Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

The Vietminh and the taking of power

5/13/2014

0 Comments

 
     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
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation