Life in Colonial Vietnam: Subtext

Tran Tu Binh The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of life on a colonial Rubber Plantation.

This book by Tran Tu Binh about a boy that endures the colonial mistreatment on a rubber plantation significantly parallels the accounts that were encountered during the Colonial prison era. This memoir expresses the similarities of how his experiences as a worker on a French rubber plantation mimicked the lives of Vietnamese prisoners during this oppressing time of the Vietnamese people. Even though The Red Earth accounts were credited toward a rebelling Communist faction it appears that their are more Communistic ties within The Colonial Bastille due to its vast majority of political prison scholars.


Truong Buu Lam Colonialism Experienced: Vietnamese Writings on Colonialism 1900-1931. Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 of this book by Truong Buu Lam is primarily focused toward the Vietnamese perception of colonialism during the French Regime. This chapter accounts for many of the hardships that the Vietnamese peasants faced during this period and provides detailed accounts of the oppression that these people faced. This perspective is solely from the view of a Vietnamese peasant and deals with issues such as high taxes, land concession, government monopolies, and labor camps.

Life in Colonial Vietnam: Text

Peter Zinoman's The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862-1940 recalls the period of mass imprisonment of Vietnamese citizens and political revolutionaries in French Indochina by the Colonial Regime. He uses an abundance of sources that range from inmate and French memoirs of individuals present throughout this period that were published during the 60's, 70's, and 80's as well as accounts from numerous scholars on the topic. Zinoman expresses through his research the turmoil that Vietnamese inmates faced through the Colonial period and how it united them in a common goal to oppose the French Regimes through these political factions.

A primary focus that Zinoman tries to portray throughout this text is the sense of prison life and how it effected the inmates to create a common goal of opposing the French. Prisons during this period were ill-disciplined and poorly structured. Throughout the text are examples of how prison life made inmates withstand physical hardships but also emotional strains as well. Prisoners were mentally scorned by the conditions of prison life and length of time they would have to spend away from their families, as well as those who lost their families by going away to prison due their lower class status. This left inmates with the decision to end their suffering quickly or create bonds with their new family within the prison walls.

An account from the memoir of a political inmate claimed that upon his release his comrades shared tears of anguish and embraced their brother upon his departure. It was through these impenetrable ties and a common enemy that restructured the Communist party within the Colonial prison. The Thai Nguyen Rebellion was a common acknowledgment of this idea because Phan Boi Chau's Restoration Society lead to an abundance of political prisoners within the Thai Nguyen prison. Accounts from published memoirs claimed that inmates from over 30 different provinces banded together in this valiant revolt against the French Regime.

The Colonial Bastille offers an in depth analysis of how the Colonial prisons brought forth a restructured and even stronger revolutionary revolt than ever seen before in previous years. It exclaims how prison created the perfect environment for establishing an underground faction of political independence regimes. It served as an ideal atmosphere to practice the principles of Leninism by centralizing themselves with secrecy and discipline. Prison also gave these political inmates the means of French opposed prisoners to strengthen their numbers by guiding them into the Communist light.

Peter Zinoman's The Colonial Bastille is an extremely well written and informative realization of how Communism had reawakened during the Colonial era and possibly led to Vietnamese independence from the French. The published memoir's from actual political inmates provided within this book expressed the actualization of how prisons transformed into schools for Communist and Anti-Colonial revolutionaries.

Vietnam 1945: Text
In the text David Marr argues that 1945 is the most important year in the modern history of Vietnam. (Marr, pg. 1) It is thought throughout the history of Vietnam that the Communist party was the primary driving force for Independence. Marr attempts to dispute these hypotheses, not by devaluing the impact of the Communist in Vietnam, but by focusing on other outside contributors. Marr describes the year of 1945, and years prior as an “awaking” of the Vietnamese people. The political transformations of 1945 took place in all the provincial towns and most rural districts of Vietnam. (Marr, pg. 2)
Marr does not undermine the importance of the Communist party in Vietnam. He does stress the importance of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and the Viet Minh. Although these organizations were essential to the movement, Marr argues that many Vietnamese did not even understand what the Viet Minh stood for. (Marr pg. 2) He contests that the Viet Minh did rally the people of Vietnam, but that these people were not brought together under a shared belief in Communism – and for that matter no individual group was really in control. (Marr pg.6) Marr saw the situation about people of diverse backgrounds and intentions contesting for hegemony. (Marr pg.6)
Applying his knowledge of Vietnam and numerous other accounts Marr describes the year of 1945 in great detail, including the years leading up to Independence. Marr begins by laying out the ground work in earlier years in how the Vietnamese people were treated by the French Imperialist.
Marr begins the text at the point when the French are still technically in control of Vietnam, but it is evident that the Japanese are the ones who are really in control upon their arrival in 1941. (Marr pg.13) Japanese control of the region was out of necessity as a result of the American embargo set on Japan. (Marr pg. 26) Japan offered to remove its troops from southern Indochina in return for the United States rescinding the freeze on Japan, but the United States refused. (Marr pg.27) after the refusal of the freeze Japan began to exhaust Indochina of its resources creating contempt amongst its inhabitants. (Marr pg. 30)
Marr describes these actions by the Japanese and the years of abuse bestowed upon them by the French as the underlying factor for the resolve of the Vietnamese people. He argues that it was not this great Communist revolution that created Independence, but it was the people of Vietnam tired of being oppressed rising up and defeating two Imperial powers.
Marr sees the ICP and the Viet Minh as the main contributors to organizing and providing a commonality for the people of Vietnam to fight under. He argues that in 1945 with the French weak and the Japanese losing their power, the Vietnamese people saw a power vacuum and an opportunity for Independence. Marr contests that it was the Communist party jumping at the right opportunity that gained them fame, not the party that caused the fall of the French and Japanese.
After the Vietnamese gain Independence Marr still points out the various factors that still stand in the way of a completely independent Vietnam. He describes how the Viet Minh and the Communist rise to power, but that there is still this unsettled anxiety amongst the people of Vietnam. It is not until many years later that Vietnam gains true independence and is united under one party.


Vietnam 1945: context
The debate that David Marr writes about in his book 1945 is that the Communist party in Vietnam did play a major rule in gaining Independence, but they were not the underlying factor. The argument that Marr brings forth is that no one was in control. (Marr pg.6) If one were to read about Vietnam history today that majority of text would attribute Vietnamese independence to the Communist party. This is however not the case. It was the people themselves of Vietnam that rose up to defeat the Imperialist forces.
The people of Vietnam did not understand what the Viet Minh stood for, they were inundated with political slogans, flags, salutes, and even stamps to try to promote the Viet Minh. (Marr pg. 2) The people of Vietnam did not see this as an opportunity to join the Communist party; they saw it as a chance to kick some Imperialist ass.
After the Japanese seized power on March 9, 1945 the French nationals became subjected to increasing amount of physical and verbal abuse from the Vietnamese. (Marr pg. 65) The Vietnamese people at first did not know what to expect from the Japanese, perhaps as liberators or continuing the Imperialistic domination. (Marr pg. 90)
During the Japanese take-over the underground Communist Party in Hanoi was aware of the events, but did not act. (Marr pg. 152) This was the point when the Communist party started to see opportunities in some former prisoners under French rule being freed and possible recruits for their cause. The greatest event in the Viet Minh early days was the return of Ho Chi Minh. (Marr pg. 164) Ho began propaganda campaigns to recruit individuals into the party. His propaganda supports Marr’s dispute in that Ho, made sure propaganda made no mention of Socialism or the Communist Party. (Marr pg. 173.)
The argument that Marr is trying to convey is that it was not the fact that the Viet Minh and the ICP were Communist that brought them to power, it was that they were the most organized, supported and successful group at the time of revolution. Marr would dispute that if any other organization be it democratic, utilitarian, or communist the people of Vietnam would have joined it in a common resolve to end the Imperialist oppression and free their land. Marr even points out in the text how the Viet Minh themselves where not all communist. Hundreds of thousands of people in the VML (Viet Minh League), which was “more than communist,” allegedly incorporating nationalists, high mandarins, and native soldiers in the colonial army. (Marr pg. 228)













Vietnam 1945: Subtext

David G. Marr, Vietnam 1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995
David Marr is an expert on Vietnamese history and has written extensively on Vietnam and Asia. Marr wrote the book after his 1990 experience in Ho Chi Minh City and other various trips around Vietnam. His experience with the people of Vietnam, their history and the stories he heard during his visits inspired him to write his own history of the country. In his countless hours of research into its past Marr saw that the communist party did have a great impact on the revolution, but that they were not the underlying factor. Marr set out in this book to give more credit to the everyday Vietnamese people who overcame oppression and won independence.

Life in Colonial Vietnam: Context

During the period between 1862 -1940 of the Colonial Regime of France the Vietnamese were subject to a high rate of mass imprisonments and a brutal oppression of its people. These prisoners consisted mainly of common law violators, those falsely accused, and political revolutionaries that opposed the French Regime. Also, during this time period of the colonial regime many Vietnamese villagers and peasants were facing the same adversities that those prisoners and political revolutionaries had faced.

During this period of the French regime Vietnamese villagers fell victim to colonial oppression which lead to years of mistreatment and death. Probably the most typical form of oppression bestowed upon these people were that of high tax rates forced on extremely poverty stricken individuals. These taxes forced people from their property and also lead to constant hardships of trying to make enough money to support themselves.

Another oppression method of the French were their land concession in 1932 where the French controlled nearly 1/5 of the land throughout all of Vietnam. This land was confiscated from generations of villagers and if they were to resist their evictions they would be sentenced to long-term imprisonment or even occasionally death. With this land the French comprised themselves of rubber, coffee, and tea plantations that acted as profitable concentration camps for Vietnamese workers who were promised a better life. These workers were subjected to harsh working conditions, beatings, and evens killings. Those villagers that tried to flee this life a solitude were eventually found and killed, but the madness did not stop there as the French would completely burn the homes of those housing the worker.

These villagers were highly oppressed by physical abuse, but also subdued to economic monopolies and mental distress. The colonial regime had monopolies over alcohol and also the opium trade. Any personal distilling or trading of opium was considered illegal, which forced the poor peasants to pay high prices for these products. Also, the mental anguish that peasants had to deal with was the physical superiority complex that the French had over the Vietnamese. Frustrations turned into violence or death and punishment for these French individuals would most likely consist of suspended jail sentences or petty fines. During this time, it was common for French people to leisurely abuse villagers.

On the other hand along side the amount of common criminals within the French Indochinese prison system there were many political prisoners. Although political prisoners were eventually subject to special treatment while imprisoned they were capable of finding comrades of their Communist ideals within the prison walls. Prisons became revolutionary schools of the communist movements due to the number of political revolutionaries that were sentenced to prison during this period. These inmates were given the opportunities to study the Marxist-Leninist theories of Communism and create stronger and closer revolutionary factions within prison than as free men. The author of The Colonial Bastille concluded with his research that the forefront of Vietnamese Independence was created by those Communist factions that were reconstructed during the Colonial imprisonments.

After many small revolts and the Thai Nguyen Rebellion, thousands of inmate deaths, and the reconstruction of political factions the French encountered a change in government that led to the amnesty of most of the political prisoners. The majority of these political offenders were given reduced sentences and when they were released were hounded by Administrative surveillance and the shame of prison. Once freed from prison these ex-convicts scattered across Indochina spreading the word of Communism and creating factions to oppose the French Regime. The political prisoners were released in 1936 and quickly began their tasks of creating these revolutionary factions. These elements of resistance would lead to the highest number of imprisonments in the history of Vietnam between 1936 and 1939.

The lives of both prisoners and the citizens of Vietnam were turmoiled with many difficult hardships and were more or less prisoners within their own homes. These people were enslaved with high taxes and government monopolies, land reforms, labor camps, imprisonment, and physical abuse during this colonial period which meant it was going to take an incredible formation of unity to bring this oppression to a halt. The reformation of the Communist party within the Vietnamese prisons was the exact unity that the country needed to give it a sense of strength that they were capable of rising up and overcoming their adversity.

Rise of Communism: Subtext

Tran Tu Binh. The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of life on a colonial Rubber Plantation. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985.

Tran Tu Binh was an early revolutionary in the communist movement in Vietnam. He voluntarily chose to work on a colonial rubber plantation to become “proletarianized”. The memoir shows the organization of the worker cells in these plantations as they fought for their rights as workers. There were progresses and setbacks in the three years that he was at the plantation. One important aspect of the memoir is it shows the influence from the outside communists and the way they used propaganda to gather the masses to become part of a bigger revolution.

David Marr, Vietnamese Traditions on Trial, 1920-1945. Berkley: University of California Press, 1984.

David Marr has focused on 20^th century Vietnam and other revolutions in Asia similar to the Vietnam model. In this book he focuses on how the educated youth of the early 1920’s were searching for a new political ideology. Many different books were written in this time trying to find a system that could pull the masses together. The educated youth had become agitated at the elders in Vietnam for failing to keep the country independent. Vietnamese Traditions on Trial becomes a supplement to Khanh’s work by showing the intellectual world conditions that were present at the time in which many political systems were thought about in Vietnam.

Martin Bernal, “The Nghe-Tinh Soviet Movement 1930-1931,” Past and Present, No. 92 (Aug., 1981), pp. 148-168

Martin Bernal, A scholar of modern Chinese history, looks at the movement in the providences of Hghe-An and Ha-Tien in the early 1930’s. His thoughts are formulated by talking to veterans of the movement and looking at documents from Hanoi and Paris. Bernal shows the chronology of the movement starting with the political agitation in these rural areas as early as 1930. The police presence in these areas was minimal which allowed the movement to gain momentum. He shows how the movement was able to successful penetrate intimidate the French until the finally staged a movement to pacify the movement. The focus of the essay is to answer the question of why this movement arose. It shows the conditions of the area and the historic effort to resist the French in this area. Hghe-An is an area where the first six members of the Thanh Nien hailed from showing the anti-French feelings in this area.

Hy Van Luong, “Agrarian Unrest from an Anthropological Perspective: The Case of Vietnam,” Comparative Politics, Vol.17, No. 2 (Jan., 1985), pp. 153-174

Luong, a professor and chairman of the anthropology department at Harvard, explores the role of the peasants in the Vietnamese revolution. He critically examines three major works that focus on the sociological and political aspect of the Vietnamese revolution, specifically the agrarian unrest. These works include Jeffery Paige’s Agrarian Revolution, James C. Scott’s The Moral Economy of the Peasant, and Samuel Popkin’s The Rational Peasant. The piece focuses on the Nghe-Tien areas and shows the factors that went into the agrarian movement in these areas. Luong argues “that without an in-depth analysis of the ambiguities and contradictions in the structural principals and ecological parameters […] the Nghe-Tien movement cannot be fully understood.” [i]

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[i] Hy Van Loung, “Agrarian Unrest from an Anthropological Perspective,” p. 153.

Rise of Communism: Text

Huynh Kim Khanh’s Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945 examines the rise of communism as a political player in Vietnam from 1925-1945. Khanh seeks to show the complex relationships that were present in the molding of this movement. The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) was bound to two separate entities: the Vietnam people and the Comintern. Khanh argued “to achieve political legitimacy and pursue its social mission, the youthful Communist movement had to constantly maintain a delicate political balance between patriotism and proletarian internationalism.”[i] This was a difficult task that caused many problems for the development of the party. The radicalism of the late 1920’s for an independent state ostracized many of the peasants. By focusing on independence and not the social issues of Vietnam, it left the peasants on the outside of the movement. In the 1930’s however the roles were reversed. The push for social upheaval isolated many of the urban and rural support that was needed to win the struggle. A balance was instrumental for the movement to succeed.

Using mainly primary sources, Khanh tries to show this balance in the framework of the Indochinese Communist Party. He investigated many of the original ICP documents “to avoid being misled or identifying too closely with the subject.”[ii] Although he does credit many of his colleagues with writing beautifully on the subject, he feels that the primary sources paint a much clearer picture. The sources show the triumphs of the party as well as many of the negatives which almost led to the downfall of the party itself.

A central theme that Khanh tries to illustrate is the years before the creation of the communist party. The radical youth of the era had rejected reformism and began pursuing a new political system. A Marxist-Leninist system was introduced that adhered to the principals of the radical youth. Communism had an outlet into Vietnam and became the main political ideology of the time, which still remains today. An important thing to note is the political turmoil that surrounded the time of introduction. The youth of the time were Western-educated and they brought a system that could gather the masses. The Marxist-Leninist system was able to appeal to the majority of people in Vietnam. The peasants and the proletariat would be able to rise out of the oppression of the bourgeois, and the whole country could become independent by ousting out the French.

Upon reading Huynh Kim Khanh’s history of the rise of Vietnamese communism, it shows the struggle that the party endured to rise to power in August 1945. The French were constantly trying to end anti-colonial sentiments throughout Vietnam and almost succeeded in that goal in the early 1930’s. They had arrested most of the key figures and made the movement dormant for almost five years. It was at this time that Ho Chi Minh left Vietnam because he was looked down upon for failing to direct the party. Rumors spread through Vietnam that he was dead. The people thinking he was dead, criticized some of his ideas during this turbulent time

The international hand also played a huge role in shaping the party. The Comintern’s policies caused factions in the party which hindered it from reaching the true goal of independence. This communist movement was created in Vietnam as a means to end colonial rule. Along the way people became tied up in the details of how that goal would be reached. The goals of the proletariat in the international agenda interfered with the goals of independence for Vietnam, causing many setbacks.

It is clear that the idea of class struggle was a key element in the ICP. You cannot deny it or minimize its impact on the political landscape, but it seems that the Vietnam model is different in regards to the social revolution aspect of other communist countries. I say this because of how the ICP eventually pulled the masses together to a common goal. Huynh Kim Khanh emphasizes how class struggle was put on hold by the ICP in 1941 to put their attention on pushing the imperial powers out. In that respect it seems that communism was not the policy that allowed Vietnam to take control of the country in August 1945, but more of a nationalist model. The party put its political agenda on hold to achieve an important step for Vietnam. Nguyen Ai Quoc and other leaders saw that social reform and independence could not be done at the same time. They focused on bringing as many people as they could into the movement and turning their attention to their enemies. By ousting their enemies they could begin to implement their social agenda on a free Vietnam.

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[i] Huynh Kim Khanh, Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945, London: Cornell University Press, 1982, 21.

[ii] ibid, 24.

Rise of Communism: Context

In the mid 1920’s Vietnam experienced two events which would forever shift the face of Vietnam politics. Imprisonment of Phan Bui Chau and the death of Phan Chu Trinh, both anti colonial Confucian, brought an end to the traditional anti-colonial movements. Communism rose out of a need to end French Imperial rule in Vietnam. A radical youth movement arose in the mid 1920’s after the end of the traditional anti colonial Confucian models had failed. The educated youth (Thanh Nien) attempted to fuse Marxist-Leninist ideologies with the goal of making Vietnam an independent state.

Many barriers were persistent through the twenty year rise to power of the communist party in Vietnam. The Thanh Nien dissolved due to conflicts in how the party should reach their goals. With no dominate communist party to follow the Communist International (Comintern), two parties emerged. The Annamese Communist Party and the Indochinese Communist Party vied to represent Vietnam. A conference, led by Ho Chi Minh, was held in 1930 to unite the two parties; with The Indochinese Communist Party emerging as the united party.

Early in the decade, a large uprising occurred in the Nghe-An and Ha-Tinh provinces. It would be called the Nghe-Tinh Soviet Movement. For several months the groups staged uprisings and workers strikes within the region. The movement was able to have early success due to the limited French presence in the region. The Nghe-Tinh Soviets began to bomb offices and depots of the French. This caused the French to retaliate with bombings and eventually troops arrived to kill the movement.

The communist movement suffered great hardship in the 1930’s. Uprisings occurred early in the decade, but were not organized enough to cause great harm to the establishment. The French quickly squelched the uprisings and threw thousands of communists in prison for their actions. The party had become too reliant on the goals of the Comintern and had abandoned the goals of an independent Vietnam. The party idea of a social revolution clouded their judgment and made them forget about independence. Without the main leaders and a direction to travel, the party was at an all time low.

It was at this time when Ho Chi Minh was ostracized from the party. The Comintern was unhappy with the way he was directing the Communist Party in Vietnam. From the early 1930's to 1940 he was not in Vietnam.

Ironically the party was revived by the Comintern’s seventh congress. A new “people’s front” policy was created in which people from all political parties unite against a particular enemy. In the Comintern’s case this meant fascism, but for Vietnam it could be translated to imperial oppressors. In the past the communist movement in Vietnam had excluded the non worker and peasant classes as part of the revolution. Ho Chi Minh, fresh upon his return to Vietnam, founded the Viet Minh. This new movement had the goal to liberate Vietnam of French and Japanese control. With this new policy the Vietnamese could turn their focus to ridding themselves of colonialism. This new policy was the catalyst that allowed the communist party to emerge once again and ultimately win independence.

The new nationalist policies coupled with the Second World War were factors that allowed the communist movement to succeed. Japan began occupation in 1940 greatly weakening the French stronghold on Indochina. The Vietnamese saw that the French gave up control as if it were nothing and began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Viet Minh put out propaganda and trained the followers. As they organized the French power dwindled, culminating with the Japanese taking control of the country in March of 1945. They locked up all French officials and ended the French control. Unfortunately for Japan their control over Vietnam lasted only five months as they were forced to surrender to the allied forces. The Viet Minh were able to walk into to all public buildings and take control of the land while all the French officials remained in prison. This event is known as the August Revolution. In twenty years the communist movement had taken control of an “independent” country.

Although it can not be argued that the Communist Party liberated the country, there is controversy in their victory. Some scholars argue that the liberation was the result of nationalism. Starting in the early 1940's the party moved away from the idea of a class struggle. They began to appeal to a much wider audience in Vietnam. By pushing the idea of independence, the party was able to appeal to a larger audience. This audience was highly motivated for the new cause. Without a class struggle and a platform for independence, it can be argued that the victory was due to nationalism.