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Triumphs or tragedies: A new perspective on the Vietnamese revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2014

Tuong Vu
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Abstract

A new perspective has begun to challenge both the conventional portrayal of the Vietnamese revolution and the communist account of its success. This essay takes stock of new research that presents revolutionary Vietnam in a more complex and less triumphal way. It is argued that Vietnam's nationalist revolution (1945–46) should be conceptually distinguished from the subsequent socialist revolution (1948–88). The former had a distinctly urban and bourgeois character, was led by a coalition of the upper and middle classes, and lacked ideological intensity. The latter was imposed from above, based on socialist visions, and dependent on foreign assistance. The failure to disentangle the two revolutions in existing narratives assigns little agency to Vietnamese actors and leads to triumphs being exaggerated while tragedies are overlooked.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 236 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2014 

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References

1 Examples are Marr's, DavidVietnamese anticolonialism, 1885–1925 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Vietnamese tradition on trial, 1920–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981)Google Scholar, and Vietnam 1945: The quest for power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar; McAlister, John T., Viet Nam: The origins of revolution (New York: Knopf, 1969)Google Scholar; McAlister, John T. and Mus, Paul, The Vietnamese and their revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1970)Google Scholar; Duiker, William, The rise of nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976)Google Scholar; Woodside, Alexander, Community and revolution in modern Vietnam (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976)Google Scholar; Thayer, Carlyle, War by other means: National liberation and revolution in Viet-Nam 1954–60 (St Leonard's: Allen & Unwin, 1989)Google Scholar; Lockhart, Greg, Nation in arms: The origins of the People's Army of Vietnam (St Leonard's: Allen & Unwin, 1989)Google Scholar; and Tønnesson, Stein, The Vietnamese revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh, and De Gaulle in a world at war (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 1991)Google Scholar. For a review of this literature, see Vu, Tuong, ‘Vietnamese political studies and debates on Vietnamese nationalism’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2, 2 (2007): 175–230Google Scholar.

2 Notable examples are Khanh, Huynh Kim, Vietnamese communism, 1925–1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Moise, Edwin, Land reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the revolution at the village level (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

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4 Originally written in August 1956, repub. in VKDTT, v. 17, pp. 783–825, see esp. pp. 805–13.

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14 Tønnesson, The Vietnamese revolution of 1945.

15 Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh or Vietnam Independence League) was a united front founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1941.

16 Tønnesson, Vietnam 1946.

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20 Tønnesson, The Vietnamese revolution of 1945.

21 Goodwin, No other way out.

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24 Vu, Paths to development in Asia, chap. 5.

25 This point is made by Tønnesson to support his argument that the state was reconstituted as a result of the revolution. See Tønnesson, The Vietnamese revolution of 1945, p. 4.

26 Marr, David, Vietnam: State, war, and revolution (1945–1946) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), chap. 1Google Scholar.

27 The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) was the name of the Vietnamese Communist Party from 1930–1945. Between 1946–1951, the Party operated under the name ‘Association for Marxist Studies’. Its name was changed in 1951 to the Vietnam Workers Party, and once again in 1976 to the Vietnamese Communist Party.

28 Vu, Tuong, ‘“It's time for the Indochinese revolution to show its true colours”: The radical turn of Vietnamese politics in 1948’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40, 3 (2009): 519–42Google Scholar.

29 Ibid.

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31 For example, see Moise, Land reform in China and North Vietnam.

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33 See Vu, Tuong, ‘Workers and the socialist state: North Vietnam's state–labor relations, 1945–1970’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 38 (Sept. 2005): 329–56Google Scholar.

34 Vu, ‘From cheering to volunteering’.

35 It has been speculated that the crackdown on contract farming around 1967–68 may have related to the efforts of top leaders to silence dissent while they prepared to launch the controversial Tet Offensive. See Quinn-Judge, Sophie, ‘The ideological debate in the DRV and the significance of the Anti-Party Affair, 1967–68’, Cold War History 5, 4 (2005): 479–500Google Scholar.

36 Vu, ‘From cheering to volunteering’: 178.

37 A rare exception was Phi Son, “Nong dan voi cach mang” [Peasants and revolution], Cuu Quoc [Save the Country], Spring 1945, p. 4. See my examination of the contrast between Viet Minh's newspapers Cuu Quoc and Viet Nam Doc Lap [Independent Vietnam] with Thanh Nghi, a non-Viet Minh publication, in Paths to development in Asia, pp. 187–93.

38 Viet Nam Doc Lap, July 30, 1945.

39 Vu, ‘Workers and the socialist state’, p. 332.

40 ‘Cach mang thang Tam: Trien vong cua Cach mang Viet nam’ [The August Revolution: The prospects of Vietnam's revolution], Su That, 7 Sept. 1946 (italics in original).

41 ‘Bao cao cua Tong Bi Thu Truong Chinh’ [Report by General Secretary Truong Chinh], speech at the Fourth Central Committee Plenum, 25–30 Jan. 1953, VKDTT, v. 14 (2000), pp. 53–4. Italics in original.

42 Vu, ‘Workers and the socialist state’, pp. 338–9.

43 Party leaders blamed the shortages on hoarding by Hanoi's ‘capitalists’.

44 Vu, ‘Workers and the socialist state’; Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thanh, ‘The reform of capitalists and capitalism in North Vietnam (1958–1960)’, (n.p., 1999).

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49 Benedict Kerkvliet, The power of everyday politics: How Vietnamese peasants transformed national policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).

50 Vu, Paths to development in Asia, chap. 6.

51 Kerkvliet, The power of everyday politics, pp. 52–6, 251.

52 Ibid., p. 82.

53 Vu, ‘Workers and the socialist state’.

54 Ibid., pp. 341–2.

55 Ibid., pp. 344–6.

56 Ibid., pp. 347–9.

57 Woodside, Alexander, ‘The triumphs and failures of mass education in Vietnam’, Pacific Affairs 56, 3 (1983): 401Google Scholar. See also Marr, Vietnam: State, war, and revolution (1945–1946), pp. 530–6.

58 Ninh, Kim, A world transformed: The politics of culture in revolutionary Vietnam, 1945–1965 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

59 Minh Tranh, ‘Nhung tac pham cua V. Lenin o nuoc ta’ [V. Lenin's works (published) in our country], Hoc Tap, Apr. 1960, pp. 24–5.

60 Calculated based on ‘Bao cao ve ke hoach nha nuoc nam 1957’ (Report on the state plan of 1957), VKDTT, v. 18, p. 179; and ‘Chi thi cua Ban Bi Thu ve cong tac xuat ban’ (Instructions of the Party Secretariat on the task of publication), 23 Nov. 1959, VKDTT, v. 20, p. 911.

61 In 1959, 90 per cent of peasants, and 80 per cent of workers, had only between one and two years of schooling. Among 630 high-ranking central cadres, 10.5 per cent had elementary-level schooling, 50 per cent had not finished middle school, 16.5 per cent had an education above middle school level, and 23 per cent above high school and college. Among the 914 members of all provincial Party committees, 85 per cent had less than five years of schooling. Among 4,000 members of all district Party committees, 87.8 per cent had less than four years of schooling. See ‘Nghi quyet cua Ban bi thu so 93-NQ/TW’ [Resolution of the Secretariat no. 93-NQ/TW], 2 Dec. 1959, VKDTT, v. 20, p. 937.

62 While doing research at the Vietnam National Archive III, Hanoi, in 2002–3, I once saw those pocket-sized pictures of Marx and Lenin among the personal effects of a young man who had died fighting in South Vietnam and whose relatives had come to the Archive to receive what he had left behind prior to leaving for the South.

63 ‘Nghi quyet cua Ban Bi Thu so 80-NQ/TW’, 14 Jul. 1959, VKDTT, v. 20, p. 599.

64 For a detailed study of cultural campaigns to create a new elite of socialist heroes as part of the communist state's efforts to transform society, see de Tréglodé, Benoît, Heroes and revolution in Vietnam, trans. Duiker, Claire (Singapore: NUS Press, with IRASEC, 2012)Google Scholar. De Treglode's study corroborates my analysis of the textbooks above.

65 Bo Giao Duc [Ministry of Education], Tap Doc Lop Mot [First-grade reader] (Hanoi, 1956)Google Scholar. The same textbook was used throughout the country.

66 Bo Giao Duc, Tap Doc Lop Mot [First-grade reader] (Hanoi, 1972)Google Scholar.

67 Guillemot, François, ‘Vietnamese nationalist revolutionaries and the Japanese occupation: The case of the Dai Viet parties (1936–1946)’, in Imperial Japan and national identities in Asia, 1895–1945, ed. Narangoa, Li and Cribb, Robert B. (London: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar; and Guillemot, François, ‘Autopsy of a massacre: On a political purge in the early days of the Indochina War (Nam Bo 1947)’, European Journal of East Asian Studies 9, 2 (2010): 225–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Marr, Vietnam: State, war, and revolution (1945–1946), chap. 7, esp. p. 383.

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71 The term was used by Truong Chinh himself in his report at the Tenth Central Committee Plenum in Oct. 1956, “De cuong bao cao Bo Chinh tri [Draft report of the Politburo], VKDTT (2002), v. 17, p. 435.

72 Van Chi, Hoang, From colonialism to communism: A case history of North Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1964)Google Scholar.

73 Vu, Paths to development in Asia.

74 C.B. [Ho Chi Minh], ‘Dan ba de co may tay’ [How many women could be compared to her?], Nhan Dan, 21 Feb. 1954.

75 A study of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia reminds us that organising the general context for such violence is a much more important factor than organising specific techniques of murder. Sorabji, Cornelia, ‘A very modern war: Terror and territory in Bosnia–Hercegovina’, in War: A cruel necessity? The bases of institutionalized violence, ed. Hinde, Robert and Watson, Helen (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995), p. 86Google Scholar.

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78 This is not to deny the critical role played by women volunteers (thanh nien xung phong). The point here is about the systematic coercion of the state. For an insightful analysis of women volunteers, see Guillemot, François, ‘Death and suffering at first hand: Youth shock brigades during the Vietnam War (1950–1975)’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 4, 3 (2010): 17–60Google Scholar.

79 For example, see VKDTT, v. 34, p. 265 and v. 35, pp. 1, 102, 106, 112.

80 See ‘Bai noi cua Dong chi Le Duan’ [Speech by Comrade Le Duan], VKDTT, v. 30, p. 157.

81 Ninh, A world transformed.

82 See memoirs by Tuong, Nguyen Manh, a French-trained lawyer and scholar who was involved in the Nhan Van–Giai Pham Affairs, Ke bi mat phep thong cong, Hanoi 1954–1991: Ban an cho mot tri thuc [The excommunicated, Hanoi, 1954–1991: The verdict for an intellectual] (trans. from French by Vy, Nguyen Quoc)Google Scholar, available at http://viet-studies.info/NMTuong/NMTuong_HoiKy.htm (last accessed 14 Feb. 2014); and Tran Vang Sao, ‘Toi Bi Bat’ [I was arrested], available at http://viet-studies.info/TranVangSao_HoiKy.pdf.

83 See http://culangcat.blogspot.com/2011/12/ba-oi-am-anh-cai-cach-ruong-at.html (last accessed 11 Dec. 2011) for a moving account by the family of a loyal Party member who had been executed during the land reform.

84 See, for example, interviews in Bao tang cach mang Viet Nam, Cuoc song o Ha Noi thoi bao cap, 1975–1986 [Hanoi life under the subsidy economy], (Hanoi: Bao tang dan toc hoc Viet Nam, 2007)Google Scholar.

85 See, for example, Uyen, Nguyen To, Cong cuoc bao ve va xay dung chinh quyen nhan dan o Viet Nam trong nhung nam 1945–1946 [The construction and defense of the people's government during 1945–1946] (Hanoi: Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1999)Google Scholar; Bin, Nguyen Dinh, Ngoai giao Viet Nam trong thoi dai Ho Chi Minh [Vietnamese diplomacy in the age of Ho Chi Minh] (Ha Noi: Chinh tri quoc gia, 2000)Google Scholar; and Huan, Vu Duong, Gop phan tim hieu tu tuong Ho Chi Minh ve ngoai giao [To explore Ho Chi Minh's thoughts on diplomacy] (Hanoi: Lao Dong, 2002)Google Scholar.

86 See ‘Nhung buc thu Bac Ho gui tong thong My’ [Uncle Ho's letters to US presidents], 16 Feb. 2010, http://bee.net.vn/channel/3921/201002/Nhung-buc-thu-Bac-Ho-gui-Tong-thong-My-1741184 (last accessed 14 Feb. 2014).

87 By advocates for political reforms or ‘reformers’, I mean those who sharply criticise the current system but remain loyal to the Party, whereas ‘dissidents’ are those who demand a multiparty political system.

88 See, for example, Pham Duy Nghia, ‘Ban Hien Phap sau muoi nam truoc va nhung mon no lich su’ [The Constitution of 60 years ago and the historic debts], Tuoi Tre, 18 Feb. 2007, http://tuoitre.vn/Chinh-tri-Xa-hoi/187737/Ban-Hien-phap-sau-muoi-nam-truoc-va-nhung-mon-no-lich-su.html (last accessed 14 Feb. 2014); and Vu Trong Khai, ‘Ky niem 65 nam quoc khanh VNDCCH: Vai suy ngam va lam ban ve Hien Phap dau tien (1946) va Hien Phap hien hanh (1992)’ [To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Some comments on the first Constitution (1946) and the current one (1992)], Sept. 2010, http://boxitvn.blogspot.com/2010/09/ky-niem-65-nam-quoc-khanh-nuoc-vndcch.html#more (last accessed 14 Feb. 2014).