THE REPRESSION ON THE INTELLECTUALS IN NORTH VIETNAM (1956-1960)

　

The Background

The speech revealing Stalin’s crimes and errors by Krutchev at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1956 was the curtain-raiser to a ring of the calamitous consequences that shook not only the Kremlin but also the Communist Bloc. For the first time, tragic incidents such as the vast deportation of members of the ethnic minorities, the mass killing of tens of thousand opposing party members and thousands of officers of the Red Army, and the lugubrious leadership of Stalin in face of the invasion of Germany, and the errors in the conduct of the war were revealed to the world. Similar serious crimes and mistakes were also exposed: The verities are the cult of the person results in despotism, and revolution is not necessarily achieved by violence and through the class struggle. Kruttchev vehemently promised to promote collective leadership and to carry out policies of democracy

While the de-Stalinization had not produced great impact on the democratization in the Soviet Union, it gave impetus to the rise of subsequent subversive incidents in the Communist Bloc of Eastern Europe. In Poland, where national fervor was imminent, anti-Soviet movement instantly rose. It spread to a rebellion of Polish workers in Poznan on June 28, 1956. The leaders of the Kremlin strove hard to stop it, stifling public opinion and crushing the masses. Popular uprising in Hungary broke out. During the first days, the leaders at the Kremlin believed they would easily extinguish the revolt as they had in Ponan. They nevertheless made a mistake in their calculations. It was not until the Hungarian people demanded for independence and democracy that they realized the truth was the reverse. The Soviet troops were sent in to crush the masses. The Budapest disastrous massacre resulted in losses of human lives that stunned the world.

In China, Mao’s Hundred Flowers movement drummed up free expression of thought. On May 25, 1956, a large assembly of prominent intellectuals, social scientists, writers and artists, and progressive personalities were called to attend a meeting to be explained on the purposes of the event. "All Flowers Blossom, and all Doctrines Compete." As the political situation in China was relatively stable after the dispute over Hu Feng’s viewpoint on freedom of expression in the early years of the 1950’s, the leadership simply suggested a new approach. However, it did not assert any means or method for improvement. Vigilance was stressed on avoidance of off-limit debates and discussions as regards free expression of thought.

The Situation of the Intellectuals in North Vietnam

All the circuitous events that happened following the land reforms generated resentment among the intellectuals in Hanoi. They were professors, scholars, writers, poets, and artists who had joined and played an active role in the war of resistance against the French. They endured hardship during the war and hoped they would be treated with decency when peace was restored. Reality proved to be the reverse. Their social status declined, and their living standards deteriorated. Their lives were truly deplorable after the new regime had been well established. Many writers could not afford a cup of coffee to work late at night. The poet Huu Loan’s desire was to own an oil lamp to work in the dark room where he shared with his wife and children. The poet Nguyen Binh lived miserably; he rarely had a full meal.

The vast majority of intellectuals, in truth, were almost ignored after the land reform. The Party placed entire confidence in the working class. To their distress, not only were they disregarded, by the Party but also endured humiliation in face of those haughty cadres who made light of their contribution to the Revolution. They were "bitterly disillusioned when they realized that the Party had no confidence in them, regardless of the many sacrifices they had made for the Party. The majority of them were not ambitious. They willingly gave to the party members and politicians the positions in the government. They simply wish to contribute their services to the people and to safeguard their honor and freedom of thought which they believed to be essential to the dignity of the intellectual." (Nguyen Manh Tuong, Kiem Thao. 1958).

The Demand for Free Expression

After the victory of Dien Bien Phu, the Party carried out its preconceived policies to establish socialism. first and foremost, through education and reform of thought. This major effort was nevertheless stopped short because of a host of unforeseen world events that were disadvantageous to the regime. Communism and its ideological practices were questioned, notably after the dethronement of Stalin by Kruthchev in his speech delivered on February 20, 1956. at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The event not only upset all policies of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party but also raised doubts about the rectification of its cause. The distrust of t of the intellectuals vis-a-vis the performance of the Party’s policies ever increased. Their dissent from the errors it had made since the days of the Resistance War intensified. The situation was aggravated by the State cadres’ abuses of power and practices of nepotism, mostly among the group of intellectuals acting as "cadres in the Arts who lived in luxury and who wore red neckties, leather shoes, and spent their times delivering speeches and attending banquets." (Nhan Van No. 2, October 1956)

There had been, in reality, a division between the group of independent intellectuals and the group of intellectuals who served as cadres in the Arts and who slaved for the Party. The former group joined the Viet Minh to fight for national independence but were reluctant to serve the Party and regime because of the Viet Minh’s cause of bad faith and mischievous conduct of public affairs. The latter group were the members of or adherents to the Communist-led Viet Minh, The division between the two groups were apparent as the war wore on.

During the first years of the war, the vast majority of independent intellectuals concentrated in the Thanh Hoa Province, Inter-zone IV. They were relatively free from the control of the Party. They enjoyed, in particular, the patronage of the independent Chairman of the War Zone IV, General Nguyen Son. This personality was a war hero who had joined Mao in the Red Army in the Long March. His brilliant exploits had made the Vietnamese Communists bow their heads. Not long, after that, at the suggestion of Ho Chi Minh. the general was recalled to China by Mao. The independent intellectuals lost protection; they felt reluctant to stay with the Viet Minh .

Reluctance to serve the resistance leadership of independent intellectuals ever grew. The situation worsened as a result of the Party leadership’s shift of political lines, from the people’s democracy to socialism of the Maoist style. Political discrimination was brought into play, and methods of internal purification were executed. Most independent intellectuals in the resistance zones distanced themselves from the Party out of disbelief and fear. Quite a few of them left the free zones and returned to the city to seek permanent shelter, to live under the protection of the newly-established national government led by ex-Emperor Bao Dai. They were scholars, professors, doctors, lawyers, poets, writers and artists. Among them were Nguyen Khac Kham, Hoang Van Chi, Nguyen Van Mui, Vu Ngo Xan, Pham Huu Chuong, Tran Van Kha, Nguyen Van Huyen, Tran Trung Dung, Tran Chanh Thanh, Le Quang Luat, Le Khai Trach, Nguyen Huu Dung, Tran Thanh Dinh, Chu Van Binh, Cao Xuan Vy, Vu Hoang Chuong, Doan Phu Tu, Dinh Hung, Bui Xuan Uyen, Nguyen Sy Te, Nguyen Hoat, Doan Quoc Sy, Nguyen Thach Kien, Nguyen Kien Trung, Pham Duy, and so on. The independent intellectuals who stayed bore silent discontent towards Ho Chi Minh and the Resistance Government as an act of silent protest against their brazen dependence on Communist China.

Discontent pervaded the guerrilla zones with the arrival from China of growing numbers of politics commissioners and military advisors beside the central government organs and military commands. The independent intellectuals defied the political Party leadership. They allowed themselves not to parrot the Party’s slogans. not to serve it as an instrument for political propaganda. They chose not to praise without shame the Party’s unreal glory and untrue achievements. Later, coming back to the city from the war zone after the Communist takeover of Hanoi in August 1954. Emboldened by self-respect in face of the regime’s show of power and unjust practices, they stood up in revolt.

The abyss that separated the independent intellectuals and the political regime widened. Not only did the regime regard them as bunglers, it treated them with despise. Still, it trampled their merits underfoot. The independent intellectuals endured even more the insulting arrogance of the party cadres. In addition, their differences in the viewpoints of Maoism, aggravated the division between them. They did not resign themselves to adopt the outlook on life and the universe of Communist ideology Consistent with their viewpoints, they were blamed by the party cadres as those people that were behind the times. Worse still, they were regarded as reactionary elements, the henchmen of imperialism and the slaves to bourgeois ideology. They were, therefore, the enemy of the regime.

The Rise of Opposition

Faults of haughty and arrogant party cadres were noticeable in the private press of Hanoi. Although there was no open attack on the regime, covert criticism nevertheless caused damage to the prestige of the Party leadership. The resentment gradually went sour. It eventually led to a wave of open opposition to the regime. The movement broke out coincidentally with the fight of the peasantry against the cadres and the People’s Army in the countryside subsequent to the Party’s rectification of errors after the Land Reform. In a show of will, the intellectuals in Hanoi all as one stood up, activating a political campaign against the Communist administration. They disseminated articles, poems, and stories on newspapers and magazines. They delivered speeches at open meetings to criticize the Party’s oppression of the people and the cadres’ scornful attitude towards the intellectuals.

Almost all the participants were veteran fighters in the Resistance War. They had shared the ups and downs with the regime in the nine years of the war. They were scholars, critics, writers and poets: Nguyen Binh, Van Cao, Tran Duy, Hoang Cam, Huu Loan, Si Ngoc, Chu Ngoc, and Nhu Mai; the scholars Phan Khoi, Dao Duy Anh, Truong Tuu, Tran Duc Thao, and Nguyen Manh Tuong. Among the young party-members and students were Tran Dan Le Dat, Phung Quan, Ta Huu Thien, Minh Hoang, Phung Cung, Tran Le Van, Hoang Tich Linh, and Bui Quang Doai.

As early as March 1956, the Minh Duc Publishers circulated the Giai Pham 1956 (Collected Works of 1956) in which corrupted practices of the regime were exhibited. Tran Dan, in his poem, Nhat Dinh Thang (We Will Win), expressed melancholy and sorrows while the whole country was still celebrating the victory of Dien Bien Phu. He was subject to self-criticism and accused at crime revelations sessions. Unable to sustain humiliation, he committed suicide but was saved. The young poet Phung Quan, in his article Cai Choi Quet Rac Ruoi (The Broom that Seeps away Trash), characterized the actual society as a messy house with filthy things. So, in the capacity of a poet, he wished to be a broom to sweep all of such things away. Le Dat composed a poem entitled Ong Binh Voi (Mr. Lime Pot) in which he linked the narrow-mindedness of the party cadres to a hardened inert lime-pot. Their moral conduct was likened to the capacity of a lime-pot: The older it gets, the pettier it will become. This cock-and-bull parable with hints also meant with allusion to Ho Chi Minh himself. The longer the president lives, the nastier he will become. He no longer loves the country as he did when he still was Nguyen the Patriot.

On May 26, Mao launched the Hundred Flowers campaign in China, eulogizing the freedom of thought and expression. A month later, the Polish workers rose up in a revolt in Poznan. The proletarian dictatorship in Vietnam was at risk. The Vietnamese Workers’ Party explained with embarrassment the developments in Eastern Europe and China. Seizing the opportunity, the independent literary circle in Hanoi pounded direct attacks on the regime. As in a fire, the demand for free expression was ignited and quickly spread to a movement. The review Nhan Van actively engaged in it, took the lead, and enjoyed warm support from people of all walks of life, especially the youth and college students.

The Nhan Van Giai Pham Mua Thu (Nhan Van, Collected Works for the Fall) carried in its issue of August 29, 1956 a poem with a call to those veteran fighters " ... who defeated the invaders/ And did not bow/Under colonial domination. /Why do you bear with these villains/Who shame our Fatherland. /Stand up!" A week later, the magazine appeared with Nguyen Huu Dang, a long-standing Communist and an ardent activist in the August Revolution, as the editor-in-chief. The opposition reached apogee.

Young poets and writers who were all party members submitted to the review the most critical articles and writings. In the Maikovki-style of poetry, Huu Loan, in his poem Lai Nhung Thang Ninh Hot (Again, the same Flatters) in Nhan Van II, September 30, tenaciously declared war against unjust and corrupted social practices of the officialdom. Phung Cung in his story Con Ngua Gia cua Chua Trinh (The Old Horse of Trinh Lord), likened the State intellectual’s incapacity to that of an old horse. This horse was trained and used as a draught animal in the royal service. It was left far behind in a horse-race as it was overfed and lacked vigilance. Nhu Mai, in his story Thi Si May (The Robot Poet), ridiculed with humorous hints at the State poets. There would be robots to be created. These machines would replace State poets to produce 8,000 versus a second. (Nhan Van 5). Tran Duy, in his story Nguoi Khong Lo (The Giants), likened with satire the Vietnamese Communist leaders’ thoughtlessness to the stupidity of a group of giants who helped humans to fight the devils. Unfortunately, without hearts, they killed more men than devils. In his essay Thanh That Dau Tranh cho Tu Do Dan Chu (To Strive to Struggle for Freedom and Democracy), he revealed the serious consequences caused by the Party’s dark intrigues in stifling dead the Nhan Van.

Of equally great contribution to the movement were the essays and writings by the intellectuals of the older generation. The scholar Dao Duy Anh contended that there was need to implement democracy. The senior literary critic Phan Khoi, a Confucian who survived the Land Reform, made his last attempt to defend Confucianism in face of the merciless attack of Marxism. He fought back and accused the leadership in the Arts of corruption and oppression. In his short story Ong Nam Chuot (Mr. Mouse the Fifth," the scholar accused with hints at Ho Chi Minh of being the small-minded person and the leadership of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party of committing corrupt practices and exercising authority with nepotism and despotism, Another prominent figure, the scholar Truong Tuu, particularly criticized the Party’s policy in a series of essays in the Van Hoc (Literature Magazine). His arguments were based on Marx’s and Lenin’s writings. Years of compulsory study of Marxism were put into question. The philosopher Tran Duc Thao examined the rights to freedom that were currently practiced in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. His analysis was based on the social contents and forms of freedom. All contents for freedom were well-defined but the realizations were quite the reverse. Officialdom, bureaucracy, and the cult of the person were common practices. Of particular significance, Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong, a lawyer of reputation, delivered a speech at the Ninth Congress of the Fatherland Front in Hanoi on October 30, 1956 criticized with vehemence the regime for the lack of a rule of law.

On September 19, a group of students, fascinated by the hilarious atmosphere of the day, engaged in the opposition. They published the magazine Dat Moi (Fresh Soil). In it, Bui Quang Doai narrated a love story in which he portrayed a party cadre who traded on his position to court a petty-bourgeois Hanoi student. Ta Huu Thieu, in his poem Toi Tim Em (I Seek You Forever), looked at girls of all walks of life but was not able to marry any of them. Political indoctrination had caused him the incapacity for personal feelings and fear for love of a petty bourgeoisie type.

The attack attracted other reviews to join in the fight. The Tram Hoa (Hundred Flowers) of the poet Nguyen Binh voiced no less bitterness and discontent. The Thoi Moi (The Modern Times), the only private authorized journal that survived the period after the Communist takeover of Hanoi, launched a campaign of attacks on the Party leadership’s and the State bureaucracy’s corrupt practices. State-run and Party-owned journals and magazines such as the Cuu Quoc (National Salvation) of the Fatherland Front, the official journal Nhan Dan (The People) and the Hoc Tap (The Studies), the organ for ideological study of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party had articles or writings revealing the mischievous defaults of the administration. They nevertheless attributed the mistakes and errors to the cadres at the lower levels.

The Developments

The opposition developed in three stages. In the first stage, the intellectuals attacked the "sycophants" and "cadres in the Arts," and revealed cases of exposed corruption and nepotism. In the second stage, they turned their attacks on certain petty leaders. In the third stage, they criticized the Party’s policy in its entirety. In the first stage, the Party did not retaliate. On the contrary, one or two official publications joined in the opposition to denounce the mistakes they attributed to minor officials and low-ranking cadres. In the second stage, it counterattacked by publishing a series of articles written by one or two pro-party intellectuals. In the third stage, it resorted to secret terrorism to defend itself.

The Repression

The State poet To Huu, the Head of the Central Committee Political Propaganda and Education of the Party, was vested with authority to put an end to the opposition. Within a short time and with some hesitation, the Party recouped with repressive measures. At first, it ordered that paper must not be sold to the opposition. The security police were sent to every bookstore and printing shop to ensure cooperation. Workers at printing houses were ordered to go on strike. The measure came to no result, however. Popular support of the intellectuals was solid, and the authority failed to shake it off.

Discontent from other social sectors added weight to the opposition. The wrath of the people boosted to such an extent that it became unrestrained. Unhappy Southerners grouped in Hanoi following the Geneva Agreements of July 1954 attacked the Cau Go police station. Students from the South living in the Nhan Muc village near Hanoi set up barricades along the route from Ha Dong to Hanoi. The Capital was shrouded in dark clouds. The opposition gained support not only from the literary circle but also from the masses. Chaos spread, and the regime was at risk.

The Party could not step back. It decided to strike back and to strike hard. The counterattack, first, concentrated on paralyzing the activities of the opposition. State-run stores were ordered not to sell paper to Nhan Van. The measure took no effect, nonetheless. The magazine could find it in the black market. Other measures also proved to be ineffective. The post-office was ordered to stop the delivery of Nhan Van to its readers. Distributors were forbidden to work with Nhan Van. The review stood firm. High school and college students did the job in its place. The Party turned to intimidate the readership. Operations to search for copies of Nhan Van were actuated. Groups of cadres were sent to work in the streets of Hanoi, and house-search was conducted to look for any holder of the magazine. Nhan Van still came into print.

The opposition fought back. Nhan Van Number VI, in particular, carried the appeal for a demonstration against the political regime. The Party instantly recouped with violent charges. The magazine’s editors were branded as the henchmen of the colonialists and imperialists. It mercilessly gave a dead blow at their head. By an administrative order, the People’s Council of Hanoi closed down the Nhan Van Publishers. All the copies of Nhan Van IV and copies of the issues previously published, from Nhan Van Number 1, were confiscated. Finally, on December 15, Ho Chi Minh signed into law the order to ban all the rights to freedoms of speech and of the press. The press from then on had the obligations to serve the proletarian dictatorship. Those who violated the law were punished, to serve the criminal penalties, from the 5 years’ imprisonment to the life imprisonment.

The Aftermath

The conflict between the Party and the intellectuals lasted for three years and resulted in the defeat of the latter. It only ended when the State poet To Huu read the "Final Report on the Opposition of Subversive Elements in Nhan Van" at the Third Congress of the Union of Writers and Artists in Hanoi on June 4, 1958. To crack down on the growing opposition of the intellectuals, the Party launched hefty repressive operations to terrorize it. The aim was to root up the bourgeois ideology in the minds of the intellectuals and coerce them to break with their old ways of life, to abandon the corrupt practices of free market economy, and to renounce modes of life of petty bourgeoisie, Western philosophy and representative democracy.

Three hundred and four writers and artists were subjected to attending "rectification of thoughts" courses. They were forced to avow the errors in their thinking. Phan Khoi, Truong Tuu, and Nguyen Huu Dang of the Nhan Van Giai Pham and the female novelist Thuy An, who had not written for Nhan Van, did not resign themselves to the order. Punishment was executed. The essayist Nguyen Huu Dang, the novelist Thuy An, and the publisher Tran Thieu Bao were isolated and detained. Later, they were brought to stand trial on charges of treason. Truong Tuu was dismissed from his position as professor at the Faculty of Letters. The Confucian scholar Phan Khoi was placed under house surveillance. He was forbidden to maintain relationship with other writers. Strict disciplinary measures were applied on the culprits and accomplices. In the end, the Party launched "reeducation and labor operations," subjecting the intellectuals, writers, and artists to discipline and conditioning them to work in line with the Association for Writers and Artists of the Party.

On January 21, 1960, the Hanoi People’s Court convicted and sentenced Nguyen Huu Dang and Thuy An to 15 years in prison and Tran Thieu Bao to 10 years in prison. The court could not produce any evidence except for the relationship of the defendants with Maurice Durand, an employee at the Ecole d’Extreme Orient in Hanoi. Durand was portrayed as an intelligence agent for the French colonialists and American imperialists. The trial was conducted behind closed doors. The defendants were brought to the tribunal to hear their verdicts then taken back to the prison (Bui Tin, 1993:197).

The French newspaper Le Monde reported that five intellectuals, including one woman, were tried in January 1960 on charges of having collaborated with the magazine Nhan Van. They were sentenced to prison terms of up to fifteen years. Phan Khoi died before going on trial, and his son Phan Thao, a Communist of renown, died from unexplained causes seven months later. Thousands of other intellectuals and high school and college students were conscripted into "reeducation and labor courses" similar to those instituted in Communist China (Bernard Fall, 1996: 128)

Being a student involving in the opposition, his name would be registered in a black list. A cadre, he would be transferred to another workplace or sent to reeducation and thought reform. Many students took revenge until decades afterwards. Discontented poets, writers, and artists were subjected to serve the regime in line with the Party’s orthodox ideology. The entire people of all classes, and the working people, in particular, should thoroughly absorb the socialist ideology. They should abandon their previous outlook on life. They should replace it with the Marxist viewpoint.

Quite a few of intellectuals were sent to distant areas where infant mortality was high and malaria was common disease. They endured forced labor from dawn till dark. Many of them never returned home or had not been heard of again.

PEACEFUL SOCIALIZATION

Confiscation of Lands and Properties

During the early stages of Land Reform, attempts were made to requisition the lands and properties of landlords. Article 4, Chapter II of Decree No. 197 SL of Dec. 10, 1953 stipulated that "only lands, livestock, and agricultural implements will be liable for requisition, and other property will be exempt." Nevertheless, the landlord and his family were forced to leave their house without possessions. Different forms of confiscation were applied to landlords of all categories, French colonialists, traitors, reactionaries, and non-reactionaries. Confiscation was total for the first category, might be total or partial for the second, and with redemption for the third. Application of the third form of confiscation nevertheless existed on paper.

The results published in a communique relating to the Hanoi suburban area by the Land Reform Committee announced that the oppressed peasants had confiscated or requisitioned from the landowning class 20,482 mau (18,220 acres) of rice-fields, 511 animals, 6,150 agricultural implements, 1,032 houses, and 346,903 kgs of foodstuffs. They had also compelled landlords to pay back as excesses of land-rent 155,o69 kgs of paddy, and 6,429,950 $VN dong. All these had been shared between 24,690 landless peasants and poor worker families, comprising 98,113 people. On average each landless peasant received 2 sao 9 thuoc (0.205 acres). However small, the gift of mre than 2 sao was a treasure to a landless peasant or poor workert.

The moment of joy soon dissipated. The State imposed a new progressive agricultural taxes on the lands the peasants received from the State. They were two and three times higher than the taxes they had previously paid. Other measures gradually conditioned them to adapt themselves to a pattern of life they had never experienced.

Collectivization

Following the repression of the peasants in Nghe An and the oppression against the intellectuals in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party carried out its policy of collectivization. In the countryside, the peasants were organized to work in collective farms for the State, from farming to building roads. After harvest, the peasant was given only one fourth of the crop. The other three fourths went to tax payment, the Trade Office, the National Bank and other State agencies. Every cooperative member was not starving but undernourished. He remained miserable as he had ever been. Having no incentive and individual profit, the peasant grew reluctant and careless in their work. The production decreased. As a result, the Communists were successful in destroying the class of exploiting landlords but were faced with serious economic problems. Of most significance, they could only condition with force the peasants to adapt to the Communist pattern of life.

Confiscation of Industrial and Business Enterprises

A few days after the takeover of Hanoi, the Ho Chi Minh government executed strict measures to ruin the market economy and the urban bourgeoisie. The first measure was to impose a special tax levied on goods called "the remaining-in-store-tax." Tax payment, which largely exceeded the price of the goods, were demanded without delay in Indochinese bank-notes. The second measure was to change the bank-notes. The government ordered the entire population to exchange its bank-notes for their newly issued currency. However, they only received a small amount of money in return. The same measure was applied to gold and sliver articles. The third measure was to collectivize private enterprises. Capitalist compradors and businessmen were to join the State. Private enterprises were transformed into State joint ventures where the former owners were kept as managers. (Hoang Van Chi, 1964: 241)

Collectivization

In 1959, having confiscated all private industry and business enterprises, the Vietnamese Workers’ Party launched a political campaign in to get rid of the remnant of capitalism and eradicate the spirit of petty bourgeoisie. Do Muoi, the secretary of Haiphong Party Committee, was vested with authority to direct the campaign. From the outset, factory owners and businessmen were categorized as capitalists compradors, bourgeois, and petty bourgeois. They were encouraged to offer their properties to the Revolution. In the major cities, Hanoi, Haiphong, and Nam Dinh, the sessions for categorization were uptight. Meetings soon became the sessions for crimes revelation and denunciation. Charges of exploitation of labor and oppression of workers were leveled at the traitors to the people and henchmen of imperialism.

An uncounted number of small traders in businessmen were subject to detention for investigation.. They were only released, having earnestly admitted their crimes and offered to the State their ill-gotten gains. Progressive bourgeois and capitalists who, after having voluntarily offered their entire wealth and properties to the State, were redeemed. Their status as citizen was restored. Among them were the former wealthiest businessmen and factory owners in the North, Ngo Tu Ha, Nguyen Gia Hung, Nguyen Son Ha, and Trinh Van Bo. The results of the campaign were so impressive that an article in the newspaper To Quoc (The Fatherland) published in February 1960 boasted that "our former private entrepreneurs, at present outwardly almost identical to comrade workers (Bui Tin, 1993: 241)

Peaceful Socialization

The State had all intents to dispossess the capitalist compradors’ and bourgeois’ wealth and properties. The truth is that other approaches were available. There was little sense in trying to nationalize rapidly. Factories could have been nationalized at a slower rate. Industrialization in the cities was not dictated by the circumstance. The Party leadership, in fact, wanted to create a social condition on which their political monopoly could rest securely. Old classes had to be abolished, and the new classes should be created through the systematic elimination of the former ones. By their victory over the French, the Communist leadership carried out the measures of a class struggle type to monopolize power. The realization thus called for the eradication of the bourgeoisie and the control of the economy. Mines, factories, small private enterprises, handicraft production --all had to be nationalized and turned into joint State and private cooperatives

Under the slogan peaceful socialization, the regime turned most enterprises into joint state and private enterprises. Capitalists whose skills were needed were kept in their former positions and eventually ended up as salaried employees of the State. This group of businessmen --the national bourgeoisie and former class of exploiters-- ceased to exist. Statistically, they had become part of the class of national and intellectual workers whose number was given was 750,000 at the end of 1961 (Buttinger, 1968: 424-425)

The Economic Life

The impressive achievements of Hanoi nonetheless failed to push the national economy forwards. The Communists were capable of ruining the capitalist class and the market economy under the most troublesome conditions, but they were unable to overcome the grave errors and basic faults resulting from their economic concentration policy. By sheer energy, persistence, and, especially, ruthlessness, they failed to achieve success, to produce spectacular achievements in the vast field of small-scale, nonagricultural activities in which the Vietnamese had always excelled. The prime motives were, first, the elimination of a property-owning middle class --the backbone of the economy production and, second, the establishment of government control over this sector of economy. Suspected enemies of the regime belonging to this class of exploiters were imprisoned and sent to labor camps, and their possessions confiscated. Many went out of business because the goods in which they traded were not available, and others were ruined through excessive taxation. The regime abolished every vestige of a free market by dictating the prices at which the small producer could buy and sell. In a word, the Communists successfully destroyed the old economy but failed to build a solid foundation for a new one.

In cities and towns, State and Private Joint Enterprises replaced the system of capitalist industry and commerce to function the economy. Failures in the economic life were apparent. however. A decline in the agricultural production, as a case in evidence, was deplorable. The country was in a severe food shortage. Workers of a spinning factory wished to buy their ration of rice. They had to take half a day’s leave from their factory. The consumption of meat per capita in 1961 was truly meager, 6.2 kgs of meat and of cotton cloth 4.8 m. (Nhan Dan, May 7, 1962). If these facts were reliable, the average North Vietnamese would have consumed 17 grams (more than half an ounce) a day and would have worn a single suit of pyjama al the year round..

In the beginning years of the 1960’s, when Hanoi began to wage the liberation war in South Vietnam, the economic situation in the North with the introduction of the agricultural commune lagged far behind the economic growth in the South. The government implemented a neo-Stalinist policy of economy at the macro-economic level, emphasizing the rapid development of heavy industry. The policy nevertheless only proved to be a vain dream. As a matter of fact, the increasingly costly war of liberation against the American-backed government in the South had to rely on massive military aids from other socialist countries, especially the People’s Republic of China, thus allowing North Vietnam to continue the war. By any objective standard, the economy of North Vietnam until 1975 was at a very low level of economic development (Adam FForde, 1989:14).

THE LAND REFORMS (1952-1956)

　

Theses for Land Reform

As soon as the Communist Party of Indochina was founded (1930), the Communists assigned themselves to the fulfillment of the twofold fundamental task, to abolish feudalism and French imperialism and to gain national independence. In support of this task, they vowed to carry out such theses as to requisition all lands belonging to foreign and local landowners and to the Church and to give them to middle and poor peasants. Nevertheless, these theses were mere rhetoric. The Communist Party of Indochina was only a small group. It was far inferior in the party organization and popular confidence as compared to the prestigious Viet Quoc (National Party of Vietnam). Its efforts largely concentrated on the propaganda for its cause and the enlargement for party membership.

In 1939, the Popular Movement in France was in full swing, The Communists in Indochina had significant activities. Having successfully infiltrated other revolutionary and political national parties with their men, they reactivated their task and sought popular support. They drummed up their a program of social justice with multiple purposes, working hard for an Indochina Conference to demand for better human condition and inspiring a class struggle to realize the confiscation of the possessions of the French imperialists and Vietnamese traitors, the reduction of rents and rates of interests, and the redistribution of communal lands to the peasants.

During the war of resistance (1946-54), the conflict of the war required national union. The question of land reform was apparently negated. However, in 1948, the Communist Party of Indochina reaffirmed the fundamental task of land reform. One of its measures was to "gradually limit, by reforms, the exploitation by feudal landowners (for instance, by reducing land rent), at the same time, to bring about changes in the system of land ownership. Caution was made as regards members of the Lien Viet (National United Front). Measures taken should not be harmful. In January of the same year, the Party laid down concrete measures for implementation its agrarian policy such as to reduce land rents by 25%, abolish all supplementary rents and redistribute communal lands. Notwithstanding, in May 1950, the Communist administration issued a decree ordering the confiscation of those lands that were distributed to poor peasants who would be exempted from tax for the first three years (Tran Phuong, 1965: 167-174)

The Campaign for Rent Reduction

Before the battle of Dien Bien Phu ended (mid-1954), the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, the reincarnation of the Communist Party of Indochina, had launched a skysplitting and earthshaking campaign of political struggle paving the way for the land reform (1953-1956). This campaign was preceded by two others. They served a twofold aim: First. it was destined to implement the previously adopted Chinese tax system --to impose on the peasantry a heavier tax; and, second, to prepare a preliminary wave of terror to liquidate all dangerous reactionary elements.

The land reform itself proceeded in two separate campaigns, the land rent reduction and the land reform. The land rent reduction began in February 1953 and lasted two weeks. In the countryside, the villagers were called for a meeting to be informed of and discuss about the taxes. The purpose, in reality, was to question the taxpayers who had evaded taxes or had not paid them duly. They were forced to disclose anyone who had incited them not to pay the taxes. Worse still, they were tortured to declare the reactionary political party to which they had belonged. In practice, the chairman of the meeting had already had on hands the list of names of the individuals the Party considered as reactionary elements in the village. He was even, at times, prompted to mention those names. (Quite a few of chairmen of this type were illiterate). He who avowed his crimes, that is, to declare what the Party wanted him to do, was immediately set free.

The Persecution

The Party launched successive operations of political struggle. Reactionary elements on the black list were arrested, tortured. and even killed Survivors from operations of terror were detained for further investigation. A few weeks later, the security police pronounced without proof and evidence that they were truly the traitors or dangerous elements of certain clandestine organizations working for the French. The political struggle was uptight. The local authority had to report the number of traitors as required. There were at least three to five individuals in each village who attributed as traitors and dangerous elements. Many of them were either tortured to death. Others killed themselves out of humiliation. The former Cabinet Minister Dang Van Huong was among the victims. He was not tortured to death, but his brother was. Dang Van Huong and his wife hanged themselves afterwards. Dang Van Huong was the father of Colonel Dang Van Viet, who led the troops of the People’s Army to defeat the French troops at the battle of Cao Bang - Lang Son.

Terrorism

Terror plagued the countryside. The authorities in the provinces were to submit to the central government a list of typical reactionary elements consisting of a landlord, a Buddhist monk, a Catholic priest, a laureate Confucian scholar, and a mandarin and to prepare to bring them to stand trial in open military courts of justice. In the Thanh Hoa province, for instance, the top landlord Nguyen Huu Ngoc and the Buddhist monk Thich Tue Chieu were given the death sentence. The Catholic priest Mai Ba Nhac and two compradors were sentenced to 15 years of forced labor. The old mandarin Ha Van Ngoan and the laureate scholar Le Trong Nhi did not appear before court: they died in prison (Hoang Van Chi, 137-150).

Terror campaigns disguised as a political struggle ensued. This political struggle, however, was only the prelude to the performance of the agrarian reform that took place two years after the Dien Bien Phu victory (1956). In fact, during the Resistance War (1946-1954), the Communist Party of Indochina had ever maintained its approaches to land and education and thoughts reforms. Party members and cadres were instructed not only to do away the landlords but also to blot out all vestiges of French imperialism and Western democratic values and culture. These approaches were developed into theories and methods of reasoning destined to level up the elimination of the Western democratic ideology on private ownership and replace it with the Marxist ideology and, later, the Maoist ideology on the class, the class struggle, and the class ownership of the economy.

The Land Reform

The land reform began in 1953, but the campaign for what was named by Mao as "the overthrow of the political power and influence of the landowning class and the notables and men of letters" practically started at the end of 1952. During the first Congress of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, November 14-26, 1953, the party members and cadres were particularly instilled to adopt the methods of application, which were modeled on the ones the Chinese Communists had executed in 1948. Implanted in the party members’ and cadres’ minds were the compass thoughts: "The old regime is a regime of exploitation; the Vietnamese landlords are always the collaborators with the French imperialists, and they are to be destroyed."

Prelude to the Deluge

Following the defeat of the French army at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, he French troops withdrew from the outlining provinces of the Red River delta --Phat Diem, Bui Chu, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, and Phu Ly --to protect the Capital, Hanoi, the seaport, Haiphong, and Route V connecting the two cities. The Viet Minh, aware of a popular revolt, changed their tactics. They showed compassion to the people in the newly-liberated areas. and stopped short their operations of land reform. In practice, in many parishes, the Catholics were persecuted for practicing their faith or because of their anti-Communist stance.

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Almost as soon as the [1954] truce became effective, the Catholic bishops entered a test of power with the Viet Minh, using their self-defense forces to back the Democratic Republic of Vietnam occupation. The response was predictably ruthless. Catholic villages were attacked by the People’s Army. In two instances, inhabitants reportedly were massacred, churches were burned, church property confiscated, priests tortured or jailed. and heavy taxes levied on Church lands or buildings. Among the consequences of this violence was a Catholic propaganda campaign against the Viet Minh, -- the Virgin-had-gone-South- and mass migration of whole parishes (Pentagon Papers, 1972:12).

The Vietnamese Workers’ Party, indeed, had to wait until the Communist troops took over Haiphong, the city of last hope, from which people could escape to the South, and resume their work. Series of fierce operations to denounce crimes were performed in the plains of the Red River. The aftermath was terrible. Traitors were tried, detained, or executed, and their properties were confiscated. In the suburbs of Hanoi alone, 1,032 families, which was 4% of the population, were classified as reactionary traitors.

The Laws and the Practices

Article 4 of Chapter 2 of the Decree 197/SL, promulgated on December 19, 1953, stipulated that only superfluous cultivated land, cattle, and farm implements were all confiscated. Nevertheless innocent landowners and their families were thrown out of their houses. The Decree on the Protection of the Freedom of Conscience promulgated on June 4, 1955, stipulated that "the Government shall guarantee the freedom of conscience and freedom of worship of the people. Nobody is allowed to infringe these freedoms (Article 1, Chapter I)" that "churches, temples, pagodas, sanctums, religious institutes, and articles of worship belonging to any religion shall be protected by law (Article 6, Chapter I," and that "in the process of land reform, a part of land property owned by religious groups which was requisitioned by the Government either with or without reparations for distributions to peasants, shall be left to the church, pagoda, or sanctum concerned in an area large enough to ensure the performance of worship and to provide for living conditions for priests and religious dignitaries in order them to carry out their religious activities (Article 10, Chapter III)." Nevertheless, Geniuses and saints were ridiculed; priests and dignitaries were executed; and seminarians and nuns were forced to return home. Communal houses, churches, temples, and pagodas were destroyed or turned into offices, classrooms, or granaries. Neighbors spied on one another. Landowners and their family members were mocked, beaten, or killed without mercy.

The Campaign of Land Reform

The campaign of land reform served a political purpose. General Le Thiet Hung of the Vietnamese People’s Army reported in the magazine Cuu Chien Binh (Veteran Fighters) in September 1991 that it was Ho Chi Minh who initiated and executed the orders to carry out the campaigns of crime revelations and denunciations of landlords. He applied all the experiences in agrarian reforms he had accumulated from Stalin during his stay in the Soviet Union and the maneuvers for crimes revelations and denunciations from Mao during the years 1924-1927 in Hunan when he served as a secret agent for the Soviet Union. Contrary to the common belief that Ho had applied the methods he had learned from the agrarian reform from the brother Chinese Communists, Ho didn’t apply them literally. He practically modified them. He set up norms for his plan of actions, adjusting the reality to the actual situation to achieve his purpose.

Indeed, when carrying out the programs of land reform in Hunan, the Chinese Communists were still not in power. They did not have an administration of their own. The operations were performed at a small scale. It was until the Chinese Koumintang applied the strategy "to ally with Russia and tolerate the Chinese Communists" that the Chinese Communists had a chance to instigate the uprising. Ho had returned to Russia before that time. There were some principles and pieces of advice from the Chinese advisers, but the initiatives were his.

As a matter of fact, when launching the operations of land reform in North Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communists were in power. They seized the entire administration, and, as a result, the Party and State directed the people’s uprising. In this way They easily shifted full responsibility on the masses for the appropriation of the property of the landlords, the killing of innocent people, and the destruction of the material establishments and cultural values of the entire people at he base. Subversive activities with hatred and violence ensued and expanded.

The campaigns of crimes revelations and denunciations began to take place at the end of 1952. However, it was not until December 20, 1953 when Ho Chi Minh convened a special meeting of the National Assembly to discuss the land reform policy and to pass the laws for land reforms that the true campaigns for land reform were carried out. Ho Chi Minh, under his secret name DIN, in his article in the magazine Vi Hoa Binh Lau Dai, Vi Dan Chu Nhan Dan (For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy) on August 21, 1953 published a summary of the developments of the land reforms as follows:

"The order was issued. Last May, under the leadership of the Party and after cautious deliberate preparations, the peasants had a conference. More than 200 representatives were present. They carefully studied the directives from the Party and the decrees of the Government on the new policy of land reform. They traced out a plan of actions to practically reduce taxes and rates of interests. They decided to begin work in a number of areas then gradually expand the movement according to the oil-blotting spot approach.

When the conference ended, the representatives were divided into two battalions. These battalions went directly to the villages in two different directions. Each battalion was then divided into teams. Each team was composed of 12 to 15 people, and each team was in charge of a designated village. Every member of the team must firmly observe the internal regulations. One of them regulates the three do’s together: live in the poor peasant’s family (live together), share meals with them (eat together), and 3) help them with their work (work together).

The team continued their work-plan through different phases. They visited poor peasants and talked with them. They studied the situations in the village and explained to them the roots of their poverty. They discussed with them the way to struggle. They explained to them the Party and Government’s policy of land reform. They selected active people among the peasants. In the meetings, they encouraged poor peasants to speak out the the landlords’ acts of oppression and exploitation they had suffered. They aroused their hatred and indignation against the pack of landlords. They set up a provisional committee of peasants consisting of the peasants from the agricultural commune. This committee also included those active peasants who had already been selected. This committee would direct the movement and carry out the policy of land reform. When these tasks had been performed, they organized a meeting. They brought the landlords who had committed crimes against the peasants to the meeting. Having had evidence in hand, the peasants publicly accused them of their crimes."

In practice, the peasants were taught how to denounce the landlord’s crimes during the operations of land reform.The purpose was after all to prove to the population that the Party , acting through the Peasants Association, was all-powerful. If the accused admitted to the various charges, that was good, as far as the Party was concerned’ because the denouncers appeared to be truthful and reliable. But, if too many of them denied the accusations, a substantial number of spectators might be inclined to view that the charges were merely invented and groundless. In the latter case, the Party was often obliged by means of threats to force the victims to change his attitude or even to shoot him in order to safeguard its prestige (Hoang Van Chi, 1964:186)

The People’s Court

The traitors were brought to stand trials before a people; s court. Finally. The People’s Court judged them and made decisions. The criminals had to pay back to the peasants the illegal amount of money they had received from the peasants’ land rents and the money that they had exploited and retained from the peasants’ work and returned to them the lands they had dispossessed by cheating, and so on. In the cases where the accused committed other serious crimes, the People’s Court had to give them the death penalty.

"A simple false denouncement is sound enough to reverse the situation of an innocent participant to that of a true culprit. Disaster, disgrace and shame, and death hanged in midair over the head, and, like an overripe fruit on a high twig, would dropped off anytime. Because of this, amid the thunder of tumult from the crowd of villagers, quite a few cries burst into shouts to smother up tears or calm down disquietude or a daze filled with awe that overwhelms one during a storm." (Duong Thu Huong, Thien Duong Mu)

The Agricultural Committee

The power of the agricultural commune, in the words of Mao Tsetung, is absolute. It forbids the landlords to open their mouths. It sweeps away the power and influence of the landlords. That means beating the landlords to the ground and trampling them underfoot. A frightening picture was a scene of a person who was executed by the revolution: Being buried with his head above the ground, the victim has the chance to witness with his own eyes his death. The executioner used a harrow drawn by a buffalo to bush the head of the victim forward and backward until it dropped off. Drum beating,, gong striking, and shouts of acclaim of the revolutionary masses were thundering around. These rituals performed in the People’s Republic of China were repeated in the distant district of Hoang Hoa, Thanh Hoa Province. It is estimated that more than 500,000 people were executed during the land reforms in North Vietnam during the years 1952-1956 (Nguyen Viet, 1992: 12-14).

About 20 villages had carried out the same procedures. The experiences they had gathered were fairly ample. A real form of class struggle of this type raged in the rural areas. It only ended until later when Gorbachev forced the Vietnamese Communists to rectify their errors and excused Ho Chi Minh from dishonesty and wickedness.

A Typical Case

The Sao Mai Student Group, an underground organization operating inside Vietnam (1993) reported that during the first phase of land reform the Communists pushed forward bloody campaigns of terror. Their machinery of propaganda incessantly repeated the trial of the cruelest and most dangerous traitor Cat Hanh Long in Thai Nguyen. This was the first trial in a people’s court that had ever taken place in Vietnam. It opened a purge camouflaged under the "movement of agrarian reforms.

In the early days of July 1993, the portrait of the "cruelest monster Cat Hanh Long" was recreated for the first time on the newspaper. After exposing the hideous truth with arguments that showed great nervousness, the Doanh Nghiep (Business Magazine) published a petition by Cat Hanh Long’s son and daughter-in-law. In it, they displayed with evidence how the homeless children and grandchildren of the family had suffered after the land reform, regardless of the wrong accusations that killed Cat Han Long were acknowledged.

Nguyen Thi Nam alias Cat Hanh Long was one of the most ardent supporters of the Viet Minh movement in the early days of the August uprisings. She had encouraged her children and grandchildren to join the Viet Minh to operate revolutionary activities clandestinely. She contributed with wealth and work to the Viet Minh cause. She engaged herself in campaigns of fundraising for the Viet Minh. encouraging fellow merchants to buy Viet Minh bonds with which the rViet Minh could amass tons of salt, rice, arms and ammunitions to prepare for the revolution. She engaged herself in the "Weeks foe Gold" campaigns to amass gold for the Ho Chi Minh government. She had tons of copper transported to the khu (secret war zones) to cast ammunitions. She joined the Viet Minh government in the resistance war against the French. She served it in the Movement of Patriotic Women to consolidate the Party’s organization. and in the Party Central Committee as well, to help implement ithe State economy projects (1945-46). She was therefore elected President of Patriotic Women Association of the Inter-zone of Resistance of Viet Bac in Thai Nguyen. She was at the same time a member of the Committee for Patriotic Women in North Vietnam. At the Congress of the Representatives of the Movement of Patriotic Women, the government of Ho Chi Minh gave her a note of recognition.

Cat Hanh Long was one among the victims who were arbitrarily charged with committing the cruelest and most wicked crimes. They were subject to the most tragic death, even though they were truly those who had supported the Communists in establishing and consolidating the Communist movement. The main reason for their deaths was that they had been so much enthusiastic about the struggle for national salvation but were not aware of the Communists’ ultimate goal. Their political viewpoints were apparently the immediate danger to their cause. To maintain their monopoly of power, the Communists never hesitated to kill them (The Sao Mai Student Group, 1993).

The Rectification of Errors

Owing to the political developments in the Socialist Bloc were the confessions on errors generated. The Vietnamese Workers’ Party unexpectedly admitted it had committed serious errors during the campaigns of land reform. It was Ho Chi Minh himself who procreated these confessions. He declared with tears in his eyes that because of ardent enthusiasm, a number of Party cadres had made mistakes, thus causing mourning to many families of those who were wrongly convicted. Ho Chi Minh solemnly declared to right the wrong to restore citizenship to family members of those who were wrongly convicted of treason, of being reactionaries. He also promised to punish those cadres who committed errors. Ho Viet Thang, vice-minister in charge of land reform resigned from office. Truong Chinh, the Party’s Secretary-general, avowed he had made the most serious mistake. He was removed from office but was nevertheless appointed Chairman of the National Assembly. At the 10th Congress of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, Vo Nguyen Giap restated the Party’s errors and failures, regardless of the fact that the peasants had been vested with the mission to carry out the campaigns of land reform. Among other things, the Party admitted that it had attacked the landowning families indiscriminately. It had attacked strongly tribal chiefs, injuring local customs and manners. It had executed too many honest people. It had attacked with violence on a large front, to see enemies everywhere and to resort to terror and torture beyond normal practice. It had taken no consideration to followers of the revolution and participants in the resistance. It had failed to respect the principles of freedom of faith and worship.

The rectification of errors soon sank in oblivion. It drew with it all the tragic incidents into darkness. Over the years, no real incident of rectification had been seen. :Family members of the victims of the massacre during the early years of land reform were not free from the siege by the society They were not able to merge into light from the miserable life comparable to those people who lived at the edge of death. (The Sao Mai Student Group, 1993).

The Land Reform and Its Aftermath

On November 1, 1956, the government announced the release of 12,000 people from prisons and labor camps. However, it was generally believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed, and 50,000 to 100,000 were deported and imprisoned. What the agrarian reforms had failed to accomplish was to satisfy the need for land of those whose benefit the achievement the regime had allegedly undertaken. In fact, it was able to give 1.5 million tenant and poor peasant families slightly more than one acre each. Nevertheless, these gifts were not substantial enough to turn the tenants and poor peasants into enthusiastic supporters of the regime. Furthermore, the injustices and atrocities resulting from false accusation and violence during the land reform produced widespread resentment, unrest, and eventually open rebellion. The brutality of the cadres embittered not only the victims but also those who were lucky enough to have escaped persecution (Joseph Buttinger, 1968: 428).

In the provinces in the Red River delta the masses revolted against the local administration. The Party leadership had to rely on the army to quench the uprisings. During November 1956, the Party’s press conceded that a popular revolt took place in the Quynh Luu District, Nghe An Province, the hometown of Ho Chi Minh. Approximately 20,000 peasants armed with coarse farm implements and staffs fought against the 315 Division. Western observers claimed that about 1,000 peasants were killed or wounded between November 10 and 20, 1956. Several thousand were arrested and deported. In Hanoi, intellectuals stood up in opposition to the party cadres’ haughtiness and corrupt practices of the officialdom. Although their struggle was unsuccessful, it contributed to denouncing the socialist regime’s social injustices and the pernicious political oppression the intellectuals had suffered under the totalitarian dictatorship.

THE VIET MINH IN POWER

In Retrospect

Revolutionary Parties’ Activities in China

The repression of the colonial rule against revolutionary parties following the revolt in Yen Bay in 1930 was brutal. Thousands of members of Viet Quoc were brought to stand trials, jailed, or executed. Most revolutionaries who survived the repression evaded to China. Misfortunes came again, nevertheless. In 1940, military detachments of the Japanese Expeditionary Corps from t Kwangtsi, China, invaded Lang Son and dismantled the local French troops stationing in the border province. Believing that the Japanese would create for them an opportunity to gain back national independence, Tran Trung Lap, and Doan Kiem Diem of the Phuc Quoc Quan that followed the Japanese into Vietnam in coordination with members of other revolutionary parties rose in arms to seize the local administration. Nevertheless, the Japanese Fascists and the French colonial rule in Indochina, within a day, reached a compromise. The French colonialists were allowed to stay and continued to rule the colony under Japanese supervision. The revolt was crushed brutally. Tran Trung Lap and Doan Kiem Diem were killed. Other leaders and the remnant of the militia escaped massacre and evaded to and took refuge in China.

In Liao Chou, where most Nationalist revolutionaries and patriots congregated, party leaders had for decades founded political front or alliance to lay the foundations for the struggle for national independence. As early as 1934, Nguyen Hai Than, a veteran member of the Dong Du Movement and partisans of the Vier Quoc, Vu Hong Khan, Nghiem \Ke To, Chu Ba Phuong, and Le Khang actuated plans of actions for national revolution. Chu Ba Phuong came back to the country to reactivate the party organization links. In 1942, in a concerted effort, the leaders of Dong Minh Hoi and Viet Quoc founded the Viet Cach, with Truong Boi Cong, a veteran revolutionary figure, at the head. The organization assembled members of various revolutionary party and groups living in exile in China in a united front. In 1943, the chairmanship was passed to Nguyen Hai Than. Two members of the Communist Party of Indochina, Nguyen Ai Quoc, later known as Ho Chi Minh and Le Cong Son, were admitted to the membership. Ho Chi Minh was sent back on mission to Vietnam to organize the resistance. Upon his coming back to the country, He founded the Viet Minh to serve the Communist cause, instead. Many Viet Cach cadres simply disappeared because of his hidden scheme.

As a consequence of the French white terror prior to World War II, many patriots of a younger generation evaded to and sought refuge in China. In Canton, leaders of Viet Quoc, Dai Viet Dan Chinh, and Duy Dan formed an alliance to serve national cause and struggle for national independence. The purposes were to unify the national parties in a single organization, serve a common ideology, unite behind a single leadership, and deal with external affairs with a multifaceted approach. The ideology, in particular, was based on the principle "For the People;" as formulated by the revolutionary patriot Phan Boi Chau. All national parties were allies, and the Viet Minh, the opponents. The documents with guidelines were sent in secret to national parties operating inside the country. Emphases were placed on the laying out specific plans of actions, to invigorate party organizations, promote political education, establish military training centers for party cadres, and implement political propaganda programs. The methods of actions should vary with time, situation, and circumstance. For the first time, a national revolutionary united front practically laid out its doctrinal and political foundations for the country’s national salvation. The alliance became later a counter force and the dangerous enemy to the Communist-led Viet Minh. The Overseas Executive Committee included Nguyen Tuong Tam (Dai Viet Dan Chinh), Nghiem Ke To (Viet Quoc), Vu Hong Khanh (Viet Quoc), and Ly Dong A (Duy Dan)

The Political Situation inside the country

The French terror plagued throughout the country following the revolt at Yen Bay (1930) and the So Viet Nghe Tinh uprisings (1931). Almost all revolutionary activities were crippled. It was not until 1936 when the victory of the Popular Front that brought Leon Blum and the socialists to power in France (1936) that fresh wind was felt in French Indochina. The colonial rule appeared to loosen its grip on the natives giving political activists some ease in several domains of the political life. Like a spark of fire in a rush fire in the dry season, a movement for rights kindled and spread.

In Cochinchina where the natives enjoyed limited freedoms of assembly and of the press, many activists and revolutionaries adamantly entered into the fight for rights. The Communist Party of Indochina, for its part, called for an Indochina Conference with various demands on reforms for the workers’ human condition. The ardent patriot Nguyen An Ninh published the journal La Lutte, held high the banner of the fight for the rights to self-administration and civil rights for the natives. The Trotskyite group with Ta Thu Thau at the head actively engaged in public political activities and debates, fighting for the natives’ civil rights. Some of them ran for elections and won seats in the Saigon local representative council.

In the protectorate Tonkin where the natives were not entitled to rights as were the natives in the colony, demands for rights and reforms were strictly forbidden. Nevertheless, the protectorate rule showed ease in some areas of expression. The local press was allowed to express requests for reforms, better treatments to the natives, improvement on the workers’ working conditions. and enforcement of punitive measures on abuses of power and cases of social injustice.

Those favors of the colonial rule did not last long. however, Fascism expanded rapidly in Germany and Italy under the flag of Nazism of Hitler and Mussolini. In 1937, Japan invaded China and threatened the whole Southeast Asia including the Western colonies, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Indochina. However, fleeting euphoria of a better change for the country was felt among the pro-Japanese circles. Many leaders even thought that they could lean on the Japanese to fight the French colonists out of the country. Their dream proved to be futile. The Japanese wooed in appearance some figures to their side. They tended to protect some but ignored the others. Tran Trong Kim, Duong Ba Trac, and Tran Van An were helped to evade the country to escape from the arrest of the French. Members of Viet Quoc remained helpless, nevertheless. French control on revolutionary parties was ever rigid. Party activities throughout the country went underground. It was not until 1938 when Japan’s invasion into China was in full swing to the submission of the Koumintang government and its Western allies that a number of new parties began to appear. An Asian power such as could defy Western countries, and, like wise, a colony like Vietnam in stand face in face against the ailing France. Revolutionary activities thus resumed. Groups of intellectuals and university students burned with the patriotic fervor of the Lang Son Revolt engaged themselves in anti-French activities, regardless of whether they were motivated by Communist or Nationalist organizations

Nguyen Tuong Tam and key members of the Tu Luc Literary Group founded the Dai Viet Dan Chinh. The aims were to struggle for national independence, freedom, and democracy. The party enjoyed great influence among civil servants circles and the intellectuals of city middle class. Truong Tu Anh founded the Dai Viet. Best known among the leaders were Dang Vu Lac, Dang Van Sung, Nguyen Tien Hy, Nguyen Ton Hoan, and Bui Diem. The party honored the practices of its ideological lines of national existentialism. Party membership developed particularly among university student circles of Hanoi. Nguyen Huu Thanh alias Ly Dong A, developed the principles of struggle "for the people" by the revolutionary patriot Phan Boi Chau, formulating fundamental tenets for the Chu thuyet Duy Dan --Doctrine of Humanocracy. He was the coordinator of the study group Dai Hoc Hoang Mai --University of Hoang Mai-- an assembly that consisted largely of Hanoi university graduates and students. The group congregated in session in the vicinity of Kham Thien, Hanoi, for political debates and discussions. Among them were Thai Lang Nghiem Pham Van Tam, Le Quang Luat, Nghiem Xuan Hong, Dao Van Duong, Tran Van Tu, Nguyen Xuan Chieu, and Tran Thanh Dinh. Ly Dong A was later elected First Secretary of the Duy Dan Party (The National Party For the People). Last but not least, Chu Ba Phuong and Le Khang, who had returned from China, restarted revolutionary activities of various local Viet Quoc party branches and cells in the provinces of North Vietnam. Clandestine activities resumed, and the links between the party overseas organizations and party branches and cells and branches inside the country were then connected

As World War II rolled on in Europe, groups of resistance of Free France in Indochina, most of whom were servicemen in the French Army, operated clandestine anti-Japanese activities in the colony and protectorates. Vietnamese patriots, religious and spiritual figures, revolutionary party leaders, and intellectuals of the younger generation and, particularly, university students all actively engaged in the revolution. They met, discussed, and planned organized activities to struggle for national independence. The French colonial rule sought to extinguish the fire of revolution. The Japanese tried to save the situation, to calm down the natives’ wrath that ever rose. They gave, in appearance, protection to several personalities, Huynh Phu So, Ngo Dinh Diem, Tran Trong Kim, Tran Van An, and Duong Ba Trac, and lent support to nationalist groups, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, in exchange for compassion.

These types of Japanese support, in truth, only served the Japanese’s immediate political purpose, to create a counter force against the Free French Forces that operated in Indochina and to nurture a group of collaborators to serve the Japanese long-term political objectives. Facing the French repression and entrapped in unfavorable conditions created by the situation, virtually all Vietnamese revolutionary forces during World War II shrank in strength and diminished in growth. By the end of the war, the Viet Minh had only two platoons of militiamen; the Dai Viet had few military training centers in the low lands, and the Viet Quoc, which suffered tragic losses after the Yen Bay Revolt and the White Terror, could only operate underground. In the South, the two forces of Cao Dai and Hoa Hao and the militia under the command of Nguyen Hoa Hiep were thin and only equipped with coarse weapons. The struggle for national independence staggered with serious difficulties. The Nationalist-Communist fight for power that took place during the later years of the 1940’s were practically dependent on the initiatives of the leaders of either side.

The Viet Minh in Power

      Weaknesses vs. Strengths

All through the fight for power prior to and after the August uprisings, the Nationalists had dutifully served their ultimate goal, to drive the foreign enemies out of the country and achieve Vietnam’s national integrity and independence. They had united in a front or an alliance to fight for a common cause while preserving their own entities. They adopted the principle of political pluralism. In the words of Nguyen An Ninh, a patriot of prestige, "like a player in a soccer team, "one observes the common rules and can display one’s talents." A number of weaknesses were apparent in the Nationalists’ camp, however. The goals of struggle were not well defined. They were more revolutionary than political. The objectives basic to the struggle were not clearly formulated. The purposes and perspectives that were fundamental to the establishment of a prospective political regime were overlooked. Popular political propaganda was poorly activated. There was a great lack of mass mobilization, and thus the absence of participation of the peasantry and workers. Still, the lines of leadership were incoherent. The cadres were compassionate, truthful, and compromising, but volatile. Although they adhered to a common cause and stood in line in a front, each party often carried out its programs of actions independently. Without consensus, they failed to unite in a solid bloc to fight against the Viet Minh.

The Viet Minh tightened their ranks behind a single line of leadership to serve their cause. Viet Minh leaders were all Communist. Their ultimate goal was to transform Vietnam into a Communist country. Ever means was possible to an end to achieve this end. Patriotism was instrumental to the Communist cause, and national independence was only a signboard. They consistently and persistently followed this line of strategy all through the fight for power. Viet Minh cadres observed discipline with absolute obedience. The Viet Minh were more or less flexible and realistic in action. They were nevertheless aggressive, uncompromising, vile, and cunning.

The Viet Minh laid out and achieved step by step their goal, objectives, and programs of actions. Their goal was clear: to revolutionize the country. to make it a country of independence, freedom, and happiness. Their immediate objectives were to fight the French colonialists and the Japanese Fascists out of Vietnam to win back national independence, establish a republic democratic nation. Their programs of actions were political and revolutionary and varied in scope and with time and in accordance with situation and circumstance. With power on hand, they had all the advantages over the Nationalists to win the people’s hearts and minds. Their call to struggle for the liberation of the country from foreign slavery truly responded to the aspirations of the people of the time who for generations had been thirsty for a better life.

The Viet Minh’s Achievements

Within more than a year in power (September 1945-December 1946), the Viet Minh administration had performed remarkable achievements in various areas of the economy, finance, education, and national defense. On September 12, 1945, Vo Nguyen Giap, the Minister for the Interior, signed into law the decision to dissolve the mandarin system of administration of the colonial times. Cadres of the new regime replaced officials of the old regime. The ailing economy following the disastrous hunger that had killed more than two million people of the North gradually recovered. The administration redressed step by step the country’s financial stability, canceling the free circulation of the Chinese bank-notes and stopped the currency traffic that had plagued the North of Vietnam all through the time the Chinese Koumintang troops stayed in the country to disarm the defeated Japanese Army. On September 15, 1945, by an administrative decree, it reformed the taxes policy, banning all forms of head money and additional taxes on agricultural products and business transactions. It encouraged land exploitation and production and the establishment of agricultural cooperatives. Reforms in national education were greatly appreciative. Vietnamese became the language of instruction from the elementary to university levels. The Hoang Xuan Han secondary education curricula which heightened national identity were immediately applied in the school-year of 1945-1946. As regards national defense, it built an organized army, although with little expertise. In addition to the regular troops Ve Quoc Doan (Natioal Defense Troops), the paramilitary Tu Ve (Self-defense Guards), and Dan Quan (Militia) were formed to help take care of public security. Young men, women, and teenagers were also grouped in associations and trained. Every effort was made in preparation for the resistance war against the French invaders.

Keen attention nevertheless focused on eliminating the inside enemy. Party members of national parties and opposing groups were arrested, imprisoned, or abducted to Khu (secret territory). Village notables, officials of the French colonial regime, and Confucian scholars and mandarins of the old Royal Court of Hue were closely watched. Anyone who resisted to or disagreed with Viet Minh’s politicization of the country were attributed to as traitors and reactionary elements and faced repression and even death. Materialism was introduced in the school curricula. The Viet Minh government drummed up the policy of national union and solidarity between people of all walks of life, the believers and non-believers, and the Catholics and non-Catholics In reality, believers of all faiths were targeted with isolation and discrimination. They were even encouraged not to go to church or pagoda. Buddhist monks were repudiated and sent home. Catholic priests were attributed to as the henchmen of the French imperialists, and thus the traitors to the country. In short, individuals, organizations, or institutions that were religious and that were viable to break away from the control of the Viet Minh were all prone to repression and elimination.

On October 28, 1946, fifty deputy in the Nationalist camp did not show at the regular session of the National assembly. At the same time, the cabinet ministers representing the Viet Cach and Viet Quoc, Nguyen Hai Than, Nguyen Tuong Tam, Vu Hong Khan, and Truong Dinh Tri withdrew from the government. On November 13, a new coalition government was formed. The Viet Minh held all key positions. In addition, a power inner circle consisting mainly of veteran Comumnists, Ha Ba Cang alias Hoang Quoc Viet, Nguyen Luong Bang, Dang Xuan Khu alias Truong Chinh, was formed to help implement government policies and shape state decisions.

Hanoi at War

Beginning in the early days of November 1946. the Tu Ve and French troops on guard at Haiphong wharves had sporadically exchanged gunfire to vie each other to seize control on the city waterways. On November 8, the self-defense units of Tu Ve in Haiphong were placed on alert. The French military arrested without cause two fighters of the Tu Ve of VII Quarters on Tam Gian Quarters, Belgique Street. Four French military vehicles were burned down. Using the incident as a pretext, the French Expeditionary troops in Haiphong prepared an all-out operation to occupy the city. Hoang Huu Nam, Vice-minister for Defense, was sent to Haiphong for negotiation. The French insisted on the delivery of all Tu Ve of VII Quarters. The negotiations came to no result. Exchanges of gunfire ensued. On November 20, Hoang Huu Nam of the Viet Minh and Colonel Herckel of the French Expeditionary Corps met but failed to reach an agreement for a cease-fire. On November 21, Haiphong was in flames. Colonel Debes, Commander of the French Army of the Coastal Region, issued an ultimatum. The war broke out.

On November 23, Haiphong was in chaos. French artillery on the battleship Suffren shelled in the streets in the business center of the city. The Viet Minh regular troopers under the command of Colonel Hoang Minh Thao shelled in Cat Bi Airfield and the military positions in the city held by the French troops. French tanks and armored vehicles advanced from Sau Kho (Haiphong Seaport Hangars) into the center of the city. Trees were felled. Furniture were thrown out in the streets. Viet Minh regular troops withdrew to Cau Niem (Niem Bridge) then to Kien An Province to preserve their forces. Groups of the paramilitary Tu Ve resisted with whatever they had in hand. Tu Ve and the militia at VII Quarters fought in despair in face of the invasion forces that were far superior in strength and expertise. Thousands of city-dwellers rushed in flock out of the city in panic.

In Hanoi, French soldiers caused disturbance in the city. At Hang Bun Street, they even caught women for pleasure in broad daylight, shoving the victims into their vehicles and driving away. The local Tu Ve came to their rescue. Exchange of gunfire happened. A French trooper got killed. To retaliate, a thousand French troopers laid siege on the street, destroyed the houses, and killed people. The city was in a mess. On December 16, General Moliere sent a letter to Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap accusing the Viet Minh troops of failing to keep order in the city. It even dictated that from 8 o’clock of December 20, the French Army itself would take charge of the security in the city.

The Viet Minh central government prepared the war. Plans to evacuate cabinet members and the personnel of central agencies to the safety zone in Ha Dong were at hand. The regular troops with arms and ammunitions withdrew from the city in preparation for a counter offensive. On December 19, Hanoi was at war. General Moliere, the commander-in-chief of French Troops, decided to take Hanoi by force. The Viet Minh General Headquarters revoked the order to counter attack to preserve the main forces. The militia voluntarily carried out the task, instead.

At 8:00 p. m. the city power plant was set to explode. The city was shrouded in the dark. The Tu Ve rushed in and destroyed the premises in French residential quarters. French nationals risked their lives to defend themselves. French tanks and armored vehicles under the command of Colonel Herkel attacked the central government palace Bac Bo Phu. They met with resilient resistance of the Tu Ve who held their positions until the last minute of their lives.

Bloody fights took place everywhere. Pockets of resistance were formed to make a defense line from the streets in the center of the city, Hang Bong, Hang Ngang, Hang Dao, Pho Moi, ... to the Kham Thien quarters in the south of the city. The defenders of the Capital were all plain-clothed militiamen largely composed of city-dwellers of all walks of society, young men, and high school and university students who formed themselves the Trung Doan Thu Do (Regiment of the Capital). For nearly two months, from December 20, 1946 to February 17, 1947, the people of Hanoi, and not the Viet Minh troops, heroically fought with coarse weapons against the invaders. An uncounted number of patriots sacrificed themselves for national cause. The French Expeditionary Corps suffered great losses. One thousand three hundred French troopers were killed, and two thousand five hundred others were wounded.

THE VIET MINH ELIMINATION OF NATIONAL PARTIES IN THE NORTH (1945-1946)

 

The Laws and Measures

To monopolize the newly-acquired power, the Viet Minh administration systematically executed without delay their plan of extermination of opposing parties. On September 5, 1945, only three days after President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi, Vo Nguyen Giap, the then Minister for the Interior, signed two administrative decrees, arbitrarily outlawing all party activities. Executing the law, the Viet Minh administration dissolved outright the Dai Viet Quoc Gia Xa Hoi Dang (Greate Vietnam Nationalist Social Party) and the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (Greater Vietnam National Party). As a consequence, protests against the Viet Minh administration multiplied. In Hanoi, popular demonstrations demanded the resignation from office of President Ho Chi Minh and the return to power of ex-Emperor Bao Dai.

To cope with increasing opposition, on September 12, Vo Nguyen Giap signed another administrative decree authorizing the creation of the security service Ty Liem Phong. The organ was vested with full authority to arrest and imprison anyone that was considered a danger to the regime. Within 24 hours after that,, on September 13, Ho Chi Minh, also, by an administrative decree, created the Military Court. The creation of the two security organs evidently served Viet Minh’s urgent political purposes, to show defiance to popular protest, intimidate opponents, and suppress the anti-Viet Minh movement that was on the rise. Above all, the Viet Minh used the new security organs as a legal instrument by means of which they would definitely preserve their monopoly of power.

The Oppression

Targeted with harassment, arrest, imprisonment, and death threat were the writers of the Tu Luc Van Doan (Tu Luc Literary Group) Vu Dinh Chi, Khai Hung Tran Khanh Giu, Nguyen Tuong Bach, and Nhu Phong Le Van Tien--; members of the Han Thuyen Literary Society, the scholar Truong Tuu and the theorist of the Fourth International in Hanoi Nguyen Duc Quynh, and veteran members of the Nam Dong Thu Xa (Nam Dong Literary and Social Studies Club), Nhuong Tong Hoang Pham Tran, Hoc Nang Nguyen Van Phat, and Gian Chi Nguyen Huu Van. Among the targets were also the leaders of national parties, Nguyen Xuan Tieu alias Nguyen Ly Cao Kha and Ta Quang Hoi alias Ta Nguyen Minh of Dai Viet Quoc Xa; and Dr Nguyen Xuan Chu and the lawyer Le Toan of the Viet Nam Ai Quoc Dang (Patriots’ Party of Vietnam)

To consolidate their administration, the Viet Minh created the Viet Minh Front with satellite organizations to praise Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh and activate popular support for them, They were the national salvation associations, namely, the Phu Lao Cuu Quoc, for the seniors; Thanh Nien Cuu Quoc; for young men; Phu Nu Cuu Quoc for young women; Nhi Dong Cuu Quoc, for young teen-agers; and so on. In the large cities such as Hanoi, Haiphong, and Nam Dinh, paramilitary groups Tu Ve (Self-defense Guards) were equally created to take charge of the military and security services in the local streets and quarters. Politically, all these organizations served the Viet Minh’s propaganda purposes, to defame the Nationalist leaders and cadres, and thus attenuate their influence on the masses and dismantle their organizations. Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang was portrayed as a gang of bandits and the lackeys of the filthy Chinese Koumintang. Its headquarters on Quan Thanh Street, Hanoi, was put under tight watch. Its party members in Nam Dinh and Haiphong were followed, and their activities were forbidden.

The Nationalists, on the other side, launched campaigns of propaganda in the press to denounce the Viet Minh’s false cause and the true face of Ho Chi Minh. This agent of the Soviet Third International was unmasked to the public. The articles in the journal Viet Nam published in Hanoi by the novelist Khai Hung, Tran Khanh Giu, notably, warned the Vietnamese people and the Allies against all dupes and vile tricks of Nguyen Ai Quoc and the hidden artful schemes of the Viet Minh. The denunciations of the journal gave a dead blow on the head of the Viet Minh administration. Campaigns of anti-Viet Minh propaganda were also activated by secret distribution of pamphlets and intermittent broadcasts through loudspeakers at Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang headquarters in Hanoi, Haiphong, and Nam Dinh.

Beginning in October 1945, the Viet Minh security police applied strict measures of control on the journal Viet Nam. They stopped the distribution of the journal to the provinces and arrested the deliverers. The journal’s office was isolated from the readership. In a short time, the staff had to cease the publication. Vu Dinh Chi was assassinated. The writer Tran Khanh Giu was kept under watch. In December 1946 when the war broke out in Hanoi, he returned to his home village of Hanh Thien, Xuan Truong District, Nam Dinh Province. He was abducted and executed by a local cadre who was allegedly his old student. His body was crammed in a bamboo cage which was then released into a river.

The Viet Minh Maneuver

From September 9, 1945 onwards, the Viet Minh were militarily and politically subdued by the Chinese generals who came to Vietnam following the decision of the Allies at Potsdam in July 1945 to disarm the defeated Japanese Army and maintain order. The Koumintang troops flooded the cities and provinces in the North to the incapacity and inferiority of the Viet Minh, Revolutionary Nationalists among whom were Nguyen Hai Than, Nguyen Tuong Tam, Vu Hong Khanh, and others, who had taken refuge in China and enjoyed sympathy of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, returned to the country and arduously fought with the Viet Minh for power. The Viet Minh were then at a loss. Their newly-born administration was like a candle before the wind. To their disadvantage, throughout major cities and provinces, other national parties activated political opposition to apply pressure on them to win back power. Confronting the enemies from all sides, Ho Chi Minh managed to manipulate his opponents into joining him to fight for the interests of national cause.

On November 11, 1945, Ho showed his good will and declared to dissolve the Communist Party of Indochina. He nevertheless created at the same time the Hoi Nghien Cuu Chu Nghia Cac Nac (Club for the Studies of Marxism) in its place. Such an act, raised doubts about Ho Chi Minh’s truthfulness among opposing party organizations. The Viet Minh administration met with tense opposition. Facing the urgency of the moment, they hurriedly organized the general elections by means of which they would effectively count out their opponents legally. Members of the Communist Party of Indochina and pro-Communist candidates were all elected to the National Assembly. In Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh won with 98% of the votes. Non-Communists and the Nationalists were eliminated. However, subdued by pressure from the Koumintang generals and leaders of the opposing parties, on December 22, 1945, Ho Chi Minh made a step backwards. He agreed to compromise with his Nationalist opponents, giving them five cabinet posts and 70 seats in the National Assembly in exchange for their cooperation. Nguyen Hai Than (Viet Cach) was assigned Vice-president; Nguyen Tuong Tam (Dai Viet Dan Chinh), Minister for Foreign Affairs; Nghiem Ke To (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang) Vice-minister for Foreign Affairs; Truong Dinh Tri (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang), Minister for Health; and Vu Hong Khanh (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang), Vice-chairman, National Affairs Council. Ex-emperor Bao Dai was nominated Supreme Advisor to the government. All of them and 70 deputies were only figureheads. The Viet Minh made all decisions

The Tricks

The fight for power aggravated the Nationalist-Communist conflict in large cities and provinces. The Viet Cach openly activated both anti-French and anti-Viet Minh sentiments. Propaganda campaigns of crime denunciation against the Viet Minh were operated among the population. The negotiations with the French of the Viet Minh were accused as an act of betrayal to the nation. The Viet Cach with Nguyen Hai Than at the head, in particular, looked for support from Koumintang General Lu Han to gain an upper hand over the Viet Minh. Ho Chi Minh, on the other side, maneuvered to outdo the Viet Cach and other opposing parties with artifices to win over the Chinese general’s favors. Ho had campaigns of Gold Week organized. He appealed to the Vietnamese people to contribute with wealth to national construction and defense. Tons of gold he amassed were offered in part to the Chinese general in exchange for his withdrawal of support for the Nationalist ally.

While courting the Chinese Koumintang with bribes, Ho Chi Minh made peace with the French invaders. Ho opened the seaport of Haiphong to the French Expeditionary Corps. He sped up negotiations with France through the mediation of the French envoy to Vietnam Jean Sainteny, working towards signing with France a modus vivendi. With it, he dealt with France on an equal footing, won from her the de facto recognition of the Viet Minh as the legitimate representative of Vietnam and gained back Viet Minh’s political supremacy over their opponents.

The Repression

Upon achieving his purposes, Ho Chi Minh made volte face, breaking relations with leaders of national parties, decimating their leadership and eradicating their organizations. Taking advantage of their power, the Viet Minh destroyed them with whatever means they had at hand. Opponents, dissidents, and uncooperative individuals were equally targeted with terror and repression. To get rid of these elements, they attributed to them with crimes of treason. These traitors were abducted, arrested, jailed or put to death.

Confrontation with violence instigated by both sides took place, In the major cities, Hanoi, Haiphong, and Nam Dinh. Exchanges of gunfire and grenades occurred in the streets in broad daylight. Most often the Viet Minh prevailed. Members at he headquarters of the Viet Cach, Dai Viet and Viet Quoc in Hanoi were attacked. The Viet Quoc headquarters near the Municipal Theater in Haiphong, and on Pho Ga Street in Nam Dinh were under strict watch. The Viet Quoc main siege on On Nhu Hau Street in Hanoi were targeted with violence. Uncontrolled fights between the Nationalists and Communists increased at the completion of the modus vivendi in Da Lat on March 6, 1946. Coupled with it was the withdrawal from North Vietnam of the Chinese Koumintang troops. Seizing the opportunity, the Viet Minh launched hefty military operations to destroy the militia and the bases of the Viet Cach, Dai Viet, and Viet Quoc. In the provinces, the guerrilla bases of Dai Viet and Viet Quoc. where the militia had been trained to fight the Fascist Japanese occupiers and French colonialists, suffered Viet Minh violent attacks. The forces of national parties could only stand on the defensive.

On May 28, 1946, a Viet Minh delegation left for Paris to negotiate for a treaty with France. Ho Chi Minh also went to Paris. The conference took place at Fontainebleau near Paris. Discussions ensued for two months but came to no conclusion. On September 13, the Pham Van Dong delegation left Paris. Ho Chi Minh stayed and sought to reach a compromise. On September 15 , at the office of the Ministry of Overseas Lands, Marius Moutet and Ho Chi Minh signed, again, a modus vivendi according to which Vietnam was recognized as a free country-- and not an independent one as expected-- within the French Union. He made his trip back to Vietnam on the French battleship Dumond D’Urville. The Viet Minh propaganda machinery drummed up the Vietnamese-French relations and Ho Chi Minh’s achievements with flowery slogans amid popular protests and indignation of national parties

Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh delegation’s diplomatic failures resulted in violent opposition of the national parties. Anti-Viet Minh sentiments increasingly rose in the population To deal with the situation, the Viet Minh decided to fight back hard, suppressing all party activities. The Nationalists demonstrated their unbending willingness and sheer non-cooperation. On October 28, 1946, 50 deputies in the Nationalist camp did not show at the National Assembly. Nguyen Hai Than, Nguyen Tuong Tam, Vu Hong Khanh, and Truong Dinh Tri voluntarily withdrew from the government. Tension mounted. Both sides prepared to exterminate each other. Nevertheless, the bloodiest fights between the Viet Minh troopers and the forces of national parties only began after the withdrawal of the Chinese Koumintang Army in September 1946.