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The Red Soviets of Nghe-Tinh: An Early Communist Rebellion in Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

William J. Duiker
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In the early months of 1930, a series of strikes broke out at various spots in French Indochina - at the Phu Rieng rubber plantation near Bien Hoa in Cochin China, at a match factory at Binh Thuy near Vinh in Central Vietnam, and at a textile plant at Nam Dinh in Tonkin. While not exceptionally important in themselves, these strikes can be seen in retrospect as the opening shots in a year of violence and rebellion. By midsummer the discontent had spread from outbreaks in the big industrial centers to the rural areas in Central and South Vietnam, where a series of major peasant revolts broke out against French colonial authority. As governmental authority in the Central provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh disintegrated, it was rapidly replaced by village peasant Soviets under communist party leadership. The French responded vigorously to these “Nghe-Tinh Soviets” but it was only several months later, in mid-1931, that order was restored over a battered, exhausted, and resentful peasantry.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , September 1973 , pp. 186 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1973

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References

1 The compound phrase “Nghe-Tinh” is simply a shorthand version of the provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh.

2 Lieu, Tran Huy, Lich Su Tarn Muoi Nam Chong Phap (History of 80 Years of Resistance to the French), (Hanoi: Van Su Dia, 1958), Volume II, p. 6Google Scholar. Of these 220, 000, 50, 000 were n i the mines and 90, 000 on the plantations. This volume will hereafter be referred to as Lich Su … Similarfigurescan be found in Isoart, Paul, Le Phenomene National Vietnamien: De Vinde pendance Unitairea lindependance Fractionee (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar

3 There are a number of books by French authors which criticized these conditions. For example, see Dorgeles, Roland, Sur la Route Mandarine (Paris, 1929) on the life ofcement workersGoogle Scholar, and Lei, Paul Monet'sJauniers (Paris: Gallimard, 1930) on recruitment policiesGoogle Scholar.

4 Lich Su…, p. 12.

5 According to one source, the number of strikes increased from 10 involving 600 workers in 1928, to 24 involving 6, 000 in 1929, and ultimately to 82 involving 27, 000 in 1930. Lich Su …, Volume IIB, p. 16. For another estimate, see Buoc Ngoat Vi Dai cua Lich Su Cach Mang Vietnam (A Great Step Forward in the History of the Vietnamese Revolution) (Bureau on the Historical Research of the Party, no date), p. 92.

6 For a recent communist assessment, see Mkhitarian, Suren A., Rabochii Klass i Natsional ‘no-Osoboditel’ noe Dvizhenie vo Vietname (The Working Class and the National-Liberation Movement in Vietnam) (Moscow, 1967), p. 212Google Scholar.

7 LichSu…, p.ll.

8 See Tribune Indochinoise, February 14, 1930.

9 For an analysis of the origins and activities of the Revolutionary Youth League, see my forthcoming article in the Summer 1972 issue of China Quarterly.

10 During this period the party underwent several name changes. Since it ultimately settled on the name Communist Party of Indochina (CPI), I have decided to use that name throughout for the reader's convenience. In 1945 even that name was abandoned and the party is now known as the Workers' Party of Vietnam.

11 Unfortunately for the Vietnamese, Comintern correspondence was mainly concerned with organizational problems surrounding the split. See the Comintern letter of 27 October 1929. Buoc Ngoat …, pp. 68-74. A French language version is located in Gouvernement Generate de l'lndochine (Direction des Affaires de la Surete Generate), Contribution a Vhistoire des Mouvements Politiques de l'lndochine Francaise, Five Volumes, Volume IV (Dong-Duong Cong San Dang), Annex 7. Comintern correspondence was also very sporadic and delayed, often taking several months to arrive in Indochina.

12 Tribune Indochinoise, M y 2, 1930.

13 Lieu, Tran Huyet al., Tai Lieu Tham Khao Lich Su Cach Mang Can Dai Viet Nam (Historical Research Materials Concerning the Modern Revolution in Vietnam), (Hanoi, 1958), 12 Volumes, Volume VI, pp. 62–63Google Scholar. This source will hereafter be cited as Cach Mang Can Dai … The plantation was owned by a Cochin Chinese who allegedly had confiscated communal land and exploited workers.

14 Lich Su …, pp. 43-49; Cach Mang Can Dai …, Volume VI, pp. 62–66Google Scholar. Until September, the bulk of the unrest was in the South.

15 Lich Su…, pp. 40-41.

16 Cach Mang Can Dai …, Volume VI, pp. 62–67Google Scholar; Lich Su …, pp. 62-65; Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets du Nghe Tinh (Hanoi, 1960), pp. 18–26Google Scholar. During this period, many of the workers in Benh Thuy, who often had kinship ties in the villages, went into the rural areas to drum up support.

17 LichSu…, p. 63.

18 Khanh, Bui Huu, “Mot Vai Y Kien Ve Van De Phan Phong Trong Phong Trao Xo Viet Nghe Tinh” in Nghien Cuu Lich Su (Historical Research), No. 34 (01, 1962), p. 32Google Scholar. This journal will hereafter be cited as NCIS.

19 For a directive of the Nghe An provincial committee, see Lich Su …, p. 66. For a French language version, see Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets …, p. 27Google Scholar.

20 a, Les Soviets …, p. 26Google Scholar; Lich Su …, p. 66; Cach Mang Can Dai …, Volume VI, p. 70Google Scholar.

21 Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets …, pp. 27–28Google Scholar.

22 Chinh, Trung, “Tinh Chat Doc Dao Cua Xo Viet Nghe Tinh” (The Unique Character of the Nghe-Tinh Soviets), NCLS, no. 32 (11, 1961), p. 12Google Scholar.

23 It was called the tam-tam (three level) system, composed of small, middle, and large units.

24 Earlier sources often said that much confiscation of landlord land had taken place. Modern sources in Hanoi deny this. See Lieu, Tran Huy, “Van De Chinh Quyen Xo Viet” (The Problem of Soviet Power), NCLS, No. 33 (12, 1961), pp. 1–2Google Scholar; Bui Huu Khanh, p. 29. For an earlier estimate, see McLane, Charles B., Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) p. 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets…, p. 28Google Scholar.

26 Contribution …, Volume V, has a lengthy list of communist atrocities, as obtained through interrogation of prisoners taken during the period. For a communist comment, see Trung Chinh, p. 13.

27 Lich Su …, p. 77, 81. One source gives the total number of members of the peasant as-v” sociations as 35, 770. Cach Mang Can Dai …, Volume VI, pp. 194–195Google Scholar.

28 The program is located in a Vietnamese version in Buoc Ngoat …. pp. 78-89. Recent D.R.V. comments are in Trung Chinh, p. 2; Tran Huy Lieu, “Van De …”, pp. 5-6.

29 Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets …, p. 34Google Scholar; Cach Mang Can Dai…, pp. 70-71; Lich Su …, pp. 73-74. There were 68 such military posts in Nghe An and 54 in Ha Tinh. A Russian source says that many members of the Ly Nhan Dang were Roman Catholics. LA. Ognetov, “Komin-tern i Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie vo Vietname” (The Comintern and the Revolutionary Movement in Vietnam), Komintem i Vostok (The Comintern and the East), (Moscow, 1969), p. 434Google Scholar.

30 Cach Mang Can Dai…, Volume VI, p. 74Google Scholar; Lich Su …, p. 71.

31 Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets …, p. 37Google Scholar.

32 Lich Su …, p. 83. The traitor was Ngo Due Tri.

33 A long list of locations of unrest is given in Contribution …, Volume V.

34 For the text in French, see Contribution…, Volume V, Annex 10. The text in a Vietnamese version is given in Cach Mang Can Dai …, Volume VI, pp. 185–192Google Scholar.

35 See his letter dated April 20, 1931, located in Contribution …, Volume V, Annex 13. Some recent Western sources say Nguyen Ai Quoc was opposed to the Soviets but give no source. See Chen, King, Vietnam and China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 27Google Scholar. Also see Chi, Hoang Van, From Colonialism to Communism (New York: Praeger, 1964)Google Scholar. This letter s i the only evidence of his views that I have seen.

36 McLane, p. 152; one source, dated 1932, agreed in criticism of the adventurism and violence, but suggested mat all landlords should have been opposed. See Ho Nam (pseudonym?), Ky Niem Nghe An Bao Dong (Commemorating the Nghe An Violence), (no publisher, 1932). This item, which gives figures on the number of strikes and demonstrations during the period, and makes some general comments on the failures of the movement, is located on the same reel with Lich Su …, in the Cornell University Library.

37 One Soviet slogan of the period called on the masses to uproot the intellectuals, the rich peasants, the landlords, and the powerful. See Van Tao, “Tim Hieu Qua Trinh Hinh Thanh Va Phat Trien Cua Mat Tran Dan To e Thong Nhat Viet Nam” (Search for the Process of Formation and Development of the Vietnamese National United Front), NCLS, No. 1 (March, 1959), p. 31. For some recent criticisms of united front policies, see Buoc Ngoat…, pp. 60-63; Lick Su …, p. 83; Van Tao, p. 31–32. Many of these sources say that the root of the problem lay in the October 1930 political program, which failed to give priority to the anti-imperial over the anti-feudal struggle.

38 Lieu, Tran Huy, Les Soviets …, pp. 51–53Google Scholar, is typical.

39 Ibid.Lich Su …, pp. 90-91.

40 An excerpt of the decree is given in Trung Chinh, p. 5; also see Lieu's, Tran Huy comments in Lich Su …, p. 61Google Scholar.

41 Tran Huy Lieu, “Van De …”, p. 6; Trung Chinh, pp. 3-4.

42 Trung Chinh, p. 4. Even Nghe An provincial committee slogans in early September make no reference to Soviets or to the seizure of power. Ibid …, p. 3.

43 Ibid …, p. 5.

44 This letter is located in Contribution …, Volume IV, Annex 13