But the Nghe An provincial committee, the primary unit in charge of directing Party operations on the spot, had a different perspective. In a circular issued in early October, it instructed its own local units to continue carrying out a policy of armed violence against reactionary elements, arguing that otherwise the masses would become discouraged and betray Party cadres to the authorities. Violence, it concluded, inspired fear in the Party’s enemies and lent strength to the revolutionary cause, while struggle was the movement’s only current means of subsistence. The committee circular instructed all units to continue with the confiscation of communal lands still in the hands of landlords and to carry out selective assassinations of reactionary officials. However, the provincial committee stressed too that such decisions must be cleared with higher authorities beforehand.18
In the shadow of the spreading insurrection in central Vietnam, Party leaders in Hong Kong continued their preparations for the first plenary session of the Central Committee. By late September, delegates from Cochin China had arrived, but there was no sign of their colleagues from Tonkin and Annam. With Nguyen Ai Quoc’s approval, the former made plans to return to Indochina, but just before their departure several Tonkinese delegates arrived from Haiphong, so it was decided to go ahead with the meeting.19
Before convening the conference, Nguyen Ai Quoc and Tran Phu made one final trip to Shanghai to report on the situation to Noulens and to consult with him on the nature of the decisions to be adopted at the conference. Tran Phu returned to Hong Kong in early October, while Nguyen Ai Quoc remained in Shanghai for a few more days of consultations before returning on a U.S. ship in midmonth.20
On October 20, a few days after Nguyen Ai Quoc’s return to Hong Kong, the Central Committee convened in a small flat on Khai Yee Street on Hong Kong Island. By then, delegates from all three regions of the country, and representing a total Party membership of about 900, were in attendance (although one delegate who had managed to make it to Hong Kong got lost and could not find the location of the meeting). Nguyen Ai Quoc served both as chairman and representative of the Comintern. Also in attendance, as an alternate, was an attractive, dark-skinned young Party member named Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, who had been sent to Hong Kong in April 1930 to serve as Nguyen Ai Quoc’s assistant at the Southern Bureau.21
The primary topic for discussion was the adoption of a new political program to replace the provisional document that had been drafted under Nguyen Ai Quoc’s direction at the unity conference in February. That Quoc’s February program was not in full accordance with current strategical thinking in Moscow had already seemed clear from the critique sent by the Comintern to Paris in December 1929. That critique, which was not in Nguyen Ai Quoc’s hands when he convened the unity conference, had pointed to a number of ideological shortcomings in the manifesto of the Revolutionary Youth League—shortcomings that were still reflected in the February program. In Moscow’s view, the manifesto had not only placed insufficient emphasis on the central role of the working class in the Vietnamese revolution, it also held to the now discredited Leninist theory of a two-stage revolution.22
The majority of the delegates at the plenary session apparently accepted Moscow’s views on the alleged shortcomings of the February program, for a circular message to all echelons issued by the new Central Committee after the close of the plenum, on December 9, was harshly critical of the united front strategy adopted at the February conference. Whereas the united front strategy had included seeking the support of bourgeois elements and petty landlords in the cause of national independence, the circular (which was probably written by Tran Phu) now emphasized that such elements were reactionary to the core and would ultimately betray the revolutionary cause. The circular was also critical of the fact that after the unity conference, all factions within the revolutionary movement had been united together in an indiscriminate manner rather than by selecting only the purest revolutionary elements from each faction.23
The new political program, which was passed unanimously, was designed explicitly to remedy the shortcomings of its predecessor. In formulating a new definition for the united front—to be labeled the “anti-imperialist united front” (mat tran phan de)—it declared that the chief allies of the Vietnamese working class were the poor and middle peasants. Cooperative activities with petty bourgeois intellectuals and parties were authorized, but these should be undertaken only with care, since the majority of such elements—based on the tragic experience of the CCP in 1927—could be expected to abandon the revolution at its moment of climax and side with the imperialists. Relationships with such parties were permitted, but only if they did not hinder efforts by the Party to propagandize among the masses. Every effort should also be made to oppose their “narrow nationalism” and to destroy their influence on the masses. Moreover, it declared, all “petty bourgeois” tendencies such as terrorism, a predilection for assassination, or a lack of confidence in the masses, should be rigorously weeded out of the Party (this criticism, which frequently appeared in directives sent from the USSR to Communist parties throughout the world, referred to Moscow’s belief that radical intellectuals often tended to rely on dramatic acts of violence rather than on painstaking efforts to build up the revolutionary movement among the population; it also reflected Nguyen Ai Quoc’s own criticism of the methods used by the Party’s rivals, such as the VNQDD, to weaken the colonial regime).24
Also resulting from the October conference was a name change for the VCP. At Moscow’s insistence, it was now to be renamed the Indo-chinese Communist Party (Dang Cong san Dong duong, or ICP). Although it seems clear that one reason for the switch was to bring the Party’s strategy into line with the Comintern’s belief that revolutionary movements in smaller countries should pool their efforrs by forming regional parties to seek liberation from colonial rule, it is likely that another consideration was that dropping the reference to “Vietnam” shifted attention away from the cause of national independence—now viewed in Moscow as a “petty bourgeois” concern—to class struggle. After the close of the conference, the Central Committee issued a public statement to explain the reasons for the change:
Although Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are three separate countries, in reality they form only one region. In an economic sense they are tightly linked together, while politically they have all been ruled and oppressed by the French imperialists. If the workers and all the laboring masses in the three countries want to overthrow the imperialists, the monarchs, and the landlords to restore their independence and liberate themselves, they cannot struggle separately. So the Communist Party, the vanguard of the working class and the leader of all the masses in waging the revolution, must also not just separately represent Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos. If the enemy of the revolution is composed of a united force, then the Communist Party must also concentrate the force of the workers in all Indochina.25
After changing the Party’s program and the name, the conference turned its attention to the situation inside Indochina. The unrest in the central provinces presented the leadership with a dilemma. It was by now increasingly apparenr that the outbreak in the coastal provinces in central Vietnam was not likely to result in a nationwide rebellion against French rule. Although a few isolated outbreaks of violence against authority had taken place in scattered rural districts in the south, the peasantry remained quiet in the north, even in the impoverished villages in the Red River delta. The same was true in urban areas. In Saigon and Hanoi, a few workers had gone on strike in response to the plight of their compatriots in the central provinces, but on the whole the population in the cities appeared apathetic. The urban middle class watched the events in Annam with fascination or in horror, but it did not rise. Since the VNQDD had fallen into disarray after the Yen Bay debacle, there was literally no organized nationalist group in Vietnam with the capacity or the inclination to rally the populace against imperialist oppression—except for the Communist Party itself. Moreover, it seemed clear that the image of dark vio
lence and class war that emanated from the soviet movement in the central provinces had frightened off many otherwise sympathetic observers, a fact which undoubtedly confirmed in the minds of Marxist hard-liners that the bourgeoisie was vacillating and could not be counted on as a loyal ally of the revolutionary forces.
Under the circumstances, Party leaders in Hong Kong were inclined toward caution. A resolution issued at the close of the October plenum declared that revolutionary activists in local areas must make every effort to expand the movement into all regions of Indochina in order to concentrate the strength of the masses against the “white terror” waged by the colonial authorities. But at the same time it instructed them urgently to oppose all tendencies toward premature violence and blind adventurism, erroneous tendencies that were ascribed to impure and unreliable elements introduced into the Party after the unity conference. Such elements, the resolution charged, placed too much emphasis on the struggle against imperialism and not enough on the issue of class struggle. The most important thing now, the Central Committee reasoned, was to strengthen the Party’s roots with the oppressed masses so that a future uprising would have a better chance to succeed. To do that, propaganda should focus on issues central to rural concerns, such as opposing oppressive taxes, reducing land rents, and eliminating monopolies.26
Then, in a separate communiqué specifically directed to Party activists in the rebellious provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh, the conference expressed its view of the newly formed soviets:
If the masses are at the point when they take action spontaneously, then the Party has no option but to lead them immediately. But in this case, the executive committee [probably of the Nghe An provincial committee] is actually advocating such actions, and that is very mistaken, because: a) although the situation in a few areas is revolutionary, the overall level of consciousness and the struggle of workers and peasants in the region is not uniformly high, b) although there is a high level of consciousness and enthusiasm in some villages, there are not enough weapons.
Given the overall situation in Vietnam and the comparative strength and preparedness of the revolutionary forces and the enemy, the communiqué concluded that to advocate violence in just one region was not correct policy. In the central provinces, Party operatives should use the favorable situation caused by widespread hunger and imperialist brutality to broaden the mass struggle, but without recourse to acts of premature and isolated violence, while preparing for a military uprising to achieve total victory in the future.27
At the close of the first plenary session, the delegates elected a permanent Central Committee, as well as a Standing Committee composed of Tran Phu, Nguyen Trong Nghia, and the central Vietnamese activist Nguyen Phong Sac, even though the latter had not attended the meeting in Hong Kong. At first, the Standing Committee, which was expected to provide leadership for the Party in the interval between sessions of the Central Committee, was to be located at Haiphong, but when a delegate from Tonkin pointed out that security was inadequate there, it was decided to establish the Party headquarters in Saigon, where communications links with France and China would be relatively convenient to maintain. Tran Phu, now emerging as a dominant figure in the party, was named to the pivotal post of general secretary, while Nguyen Ai Quoc was to remain in Hong Kong as the representative of the Comintern’s Southern Bureau.28
Nguyen Ai Quoc could not have been unaware that the decisions reached at the plenary session represented a clear and even flagrant rejection of some of his own ideas and the character of his leadership. It must have galled him that, in some instances, the criticism was clearly unwarranted. During his years as a leading member of the league, he had attempted to raise the ideological level of its members and had persistently urged all cadres operating in Vietnam to seek out qualified workers for membership and training. To be accused implicitly of ideological softness by younger and less experienced colleagues must have rankled.
In fact, the new Comintern line was not simply a repudiation of Nguyen Ai Quoc himself, but a clear departure from Lenin’s own 1920 strategy of focusing on the issue of national independence and seeking the active cooperation of progressive elements within the middle and the rural scholar-gentry classes. In the new era, at a time when efforts to establish an effective alliance with nationalist parties in China and the Dutch East Indies had proven abortive, the Ideas of Nguyen Ai Quoc, the most experienced revolutionary in all of Indochina, no longer seemed relevant.
Despite the affront, he took the setback with good grace. According to the recollection of one participant at the conference, Quoc “was modest and listened to and respected the opinions of the collective,” opinions that in many instances contrasted sharply with his own. In private conversations with his colleagues before the plenary session, he admitted that the decisions at the unity conference had been superficial and hastily adopted, but he assigned some responsibility for such “gaps” to regional committees of the league in Vietnam, who had not communicated conditions inside the country to him. Afterward, in his capacity as Comintern representative in Hong Kong, he reported the results of the plenum to Hilaire Noulens in Shanghai.29
Still, Nguyen Ai Quoc may have succeeded in introducing his own ideas into the minds of his colleagues. In mid-November, the new Standing Committee issued a decree instructing the Party’s lower echelons on how to form the new anti-imperialist front. The document contained tantalizing hints that Quoc’s views on the composition of the united front still survived within the Party. The decree stressed the importance of building a broader united front with the various classes in Vietnamese society—and especially in the frontline areas in the central provinces. In the recent past, the directive pointed out, cadres had not had a clear understanding of the purpose of the united front; they were forming “red unions” and “red peasant associations” without grasping the importance of creating mass organizations for intellectuals, the middle class, and patriotic landlords. Moreover, it added, some Party members had failed to see the progressive character of national revolutionary parties such as the VNQDD, which had been so cruelly oppressed earlier in the year. Such groups were often timid and in some areas of the country had shown opposition to the revolution, but in other areas, such as in the central provinces of Annam, they were often progressive in their inclinations. It was important to recognize, the decree concluded, that national revolution was an integral part of class revolution.30
Whatever effect this decree had on the views of Patty members with regard to the composition of the united front, however, was probably negated by the Central Committee December circular, which explained the decisions reached at the plenary session and the mistakes committed by the February unity conference. The circular was highly critical of the role of the bourgeoisie in the Vietnamese revolution. Although some members of the local bourgeoisie opposed the imperialists, they lacked the strength to resist firmly; when the revolution developed, they would shift to the imperialist cause. The influence of the bourgeoisie on the masses was thus very dangerous and must be unmasked. Landlords were similarly reactionary in their views, and their land must be confiscated and given to poor and middle peasants.31
During the late fall and winter of 1930–1931, French efforts to repress the unrest escalated. Popular demonstrations were brutally suppressed, villages that had supported the revolt were attacked and occupied by government troops, and the imperial court ordered mass arrests of individuals suspected of supporting the uprising. Party committees in the central provinces reported a decline in morale and in support for the movement among the mass of the population. In desperation, Party activists ignored Quoc’s advice and increasingly turned to acts of terrorism, including attacks on government installations or the assassination of individuals suspected of being sympathetic to the imperialists.
Shortly after the new year, the Standing Committee, now established in Saigon, sent out new instructions to the three regional committees, warning them against panic or succumbing to the rising strai
n of pessimism within the revolutionary movement. The purpose of the struggle, it emphasized, was to wage revolution. Only if Party members waged revolution and set up soviet power would it obtain long-term benefits. Charges that the masses were discouraged were misguided, for history proved that if the masses are revolutionary, then the struggle can never be suppressed. The Standing Committee fended off appeals from the local echelons for their superiors to do something—anything—to protect the masses from their oppressors, explaining that the Party had no method, no magic wand, to bring about a successful revolution. It had no army, no fighter planes; all it possessed was a means of arousing the masses to seek their own liberation, to use their own strength to carry on the struggle, to organize themselves to oppose oppression.
The directive concluded with a list of instructions to local Party branches on how to avoid panic and to promote mass struggles, such as labor strikes and peasant demonstrations, that would oppose the enemy’s white terror. It pointed out that the masses were in a revolutionary frame of mind and ready to be led; otherwise, they would act on their own and ignore the Party, which would have to follow at their tail. At the same time, the Standing Committee continued to discourage the use of armed violence, and took issue with those who said that the movement must obtain weapons to defend itself from the enemy. Although the masses were revolutionary, the country was not in a direct revolutionary situation, and the village militia was not a red army. The militia could help by distributing propaganda, by promoting unity within the movement, and by demonstrating a willingness to sacrifice. And for those purposes, weapons were not necessary.32
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