted by the French Revolution:  “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights” (Ho 2007:51).

     The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence lists grievances against the French colonial regime.

The Declaration notes that the people have taken de facto control of Vietnam.

     In light of this independence in fact, the provisional government formally declares its independence from French colonial rule.  “We, the provisional government of the new Viet Nam, representing the entire Vietnamese people, hereby declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France, cancel all treaties signed by France on Viet Nam, and abolish all privileges held by France in our country” (Ho 2007:53).  The Declaration expressed its confidence that the Allies, who have affirmed the principle of equality among nations, “cannot fail to recognize the right of the Vietnamese people to independence” (Ho 2007:53).

     The Declaration concludes with an expression of the determination of the Vietnamese people to defend their independence.  “Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and in fact has become a free and independent country.  The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their freedom and independence” (Ho 2007:53).

      The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence was short and to the point.  It asserts that: the world powers have affirmed the principle of the democratic rights of all; French colonial domination of Vietnam has violated these proclaimed democratic rights in numerous ways; the people of Vietnam have the right to be independent and have established its independence in fact, taking political control of the nation from the Japanese occupation army; the new government of Vietnam expects that the world powers will respect the right of Vietnam to be an independent nation; and the people of Vietnam are prepared to make any sacrifice that may be necessary to defend its independence.

     The new government took immediate steps in defense of popular interests and needs.  Taxes that had been established by the French, such as taxes on land and on the manufacturing of salt and alcohol, were abolished.  Communal lands, which comprised more than twenty percent of land in the northern and central provinces, were distributed among villagers.  In accordance with the program announced by the Viet Minh Front in 1941, the government confiscated land belonging to French colonialists and Vietnamese collaborators and distributed it to peasants, but most privately-owned land was not affected by the land redistribution program; for land that continued to be privately owned, land rent was reduced by twenty-five percent.  In addition, a farm credit bureau, programs in literacy and mass education, and an eight-hour limit to the working day were established (Duiker 325-26; Ho 2007:163-65).  

     In September, the newly independent nation convoked free nationwide elections for a National Assembly, which were held in January 1946.  The National Assembly approved the first Constitution in the history of the nation on November 9, 1946.  The 1946 Constitution established a National Assembly as well as People’s Councils at local levels, with representatives elected by the people through universal suffrage.  The National Assembly was established as the highest authority in the nation and as the only organ with legislative power, and with the authority to elect the president, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, and the Council of Government (García Oliveras 2010:43; Ho 2007:164-65, 171-73). 

      Thus, the independence of Vietnam was established by the people in 1945.  But it would not be accepted by the global powers.  Although Ho Chi Minh would repeatedly search for peaceful resolutions of the conflict between true Vietnamese independence and the imperialist interests of the global powers, Ho would be compelled to lead the people in two wars of independence before the reunification and independence of the nation were definitively established in 1976.  We will discuss this long struggle in subsequent posts.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh

     The ascent of the Indochinese Communist Party from 1930 to 1945 (see “The Indochinese Communist Party” 5/12/2014) was not a straight line.  During 1930 and 1931, the Indochinese Communist Party organized a number of workers’ strikes.  But in 1931, there was a harsh repression of the party by colonial authorities.  Ho Chi Minh was detained in Hong Kong on June 6, 1931, and he would spend 1934 to 1938 in exile in the Soviet Union (García Oliveras 2010: 32-33; Ho 2007:82, 179; Duiker 2000:191, 196-211, 228-29).  

     In spite of the repression of the movement leaders, the mass organizations gradually resumed their activities.  In 1935, there were strikes on the rubber plantations, and a number of strikes occurred in Saigon.  In 1936, the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party formed the Democratic United Front of Indochina, which united progressive and democratic forces in a single organization, including the national bourgeoisie, in a common struggle against French colonialism.  The Democratic United Front had considerable progress in developing a popular movement, in part because leftist parties were part of a Popular Front government in France, and French colonial polices were less repressive toward political organizations in French Indochina.  From 1936 to 1938, there was a significant growth in party membership, as the party was especially successful in recruiting members from the peasantry and the working class.  But when a more conservative government took control in France in 1938, and with the German occupation of France and the formation of the puppet Vichy regime in 1940, the Democratic United Front of Indochina was repressed by French colonial authorities.  Nevertheless, the work, commitment, and spirit of sacrifice of the members of the Indochinese Communist Party in the cause of national independence was recognized by the people, such that the prestige of the party in popular consciousness was greatly enhanced (García Oliveras 2010: 32; Ho 2007:42-43, 83-84, 179, 221-22; Duiker 2000:233-42).  

     The surrender of France to Germany in 1940 and the entrance of Japanese troops in French Indochina had weakened French colonialism, but they also established an alternative domination in the form of Japanese occupation and super-exploitation.  During the Japanese occupation, the colonial government of French Indochina negotiated an arrangement with Japan, in which the French would maintain formal political sovereignty, but the Japanese would have full military control of northern Vietnam.  In accordance with this agreement, the Japanese imposed taxes to maintain the military and reoriented Vietnamese agricultural production toward exportation to Japan, leaving the people in a situation of extreme poverty.  Popular resistance, which had been significant during the 1930s as a result of French colonialism and the effects of the Great Depression, intensified under the harsh conditions of the Japanese occupation.  In the cities and villages, there was growing popular sentiment of the need for a struggle for independence (Prina 2008:15-16; García Oliveras 2010:37). 

     In August 1938, Ho Chi Minh returned to China, where political conditions established by the Japanese threat obligated Chaing Kai Shek and the Nationalist Party to cooperate with the communist parties, including the Indochinese Communist Party, which had been established by Ho Chi Minh and others in Hong Kong in 1930.  In early February 1941, Ho returned to his native country for the first time in 30 years, establishing headquarters in the small village of Pac Bo, not far from the Chinese border.  At the Eighth Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party in May 1941, held in a spacious cave near Pac Bo, the Vietminh Front (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) was established.  Informally developed the previous year by Ho and other party leaders, the Vietminh sought to unite various political currents and religions in a common struggle to end Japanese occupation and French colonialism and to establish an independent nation of Vietnam.  The Vietminh gave primary emphasis to the goal of national independence from Japanese occupation and French colonial rule.  It sought support from patriotic members of the landed bourgeoisie, and therefore it proposed the redistribution of land owned by the French and their Vietnamese collaborators, but not the redistribution of the land of patriotic members of the Vietnamese landed bourgeoisie, concerning which it proposed the more limited measure of reduction in land rents.   The Vietminh adopted a strategy of guerilla warfare in opposition to the Japanese occupation, and it organized mass demonstrations, acts of sabotage, boycotts, and the looting of crops destined for exportation to Japan.  From 1943 to 1945, Vietminh units increasingly operated in the north, such that by June 1945 seven provinces had been liberated from Japanese troops, and guerrilla activities and popular uprisings were occurring in other provinces (Prina 2008:16, 66-67; García Oliveras 2010:33, 37-39; Ho 2007:49, 85-86,164, 179; Duiker 2000:245-99).  

     At the Ninth Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party on August 12, 1945, Ho convinced Party leaders that the party should launch a general popular insurrection to seize power throughout the country, once Japan announces its surrender to the allies.   On August 16, shortly after the news of the Japanese surrender reached Indochina, Ho addressed a National People’s Congress, composed of delegates of the Vietminh Front.  Ho reiterated the need to seize power, so that the nationalist forces would be in a strong position when the allied occupation forces arrive.  Following his address, the Congress approved the creation of an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam; and it established a National Liberation Committee, with Ho Chi Minh as chair, to lead a general insurrection and to serve as a provisional government. From August 16 to August 25, in cities, towns, and villages throughout the country, local committees were established that functioned as provisional local governments, taking power from the Japanese occupation army, which in most cases did not offer resistance.  The local committees took power with the support of popular armed militias and in the name of the Vietminh Front.  On the afternoon of August 25, accompanied by Party Secretary General Truong Chinh, Ho Chi Minh discreetly entered by car the old imperial capital of Hanoi, going directly to a three-story row house in the Chinese section of the city, where arrangements had been made for his accommodations on the top floor.  That same afternoon, Ho convened at his new residence a meeting of the Indochinese Communist Party, which confirmed the decision of the Vietminh Front to create a National Liberation Committee that would function as a Provisional Government of the nation, with the exception, following Ho’s recommendation, that the committee would be expanded to include non-Party elements.   Ho’s proposal for the formation of a broad-based provisional government representing all progressive sectors was unanimously accepted by the members of the National Liberation Committee at a meeting on August 27.  Plans were made for a formal declaration of national independence to be held on September 2, which we will discuss in the next post (Duiker 2000: 303-17, 321; García Oliveras 2010:40; Prina 2008:49-50, 81).


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Vietminh, Viet Minh

     In 1925, working as a representative of the Communist International in south China, Ho Chi Minh formed the Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam, which included a journal as well as a training institute in downtown Canton for the education of new recruits.  It was the first communist group of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement.  The Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam was committed not only to the independence of Vietnam from French colonial rule.  It also was committed to the class struggle, of peasants against Vietnamese landholders and of workers against the bourgeoisie, and it was committed to the international proletarian revolution represented by the Communist International.  Ho had to abandon China in 1927, because of repression by the forces of Chiang Kai Shek.  But members of the Revolutionary Youth, after being released from prison, were able to maintain operations, moving its headquarters from Canton to Hong Kong (Prina 2008:80; García Oliveras 2010:28-30; Duiker 2000:105, 112-45, 153-54).  

    In July 1928, Ho relocated to Siam, where he worked to create communist cells among Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian émigrés and to reorganize the networks of the Communist International in Southeast Asia.  When two other Vietnamese communist organizations were formed in 1929, Ho convoked a Congress for the founding of a united party, and in this manner the Indochinese Communist Party was established in Hong Kong in February 1930 (Prina 2008:80; García Oliveras 2010:30-31; Kuiker 2000:146-67).

     On February 18, 1930, the newly formed party issued an appeal (written by Ho) to “workers, peasants, soldiers, youth, and school students” and to “oppressed and exploited fellow countrymen” and “sisters and brothers.”  The Appeal called upon these popular sectors to participate in a revolution that was both a nationalist anti-colonial revolution as well as a class revolution.  It described a world revolution that “includes the oppressed colonial peoples and the exploited working class throughout the world” (Ho 2007:39).  It maintained that in Indochina this revolution takes the form of an anti-imperialist revolution formed by workers, peasants, students, and merchants:

And the appeal notes that the French imperialists “use the feudalists and the comprador bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit our people” (Ho 2007:40).

      The Appeal put forth a ten-point program that was a practical synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the nationalist anti-colonial perspective.  The program sought “to overthrow French imperialism and Vietnamese feudalism and reactionary bourgeoisie,” thus giving equal balance to both French colonialism and class exploitation.  The program sought “to make Indochina completely independent” and “to establish a worker-peasant-soldier government.” It sought “to confiscate the banks and other enterprises belonging to the imperialists and to put them under the control of the worker-peasant-soldier government,” and it included a plan “to confiscate all the plantations and property belonging to the imperialists and the reactionary bourgeoisie and distribute them to the poor peasants.”  The program also proposed social reforms, including an eight-hour working day, elimination of unjust taxes that were particularly hurtful to the poor, an increase in education, and the promotion of gender equality (Ho 2007:41; Bello 2007:xv-xvii).

      For the next 15 years, the Indochinese Communist Party would experience a tremendous growth in Vietnamese popular support, such that it would arrive at a position of leadership of the Vietnamese Revolution when the independence of Vietnam was declared in 1945. This dramatic growth was a result of the party’s connecting the issue of national liberation to the interests of the peasants, who comprised more than 90% of the population.  Its formulation of a clear program in relation to peasant interests differentiated it from the various bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties of the period.  As Ho expressed 30 years after the forming of the party, the growth of the Party, at the expense of other parties, was a consequence of the Party’s formulation of a program that “fully answered the aspirations of the peasants, who made up the majority of our people” (Ho 2007:178-79).  

      The growth of the Indochinese Communist Party from 1930 to 1945 was analogous to the dramatic growth of the Bolshevik Party in Russia in 1917.  In both cases, the increase in popular support was a consequence of the party’s capacity to identify interests of importance to the people and to formulate clear and consistent proposals in relation to these interests.  In the case of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, the issues were the transfer of power to the soviets, disengagement from the war, and the distribution of land to peasants (see “The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  In the case of the Indochinese Communist Party, the issues were national liberation from colonial domination and the distribution of land to peasants.  And in both cases, the identification of key interests occurred in the context of the formulation of a general perspective not of reform but of revolutionary transformation of the nation and the world. 

      Was Ho involved in the “exporting” of the Russian Revolution to Indochina?  Let us recall the basic facts that we have summarized in recent posts from May 2 to May 9.  Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen the Patriot, was a Vietnamese nationalist who encountered and became committed to Marxism-Leninism in Paris from 1917 to 1923.  He worked in the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow in 1923 and 1924, where he also studied at an institute for the education of Asian leaders.  Beginning in 1925, he worked as a Comintern “agent” in Southeast Asia.  As such, he was subject to the direction of the Comintern, which established the policies of the Russian Revolution in relation to the nationalist revolutions in Asia.  For this work, however, he received no salary.  Directed by the Comintern, he nevertheless was expected to find his own means of support.  Initially, he received a modest income from the Soviet news agency ROSTA for sending articles to Moscow on conditions in China (Duiker 2000:104, 113-14). Similarly, the Comintern provided little financial support for the activities of the Indochinese Communist Party.  The Indochinese Communist Party had success because of the commitment of its members, and because its ideas made sense to many in the popular sectors.  Revolutions cannot be exported, but revolutionary ideas can be disseminated, if they are credible to the people, as a result of their capacity to clarify structures of domination and to formulate the basic characteristics of a more just social situation.


References

Bello, Walden.  2007.  “Introduction: Ho Chi Minh: The Communist as Nationalist” in Ho Chi Minh, Down with Colonialism.  London: Verso.

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Indochina, Communist Party of Indochina

     For Ho Chi Minh, there was never a question of having to decide between nationalist and class revolutions, or between nationalism and socialism.  His instincts were clear from the first moment of his encounter with French socialism in Paris:  both traditions and movements were valid.  The fulfillment of the one would require the fulfillment of the other.  Although the two traditions had different assumptions and concepts, with different understandings of structures of domination and different proposed projects for human liberation, he believed that both had formulated self-evident truths.  For a philosopher, this situation might have created an epistemological dilemma, requiring the study of philosophers of knowledge.  But Ho Chi Minh, a political activist emerging as a known political leader on an international level, worked through the epistemological dilemma by developing a program of action, thus forging what we might call a “practical theoretical synthesis” of the two traditions.  His program of action was straightforward: national independence and national reunification, establishing the political independence of the nation and control over the territory of the empire of Vietnam prior to French colonialism; agrarian reform, taking land from the landholders and distributing it to the peasants; popular assemblies and popular democracy, establishing structures of popular authority over the political process; a vanguard formed by the most politically conscious intellectuals, peasants and workers, in order to educate the people in the correct path; decisive state action to protect the social and economic rights of the people; and the formation of strategic alliances both within the nation and on an international plane, so that necessary support can be obtained as the revolutionary process unfolds.  It was a program of action that incorporated the insights of both socialism and nationalism.

     Such is the style of the formulations of charismatic leaders.  Their insights are formulated in the context of the need to address practical situations, such as the need to formulate a program of action in a call to the people, or the need to define a strategy or program in response to internal debates in the movement.  Thus, the formulated understandings of charismatic leaders can be described as “practical intellectual formulations” or “practical theoretical formulations.”  They have a style that from an academic point of view may appear to be overly succinct.  Or they may be formulated piecemeal, partially expressed in one context and further developed in another.  But their style, a consequence of their being formulated in political practice, should not prevent us from appreciating their insight.  Indeed, the fact that the insights of charismatic leaders are formulated in the context of political practice is the key to their wisdom.  Advances in human understanding of social dynamics are attained when charismatic leaders, drawing upon a received political-intellectual-moral tradition and committed to universal human values, arrive at new insights as they seek to understand what to do in the context of problems, dilemmas, and new situations confronted by the on-going social movement.  

     As we reflect on the intellectual development of Ho Chi Minh,  what is of most importance is that Ho, when he first encountered socialist currents in Paris, did not reject Western socialism for its prevailing Eurocentrism, in spite of Ho’s formation in the nationalist perspective of the colonized.  Rather, he embraced Leninism as the current within European socialism that most fully affirmed the validity of the anti-colonial struggles in the colonies, and at the same time, he adapted Leninism to the colonial situation.  Through this process, he was able to reaffirm the basic principles of the nationalist movement, while at the same time appropriating for the nationalist movement important insights of the European socialist movement, thus enabling the nationalist movement to become more theoretically advanced and therefore more politically advanced.  And he endeavored to push European socialism toward encounter with the Third World revolutions and to a greater level of consciousness of the significance of the Third World revolutions for the global socialist revolution.  He thus sought to bring both communism and Third World nationalism to a more advanced theoretical and political stage. 

     Ho’s creative synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and a Third World anti-colonial perspective was appreciated by Fidel Castro.  As we will see in future posts, Fidel also would formulate a synthesis of Third World nationalism and Marxism-Leninism in the practical context of social struggle.  In an address in Vietnam on September 12, 1973, four years after Ho’s death, Fidel declared:

     Ho’s practical theoretical synthesis of two revolutionary intellectual-moral-political traditions that emerged in different social and historical contexts illustrates the exceptional intellectual capacity of the charismatic leader.  And his role as the historic leader of the Vietnamese Revolution illustrates the pivotal importance of the charismatic leader, who is able to creatively formulate the necessary direction of the revolutionary movement, and as a consequence, possesses widely recognized moral authority, thus making possible the political unification of the revolutionary movement and the people. 


References

Castro, Fidel.  2008.  “Discurso de Fidel Castro en Vietnam" in Agustín  Prina, La Guerra de Vietnam, Pág. 173-80.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh