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Colonial Vietnam * Early resistance to the French, led by patriotic Confucianism elites, was put down in the mid-sass when guerrilla forces were defeated in Central Vietnam * Reforms by the French undermined the status of the traditional Confucianism and their power in Vietnam, and also eroded traditional customs, such as the replacement of the Chinese script, the traditional way of transmitting Confucian doctrine in Vietnam, by a reorientation based on the Latin alphabet, the kind we see used in Vietnam today. After 1900 a new generation of revolutionaries arose in Vietnam, of which the most famous was Pan Bio Chaw, a republican influenced by Sun Yet-seen and also the Meijer Restoration in Japan. These radicals were influenced by Chinese reformist intellectuals’ writings, but their knowledge of mass politics, understanding of the new world outside Vietnam, and use of strategy was indeed very limited. They later lost influence very quickly after Chaw was arrested in South China, 1914.
At this time in Vietnam, there arose two new social classes: the urban middle class, and the proletariat. * The urban middle class comprised an upper and lower layer: The upper layer was made up of affluent commercial and professional bourgeoisie such as bankers, land speculators, landowners, many with substantial amount of land in the Mekong Delta, engineers, doctors, and merchants, etc. This group directly benefited from the French colonial policies, and its wealth was largely a result of the French presence.
They were mostly self-made men, without any aristocratic or scholarly ties to the past, and had a pseudo-French culture, dining on French cuisine, sending their children to French boarding schools, and even living in colonial villas in Saigon, where they were mostly based. * The lower crust of the middle class comprised the non-commercial urban intelligentsia, with teachers, clerks, Journalists, students and minor functionaries. Most of them came from scholar-gentry families, which traditionally placed an emphasis on community service and education, as opposed to the accumulation of wealth.
Some evidence showed that many came from implies refusing to collaborate with the French, thus they inherited a stubborn hostility to the colonial masters. They were a potential main source of discontent towards the French rulers. * The proletariat class was quite small (100,000 in 1918), and mainly served the colonial regime by working in such industries as mining in the rubber plantations in Cochin China. They often returned to the countryside to work in farming villages at harvest time. Very few of them became skilled workers. For a large majority, working conditions were terrible and they had to work long hours for low pay.
There were signs of discontent with the exploitation but no resistance groups emerged till the early ass, when the first worker’s unions appeared. * Peasants in Vietnam made up much of the population, and mostly lived in small villages and hamlets in the countryside. They were politically dormant, but nevertheless they were still affected by the French rule, even though they were in the countryside. * Western technology such as improved irrigation, draining of the marshes in the Mekong Delta, and so on did boost the yield of peasants, and the export of rice became a major source for foreign currency.
However, with the onset of centralization of agriculture, peasants’ lands were seized by the wealthy and as such rural poverty rose in the countryside. Also, the burden of taxes and the government monopolies on salt, opium and alcohol resulted in a serious drain of * These caused some peasant rebellions in 1908 in central peasants’ income. Vietnam. Protesters stormed and pillaged the houses of the rich, and also attacked government buildings. However, these were unrecognized revolts, with little political focus, and were more like spontaneous outbursts of anger. The first shoots of Vietnamese nationalism appeared in the Vietnamese cities, near the beginning of the ass. The Constitutionalists Party, formed by Vietnamese upper-middle class bourgeoisie centered around the wealthy newspaper publisher Buy Quant Choice, was the first open political organization in Vietnam and called for greater opportunities for natives in commerce and manufacturing, equal pay for equal work, and greater Vietnamese participation in political processes.
However they avoided demands for independence and instead called for Vietnamese autonomy under continued French rule. * The petty bourgeois intelligentsia of the lower-middle lass however posed the most dangerous threat to French colonial authority. In the mid-sass political parties in all 3 regions of colonial Vietnam were formed. All these parties shared in common the goal of uncompromising abolishment of French rule and were quite hostile to the French. This new generation of urban nationalists had these qualities: they were more conscious than their predecessors of the West, and phrased their political and social demands more clearly. They were ineffective in achieving their goals, but nevertheless were more politically sophisticated than their predecessors. However they had several weaknesses: * They resembled secret societies more than political organizations, centered around ethnic and regional identities and not shared political principles.
Also, they could not harness, like other successful activists, such traditional bonds as a shared religion like Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism. Without a common ideology to bond the Vietnamese, they were unable to rally the masses to fight for independence. They concentrated on the urban population, and failed to reach out to the poor, and peasants living in the countryside. Their ignoring the common people and focusing only on the upper and middle classes in the cities ultimately caused their failure to gather support for their cause. Lastly, they were inexperienced and naive, with vague ideas of overthrowing French rule such as by meaner of coups, military action, with a variety of informants who enabled them to crush military insurrections and rebellions quickly, such as those carried out by the VIAND at Yen Bay and other military posts along the Red River valley in February 1930. His Profile * son of a nationalist father * communist leader of North Vietnam from end of WI till his death * born on
May 19, 1890 in Gemlike, Nigh-An province, in central Vietnam * original name * Unguent Sins Gung or Unguent Tat Than (sources vary) * received initial education from father and village school * then studied at Lacey Quo-Hoc in the old imperial capital of Hue * school designed to perpetuate Vietnamese nationalist traditions * entered a school of maritime workers in 1911 * left Dragon House (port) under the name of Baa, on 5 June 1911, trying to find a way to save the country from French colonial rule * came to France and founded the Society of Vietnamese Patriots in France in 1917 * Joined French Socialist Party n late 1918 * In early 1919, Versailles peace conference * Petitioned the delegates on behalf of Vietnamese self-determination Demented the French goof recognize the Vietnamese apple’s freedom, democracy and Vietnamese people’s freedom, democracy and equality rights * On 18 June 1919, the official paper of French Socialist party, printed the petition under the title “The Rights of the Nations” * In autumn 1920, he was influenced by Linen’s Theses on National and Colonial Questions and the Russian October Revolution, his ideas to liberate the country began to change then * Attended 18th Congress of French
Socialist Party in December 1920 * Made a speech denouncing French colonialists’ crimes in Indochina * Called on French genuine revolutionaries and ordinary people to support colonial peoples’ struggles * Was one of the founders of French communist party * Left France for Germany and the former Soviet Union in mid 1923 * Attended 1st Congress of Peasants’ International held in Moscow in cot 1923 the Presidium of Executive Committee * July 1924, attended 5th Congress of Communist International member of Oriental Commission * Left Moscow for Guanos in China * Elected to Appointed * Worked in the consultants’ delegation of Soviet Government to Sun Yet-ken’s * Trained young Vietnamese patriots government * Founded Viet Name Association of Young Revolutionary Comrades in June 1925 * In early 1926, was invited by Presidium of China Contaminants 2nd national Congress where he made a speech * Jan 1930, went Shanghai * Established contacts with China Communist Party agency in Honking and Gunshot’s Party Committee to ask for help to hold the founding conference of the Viet Name Communist Party * 3rd to 7th Feb. 1930, chaired the conference to unify Vietnamese communist organizations in Kowloon near Hong Kong * 6th June 1931, British and Chinese police in Hong Kong arrested him * In mid swept 1932, with managed to contact Vietnamese revolutionaries in 1933, Shanghai * Spring 1934, went to the former Soviet Union * In 1934-1938, he studied in Soviet Union on politics, etc. * In 1939, worked at the Ye Jiao Yin-led Baa Lulus office in China * Cot 1939, left Guilin for Illusion togged in touch with his Vietnamese comrades * Feb. 1940, went Gumming, where he managed to contact the Viet Name Communist Party’s overseas affairs committee
Recommended Pam Van Dong, who later became Vietnamese Prime minister and Vow Unguent Gap, who later became a military general * study at the China Communist Party’s Politico-Military school in Yang * 28 Jan 1941, he left China for Viet Name and built the headquarters in Co Boo cave in Cacao Bang province 10-19th may 1941, chaired the 8th Congress of the Indochinese Communist Party as representative of Communist International * Congress concluded that most important task for Viet Name Communist Party in short term was liberate to nation * 13 gag 1942, left Viet Name for China to get in touch with Vietnamese revolutionary ores and the Allies * 27th gag 1942, was arrested by Committing police and sent to different prisons in Gauging * He was not set free till swept 1943 and could not return to Viet Name till gag 1944 * Deck 1944, instructed Vow Unguent Gap to set up the Propaganda Brigade for the Liberation of Viet Name, the predecessor of Viet Name People’s Army * Feb. 1945, went to Gumming to meet with American agencies there in order to call for Allied assistance to Viet Name’s struggle against fascists * 4th may 1945, left Pace Boo for Tan Tara in Tune Quant province * Asked lieutenant John