- alias Truong Chinh (Long March).

- born on 15/2/1909, at Hanh Thien (Hành Thi®n) village, Xuan Truong (phü Xuân Tr߶ng), Nam Dinh province, North Vietnam. His father was Dang Xuan Vien (Уng Xuân Viên) and his mother, Nguyen Thi Thu (Nguy­n Th¸ Thu). Hanoi's document says that Chinh was born on 9/2/1907.

- in 1926, Chinh was dismissed from a primary school in Nam Dinh. In 1927, he joined Thanh Nien or the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association (Vi®t Nam Cách MÕng Thanh Niên Hµi). In 1928, Chinh, taking part in a demonstration against the French, was arrested and expelled from a local high school. In 2/1929, Chinh was admitted to the School of Economy (Cao ðÆng thß½ng mÕi) in Hanoi.

- after the ICP was formed in 1930, Chinh was promoted as commissioner of the Central Propaganda Commission. In 7/1930, he taught at a private secondary school in Hanoi. After the communist uprising in Nghe Tinh (Nghe An + Ha Tinh) and South Vietnam, Chinh was caught on 2/11/1930 and sentenced to 12 years in prison in 9/1931.

- after being Kept in the prison Son La (NVN) until 9/1936, Chinh was released. From 1936-1939, Chinh was active under the label "the Indochinese Democratic Front" (it fought for the democratic rights, freedom and legal status for the ICP but refrained from demands for national independence) with Tran Huy Lieu (Tr¥n Huy Li®u, a former member of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party), Vo NguyenGiap and Pham Van Dong. To bluff the French, on 21/4/1937, Chinh ordered communist cadres in his editorial office of the paper "Le Travail" to enter the Social Party (disguised ICP) to work legally. On 1/8/1937, the ICP published the secret newspaper "En Avant". In 9/1938, under the pen name Quan Ninh (Quän Ninh), Chinh and Khuat Duy Tien (Khu¤t Duy Tiªn or Tô Dân) published the pamphlet called "Projet de Re'forme de l'Impôt Personnel" (Kª HoÕch Cäi T± Thuª Thân) requesting the reform of personal tax.

When the French outlawed the ICP in late 9/1939, Chinh started working underground from 14/10/1939. In early 11/1940, he was elected as secretary-general in the 7th meeting of the ICP Central Committee to replace Nguyen Van Cu (Nguy­n Vån C×) who was arrested in Saigon along with Le Duan (Lê Du¦n), Vo Dinh Hieu (Võ Ðình Hi®u), Vu Thien Tan (Vû Thiên Tân) on 17/1/1940. At that time, Thanh was trying to reorganize the the Overseas ICP in Yunnan. In 5/1941, Thanh presided the 8th party conference to change the "Anti-imperialist National United Front" to the Vietminh front. Chinh worked along the border Kwangxi-Cao Bang with the help of Chu Van Tan (Chu Vån T¤n, a deserted soldier of the minority Nung tribe), Ha Ba Cang (HÕ Bá Cang = Hoàng Qu¯c Vi®t) and some deserted minority soldiers. That was also the time Chinh had the nickname "Sß TØ" (Lion) due to his too wide mouth. The group Chinh - Chu Van Tan - Hoang Quoc Viet - Hoang Dinh Rong or Giong (Hoàng Ðình Rong = Hoàng Vån Thø; from Tho ethnic minority, secretary of the North Vietnam Regional Committee (XÑ œy B¡c KÏ; Thu had another nickname "Stalin of Cao Bang") were real powerful leadership of the ICP in the interior. Due to this, Chinh was sentenced to death by the French in absentia in 1943.

After Thanh was arrested and Dong + Giap fled away in 1/1942, *the Vietnamese Liberation League (Vi®t Nam Giäi Phóng аng Minh Hµi; 1941-1943) in China faltered in mid-1943.

--

* The Vietnamese Liberation League (Vietnam Giai Phong Dong Minh Hoi) :

Before leaving China for Vietnam, Thanh ordered Pham Van Dong, Hoang Van Hoan and Vo Nguyen Giap to remain in Chingsi to "work" with Viet nationalists. Late in 1940, after the Japanese moved into Tonkin, Viet revolutionaries in Liuchow organized a united organization to fight the common enemy and set up its committee. In the spring of 1941, Ho Hoc Lam and Truong Boi Cong in the committee selected Chingsi as the birthplace for the new organization called the Vietnam Liberation League or the Vietnam National Liberation League which included many parties with the "Association of the Vietnam Independence League" (Vi®t Nam еc L§p аng Minh Hµi; Dong Minh Hoi) as its nucleus. The leadership comprised Truong Boi Cong, Ho Hoc Lam (Dong Minh Hoi), Tran Bao (the Independence party + Dong Minh Hoi), Truong Trung Phung (VNQDD + Dong Minh Hoi), Pham Viet Tu (Dong Minh Hoi), Tu Chi Kien (Vietnam Association for Support of China against the Japanese), Pham Van Dong (ICP), Vo Nguyen Giap (ICP) and Hoang Van Hoan (ICP). Its goal was Vietnam's independence with its spirit of the Three People's Principles (of the people, by the people and for the people) of Sun-Yat-Sen. It was no doubt that this first united front reflected a strong sentiment for allying with non-communist Chinese. However, the ICP faction in the Vietnam Liberation League disliked the "reactionary" Vietnam Democratic Party. Some Democrats were murdered; then, the Democrats were outsted.

After that, Dong and Giap started disseminating their pro-CCP view into Viet students in the Vietnam Training Class (set up by Chang Fa-K'uei to assist Viet revolutionaries) claiming that only the CCP, not Kuomintang, was truly assisting Vietnam's independence. The conflict exploded when Nguyen Hai Than informed to the Kuomintang officials in Chingsi that Dong and Giap were truly communist. Before long, Truong Boi Cong was taken into custody by Chinese authority for "working" with ICP members who tried to turn the Viet students against the Kuomintang. Then Dong and Giap fled to Vietnam in 1/1942. After this incident, the The Vietnamese Liberation League collapsed. Due to this, about 702 young Vietnamese split into groups to join the Kuomintang military. Some communists and communist sympathizers stayed in these groups and some were later taken back to Vietnam by Thanh in 1944.

--

General *Chang Fa-K'uei (Trß½ng Phát Khuê) persuaded the Vietnamese to set up a new nationalist organization called the Vietnamese Revolutionary League (Vi®t Nam Cách MÕng аng Minh Hµi = аng Minh Hµi = Vi®t Cách) which composed almost VNQDD and Phuc Quoc (Phøc Qu¯c) of Phan Boi Chau and prince Cuong De.

Chang Fa-K'uei was a controversial left-of-center military leader, supporter of the Kuomintang and commander of the 4th war zone which included part of Kwangtung (Quäng Ðông) and the entire province of Kwangxi, but not its governor. After communists took over China -- 5 years after his releasing Thanh -- Chang fled to Hong Kong and tried to set up the "Third Force" in 1951-1953 without success. In 1960, Chang visited U.S. and gave some speeches and urged the Chinese to fight against the Chinese communists to restore the Republic of China. He also disagreed with the Kuomintang in Taiwan.

During 1943, General Hou Chih-ming acting as director of the political department of the 4th war area had Thanh's case under his jurisdiction, but until 1/1944 when Chang took the command of the war area, he assigned it to Hsiao Wen (Tiêu Vån). According to Hou, communists and sympathizers surrounded Chang Fa-K'uei and influenced him in order to protect and help Thanh. Not getting along with rightist Hou, Chang spent some time to discuss with the Chungking governemnt to get rid of Hou and set up by himself an office directing Dong Minh Hoi and Thanh's fate. From 1/1/1944, Hsiao Wen was in charge of both Dong Minh Hoi and Thanh's case.

Only 23 days after Chang came to Liwchou and Hsiao Wen took office, Thanh was decided to be unleashed. Here was what Chang thought about Thanh in his 23/1/1944 report to Chungking :

"Ho Chi Minh has stayed in the Political Department (ever since his arrival); we treat him with unusual politeness in order to convert him. Judging by his conversations and writings, he seems to have a good knowledge of San Min Chu I (the Three People's Principles) and understand well our resist-Japan policy. Being fifty, he is mature in thought. He claims that the Vietnam Branch of the International Anti-aggression Association which he represents has the support of 200,000 people...It seems that to let him continue to stay in China will not benefit us, and that to let him go back to Vietnam does us no harm."

Later, when asked about his dealing with Thanh's case, Chang defended about his association with Thanh in Liuchow that, "One cannot blame me (a commander-in-chief of a war area in China) for my relations with Ho Chi Minh, because the Central Government in Chungking was at that time cooperating with the CCP and the Soviet Union."

Although knowing that Thanh was an active member of the Comintern, Chang still let him join Dong Minh Hoi and participate in the preparatory work for its reorganization. A reunification conference called the "Congress of Overseas Revolutionary Groups of the Dong Minh Hoi" was held from 25-28/3/1944. Chang was anxious to unite all nationalists and communists in reorganizing Dong Minh Hoi to prepare for entering Vietnam. The French didn't like it and refused to support that operation with the pretext that the Chinese represented the hereditary enemy of Viets, but the Chinese were counting on the Viets, both nationalist and communist, not on French support to kick out the Japanese.

Staying in Liwchow (Li­u Châu), Thanh must know all about it and seemed to use dual tactics to take advantage of Chang; Chang used him, so did he. Thanh showed courteous and kind attitude to Chang and Hsiao. In addition, Thanh boasted to Chang that he had 200,000 Viets behind him so that the ICP members should be represented in Dong Minh Hoi. Through Hsiao, Thanh inserted lots of ICP members into branches of Dong Minh Hoi in Kunming and Yunnan and struck a blow against diehard VNQDD groups. The rivalry between VNQDD and the ICP was obvious, but now both must cooperate with each other. Due to Thanh's tactics, VNQDD's influence in Dong Minh Hoi was reduced. At the end of the reorganization, the election of the 5 members of the Standing Executive Committee of Dong Minh Hoi on 2/7/1944 resulted in 3 members of the ICP and 2 of VNQDD, and in the 3 members of the control organ, the ICP had 2. One member of VNQDD in the Standing Executive Committee, Duong Tu Giang (Dß½ng TØ Giang) soon joined the ICP due to getting disciplinary action from Nghiem Ke To, a leader of VNQDD. The ICP took advantage of Giang's situation and asked him to join their association. Then, Giang double-crossed Nghiem Ke To by showing to Hsiao Wen a document where VNQDD made a deal with the British in exchange for money and weapons. Giang accused To to collaborate with the British-French imperialists. Hsiao believed it and arrested To on 9/8/1944. To was released later in 12/1944 after the Japanese attacked Liuchow. 5 days after To was arrested, Thanh was freed and headed back to Vietnam. Consequently, the ICP, in effect, controlled the reorganized Yunnan branch.

As stated above, Chang's intention to set up Dong Minh Hoi was to prepare for intruding Vietnam to fight the Japanese. No one could meet Chang's demands but Thanh. After being released temporarily from Liuchow prison, Thanh stood up and promised to unite all Viet factions behind the Chinese sponsored Dong Minh Hoi (now comprising VNQDD, the Constitutionalist Party, the ICP). On the eve of his return to Vietnam, Thanh said to Chang that, "I am a communist, but my present concern is for Vietnam's freedom and independence, not for communism. I give you a special assurance : communism will not work in Vietnam in 50 years."

With that assurance, Thanh with alias Ho Chi Minh, under the help of general Hsiao Wen, man in direct charge of Dong Minh Hoi office, left Chang on 9/8/1944 with an amount of 50,000 Chinese dollars, not guns, to set up guerilla base near the Sino-Viet border.

Then, it was the 3rd time in his career, Thanh used the old tactic -- offering to serve his enemy for the return of his freedom. The 1st time was when Thanh reportedly offered to serve as an agent provocateur in France for the French Surete in the years after the WW ˜ The 2nd time, in 1932, Thanh promised to work for the British police force in Hong Kong.

Before returning to Vietnam, Thanh had already sown carefully his men in Dong Minh Hoi; if the Allies entered Vietnam with Dong Minh Hoi, his men were readÜ Besides that, Thanh might get release from prison in exchange to provide intelligence information to China from Vietnam. Another source said that Thanh submitted to the Chinese an "Outline of the plan for the activities of entering Vietnam", offered his collaboration with future Chinese and Allied military operations in Vietnam and showed a detailed plan for revolutionary activity. It might be Thanh tricked Chang and Hsiao to get his release.

Thanh arrived at Pac Bo in 9/1944 and decided to set up an armed propaganda unit; it means that, to Thanh, political activities were more important than military ones. Thanh wanted the propaganda unit to have a dual struggle : to propagandize in time of peace and fight in time of war; this was also what Thanh did outline to Chang Fat-K'uei before. Due to this, Giap could organize the "Armed propaganda Detachment" (Ðoàn võ trang tuyên truy«n; also called the Vietnam People's Propaganda Unit for National Liberation) on 22/12/1944, which consisted 34 men, nucleus of the PAVN. In 1945, Hsiao Wen reinforced Giap with the two Viet communists - Le Tung Son (Lê Tùng S½n), Ho Duc Thanh (H° ÐÑc Thành) - and an armed intelligence group infiltrating through Cao Bang.

When his job was in good progress, Thanh did not forget to secure his own agenda by sending letters to general Hsiao Wen with warm wordings and hoped that he could get early victory so that he could build a cottage in a scenic area and enjoy a scholarly life with Hsiao Wen.

After the Japanese took power from the French with the campaign Meigo from 9-10/3/1945, the ICP was supported by the OSS. Late in 3/1945, Thanh became its agent with alias Lucius. In 7/1945, a group of the OSS parachuted in Tan Trao near the Sino-Viet border to train 100 Vietminh fighters. With the help of the office of the Dong Minh Hoi (or Viet Cach) and the OSS, the group Thanh - Giap - Dong dominated over the group Chinh - Chu Van Tan - Hoang Quoc Viet - Hoang Van Thu, and as a result, the latter was just a shadow. It should be mentioned that from early 1945, Chinh was active in Bac Ninh province with alias Toan or Tuyen. Tran Huy Lieu (Tr¥n Huy Li®u), Le Duc Tho (Lê ÐÑc Th÷) and Van Tien Dung (Vån Tiªn Dûng) gathered to work with Chinh after the Meigo campaign.

In 8/1945, the Vietminh seized the power by taking advantage of the vacuum of power in the North when the Japanese surrendered the Allies. As matter of fact, people of Hanoi, not Vietminh, did make this event came through due to their eagerness to see near independence of Vietnam. Taking this hot atmosphere, some sleeping Vietminh cadres merged into the mass, steered the movement to fit with their agenda and later brought the sense of this uprising to their own merit.

As planned in advance, Thanh's group took many important positions in Hanoi quickly from the Japanese before Viet nationalists who still stayed behind in China to prepare to come in Hanoi with the Kuomintang. When recognizing this tactic from Thanh, nationalists felt it's too late. That plan of Thanh had been prepared when Thanh had gone forward to suggest with Chang Fa-K'uei to return sooner than anybody else.

The group of Chinh had only Chu Van Tan getting the defense and Tran Huy Lieu, the propaganda and information ministry. 3 months later, under the pressure of the French and Chiang Kai-shek, on 11/11/1945, Thanh dissolved the ICP nominally to set up a coalition government with non-communist groups. Being no more a secretary-general, Chinh became chairman of the "Association for Marxist Studies" (Hµi nghiên cÑu chü nghîa Mac'-xít; also called the Alliance for the Dissemination of Marxism). In this period, Chinh started using the pen name Truong Chinh or Le Van Nham (Lê Vån Nhâm) on the newspapers "C¶ Giäi Phóng" (Liberation Flag), "CÑu Qu¯c" (Salvation of the Country), "Sñ Th§t" (the Truth) and "Sinh HoÕt Nµi Bµ Ðäng" (Party's Internal Activities).

In 2/1951, the ostensibly dissolved ICP reemerged under a new name called the Workers' Party. Although Truong Chinh was its secretary-general, Thanh (HCM), as president, took control of all aspects. Almost members of the politburo were Ho's groups except Le Duan + Le Duc Tho who were secretary and vice-secretary of the Central Office of South Vietnam (COSVN), and Hoang Quoc Viet.

To hold the power in VN, Thanh's party had two stategies or phases as follow :

- The anti-imperialist phase (1946-1949) : with the slogan "Fatherland Above All" (T± qu¯c trên hªt), Thanh asked the Viets to unite behind him to resist against the French. In this period, Thanh harmonized with all Viet classes from landowners , intellectuals to peasants. To meet desires of the Viets who wanted to participate in national affairs and also to control them, bogus political parties and fronts were set up :

(1) The Democratic Party (Ðäng Dân Chü) for landlords and rich businessmen (Nguyen Huu Tho, a lawyer and chairman of the National Front for Liberation of SVN was in this group) which was first formed by students during the Japanese occupation, but soon fell into communist control as a result of accepting cooperation with the Vietminh in a common fight against the French and Japanese.

(2) The Socialist Party (Ðäng Xã Hµi) for intellectuals.

(3) Lien-Viet (the Vietnamese Alliance; Liên Vi®t) for revered figures in national cultural and political life who still had some influence on the young, but were too old to engage in any other activity.

These parties were in fact puppet organizations of the ICP, each one would be reserved for a particular sympathizers.

The Democratic Party and the Socialist Party still exist after 1975 nominally and may be useful in the future if the situation is needed. The National United Front changed name from the Indochinese Anti-imperialist People's Front ---> the Vietminh (League for Independence of Vietnam) ---> Lien-Viet (Vietnamese Alliance; M£t tr§n Liên-Vi®t) ---> the Fatherland Front (M£t tr§n t± qu¯c Vi®t Nam) ---> the National Reunification (M£t Tr§n Th¯ng Nh¤t Qu¯c Gia). These changes were to meet policies of the communist party at every stage of its life. The net of the communist party was so broad that it could catch many elements from patriotic young to old generation of the Viet society in that turmoil time.

- The anti-feudal phase (1950-1956) : the previous democratic facade lasted only 4 years and ended with the defeat of the French at Lang Son (LÕng S½n) in the campaign "Border" of 1950 which gave Thanh a stretch of haven connecting with communist China. After Thanh returned from a secret visit to China to consult with the CCP for aid and Russia, the communist party resurfaced on 3/3/1951 with the name the Workers' Party (the right name was the "Vietnamese Labor Party" if the formal Viet version "Ðäng Lao еng Vi®t Nam" was translated correctly, but people didn't know why Hanoi wanted to translate it as the "Vietnamese Workers' Party" which really means "Ðäng Công Nhân Vi®t Nam).

The new slogan was "the anti-imperialist and the the anti-feudal fights are of equal importance". North Vietnamese started wondering what the anti-feudal fight meant. After Vietminh took the power, North Vietnamese would soon know painfully that the anti-feudal fight was total liquidation of "reactionary" elements -- everybody having even tenuous links with the landowning class. The Land Reform (1953-1956) was the main campaign in this anti-feudal phase. Then the "patriotic" face of the ICP in the period of national liberation was dropped to show its real face (loving the country is loving socialism).

>From 1950, the communist Chinese widespread its influence in political and social scenes of North Vietnam. The excerpt from "Hoa Xuyên Tuyªt" (Piercing-snow Flower) by Bui Tin (a reserve colonel in the Communist Vietnamese Army and former deputy editor-in-chief of Nhan Dan, the Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper, left Vietnam in 1990) describes :

--

"...After the campaign "Border" (chiªn d¸ch Biên Gi¾i) in the end of 1950 (9/1950), the resistance movement of Vietnam was linked totally with the People's Republic of China just born in 10/1949. Military aid, civilian facilities and food were poured abundantly into Vietnam, and this made the Vietnam resistance force (Vietminh) grow up. However, this also created complicacy and tension. Groups of Chinese advisors came and were present at every level of the administration. In 1952, I was director of a political school for the division 304 and welcomed two Chinese advisors. What they said was totally new and superb ! I can say that from a Viet lieutenant-general to a soldier, they had to attend the Chinese advisors' classes : What is a communist party ?...The party always leads all people decisively ...Class struggle is objective...What is centralized democracy ?...What is tactics of Lin Biao (Lâm Bßu) ?...Commandment : politics is first things first...Activities in a party group...Especially the content of Mao's thoughts...The peasantry is the most powerful revolutionary force...How to take the worker's and peasant's forces as the most essential ones ?...

This wind from the North blew through Northern NVN (Vi®t B¡c), then to all liberated zones of the whole country of North Vietnam. Translated books from Chinese ones, Chinese films and pictures, Chinese songs, Chinese dances, movement of learning Chinese spread all over. One after another, groups of Viet cadres went to China to study in Peking, Shanghai (Thßþng Häi), Nanking (Nam Kinh), Nanning (Nam Ninh), Canton (Quanzhou; Quäng Châu). The national Peking University opened door for hundreds of Viet cadres. China became great, vast and chivalrous rear for the Viet resistance ! It was beneficial for us, but at the same time we had to pay a dear price : just free from French rule but dazzeled before a new civilization of the revolution of China which we adored as spearhead and example.

We accepted readily that wind, consumed it without hesitation and even without any examination ! The song glorifying Mao, "the Red Orient" (Ðông Phß½ng H°ng ?), was seen as the formal one accompanied by the national anthem "Tien Quan Ca" (Tiªn Quân Ca), the song venerating Ho Chi Minh and the Internationale (Qu¯c tª ca). Then, the 2nd Party Congress (4/1951) in Viet Bac gave out the party regulation book the first part of which says : "The base of reasoning and thought of the party is Maxism-Leninism and...Mao's thoughts". Nobody was suspicious at it and no one objected it. It became the light, the breath of mankind. I can say that characteristic thought of each man in the politburo like Ho Chi Minh, Truong Chinh, Le Duan, Pham Van Dong, Le Duc Tho, Vo Nguyen Giap,...accepted Mao's thought as sole example, truth. It should be noticed that when one drops his ego, own entity and own thinking, he could make a big mistake. In this case, we did pour ink onto a big, white paper and think mistakenly the ink was the light !

I remember, after a while, one French journalist asked Ho Chi Minh, "why did'nt you write treatise and political books". Ho answered that, "I have nothing left to write about because all necessary reasonings were already written by chairman Mao". That is the summarized and wrapped-up thought of resistance movement of Vietnam and as a result, Viet resistants always looked at Chinese books implying Mao's thought as truth. Mao has one famous saying :"Ba anh thþ da là mµt Gia Cát Lßþng" (equivalent to "Three leather-dressers can replace a savant"). This saying was seen as verity to put the collectivity over individuality. It refuses totally the role of individual and personal thinking in this world. Individual is of garbage, valueless, sinful, coward, weak, of scattered grains of sand, alike and easy for the collectivity to smash. The collectivity is all !

Sometimes I recalled these things with shame. From the beginning of 1952, all military units must organize into each group of three persons (t± tam tam chª = t± tâm giao) whereby an individual in the group could watch on each other. In every evening, after dinner, each such group must sit down to discuss about each personal thinking, check each person's work during the day, selfddeclare negative thinking like fear for difficulty or suffering, fright of death, jealousy, having mind of getting benefit, wish for peace or position,...This gathering had the effect to hold firm mind, discipline, but on the other hand, it created stress and pressure on personality and made man always have a complex of sin, sorrow and remorse.

I can say that the period of spreading and worshipping Mao's thoughts after 1951 was the dawn of stupid cognition and created disastrous consequences lingering on until todaÜ We forgot ready value of our Viet people, dropped their pride, terminated natural unity in the period of resisting French and put our heads in the noose of perceptions and thoughts of the very peasantry. Stepping backwards was identified mistakenly as advance.

Then, a disastrous Land Reform followed when they listened to hundreds of Chinese advisors introduce their recent experiences (Mao Tse-Tung Campaign; Chinese land reform) in China . I still remember the content of 8 lessons on land reform reserved for high-ranking cadres. No one could avoid these lessons. This was an important hurdle for us because "if one could overcome it, he would be grown-up, mature and became a just revolutionary". There were 8 times to attend the class, tens of times to discuss, debate and help each other self-criticize. Then it came sessions of accusing and convicting innocent peasants, citing their faults, displaying crimes of landlords and imperialists. Then came films and plays about landlords and peasants. All led to an extremist reasoning : all people or peasants, even with only two acres of paddy field, were bad, greedy, cruel and lackeys of imperialists. All landless people were good, had revolutionary spirit, discipline and talent. This reasoning didn't care about the truth before one's eyes. When a landlord joined the resistance, he was seen as a spÜ If they (land reform cadres) could not search for at least two landlords in a hamlet, they would be in mistake and had to do searching again ! If one was just a student, then his standpoint was unstable because he had to have wish for peace and position in their career; this guy must be put to live near a poor peasant so that he could study and be in progress...

During the years of 1954-1955, the storm of land reform blew all over on the sky of North Vietnam. Heads of land reform groups were absolute local kings and sometimes illiterate ; life and death were in their hands. Their tools were regulations of land reform and people's courts : the verdict was just decided by hands with no laws, no lawyers. Then, the victims were put before a squad of militia composing other peasants who must have no relation with richer peasants...".

--

After many years of war (1945-1954), any Viet government should concentrate on reviving the economy of the country. One of priorities was agricultural reform because agriculture was the economic base of Vietnam with 80% population as peasants. However, the land reform in North Vietnam was added with another meaning -- class struggle fit with "egalitarian" goal of the Vietnamese Workers' Party. The Vietminh was a National United Front which comprised people from poor peasants to landlords. Rich peasants and landlords having more literacy and knowledge took high positions in the party. From 1951, viewing that the Vietminh was strong enough, Thanh and his party steered it back to the mainstream. It was no doubt that Thanh's land reform would draw more poor peasants, the largest component of the population, to support his "revolution", but at the same time he might simply wipe out the minority -- rich peasants and landlords whom Thanh viewed now as not reliable to his regime -- who might have contributed for Thanh's first days to rise to power more than poor peasants did; in other words, they might be reliable to help Thanh take the power but would not be Thanh's allies when he revived the plan "social revolution" after a postponement during the war against the French. It is probable that Thanh viewed the peasantry was the repository of virtue and the "landlords" the incarnation of evil. Being rich was sinful. In 1953, Thanh decided to attack on the social as well as the economic power of the landlords and rich peasants.

People don't know at that time in Vietnam why there was emergence of the Viets with surprising idea to carry out class-against-class to such irrational extremes which were different from the pacific nature of a people who had already suffered enough. While the war against the French was at its peak and so many classes were uniting together to expel the French, why was there a terrible culprit or a group of communist radicals who had enough time to prepare for that bloody campaign ? Was that the only way to get "egalitarianism" by just simply destroying others ? Why did Thanh start that troubling and terrifying campaign too early when he had not yet in total control at village level ? Who were Land Reform Cadres with too much power to do such callous crimes towards their own people and was this of no difference from the French ?

The Land Reform in North Vietnam was aimed in principle at eradicating feudal land ownership which was origin of social inequality. It was well prepared.

€ Phases of Land Reform :

It informally started from 1952-1953 in remote "liberated zones" (vùng giäi phóng) in Cao Bang and Lang Son provinces of northern NVN. However, it formally commenced in 1953-1954. The Executive Central Committee of the Workers' Party (Ban Ch¤p hành Trung ß½ng Ðäng Lao ðµng) looked at Truong Chinh's plan in 2/1953. It was re-examined in 11/1953 by the 1st party conference and finally approved in 12/1953 .

An experiment period was done right away and the 1st phase of land reform was applied from the end of 1953 to the beginning of 1954 in "liberated zones" of the 2 provinces Thai Nguyen (Thái Nguyên) and Thanh Hoa (Thanh Hóa).

Hoang Van Hoan (dismissed from the party in the 4th Party Conference from 14-20/12/1976; fled to China in 9/1979 when he had permission to go to East Germany for curing sickness) in his memoir "Gi÷t Nß¾c Trong Bi¬n Cä" (A Drop in the Ocean) said that in a meeting of the Executive Central Committee in 1955, a report about a Land Reform experiment sent from the Central Land Reform Committee (œy ban cäi tÕo ruµng ð¤t trung ß½ng) wrote, "In this experiment, 500 landowners were caught and 400 others were falsely accused...they lost all belongings, honour...this created resentment from the populace...Landowners were shot to death and this practice widespread from Thai Nguyen to all over..."

Although executions in this experiment period happened here and there, they disturbed the populace. Due to the approaching day of signing the Geneva Accord, Vietminh postponed the land reform to calm down the public opinion. Furthermore, it is probable that they wanted to recover the privilege as "people liberating the Viets from the French" in order to reduce the exodus of refugees going to the South. Right after the Geneva Accord affair, Thanh decided to restart the land reform.

Roughly, before the main episode of the Land Reform, there were 2 other preceded stages to pave its way :

(1) Implementing Chinese tax system which had 5 taxes only : agricultural, trade (levied on a small number of craftmen and traders whose turnover was very low), slaughtering (not importan shortage of draft-animals), forestry (insignificant) and import-export taxes (existing on paper). These taxes were implemented in "liberated zones" way back from 1951-1952.

(2) First wave of terror aimed at eliminating "dangerous reactionaries". It started in 2/1953 when the Agricultural and Trade taxes came into effect. Villagers in the "Resistance or Liberated zones" were gathered in the dark at night to attend meetings related to tax collections. Cadres came to these meetings with sticks and ropes. Taxddebtors were arrested, tortured and asked why they had not paid their taxes, and who had advised them not to paÜ During the years of war with the French, rich and poor peasants were unable to find any way to raise the required amount of rice to pay tax.

The Land Reform itself had two phases : (1) Preliminary stage (1954-1955; some sources say it started from early 1953 - late 1955) or Land Rent Reduction (Ðþt giäm tô), and (2) The proper Land Reform (1955-1956; other sources say from late 1953 - 1956 due to overlapping of these two stages at the national level) followed by the Rectification of Errors (Chính sách sØa sai) which aimed at normalizing the situation after a long process of well-organized terror. All of these episodes were accompanied by repeated "Thought Reform" campaign to prepare cadres psychologically for the rigors of these bloody campaigns. This whole process had been carried in China few years earlier.

1. Preliminary stage :

a) Organization of a machine to support the land reform :

At central government level : a Land Reform Committee was formed and headed by Truong Chinh. At the time, Chinh was general secretary of the party and had two subordinates to assist him in the politburo, Hoang Quoc Viet and Le Van Luong; the third subordinate was Ho Viet Thang (H° Viªt Th¡ng) in the Central Committee. Thang was assigned as director of the Central Land Reform Committee and managed it according to directives of Chinh. Thang attended once a class in China about how to instigate the populace in this kind of reform. After graduation, Thang returned to Vietnam and was assigned by Chinh to set up a center training cadres for land reform. This center was secretly located in Cao-Bac-Lang (Cao B¢ng - B¡c CÕn - LÕng S½n province).

At provincial level : after attending the class, cadres were sent to provinces . There were on average 10 Land Reform groups (ðoàn) in each province; each group had 100 cadres having a group-head (ðoàn trß·ng). The latter received orders directly from the central government without going through provincial party or government. Each group had many land reform teams (еi cäi cách ruµng d¤t) each of which was composed of 6-7 people. The head of a team was chosen among landless peasants (tá ði«n) who did participate in the experiment previous to the Geneva Accord. Each team had absolute power. Fully armed local military units had duty to protect and support these teams by suppressing peasants and reactionaries resisting the reform. Local authorities must provide teams with documents and lists of landowners.

b) Enactment of land reform law : it was promulgated by Thanh on 14/6/1955. It had essential items as follow :

- Confiscation of all lands and belongings of colonialists, scoundrely and reactionary landowners.

- Confiscation without compensation and buying lands, livestock and agricultural facilities of :

* Progressive persons (Vietminh sympathizers), landowners participating in the resistance.

* Businessmen, industrialists who are also landowners.

* Religions : Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant,...

- People enjoyed the land reform were :

* Peasants who do not have land to cultivate.

* Other poor rural people who can not earn enough for a living could apply for a piece of land to compensate for difficulty.

* Offsprings or parents of died communist soldiers, cadres and invalids,...

- Classifying Viets into these categories must be decided by a meeting of representatives who were selected among the peasantry by the land reform cadres; these peasants were called "backbone elements" (thành ph¥n c¯t cán) because they were very active, politically aware and almost young people from poor families . These "c¯t cán"'s views were dictated by land reform cadres.

The place where the land reform occurred had to have a special people's court which had absolute authority :

* to judge villain landowners and all reactionaries who were against the land reform.

* to examine other left-over issues like conflicts in dividing lands and properties, deciding who belongs to what class.

2. Land Reform proper :

a) Classification of the peasantry :

Before dispossessing lands (tru¤t hæu ruµng ð¤t) from landowners, land reform teams classified the peasantry into many classes. This task was done by provided documents from local authorities. Basing on them, the teams distinguished peasants as follows :

- Landless peasants (b¥n c¯ nông, tá ði«n) : this was the poorest class; they didn't have house, land, livestock or agricultural tools. These people did many jobs to support their families (daily workers, porters, servants,...).

- Poor peasants (b¥n nông) : living in thatched hut or house and having few "sào" of land ( 1 sào = 1/10 Viet acre = 360 m2). However, the whole family could not live with own crops. Due to this, they must work for landowners.

- Middle peasants (trung nông) : having below 3 Viet acres (1 Viet acre = 3600 m2) with the crops which could support the familÜ This class can be divided into 2 categories :

* Lower-middle peasants (trung nông c¤p th¤p) : having few "sào" of land.

* Higher-middle peasants (trung nông c¤p cao) : having from 1-3 Viet acres and 1 water-buffalo or cow.

- Rich peasants (phú nông) : having from 3-4 Viet acres and one water-buffalo. These peasants can hire temporary workers in harvesting crops.

- Landowners (ð¸a chü) : "having much land" but not working directly on them. They live by receiving land rent (ð¸a tô) and lending moneÜ This class can be divided into 3 categories :

* Normal landowners (ð¸a chü th߶ng) : having from 3-5 Viet acres. They are not much rich and didn't sin against the "people" under colonial period.

* "Scoundrely" landowners (иa chü "c߶ng hào, ác bá) : suppressing and torturing poorest and poor peasants.

* "Reactionary" landowners (ð¸a chü phän ðµng) : members of nationalist parties like Dai Viet (ÐÕi Vi®t; Great Viet), VNQDD (Vi®t Nam Qu¯c Dân Ðäng).

Basing on this classification, land reform teams will apply proper political attitudes towards each class.

b) People's court in charge of confiscating land : A people's court was set up where the land reform occurred. This court was directed by a "judge" who was selected among team-mates of the Land Reform team. A peasant, representing villagers, was assigned as "prosecutor". The "prosecutor" knew very well record of landowner because he once worked for the latter. "Judge" and "prosecutor" had not finished the grade 3 or sometimes were illiterate. To compensate for this, these people tried to do the best to stick with their positions and exerted blindly orders from above. The court was just a farce to formalize a sentence already decided.

c) Proceedings of dispossession of land : All landowners having two acres of land (poor peasants or middle peasants up) were condemned. To bring these people to court, land reform teams must first make good relation with landless or poor peasants. To do this, they applied a trick called 3 "togethers" : living together, working together and eating together with landless peasants. To do this, the team must sacrfice a great deal with landless and poor peasants to get their sympathy and as a result, a "comradeship" emerged from that trick. After getting the peasants' heart, the team urged peasants to accuse their former "bosses". When peasants agreed to do this, the team had reasons to arrest the landowner. The latter would be chained and put in a poor peasant's house. Relatives of the victim were not allowed to visit him except providing him with food through the team. That landowner was isolated totally; his relatives were not permitted to contact other villagers; his children were dismissed from schools.

Before bringing the accused to court, the land reform team practiced a pilot court session at a peasant's house. They pressed the accused to learn all already prepared answers ; "witnesses" did the same. The court was opened next day and all villagers must be present. A people's court was often set up on a wild lawn, at the edge of a village, in a pagoda court or on a paddy field. With hands tied to the back, he must kneel down, bow his head before the "judge". Cadres also gathered victim's family and relatives into a corner to witness the trial. The "prosecutor" stood up and accused the victim with "solid proofs" and reviewed about poverty and suffering caused by the rich to the audience. With these words, hatred was built up more and more in the crowd; this roused them to the stage where they were at the peek of frustration. After the deposition, villagers and witnesses, one by one, went before the court to accuse the victim of his sins. At the same time, they cursed, slapped his face, spit on and punched him.

Before the crowd in such indignant mood, the would-to-be sinner had no chance to defend himself before fabrications and lies, if anÜ In a majority of such cases, the "landowner" could not utter a word and bow his head to accept his sins. In that angry and hateful atmosphere instigated by land reform cadres, the "judge" turned to the crowd and suggested a verdict which was known before. The crowd with hands high up cried out for approving the sentence. Other peasants standing around had to do the same. The normal verdict accepted by the "judge" and final : death.

Predicting that they could face tortures and curses, some landowners had committed suicide before the land reform teams came. Punishments were often very heavy and depended upon each province, categories and political inclinations towards landowners. They became more barbaric if landowners were seen as reactionaries or traitors.

Death sentence was applied to :

- All "scoundrely" landowners and the ones who were labeled as Viet traitors (Vi®t gian) due to cooperating with the French by taking any administrative position in villages. Even when these people had passed away for a long time , their relatives were still brought to the people's court; they had properties confiscated and were isolated from the society with no chance to get any job owing to "bad" legal status.

- All "reactionary" or "betrayed" landowners belonging to nationalist parties like Dai Viet or VNQDD even though they had merits to join the resistance against the French. If they were high-ranking officers in the Vietminh force, the land reform team would recommend their commanders to arrest and escort them to their hometown to face sentence.

Punishments applied to landowners being also party members, were not different : 5-20 years or more in re-education camps.

If a death sentence was reached, it would be executed right awaÜ According to witnesses' recalling, the death sentence had been known in advance before the court was opened. In the previous day of the court session, the team-head ordered to dig a grave and set up a bamboo post to which the victim would be tied. The grave and bamboo post might be just about 20 m from the court.

The land reform team often used many types of torture and execution as follow :

- the victim must kneel down supporting on head a basket filled with heavy stones.

- he was forced to hang by his thumbs or feet from a rope thrown over a rafter. In this position, he could be either beaten or, by pulling on the rope, jerked violently up and down.

- his thumbs were wrapped in a cloth soaked in oil which was then ignited.

The above 3 measures had already been reported employed in China 2 years earlier and imported into Vietnam by Chinese advisors ("From Colonialism to Communism" by Hoang Van Chi).

- shot to death before a death squad of 5-6 soldiers or militia.

- tied, put into a sack and submerged into a river or a pond.

- tied to a bamboo post on a rocky hill and let die slowly under hot sun.

- buried alive.

- buried alive with head still above the ground so that a plough dragged over beheads the victim.

- tied to a pillar and shot.

- cadres urge the crowd to ill-treat the victim, then to throw stones at him to death.

- the victim was thrown into ant's nest for a slow death.

When the verdict was declared, the victim's family was expelled from their house. All of his properties and belongings were confiscated. These were redistributed to landless and poor peasants, but they were soon forced to work in collectivities and redistributed lands belonged to the "people". The redistribution was done as follows :

* lands were distributed equally. Each family had a small piece of paddy field the size of which depended upon confiscated lands, but on the average, it was about 3 "sào" (1080 m2).

* one water-buffalo or a cow for from 2-4 families.

* each landless peasant's family would take one or two rooms in the house of dead landowner. Expelled from their house, landowner's family must live in thatched huts set up by themselves at the edge of the village; location was determined by village authority. They were isolated totally and had no permission to talk to other villagers. Their kids were dismissed from schools.

This terrorizing policy aimed at compelling the populace and threatening other peasants owing some land, especially rich peasants (phú nông). The latter were classified simply as having lands and they could get the same fate as other landowners. The land reform team had absolute authority to reclassify the peasantry : a rich peasant or a middle peasant (trung nông) could be "upgraded" to "scoundrely" landowner (ð¸a chü c߶ng hào ác bá). To escape this fate, some rich and middle peasants showed "good" cooperation with the team by voluntarily becoming witnesses to fabricate sins of victims whom they had never known before, or even to denounce their own relatives (parents, blood brothers or sisters,...) [in "The Land Reform of Ho Chi Minh : Mistake or Crime ?" by Lam Thanh Liem].

Hoang Van Hoan in his memoir "A Drop in the Ocean" said : "...land reform teams let peasants curse at the victim, even let daughter-in-law despise her husband's mother, sons despise parents,... while the person who was seen as landowner must bow his head and could not say a word...".

According to the party's instructions, confiscated land should come up to 5% in each province. This requirement was hard to reach because the amount of landowners, classified according to the Land Reform law, was smaller than the one determined by the party. Its percentage was below 5% because the delta of the Red River had dense population and furthermore, inheritance made lands divided into too many small pieces. Viet people lived in the delta 4,000 years ag÷ According to Viet customs , family properties must be divided equally to heirs or heiresses. An oldest son got a bit more called "worshipped property" (hß½ng höa) the income of which was used for ancestral cult (vi®c th¶ cúng t± tiên) and maintenance of their graves. The Gia Long Code stipulated that any descendant who attempted illicitly to sell the property bequeathed to him by his parents, and designed to cover the expenses of the ancestral cult, will be severely punished. As a result, an oldest son would transfer "hß½ng hoä" to his oldest son, and it goes on like that for centuries.

The vast majority of landowners had no more than 3 Viet acres (trung nông). However, to satisfy higher-ranking bosses, land reform teams must have "creativity" by correcting or adding "new standards" to "upgrade" "rich peasants" to landowners who would be brought to the people's court. With this procedure, land reform teams were successful to sieve and separate "good" peasants out of "bad" ones and then the latter would be eliminated. Eradicating the class was done slowly from the starting level, landowner, to rich peasant and ended with higher-middle peasant. However, lower-middle peasants and peasants with 1-2 Viet acres could not avoid the violent wind blowing through NVN.

>From 1952-1956, there were 5 phases of dispossession of lands (tru¤t hæu ruµng ð¤t). A later phase was more violent than a previous one. The last phase was the bloodiest and most brutal. It was that phase that affected the most the peasantry and it created reactions and objections from the populace, especially revolutionary cadres and their families. These people were the ones who had shown sympathy to "revolution" in the period against the French. Before, the peasantry looked at the Vietminh as their saviors, protectors and "national liberators" who stayed on the side of the poor, oppressed. Peasants also once helped hide Vietminh cadres from the French search, feed them during the war and also were the manpower source for "revolution". Due to this, the Vietminh were successful in the resistance against the French.

People still remembered that in 12/1946, Thanh appealed for resistance against the French, "Compatriots ! For whatever you may be : men or women, young or old, we must stand up ! No matter what religion, party or ethnic group you may belong to; if being Vietnamese, all of you must uprise to save Vietnam from the French. Who has gun, use gun ! Who has sword, use sword ! Who has wooden stick, use stick ! Who has spade, use spade !...". Then, Thanh said with plenty of love to his compatriots and country, "I, Ho Chi Minh, have always led you along the path of freedom. I have spent my whole life fighting for our country's independence. You know I would sooner die than betray the nation. I swear I have not betrayed you!" ("Ho Chi Minh : Legend of Hanoi" by J. Archer, p. 62).

After getting the power, Thanh became a different man. He changed totally his attitude towards landowners and many peasants who had previously listened to his call for resistance whole-heartedly. Instead of thinking about their merits and unlimited sacrifice to fatherland, Thanh's apparatus saw them as traitors, counter-revolutionaries,...They became bitter, disappointed and vindictive before such ungratitude. The 5th phase of dispossession of land was the last drop in a glass plentiful of water. Facing death sentennce, being tortured or put in re-education camps unjustly, cadres and peasants became outrageous and stood up in many places. The countryside's activities in the North of Central Vietnam was totally paralysed. The central government of Thanh sent the division 325 to quell revolts of thousands of peasants in Ba Lang (Thanh Hoa) on 6/1/1955, in Quynh Luu (Nghe An) on 2/11/1956. Especially, on 2/11/1956, according to Bernard Fall (in "The Two Vietnams", Frederick € Praeger, New York 1964, p. 155-159), Thanh suppressed the uprising of the peasants of Quynh Lßu (QuÏnh Lßu) which is not far from his birthplace some thousand meters away and this suppression was compared by Fall as more barbaric than the one the French did to the movement Soviet Nghe Tinh (Sô-viªt Ngh® Tînh) in 1930 because it's Thanh who directly ordered the division 325 of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) to shoot mercilessly at these people. The death toll, according to Fall who that often defended for Thanh's actions could not close eyes before this too obvious massacre : 6,000 peasants killed. Fall continues that the international opinion were marred by the Suez Canal Incident and Hungarian Uprising and had no opportunity to be informed or noticed about the uprisings of the North Vietnamese peasantry at the time.

More revolts might be concealed from outside world. However, some research papers revised these incidents by calling them just "disturbances", not revolts !

Before abundant unfavorable reactions from North Vietnamese as predicted from Mao's experience, on 1/7/1956, Thanh formally sent a letter to land reform cadres on the occasion of a conference to finalize results from the phase 5. It said :

"...In the name of the party and the government, "Uncle" send condolences to families of cadres died of dutÜ The phase 5 of land reform was critical and complicated, but thanks to the right policy of the party and the government and enthusiastic effort of peasants, the land reform got grandiose victory : the class of landlord was erased. Social organizations were cleaner and each individual of cadres was trained through this...However, the phase 5 of the land reform got some mistakes and this limited our results. The central government self-criticized. All of you, too, should self-criticize and valuate results and shortcomings. You should be sincere to self-criticize to make always progress..." (Complete Collection on Ho Chi Minh, 1954-1957 [H° Chí Minh Toàn T§p, 1954-1957], Hanoi, 1987, p. 460-461).

With these words apparently plentiful of "iron and blood", those days of compatriotism seemed to be gone.

>From that letter, one can have some remarks :

- As chairman of the party (chü t¸ch ðäng) and president of the DRV (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam), Thanh publicly admitted that the policy of Land Reform had some mistakes. However, Thanh did not take that responsibility but tossed it to cadres blaming that they had not followed orders and telling them to self-criticize. Within the party circle, Hoang Van Hoan, a man protected by Thanh, only talked about this event by doing the same -- pointing at Truong Chinh and the Central Land Reform Committee. In "A Drop in the Ocean", p. 361, Hoan said," Due to having an attitude of feudal family head (gia trß·ng) and leftist (tä khuynh) of Chinh, they brought about serious mistakes and struck middle peasants, rich peasants, anyone having some lending lands and even grassroots establishments of the party...".

- Although saying openly there were regrettable mistakes undermining results, Thanh said very clearly that the policy was correct. It means Thanh, the politburo, the Central Committee were correct. The people who were incorrect were land reform cadres and illiterate -- backbone elements (thành ph¥n c¯t cán).

Thanh soothed effectively people in frustration when their relatives died unjustly or were falsely accused by the People's courts. At the same time, he sanitized the politburo by saying that his party was never in mistake.

Furthermore, taking this opportunity, Thanh ejected "counter-revolutionaries" from his government and party apparatus at provincial and village level. These "traitors" and "infiltrators" were dealt with unbelievably, especially in the 5th phase of the land dispossession in 1956. This purge could be seen as the bloodiest maneuver, especially in Nghe-Tinh, where victims were not only rich and middle-peasants but party members who had joined the party from 1930 or Thanh Nien in 1925-1926. According to Bui Tin, the number of liquidated party members was up to 11,000. The purification might make the army and the party more of proletarian despotism (chuyên chính vô sän). The Land Reform would no doubt affect or hurt party members having relatives condemned publicly in the Land Reform. To take precaution, Thanh's party simply wiped them out.

[To calm down anxiety of North Vietnmese, on 18/7/1956, Thanh formally declared decrees to correct errors in the land reform campaign to settle down rural incidents and unite the people behind him. According to formal documents published by Hanoi, the reasons for the "Rectification of Errors" :

(1) Land reform was not done properly to match with guidelines determining classes.

(2) Freedom of religion was violated in catholic areas.

However, the real reasons :

(1) Land reform created too much violence, horror, hatred, sorrow and resentment among classes; even cadres were eliminated.

(2) Cadres working for the system became suspicious of one another. Cadres and party members (cadre : cán bµ; party member : ðäng viên; party member is a trustworthy cadre, but not all cadres are party members) having relatives eliminated were even brought to public accusation and killed.

(3) People resisting the land reform brought governmental activities in some areas to a standstill, especially in the Inter-zone IV (northern Central Vietnam, Liên Khu IV). Catholics in Ba-Lang (Thanh Hoa province) who could not stand horrific public accusations left their village for Hai Phong port to find way to the South, but they were stopped by communist soldiers; a clash occurred and resulted in 6 dead, 40 injured. At the same period, new communist soldiers, recruited for going to the South, deserted to such amount that Vo Nguyen Giap organized an inter-organization from the Interior and Defence Ministries led by general Le Quang Dao (Lê Quang ÐÕo) to search for deserters who would later be executed.

One month after the declaration of the "Rectification of Errors", 18/8/1956, Thanh wrote a letter saying that errors had been dealt with sternly.

According to Hoang Van Hoan's "A Drop in the Ocean" (Gi÷t nß¾c trong bi¬n cä), prisons were booming everywhere and party establishments were vandalized. Peasants in anger revolted. A meeting of the Central Committee was held in 9/1956 to examine the situation. It has lasted for a time record, one month. According to Hoan, almost all Central Committee members thought that the Land Reform Committee did not obey the orders well.

It was in no doubt that Thanh was always standing in the back-stage and watching Chinh carefully at every phase of the Land Reform. After waiting for almost 4 years of the Land Reform coming to an end, Thanh stepped out as a good guy with corrections and disciplinary measures.

On 30/10/1956, the newspaper Nhan Dan (the People) informed that the 10th party conference (9/1956) dismissed Chinh as secretary-general and Thanh took the portfolio temporarily. Chinh's subordinates like Hoang Quoc Viet and Le Van Luong were out of the politburo. Le Van Luong must resign from the Central Organization of the Party (Ban T± ChÑc Ðäng) and became an alternate member of the Central Committee (œy viên dñ khuyªt). Ho Viet Thang was out of the Central Committee but was still party member.

Surprisingly, in 1960, Thang resurfaced as vice-chairman of the State Planning Committee (œy ban kª hoÕch nhà nß¾c) under alias Ho Thang (H° Th¡ng). Then, Thang became deputy-minister of Agriculture in 1970. Upon retirement, Thang got benefit of a Central Committee member. Le Van Luong became party boss of Hanoi and was replaced by Nguyen Thanh Binh in 1970. On retirement, Luong got benefit of a politburo member. According to Edwin ‰ Moise in "Classism in North Vietnam, 1953-1956", if these men had been charged with an unsuccessful effort to usurp power for themselves within the party, it is not probable that they would have gotten off so lightly.

>From that remark, one might think that it was not the first time "disciplinary measures" were only a farce. Did these disciplines and correction of errors show that there were moderates and radicals in Thanh's party ? If there were no reactions from North Vietnamese, would there be moderate communists ?

The resentment was shown by a big demonstration of hundred thousand people at a soccer stadium in Hanoi. To cope with this crowd easy for instigation, Thanh borrowed Vo Nguyen Giap's glorious image of Dien Bien Phu battle to change heart of demonstrators. Surprisingly, they believed in Giap's words, dispersed and had respect for Thanh more than before. To get back prestige somehow damaged, in 11/1956, Thanh went on Hanoi's radio station to apologize, but kept shifting the blame on cadres and said that the latter did not understand and carried out irresponsibly the correct policy. To show the tragedy was not at his fault, Thanh ordered temporary release of 10,000 people and 20,000 party members. The aftermath of the campaign did not stop at Thanh's apology and release of prisoners. North Vietnamese trusting Thanh's sincere words that the party was correct and only cadres were wrong, upon going back to their villages, went searching for wrongdoers. As a result, in the rural area of North Vietnam, revenge occurred by mobs of peasants and party members who were condemned unjustly by other peasants. Then, another tragedy of Viets killing Viets (thäm cänh n°i da xáo th¸t) occurred again.

Actually, the "rich" landowners who were targets of land seizure were often mere peasants themselves, little better off than their tenants. The latter were authorized to arrest landowners. The party created hatred among peasants and now let them correct themselves by tragic liquidations.

The Rectification of Errors campaign ended in the end of 1957 with the following measures :

- Reinstating party members unjustly accused in their former honor, party membership and ranking.

- Members executed or died in re-education camps were then seen as patriotic elements to sacrifice for revolution. This merit was recorded to their relatives' files because people from a revolutionary family or relatives of died communist members would enjoy some benefits (getting a job in the government; offsprings could enter university,...).

- Compensation for families of landowners who got death sentence mistakenly, but this task was done just symbolically because the State would not return confiscated properties, except gave them a piece of land the area of which was a half of the land distributed for landless peasants. They were only reclassified as normal landowners so that they could comingle into the society. They were accepted to live in their former village, enjoyed civil rights (1957-1958) and could join agricultural cooperatives (the Land Reform was only the first step of Mao's agrarian reform; the second step was the Land Collectivisation where the State was the real landowner).

Then, Thanh ordered Le Duan from COSVN (the Central Office for South Vietnam; Trung ß½ng cøc mi«n Nam) to come to Hanoi in 1957 in preparation for Chinh's replacement and...another campaign -- invasion of South Vietnam which, according to Thanh, was always in his heart, suffered by oppression and needed liberation. However, Thanh and some Western academics on the Vietnam issue called the campaign as reunification or liberation war. With this meaning, millions of Viets had noble reasons to kill other Viets again.

After the campaign, the North Vietnamese bore a grudge against Land Reform cadres and forgot Thanh totally. Thanh's campaign annihilated tens of thousands or more North Vietnamese and put in jails that double amount, but amazingly he might not create any hateful imprints in mind of North Vietnamese. On the contrary, Thanh was respected as idol and praised for his morality. Thanh should take that responsibility solemnly but never did it; he tossed it to Chinh, Hoang Quoc Viet, Ho Viet Thang, Le Van Luong and poor cadres. Then, he covered up for his followers by faked demotions. It is obvious that Thanh, the only person of this world, was real criminal to become innocent.

When the Rectification of Errors Campaign has not ended yet, Thanh created another campaign imitating "Hundred Flowers Blooming Campaign" (Tråm Hoa Ðua N·) of Mao in 1956. Starting from that year, with encouragement of Thanh's government, intellectuals began to criticize his regime enthusiastically. Two years later, on 10/4/1958, many vocal intellectuals were rounded up and put into re-education camps. One of intellectuals arrested was poetess and writer Thuy An who was jailed in Phu Son camp, close to Hanoi area in 1958. Thuy An was in the cultural movement "Nhan Van Giai Pham" which advocated freedom of expression. In her span of imprisonment, one day she used one spoke of bike wheel to make her eyes blind. Asking why doing that, she answered she made them blind because she would not want her eyes to see dirty tricks. A philosopher Tran Duc Thao; as many patriotic intellectuals, Thao who had graduated from France and once had some clash with Jean-Paul Sartre returned to Vietnam to help his country. In this movement, Thao dared say Marx had been in mistake and criticized Chinh for not knowing Marxism well. Thao was demoted and put into shadow since. His wife, an intellectual graduating from France, had to marry Nguyen Khac Vien, colleague of Thao, to protect her life. Thao lived in that suffering for the rest of his life and died in 1993 in France when getting permission for the first time to go to France for curing an illness. Many intellectuals had the same life in peril like An and Tha÷ [The aftermath of the Land Reform campaign :

5 consecutive phases of land dispossession made the North Vietnam shattered and many hopes gone, but the situation was not known well to the world outside due to distortion and blocking infos in early 1954; outsiders were being dazzled with the battle Dien Bien Phø Related documents were not so many, short or inaccurate; they did not reveal bloody maneuvers in the campaign and as a result, it may be that nobody knew exactly how great the killing of the Viets by very Viets would be in the name of "morality and civilization" of socialism. Thanh once said, "Communism was the final goal of our party. Our party is morality and civilization" (About Building the Party [V« xây dñng Ðäng]; Sñ Th§t publishing, 1970, p. 150).

Hoang Van Hoan's memoir "A Drop in the Ocean" published in 1986 in China unfolded some secrets of the tragedy. However, as any high-ranked officials, Hoan only emphasized mistakes and did not say clearly the number of victims accused wrongly and sentenced to death by special People's courts. In this memoir, under the subtile "The Central Committee Conference on the Rectification of Errors, 9/1956" (Hµi ngh¸ Trung ¿½ng Ðäng v« V¤n Ы SØa Sai Cäi Cách Ruµng Фt, 9/1956), Hoan reserved only 8 pages to explain what did happen in the campaign. As one knows, Hoan was protected by Thanh a great deal and it might be that Hoan sided with Thanh by blaming all faults on Chinh. As requested by the Executive Central Committee, Chinh drafted a report about experiences of the Land Reform, but he has just lingered on and not finished it even when the 3rd party conference was held in 1960.

In 1987, the Marxist-Leninist Institute in Hanoi published a book titled "Ho Chi Minh in 1954-1957" (H° Chí Minh : Th¶i KÏ 1954-1957), but it reserved only 2 pages about the dark period of the Land Reform.

As asked by Hanoi, Vo Nhan Tri (Võ Nhân Trí, a graduate from political sciences with a Ph.D degee in Economics from Paris) returned to Hanoi in 1960 to help his country. In 1984, disillusioned and disappointed, Tri decided to return to France with the reason "family reunification". With vivid experience, Tri published many books and research papers about Vietnam politics. He wrote a book called "Croissance Économique de la Republique Democratique du Vietnam" which, according to Tri, was censored 4 times before it was published in 1967. Thanks to this task, Tri had permission to look at archives in the Prime Minister's Office (Bµ Phü Thü Tß¾ng). Tri confirmed that he saw by his eyes a secret report about the amount of cadres who were wrongly sentenced to death in the Land Reform : 15,000. However, Thanh might hide it and reduce that number to the amount of just 10,000 when he had talked to party members before; Bui Tin might pick that number and put it in his book "Hoa Xuyen Tuyet" (Piercing-snow Flower). Tri said, "Of course, the number of liquidated victims must be a multiple of that".

In "From Colonialism to Communism", Hoang Van Chi says that people eliminated were about 4 % of the population (North Vietnam had a population of 13 millions at the time of 1954). Bernard Fall : 50,000 excluding a double amount of people put in re-education camps. Some recent Western research sources reduced the death toll to 10,000 - 15,000.

However, Nguyen Van Canh had a different estimation. Canh, a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, obtained a doctoral degree in public law from University of Saigon in 1971, was a former professor of law and politics and deputy dean of the Faculty of Law at that university. Canh was also deputy-minister at the Information and Amnesty Ministry (Bµ Thông Tin và Chiêu H°i; chiêu h°i : "Open Arms") in 1969-1970 of the Republic of Vietnam. Thanks to this, Canh had opportunities to interview North Vietnamese political officers captured and communist returnees (h°i chánh viên). Based on the gathered infos, Canh estimated that the death toll in the Land Reform could reach to the number 200,000 which can be distributed as follows :

- 100,000 people killed in phases of the Land Reform before 1955, excluding about 40,000 put in re-education camps. For the latter, they were brought to mountainous areas where malaria and other contagious diseases killed them abundantly. After release, they became invalid and maltreated by other North Vietnamese (A Drop in the Ocean, p.362).

- 100,000 others killed in the 5th phase which, in the summer 1956, was called "the General Offensive Dien Bien Phu" (Ðþt t±ng công kích Ði®n Biên Phü), not including tens of thousand rich and middle peasants in re-education camps.

According to Canh, there were 40,000 cadres and party members among 200,000 North Vietnamese killed.

Furthermore, Lam Thanh Liem, in his "The Land Reform of Ho Chi Minh : Mistake or Crime ?", said he met technical cadres from North Vietnam who came to the Mekong River delta area to exert the policy of agricultural nationalization (agrarian reform) in 1978-1979 directed by Do Muoi who is now the secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Liem was told that they both were in Land Reform teams in 1955-1956; one was a SVN regroupee going to the North after the 1954 Geneva Accord to respond to Thanh's appeal. They revealed Liem that the death toll of North Vietnamese died unjustly was from 120,000-160,000 not including 40,000-60,000 (20-30%) cadres + party members.

The discrepancies in death toll makes people puzzled. According to "La Reforme Agraire" by Tran Phuong, p. 161, after the Land Reform, there were 800,000 Viet acres and 100,000 water-buffaloes and oxes which were redistributed free for over 2 million households of landless peasants; however, this redistribution was not genuinely free for peasants themselves because collectivized communes were set up quickly after the Land Reform campaign to take back what they expected to be their own. 150,000 houses belonging to "scoundrely, reactionary or betraying" landowners were also redistributed. Then the last number, 150,000 houses, must match roughly with the number of people killed in the Land Reform from 1952-1956.

This estimation may be close to the tragic and bitter truth with which Hoang Van Hoan (A Drop in the Ocean, p. 366) must utter :

"...unjust and fabricated sentences which had never been re-examined. Wrong classifications were not declared clearly. All hatred originated from the Land Reform tragedy... it rooted into people's mind...until today, the scars can not be erased from them...".

However, American writer Jules Archer in "Ho Chi Minh : Legend of Hanoi", p. 99, wrote amazingly that, "The ICC investigated, but found no evidence of reprisal killings on a scale that could be called a massacre, nor any trace of mass deaths in slave labor camps". Jules believed Thanh, being a slender, gentle, soft-spoken man with customary sandals, was a dedicated and lifelong revolutionary who could not be that radical.

Who was culprit ? Thanh or Chinh ?

According to Hoang Van Hoan, the culprit is Truong Chinh because Chinh was real boss of the Central Land Reform Committee. Hoan said that Chinh, having a leftist inclination, did not care for opinions from the Central Committee and gave permission to the Land Reform teams to execute "scoundrely" landowners to strenghthen revolutionary unyielding (khí khái cách mÕng) and increase peasants' prestige (uy tín cüa nông dân).

Bui Tin in "Hoa Xuyên Tuyªt" (Piercing-snow Flower) says :

"The mistakes in the Land Reform eliminated more than 10,000 people (shot before the People's Court, excluding about 11,000 party members annihilated) was due to apply automatically Chinese experiences, to the pressure from Chinese advisors who wanted us to do it, to North Vietnamese universal minds of worshipping communist China, to blindness and inferiority complex of North Vietnamese communists including Ho Chi Minh. To correct these mistakes, especially the ones of the period 2nd and 3rd of the whole campaign Land Reform, Truong Chinh resigned the position as general secretary, Hoang Quoc Viet and Le Van Luong as politburo members, and Ho who just self-critized. Ho did not directly do the Land Reform, but distributed the duties : Truong Chinh (first secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party) had responsibility, Hoang Quoc Viet (politburo member) in charge of the reform in Thai Nguyen, Le Van Luong (politburo member) in organization,...To me, lessons of mistakes on this Land Reform were not gathered seriously and absolutely...".

Hoang Van Hoan and Bui Tin had the same but not convincing arguments to blame all faults on Chinh. As the number two in the party, Chinh must assist Thanh -- president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and party chairman. In his memoir, Hoan confirmed that Chinh only assumed the charge of administration and helped Thanh to solve daily problems of the Central Committee. To be clearer, Chinh could not act alone. All important decisions as the elimination of 5% landowners of each province must be approved by Thanh. The Land Reform was an important task which could not be done negligently : it was prepared well and done methodically.

[The methodical eradication of a class in the North Vietnam society at the time was in no doubt a national policy based absolutely on "class struggle" of Marxism-Leninism (in "Croissance economique de la République Démocratique du Vietnam, by Vo Nhan Tri, p. 200).

According to witnesses, there were lawful mistakes due to individual vengence or bad behavior of opportunist cadres; however, the elimination of tens of thousand people or more in 4 consecutive years (1952-1956) under Chinh's reponsibility was not known by Thanh ?

Trained with Stalinist doctrine, Thanh, Chinh and other early communist leaders (Ton Duc Thang : fanatical extremist; Nguyen Luong Bang : party founder member in 1930, extremist; Le Duan : party founder member, authoritarian and pragmatist; Le Duc Tho : party founder member authoritarian, vain; Vo Nguyen Giap : vain, abrasive, authoritarian; Pham Hung : party founder member authoritarian, abrupt; Nguyen Duy Trinh : dogmatic and uncompromising extremist party founder member...) were almost radical or influenced much by Mao's thoughts. According to Hoan's book (A Drop in the Ocean, p. 365), Le Duan who replaced Chinh said that proceedings of dispossessing land were a very replica of China.

According to Liem's "The Land Reform of Ho Chi Minh : Mistake or Crime ?", the massacre divided into 5 phases showed that Thanh took firmly the power at that period. After each phase, there was always a gathering of Land Reform cadres to finalize results and experiences. They must self-criticize, analyze, bring forward negatives and positives,...so that the next phase would be done better. The more land reform was in progress, the more the death toll increased. However, Thanh did not give in and instead determined to go ahead until the end. One well-known principle in NVN was "Killing wrongly rather than freeing mistakenly" or "Noble ends justified ignoble means"; due to these thinkings, some Viets must be wiped out by mere Viets to become fertilizers which would flourish a newer, more just and cleaner society as Thanh ever imagined.

Chinh was only a guinea-pig and scape-goat. Thanh's letter mentioned above on 1/7/1956 sent to Land Reform cadres after the 5th phase showed that he was very skillful to protect his own prestige and the fame of the party. Thanh did not want his party's image to be damaged.

Furthermore, according to the late South Vietnam writer Nguyen Manh Con (Nguy­n MÕnh Côn) in his book titled "Hoà bình, nghî gì, làm gì ?" (Peace, what to think and to do ?), in a meeting early in 1950 between the politburo of the Worker's Party and the delegation representing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its army, Ho Chi Minh requested for arms to "liberate" Vietnam quickly. The head of the delegation, Yeh Chien-Ying [Di®p Kiªm Anh; Thanh might be party member of the CCP in 1920s-1930s; Thanh once worked closely with general Yeh in the 8th Route Army (Ю bát lµ quân) in 1938 under alias Ho Quang] who was then president of the Chinese National Assembly (Chü t¸ch qu¯c hµi), answered that, "Your revolution was for proprietors, not for the proletariat, because you, comrades, did not start a class struggle. Communist revolution was only for the proletariat. Furthermore, in this kind of revolution, spirit of self-help was main element. Knowing how to drive and mobilize people can help you to win any enemÜ China was just liberated (1949) and still met many difficulties. However, the party and its people are ready to help comrades liberate Vietnam. We would provide you with arms and other things and hope you must help the Chinese people rice and salt in this difficult time."

As a result, in this campaign, North Vietnamese resources were squeezed out to exchange for help from communist Chinese. A banner in this period was then "patriotism is not enough; communism is the right path". The Land Reform and heavy taxing upon the peasantry were done to please both the ICP and CCP. The slogan "The anti-imperialist and the the anti-feudal fights are equally important" was finally understood.

[As stated above, Viet communists have worked on this plan for a long time; they definitely knew well what they were doing and even predicted what reactions North Vietnamese had towards them thanks to Mao's experiences.

The period of denouncing "landlords" (ð¤u t¯ ð¸a chü) and redistributing lands to landless peasants (b¥n c¯ nông) was only the 1st scene of the whole play "Land Reform". Each landless peasant received a small land, some tools of kitchen kit, furniture, beds of landlord, even shovel, spade, old broom, rags...To ingenuous landless peasants, these stuffs made their lives change without expectation. In the period of denouncing landlords, landless peasants were induced and forced to come to a stage of becoming accomplices with communists in killings. However, until the Rectification of Errors (Giai ðoÕn sØa sai) came, these poor peasants were revenged; they had to escape to cities to live as servants themselves. The rest still staying at their villages knew that their lives were very unstable; however, what they never expected before was the "change of life" (cuµc "ð±i ð¶i") occurring not long ago during the Land Reform only gave them something to enjoy like properties and belongings of "landlords" just for a short time. They did not khow that the party gave them "gifts" with one hand, but it would take the latter back with another hand by using deceitful and delicate schemes which even wise people or intellectuals could never think of.

In conclusion, after taking advantage of the class of landless peasants in order to succeed in this strategic period which was to knock down the class of landowners, Viet communists slowly appropriated all properties of middle peasants (trung nông; having below 3 Viet acres) and then of landless peasants through a policy of nationalization of all lands (công hæu hóa toàn bµ ruµng ð¤t v߶n ao).

This "long tr¶i l· ð¤t" Land Reform in North Vietnam crushed totally all classes and powers in the rural areas. To the class of rich peasants (phú nông) and landowners (ð¸a chü), this was the bloodiest experience they never forgot and were scared to death until their last day of life. To the class of middle peasants, they might have not yet taste ignominy and suffering, but knew that they were just "a fish lying on a cutting board". To the class of ingenuous landless peasants, they had no experience of leadership; although the Land Reform gave them some benefit, they certainly knew Viet communists were the instigators of all happenings; however, they could not gather together to form a force of some account.

In the rural area, there was not any forces left able to challenge the party's power. The peasantry comprised just lonely individuals left stranded, except some landless peasants who leaned on the party to get some benefits by doing orders like lackeys. As a result, the mass of the peasantry was disintegrated totally. Although there was the Rectification of Errors which reinstated honor for people having merit during the period of the resistance against the French, this campaign only saved the people that still survived in prisons, but it could not bring back hundred thousand people buried in graves all over North Vietnam. Moreover, the Rectification of Errors would not reinstate the previous classes because Thanh confirmed that the Land Reform was correct and only some Land Reform cadres made mistakes.

After applying the Rectification of Errors to reduce anger of the populace, Thanh had to cope with the intellectual movement called "Hundred Flowers Blooming in the North" (Phong Trào Nhân Vån Giai Ph¦m); however, this movement, not organized very well, was smashed in pieces. After eliminating the single force against the policy of proletarian absolutism (chuyên chính vô sän), Thanh continued the Agrarian Reform (Cäi tÕo nông nghi®p) the first phase of which was the very Land Reform.

Back to Chinh, in the Land Reform campaign, he was not fast enough as some high-ranking cadres who had already gone back to their hometown and told their relatives to reduce own lands long before the campaign started.

Although losing the position as general secretary, Chinh still had enough prestige to retain in the politburo and the secretariat of the Central Committee. In mid-1958, Chinh's power was revived and on 29/4/1958, he became vice-premier and president of the Scientific Research Council.

Chinh's role was negligible during the Vietnam war (1960-1975). After the debacle of Saigon, Chinh led a delegation to go to the South Vietnam for discussion of reunification. In 1976, Chinh also served as chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly and also of the committee appointed to draft a new constitution. Until 1981, after the declaration of a new constitution, Chinh was head of the State Council (Hµi ð°ng nhà nß¾c) and became the 2nd most powerful man in the triumvirate Le Duan - Truong Chinh - Pham Van Dong.

After the 10th Central Committee conference, held from 19/5-6/6/1986, Chinh temporarily took Duan's position on 10/6/1986. Le Duan died on 10/7/1986. On 14/7/1986, Chinh became general secretary of the VCP. At the 6th party conference on 18/12/1986, Chinh volunteered to withdraw and was appointed as adviser for the Central Committee. However, the position "advisor" was seen as the most powerful post for national decision.

Then, Chinh, remembered in international academic circle only as a bright intellectual, a writer of many books, a poet (pen-name "Red Wave" or Sóng H°ng) with many heroic and patriotic poems, and as a leading dialectician, fell down from stair at home and died at middday on 30/9/1988.

References :

- Croissance économique de la République Démocratique du Vietnam, by Vo Nhan Tri; Editions en langues étrange`res, Hanoi, 1967.

- "Hoà bình, nghî gì, làm gì ?" (Peace, what to think and to do ?) by late SVN writer Nguyen Manh Con (Nguy­n MÕnh Côn; died in jail after 1975).

- The Land Reform of Ho Chi Minh : Mistake or Crime ? in "Ho Chi Minh : Truth on man and career" (HCM : thân thª và sñ nghi®p), by Lam Thanh Liem (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Paris), Sudasie, Paris, 1990.

- A Drop in the Ocean by Hoang Van Hoan, Beijing, 1986.

- Hoa Xuyên Tuyªt (Piercing-snow Flower) by Bui Tin, Vietnamese version.

- Nong dan Bac Viet nhæng nåm 1945-1970 (North Vietnamese peasantry in 1945-1970) by Nguyen Van Canh, ACSAV, Center for Vietnamese Studies, San José, California, 1987.

- "The Two Vietnams" by Bernard Fall, Frederick A. Praeger, New York 1964.

- Complete Collection on Ho Chi Minh, 1954-1957 [H° Chí Minh Toàn T§p, 1954-195719861986, Hanoi, 1987.

- From Colonialism To Communism by Hoang Van Chi, 1968.