Sometime in January 1942, dressed in faded clothes in the fashion of the local Nung people and clutching a small cloth bag with his few possessions (including his typewriter and exercise equipment), Nguyen Ai Quoc left Pac Bo with several colleagues and trekked to the new Vietminh base. When the group once lost its way en route, Nguyen Ai Quoc took the incident in stride. “What a belle affaire,” he laughed. “In the future we must be better acquainted with these trails to learn how to escape.”5
On arrival at his new command post (which he promptly dubbed Lam Son, in memory of a guerrilla base established by the fifteenth-century Vietnamese patriot Le Loi in his struggle against Chinese occupation forces), Nguyen Ai Quoc took part in the new political training course for local cadres. To preserve secrecy, the program was conducted at night in the open air, and with no training materials. Because the students were more advanced than those at Pac Bo, the subject material was more advanced as well, consisting of discussions of Marxist doctrine, Party regulations, and the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To build up the spirits of his colleagues, who occasionally despaired of victory in their seemingly endless struggle first against the French, and now also the Japanese, Nguyen Ai Quoc sometimes concluded his lecture by pointing out the necessity of a base area as a launching pad for the future general uprising. He also stressed the crucial importance of building up the strength of the movement through the recruitment of reliable followers. “A revolution,” he pointed out, “is like the rising tide, and the reliable elements are like the pilings sunk in a riverbed; it is they who will maintain the soil at low tide.”
One problem with the new location, however, was that it was more exposed than the border region near Pac Bo to enemy attack. On several occasions, Party cadres at the command post were forced to seek refuge among the local population in order to escape detention from French patrols in the area. On those occasions, they struck camp in the middle of the jungle, sometimes in areas where human beings rarely penetrated. To survive they were often forced to forage for food, such as corn, rice, or wild banana flowers. Despite the concerns of his colleagues, Nguyen Ai Quoc insisted on sharing the deprivations with the rest. When spirits flagged or enthusiasm grew to excess, he counseled them: “Patience, calmness, and vigilance, those are the things that a revolutionary must never forget.”6
Under the circumstances, good relations with the minority peoples living in the area were essential. The Party had already begun to build support in the Viet Bac during the mid-1930s, and at the 1935 Macao conference it had promised self-determination for all ethnic groups in a future independent Indochinese federation. Now, with Quoc’s encouragement, cadres attempted to win the support of local peoples by learning their languages and customs. Cadres participated in rituals celebrated by people in the nearby villages, and some even filed their teeth in the local fashion or took local wives and began to raise families.
On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces launched an air attack on Pearl Harbor. The following day, the United States declared war on Japan. In a brief editorial printed in Viet Nam Doc Lap, Nguyen Ai Quoc declared that the regional struggle in the Pacific had now been transformed into a world conflagration, making it increasingly urgent for the peoples of Indochina to mobilize their efforts to meet the challenges to come. Back in Pac Bo in July 1942, Quoc instructed his colleagues near Cao Bang to expand their operations in order to establish communications links with elements operating at Bac Son and Vo Nhai, farther to the south, and thus create a stable political corridor from Cao Bang southward toward the delta. The movement’s “March to the South” (in Vietnamese, “Nam tien,” the same term as used for the historic migration of the Vietnamese peoples southward from the Red River delta after the recovery of independence from China in the tenth century), was about to get under way.
At Bac Son, Chu Van Tan, a Party cadre of Nung extraction, had managed to organize the remnants of the rebel forces who had fought against the French and the Japanese in the fall of 1940 into guerrilla detachments under the somewhat overblown title of the National Salvation Army (Cuu Quoc Quan). Because their base area was located close to the provincial capital of Lang Son, these units were dangerously exposed to attack from nearby French security forces, who frequently launched sweeps through the area, capturing suspects and torching villages. On one of these occasions, Phung Chi Kien, one of Nguyen Ai Quoc’s most trusted colleagues and a member of the Party Central Committee since 1935, was killed in battle. It was Quoc himself who had sent Kien to Bac Son to set up training courses and expand guerrilla activities in the province, but Quoc may have found solace in the fact that his colleague’s death was in a cause he felt was crucial. The task of communications, he frequently declared to his colleagues, was “the most important task” for their revolutionary work, since it was decisive for maintaining the principle of unified command and the proper deployment of forces, thus guaranteeing final success.
As the guerrillas increased their activities, the authorities stepped up their own efforts to suppress them, setting up a curfew throughout the lower provinces of the Viet Bac and sending out patrols to flush out dissident forces. It was to minimize the possibility of capture that Nguyen Ai Quoc left Lam Son in June 1942 and returned to Pac Bo. Posing as a local shaman, complete with a black robe and all the paraphernalia of the craft, including texts on black magic, incense sticks, and a live chicken (whose blood was thought to cure disease), he had several harrowing experiences until he and the small group that accompanied him managed to pass through enemy checkpoints to their final destination. On one occasion, the security officer at a local checkpoint asked the shaman to take a look at his wife, who was feeling unwell. One of Quoc’s colleagues pleaded with the officer that the group had no time to waste, since the shaman’s own mother-in-law was seriously ill. At that, the officer relented, asking that the shaman stop off on his way back through the village.7
With his internal program now in place, Nguyen Ai Quoc turned his attention to building up international support for the cause. On August 13, 1942, he headed back to China on foot with his colleague Le Quang Ba. To reduce the danger of being apprehended by a French patrol, they traveled at night and rested during the daytime; Quoc again carried the identity card of an overseas Chinese reporter by the name of Ho Chi Minh. At the small Chinese border town of Bamong on the twenty-fifth, he rested briefly at the home of Xu Weisan, a local farmer known to be sympathetic to the Vietnamese revolutionary cause. Two days later, he departed with a young Chinese guide, having informed his host that he wished to proceed on foot to the nearby market town of Binhma in order to catch a bus to the wartime capital of Chongqing; Le Quang Ba remained behind in Bamong. The two were arrested en route, however, by Chinese police in the village in Teyuan, not far from the district capital of Debao, about twenty miles northeast of Jingxi. The suspicion of the local authorities was aroused by the fact that, in addition to carrying papers identifying him as a representative of a group called “the Vietnamese branch of the Anti-Aggression League,” Ho also carried a special card of the International Press Agency (Guoji Xinwenshe) and a military passport issued by the office of the commander of the Fourth Military Command. All these documents had been issued in 1940 and were no longer valid. Suspecting that anyone with so many false documents must be a Japanese agent, they took him and his young guide into custody.8
Ho Chi Minh’s purpose in returning to China has long been a matter of debate. In his memoirs, he implied that his objective was to establish contact with Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek and other Nationalist authorities in order to solicit their assistance in evicting the Japanese from Indochina. Several other Vietnamese sources concur. But others have suggested that his actual purpose was to get in touch with representatives of the CCP at their liaison headquarters in Chongqing. In all likelihood, both are correct. There were certainly good reasons for him to establish closer ties with acquaintances in the CCP, many of whom he had not seen since his brief stopover in Yan’an nea
rly four years before. Still, although Ho Chi Minh undoubtedly intended to contact his old friend Zhou Enlai while in Chongqing, his main objective was probably to seek support from the Nationalist government and obtain its recognition of the Vietminh Front as the legitimate representative of Vietnamese nationalism. By now, news of the U.S. naval victory at Midway had reached continental Asia, and Allied support for Chiang Kai-shek’s government made his survival at the end of the Pacific war increasingly likely. One logical contact was Sun Yat-sen’s widow, Soong Qingling, who chaired the Chinese branch of the International Anti-Aggression League. With the Vietnamese revolutionary movement now badly in need of material support, it was essential that the Nationalist government tolerate Vietminh activities in south China and support the front’s role in helping to defeat the Japanese.9
Convinced that anyone carrying so many false documents must be not only dangerous but also someone of considerable political importance, the local authorities decided to contact the military court in Guilin, the capital of Guangxi province; the court requested that Ho be sent to Guilin for interrogation and possible trial there. The route taken was via Debao and Jingxi, the site of Ho Chi Minh’s activities just before the Pac Bo conference. He was incarcerated in a Kuomin-tang jail in Jingxi on August 29. By now, his friends in the border region had become aware of his predicament, and they immediately sent a messenger to the Jingxi district magistrate, who happened to be an acquaintance of Xu Weisan. But the official refused the request to release Ho and reported the arrest by telegram to higher authorities.10
Ho Chi Minh remained in Jingxi prison for several weeks while local authorities awaited directions from higher echelons on what to do with him. By his own account, conditions in the jail were primitive, and often inhumane. Prisoners were placed in a stock during the daytime, and at night were shackled to the wall in cells overrun with lice. Nourishment consisted of a single bowl of rice and half a basin of water, which had to be used for both washing and tea. Still, Ho Chi Minh was somehow able to obtain paper and pen, and in his free time he exercised his restless mind by writing poetry to describe his feelings and the conditions of his captivity. Many years later, these poems were published as his Prison Diary. The poems were originally written in Chinese in the quatrain style of the Tang dynasty:
Opening the Diary
I’ve never liked reciting poetry,
But what else is there to do inside a prison cell?
So I’ll recite some verse to pass the time,
Recite and wait til freedom returns.
The prisoner expressed indignation at his fare:
A Difficult Road
Although I’ve scaled the highest peaks,
I’ve encountered problems in the plains.
In the mountains I’ve faced tigers without incident,
But in the plains I’ve been seized by my fellow men.
I arrived as a representative of the Vietnamese people,
Who came to China to consult with important leaders.
Suddenly I encountered a storm of adversity
And was placed as an “esteemed guest” in prison.
I am loyal and clear of heart,
But am suspected of being a traitor.
Things have never been easy,
But now they are even more difficult.
Yet Ho Chi Minh, with his inveterate optimism, never lost hope and infected his fellow prisoners with determination to survive:
Morning
As the sun rises over the prison wall,
It shines on the prison gate.
Inside the jail, all is still dark,
But outside the sun has spread across the land.
As we awake, all compete to catch the lice,
When the bell strikes eight, it’s time for breakfast.
Brother, you’d better ear your fill,
For things soon will surely get better.11
On October 10, the thirty-first anniversary of the first Chinese revolution, Ho Chi Minh was transferred from Jingxi back to Debao. Travel clearly provided little relief from the monotony of prison life:
En Route
Those who walk the road know it is hard.
Scale one mountain and another appears.
But once you mount the highest peak,
10,000 miles appear before you eyes.
Arriving at Tianbao Prison
Today I trudged 53 kilometers,
My hat and clothes are soaked, my shoes tattered.
Throughout the night there’s nowhere to lay my head.
Perched on the latrine, I await the break of day.
In Debao, he heard the news that Wendell Willkie, President Roosevelt’s special envoy to the Chinese, had arrived in Chongqing for talks with Chiang Kai-shek. The news report of the visit provoked his frustration:
News Report: A Welcome Reception for Willkie
Both of us are friends of China,
Heading for Chongqing.
You’re a guest of honor,
While I languish in a prison cell.
Both of us represent our country,
So why are we treated differently?
The ways of the world run hot and cold,
Just as water flows to the east.
From Debao, Ho was transferred via Tiandong and Lungan to Nanning, about 120 miles to the east, en route to Guilin. By now the strain of the long incarceration was beginning to get to him.
Night Chill
An autumn night, without a mattress or blanket.
You try to curl up, but still can’t sleep.
Moonlight on the banana tree chills the atmosphere,
Through the window, the Big Dipper lies on its side.
Still, he did not lose the sense of humor and the gift of irony that had marked his writing since his early days as a revolutionary in Paris:
A Jest
The state provides your room and board,
Teams of soldiers serve as your escort.
You stroll through the countryside as you please,
To play the tourist is truly exciting!
In fact, his conditions were about to improve. On December 9, 1942, he was taken from Nanning by train to Liuzhou, the site of Chiang Kai-shek’s Fourth Military Command headquarters. Ho Chi Minh undoubtedly hoped that his presence would be reported to the zone commander, Zhang Fakui, a veteran Kuomintang commander who did not share Chiang’s visceral distrust of the CCP and was known to be sympathetic to the Vietnamese struggle for national liberation. To Ho’s disappointment, however, he was kept waiting, and then finally transferred to Guilin the next day:
Detainment without Interrogation
As a cup of medicine is most bitter at the dregs,
A rough road seems most arduous at the end.
The magistrate’s office is only about a mile away,
Why am I forced to wait here?
Four Months Later
“A day in jail is like a thousand years outside.”
That old proverb is surely on the mark.
Four months of inhuman existence
Have aged me more than ten years.
By now his body was emaciated and covered with sores, his hair had begun to turn gray, and his teeth were falling out. Yet he refused to despair:
Luckily
I’ve persevered and endured.
Not taken a single step backward.
Although it’s been physically difficult,
My spirit remains unshaken.
Seriously Ill
China’s humid climate has made me feverish,
And makes me long for my homeland in Vietnam.
It’s miserable to be ill in prison.
I should weep, but I’ll sing instead.
After another delay of several weeks, the chief prosecuting officer of the military court in Guilin finally took up Ho Chi Minh’s case. Under interrogation, Ho admitted to having connections with the Communist movement in Indochina, but denied that he had any ties with the CCP. Declaring him to be
a political prisoner, the court ordered him transferred back to Fourth Military Command Headquarters in Liuzhou for trial. On his arrival there in early February 1943, Zhang Fakui turned the case over to the Political Department.12
Upon hearing of Ho Chi Minh’s arrest, Le Quang Ba left Bamong immediately for Jingxi. Ho asked him to carry a letter to the Party Central Committee back in Vietnam. When news of Ho’s incarceration arrived in Cao Bang in late October, Party leaders decided to mobilize a public protest against his arrest. They also decided to write to major news agencies such as UPI, Reuters, Tass, and Agence France Presse, alerting them to the situation and asking them to intercede with the Chinese government to obtain Ho’s release. The cable to the Tass representative in Chongqing, dated November 15, simply identified Ho Chi Minh as “one of the leading members of the Viet Nam Branch of the International Anti-Aggression League” who enjoyed “high prestige” among the people. The cable claimed that the league had a membership of 200,000 people. By the time similar alerts were received by all the foreign wire services in Chongqing, however, Ho Chi Minh was already in jail in Guilin.
Ho Chi Minh Page 37
