Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Apr 2011
corporatism
Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions - by Stephen Lendman
An earlier article discussed hurdles ordinary people face before America's High Court, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/supreme-court-inc-supremely-pro.ht
Saying pro-business rulings aren't new, it suggested the most damaging one occurred in 1886. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, the High Court granted corporations legal personhood. Ever since, they've had the same rights as people without the responsibilities. Their limited liability status exempts them.
As a result, they've profited hugely and continue winning favorable rulings. Today more than ever from the Roberts Court, one observer calling its first full (2006-07) term a "blockbuster" with the Court's conservative wing prevailing most often.
Through today, it's been much the same, notably in its January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, ruling government can't limit corporate political election spending as doing it violates their First Amendment freedoms. Writing for the 5 - 4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy called it legal "political speech," effectively putting a price tag on democracy.
The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), restricting corporate political spending because their resources unfairly influence electoral politics, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), upholding part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (the McCain-Feingold Act), restricting corporate and union campaign spending.
Citizen's United set a precedent, but does it matter given the power of big money and past failures to curb it, Professor John Kozy saying at the time:
"Expecting the Congress, most if not all of whose members reside deep in corporate pockets, to eliminate that influence can be likened to expecting the rhinovirus to eliminate the common cold. Corporate money (in large or smaller amounts) is the diseased life-blood of American politics; it carries its cancerous spores to all extremities."
Kozy also cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' Lochner dissent, saying "the Court has taken its task to be the constitutionalization of a totally immoral, rapacious, economic system instead of the promotion of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty."
Of course, the same judgment applies throughout Court history with past civil libertarians far outnumbered by established order supporters and big money interests that run it. As a result, for every William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall there have been dozens of John Jays (the first chief justice), Roger Taneys, William Howard Tafts, Scalias, Burgers, Rehnquists, and Roberts.
It's why Michael Parenti calls the Supreme Court America's "autocratic branch" of government, affirmed shamelessly in its April 27 AT&T v. Conception decision, accessed through the following link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
America's Supremes Deny Class Action Redress
After the ruling, Dow Jones Newswires Brent Kendall headlined, "US Supreme Court Blocks Class Action Against AT&T Unit," saying:
The Court blocked "a class action lawsuit alleging AT&T Inc. (T) wireless subsidiary acted fraudulently by charging sales tax on cellphones that it advertised as free. The case was considered a test of the enforceability of arbitration agreements that bar individuals from pooling their claims together in a class action."
Earlier, two California federal courts ruled that AT&T Mobility's wireless contract arbitration agreement was not enforceable because it blocked class actions. On April 27, the Supreme Court overturned them. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said permitting group suits runs afoul of federal law promoting arbitration.
Dissenting, Justice Stephen Breyer said requiring consumers to arbitrate individually forces them to abandon small claims, too costly to litigate.
The case involved Vincent and Liza Concepcion's complaint about the $30.22 sales tax on AT&T's cellphone promoted as free. As a result, Breyer added:
"What rational lawyer would have signed on to represent (them) in litigation for the possibility of fees stemming from" an amount that small, effectively shutting them out entirely from judicial redress.
Still pending before the court is the largest class action in US history - Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It involves sexual job discrimination, claiming the company violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying women equal promotion opportunities as men.
Wal-Mart lawyers now want the case dismissed on behalf of 1.5 million current and past female employees. Doing so, however, will be a crushing blow to aggrieved company employees and millions of others henceforth for redress it appears the ruling now denies.
Public citizen attorney Deepak Gupta represented the Concepcions before the High Court. After the decision he said:
"This morning, the US Supreme Court dealt a crushing blow to American consumers and employees, ruling that companies can ban class actions in the fine print of contracts."
So whenever you "sign a contract" for a cell phone, bank account, credit card, employment, or other purpose, "you may be giving up your right to hold companies accountable for fraud, discrimination or other illegal practices."
In its latest unprincipled decision, the Court ruled 5 - 4 that corporations may use arbitration clauses to prevent consumers and employees from using class actions to hold them accountable, requiring individual litigation instead.
In fact, class actions, like Brown v. Board of Education, are an essential litigation tool. Their fate shouldn't be decided by corporate fine print "take-it-or-leave-it contracts" only lawyers understand.
The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act facilitated private arbitration settlements in state and federal courts, applicable to interstate commerce transactions under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. Henceforth, it will shield corporations from accountability, making it harder for people to litigate "civil rights, labor, consumer, and other (type) claims," resulting from corporate wrongdoing by "join(ing) together to obtain their rightful compensation."
As a result, says Gupta, it's essential for Congress to enact legislation "ending forced arbitration in consumer and employment contracts," but expect no redress from a Republican controlled House and a pro-business president claiming populist credentials.
As a result, expect CEO's from AT&T, Wal-Mart and other corporate predators to sleep comfortably henceforth, knowing America's High Court backs their right rip off consumers and employees with impunity.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Monday, May 02, 2011
All Out In Support- NURSES AT TUFTS (Boston) SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6! -An Injury To One Is An Injury To All
NURSES AT TUFTS SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6!
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
US Intervention in Syria by Stephen Lendman
US Intervention in Syria by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 30 Apr 2011
imperialism
US Intervention in Syria - by Stephen Lendman
Despite genuine popular Middle East/North Africa uprisings, Washington's dirty hands orchestrated regime change plans in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria as part of its "New Middle East" project.
On November 18, 2006, Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya's Global Research article headlined, "Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New Middle East,' " saying:
In June 2006 in Tel Aviv, "US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (first) coin(ed) the term" in place of the former "Greater Middle East" project, a shift in rhetoric only for Washington's longstanding imperial aims.
The new terminology "coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean." During Israel's summer 2006 Lebanon war, "Prime Minister Olmert and (Rice) informed the international media that a project for a 'New Middle East' was being launched in Lebanon," a plan in the works for years to "creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan."
In other words, "constructive chaos" would be used to redraw the region according to US-Israeli "geo-strategic needs and objectives." The strategy is currently playing out violently in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and may erupt anywhere in the region to solidify Washington's aim for unchallengeable dominance from Morocco to Oman to Syria.
Partnered with Israel, it's to assure only leaders fully "with the program" are in place. Mostly isn't good enough, so ones like Mubarak, Gaddafi, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, likely Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (now damaged goods), and Syria's Bashar al-Assad are targeted for removal by methods ranging from uprisings to coups, assassinations, or war, perhaps in that order.
Nazemroaya now says Syrian "protesters are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states via Jordan and Saad Hariri in Lebanon," besides US and Israeli involvement.
Pack Journalism Goes to War with Washington
America's pack journalism never met an America imperial initiative it didn't support and promote, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive or counterproductive. For example, an April 28 New York Times editorial headlined, "President Assad's Crackdown," saying:
He "appears determined to join his father in the ranks of history's blood-stained dictators, sending his troops and thugs to murder anyone who has the courage to demand political freedom."
Whether about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Haiti's Aristide, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Venezuela's Chavez or others for many decades, Times "journalists" and opinion writers have a sordid history of supporting America's imperial ruthlessness, including perpetual wars killing millions for power, profit, and unchallengeable dominance.
Now Times writers laud Obama for intervening in Libya and trying "to engage Syria....in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice," meaning get "with the program" by surrendering Syrian sovereignty.
Despite clear evidence of US intervention, Obama "issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough."
War is always a last choice so The Times endorses "international condemnation and tough sanctions, (as well as) asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo."
However, "Russia and China, as ever, are determined to protect autocrats. That cannot be the last word."
Times opinions are shamelessly belligerent, one-sided, wrong-headed, and mindless on rule of law issues, including about prohibitions against meddling in the internal affairs of other countries except in self-defense until the Security Council acts.
Instead, the "newspaper of record" remains America's leading managed news source, backing the worst of Washington's imperial arrogance and ruthlessness. As a result, it omits inconvenient facts to make its case, including America's notorious ties to numerous global despots on every continent.
WikiLeaks Released Cables Expose America's Regime Change Plan
Though widely reported since mid-April, The Times hasn't acknowledged information (though sketchy) from Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock's April 17 report headlined, "US secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show," saying:
Through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables."
"Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of (pro-Western) Syrian exiles."
Funding began at least after the Bush administration cut ties with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic cable from Damascus said:
"A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive."
In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria." Nonetheless, Barada TV denied receiving money, its news director Malik al-Abdeh saying:
"I'm not aware of anything like that. If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don't want to continue this conversation. That's all I'm going to give you."
America's National Endowment for Democracy: A Global Regime Change Initiative
Besides covert CIA activities, US-government funded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) operate as US foreign policy destabilizing instruments. They do it by supporting opposition group regime change efforts in countries like Syria, despite claiming "dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world....in more than 90 countries."
In MENA nations (Middle East/North Africa) alone, NED's web site lists activities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
The IRI's web site includes (destabilizing anti-democratic) initiatives in Afghanistan, Egypt, GCC states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Palestine.
Other US imperial organizations are also regionally active, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), operating contrary to their stated missions.
In January 1996, based on firsthand knowledge, former CIA agent (from 1952 - 1977) Ralph McGehee discussed covert NED efforts in Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam, saying:
The government-funded organization "assumed many of the political action responsibilities of the CIA," including:
-- "efforts to influence foreign journalists;"
-- money laundering;
-- isolating "democratic-minded intellectuals and journalist in the third world;"
-- distributing propaganda articles "to regional editors on each continent;"
-- "disseminating an attack on people in Jamaica;"
-- funding anti-Castro groups in South Florida as well as Radio and TV Marti, airing regime change propaganda;
-- anti-communist grants; and
-- much more while claiming its mission is "guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures and values."
In a 2005 interview, another former CIA agent (1957 - 1968), Philip Agee, author of "Inside the Company," explained NED's origins and covert efforts to destabilize and oust Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, calling efforts "similar to what (went on) in Nicaragua in the 1980s minus the Contra terrorist operations (that) wreaked so much destruction on the Nicaraguan economy."
Founded in 1982, NED distributes government funds to four other organizations, including the IRI, NDI, Chamber of Commerce's Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity.
In fact, a 2010 Kim Scipes book titled, "AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?" discusses its covert anti-worker "labor imperialism," including regime change initiatives.
Manipulated Popular Uprising in Syria
Since late January, popular uprisings began, suspiciously orchestrated by outside forces to destabilize and oust Assad. In fact, Richard Perle's 1996 "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu during his first term, stated:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli objective in its own right."
It added:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An affective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon...."
"Given the nature of the regime in Damascus (much the same today), it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan comprehensive peace and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction programs, and rejecting land for peace deals on the Golan Heights," Syrian territory colonized by Israel since 1967.
Perle's report was a destabilization and regime change manifesto, implemented in Iraq, Libya, elsewhere in the region, and now Syria. The strategy includes managed news, funding internal and external dissident groups, and other initiatives to oust leaders like Assad.
On March 30, 2011, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el headlined "Why did website linked to Syria regime publish US-Saudi plan to oust Assad?" saying:
"According to the report....the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs."
Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved "establishing five recruitment networks," using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts "funded by European countries but not" America, as well as a "capital network of businesspeople from the large cities."
Training included "sniper fire, arson, and murdering in cold blood," journalists reporting it by hard to monitor satellite phones depicting "human rights activists....demanding not the regime's fall," but need for social networks training "as a means for recruitment."
"After the recruitment and training phases, which would be funded by Saudi Arabia for about $2 billion," thousands of "activists" would be given communications equipment to begin public actions. "The plan also suggest(ed) igniting ethnic tensions between groups around the country to stir unrest," including in Damascus "to convince the military leadership to disassociate itself from Assad and establish a new regime."
"The hoped-for outcome is the establishment of a supreme national council that will run the country and terminate Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah."
The Jordan-based Dot and Com company was named as the behind the scenes recruiter, a company run by Saudi intelligence under Bandar to destabilize Syria and oust Assad.
Whether or not the plan was implemented, some of its features are now playing out violently across the country. Orchestrated in Washington, it's to install a totally "with the program" regime, the same war strategy ongoing in Libya.
A Final Comment
On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK, French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syrian violence. Damascus' UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'arari, said it failed because several members were fair-minded enough to reject it, knowing Libya's fate after Resolution 1973, calling only for no-fly zone protection.
UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reported about 400 deaths so far. Other estimates are higher. Russian, Chinese and Syrian representatives say government security forces killed by armed extremists are among them. According to RT.com:
"Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry had clearly outlined its position: it condemned all those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the clashes with the police. But, it urged (no intervention) in Syria's internal affairs," that could easily escalate to Western regime change plans.
Federation Council to the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, Rudik Iskuzhin, believes Syrian intervention may mean Iran is next, saying:
"We very well understand that the hidden motive of all of the recent revolutionary processes is Iran, to which the destabilization in Syria will eventually ricochet. Libya, just like Syria, was an important ally of" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Western powers and Israel want the alliance subverted.
On April 29, China ruled out force against Syria, Foreign Affairs Ministry Vice-Minister He Yafei saying it "cannot bring a solution to the problem and will only cause a greater humanitarian crisis." Insisting proposed solutions comply with the UN Charter and international law, he added:
"Any help from the international community has to be constructive in nature, which is conducive to the restoration of stability and public order and ensuring the maintenance of economic and social life."
American intervention assures "constructive chaos," the agenda Washington pursues globally, focusing mainly on controlling Eurasia's enormous wealth and resources. Either one or multiple countries at a time, it includes turning Russia and China into vassal states, a goal neither Beijing or Moscow will tolerate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 30 Apr 2011
imperialism
US Intervention in Syria - by Stephen Lendman
Despite genuine popular Middle East/North Africa uprisings, Washington's dirty hands orchestrated regime change plans in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria as part of its "New Middle East" project.
On November 18, 2006, Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya's Global Research article headlined, "Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New Middle East,' " saying:
In June 2006 in Tel Aviv, "US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (first) coin(ed) the term" in place of the former "Greater Middle East" project, a shift in rhetoric only for Washington's longstanding imperial aims.
The new terminology "coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean." During Israel's summer 2006 Lebanon war, "Prime Minister Olmert and (Rice) informed the international media that a project for a 'New Middle East' was being launched in Lebanon," a plan in the works for years to "creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan."
In other words, "constructive chaos" would be used to redraw the region according to US-Israeli "geo-strategic needs and objectives." The strategy is currently playing out violently in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and may erupt anywhere in the region to solidify Washington's aim for unchallengeable dominance from Morocco to Oman to Syria.
Partnered with Israel, it's to assure only leaders fully "with the program" are in place. Mostly isn't good enough, so ones like Mubarak, Gaddafi, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, likely Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (now damaged goods), and Syria's Bashar al-Assad are targeted for removal by methods ranging from uprisings to coups, assassinations, or war, perhaps in that order.
Nazemroaya now says Syrian "protesters are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states via Jordan and Saad Hariri in Lebanon," besides US and Israeli involvement.
Pack Journalism Goes to War with Washington
America's pack journalism never met an America imperial initiative it didn't support and promote, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive or counterproductive. For example, an April 28 New York Times editorial headlined, "President Assad's Crackdown," saying:
He "appears determined to join his father in the ranks of history's blood-stained dictators, sending his troops and thugs to murder anyone who has the courage to demand political freedom."
Whether about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Haiti's Aristide, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Venezuela's Chavez or others for many decades, Times "journalists" and opinion writers have a sordid history of supporting America's imperial ruthlessness, including perpetual wars killing millions for power, profit, and unchallengeable dominance.
Now Times writers laud Obama for intervening in Libya and trying "to engage Syria....in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice," meaning get "with the program" by surrendering Syrian sovereignty.
Despite clear evidence of US intervention, Obama "issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough."
War is always a last choice so The Times endorses "international condemnation and tough sanctions, (as well as) asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo."
However, "Russia and China, as ever, are determined to protect autocrats. That cannot be the last word."
Times opinions are shamelessly belligerent, one-sided, wrong-headed, and mindless on rule of law issues, including about prohibitions against meddling in the internal affairs of other countries except in self-defense until the Security Council acts.
Instead, the "newspaper of record" remains America's leading managed news source, backing the worst of Washington's imperial arrogance and ruthlessness. As a result, it omits inconvenient facts to make its case, including America's notorious ties to numerous global despots on every continent.
WikiLeaks Released Cables Expose America's Regime Change Plan
Though widely reported since mid-April, The Times hasn't acknowledged information (though sketchy) from Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock's April 17 report headlined, "US secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show," saying:
Through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables."
"Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of (pro-Western) Syrian exiles."
Funding began at least after the Bush administration cut ties with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic cable from Damascus said:
"A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive."
In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria." Nonetheless, Barada TV denied receiving money, its news director Malik al-Abdeh saying:
"I'm not aware of anything like that. If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don't want to continue this conversation. That's all I'm going to give you."
America's National Endowment for Democracy: A Global Regime Change Initiative
Besides covert CIA activities, US-government funded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) operate as US foreign policy destabilizing instruments. They do it by supporting opposition group regime change efforts in countries like Syria, despite claiming "dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world....in more than 90 countries."
In MENA nations (Middle East/North Africa) alone, NED's web site lists activities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
The IRI's web site includes (destabilizing anti-democratic) initiatives in Afghanistan, Egypt, GCC states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Palestine.
Other US imperial organizations are also regionally active, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), operating contrary to their stated missions.
In January 1996, based on firsthand knowledge, former CIA agent (from 1952 - 1977) Ralph McGehee discussed covert NED efforts in Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam, saying:
The government-funded organization "assumed many of the political action responsibilities of the CIA," including:
-- "efforts to influence foreign journalists;"
-- money laundering;
-- isolating "democratic-minded intellectuals and journalist in the third world;"
-- distributing propaganda articles "to regional editors on each continent;"
-- "disseminating an attack on people in Jamaica;"
-- funding anti-Castro groups in South Florida as well as Radio and TV Marti, airing regime change propaganda;
-- anti-communist grants; and
-- much more while claiming its mission is "guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures and values."
In a 2005 interview, another former CIA agent (1957 - 1968), Philip Agee, author of "Inside the Company," explained NED's origins and covert efforts to destabilize and oust Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, calling efforts "similar to what (went on) in Nicaragua in the 1980s minus the Contra terrorist operations (that) wreaked so much destruction on the Nicaraguan economy."
Founded in 1982, NED distributes government funds to four other organizations, including the IRI, NDI, Chamber of Commerce's Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity.
In fact, a 2010 Kim Scipes book titled, "AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?" discusses its covert anti-worker "labor imperialism," including regime change initiatives.
Manipulated Popular Uprising in Syria
Since late January, popular uprisings began, suspiciously orchestrated by outside forces to destabilize and oust Assad. In fact, Richard Perle's 1996 "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu during his first term, stated:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli objective in its own right."
It added:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An affective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon...."
"Given the nature of the regime in Damascus (much the same today), it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan comprehensive peace and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction programs, and rejecting land for peace deals on the Golan Heights," Syrian territory colonized by Israel since 1967.
Perle's report was a destabilization and regime change manifesto, implemented in Iraq, Libya, elsewhere in the region, and now Syria. The strategy includes managed news, funding internal and external dissident groups, and other initiatives to oust leaders like Assad.
On March 30, 2011, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el headlined "Why did website linked to Syria regime publish US-Saudi plan to oust Assad?" saying:
"According to the report....the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs."
Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved "establishing five recruitment networks," using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts "funded by European countries but not" America, as well as a "capital network of businesspeople from the large cities."
Training included "sniper fire, arson, and murdering in cold blood," journalists reporting it by hard to monitor satellite phones depicting "human rights activists....demanding not the regime's fall," but need for social networks training "as a means for recruitment."
"After the recruitment and training phases, which would be funded by Saudi Arabia for about $2 billion," thousands of "activists" would be given communications equipment to begin public actions. "The plan also suggest(ed) igniting ethnic tensions between groups around the country to stir unrest," including in Damascus "to convince the military leadership to disassociate itself from Assad and establish a new regime."
"The hoped-for outcome is the establishment of a supreme national council that will run the country and terminate Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah."
The Jordan-based Dot and Com company was named as the behind the scenes recruiter, a company run by Saudi intelligence under Bandar to destabilize Syria and oust Assad.
Whether or not the plan was implemented, some of its features are now playing out violently across the country. Orchestrated in Washington, it's to install a totally "with the program" regime, the same war strategy ongoing in Libya.
A Final Comment
On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK, French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syrian violence. Damascus' UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'arari, said it failed because several members were fair-minded enough to reject it, knowing Libya's fate after Resolution 1973, calling only for no-fly zone protection.
UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reported about 400 deaths so far. Other estimates are higher. Russian, Chinese and Syrian representatives say government security forces killed by armed extremists are among them. According to RT.com:
"Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry had clearly outlined its position: it condemned all those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the clashes with the police. But, it urged (no intervention) in Syria's internal affairs," that could easily escalate to Western regime change plans.
Federation Council to the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, Rudik Iskuzhin, believes Syrian intervention may mean Iran is next, saying:
"We very well understand that the hidden motive of all of the recent revolutionary processes is Iran, to which the destabilization in Syria will eventually ricochet. Libya, just like Syria, was an important ally of" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Western powers and Israel want the alliance subverted.
On April 29, China ruled out force against Syria, Foreign Affairs Ministry Vice-Minister He Yafei saying it "cannot bring a solution to the problem and will only cause a greater humanitarian crisis." Insisting proposed solutions comply with the UN Charter and international law, he added:
"Any help from the international community has to be constructive in nature, which is conducive to the restoration of stability and public order and ensuring the maintenance of economic and social life."
American intervention assures "constructive chaos," the agenda Washington pursues globally, focusing mainly on controlling Eurasia's enormous wealth and resources. Either one or multiple countries at a time, it includes turning Russia and China into vassal states, a goal neither Beijing or Moscow will tolerate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
A Jeff Bridges Retrospective- “Stick It” (Yes, Stick It)- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges.
DVD Review
Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Touchstone Films,2006
Over the past year or so, since he won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as broken down country singer/songwriter Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts I have been reviewing the cinematic work of Jeff Bridges as his films have come into my hands. Most of my reviews have been positive reflecting the very real talent and flare that Jeff Bridges brings to the movies. That said, I am at a lost for why he did the film under review, Stick It, that while marginally entertaining at times is an incredible waste of his time and talent. Now I am not, and never have been, privy to the decisions that actors make about taking on scripts. Maybe they see something in the plot line, maybe they are looking for something a little edgy, or maybe just for the dough, not an unimportant consideration in fickle movie land. But now I can add Jeff Bridges to the vast number of very talented actors that have been in “turkeys”, for whatever reason.
Strangely, it is not the subject matter, the trials and tribulation of a troubled, ex- or maybe not so ex- gymnast (Haley Graham, played by Missy Peregrym) trying tot find her place in the world, the non-monastic gymnastics training world that is off here but the subtext that the teenage rebellion of a gymnast attempting to dramatically change the way the sport is conducted has enough energy to fill an hour and one half film. It really doesn’t since an amazing amount of time is spent in various clips of gym activity. And Jeff Bridges as a washed-out (kind of) gym camp owner is in the thick of this thing as Haley’s substitute father/confessor. There are plenty of issues (sexual, physical, psychological) that could have been raised by a close look at the cult-like elite gymnastics world (or any high-level sports training) but none, other than a silly attack on the scoring system, are by a film which decided that it did not want to tackle them and played instead to a kind of campy teenage melodrama. And high talent (although poor gymnast and sage) Jeff Bridges got caught in the middle.
DVD Review
Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Touchstone Films,2006
Over the past year or so, since he won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as broken down country singer/songwriter Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts I have been reviewing the cinematic work of Jeff Bridges as his films have come into my hands. Most of my reviews have been positive reflecting the very real talent and flare that Jeff Bridges brings to the movies. That said, I am at a lost for why he did the film under review, Stick It, that while marginally entertaining at times is an incredible waste of his time and talent. Now I am not, and never have been, privy to the decisions that actors make about taking on scripts. Maybe they see something in the plot line, maybe they are looking for something a little edgy, or maybe just for the dough, not an unimportant consideration in fickle movie land. But now I can add Jeff Bridges to the vast number of very talented actors that have been in “turkeys”, for whatever reason.
Strangely, it is not the subject matter, the trials and tribulation of a troubled, ex- or maybe not so ex- gymnast (Haley Graham, played by Missy Peregrym) trying tot find her place in the world, the non-monastic gymnastics training world that is off here but the subtext that the teenage rebellion of a gymnast attempting to dramatically change the way the sport is conducted has enough energy to fill an hour and one half film. It really doesn’t since an amazing amount of time is spent in various clips of gym activity. And Jeff Bridges as a washed-out (kind of) gym camp owner is in the thick of this thing as Haley’s substitute father/confessor. There are plenty of issues (sexual, physical, psychological) that could have been raised by a close look at the cult-like elite gymnastics world (or any high-level sports training) but none, other than a silly attack on the scoring system, are by a film which decided that it did not want to tackle them and played instead to a kind of campy teenage melodrama. And high talent (although poor gymnast and sage) Jeff Bridges got caught in the middle.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
*On The 125th Anniversary- Remember The Haymarket Martyrs- May Day Is Our Workers' Holiday
Click On Title To Link To BAAM Newsletter (local Boston anarchist collective) site for two good introductory articles about the labor struggles of the 19th century and a biographic sketch of the heroic anarchist (and later American Communist Party member) Lucy Parsons, widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parson and revolutionary fighter in her own right. While my sympathies are clearly with the communist wing on the left wing continuum, especially the struggles led by Leon Trotsky to save the heritage of the Russian Revolution in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the main points of these articles are made by kindred spirits that all labor militants can stand in solidarity with as part of our common labor history.
Markin comment-repost
As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement The Internationale in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]
Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
________________________________________
L'Internationale
Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud
L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits
Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.
Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.
________________________________________
Die Internationale
Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!
Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht
Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!
In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!
Markin comment-repost
As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement The Internationale in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]
Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
________________________________________
L'Internationale
Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud
L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits
Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.
Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.
________________________________________
Die Internationale
Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!
Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht
Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!
In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
From The Archives Of The International Communist League-For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968 (In The U.S.)
Markin comment:
In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
I am continuing today what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
***********
Markin comment on this article:
Note: The commentary below addresses my thoughts on the concept of the labor-socialist party slogan as a general proposition. The thrust of the article centers on running presidential and vice-presidential candidates through such a vehicle. Since that time the International Communist League has rejected the then common (1968) view among Trotskyists, including orthodox Trotskyists like the Spartacist League, that it was principled to run for the executive offices of the bourgeois state. That newer understanding of the role of the bourgeois state would now preclude presidential candidacies (although not the possibility for critical support to other working class formations). My comment should be taken in that context although today such propaganda would center on running for legislative offices as “tribunes of the people.”
*****
In hindsight, given the muddle of left-wing politics in 1968, the notion of a broad labor-socialist presidential campaign based on the trade unions, black liberation fighters, and radicalized youth seems very appealing today. Even as a propaganda slogan. With the highly symbolic nature of the Tet offensive in Vietnam in exposing the military quagmire there for all to see, the disintegration of tradition ties and turmoil in the left-wing of the Democratic Party (and among their fellow-travelers) in the aftermath of Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection after Senator Eugene McCarthy’s good showing in New Hampshire, the entry of, and subsequent assassination, of left-wing bourgeois icon, Robert Kennedy, and the various futile Peace and Freedom-type lash-ups organized to rein in the discontent this was a politically timely slogan.
Of course that is hindsight for a now pristine communist propagandist. Back then, back then in the mud of bourgeois politics that this writer was neck-deep into, the notion, the far out notion, that some non-Democratic Party operation would be formed to siphon off votes from the Democratic presidential candidate would have incurred my ire. Didn’t you know that the main enemy in the world, the “real” world, brothers and sisters, was one Richard Milhous Nixon, one time President of the United States and a common criminal. Save your labor-socialist slogan for 1972 when one Hubert Horatio Humphrey was up for re-election and the stakes were not so high.
Yes, it was that bad, bourgeois democratic politics bad. I started the year with my beloved bad boy, badass Irish boy, Robert Kennedy- the last time that I was mad for a bourgeois candidate as I have mentioned previously. But due to that man, that Nixon man, and the need to beat him at all costs (and to begin to make my way in the maze of upwardly mobile bourgeois politics) I worked, and worked hard by the way, for HHH.
Of course that was a time, a time out of joint if you will, when my politics, my politics on the ground, were out of synch, way out of synch, with my organizational affiliations. I was no crypto-communist, no question, but neither was I a Democratic Party hack. So it is possible to learn something in this wicked old world. And that something is that in the “real world” we desperately need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. See, easy.
************
For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968
Spartacist number 11, March-April 1968
The 1968 elections come at a time of enormous discontent over the Vietnam war, deeply-felt and violent outbursts of disillusionment among the Negro masses, and an upsurge in labor militancy and rash of hard-fought strikes. The exposure of the Democratic Party as the party of savage racist oppression in the American cities and imperialist intervention in Vietnam sharply poses the necessity of a break with the two capitalist parties in favor of a Freedom-Labor Party based on a working-class program which can link up the issues of the war, the ghetto and the labor struggle. The 1968 Presidential elections offer the best opportunity in 20 years for the intervention of radicals in the electoral arena through the form of a labor-socialist ticket—to consist for example of a local trade union leader and a socialist, one of whom might well be black—which could build wide support for a decisive break with capitalist politics and lay the basis for a movement to struggle for a Freedom-Labor Party.
Need for a Working-Class Party
The United States is the only advanced capitalist country which does not have some kind of mass party of the working class. The need for such a party of working-class struggle has long been recognized by Marxists and was included as one of the basic points of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. The increasing recognition of the role of the Democratic Party in the maintenance of the capitalist status quo poses this question sharply as the necessary consequence not only of the objective situation but of needs which are becoming widely subjectively felt by broad sections of the population—student radicals, ghetto militants and now, following a period of relative labor quiescence, sections of the working class.
Yet the American Left, faced with such immense possibilities for the intervention of a radical program, exhibits increasingly its lack of any perspective for this period and turns more and more to passive enthusing and mindless activism combined with an essential cynicism toward a relevant perspective for social change.
American radicalism has long been confronted by the seemingly permanent situation of a working class which has shown itself, even in periods of great militancy and willingness to fight for economic demands, politically pragmatic and complacent, with an explicit philosophy, on the political scene, which is essentially passive—"rewarding the (so-called) friends of labor and punishing its enemies." Such a situation, of course, is not an abstract and a priori phenomenon, but exists in the context of the historic betrayals and misleaderships of the working class by those who presumed to speak in the name of radicalism. One of the healthy features of the New Left movement, and certainly one of the formative factors of its ideology, has been the rejection of the example of the old Communist Party—the New Left generalizes this to "the Old Left"—with its history of capitulationist politicking which found its clearest expression in the support of Roosevelt and the New Deal and continues today as the "Reform Democrat" orientation.
Political Struggle, Not Abstentionism
But the New Left, while presuming to have rejected this approach to radical politics, has actually taken over one of the basic underlying conceptions of this outlook—the equating of struggle on the political front with cynical maneuvering toward the various enemies of the working class. The New Left has instead embraced a concept of non-political and even anti-political militancy and activism. It mindlessly throws its energies into self-destructive physical "confrontation" with the "war-makers" and passively and enthusiastically applauds the directionless and programless ghetto outbursts which leave the situation of the black masses unchanged. The New Left rejects out of hand the possibility for working-class struggle, viewing the political passivity of the workers as given, rather than the result of the absence of a revolutionary leadership. By rejecting an orientation to revolutionary political struggle, the New Left dooms its efforts to failure, and its cadres to disillusionment and disorganization. Impatience and cynicism do not make a program.
The result of this rejection of any kind of political struggle by the radicals is the continuation of the reformist status quo. The recognition of the need for political struggle and the utilization of this recognition remains in the hands of the reformist fakers, best exemplified by Irving Howe and his ilk, to whom politics is synonymous with "coalitionism." The demonstrated militancy of the trade unions remains tied to the liberal trade union bureaucracies; the black ghetto, despite its deep disgust with and rejection of the liberal establishment, still votes Democratic at election time. All opportunity for political struggle remains the monopoly of those whose only concept of politics is maneuvering within the capitalist system.
Failure of the CNP
The spectacular failure of the Conference for New Politics only serves to demonstrate this lack of a political perspective for the radical movement. The participants at the Conference were unable to distinguish between independent working-class politics and the use of the forms of independence to further the aims of coalition politics within the system. Common to all the competing political alternatives was the attempt to build an outside base of a temporary sort from which to exert pressure within the existing framework. With the limits of such a perspective, the radicals were unable to break from those whose aims are an admittedly temporary break with the Democratic Party because its naked exposure as the primary tool of racist brutality and imperialist slaughter is an embarrassment and a threat to the maintenance of capitalist rule. Those at the Conference who were perhaps opposed to this underlying conception of political action could see no alternative but the diffuse and unrewarding perspective of "community organizing" without a program.
SWP’s Opportunism
The announced presidential campaign of the Socialist Workers Party in the 1968 elections must be seen in this context. The whole role of the SWP in radical politics has been to reinforce the fragmentation of current struggles into isolated compartments of militancy, without a perspective for linking up these struggles into an anti-capitalist one. While the SWP gives lip service to some acceptable demands and even includes in its formal program the call for a labor party, it accepts the present vacuum on the left as given and, instead of intervening to change it, actually seeks to head off the development of a broader perspective by jumping into the ring a year early in order to "cop the field" for its own candidates.
Towards a Labor Party!
The Spartacist League, at this juncture, calls for the formation of a broadly-based labor and socialist ticket, as a concrete step in the building of a political party of the U.S. working class. Such a campaign, which would link up the anti-war sentiment to which the SWP seeks to appeal with the broader felt needs of the masses, would transcend the sterile concept of a "protest vote" in posing the need for independent working-class political action on a real scale. The fight to build such a campaign would provide a focal point for rank-and-file struggle in the unions around the issues of the Vietnam war, the rights of black workers, union demands and strike struggles, rank-and-file control of the unions, the fight to break the unions’ reliance on and ties with the capitalist state, a fundamental break with the Democratic and Republican parties and the enfranchisement of the working people in a political party to fight for their needs. Out of this struggle could come the forerunner committees to a Labor Party.
Thus the Spartacist League does not at this point endorse any of the essentially defective variants, rather seeking to help shape a real alternative to capitalist politics. If this fuller perspective has not materialized by the summer of 1968, it would then be necessary to choose from among whatever supportable possibilities exist at that time. In the interim, we will seek to assist the SWP, as we might any tendency within the working-class movement, to meet the technicalities of ballot entry, while calling upon them to indicate their willingness to withdraw at least part of their ticket in favor of a labor-socialist one and to work for the formation of such a ticket.
FOR A LABOR-SOCIALIST TICKET IN ’68!
In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
I am continuing today what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
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Markin comment on this article:
Note: The commentary below addresses my thoughts on the concept of the labor-socialist party slogan as a general proposition. The thrust of the article centers on running presidential and vice-presidential candidates through such a vehicle. Since that time the International Communist League has rejected the then common (1968) view among Trotskyists, including orthodox Trotskyists like the Spartacist League, that it was principled to run for the executive offices of the bourgeois state. That newer understanding of the role of the bourgeois state would now preclude presidential candidacies (although not the possibility for critical support to other working class formations). My comment should be taken in that context although today such propaganda would center on running for legislative offices as “tribunes of the people.”
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In hindsight, given the muddle of left-wing politics in 1968, the notion of a broad labor-socialist presidential campaign based on the trade unions, black liberation fighters, and radicalized youth seems very appealing today. Even as a propaganda slogan. With the highly symbolic nature of the Tet offensive in Vietnam in exposing the military quagmire there for all to see, the disintegration of tradition ties and turmoil in the left-wing of the Democratic Party (and among their fellow-travelers) in the aftermath of Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection after Senator Eugene McCarthy’s good showing in New Hampshire, the entry of, and subsequent assassination, of left-wing bourgeois icon, Robert Kennedy, and the various futile Peace and Freedom-type lash-ups organized to rein in the discontent this was a politically timely slogan.
Of course that is hindsight for a now pristine communist propagandist. Back then, back then in the mud of bourgeois politics that this writer was neck-deep into, the notion, the far out notion, that some non-Democratic Party operation would be formed to siphon off votes from the Democratic presidential candidate would have incurred my ire. Didn’t you know that the main enemy in the world, the “real” world, brothers and sisters, was one Richard Milhous Nixon, one time President of the United States and a common criminal. Save your labor-socialist slogan for 1972 when one Hubert Horatio Humphrey was up for re-election and the stakes were not so high.
Yes, it was that bad, bourgeois democratic politics bad. I started the year with my beloved bad boy, badass Irish boy, Robert Kennedy- the last time that I was mad for a bourgeois candidate as I have mentioned previously. But due to that man, that Nixon man, and the need to beat him at all costs (and to begin to make my way in the maze of upwardly mobile bourgeois politics) I worked, and worked hard by the way, for HHH.
Of course that was a time, a time out of joint if you will, when my politics, my politics on the ground, were out of synch, way out of synch, with my organizational affiliations. I was no crypto-communist, no question, but neither was I a Democratic Party hack. So it is possible to learn something in this wicked old world. And that something is that in the “real world” we desperately need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. See, easy.
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For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968
Spartacist number 11, March-April 1968
The 1968 elections come at a time of enormous discontent over the Vietnam war, deeply-felt and violent outbursts of disillusionment among the Negro masses, and an upsurge in labor militancy and rash of hard-fought strikes. The exposure of the Democratic Party as the party of savage racist oppression in the American cities and imperialist intervention in Vietnam sharply poses the necessity of a break with the two capitalist parties in favor of a Freedom-Labor Party based on a working-class program which can link up the issues of the war, the ghetto and the labor struggle. The 1968 Presidential elections offer the best opportunity in 20 years for the intervention of radicals in the electoral arena through the form of a labor-socialist ticket—to consist for example of a local trade union leader and a socialist, one of whom might well be black—which could build wide support for a decisive break with capitalist politics and lay the basis for a movement to struggle for a Freedom-Labor Party.
Need for a Working-Class Party
The United States is the only advanced capitalist country which does not have some kind of mass party of the working class. The need for such a party of working-class struggle has long been recognized by Marxists and was included as one of the basic points of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. The increasing recognition of the role of the Democratic Party in the maintenance of the capitalist status quo poses this question sharply as the necessary consequence not only of the objective situation but of needs which are becoming widely subjectively felt by broad sections of the population—student radicals, ghetto militants and now, following a period of relative labor quiescence, sections of the working class.
Yet the American Left, faced with such immense possibilities for the intervention of a radical program, exhibits increasingly its lack of any perspective for this period and turns more and more to passive enthusing and mindless activism combined with an essential cynicism toward a relevant perspective for social change.
American radicalism has long been confronted by the seemingly permanent situation of a working class which has shown itself, even in periods of great militancy and willingness to fight for economic demands, politically pragmatic and complacent, with an explicit philosophy, on the political scene, which is essentially passive—"rewarding the (so-called) friends of labor and punishing its enemies." Such a situation, of course, is not an abstract and a priori phenomenon, but exists in the context of the historic betrayals and misleaderships of the working class by those who presumed to speak in the name of radicalism. One of the healthy features of the New Left movement, and certainly one of the formative factors of its ideology, has been the rejection of the example of the old Communist Party—the New Left generalizes this to "the Old Left"—with its history of capitulationist politicking which found its clearest expression in the support of Roosevelt and the New Deal and continues today as the "Reform Democrat" orientation.
Political Struggle, Not Abstentionism
But the New Left, while presuming to have rejected this approach to radical politics, has actually taken over one of the basic underlying conceptions of this outlook—the equating of struggle on the political front with cynical maneuvering toward the various enemies of the working class. The New Left has instead embraced a concept of non-political and even anti-political militancy and activism. It mindlessly throws its energies into self-destructive physical "confrontation" with the "war-makers" and passively and enthusiastically applauds the directionless and programless ghetto outbursts which leave the situation of the black masses unchanged. The New Left rejects out of hand the possibility for working-class struggle, viewing the political passivity of the workers as given, rather than the result of the absence of a revolutionary leadership. By rejecting an orientation to revolutionary political struggle, the New Left dooms its efforts to failure, and its cadres to disillusionment and disorganization. Impatience and cynicism do not make a program.
The result of this rejection of any kind of political struggle by the radicals is the continuation of the reformist status quo. The recognition of the need for political struggle and the utilization of this recognition remains in the hands of the reformist fakers, best exemplified by Irving Howe and his ilk, to whom politics is synonymous with "coalitionism." The demonstrated militancy of the trade unions remains tied to the liberal trade union bureaucracies; the black ghetto, despite its deep disgust with and rejection of the liberal establishment, still votes Democratic at election time. All opportunity for political struggle remains the monopoly of those whose only concept of politics is maneuvering within the capitalist system.
Failure of the CNP
The spectacular failure of the Conference for New Politics only serves to demonstrate this lack of a political perspective for the radical movement. The participants at the Conference were unable to distinguish between independent working-class politics and the use of the forms of independence to further the aims of coalition politics within the system. Common to all the competing political alternatives was the attempt to build an outside base of a temporary sort from which to exert pressure within the existing framework. With the limits of such a perspective, the radicals were unable to break from those whose aims are an admittedly temporary break with the Democratic Party because its naked exposure as the primary tool of racist brutality and imperialist slaughter is an embarrassment and a threat to the maintenance of capitalist rule. Those at the Conference who were perhaps opposed to this underlying conception of political action could see no alternative but the diffuse and unrewarding perspective of "community organizing" without a program.
SWP’s Opportunism
The announced presidential campaign of the Socialist Workers Party in the 1968 elections must be seen in this context. The whole role of the SWP in radical politics has been to reinforce the fragmentation of current struggles into isolated compartments of militancy, without a perspective for linking up these struggles into an anti-capitalist one. While the SWP gives lip service to some acceptable demands and even includes in its formal program the call for a labor party, it accepts the present vacuum on the left as given and, instead of intervening to change it, actually seeks to head off the development of a broader perspective by jumping into the ring a year early in order to "cop the field" for its own candidates.
Towards a Labor Party!
The Spartacist League, at this juncture, calls for the formation of a broadly-based labor and socialist ticket, as a concrete step in the building of a political party of the U.S. working class. Such a campaign, which would link up the anti-war sentiment to which the SWP seeks to appeal with the broader felt needs of the masses, would transcend the sterile concept of a "protest vote" in posing the need for independent working-class political action on a real scale. The fight to build such a campaign would provide a focal point for rank-and-file struggle in the unions around the issues of the Vietnam war, the rights of black workers, union demands and strike struggles, rank-and-file control of the unions, the fight to break the unions’ reliance on and ties with the capitalist state, a fundamental break with the Democratic and Republican parties and the enfranchisement of the working people in a political party to fight for their needs. Out of this struggle could come the forerunner committees to a Labor Party.
Thus the Spartacist League does not at this point endorse any of the essentially defective variants, rather seeking to help shape a real alternative to capitalist politics. If this fuller perspective has not materialized by the summer of 1968, it would then be necessary to choose from among whatever supportable possibilities exist at that time. In the interim, we will seek to assist the SWP, as we might any tendency within the working-class movement, to meet the technicalities of ballot entry, while calling upon them to indicate their willingness to withdraw at least part of their ticket in favor of a labor-socialist one and to work for the formation of such a ticket.
FOR A LABOR-SOCIALIST TICKET IN ’68!
From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.)- "Stalinism And Trotskyism In Vietnam"- The Historic Perspective
On a day when we honor the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese against all-comers a little history of how things could have been is in order if we are to push forward in the world-wide struggle for communism.
Markin comment:
Earlier this month I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
Today I am starting what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
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Markin comment on this series on Vietnamese Trotskyism:
At the most fundamental level the struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism as it evolved out of the post-Bolshevik revolution Russian Communist Party inner-party disputes of the mid-1920s can be encapsulated in the differences between Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution and Stalin’s theory of socialism in one country. In short, this dispute within the ostensibly communist movement is the continuation of the historic struggle in the international working class movement, and particularly in its Marxist wing, between reform and revolution. As it turns out this inner- party dispute that started out as a simple verification of Trotsky’s theory, at first applied solely to Russia, that in the age of imperialism the international bourgeoisie, and its national components, including its colonial and semi-colonial dependents no longer could, or more to the point, wanted to lead bourgeois revolutions, as exemplified by the French revolution in the 18th century came to expressed a chasm between those, like Trotsky, who favored extending the Russian revolution internationally and those, like Stalin, who wanted the Communist International, and its national sections, to merely act as agents of Soviet foreign policy.
Nowhere is the contrast between those perspectives more clearly expressed than in the struggle for the Vietnamese revolution that was central to the world-wide left-wing political milieu in the 1960s when this writer came of political age. Many of us came to defend the Vietnamese revolution first as an example of the right to national self-determination for small countries oppressed by world imperialism. Some of us moved on to defend that revolution because it was led by Stalinists, the exemplars of two-stage revolution (first a separate democratic stage, and then seemingly never, a socialist stage) and kowtowed to every move that “Uncle” Ho (and his successors) publicized. And a few of us came to defend that revolution despite its Stalinist leadership, understanding that a military victory against American imperialism was critical for revolutionary strategy and that the creation of a unitary workers state , albeit in distorted form as in North Vietnam, was a historic accretion to the international working class movement.
World-wide in the 1920s and 1930s for many reasons, great and small, personal and political, the struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism was almost totally to the disadvantage of the latter. Vietnam, in the 1930s and 1940s, represented something of an exception. As the documentation provided in this series of articles points out it took the physical liquidation of the Vietnamese Trotskyism cadre (in its two competing tendencies) to break important segments of the Vietnamese working class and its allies from a Trotskyist perspective. Although, as the articles also point out, mistakes of political omission and commission were made the fallen Vietnamese comrades are worthy of honor in the history of revolutionary struggles. A truly fitting tribute to their struggles awaits a victorious workers revolution. Remember the Vietnamese Trotkyists! Remember Vietnamese Bolshevik martyr Ta Thu Thau!
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Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam
by John Sharpe
Written: 1973
Source: Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam, A Spartacist Pamphlet (Chapter I)
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: John Heckman.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2007. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/vietnam/trotskyism.html
[Editors’ Note: This article is little more than a sketch of the history of Vietnamese Trotskyism. Only a brief account of the movement and sporadic issues of its newspapers are available to us at this time. Nevertheless, the facts that are known serve to underline doubly the historic importance of the struggle for the Marxist program of permanent revolution, the struggle to resolve what Leon Trotsky referred to as the “crisis of revolutionary leadership.” The price of Stalinist betrayals is measured not only by their deliberate murder of hundreds of Trotskyist militants in the aftermath of the September 1945 insurrection (which the latter helped lead and the former helped defeat), but also by the subsequent deaths of more than two million Vietnamese workers and peasants in their heroic battle against French and U.S. imperialism. Most of these could have been avoided if the Stalinists, and in the first instance Ho Chi Minh, had not been able to sell out the struggle at crucial periods with their policies of appeasement of the bourgeoisie.]
As was the case throughout the world, the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam was forged in the struggle against the errors and betrayals of the Stalinists. However, unlike most other areas, the Vietnamese supporters of the Fourth International succeeded in achieving a mass base during the late 1930’s. In fact, both of the competing groups claiming to be Trotskyist were publishing daily newspapers before or just after World War II.
Nevertheless, both groups, the centrist La Lutte group led by Ta Thu Thau, and the more leftist International Communist League (the October group) led by Ho Huu Thuong, were paralyzed by French repression and ultimately decapitated by the Stalinists. These defeats were in part the result of certain erroneous policies, notably a tendency toward perpetual united fronts with the Stalinists and a failure to draw a sharp line against popular fronts. We honor the memory of these martyrs and their determined battle against French colonialism and against reformism in the workers movement, but we must also learn from their mistakes.
Formation of the Indochinese Communist Party
The history of the Vietnamese Stalinist movement is inseparably bound up with the life of Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh), its founder and principal leader.
He emerged as one of the leaders of the Communist International in the Far East after his journey to Moscow in 1923 as the delegate of the French CP to the “Peasant International” and his participation in the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, where he delivered a report on the colonial question. An important factor in his development was the fact that he became involved in the Comintern only after it had already begun to degenerate seriously under the Stalin-Zinoviev leadership. The “Peasant International,” for example, was one of Zinoviev’s more dubious maneuvers, designed to seduce populist peasant leaders such as the Croatian Radič into support for Russia. Not only was it a phantom organization from the beginning, but it was necessarily based on Stalin’s policies of the “democratic dictatorship of the peasantry and proletariat.” For Marxists, who seek to organize the workers’ international, there could be no question of building a peasants’ international, that is, of organizing another class.
Nguyen Ai Quoc also participated in the “Intercolonial Union,” which included several left bourgeois nationalists from the Middle East, hardly a model of communist organization. Thus it is not surprising that when he reached Canton in 1925 as an associate of Borodin (chief Comintern representative in China at the time) he set up not a communist party, but instead a socialist-oriented nationalist grouping, the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association (Viet Nam Cach Menh Thanh Nien Hoi, or Thanh Nien for short).
This was the kind of “Marxism” which Nguyen Ai Quoc learned from Stalin, who at the time was instructing the Chinese Communist Party to liquidate itself into Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, turning over membership lists and even arms to these “anti-imperialists.” Shortly after Stalin made him an honorary member of the Communist International, Chiang turned on his Communist allies and butchered thousands of militant workers in Shanghai in April 1927.
Despite this graphic object lesson in the consequences of opportunist policies (as a result of which he had to leave first Canton and then later Hankow also), Nguyen Ai Quoc refused to learn. Thus for the first several years the Thanh Nien concentrated on consummating a fusion (which never came off) with the strictly bourgeois Revolutionary Party of New Vietnam (the Tan Viet). At the first congress of the Thanh Nien in May 1929, his supporters on the presiding committee obstinately opposed the formation of an explicitly communist party. A minority, small (3 out of 17 delegates) but influential (it was the entire delegation from the interior), walked out of the congress and set up the Indochinese Communist Party (Don Duong Cong San Dang), sharply condemning the Thanh Nien leadership as petty-bourgeois nationalists.[1]
The new party experienced immediate success, appearing to the masses as the more revolutionary of the two, so in August the Thanh Nien switched gears and set up the Vietnamese Communist Party (Annam Cong San Dang). This was in part the result of Stalin’s “left turn” internationally (the so-called “Third Period”), as the Comintern had refused membership to the Thanh Nien, called for the formation of a unified CP and criticized the program of the Nguyen Ai Quoc faction. The unified party, also called the Indochinese Communist Party, was formed in October 1930 and affiliated to the Third International the following April.
The first Communist efforts were directed at spearheading a desperate peasants’ revolt centering on central Vietnam during 1930-31. In the Annamese provinces of Ha Tinh and Nghe-An the ICP broke up the large estates and set up peasant “Soviets” on the order of the border-region Soviets set up by Mao in southeastern China during the period 1927-29. Like the latter, however, they were brutally liquidated by the government forces.
In contrast to its adventuristic policies in the countryside, the CP tactics in the cities were restricted to “democratic” demands and “peaceful” demonstrations, thus leaving the masses unprepared for the bloody repression by the French colonial regime. Mercenary soldiers machine-gunned the defenseless masses, as the Foreign Legion terrorized the Annam peasant districts which had risen in revolt. The repression cost the lives of some 10,000 workers and peasants, with another 50,000 deported to the prisons at Poulo Condor. In June 1931 the Central Committee of the ICP was arrested in Saigon.
Formation of the Trotskyist Groups
It was in these circumstance that the two principal groups claiming to support Trotskyism were formed, the Nhom Thang Muoi (October) group and the La Lutte (Struggle) group. The International Communist League, usually called the October group after the name of its newspaper, Thang Muoi, was led by Ho Huu Thuong and founded in 1931. Due to the fact that it was illegal to publish left newspapers in Vietnamese, this group led a clandestine existence from 1931 to 1936 when the popular front led to a slight liberalization. It went over to a weekly legal French paper, Le Militant, in 1937, which, however, was prosecuted and then banned. They reverted to a semi-legal paper before beginning publication of what was probably the first daily Trotskyist paper in the world (Gerry Healy, please note), the Tia Sang (Spark), in 1939. Due to its clandestine existence, its more leftist positions and the fact that its material was published mainly in Vietnamese, little is known about Ho Huu Thuong’s group. What is known is that it opposed the united front between the Stalinists and the Thau group which lasted from 1933 to 1937.
The other group was centered around the person of Ta Thu Thau, a student returned from Paris who had been active in the Left Opposition in France. Its leadership had been arrested in August 1932 during the White Terror and tried in May 1933. However, some of the comrades were liberated in early 1933 and formed a united front with the Stalinists in Saigon led by Tran Van Giau in order to present working-class candidates in the May 1933 elections to the Saigon city council. Their official joint newspaper was called La Lutte (Struggle).
The coalition had an enormous electoral success. On the first ballot (of two rounds, as in France), the candidate of La Lutte with the least votes still received more votes than the leading bourgeois candidate. On the second ballot, two working-class candidates were elected, the Stalinist Nguyen Van Tao and the Trotskyist Tran Van Trach. The coalition continued its existence and joint newspaper until 1937. The united front was limited to the legal activities, while the illegal organizations of both groups operated separately.
It is unclear whether this united front was simply a no-contest pact, or involved joint propaganda around a lowest common denominator program [see Letter]. If it were the latter, this would certainly represent an opportunist retreat from one of the basic principles of Leninism, the need for the independent organization of the vanguard. A common program obliterates the line between Bolshevism and centrism. In any case, by its very nature, a joint newspaper and an ongoing united front could only lead to political confusion in the minds of the masses and the cadre themselves. Why was there a division between Trotskyists and Stalinists if the two could work together for years, the workers would ask? Moreover, for a period at the beginning of the French popular front, the Stalinists monopolized the newspaper and thereby effectively suppressed the objections to this class-collaboration by the Ta Thu Thau group.
The Thang Muoi group of Ho Huu Thuong, however, was opposed to any collaboration with the Stalinists and restricted itself to underground work in this period. To oppose limited joint actions directed against the bourgeoisie and the colonial regime, for instance common demonstrations or in certain circumstances a no-contest agreement in elections, is to attempt to raise a Chinese wall between the revolutionaries and the workers in reformist or centrist organizations and to weaken the proletariat in its battle against the common class enemy. The united front tactic is a permissible “compromise” where it is possible to draw a class line. But things were quite different during the popular front.
The Popular Front
With the formation of the Radical-Socialist-Communist popular front in 1935, the Stalinists made a sharp turn to the right, forming their own Indochinese popular front. They allied themselves not only with the Vietnamese section of the SFIO (Socialists), but with bourgeois nationalists such as Nguyen Pham Long and Bui Quang Chien, whom the joint Stalinist-Trotskyist La Lutte had bitterly denounced a few years earlier. Not content to form an alliance with the “progressive” comprador bourgeoisie, the ICP went even further and, according to the Stalinist historian Le Thanh Khoi, “broadened” the popular front to include monarchist parties![2]
Under Stalinist editorship, La Lutte greeted the appointment of the socialist Maurius Moutet as Colonial Minister of the popular front Blum government. A few short weeks after this welcome, Moutet telegraphed officials in Saigon (September 1936): “You will maintain public order by all legitimate and legal means, even by the prosecution of those who attempt to make trouble if this should prove necessary.... French order must reign in Indochina as elsewhere.”[3] The Stalinist members of the Saigon city council went so far as to actually vote for military special taxes for “French national defense”![4] Clearly, such taxes could only be used directly against the Vietnamese peasants and workers, as indeed they were soon afterwards.
As the French historian Devillers put it, “in these conditions the break with the Trotskyists became inevitable.” By allowing Tran Van Giau and the Stalinists control of the paper, the Ta Thu Thau group was able to continue the united front through the April 1937 elections, in which one Trotskyist (Thau) and two Stalinists (Nguyen Van Tao and Duong Bach Mai) were elected to Saigon city council on the joint ticket.
But in June 1937, the Trotskyists around Thau took editorial control of La Lutte, which assumed a distinctly different posture, fomenting strikes and mass protests, along with Le Militant, the legal paper of the Ho Huu Thuong group.
Thau launched the new line with an editorial entitled “The Popular Front of Treason,” which got him two years in jail as a reward from the authorities.[5]
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—from “Action Program,” LA LUTTE, No. 213, 14 April 1939
1. Fight against war preparations, break the blockade which is strangling the Chinese revolution and favoring Japanese imperialism through mass action, through boycotting Japanese merchandise.
2. For direct action to force promulgation of social legislation in Indochina: a 40-hour law, collective bargaining, control over hiring and firing, sliding scale of wages.
3. Against the fascists, form action committees in factories, the civil service and the army to throw out fascist personnel and have them fired.
4. Against the Stalinists who preach “voluntary” submission! Popularize the slogan: “Unconditional National Independence.”
5. Build real alliances of workers, peasants and the middle classes in action committees, in factories, in neighborhoods, among peasants and soldiers to prepare for the workers and peasants government, to expropriate the capitalists and feudalists and to assure the well-being, peace and freedom for all workers—in factories, offices, fields, commerce and the army.
Down with the Fascists, Capitalists and Feudalists!
Down with the Stalinist Leaders, Lackeys of Imperialism!
Long Live a May 1st Dedicated to Class Struggle!
Long Live the Fourth International!
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During this time the Stalinists were concentrating their efforts on building an alliance with bourgeois constitutionalists, the “lndochinese Congress.” Breaking out of the limited electoral campaigns (the eligible voters included only about 40,000 or roughly 1% of the adult population), the Trotskyists. in contrast, utilized the limited freedoms introduced by the Blum government to push mass agitation in strike movements, campaigns against the repression and in favor of the right to unionization, the bête noir of the colonialists. The Trotskyists also set up “action committees” of labor and peasant organizations, as did the Stalinists. Due to their success, especially in the Saigon area, these committees were rapidly banned and brutally repressed by the French governor. In the rural areas, La Lutte initiated agitation around the demand of “Land to the Poor Peasants,” a clear class program as opposed to the “broad national union” being pushed by the Stalinists.
In the 1939 elections to the Colonial Council of Cochin China, the La Lutte group capitalized on this agitational work and managed to win a resounding victory, with more than 80% of the votes going to their candidates. The masses, faced with the choice between support for French colonialism by the Stalinists and a credible Trotskyist opposition fighting on a working-class program, overwhelmingly chose the latter. In consequence, shortly thereafter, the Indochinese Communist Party in Cochin China (southern Vietnam) split, the official party being headed by Duong Bach Mai and the dissidents regrouping around Nguyen Van Tao.
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from Ho Chi Minh, “The Party’s Line in the Period of the Democratic Front,” July 1939
1. For the time being, the Party cannot put forth too high a demand (national independence, parliament, etc.). To do so is to enter the Japanese fascists’ scheme. It should only claim for democratic rights....
2. To reach this goal, the Party must strive to organize a broad Democratic National Front. This Front does not embrace only Indochinese people but also progressive French residing in Indochina, not only toiling people but also the national bourgeoisie.
3. The Party must assume a wise, flexible attitude with the bourgeoisie, strive to draw it into the Front, win over the elements that can be won over and neutralize those which can be neutralized. We must by all means avoid leaving them outside the Front, lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy of the revolution and increase the strength of the reactionaries.
4. There cannot be any alliance with or any concession to the Trotskyite group. We must do everything possible to lay bare their faces as henchmen of the fascists and annihilate them politically....
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The polemics between the two competing groups supporting the Fourth International became increasingly sharp during this period. The Ta Thu Thau group, the official section of the FI, accused the Ho Huu Thuong group of “inventing” its opposition to the united front with the Stalinists years after it was first formed, which is almost certainly not true [see Corrections]. However, Thau also condemned them for advocating a joint La Lutte and Stalinist ticket in the 1939 elections. At a time when the ICP was openly backing French imperialism and participating in a popular front (the Indochinese Congress), support for their ticket, however critical, was certainly a serious error. These were the same “communists” who were voting for “defense taxes” in the Saigon municipal council while the government was using the money to ship in tanks for use against Vietnamese workers and peasants.
On the other hand, while the Thang Muoi group did not score the electoral successes of La Lutte, it did manage to bring out its newspaper for some years in Vietnamese before the latter attempted this step and managed to put out a daily newspaper (Tia Sang, or Spark) during 1939.
While both groups made important errors during this period, and La Lutte appears to have had an overall moderate approach of a centrist character, both vigorously opposed French colonialism and stood sharply contrasted to the Stalinists during the crucial period. Their attraction of a mass base is a tribute to the Trotskyist politics of permanent revolution, even in a muted form.
However, the bourgeoisie regained the upper hand and from October 1939 to January 1940 managed to wipe out the entire legal organizations of both the Communist Party and the Trotskyists. The ICP survived this repression better than did the Trotskyist groups, partly because the latter were more of an immediate threat to the French in the south, partly because the CP cadre were able to retreat to China where (after a period in Kuomintang jails) they eventually received Chinese and U.S. aid and partly because the Stalinists had begun retreating to clandestinity as early as 1938.
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Saigon Insurrection 1945
—from Workers Vanguard No. 20, 11 May 1973
Immediately following World War II, the Stalinist and Trotskyist groups in Vietnam faced the crucial test of a revolutionary situation. The working masses rose up against the occupying imperialist powers (France, Japan and Britain), and at the same time against the landlords and the native bourgeoisie. While the Stalinists, led by Ho Chi Minh, succeeded in betraying and crushing the revolutionary upsurge, they were not able to prevent the Trotskyists of the International Communist League (ICL) from playing a heroic role during the few short weeks between their liberation from French prisons and the brutal repression of the Saigon insurrection of September 1945.
Against these Bolshevik-Leninists Ho Chi Minh resorted to the ultimate tactic of Stalinists everywhere: assassination. From Leon Trotsky, to the entire remaining Bolshevik Central Committee of 1917, to the thousands of Russian Left Oppositionists in the Siberian labor camps, to the heroic Spanish, French, German and Czech Trotskyists, to the Vietnamese supporters of the Fourth International (the ICL and the Struggle group), Stalinism carried out its murderous work. The Stalinist parasites came close to destroying the living continuity of the Marxist movement internationally, but they could not tarnish the revolutionary program of the Fourth International.
The Viet Minh in World War II
The dismissal of the French popular front government in 1938 rapidly led to the banning of the CP in France. As a consequence, beginning in September 1939 the French colonial government outlawed all socialist groups in Vietnam, throwing hundreds of supporters of the Fourth International into prison. Both the Struggle (La Lutte) group and the International Communist League were broken up by the ferocious repression.
While many members of the Stalinist Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) were also imprisoned, Ho Chi Minh and his central committee were able to obtain refuge in Kuomintang China. This was no accident, as the Stalinists supported the Allies in World War II (as did Chiang Kai-shek) and were willing to make an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. The Trotskyists, in contrast, took the Bolshevik position of revolutionary defeatism during the war, refusing to support any of the rival imperialist camps and their puppets. [see Corrections]
Beginning in September 1940, Japanese troops occupied Indochina, while the pro-Petain colonial government remained in place. The occupation was met in the south by a large-scale peasant uprising in the Mytho region, an uprising led by Stalinist and Trotskyist forces, in November 1940. This and other abortive revolts were brutally put down by the French Foreign Legion, with more than a thousand arrests. (The Indochinese CP subsequently condemned the uprising as premature and in typical Stalinist fashion executed two of the leaders and expelled others.)[6]
In May 1941, the ICP called a congress in southern China to found the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh for short). The program of the Viet Minh was that of a typical popular front, saying nothing of socialism, limiting itself to “democratic” demands, such as national independence and allying itself with the Allies against Japan and the pro-Petain French colonial government. Its main demands for the exploited peasants, for instance, were reduction of rents and prohibition of forced labor and usury, with no more than a vague mention of agrarian reform.[7]
Disintegration of the Franco-Japanese Regime
On 9 March 1945 the Japanese, under tremendous military pressure in the Pacific, moved to tighten their control over Vietnam by ousting the fictitious French colonial government and disarming and interning the French troops. As a consequence of this move, however, bourgeois order began to deteriorate, allowing left wing groups to expand their activities clandestinely. The Viet Minh, which under Ho’s instructions had avoided military operations up to now, established a guerrilla base along the Chinese border in the north.
Meanwhile, the Trotskyists had begun to regroup. The International Communist League was reconstituted in Saigon in August 1944 with only several dozen members. However, among these were five founders of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement, each having at least 12 years’ experience of revolutionary struggle, and several experienced cadre formerly from the Hanoi section. After the March 1945 Japanese takeover, the ICL issued a manifesto calling for preparation for the imminent revolution:
“The capitalists and feudalists who today serve the Japanese general staff will also serve the Allied imperialist states. The petty bourgeois nationalists with their adventurist policies will also be unable to lead the people to a revolutionary victory. Only the working class fighting independently under the banner of the Fourth International, can accomplish the tasks of the vanguard of the revolution.
“The Stalinists of the Third International have already abandoned the working class in order to capitulate miserably before the ‘democratic’ imperialists. They have betrayed the peasants by no longer talking about the agrarian question. If they are marching today with the foreign capitalists, they will also aid the domestic exploiting classes to crush the revolutionary people in the coming hours.
“Workers and peasants! Assemble under the banner of the party of the Fourth International!”
—Manifesto of the ICL, 24 March 1945
In the meantime, the petty-bourgeois independence parties and the quasi-political religious sects were floundering without direction. The Cao Dai sect (a peasant grouping with a mystical Christian-Buddhist-Confucian ideology) had supported the French during the 1930’s and then the Japanese during the war. Now, however, the leadership continued to support Japan while the ranks were openly revolting. The Hoa Hao, whose poor peasant and proletarian members were aroused by the prospect of independence, were forced to oppose the French. The Vietnamese Kuomintang, the VNQDD, while barely existing as an organized movement, had retained some support among the petty bourgeoisie because of its unsuccessful uprising in 1930 and also opposed the re-establishment of French rule.
While such bourgeois nationalist groups may oppose one or another foreign imperialist, they are not opposed to imperialism as a system, and therefore they must oppose the struggle of the working masses for their liberation from capitalist exploitation. It will sometimes be necessary for workers’ organizations to enter into limited, essentially technical or military agreements with a section of the bourgeoisie for joint action in a particular struggle, but it is a betrayal of Marxism to form a strategic alliance or long-term bloc with any bourgeois formation.
However, in spite of their claim to support the program of the Fourth International, the centrist Struggle (La Lutte) group formed just such a bloc, founding the “National United Front” together with the VNQDD, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao! This “Trotskyist”-bourgeois-feudal popular front effectively erased the class line separating exploiter and exploited. With its “democratic” program limited to national independence it was impossible to distinguish from the Viet Minh!
The August Days
On 16 August 1945 the news of the defeat of Japan reached Indochina. The following day the Japanese general staff declared the countries of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) independent. The rapidity of the surrender surprised everyone. The Viet Minh, however, had already convened a congress which the same day formed a People’s National Liberation Committee as a provisional government. Everywhere they moved rapidly to fill the governmental void, simply taking over the apparatus of the former Franco-Japanese colonial regime. Viet Minh troops rapidly occupied Hanoi without opposition from the Japanese. Seeking to avoid any appearance of revolution, the Viet Minh asked for and received the abdication of Bao Dai, the traditional emperor, who was henceforth “Supreme Political Advisor” of the new government. [See Letter]
In a significant gesture, Ho drafted (together with U.S. advisors) a Declaration of Independence, which begins by quoting the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, two of the key documents of the bourgeois revolution. According to the Stalinist theory of revolution in stages, to call for socialism at this point would have been “premature,” as the defeat of the feudalists and imperialists was the immediate task. The reality of this “theory” was revealed by Ho’s appeal to the French a month earlier for independence within the French Union in “not less than 5 and not more than 10 years,” and by the agreement signed in Hanoi in early 1946 which permitted the reintroduction of French troops!
In the South, events moved at a somewhat different pace due to the relative weakness of the Stalinists. On 19 August the workers of the Ban Co district of Saigon formed the first People’s Committee of the South. The following day a similar committee in the Phu Nhuan district, the largest workers’ district of Saigon, took over governmental power. In the countryside the peasants rose up at the same time, burning villas of the large landowners, as well as several rice mills, in Sadec province on 19 August. In the province of Long Xuyen alone more than 200 government officials and police were killed by peasants in the first days after the Japanese surrender.
On 21 August the National United Front called an independence demonstration which attracted more than 300,000 participants. The Hoa Hao and Cao Dai marched behind the monarchist flag with a delegation of 100,000. The Trotskyists of the International Communist League represented the other main pole of attraction in the march. Behind a huge banner of the Fourth International came a series of placards and banners with the ICL’s main slogans: “Down with Imperialism! Long Live World Revolution! Long Live the Workers and Peasants Front! People’s Committees Everywhere! Toward the Popular Assembly! Long Live the Arming of the People! Land to the Peasants! Nationalization of the Factories under Workers Control! Toward the Workers and Peasants Government!” As the banner of the Fourth International appeared, hundreds and thousands of workers who had never forgotten the revolutionary movement of the 1930’s flocked behind it, embracing old friends, fighting over who would have the honor of carrying this or that placard, saluting each other with clenched fists. In a matter of a few hours the contingent of the ICL grew to 30,000. The Cao Dai and Hoa Hao peasants, against the discipline of their leaders, applauded the banner of the Fourth International each time it passed and listened attentively to the Trotskyist orators’ agitational speeches on the national and peasant questions.[8]
The Viet Minh Coup d’Etat
Faced with the growing mass upsurge, the Stalinist leadership of the Viet Minh began to move quickly to take power. Their primary tactic was to present themselves as the legitimate representatives of the victorious allies. Thus, in a Viet Minh proclamation on 23 August, Tran Van Giau, the top southern Stalinist, proclaimed: “We have fought for five years alongside the democratic allies....” The previous evening, Giau had issued an ultimatum to a meeting of the National United Front calling on it to dissolve itself and turn over its administrative posts to the Viet Minh. The next day the NUF disbanded and joined the Viet Minh. (As a crowning touch to the betrayals of the Struggle group, which had set up the NUF as a “Trotskyist” popular front, they were accorded a seat on the “Southern Committee” of the Viet Minh on 10 September 1945!)[9]
The ICL was hardly inactive during this period, setting up a printing shop, issuing bulletins to the population every three hours and forming military units as a step toward arming the workers.
But the Stalinists moved faster. At 5 a.m. on 25 August the Viet Minh carried out a bloodless coup, occupying the city hall and police stations. Behind the backs of the masses, and with the participation of the bourgeois nationalists (Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, VNQDD), the Stalinists simply took over the existing state machinery and installed a new bonapartist bourgeois regime. Later that day the Viet Minh called a mammoth demonstration with more than one million participants. More than 30 political associations were present, but the outstanding forces were grouped behind the Stalinists and the ICL. With the break-up of the Japanese administration, the police itself divided into two sections, the majority supporting the Viet Minh, but a minority marching behind the banner of the Fourth International! The ICL delegation was noticeably smaller (only 2,000 marchers) than in the previous demonstration but this time many ICL supporters were marching with their trade union contingents.
By this time the difference between the Trotskyists and Stalinists was posed with razor sharpness. Two days after the coup, Nguyen Van Tao, now Minister for the Interior of the Viet Minh regime, issued a menacing challenge to the ICL: “Whoever encourages the peasants to take over the landed properties will be severely and pitilessly punished.... We have not yet carried out a communist revolution, which would bring a solution to the agrarian problem. This government is only a democratic [!] government, and therefore it cannot undertake this task. I repeat, our government is a democratic and bourgeois government, even though the Communists are in power.”[10] One could hardly ask for more clarity!
Military Support to the Viet Minh
Faced with this bonapartist bourgeois government, the Trotskyists of the International Communist League correctly adopted the position of an anti-imperialist united front. While Stalinists and ex-Trotskyist revisionists (such as the Bolivian POR) have used this slogan as an excuse for forming a political bloc with bourgeois nationalists, the ICL had the Leninist policy of political independence of the workers movement from the bourgeois regime, but military support against the imperialist (British-Japanese-French) forces. While the Stalinists called for “All Power to the Viet Minh,” the Trotskyists called for “All Power to the People’s Committees.”
Following Tao’s press conference, the Viet Minh cranked up an incessant anti-Trotskyist campaign in its press, accusing the supporters of the Fourth International of sowing disorder. On 1 September Tran Van Giau declared: “Those who incite the people to arm themselves will be considered saboteurs and provocateurs, enemies of national independence. Our democratic liberties will be granted and guaranteed by the democratic allies.”
While Ho Chi Minh was reading the Declaration of Independence in Hanoi, the southern Viet Minh organized a demonstration on 2 September to greet the British troops which were to arrive imminently. Late in the afternoon more than 400,000 persons joined in a peaceful demonstration proceeding to the Cathedral. As a priest known as sympathetic to the Vietnamese was speaking from the steps of the Cathedral, shots rang out and he was killed. The crowd ran for cover, but more than 150 were wounded in the shooting which followed. The situation developed into a generalized riot, with attacks on French colons suspected of responsibility for the criminal attacks on the demonstration. A number of French were arrested, but then immediately released the next day by the Stalinist police chief Duong Bach Mai, who issued a statement “deploring” the “excesses.”
In response to the events of 2 September the Stalinists and Trotskyists issued two clearly counterposed appeals. As the British troops under General Gracey were expected to arrive any day, the Viet Minh proclaimed:
“In the interests of our country, we call on everyone to have confidence in us and not let themselves be led astray by people who betray our country. It is only in this spirit that we can facilitate our relations with the Allied representatives.”
—leaflet of 7 September 1945
In contrast the ICL declared:
“We, internationalist communists, have no illusions that the Viet Minh government will be capable, with its class collaborationist policies, of fighting successfully against the imperialist invasions in the coming hours. However, if it declares itself ready to defend national independence and to safeguard the people’s liberties, we will not hesitate to aid it and to support it with all technical means in the revolutionary struggles. But in return we must repeat that we will strictly observe the absolute independence of our party with respect to the government and all the political parties, because the very existence of a party calling itself Bolshevik-Leninist depends entirely on this political independence.”
—communiqué of 4 September 1945
The People’s Committees
Under the influence of the ICL, during the three weeks after 16 August more than 150 “People’s Committees” (To Chuc Uy Banh Hanh Dong) were set up in the Nam Bo (southern Vietnam), approximately 100 of them in the Saigon-Cholon region. A Provisional Central Committee composed of 9 members (later expanded to 15) was constituted after the 21 August demonstration.
The question of the historical role of these “people’s committees” is of paramount importance to revolutionary Trotskyists. In the Quatrième Internationale article cited earlier, “Lucien” (a Vietnamese leader of the ICL) writes: “The ICL led the revolutionary masses through the intermediary of the People’s Committees. Despite its numerical weakness, the ICL achieved, for the first time in the history of the Indochinese revolution the grandiose historic task of creating the People’s Committee or Soviet.”[11]
The ICL and the People’s Committees did consistently call for political opposition to the bourgeoisie. Thus the People’s Committees gave no political support to the bourgeois Viet Minh government, while calling for a military bloc against the invading Allies (which the Viet Minh naturally rejected, since its policy was to greet the Allies). The ICL called for the arming of the working masses and took practical steps to carry this out. The ICL slogans called not for a “democratic” revolution limited to national independence, but also for expropriation of industry under workers control.
Nevertheless, the very term “People’s” Committee obscures the need for the independent mobilization of the proletariat as a separate class. While an alliance with the peasantry and sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie against imperialism and semi-feudal landowners is a burning necessity, this alliance must be based first of all on the independent organization of the working class. In predominantly peasant countries, indiscriminate mobilization of the “people” guarantees the domination of the unstable petty bourgeoisie over the working class. The necessary alliance of workers and peasants Soviets must destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a workers state.
These general considerations had an immediate practical consequence. While the People’s Committees refused the ultimatums of the Viet Minh to subordinate themselves to the bonapartist regime, the class difference between the two powers was not always clear to the masses. The People’s Committees, especially in Saigon, were essentially organs of workers power, while the Southern Committee government of the Viet Minh was a popular front regime based on the existing bourgeois state. But to the masses this appeared simply as the difference between two “people’s governments,” one dominated by the Stalinists, the other by Trotskyists. Between these two state powers a violent clash was inevitable but by calling for People’s Committees the Trotskyists of the ICL failed to adequately prepare the masses politically for the impending battle.
Massacre of the Trotskyists
The inevitable clash soon took form. On 7 September Giau issued a decree ordering the disarming of all non-governmental organizations. All weapons were to be turned over to the Viet Minh’s “Republican Guard.” This affected the religious sects but also the “vanguard youth organizations” and factory-based self-defense groups led by the Trotskyists. The most important such group was the workers militia jointly organized by the workers of the Go Vap streetcar depot and the ICL. The militia issued an appeal to the workers of Saigon-Cholon to arm themselves for the struggle against the inevitable British-French invasion.
The British and Indian troops under General Gracey arrived in Saigon on 10 September. Along the road from the airport the Viet Minh had put up banners and slogans welcoming the Allies; at city hall Allied flags were flying on both sides of the Viet Minh flag. The Viet Minh “Southern Committee” sat inside doing its paper work, while the British proceeded to eliminate its power in the city. Gracey, who only a few weeks earlier had declared, “The question of the government of Indochina is exclusively French,” banned the Vietnamese press, proclaimed martial law and imposed a strict curfew. All demonstrations were forbidden as was the carrying of any arms, including bamboo sticks.
On 12 September the People’s Committees and the ICL issued a joint manifesto denouncing the policy of treason of the Viet Minh government. Popular discontent was seething in the workers’ districts. Faced with the likelihood of insurrection, the Viet Minh moved to behead it. At 4 p.m. on 14 September Duong Bach Mai, Stalinist head of the police, sent a detachment of Republican Guards to surround the local of the People’s Council which was in session at the time. Incredibly, the Trotskyists simply gave up to these butchers! In the words of the ICL account:
“We conducted ourselves as true revolutionary militants. We let ourselves be arrested without using violence against the police, even though we were more numerous and all well armed. They took our machine guns and automatic pistols. They sacked our office, breaking furniture, ripping our flags, stealing the typewriters and burning all our papers.”[12]
By this single act of cowardice, the ICL leadership sealed its own doom and that of the first Vietnamese revolution. Behind such a capitulation must have lain a serious misunderstanding of the true nature of Stalinism. It is true that during the 1930’s the southern leaders of the ICP were in a long-term bloc with the Struggle group, and showed themselves to be somewhat more “leftist” than Ho. But this was only a tactical adaptation to the presence of significant Trotskyist forces. In a similar fashion the Bolivian CP agreed to form the Popular Assembly in 1971 along with the “Trotskyist” POR, but only in order to better betray it. A proof that this was only a temporary aberration is given by the Stalinists’ own criticism of the southern party for its “leftist deviations... its underestimation of the Trotskyist danger and its unprincipled cooperation with the Trotskyists”[13] in the popular front period.
(Among the ICL leaders who were shot as a result of the Stalinist coup were Lo Ngoc, member of the central committee of the ICL; Nguyen Van Ky, ICL labor leader; and Nguyen Huong, young leader of the workers militia, killed by the Stalinist police in July 1946.)
By 22 September the British had sufficiently fortified their position to try an open test of strength. The British took over the Saigon jail, while the French troops of the 11th Colonial Infantry were armed. The French colons went wild later that day, arresting, beating and killing innumerable Vietnamese. During the following night French troops reoccupied several police stations, the post office, central bank and town hall, all without armed resistance.
As the news reached the working-class districts a spontaneous movement of resistance broke out. The Viet Minh opposed “violence,” instead trying to obtain “negotiations” with General Gracey. In the outlying suburbs trees were felled, cars and trucks overturned and furniture piled up in the street creating crude barricades. During this time the workers’ suburbs (Khanh Hoi, Cau Kho, Ban Co, Phu Nhuan, Tan Dinh and Thi Nghe) were firmly in the insurgents’ hands. In some areas French were shot indiscriminately in an outburst of racial hatred, the result of 80 years of brutal colonial domination. In the center several important factories and warehouses were burned down, and the port was under continuous attack. Water and electricity were cut off completely and supplies were precarious. The following day the Vietnamese insurgents openly paraded in the main streets of the city center.
The most significant organized contingent in the insurrection was the workers militia of the Go Vap streetcar depot, a force of 60. The 400 workers of the company were well known for their labor militancy. While affiliated to the Stalinist-dominated labor federation, they refused to use the label of Cong Nhan Cuu Quoc (“Workers Saviors of the Fatherland”), and refused to carry the Viet Minh flag (yellow star on a red background), saying they would fight instead under the red flag of the workers. The force was organized into shock groups of 11 members under elected leaders, with the overall command headed by Tranh Dinh Minh. a young ICL leader and novelist formerly from Hanoi.
(Faced with the joint opposition of the Allies and the Viet Minh police, the Go Vap workers militia tried to open a line of retreat to regroup in the Plaine des Joncs area. After several battles with the French and Indian troops they reached the regroupment area, where they established contact with the poor peasants. Already having lost 20 men, and on 13 January 1946 its leader Minh, in battle against the imperialist forces, the militia was eventually overwhelmed, several of its members stabbed to death by Viet Minh bands.)
In this revolutionary atmosphere the Viet Minh Committee of the South issued its appeal: “there is only one answer—a food blockade.” Futilely hoping to starve out the French (while British ships controlled the port!), Giau concentrated on negotiations with the British. A truce was announced on 1 October, but by 5 October General Leclerc and the French expeditionary force arrived and rapidly moved to “restore order” and “build a strong Indochina within the French Union.”[14] The truce was the best present the beleaguered French and British troops could have received, an obscene betrayal of the insurgent masses.
While the Viet Minh continued its policy of appeasing the Allies, agreeing to allow free passage to British and Japanese troops through rebel areas, the French and Indian troops launched a general attack to the northeast, thus breaking the blockade of the city. Instead of fighting back, the Stalinists concentrated their efforts on eliminating the Trotskyists. Having eliminated the ICL and the People’s Committee leadership on 14 September, they now moved on the Struggle (La Lutte) group and, surrounding its headquarters in the Thu Duc area, they arrested the entire group and interned them at Ben Suc. There they were all shot as French troops approached. Among those thus murdered were Tran Van Thach (elected a Saigon municipal councillor in the 1933 elections), Phan Van Hum, Nguyen Van So and tens of other revolutionary militants. Shortly after this the Viet Minh were forced out of Saigon.
Ho Sells Out to the French
In the North, Ho was following a similar policy of capitulating to the Allies, in this case the Chinese and French. However, the process took considerably longer than in the South, as the first Chinese troops did not arrive until late September, giving the Viet Minh time to consolidate its rule. Also, the Viet Minh had its own makeshift guerrilla army in the North, and the Chinese were not actively opposed to an independent Vietnam. In line with this policy of “broadening” the coalition to include bourgeois nationalists and Catholic leaders. Ho in November ordered the complete liquidation of the lndochinese Communist Party. The Central Committee statement said that “in order to complete the Party’s task...a national union conceived without distinction of class and parties is an indispensable factor” and that this step was being taken to show that Communists “are always disposed to put the interests of the country above that of classes, and to give up the interests of the Party to serve those of the Vietnamese people” [our emphasis]![15]
At this same time, however, opposition was still strong in the North. The Struggle group at this time was publishing a daily newspaper in Hanoi. Tranh Dau (Struggle), which had a circulation of 30,000 in late 1945.[16] A letter to the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in this period spoke of a well-organized but persecuted organization of the Struggle group in the North. Led by “Th...,” former leader of the Tonkin printers during 1937-38, it held large meetings and published several books in addition to its daily newspaper. One region where the line of the Struggle group had particular success was Bach Mai. As a result of a large meeting there. Ho Chi Minh gave the order to arrest Th... and other supporters of the Fourth International. (Th... was able to escape from his Viet Minh captors and was fighting in the guerilla operations in the countryside at the time.) Already a large number of Trotskyists had perished in the resistance.[17] Eventually this group, too, was wiped out entirely by the Stalinist repression.
At this time, Ta Thu Thau, the leader of the Struggle group was in Hanoi, working on coordinating flood relief and “conferring” with Ho Chi Minh. On his way south he was arrested on the orders of the Viet Minh. Tried three times by local People’s Committees, he was acquitted each time, a tribute to the Trotskyists’ reputation in Vietnam at that time. Finally, he was simply shot in Quang Ngai in February 1946, on orders from the southern Stalinist leader Tran Van Giau. Gullible souls have questioned whether the wise Uncle Ho could ever have carried out such a vicious act. Such doubts are an expression of political light-mindedness, as there is no known account of Thau’s murder that even suggests that he was not killed by Viet Minh forces, acting on orders. As for Ho, his only known statement on the subject was made in a conversation with the French socialist Daniel Guérin:
“‘He [Thau] was a great patriot and we mourn him.’ Ho Chi Minh told me with unfeigned emotion. But a moment later he added in a steady voice. ‘All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.’”[18]
Having physically liquidated the entire leadership of the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam. Ho was now ready to conclude a “deal” with the French government (which included the Communist François Billoux as minister of defense!). The preliminary convention between France and the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” signed in Hanoi on 6 March, provided among other things that “the Government of Vietnam declares itself prepared to receive the French army amicably,” and for the stationing of 15,000 French troops north of the 16th parallel. The overall content of the accords was for a limited independence, within the French Union. Defending this despicable betrayal against revolutionary Trotskyist criticism, which lived on in spite of the physical extermination of the Trotskyist cadres, Ho was forced to call a mass rally in Hanoi the following day, during which he declared: “The people who are not satisfied only understand total independence as a slogan, a demand on a piece of paper or in the mouth. They do not see independence of the country results from objective conditions....”[19] Primary among these objective conditions, of course, was the fact that the French Communist Party and Stalin were opposed to Vietnamese independence!
It was with the arrival of Allied troops that the defeat of the first Vietnamese revolution was sealed. The primary responsibility for this defeat lies clearly with Ho Chi Minh and the Stalinists who consistently sabotaged the popular uprising and murdered its leaders. Only by realizing the magnitude of this betrayal can one gauge the significance of the capitulation of the Struggle group in joining the Viet Minh, a move which led to its physical annihilation and to the generation-long war against French and U.S. imperialism. While the International Communist League demonstrated a similar underestimation of the lengths to which the Stalinists would go to eliminate revolutionary opposition, its overall policies in this period presented a clear Trotskyist opposition to the class collaboration of the Viet Minh.
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“Socialism” in Half a Country
—from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
After repeatedly capitulating before the imperialist powers (Saigon, September 1945; the 6 March 1946 accords; Fontainebleau modus vivendi), the Viet Minh were finally forced to fight the French by a series of open provocations in late 1946. On 20 November, the French navy, which had blockaded the Haiphong port, seized a Chinese junk trying to run the blockade; in response, a Vietnamese shore battery shelled the French. Seizing on this incident as an excuse, three days later the French brutally attacked Haiphong with heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, killing roughly 20,000 Vietnamese. Early in December, the French demanded that the Vietnamese withdraw entirely from the city and the surrounding roads; in response, the Vietnamese commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, proposed a mixed commission to discuss the question! Subsequently, on 19 December the French demanded the disarming of the Viet Minh militia, and that night general fighting broke out in Hanoi. The fighting continues to this day. As it turned out, the Viet Minh were quickly driven out of the capital and did not return until after the 1954 Geneva settlement. Had the Stalinists resisted the French reoccupation from the beginning, when the imperialists were weakest, a quarter century of war and more than two million deaths would have been avoided.
The attitude of the French Communist Party in this conflict was an illustration of the lengths to which the Stalinists would go in attempting to ingratiate themselves with their respective bourgeoisies. Thus, while Ho Chi Minh was writing servile letters to the Americans, forming political blocs with the pro-Chinese bourgeois nationalists, dissolving the Indochinese Communist Party and agreeing to permit the entry of French troops into the north, his French comrades were busy explaining why the right of national self-determination did not apply to Vietnam and voting war credits to finance the French expeditionary force!
As early as September 1945, the Saigon committee of the French CP “warned [the Viet Minh] that any ‘premature adventures’ in Annamite independence might ‘not be in line with Soviet perspectives.’”[20] That same month the French government (including several CP ministers) proposed a military budget of 193 billion francs, including 100 billion for the Expeditionary Force in Indochina; the CP voted for the bill.[21] In July 1946, smelling a victory in the next elections, the Communists took up a virulent nationalist stance: “Are we, after having lost Syria and Lebanon yesterday, to lose Indochina tomorrow, North Africa the day after?” wrote L’Humanité (24 July 1946).[22] Two days later the CP deputies voted for a constitutional definition of the French Union which made Vietnamese “independence” purely fictional!
But this obscene nationalism could not stop at mere generalities: On 20 December 1946, a month after the French bombardment of Haiphong, the CP voted in the French Assembly to send congratulations to General Leclerc and the Expeditionary Corps. On 23 December, three days after the outbreak of hostilities in Hanoi, the CP deputies voted a special military budget made necessary “because of the resumption in hostilities in Indochina.” As Vice-Premier in the government of Paul Ramadier in March 1947, Maurice Thorez, head of the French CP, signed the order for military action against the Vietnamese; at the same time, Ramadier stated that “on the question of Indochina, we have always noted the correctness of the government of the Soviet Union.”[23]
Some have alleged that because of these nationalistic acts, the French CP during the late 1940’s was opposed to the line of Ho Chi Minh in a fundamental sense, implying that Ho was essentially a centrist, as against the reformist Thorez. That the differences were essentially tactical is shown by Ho’s repeated efforts to enlist American aid (at least eight letters to Truman in this period), his agreement to the March 1946 accords and the Fontainebleau agreement and the extremely conservative policies followed by the Viet Minh through most of the first Indochinese war. Ho and Thorez were simply capitulating to different bourgeoisies; qualitatively their policies were the same.
The Agrarian Question
As Leon Trotsky wrote in the “Transitional Program”:
“The central task of the colonial and semi-colonial countries is the agrarian revolution, i.e., liquidation of feudal heritages, and national independence, i.e., the overthrow of the imperialist yoke. Both tasks are closely linked with each other.”
From the very beginning, in 1941, the Viet Minh took only the most minimal reformist position on the agrarian question, favoring a 25 per cent reduction in rents. The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam written in 1946 stated flatly: “The rights of property and possession of Vietnamese citizens are guaranteed.”[24] In the period from 1945 to 1949 even this minimal program of rent reduction was only applied to five per cent of the land belonging to large landlords, while eight per cent (belonging to “unpatriotic” landowners) was redistributed—hardly a radical land reform, much less an agrarian revolution.[25] However, beginning with the agrarian decree of 12 April 1953, the picture changed as the stipulations calling for reduction of rent, elimination of debts and distribution of lands owned by colonists were put into effect by the local peasant unions. At the same time, the membership of the peasant unions doubled and the percentage of poor peasants in the Lao Dong [Workers] Party increased from 37 per cent to 53 per cent. The French commander at Dien Bien Phu commented that after the new agrarian legislation he wasn’t dealing “with the same adversaries.”[26]
Yet even this change was merely tactical. With the beginning of the Cold War with the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the Soviet foreign policy had undergone a shift to the left, embodied in the “Zhdanov line.” The victory of the Chinese CP in the civil war with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 meant that Ho was assured of supplies from the deformed workers states. Thus, soon after, the Vietnamese Communist Party was refounded as the Lao Dong [Workers] Party in 1951, and in 1953 the Viet Minh decided to launch a militant land reform campaign. This pattern was virtually identical to that followed by Mao in China, where even the simple democratic demand for land reform was put off until the final break-off of negotiations with Chiang in 1946! However, in both cases, the agrarian program which was implemented in the final stages of the civil war in no way called into question bourgeois property relations in the countryside. We have referred to Mao’s policies in China as simply “reformism under the gun,” a label which certainly applies with equal force to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.
1954 Geneva Settlement
As Stalinists, the Viet Minh leadership ultimately represented the interests of the bureaucratic clique running the deformed workers states. At the first opportunity after a stalemate was reached in the Korean War in 1953, the Russians began pressing for a peace settlement in Vietnam as well. Ho soon took up the refrain even though the Vietnamese were winning militarily. By the time the negotiations finally took place in spring of 1954, the Viet Minh controlled roughly 85 percent of the country, according to Western estimates, and had decisively defeated the French expeditionary force at Dien Bien Phu. Commenting on the settlement, Douglas Pike, a U.S. official associated with the CIA, has written:
“Ironically the agreement written at Geneva benefitted all parties except the winners....
“Only the Viet Minh, the winners, lost. Or were sold out. Ho Chi Minh somehow was persuaded—apparently by a joint Sino-Soviet effort—to settle for half the country on the grounds that the other half would be his as soon as elections were held....”[27]
The role of the Soviet Union in pushing for this sellout “settlement” is well known. The equally pernicious role of the more militant-talking Chinese was documented by the “Pentagon Papers.” A key point in the negotiations came on 18 July 1954, when a Chinese official transmitted a message to U.S. negotiators at Geneva. According to a State Department cable:
“The informant said the Communists are pressing for the stamp of American approval on the armistice agreement—already okayed in principle by Britain and France—which would divide Vietnam between Communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh and Bao Dai’s pro-Western regime....
“But the informant did not (repeat not) rule out the chance of an Indochina cease-fire even if the U.S. refuses to okay the armistice agreement.”[28]
As for Ho, despite rumors of secret dissatisfaction with the cease-fire, and opposition to Moscow and Peking, this is how he presented it to the Vietnamese people:
“At this conference, the struggle of our delegation and the assistance given by the delegations of the Soviet Union and China have ended in a great victory for us.”[29]
With victories like this, who needs defeats!
The Viet Cong
The whole struggle for the liberation of South Vietnam since the 1954 Geneva agreement reads like a replay of the earlier war against the French. The names are changed, but the play is the same. For six years Ho and the Hanoi leadership refused to organize a revolutionary movement in the South, believing instead in the miraculous powers of “peaceful coexistence.” Meanwhile, the butcher Diem was hunting down southern resistance leaders, throwing peasants off their lands, murdering thousands. Ho’s answer to this savagery summed up the position of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) leadership quite nicely: “Our policy is: to consolidate the North and to keep in mind the South.”[30]
As late as 1960, the DRV was still trying to hold down the struggle in the South, arguing:
“The Northern people will never neglect their task with regard to one half of their country which is not yet liberated. But in the present conjuncture, when the possibility exists to maintain a lasting peace in the world and create favorable conditions for the world movement of socialist revolution and national independence to go forward, we can and must guide and restrict within the South the solving of the contradiction between imperialism and the colonies of our country.” [our emphasis][31]
As in the first Indochinese war the agrarian program and political perspective of the National Liberation Front are clearly and precisely limited to “democratic” tasks. From the very beginning, the NLF called for a coalition government:
“The present South Vietnamese regime is a camouflaged colonial regime dominated by the Yankees.... Therefore, this regime must be overthrown and a government of national and democratic union put in its place composed of representatives of all social classes, of all nationalities, of the various political parties, of all religions....
“Support the national bourgeoisie in the reconstruction and development of crafts and industry.” [our emphasis][32]
The NLF has subsequently called for protection of foreign investment and has never expropriated the French rubber plantations; thus in good old Stalinist fashion it distinguishes between the good and the bad imperialists.
As for the agrarian program, in the words of NLF Chairman Nguyen Huu Tho:
“Our program reflects the broad nature of the Front and the forces represented in it. We are in favor of land to the peasants for instance, but not systematic confiscation; we are for reduction of rents but for the maintenance of present property rights except in the case of traitors. Landlords who have not supported the U.S. puppets have nothing to fear.”[33]
The 1973 Paris Accords
Since April 1965, when Premier Pham Van Dong set out the DRV position on peace negotiations (the “Four Points”), the fundamental North Vietnamese demands have been for U.S. withdrawal and a coalition government in Saigon. The coalition government is clearly intended to be based on the existing state apparatus, which would make it a classical popular front regime. If realized it could spell outright defeat for the millions of Vietnamese who have fought for years with the NLF against U.S. imperialism and the feudal-bourgeois reactionary regime in the South. By preserving the property rights of “patriotic” landlords and the “national” bourgeoisie, by guaranteeing foreign investors against expropriation, such a regime would necessarily be unable to fulfill the fundamental aspirations of the working masses.
The actual Paris accords of January 1973 do not set up such a government, nor do they call for regroupment of North Vietnamese forces or disarmament. As a result, this “ceasefire in place” is not simply a sellout, as the 1946 and 1954 agreements clearly were; on the other hand, aside from the U.S. withdrawal, which itself could be reversed, it settles nothing. There is no peace; the civil war goes on. In the meantime the Stalinist leadership of the DRV/ NLF has essentially abandoned the civilian political prisoners in the South, as it continues its fundamental strategy of betrayal, the search for a bloc with the non-existent “good” bourgeoisie.
• No Support for the Robbers’ Peace—U.S. Imperialism Out of S.E.Asia—Free All Political Prisoners in Saigon Government Jails!
• Unconditional Military Defense of the DRV—Political Revolution in Hanoi!
• Military Victory for the NLF—Viet Cong Take Saigon—No Coalition Government!
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Those Who Revile Our History
—from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
Vietnam in 1945 was a typical colonial country. The vast mass of the population was composed of poor peasants and landless laborers, who suffered from exploitation at the hands of feudal and bourgeois landowners, and from direct military oppression by various imperialist powers (France, Japan, China, Britain and the U.S.). Yet, as shown by centuries of unsuccessful peasant revolts, this heterogeneous popular mass was unable to lead a victorious social revolution. In the early years of this century the urban petty bourgeoisie threw up a series of nationalist sects which, however, were equally unable to achieve the unity or social force necessary to overthrow a developed colonial power. At the same time, the tiny bourgeoisie never advanced beyond the most timid reform demands and, faced with an awakened working class and peasantry, chose instead to cower behind the protection of its French, and later U.S., masters.
Thus the lot of emancipator of the oppressed Vietnamese masses fell to the young, small, but highly combative proletariat. In contrast to India or even China, the bourgeois nationalists were never more than a secondary (and at times minuscule) force in Vietnam after 1930, while the political scene was dominated by the two major currents of the workers movement, Trotskyism and Stalinism.
The Trotskyists stood on the historic Marxist program of permanent revolution, insisting that because of the combined feudal-capitalist character of Vietnamese society and the uneven development of the various class forces, the “national” and “democratic” tasks of the bourgeois revolution could be fulfilled only under the dictatorship of the proletariat, supporting itself on the peasantry. This program was represented in Vietnam by the International Communist League (ICL), which called for complete national independence, land to the peasants, nationalization of the factories under workers control and a workers and peasants government. At the height of the Saigon insurrection of 1945 this program was crystallized in the demand of all power to the People’s Committees. While seeking to overthrow the bonapartist bourgeois Viet Minh regime in Saigon, they called for a military united front against the invading imperialist powers. Nevertheless, although at the high point of the uprising the ICL led tens of thousands of workers, it was militarily overwhelmed by the Stalinist Viet Minh, which brutally massacred hundreds of its militants, along with leaders and members of the centrist Struggle group (also supporters of the Fourth International) and various bourgeois nationalist leaders.
This heinous crime gave Ho Chi Minh and the Stalinists unchallenged hegemony in the Vietnamese political scene. However, despite this position they have consistently refused to mobilize the working class for socialist revolution. When faced with imperialist armies, their policies have amounted to a classic “bloc of four classes”—a purely national revolution in coalition with the “patriotic” bourgeoisie (and, in this case, the monarchy as well). In power, they have adhered to the policy of “socialism in one country” (more precisely in half a country), first sacrificing and then only reluctantly supporting their own comrades against U.S. imperialism and its puppet regimes in South Vietnam.
These are the counterrevolutionary policies of Stalinism, the political expression of a parasitic bureaucracy which acts as the agent of the bourgeoisie in the workers movement; this is the program of the “communist” Ho Chi Minh. It is also the program of his foreign mentors, in the first instance Stalin himself and the French Communist Party, but also of the more militant-posturing yet equally reformist Mao regime in China. The sorry results of this strategy of betrayal have been three successive robbers’ peace settlements, in 1946, 1954 and 1973, each of which has left intact a bourgeois regime in Saigon.
Revolutionary Defensism
What attitude are proletarian revolutionaries to take when faced with the actual struggles led by the Stalinist leadership, these butchers of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, betrayers of the peasants and workers, appeasers of French and U.S. imperialism—who, however, also base themselves on and, in a limited and distorted manner, defend the conquests of the working class? As Marxists we must begin with the fundamental question—what is the class character of the states involved? The Democratic Republic of Vietnam is a deformed workers state; that is, while it has socialist property relations, political power is in the hands of a parasitic bureaucracy rather than the working class. The struggle in South Vietnam is essentially a civil war, pitting the working class and exploited peasantry on the one hand against the local and foreign bourgeoisie on the other. Fundamentally, the NLF-controlled areas in the South are deformed workers states in embryo. Therefore, the only attitude that a party claiming to represent the historic interests of the proletariat can take in a conflict between the NLF/DRV and capitalist forces is one of revolutionary defensism. Thus we unconditionally defend the NLF/DRV against the U.S. and the bourgeois regime in Saigon, while at the same time calling for a political revolution to overthrow the treacherous reformist leadership which is holding back the struggle.
This was the approach taken by the Vietnamese Internationalist Communist Group in France, which in 1947 declared:
“Our attitude vis-a-vis the Viet Minh can best be defined by Lenin’s phrase ‘march separately, strike together.’ The Vietnamese internationalist communists are ready to join their blows against imperialism with those of the Viet Minh, but they must maintain complete programmatic independence and freedom of criticism, because in the face of the past capitulations of the Viet Minh, placing confidence in its policies would mean renouncing a revolutionary position.”[34]
Ho “Assimilates the Permanent Revolution”
In their rush to capitulate to the heroes of the petty-bourgeois radical milieu, the fake-Trotskyists of the “United Secretariat” and the “International Committee” must gloss over the real history of Stalinism in Vietnam.
The USec of Frank, Mandel and Hansen is the direct descendent of the Pabloist International Secretariat, which in the early 1950’s formulated the “theory” that the world was divided into two camps, the imperialists and the Stalinists; because of the sharp character of the impending conflicts, the Stalinists would be forced against their will to defend the interests of the proletariat. Pablo’s conclusion: The Trotskyists should dissolve their movement in favor of “deep entry” into the Stalinist parties.
In the early 1960’s the U.S. Socialist Workers Party came over to Pabloism with its theory that Fidel Castro was an “unconscious Marxist” and thus the SWP’s function was to be merely a cheering section for Castroism, recapitulating the European Pabloists’ capitulation to the Algerian nationalists. The common thread of Pabloism is the belief that one or another non-proletarian force (the Stalinist bureaucracy, students, peasant guerillas, etc.) will carry out the revolution, thereby rendering superfluous or at least secondary the leading role of the Trotskyist party.
What this means in the case of Vietnam can be seen from a recent book by Pierre Rousset, a leading member of the French USec, on Le Parti Communiste Vietnamien. The book’s central thesis is that:
“... the Vietnamese leadership as a whole has assimilated the decisive implications of the permanent revolution for colonial and semi-colonial countries.” [emphasis in original][35]
As we have shown, Ho Chi Minh’s policies of vacillation and betrayal were in direct counterposition to revolutionary Trotskyism and in fact required the massacre of thousands of supporters of the Fourth International. How does this revisionist explain the extermination of the Vietnamese Trotskyists?
“These assassinations, about which historians of the Indochinese CP don’t speak, in their writings in French at least, show at least two things: the width of the political gulf which then separated the Trotskyist groups from the Indochinese CP [one would hope so!], the former probably underestimating the importance of the national question in the revolutionary mobilization of the masses, the latter profoundly underestimating the social question in the colonial revolution, including at the outset.”[36]
In short, for the Pabloists there is not only no need to be a Trotskyist in Vietnam, since the North Vietnamese and NLF leadership has absorbed the lessons of the permanent revolution; but in addition, the ideological conflict between Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam was entirely unnecessary, since there was a little bit of truth on both sides. The murders? Just an unfortunate mistake.
Healy and “People’s War”
The position of the USec at least has the virtue of reflecting a consistent long-standing policy: the open abandonment of the Transitional Program and rejection of the essential lessons of Trotskyism. It is noteworthy that the Socialist Labour League (Britain) and its fake “International Committee,” which claim to be fighting Pabloism, and which criticize sharply Hansen’s phrase about Castro being an “unconscious Marxist,” take precisely the same position regarding the Vietnamese Stalinists as the USec. In their obituary of Ho we read:
“There can be no doubt that he [Ho Chi Minh] contained within himself and came to personify, all the anti-imperialist hatred and fighting spirit of the colonial peoples....
“Like Mao Tse-tung, Ho instinctively yearned to do battle with imperialism and the internal forces of reaction within his native country.”[37]
Rather than an “unconscious Marxist” (à la USec), we find here Ho Chi Minh the “instinctive” Marxist. A distinction without a difference, if ever there was one! Elsewhere the Healyites elaborated:
“It is indisputably true to say that, on the basis of the Vietnamese experience, guns combined with the courage and endurance of individual guerrilleros would have meant little or nothing if Ho Chi Minh and other leaders were unable to analyse the principal and secondary conditions within Vietnam as well as between Vietnam and imperialism and on that basis outline a strategy for the conquest of power.”[38]
And just what was this strategy?
“It [Vietnam] demonstrates the transcendental power and resilience of a protracted peoples war led and organized by a party based on the working class and the poor peasantry and inspired by the example of the October revolution [!].”[39]
And the Vietnamese Trotskyists, murdered by these “instinctive” Marxists—what of them? Well, here it seems that Ho was a little naughty, for which the SLL slaps his hand in reprobation:
“We do not forget these crimes committed against our movement by Ho Chi Minh, any more than we seek to play down his very real contribution to the struggle against world imperialism.”
But at the very moment that Ho massacred the Trotskyists, he was according to the Healyites lined up against world Stalinism itself!
“Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were on one side of the barricades, Thorez, Stalin and French imperialism on the other.”[40]
So you see, it is all here: The unconscious (or instinctive) Marxism, the assimilation of the lessons of the permanent revolution, the understanding attitude toward the murders of the Vietnamese Trotskyists. And it is no isolated case. Healy’s famous “method” also allows him to support the Red Guards, Mao Tse-tung, the “Arab Revolution” and Indira Gandhi as supposed fighters against imperialism.
Although Healy uses “theory” and “method” primarily as a smokescreen to hide his abandonment of fundamental Marxist principles, there is in fact a method to the madness. The thread which unites these various positions is the same objectivism which is implicit in Pabloism: Since the sweep of the revolutionary wave (the objective forces) is so all-embracing, the struggle for the program of permanent revolution, the organization of the Trotskyist vanguard party, the struggle to rebuild the Fourth International—all this is secondary and ultimately expendable.
SL and the Vietnamese Trotskyists
In contrast, the Spartacist League continues to uphold the struggle and the memory of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, while recognizing and seeking to learn from their mistakes. This is no secondary or sentimental question. We have seen how the scandalous abandonment of the theory of permanent revolution on the part of the IC and USec leads them to solidarize themselves with the Stalinists against the Trotskyists in Vietnam, going so far as to apologize for the murder of the latter. The practical consequences of Pabloism are liquidation of the revolution and annihilation of the revolutionaries.
The Spartacist League has consistently, throughout its history, called for military defense of the NLF/DRV, including in times or places where this has not been a popular demand. We have demanded that Russia and China provide adequate military aid to the Vietnamese. Alone of all the tendencies of the U.S. left we raise the question of the war in our trade-union work, calling for immediate U.S. withdrawal and labor strikes against the war. At the same time, as Trotskyists we hold high the banner of permanent revolution and expose the repeated betrayals of the Vietnamese Stalinists. Likewise we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Vietnamese Trotskyists in order, in the words of the Transitional Program, “to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be.” Only in this manner, by openly struggling for the program of revolutionary Marxism, can the Fourth International be reborn.
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Corrections
— from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
In Part II of this series, in a paragraph dealing with the differing fortunes of the Vietnamese Stalinists and Trotskyists during World War II, we wrote:
“.. .the Stalinists supported the Allies in World War II (as did Chiang Kai-shek) and were willing to make an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. The Trotskyists, in contrast, took the Bolshevik position of revolutionary defeatism during the war, refusing to support any of the rival imperialist camps and their puppets.”
While the paragraph is clearly talking of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, the sentences in question could be misinterpreted as implying that the Fourth International as a whole took a defeatist position in the war between China and Japan. While the FI took a revolutionary defeatist line in the struggle between the Allied and Axis imperialists, it did make a distinction in the Far East by supporting China against Japan. In WV No. 4, January 1972 (“War, Revolution and Self-Determination”) we argue that this position was correct until 1942, when the Chinese were essentially subordinated to and integrated into the inter-imperialist war, thereafter necessitating a position of revolutionary defeatism, while continuing to support the right of self-determination for China. This was the position taken by Lenin with regard to Serbian and Polish independence in the similar situation during World War I.
The position of the Vietnamese International Communist League gives added support to this policy. In the specific conditions of Vietnam, where both Japanese and Chinese sought to dominate Vietnam, a position of support for the Chinese could only have led to a new imperialist master, as in fact occurred in North Vietnam in 1945 and early 1946, with Ho Chi Minh acting in concert with the Kuomintang .army instead of fighting against it. Back
In Part I we referred to the Struggle group as the official section of the FI. It has since come to our attention that this is only partially correct. An article from Vietnam in the Labor Action of 27 October 1947 mentions that when the Struggle group was recognized as the official section of the FI in 1939, the ICL fused with it. In 1945 the two groups separated once more, over profound divergences concerning the attitude to be taken toward the Viet Minh. At that time (1945-47) the reports on Vietnam appearing in the official organ of the International Secretariat (Quatrième Internationale) treated both groups as Trotskyists. Back
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Letter
— from Workers Vanguard No. 23, 22 June 1973
Dear Editor,
The series “Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam,” while an important contribution to the history of this little-known chapter of world Trotskyism, nonetheless contains certain significant omissions. Part I of the series in WV, 27 April 1973. leaves open to question whether the 1933 electoral bloc between the Indochinese Stalinists and the Trotskyist group led by Ta Thu Thau (the “Struggle” group) “was simply a no-contest pact or involved joint propaganda around a lowest common denominator program.” I. Milton Sacks, in his article “Marxism in Vietnam” (in F. Trager, ed.. Marxism in Southeast Asia. Stanford. 1959) states that the Ta Thu Thau group and Indochinese Communist Party ran on a common electoral program which “stressed mainly a series of democratic demands (right to strike, right to form unions, voting rights, etc.) and a number of welfare measures designed to alleviate the condition of the Vietnamese workers (lighter taxes, housing, recreational facilities, etc.).”
Part 2 of your series ( WV, 11 May I973) states that “Seeking to avoid any appearance of revolution, the Viet Minh asked for and received the abdication of Bao Dai...” The Viet Minh were so anxious to avoid “any appearance of revolution” that they actually did not ask for the abdication of Bao Dai and were anticipating working within the framework of the monarchy. The Stalinist “two-stage revolution” which divides the democratic and national tasks in the colonial countries from the socialist revolution, and proscribes a prior “democratic-national revolution” which is supposed to be carried out in alliance with the colonial bourgeoisie, is converted in practice into a “three-stage revolution” with a prior “progressive aristocratic-comprador bourgeois” stage! The Stalinists in inverted fashion are aware of the dynamic of the permanent revolution outlined by Trotsky, i.e., that to carry through the tasks of the democratic and national revolution the tasks of the socialist revolution are necessarily placed on the agenda. Thus, the Stalinists, in order to delay the socialist revolution, must also prevent the tasks of the national and democratic revolution from being carried through. So it was in Spain where the Stalinists prevented the expropriation and redistribution of land; so it was in Vietnam; and so it is today in Chile. Ho Chi Minh’s futile attempt to recrown the “progressive monarch” Bao Dai, puppet of French and Japanese imperialism, anticipated Mao Tse-tung’s courtship of that cast-off puppet-Prince of U.S. and French imperialism, Sihanouk, by 25 years. Bao Dai’s actual abdication was the result of a telegram sent on 21 August 1945 by a mass meeting of the Hanoi General Association of Students, in response to a motion raised by Ho Huu Thong, leader of the Trotskyist lndochinese Communist League.
Comradely,
Reuben Samuels
18 May 1973
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Notes
1 Ahn-Van and Jaqueline Roussel, Mouvements nationaux et lutte de classes au Vietnam. Paris, 1947, pp. 47-51. Except where otherwise indicated, most of the factual information is taken from this book.
2 Le Thanh Khoi, Le Viet-Nam, Paris, 1955, p. 448.
3 Ellen Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina 1940-1955, Stanford, 1954, p. 92.
4 Philippe Devillers, Histoire du Viet-Nam de 1940 à 1952, Paris, 1952, p. 69.
5 La Lutte, No. 205, 14 August 1938.
6 Hammer, op. cit., p. 92.
7 Jean Chesneaux, Contribution à l’histoire de la nation vietnamienne, Paris, 1955, p. 230.
8 Lucien, “Quelques étapes de la révolution au Nam-Bo du Viet-Nam,” Quatrième Internationale, September-October 1947, p. 43. Much of the factual information in this section is taken from this article.
9 Devillers, op. cit., p. 156.
10 Lucien, op. cit., p. 45.
11 Ibid., p. 47.
12 Ibid.
13 Pierre Rousset, Le parti communiste vietnamien, Paris, 1973, p. 26.
14 “1945: The Saigon Insurrection,” Spartacist West No. 17, 22 August 1969. Most of the details on the September insurrection come from this article.
15 Alan W. Cameron, ed., Viet-Nam Crisis. A Documentary History, Vol. 1, pp. 66-67.
16 I. Milton Sacks, Nationalism and Communism in Vietnam, unpublished dissertation, Yale University, 1960, p. 224.
17 “Les Trotskystes au Tonkin (lettre de Hong Kong),” Quatrième Internationale, January-February 1948, pp. 71-72.
18 Quoted by Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh, New York, p. 148.
19 Chesneaux, op. cit., p. 245.
20 Harold Isaacs, No Peace for Asia, pp. 173-174.
21 Bob Potter, “The Rape of Vietnam,” Solidarity pamphlet, p. 9.
22 Quoted in Hammer, op. cit., p. 190.
23 Potter, op. cit., p. 9; Hammer, op. cit., pp. 198, 200.
24 Hammer, op. cit., p. 178.
25 Chesneaux, op. cit., p. 298.
26 Ibid., pp. 297, 300.
27 Douglas Pike, Viet Cong, Cambridge, 1966, pp. 51-52.
28 NY Times, The Pentagon Papers, New York, 1971, p. 48.
29 Bernard Fall, ed., Ho Chi Minh on Revolution, New York, 1967, p. 246.
30 Ibid, pp. 272-273.
31 Le Duan, On the Socialist Revolution in Vietnam, Hanoi, 1965, Vol. I.
32 “Program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (1960),” in Bernard Fall and Marcus Raskin, eds., The Viet-Nam Reader, New York, 1967, pp. 216-218.
33 Quoted in Wilfred Burchett, Vietnam: Inside Story of the Guerilla War, New York, 1965, p. 187.
34 Comité central, Groupe communiste internationaliste vietnamien en France, “Nouvelle étape de la contre-révolution et de l’offensive impérialiste en Indochine.” Quatrième Internationale, November-December 1947, p. 64.
35 Rousset, op. cit., p. 98.
36 Ibid., p. 44.
37 Newsletter, 9 September 1969.
38 Ibid.
39 “The Vietnamese Revolution and the Fourth International.” Fourth International, February 1968.
40 Newsletter, 9 September 1969.
Markin comment:
Earlier this month I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
Today I am starting what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
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Markin comment on this series on Vietnamese Trotskyism:
At the most fundamental level the struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism as it evolved out of the post-Bolshevik revolution Russian Communist Party inner-party disputes of the mid-1920s can be encapsulated in the differences between Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution and Stalin’s theory of socialism in one country. In short, this dispute within the ostensibly communist movement is the continuation of the historic struggle in the international working class movement, and particularly in its Marxist wing, between reform and revolution. As it turns out this inner- party dispute that started out as a simple verification of Trotsky’s theory, at first applied solely to Russia, that in the age of imperialism the international bourgeoisie, and its national components, including its colonial and semi-colonial dependents no longer could, or more to the point, wanted to lead bourgeois revolutions, as exemplified by the French revolution in the 18th century came to expressed a chasm between those, like Trotsky, who favored extending the Russian revolution internationally and those, like Stalin, who wanted the Communist International, and its national sections, to merely act as agents of Soviet foreign policy.
Nowhere is the contrast between those perspectives more clearly expressed than in the struggle for the Vietnamese revolution that was central to the world-wide left-wing political milieu in the 1960s when this writer came of political age. Many of us came to defend the Vietnamese revolution first as an example of the right to national self-determination for small countries oppressed by world imperialism. Some of us moved on to defend that revolution because it was led by Stalinists, the exemplars of two-stage revolution (first a separate democratic stage, and then seemingly never, a socialist stage) and kowtowed to every move that “Uncle” Ho (and his successors) publicized. And a few of us came to defend that revolution despite its Stalinist leadership, understanding that a military victory against American imperialism was critical for revolutionary strategy and that the creation of a unitary workers state , albeit in distorted form as in North Vietnam, was a historic accretion to the international working class movement.
World-wide in the 1920s and 1930s for many reasons, great and small, personal and political, the struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism was almost totally to the disadvantage of the latter. Vietnam, in the 1930s and 1940s, represented something of an exception. As the documentation provided in this series of articles points out it took the physical liquidation of the Vietnamese Trotskyism cadre (in its two competing tendencies) to break important segments of the Vietnamese working class and its allies from a Trotskyist perspective. Although, as the articles also point out, mistakes of political omission and commission were made the fallen Vietnamese comrades are worthy of honor in the history of revolutionary struggles. A truly fitting tribute to their struggles awaits a victorious workers revolution. Remember the Vietnamese Trotkyists! Remember Vietnamese Bolshevik martyr Ta Thu Thau!
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Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam
by John Sharpe
Written: 1973
Source: Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam, A Spartacist Pamphlet (Chapter I)
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: John Heckman.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2007. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/vietnam/trotskyism.html
[Editors’ Note: This article is little more than a sketch of the history of Vietnamese Trotskyism. Only a brief account of the movement and sporadic issues of its newspapers are available to us at this time. Nevertheless, the facts that are known serve to underline doubly the historic importance of the struggle for the Marxist program of permanent revolution, the struggle to resolve what Leon Trotsky referred to as the “crisis of revolutionary leadership.” The price of Stalinist betrayals is measured not only by their deliberate murder of hundreds of Trotskyist militants in the aftermath of the September 1945 insurrection (which the latter helped lead and the former helped defeat), but also by the subsequent deaths of more than two million Vietnamese workers and peasants in their heroic battle against French and U.S. imperialism. Most of these could have been avoided if the Stalinists, and in the first instance Ho Chi Minh, had not been able to sell out the struggle at crucial periods with their policies of appeasement of the bourgeoisie.]
As was the case throughout the world, the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam was forged in the struggle against the errors and betrayals of the Stalinists. However, unlike most other areas, the Vietnamese supporters of the Fourth International succeeded in achieving a mass base during the late 1930’s. In fact, both of the competing groups claiming to be Trotskyist were publishing daily newspapers before or just after World War II.
Nevertheless, both groups, the centrist La Lutte group led by Ta Thu Thau, and the more leftist International Communist League (the October group) led by Ho Huu Thuong, were paralyzed by French repression and ultimately decapitated by the Stalinists. These defeats were in part the result of certain erroneous policies, notably a tendency toward perpetual united fronts with the Stalinists and a failure to draw a sharp line against popular fronts. We honor the memory of these martyrs and their determined battle against French colonialism and against reformism in the workers movement, but we must also learn from their mistakes.
Formation of the Indochinese Communist Party
The history of the Vietnamese Stalinist movement is inseparably bound up with the life of Nguyen Ai Quoc (later known as Ho Chi Minh), its founder and principal leader.
He emerged as one of the leaders of the Communist International in the Far East after his journey to Moscow in 1923 as the delegate of the French CP to the “Peasant International” and his participation in the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, where he delivered a report on the colonial question. An important factor in his development was the fact that he became involved in the Comintern only after it had already begun to degenerate seriously under the Stalin-Zinoviev leadership. The “Peasant International,” for example, was one of Zinoviev’s more dubious maneuvers, designed to seduce populist peasant leaders such as the Croatian Radič into support for Russia. Not only was it a phantom organization from the beginning, but it was necessarily based on Stalin’s policies of the “democratic dictatorship of the peasantry and proletariat.” For Marxists, who seek to organize the workers’ international, there could be no question of building a peasants’ international, that is, of organizing another class.
Nguyen Ai Quoc also participated in the “Intercolonial Union,” which included several left bourgeois nationalists from the Middle East, hardly a model of communist organization. Thus it is not surprising that when he reached Canton in 1925 as an associate of Borodin (chief Comintern representative in China at the time) he set up not a communist party, but instead a socialist-oriented nationalist grouping, the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association (Viet Nam Cach Menh Thanh Nien Hoi, or Thanh Nien for short).
This was the kind of “Marxism” which Nguyen Ai Quoc learned from Stalin, who at the time was instructing the Chinese Communist Party to liquidate itself into Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, turning over membership lists and even arms to these “anti-imperialists.” Shortly after Stalin made him an honorary member of the Communist International, Chiang turned on his Communist allies and butchered thousands of militant workers in Shanghai in April 1927.
Despite this graphic object lesson in the consequences of opportunist policies (as a result of which he had to leave first Canton and then later Hankow also), Nguyen Ai Quoc refused to learn. Thus for the first several years the Thanh Nien concentrated on consummating a fusion (which never came off) with the strictly bourgeois Revolutionary Party of New Vietnam (the Tan Viet). At the first congress of the Thanh Nien in May 1929, his supporters on the presiding committee obstinately opposed the formation of an explicitly communist party. A minority, small (3 out of 17 delegates) but influential (it was the entire delegation from the interior), walked out of the congress and set up the Indochinese Communist Party (Don Duong Cong San Dang), sharply condemning the Thanh Nien leadership as petty-bourgeois nationalists.[1]
The new party experienced immediate success, appearing to the masses as the more revolutionary of the two, so in August the Thanh Nien switched gears and set up the Vietnamese Communist Party (Annam Cong San Dang). This was in part the result of Stalin’s “left turn” internationally (the so-called “Third Period”), as the Comintern had refused membership to the Thanh Nien, called for the formation of a unified CP and criticized the program of the Nguyen Ai Quoc faction. The unified party, also called the Indochinese Communist Party, was formed in October 1930 and affiliated to the Third International the following April.
The first Communist efforts were directed at spearheading a desperate peasants’ revolt centering on central Vietnam during 1930-31. In the Annamese provinces of Ha Tinh and Nghe-An the ICP broke up the large estates and set up peasant “Soviets” on the order of the border-region Soviets set up by Mao in southeastern China during the period 1927-29. Like the latter, however, they were brutally liquidated by the government forces.
In contrast to its adventuristic policies in the countryside, the CP tactics in the cities were restricted to “democratic” demands and “peaceful” demonstrations, thus leaving the masses unprepared for the bloody repression by the French colonial regime. Mercenary soldiers machine-gunned the defenseless masses, as the Foreign Legion terrorized the Annam peasant districts which had risen in revolt. The repression cost the lives of some 10,000 workers and peasants, with another 50,000 deported to the prisons at Poulo Condor. In June 1931 the Central Committee of the ICP was arrested in Saigon.
Formation of the Trotskyist Groups
It was in these circumstance that the two principal groups claiming to support Trotskyism were formed, the Nhom Thang Muoi (October) group and the La Lutte (Struggle) group. The International Communist League, usually called the October group after the name of its newspaper, Thang Muoi, was led by Ho Huu Thuong and founded in 1931. Due to the fact that it was illegal to publish left newspapers in Vietnamese, this group led a clandestine existence from 1931 to 1936 when the popular front led to a slight liberalization. It went over to a weekly legal French paper, Le Militant, in 1937, which, however, was prosecuted and then banned. They reverted to a semi-legal paper before beginning publication of what was probably the first daily Trotskyist paper in the world (Gerry Healy, please note), the Tia Sang (Spark), in 1939. Due to its clandestine existence, its more leftist positions and the fact that its material was published mainly in Vietnamese, little is known about Ho Huu Thuong’s group. What is known is that it opposed the united front between the Stalinists and the Thau group which lasted from 1933 to 1937.
The other group was centered around the person of Ta Thu Thau, a student returned from Paris who had been active in the Left Opposition in France. Its leadership had been arrested in August 1932 during the White Terror and tried in May 1933. However, some of the comrades were liberated in early 1933 and formed a united front with the Stalinists in Saigon led by Tran Van Giau in order to present working-class candidates in the May 1933 elections to the Saigon city council. Their official joint newspaper was called La Lutte (Struggle).
The coalition had an enormous electoral success. On the first ballot (of two rounds, as in France), the candidate of La Lutte with the least votes still received more votes than the leading bourgeois candidate. On the second ballot, two working-class candidates were elected, the Stalinist Nguyen Van Tao and the Trotskyist Tran Van Trach. The coalition continued its existence and joint newspaper until 1937. The united front was limited to the legal activities, while the illegal organizations of both groups operated separately.
It is unclear whether this united front was simply a no-contest pact, or involved joint propaganda around a lowest common denominator program [see Letter]. If it were the latter, this would certainly represent an opportunist retreat from one of the basic principles of Leninism, the need for the independent organization of the vanguard. A common program obliterates the line between Bolshevism and centrism. In any case, by its very nature, a joint newspaper and an ongoing united front could only lead to political confusion in the minds of the masses and the cadre themselves. Why was there a division between Trotskyists and Stalinists if the two could work together for years, the workers would ask? Moreover, for a period at the beginning of the French popular front, the Stalinists monopolized the newspaper and thereby effectively suppressed the objections to this class-collaboration by the Ta Thu Thau group.
The Thang Muoi group of Ho Huu Thuong, however, was opposed to any collaboration with the Stalinists and restricted itself to underground work in this period. To oppose limited joint actions directed against the bourgeoisie and the colonial regime, for instance common demonstrations or in certain circumstances a no-contest agreement in elections, is to attempt to raise a Chinese wall between the revolutionaries and the workers in reformist or centrist organizations and to weaken the proletariat in its battle against the common class enemy. The united front tactic is a permissible “compromise” where it is possible to draw a class line. But things were quite different during the popular front.
The Popular Front
With the formation of the Radical-Socialist-Communist popular front in 1935, the Stalinists made a sharp turn to the right, forming their own Indochinese popular front. They allied themselves not only with the Vietnamese section of the SFIO (Socialists), but with bourgeois nationalists such as Nguyen Pham Long and Bui Quang Chien, whom the joint Stalinist-Trotskyist La Lutte had bitterly denounced a few years earlier. Not content to form an alliance with the “progressive” comprador bourgeoisie, the ICP went even further and, according to the Stalinist historian Le Thanh Khoi, “broadened” the popular front to include monarchist parties![2]
Under Stalinist editorship, La Lutte greeted the appointment of the socialist Maurius Moutet as Colonial Minister of the popular front Blum government. A few short weeks after this welcome, Moutet telegraphed officials in Saigon (September 1936): “You will maintain public order by all legitimate and legal means, even by the prosecution of those who attempt to make trouble if this should prove necessary.... French order must reign in Indochina as elsewhere.”[3] The Stalinist members of the Saigon city council went so far as to actually vote for military special taxes for “French national defense”![4] Clearly, such taxes could only be used directly against the Vietnamese peasants and workers, as indeed they were soon afterwards.
As the French historian Devillers put it, “in these conditions the break with the Trotskyists became inevitable.” By allowing Tran Van Giau and the Stalinists control of the paper, the Ta Thu Thau group was able to continue the united front through the April 1937 elections, in which one Trotskyist (Thau) and two Stalinists (Nguyen Van Tao and Duong Bach Mai) were elected to Saigon city council on the joint ticket.
But in June 1937, the Trotskyists around Thau took editorial control of La Lutte, which assumed a distinctly different posture, fomenting strikes and mass protests, along with Le Militant, the legal paper of the Ho Huu Thuong group.
Thau launched the new line with an editorial entitled “The Popular Front of Treason,” which got him two years in jail as a reward from the authorities.[5]
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—from “Action Program,” LA LUTTE, No. 213, 14 April 1939
1. Fight against war preparations, break the blockade which is strangling the Chinese revolution and favoring Japanese imperialism through mass action, through boycotting Japanese merchandise.
2. For direct action to force promulgation of social legislation in Indochina: a 40-hour law, collective bargaining, control over hiring and firing, sliding scale of wages.
3. Against the fascists, form action committees in factories, the civil service and the army to throw out fascist personnel and have them fired.
4. Against the Stalinists who preach “voluntary” submission! Popularize the slogan: “Unconditional National Independence.”
5. Build real alliances of workers, peasants and the middle classes in action committees, in factories, in neighborhoods, among peasants and soldiers to prepare for the workers and peasants government, to expropriate the capitalists and feudalists and to assure the well-being, peace and freedom for all workers—in factories, offices, fields, commerce and the army.
Down with the Fascists, Capitalists and Feudalists!
Down with the Stalinist Leaders, Lackeys of Imperialism!
Long Live a May 1st Dedicated to Class Struggle!
Long Live the Fourth International!
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During this time the Stalinists were concentrating their efforts on building an alliance with bourgeois constitutionalists, the “lndochinese Congress.” Breaking out of the limited electoral campaigns (the eligible voters included only about 40,000 or roughly 1% of the adult population), the Trotskyists. in contrast, utilized the limited freedoms introduced by the Blum government to push mass agitation in strike movements, campaigns against the repression and in favor of the right to unionization, the bête noir of the colonialists. The Trotskyists also set up “action committees” of labor and peasant organizations, as did the Stalinists. Due to their success, especially in the Saigon area, these committees were rapidly banned and brutally repressed by the French governor. In the rural areas, La Lutte initiated agitation around the demand of “Land to the Poor Peasants,” a clear class program as opposed to the “broad national union” being pushed by the Stalinists.
In the 1939 elections to the Colonial Council of Cochin China, the La Lutte group capitalized on this agitational work and managed to win a resounding victory, with more than 80% of the votes going to their candidates. The masses, faced with the choice between support for French colonialism by the Stalinists and a credible Trotskyist opposition fighting on a working-class program, overwhelmingly chose the latter. In consequence, shortly thereafter, the Indochinese Communist Party in Cochin China (southern Vietnam) split, the official party being headed by Duong Bach Mai and the dissidents regrouping around Nguyen Van Tao.
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from Ho Chi Minh, “The Party’s Line in the Period of the Democratic Front,” July 1939
1. For the time being, the Party cannot put forth too high a demand (national independence, parliament, etc.). To do so is to enter the Japanese fascists’ scheme. It should only claim for democratic rights....
2. To reach this goal, the Party must strive to organize a broad Democratic National Front. This Front does not embrace only Indochinese people but also progressive French residing in Indochina, not only toiling people but also the national bourgeoisie.
3. The Party must assume a wise, flexible attitude with the bourgeoisie, strive to draw it into the Front, win over the elements that can be won over and neutralize those which can be neutralized. We must by all means avoid leaving them outside the Front, lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy of the revolution and increase the strength of the reactionaries.
4. There cannot be any alliance with or any concession to the Trotskyite group. We must do everything possible to lay bare their faces as henchmen of the fascists and annihilate them politically....
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The polemics between the two competing groups supporting the Fourth International became increasingly sharp during this period. The Ta Thu Thau group, the official section of the FI, accused the Ho Huu Thuong group of “inventing” its opposition to the united front with the Stalinists years after it was first formed, which is almost certainly not true [see Corrections]. However, Thau also condemned them for advocating a joint La Lutte and Stalinist ticket in the 1939 elections. At a time when the ICP was openly backing French imperialism and participating in a popular front (the Indochinese Congress), support for their ticket, however critical, was certainly a serious error. These were the same “communists” who were voting for “defense taxes” in the Saigon municipal council while the government was using the money to ship in tanks for use against Vietnamese workers and peasants.
On the other hand, while the Thang Muoi group did not score the electoral successes of La Lutte, it did manage to bring out its newspaper for some years in Vietnamese before the latter attempted this step and managed to put out a daily newspaper (Tia Sang, or Spark) during 1939.
While both groups made important errors during this period, and La Lutte appears to have had an overall moderate approach of a centrist character, both vigorously opposed French colonialism and stood sharply contrasted to the Stalinists during the crucial period. Their attraction of a mass base is a tribute to the Trotskyist politics of permanent revolution, even in a muted form.
However, the bourgeoisie regained the upper hand and from October 1939 to January 1940 managed to wipe out the entire legal organizations of both the Communist Party and the Trotskyists. The ICP survived this repression better than did the Trotskyist groups, partly because the latter were more of an immediate threat to the French in the south, partly because the CP cadre were able to retreat to China where (after a period in Kuomintang jails) they eventually received Chinese and U.S. aid and partly because the Stalinists had begun retreating to clandestinity as early as 1938.
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Saigon Insurrection 1945
—from Workers Vanguard No. 20, 11 May 1973
Immediately following World War II, the Stalinist and Trotskyist groups in Vietnam faced the crucial test of a revolutionary situation. The working masses rose up against the occupying imperialist powers (France, Japan and Britain), and at the same time against the landlords and the native bourgeoisie. While the Stalinists, led by Ho Chi Minh, succeeded in betraying and crushing the revolutionary upsurge, they were not able to prevent the Trotskyists of the International Communist League (ICL) from playing a heroic role during the few short weeks between their liberation from French prisons and the brutal repression of the Saigon insurrection of September 1945.
Against these Bolshevik-Leninists Ho Chi Minh resorted to the ultimate tactic of Stalinists everywhere: assassination. From Leon Trotsky, to the entire remaining Bolshevik Central Committee of 1917, to the thousands of Russian Left Oppositionists in the Siberian labor camps, to the heroic Spanish, French, German and Czech Trotskyists, to the Vietnamese supporters of the Fourth International (the ICL and the Struggle group), Stalinism carried out its murderous work. The Stalinist parasites came close to destroying the living continuity of the Marxist movement internationally, but they could not tarnish the revolutionary program of the Fourth International.
The Viet Minh in World War II
The dismissal of the French popular front government in 1938 rapidly led to the banning of the CP in France. As a consequence, beginning in September 1939 the French colonial government outlawed all socialist groups in Vietnam, throwing hundreds of supporters of the Fourth International into prison. Both the Struggle (La Lutte) group and the International Communist League were broken up by the ferocious repression.
While many members of the Stalinist Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) were also imprisoned, Ho Chi Minh and his central committee were able to obtain refuge in Kuomintang China. This was no accident, as the Stalinists supported the Allies in World War II (as did Chiang Kai-shek) and were willing to make an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. The Trotskyists, in contrast, took the Bolshevik position of revolutionary defeatism during the war, refusing to support any of the rival imperialist camps and their puppets. [see Corrections]
Beginning in September 1940, Japanese troops occupied Indochina, while the pro-Petain colonial government remained in place. The occupation was met in the south by a large-scale peasant uprising in the Mytho region, an uprising led by Stalinist and Trotskyist forces, in November 1940. This and other abortive revolts were brutally put down by the French Foreign Legion, with more than a thousand arrests. (The Indochinese CP subsequently condemned the uprising as premature and in typical Stalinist fashion executed two of the leaders and expelled others.)[6]
In May 1941, the ICP called a congress in southern China to found the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh for short). The program of the Viet Minh was that of a typical popular front, saying nothing of socialism, limiting itself to “democratic” demands, such as national independence and allying itself with the Allies against Japan and the pro-Petain French colonial government. Its main demands for the exploited peasants, for instance, were reduction of rents and prohibition of forced labor and usury, with no more than a vague mention of agrarian reform.[7]
Disintegration of the Franco-Japanese Regime
On 9 March 1945 the Japanese, under tremendous military pressure in the Pacific, moved to tighten their control over Vietnam by ousting the fictitious French colonial government and disarming and interning the French troops. As a consequence of this move, however, bourgeois order began to deteriorate, allowing left wing groups to expand their activities clandestinely. The Viet Minh, which under Ho’s instructions had avoided military operations up to now, established a guerrilla base along the Chinese border in the north.
Meanwhile, the Trotskyists had begun to regroup. The International Communist League was reconstituted in Saigon in August 1944 with only several dozen members. However, among these were five founders of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement, each having at least 12 years’ experience of revolutionary struggle, and several experienced cadre formerly from the Hanoi section. After the March 1945 Japanese takeover, the ICL issued a manifesto calling for preparation for the imminent revolution:
“The capitalists and feudalists who today serve the Japanese general staff will also serve the Allied imperialist states. The petty bourgeois nationalists with their adventurist policies will also be unable to lead the people to a revolutionary victory. Only the working class fighting independently under the banner of the Fourth International, can accomplish the tasks of the vanguard of the revolution.
“The Stalinists of the Third International have already abandoned the working class in order to capitulate miserably before the ‘democratic’ imperialists. They have betrayed the peasants by no longer talking about the agrarian question. If they are marching today with the foreign capitalists, they will also aid the domestic exploiting classes to crush the revolutionary people in the coming hours.
“Workers and peasants! Assemble under the banner of the party of the Fourth International!”
—Manifesto of the ICL, 24 March 1945
In the meantime, the petty-bourgeois independence parties and the quasi-political religious sects were floundering without direction. The Cao Dai sect (a peasant grouping with a mystical Christian-Buddhist-Confucian ideology) had supported the French during the 1930’s and then the Japanese during the war. Now, however, the leadership continued to support Japan while the ranks were openly revolting. The Hoa Hao, whose poor peasant and proletarian members were aroused by the prospect of independence, were forced to oppose the French. The Vietnamese Kuomintang, the VNQDD, while barely existing as an organized movement, had retained some support among the petty bourgeoisie because of its unsuccessful uprising in 1930 and also opposed the re-establishment of French rule.
While such bourgeois nationalist groups may oppose one or another foreign imperialist, they are not opposed to imperialism as a system, and therefore they must oppose the struggle of the working masses for their liberation from capitalist exploitation. It will sometimes be necessary for workers’ organizations to enter into limited, essentially technical or military agreements with a section of the bourgeoisie for joint action in a particular struggle, but it is a betrayal of Marxism to form a strategic alliance or long-term bloc with any bourgeois formation.
However, in spite of their claim to support the program of the Fourth International, the centrist Struggle (La Lutte) group formed just such a bloc, founding the “National United Front” together with the VNQDD, the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao! This “Trotskyist”-bourgeois-feudal popular front effectively erased the class line separating exploiter and exploited. With its “democratic” program limited to national independence it was impossible to distinguish from the Viet Minh!
The August Days
On 16 August 1945 the news of the defeat of Japan reached Indochina. The following day the Japanese general staff declared the countries of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) independent. The rapidity of the surrender surprised everyone. The Viet Minh, however, had already convened a congress which the same day formed a People’s National Liberation Committee as a provisional government. Everywhere they moved rapidly to fill the governmental void, simply taking over the apparatus of the former Franco-Japanese colonial regime. Viet Minh troops rapidly occupied Hanoi without opposition from the Japanese. Seeking to avoid any appearance of revolution, the Viet Minh asked for and received the abdication of Bao Dai, the traditional emperor, who was henceforth “Supreme Political Advisor” of the new government. [See Letter]
In a significant gesture, Ho drafted (together with U.S. advisors) a Declaration of Independence, which begins by quoting the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, two of the key documents of the bourgeois revolution. According to the Stalinist theory of revolution in stages, to call for socialism at this point would have been “premature,” as the defeat of the feudalists and imperialists was the immediate task. The reality of this “theory” was revealed by Ho’s appeal to the French a month earlier for independence within the French Union in “not less than 5 and not more than 10 years,” and by the agreement signed in Hanoi in early 1946 which permitted the reintroduction of French troops!
In the South, events moved at a somewhat different pace due to the relative weakness of the Stalinists. On 19 August the workers of the Ban Co district of Saigon formed the first People’s Committee of the South. The following day a similar committee in the Phu Nhuan district, the largest workers’ district of Saigon, took over governmental power. In the countryside the peasants rose up at the same time, burning villas of the large landowners, as well as several rice mills, in Sadec province on 19 August. In the province of Long Xuyen alone more than 200 government officials and police were killed by peasants in the first days after the Japanese surrender.
On 21 August the National United Front called an independence demonstration which attracted more than 300,000 participants. The Hoa Hao and Cao Dai marched behind the monarchist flag with a delegation of 100,000. The Trotskyists of the International Communist League represented the other main pole of attraction in the march. Behind a huge banner of the Fourth International came a series of placards and banners with the ICL’s main slogans: “Down with Imperialism! Long Live World Revolution! Long Live the Workers and Peasants Front! People’s Committees Everywhere! Toward the Popular Assembly! Long Live the Arming of the People! Land to the Peasants! Nationalization of the Factories under Workers Control! Toward the Workers and Peasants Government!” As the banner of the Fourth International appeared, hundreds and thousands of workers who had never forgotten the revolutionary movement of the 1930’s flocked behind it, embracing old friends, fighting over who would have the honor of carrying this or that placard, saluting each other with clenched fists. In a matter of a few hours the contingent of the ICL grew to 30,000. The Cao Dai and Hoa Hao peasants, against the discipline of their leaders, applauded the banner of the Fourth International each time it passed and listened attentively to the Trotskyist orators’ agitational speeches on the national and peasant questions.[8]
The Viet Minh Coup d’Etat
Faced with the growing mass upsurge, the Stalinist leadership of the Viet Minh began to move quickly to take power. Their primary tactic was to present themselves as the legitimate representatives of the victorious allies. Thus, in a Viet Minh proclamation on 23 August, Tran Van Giau, the top southern Stalinist, proclaimed: “We have fought for five years alongside the democratic allies....” The previous evening, Giau had issued an ultimatum to a meeting of the National United Front calling on it to dissolve itself and turn over its administrative posts to the Viet Minh. The next day the NUF disbanded and joined the Viet Minh. (As a crowning touch to the betrayals of the Struggle group, which had set up the NUF as a “Trotskyist” popular front, they were accorded a seat on the “Southern Committee” of the Viet Minh on 10 September 1945!)[9]
The ICL was hardly inactive during this period, setting up a printing shop, issuing bulletins to the population every three hours and forming military units as a step toward arming the workers.
But the Stalinists moved faster. At 5 a.m. on 25 August the Viet Minh carried out a bloodless coup, occupying the city hall and police stations. Behind the backs of the masses, and with the participation of the bourgeois nationalists (Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, VNQDD), the Stalinists simply took over the existing state machinery and installed a new bonapartist bourgeois regime. Later that day the Viet Minh called a mammoth demonstration with more than one million participants. More than 30 political associations were present, but the outstanding forces were grouped behind the Stalinists and the ICL. With the break-up of the Japanese administration, the police itself divided into two sections, the majority supporting the Viet Minh, but a minority marching behind the banner of the Fourth International! The ICL delegation was noticeably smaller (only 2,000 marchers) than in the previous demonstration but this time many ICL supporters were marching with their trade union contingents.
By this time the difference between the Trotskyists and Stalinists was posed with razor sharpness. Two days after the coup, Nguyen Van Tao, now Minister for the Interior of the Viet Minh regime, issued a menacing challenge to the ICL: “Whoever encourages the peasants to take over the landed properties will be severely and pitilessly punished.... We have not yet carried out a communist revolution, which would bring a solution to the agrarian problem. This government is only a democratic [!] government, and therefore it cannot undertake this task. I repeat, our government is a democratic and bourgeois government, even though the Communists are in power.”[10] One could hardly ask for more clarity!
Military Support to the Viet Minh
Faced with this bonapartist bourgeois government, the Trotskyists of the International Communist League correctly adopted the position of an anti-imperialist united front. While Stalinists and ex-Trotskyist revisionists (such as the Bolivian POR) have used this slogan as an excuse for forming a political bloc with bourgeois nationalists, the ICL had the Leninist policy of political independence of the workers movement from the bourgeois regime, but military support against the imperialist (British-Japanese-French) forces. While the Stalinists called for “All Power to the Viet Minh,” the Trotskyists called for “All Power to the People’s Committees.”
Following Tao’s press conference, the Viet Minh cranked up an incessant anti-Trotskyist campaign in its press, accusing the supporters of the Fourth International of sowing disorder. On 1 September Tran Van Giau declared: “Those who incite the people to arm themselves will be considered saboteurs and provocateurs, enemies of national independence. Our democratic liberties will be granted and guaranteed by the democratic allies.”
While Ho Chi Minh was reading the Declaration of Independence in Hanoi, the southern Viet Minh organized a demonstration on 2 September to greet the British troops which were to arrive imminently. Late in the afternoon more than 400,000 persons joined in a peaceful demonstration proceeding to the Cathedral. As a priest known as sympathetic to the Vietnamese was speaking from the steps of the Cathedral, shots rang out and he was killed. The crowd ran for cover, but more than 150 were wounded in the shooting which followed. The situation developed into a generalized riot, with attacks on French colons suspected of responsibility for the criminal attacks on the demonstration. A number of French were arrested, but then immediately released the next day by the Stalinist police chief Duong Bach Mai, who issued a statement “deploring” the “excesses.”
In response to the events of 2 September the Stalinists and Trotskyists issued two clearly counterposed appeals. As the British troops under General Gracey were expected to arrive any day, the Viet Minh proclaimed:
“In the interests of our country, we call on everyone to have confidence in us and not let themselves be led astray by people who betray our country. It is only in this spirit that we can facilitate our relations with the Allied representatives.”
—leaflet of 7 September 1945
In contrast the ICL declared:
“We, internationalist communists, have no illusions that the Viet Minh government will be capable, with its class collaborationist policies, of fighting successfully against the imperialist invasions in the coming hours. However, if it declares itself ready to defend national independence and to safeguard the people’s liberties, we will not hesitate to aid it and to support it with all technical means in the revolutionary struggles. But in return we must repeat that we will strictly observe the absolute independence of our party with respect to the government and all the political parties, because the very existence of a party calling itself Bolshevik-Leninist depends entirely on this political independence.”
—communiqué of 4 September 1945
The People’s Committees
Under the influence of the ICL, during the three weeks after 16 August more than 150 “People’s Committees” (To Chuc Uy Banh Hanh Dong) were set up in the Nam Bo (southern Vietnam), approximately 100 of them in the Saigon-Cholon region. A Provisional Central Committee composed of 9 members (later expanded to 15) was constituted after the 21 August demonstration.
The question of the historical role of these “people’s committees” is of paramount importance to revolutionary Trotskyists. In the Quatrième Internationale article cited earlier, “Lucien” (a Vietnamese leader of the ICL) writes: “The ICL led the revolutionary masses through the intermediary of the People’s Committees. Despite its numerical weakness, the ICL achieved, for the first time in the history of the Indochinese revolution the grandiose historic task of creating the People’s Committee or Soviet.”[11]
The ICL and the People’s Committees did consistently call for political opposition to the bourgeoisie. Thus the People’s Committees gave no political support to the bourgeois Viet Minh government, while calling for a military bloc against the invading Allies (which the Viet Minh naturally rejected, since its policy was to greet the Allies). The ICL called for the arming of the working masses and took practical steps to carry this out. The ICL slogans called not for a “democratic” revolution limited to national independence, but also for expropriation of industry under workers control.
Nevertheless, the very term “People’s” Committee obscures the need for the independent mobilization of the proletariat as a separate class. While an alliance with the peasantry and sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie against imperialism and semi-feudal landowners is a burning necessity, this alliance must be based first of all on the independent organization of the working class. In predominantly peasant countries, indiscriminate mobilization of the “people” guarantees the domination of the unstable petty bourgeoisie over the working class. The necessary alliance of workers and peasants Soviets must destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a workers state.
These general considerations had an immediate practical consequence. While the People’s Committees refused the ultimatums of the Viet Minh to subordinate themselves to the bonapartist regime, the class difference between the two powers was not always clear to the masses. The People’s Committees, especially in Saigon, were essentially organs of workers power, while the Southern Committee government of the Viet Minh was a popular front regime based on the existing bourgeois state. But to the masses this appeared simply as the difference between two “people’s governments,” one dominated by the Stalinists, the other by Trotskyists. Between these two state powers a violent clash was inevitable but by calling for People’s Committees the Trotskyists of the ICL failed to adequately prepare the masses politically for the impending battle.
Massacre of the Trotskyists
The inevitable clash soon took form. On 7 September Giau issued a decree ordering the disarming of all non-governmental organizations. All weapons were to be turned over to the Viet Minh’s “Republican Guard.” This affected the religious sects but also the “vanguard youth organizations” and factory-based self-defense groups led by the Trotskyists. The most important such group was the workers militia jointly organized by the workers of the Go Vap streetcar depot and the ICL. The militia issued an appeal to the workers of Saigon-Cholon to arm themselves for the struggle against the inevitable British-French invasion.
The British and Indian troops under General Gracey arrived in Saigon on 10 September. Along the road from the airport the Viet Minh had put up banners and slogans welcoming the Allies; at city hall Allied flags were flying on both sides of the Viet Minh flag. The Viet Minh “Southern Committee” sat inside doing its paper work, while the British proceeded to eliminate its power in the city. Gracey, who only a few weeks earlier had declared, “The question of the government of Indochina is exclusively French,” banned the Vietnamese press, proclaimed martial law and imposed a strict curfew. All demonstrations were forbidden as was the carrying of any arms, including bamboo sticks.
On 12 September the People’s Committees and the ICL issued a joint manifesto denouncing the policy of treason of the Viet Minh government. Popular discontent was seething in the workers’ districts. Faced with the likelihood of insurrection, the Viet Minh moved to behead it. At 4 p.m. on 14 September Duong Bach Mai, Stalinist head of the police, sent a detachment of Republican Guards to surround the local of the People’s Council which was in session at the time. Incredibly, the Trotskyists simply gave up to these butchers! In the words of the ICL account:
“We conducted ourselves as true revolutionary militants. We let ourselves be arrested without using violence against the police, even though we were more numerous and all well armed. They took our machine guns and automatic pistols. They sacked our office, breaking furniture, ripping our flags, stealing the typewriters and burning all our papers.”[12]
By this single act of cowardice, the ICL leadership sealed its own doom and that of the first Vietnamese revolution. Behind such a capitulation must have lain a serious misunderstanding of the true nature of Stalinism. It is true that during the 1930’s the southern leaders of the ICP were in a long-term bloc with the Struggle group, and showed themselves to be somewhat more “leftist” than Ho. But this was only a tactical adaptation to the presence of significant Trotskyist forces. In a similar fashion the Bolivian CP agreed to form the Popular Assembly in 1971 along with the “Trotskyist” POR, but only in order to better betray it. A proof that this was only a temporary aberration is given by the Stalinists’ own criticism of the southern party for its “leftist deviations... its underestimation of the Trotskyist danger and its unprincipled cooperation with the Trotskyists”[13] in the popular front period.
(Among the ICL leaders who were shot as a result of the Stalinist coup were Lo Ngoc, member of the central committee of the ICL; Nguyen Van Ky, ICL labor leader; and Nguyen Huong, young leader of the workers militia, killed by the Stalinist police in July 1946.)
By 22 September the British had sufficiently fortified their position to try an open test of strength. The British took over the Saigon jail, while the French troops of the 11th Colonial Infantry were armed. The French colons went wild later that day, arresting, beating and killing innumerable Vietnamese. During the following night French troops reoccupied several police stations, the post office, central bank and town hall, all without armed resistance.
As the news reached the working-class districts a spontaneous movement of resistance broke out. The Viet Minh opposed “violence,” instead trying to obtain “negotiations” with General Gracey. In the outlying suburbs trees were felled, cars and trucks overturned and furniture piled up in the street creating crude barricades. During this time the workers’ suburbs (Khanh Hoi, Cau Kho, Ban Co, Phu Nhuan, Tan Dinh and Thi Nghe) were firmly in the insurgents’ hands. In some areas French were shot indiscriminately in an outburst of racial hatred, the result of 80 years of brutal colonial domination. In the center several important factories and warehouses were burned down, and the port was under continuous attack. Water and electricity were cut off completely and supplies were precarious. The following day the Vietnamese insurgents openly paraded in the main streets of the city center.
The most significant organized contingent in the insurrection was the workers militia of the Go Vap streetcar depot, a force of 60. The 400 workers of the company were well known for their labor militancy. While affiliated to the Stalinist-dominated labor federation, they refused to use the label of Cong Nhan Cuu Quoc (“Workers Saviors of the Fatherland”), and refused to carry the Viet Minh flag (yellow star on a red background), saying they would fight instead under the red flag of the workers. The force was organized into shock groups of 11 members under elected leaders, with the overall command headed by Tranh Dinh Minh. a young ICL leader and novelist formerly from Hanoi.
(Faced with the joint opposition of the Allies and the Viet Minh police, the Go Vap workers militia tried to open a line of retreat to regroup in the Plaine des Joncs area. After several battles with the French and Indian troops they reached the regroupment area, where they established contact with the poor peasants. Already having lost 20 men, and on 13 January 1946 its leader Minh, in battle against the imperialist forces, the militia was eventually overwhelmed, several of its members stabbed to death by Viet Minh bands.)
In this revolutionary atmosphere the Viet Minh Committee of the South issued its appeal: “there is only one answer—a food blockade.” Futilely hoping to starve out the French (while British ships controlled the port!), Giau concentrated on negotiations with the British. A truce was announced on 1 October, but by 5 October General Leclerc and the French expeditionary force arrived and rapidly moved to “restore order” and “build a strong Indochina within the French Union.”[14] The truce was the best present the beleaguered French and British troops could have received, an obscene betrayal of the insurgent masses.
While the Viet Minh continued its policy of appeasing the Allies, agreeing to allow free passage to British and Japanese troops through rebel areas, the French and Indian troops launched a general attack to the northeast, thus breaking the blockade of the city. Instead of fighting back, the Stalinists concentrated their efforts on eliminating the Trotskyists. Having eliminated the ICL and the People’s Committee leadership on 14 September, they now moved on the Struggle (La Lutte) group and, surrounding its headquarters in the Thu Duc area, they arrested the entire group and interned them at Ben Suc. There they were all shot as French troops approached. Among those thus murdered were Tran Van Thach (elected a Saigon municipal councillor in the 1933 elections), Phan Van Hum, Nguyen Van So and tens of other revolutionary militants. Shortly after this the Viet Minh were forced out of Saigon.
Ho Sells Out to the French
In the North, Ho was following a similar policy of capitulating to the Allies, in this case the Chinese and French. However, the process took considerably longer than in the South, as the first Chinese troops did not arrive until late September, giving the Viet Minh time to consolidate its rule. Also, the Viet Minh had its own makeshift guerrilla army in the North, and the Chinese were not actively opposed to an independent Vietnam. In line with this policy of “broadening” the coalition to include bourgeois nationalists and Catholic leaders. Ho in November ordered the complete liquidation of the lndochinese Communist Party. The Central Committee statement said that “in order to complete the Party’s task...a national union conceived without distinction of class and parties is an indispensable factor” and that this step was being taken to show that Communists “are always disposed to put the interests of the country above that of classes, and to give up the interests of the Party to serve those of the Vietnamese people” [our emphasis]![15]
At this same time, however, opposition was still strong in the North. The Struggle group at this time was publishing a daily newspaper in Hanoi. Tranh Dau (Struggle), which had a circulation of 30,000 in late 1945.[16] A letter to the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in this period spoke of a well-organized but persecuted organization of the Struggle group in the North. Led by “Th...,” former leader of the Tonkin printers during 1937-38, it held large meetings and published several books in addition to its daily newspaper. One region where the line of the Struggle group had particular success was Bach Mai. As a result of a large meeting there. Ho Chi Minh gave the order to arrest Th... and other supporters of the Fourth International. (Th... was able to escape from his Viet Minh captors and was fighting in the guerilla operations in the countryside at the time.) Already a large number of Trotskyists had perished in the resistance.[17] Eventually this group, too, was wiped out entirely by the Stalinist repression.
At this time, Ta Thu Thau, the leader of the Struggle group was in Hanoi, working on coordinating flood relief and “conferring” with Ho Chi Minh. On his way south he was arrested on the orders of the Viet Minh. Tried three times by local People’s Committees, he was acquitted each time, a tribute to the Trotskyists’ reputation in Vietnam at that time. Finally, he was simply shot in Quang Ngai in February 1946, on orders from the southern Stalinist leader Tran Van Giau. Gullible souls have questioned whether the wise Uncle Ho could ever have carried out such a vicious act. Such doubts are an expression of political light-mindedness, as there is no known account of Thau’s murder that even suggests that he was not killed by Viet Minh forces, acting on orders. As for Ho, his only known statement on the subject was made in a conversation with the French socialist Daniel Guérin:
“‘He [Thau] was a great patriot and we mourn him.’ Ho Chi Minh told me with unfeigned emotion. But a moment later he added in a steady voice. ‘All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.’”[18]
Having physically liquidated the entire leadership of the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam. Ho was now ready to conclude a “deal” with the French government (which included the Communist François Billoux as minister of defense!). The preliminary convention between France and the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” signed in Hanoi on 6 March, provided among other things that “the Government of Vietnam declares itself prepared to receive the French army amicably,” and for the stationing of 15,000 French troops north of the 16th parallel. The overall content of the accords was for a limited independence, within the French Union. Defending this despicable betrayal against revolutionary Trotskyist criticism, which lived on in spite of the physical extermination of the Trotskyist cadres, Ho was forced to call a mass rally in Hanoi the following day, during which he declared: “The people who are not satisfied only understand total independence as a slogan, a demand on a piece of paper or in the mouth. They do not see independence of the country results from objective conditions....”[19] Primary among these objective conditions, of course, was the fact that the French Communist Party and Stalin were opposed to Vietnamese independence!
It was with the arrival of Allied troops that the defeat of the first Vietnamese revolution was sealed. The primary responsibility for this defeat lies clearly with Ho Chi Minh and the Stalinists who consistently sabotaged the popular uprising and murdered its leaders. Only by realizing the magnitude of this betrayal can one gauge the significance of the capitulation of the Struggle group in joining the Viet Minh, a move which led to its physical annihilation and to the generation-long war against French and U.S. imperialism. While the International Communist League demonstrated a similar underestimation of the lengths to which the Stalinists would go to eliminate revolutionary opposition, its overall policies in this period presented a clear Trotskyist opposition to the class collaboration of the Viet Minh.
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“Socialism” in Half a Country
—from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
After repeatedly capitulating before the imperialist powers (Saigon, September 1945; the 6 March 1946 accords; Fontainebleau modus vivendi), the Viet Minh were finally forced to fight the French by a series of open provocations in late 1946. On 20 November, the French navy, which had blockaded the Haiphong port, seized a Chinese junk trying to run the blockade; in response, a Vietnamese shore battery shelled the French. Seizing on this incident as an excuse, three days later the French brutally attacked Haiphong with heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, killing roughly 20,000 Vietnamese. Early in December, the French demanded that the Vietnamese withdraw entirely from the city and the surrounding roads; in response, the Vietnamese commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, proposed a mixed commission to discuss the question! Subsequently, on 19 December the French demanded the disarming of the Viet Minh militia, and that night general fighting broke out in Hanoi. The fighting continues to this day. As it turned out, the Viet Minh were quickly driven out of the capital and did not return until after the 1954 Geneva settlement. Had the Stalinists resisted the French reoccupation from the beginning, when the imperialists were weakest, a quarter century of war and more than two million deaths would have been avoided.
The attitude of the French Communist Party in this conflict was an illustration of the lengths to which the Stalinists would go in attempting to ingratiate themselves with their respective bourgeoisies. Thus, while Ho Chi Minh was writing servile letters to the Americans, forming political blocs with the pro-Chinese bourgeois nationalists, dissolving the Indochinese Communist Party and agreeing to permit the entry of French troops into the north, his French comrades were busy explaining why the right of national self-determination did not apply to Vietnam and voting war credits to finance the French expeditionary force!
As early as September 1945, the Saigon committee of the French CP “warned [the Viet Minh] that any ‘premature adventures’ in Annamite independence might ‘not be in line with Soviet perspectives.’”[20] That same month the French government (including several CP ministers) proposed a military budget of 193 billion francs, including 100 billion for the Expeditionary Force in Indochina; the CP voted for the bill.[21] In July 1946, smelling a victory in the next elections, the Communists took up a virulent nationalist stance: “Are we, after having lost Syria and Lebanon yesterday, to lose Indochina tomorrow, North Africa the day after?” wrote L’Humanité (24 July 1946).[22] Two days later the CP deputies voted for a constitutional definition of the French Union which made Vietnamese “independence” purely fictional!
But this obscene nationalism could not stop at mere generalities: On 20 December 1946, a month after the French bombardment of Haiphong, the CP voted in the French Assembly to send congratulations to General Leclerc and the Expeditionary Corps. On 23 December, three days after the outbreak of hostilities in Hanoi, the CP deputies voted a special military budget made necessary “because of the resumption in hostilities in Indochina.” As Vice-Premier in the government of Paul Ramadier in March 1947, Maurice Thorez, head of the French CP, signed the order for military action against the Vietnamese; at the same time, Ramadier stated that “on the question of Indochina, we have always noted the correctness of the government of the Soviet Union.”[23]
Some have alleged that because of these nationalistic acts, the French CP during the late 1940’s was opposed to the line of Ho Chi Minh in a fundamental sense, implying that Ho was essentially a centrist, as against the reformist Thorez. That the differences were essentially tactical is shown by Ho’s repeated efforts to enlist American aid (at least eight letters to Truman in this period), his agreement to the March 1946 accords and the Fontainebleau agreement and the extremely conservative policies followed by the Viet Minh through most of the first Indochinese war. Ho and Thorez were simply capitulating to different bourgeoisies; qualitatively their policies were the same.
The Agrarian Question
As Leon Trotsky wrote in the “Transitional Program”:
“The central task of the colonial and semi-colonial countries is the agrarian revolution, i.e., liquidation of feudal heritages, and national independence, i.e., the overthrow of the imperialist yoke. Both tasks are closely linked with each other.”
From the very beginning, in 1941, the Viet Minh took only the most minimal reformist position on the agrarian question, favoring a 25 per cent reduction in rents. The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam written in 1946 stated flatly: “The rights of property and possession of Vietnamese citizens are guaranteed.”[24] In the period from 1945 to 1949 even this minimal program of rent reduction was only applied to five per cent of the land belonging to large landlords, while eight per cent (belonging to “unpatriotic” landowners) was redistributed—hardly a radical land reform, much less an agrarian revolution.[25] However, beginning with the agrarian decree of 12 April 1953, the picture changed as the stipulations calling for reduction of rent, elimination of debts and distribution of lands owned by colonists were put into effect by the local peasant unions. At the same time, the membership of the peasant unions doubled and the percentage of poor peasants in the Lao Dong [Workers] Party increased from 37 per cent to 53 per cent. The French commander at Dien Bien Phu commented that after the new agrarian legislation he wasn’t dealing “with the same adversaries.”[26]
Yet even this change was merely tactical. With the beginning of the Cold War with the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the Soviet foreign policy had undergone a shift to the left, embodied in the “Zhdanov line.” The victory of the Chinese CP in the civil war with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 meant that Ho was assured of supplies from the deformed workers states. Thus, soon after, the Vietnamese Communist Party was refounded as the Lao Dong [Workers] Party in 1951, and in 1953 the Viet Minh decided to launch a militant land reform campaign. This pattern was virtually identical to that followed by Mao in China, where even the simple democratic demand for land reform was put off until the final break-off of negotiations with Chiang in 1946! However, in both cases, the agrarian program which was implemented in the final stages of the civil war in no way called into question bourgeois property relations in the countryside. We have referred to Mao’s policies in China as simply “reformism under the gun,” a label which certainly applies with equal force to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.
1954 Geneva Settlement
As Stalinists, the Viet Minh leadership ultimately represented the interests of the bureaucratic clique running the deformed workers states. At the first opportunity after a stalemate was reached in the Korean War in 1953, the Russians began pressing for a peace settlement in Vietnam as well. Ho soon took up the refrain even though the Vietnamese were winning militarily. By the time the negotiations finally took place in spring of 1954, the Viet Minh controlled roughly 85 percent of the country, according to Western estimates, and had decisively defeated the French expeditionary force at Dien Bien Phu. Commenting on the settlement, Douglas Pike, a U.S. official associated with the CIA, has written:
“Ironically the agreement written at Geneva benefitted all parties except the winners....
“Only the Viet Minh, the winners, lost. Or were sold out. Ho Chi Minh somehow was persuaded—apparently by a joint Sino-Soviet effort—to settle for half the country on the grounds that the other half would be his as soon as elections were held....”[27]
The role of the Soviet Union in pushing for this sellout “settlement” is well known. The equally pernicious role of the more militant-talking Chinese was documented by the “Pentagon Papers.” A key point in the negotiations came on 18 July 1954, when a Chinese official transmitted a message to U.S. negotiators at Geneva. According to a State Department cable:
“The informant said the Communists are pressing for the stamp of American approval on the armistice agreement—already okayed in principle by Britain and France—which would divide Vietnam between Communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh and Bao Dai’s pro-Western regime....
“But the informant did not (repeat not) rule out the chance of an Indochina cease-fire even if the U.S. refuses to okay the armistice agreement.”[28]
As for Ho, despite rumors of secret dissatisfaction with the cease-fire, and opposition to Moscow and Peking, this is how he presented it to the Vietnamese people:
“At this conference, the struggle of our delegation and the assistance given by the delegations of the Soviet Union and China have ended in a great victory for us.”[29]
With victories like this, who needs defeats!
The Viet Cong
The whole struggle for the liberation of South Vietnam since the 1954 Geneva agreement reads like a replay of the earlier war against the French. The names are changed, but the play is the same. For six years Ho and the Hanoi leadership refused to organize a revolutionary movement in the South, believing instead in the miraculous powers of “peaceful coexistence.” Meanwhile, the butcher Diem was hunting down southern resistance leaders, throwing peasants off their lands, murdering thousands. Ho’s answer to this savagery summed up the position of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) leadership quite nicely: “Our policy is: to consolidate the North and to keep in mind the South.”[30]
As late as 1960, the DRV was still trying to hold down the struggle in the South, arguing:
“The Northern people will never neglect their task with regard to one half of their country which is not yet liberated. But in the present conjuncture, when the possibility exists to maintain a lasting peace in the world and create favorable conditions for the world movement of socialist revolution and national independence to go forward, we can and must guide and restrict within the South the solving of the contradiction between imperialism and the colonies of our country.” [our emphasis][31]
As in the first Indochinese war the agrarian program and political perspective of the National Liberation Front are clearly and precisely limited to “democratic” tasks. From the very beginning, the NLF called for a coalition government:
“The present South Vietnamese regime is a camouflaged colonial regime dominated by the Yankees.... Therefore, this regime must be overthrown and a government of national and democratic union put in its place composed of representatives of all social classes, of all nationalities, of the various political parties, of all religions....
“Support the national bourgeoisie in the reconstruction and development of crafts and industry.” [our emphasis][32]
The NLF has subsequently called for protection of foreign investment and has never expropriated the French rubber plantations; thus in good old Stalinist fashion it distinguishes between the good and the bad imperialists.
As for the agrarian program, in the words of NLF Chairman Nguyen Huu Tho:
“Our program reflects the broad nature of the Front and the forces represented in it. We are in favor of land to the peasants for instance, but not systematic confiscation; we are for reduction of rents but for the maintenance of present property rights except in the case of traitors. Landlords who have not supported the U.S. puppets have nothing to fear.”[33]
The 1973 Paris Accords
Since April 1965, when Premier Pham Van Dong set out the DRV position on peace negotiations (the “Four Points”), the fundamental North Vietnamese demands have been for U.S. withdrawal and a coalition government in Saigon. The coalition government is clearly intended to be based on the existing state apparatus, which would make it a classical popular front regime. If realized it could spell outright defeat for the millions of Vietnamese who have fought for years with the NLF against U.S. imperialism and the feudal-bourgeois reactionary regime in the South. By preserving the property rights of “patriotic” landlords and the “national” bourgeoisie, by guaranteeing foreign investors against expropriation, such a regime would necessarily be unable to fulfill the fundamental aspirations of the working masses.
The actual Paris accords of January 1973 do not set up such a government, nor do they call for regroupment of North Vietnamese forces or disarmament. As a result, this “ceasefire in place” is not simply a sellout, as the 1946 and 1954 agreements clearly were; on the other hand, aside from the U.S. withdrawal, which itself could be reversed, it settles nothing. There is no peace; the civil war goes on. In the meantime the Stalinist leadership of the DRV/ NLF has essentially abandoned the civilian political prisoners in the South, as it continues its fundamental strategy of betrayal, the search for a bloc with the non-existent “good” bourgeoisie.
• No Support for the Robbers’ Peace—U.S. Imperialism Out of S.E.Asia—Free All Political Prisoners in Saigon Government Jails!
• Unconditional Military Defense of the DRV—Political Revolution in Hanoi!
• Military Victory for the NLF—Viet Cong Take Saigon—No Coalition Government!
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Those Who Revile Our History
—from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
Vietnam in 1945 was a typical colonial country. The vast mass of the population was composed of poor peasants and landless laborers, who suffered from exploitation at the hands of feudal and bourgeois landowners, and from direct military oppression by various imperialist powers (France, Japan, China, Britain and the U.S.). Yet, as shown by centuries of unsuccessful peasant revolts, this heterogeneous popular mass was unable to lead a victorious social revolution. In the early years of this century the urban petty bourgeoisie threw up a series of nationalist sects which, however, were equally unable to achieve the unity or social force necessary to overthrow a developed colonial power. At the same time, the tiny bourgeoisie never advanced beyond the most timid reform demands and, faced with an awakened working class and peasantry, chose instead to cower behind the protection of its French, and later U.S., masters.
Thus the lot of emancipator of the oppressed Vietnamese masses fell to the young, small, but highly combative proletariat. In contrast to India or even China, the bourgeois nationalists were never more than a secondary (and at times minuscule) force in Vietnam after 1930, while the political scene was dominated by the two major currents of the workers movement, Trotskyism and Stalinism.
The Trotskyists stood on the historic Marxist program of permanent revolution, insisting that because of the combined feudal-capitalist character of Vietnamese society and the uneven development of the various class forces, the “national” and “democratic” tasks of the bourgeois revolution could be fulfilled only under the dictatorship of the proletariat, supporting itself on the peasantry. This program was represented in Vietnam by the International Communist League (ICL), which called for complete national independence, land to the peasants, nationalization of the factories under workers control and a workers and peasants government. At the height of the Saigon insurrection of 1945 this program was crystallized in the demand of all power to the People’s Committees. While seeking to overthrow the bonapartist bourgeois Viet Minh regime in Saigon, they called for a military united front against the invading imperialist powers. Nevertheless, although at the high point of the uprising the ICL led tens of thousands of workers, it was militarily overwhelmed by the Stalinist Viet Minh, which brutally massacred hundreds of its militants, along with leaders and members of the centrist Struggle group (also supporters of the Fourth International) and various bourgeois nationalist leaders.
This heinous crime gave Ho Chi Minh and the Stalinists unchallenged hegemony in the Vietnamese political scene. However, despite this position they have consistently refused to mobilize the working class for socialist revolution. When faced with imperialist armies, their policies have amounted to a classic “bloc of four classes”—a purely national revolution in coalition with the “patriotic” bourgeoisie (and, in this case, the monarchy as well). In power, they have adhered to the policy of “socialism in one country” (more precisely in half a country), first sacrificing and then only reluctantly supporting their own comrades against U.S. imperialism and its puppet regimes in South Vietnam.
These are the counterrevolutionary policies of Stalinism, the political expression of a parasitic bureaucracy which acts as the agent of the bourgeoisie in the workers movement; this is the program of the “communist” Ho Chi Minh. It is also the program of his foreign mentors, in the first instance Stalin himself and the French Communist Party, but also of the more militant-posturing yet equally reformist Mao regime in China. The sorry results of this strategy of betrayal have been three successive robbers’ peace settlements, in 1946, 1954 and 1973, each of which has left intact a bourgeois regime in Saigon.
Revolutionary Defensism
What attitude are proletarian revolutionaries to take when faced with the actual struggles led by the Stalinist leadership, these butchers of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, betrayers of the peasants and workers, appeasers of French and U.S. imperialism—who, however, also base themselves on and, in a limited and distorted manner, defend the conquests of the working class? As Marxists we must begin with the fundamental question—what is the class character of the states involved? The Democratic Republic of Vietnam is a deformed workers state; that is, while it has socialist property relations, political power is in the hands of a parasitic bureaucracy rather than the working class. The struggle in South Vietnam is essentially a civil war, pitting the working class and exploited peasantry on the one hand against the local and foreign bourgeoisie on the other. Fundamentally, the NLF-controlled areas in the South are deformed workers states in embryo. Therefore, the only attitude that a party claiming to represent the historic interests of the proletariat can take in a conflict between the NLF/DRV and capitalist forces is one of revolutionary defensism. Thus we unconditionally defend the NLF/DRV against the U.S. and the bourgeois regime in Saigon, while at the same time calling for a political revolution to overthrow the treacherous reformist leadership which is holding back the struggle.
This was the approach taken by the Vietnamese Internationalist Communist Group in France, which in 1947 declared:
“Our attitude vis-a-vis the Viet Minh can best be defined by Lenin’s phrase ‘march separately, strike together.’ The Vietnamese internationalist communists are ready to join their blows against imperialism with those of the Viet Minh, but they must maintain complete programmatic independence and freedom of criticism, because in the face of the past capitulations of the Viet Minh, placing confidence in its policies would mean renouncing a revolutionary position.”[34]
Ho “Assimilates the Permanent Revolution”
In their rush to capitulate to the heroes of the petty-bourgeois radical milieu, the fake-Trotskyists of the “United Secretariat” and the “International Committee” must gloss over the real history of Stalinism in Vietnam.
The USec of Frank, Mandel and Hansen is the direct descendent of the Pabloist International Secretariat, which in the early 1950’s formulated the “theory” that the world was divided into two camps, the imperialists and the Stalinists; because of the sharp character of the impending conflicts, the Stalinists would be forced against their will to defend the interests of the proletariat. Pablo’s conclusion: The Trotskyists should dissolve their movement in favor of “deep entry” into the Stalinist parties.
In the early 1960’s the U.S. Socialist Workers Party came over to Pabloism with its theory that Fidel Castro was an “unconscious Marxist” and thus the SWP’s function was to be merely a cheering section for Castroism, recapitulating the European Pabloists’ capitulation to the Algerian nationalists. The common thread of Pabloism is the belief that one or another non-proletarian force (the Stalinist bureaucracy, students, peasant guerillas, etc.) will carry out the revolution, thereby rendering superfluous or at least secondary the leading role of the Trotskyist party.
What this means in the case of Vietnam can be seen from a recent book by Pierre Rousset, a leading member of the French USec, on Le Parti Communiste Vietnamien. The book’s central thesis is that:
“... the Vietnamese leadership as a whole has assimilated the decisive implications of the permanent revolution for colonial and semi-colonial countries.” [emphasis in original][35]
As we have shown, Ho Chi Minh’s policies of vacillation and betrayal were in direct counterposition to revolutionary Trotskyism and in fact required the massacre of thousands of supporters of the Fourth International. How does this revisionist explain the extermination of the Vietnamese Trotskyists?
“These assassinations, about which historians of the Indochinese CP don’t speak, in their writings in French at least, show at least two things: the width of the political gulf which then separated the Trotskyist groups from the Indochinese CP [one would hope so!], the former probably underestimating the importance of the national question in the revolutionary mobilization of the masses, the latter profoundly underestimating the social question in the colonial revolution, including at the outset.”[36]
In short, for the Pabloists there is not only no need to be a Trotskyist in Vietnam, since the North Vietnamese and NLF leadership has absorbed the lessons of the permanent revolution; but in addition, the ideological conflict between Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam was entirely unnecessary, since there was a little bit of truth on both sides. The murders? Just an unfortunate mistake.
Healy and “People’s War”
The position of the USec at least has the virtue of reflecting a consistent long-standing policy: the open abandonment of the Transitional Program and rejection of the essential lessons of Trotskyism. It is noteworthy that the Socialist Labour League (Britain) and its fake “International Committee,” which claim to be fighting Pabloism, and which criticize sharply Hansen’s phrase about Castro being an “unconscious Marxist,” take precisely the same position regarding the Vietnamese Stalinists as the USec. In their obituary of Ho we read:
“There can be no doubt that he [Ho Chi Minh] contained within himself and came to personify, all the anti-imperialist hatred and fighting spirit of the colonial peoples....
“Like Mao Tse-tung, Ho instinctively yearned to do battle with imperialism and the internal forces of reaction within his native country.”[37]
Rather than an “unconscious Marxist” (à la USec), we find here Ho Chi Minh the “instinctive” Marxist. A distinction without a difference, if ever there was one! Elsewhere the Healyites elaborated:
“It is indisputably true to say that, on the basis of the Vietnamese experience, guns combined with the courage and endurance of individual guerrilleros would have meant little or nothing if Ho Chi Minh and other leaders were unable to analyse the principal and secondary conditions within Vietnam as well as between Vietnam and imperialism and on that basis outline a strategy for the conquest of power.”[38]
And just what was this strategy?
“It [Vietnam] demonstrates the transcendental power and resilience of a protracted peoples war led and organized by a party based on the working class and the poor peasantry and inspired by the example of the October revolution [!].”[39]
And the Vietnamese Trotskyists, murdered by these “instinctive” Marxists—what of them? Well, here it seems that Ho was a little naughty, for which the SLL slaps his hand in reprobation:
“We do not forget these crimes committed against our movement by Ho Chi Minh, any more than we seek to play down his very real contribution to the struggle against world imperialism.”
But at the very moment that Ho massacred the Trotskyists, he was according to the Healyites lined up against world Stalinism itself!
“Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were on one side of the barricades, Thorez, Stalin and French imperialism on the other.”[40]
So you see, it is all here: The unconscious (or instinctive) Marxism, the assimilation of the lessons of the permanent revolution, the understanding attitude toward the murders of the Vietnamese Trotskyists. And it is no isolated case. Healy’s famous “method” also allows him to support the Red Guards, Mao Tse-tung, the “Arab Revolution” and Indira Gandhi as supposed fighters against imperialism.
Although Healy uses “theory” and “method” primarily as a smokescreen to hide his abandonment of fundamental Marxist principles, there is in fact a method to the madness. The thread which unites these various positions is the same objectivism which is implicit in Pabloism: Since the sweep of the revolutionary wave (the objective forces) is so all-embracing, the struggle for the program of permanent revolution, the organization of the Trotskyist vanguard party, the struggle to rebuild the Fourth International—all this is secondary and ultimately expendable.
SL and the Vietnamese Trotskyists
In contrast, the Spartacist League continues to uphold the struggle and the memory of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, while recognizing and seeking to learn from their mistakes. This is no secondary or sentimental question. We have seen how the scandalous abandonment of the theory of permanent revolution on the part of the IC and USec leads them to solidarize themselves with the Stalinists against the Trotskyists in Vietnam, going so far as to apologize for the murder of the latter. The practical consequences of Pabloism are liquidation of the revolution and annihilation of the revolutionaries.
The Spartacist League has consistently, throughout its history, called for military defense of the NLF/DRV, including in times or places where this has not been a popular demand. We have demanded that Russia and China provide adequate military aid to the Vietnamese. Alone of all the tendencies of the U.S. left we raise the question of the war in our trade-union work, calling for immediate U.S. withdrawal and labor strikes against the war. At the same time, as Trotskyists we hold high the banner of permanent revolution and expose the repeated betrayals of the Vietnamese Stalinists. Likewise we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Vietnamese Trotskyists in order, in the words of the Transitional Program, “to speak the truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be.” Only in this manner, by openly struggling for the program of revolutionary Marxism, can the Fourth International be reborn.
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Corrections
— from Workers Vanguard No. 21, 25 May 1973
In Part II of this series, in a paragraph dealing with the differing fortunes of the Vietnamese Stalinists and Trotskyists during World War II, we wrote:
“.. .the Stalinists supported the Allies in World War II (as did Chiang Kai-shek) and were willing to make an alliance with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. The Trotskyists, in contrast, took the Bolshevik position of revolutionary defeatism during the war, refusing to support any of the rival imperialist camps and their puppets.”
While the paragraph is clearly talking of the Vietnamese Trotskyists, the sentences in question could be misinterpreted as implying that the Fourth International as a whole took a defeatist position in the war between China and Japan. While the FI took a revolutionary defeatist line in the struggle between the Allied and Axis imperialists, it did make a distinction in the Far East by supporting China against Japan. In WV No. 4, January 1972 (“War, Revolution and Self-Determination”) we argue that this position was correct until 1942, when the Chinese were essentially subordinated to and integrated into the inter-imperialist war, thereafter necessitating a position of revolutionary defeatism, while continuing to support the right of self-determination for China. This was the position taken by Lenin with regard to Serbian and Polish independence in the similar situation during World War I.
The position of the Vietnamese International Communist League gives added support to this policy. In the specific conditions of Vietnam, where both Japanese and Chinese sought to dominate Vietnam, a position of support for the Chinese could only have led to a new imperialist master, as in fact occurred in North Vietnam in 1945 and early 1946, with Ho Chi Minh acting in concert with the Kuomintang .army instead of fighting against it. Back
In Part I we referred to the Struggle group as the official section of the FI. It has since come to our attention that this is only partially correct. An article from Vietnam in the Labor Action of 27 October 1947 mentions that when the Struggle group was recognized as the official section of the FI in 1939, the ICL fused with it. In 1945 the two groups separated once more, over profound divergences concerning the attitude to be taken toward the Viet Minh. At that time (1945-47) the reports on Vietnam appearing in the official organ of the International Secretariat (Quatrième Internationale) treated both groups as Trotskyists. Back
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Letter
— from Workers Vanguard No. 23, 22 June 1973
Dear Editor,
The series “Stalinism and Trotskyism in Vietnam,” while an important contribution to the history of this little-known chapter of world Trotskyism, nonetheless contains certain significant omissions. Part I of the series in WV, 27 April 1973. leaves open to question whether the 1933 electoral bloc between the Indochinese Stalinists and the Trotskyist group led by Ta Thu Thau (the “Struggle” group) “was simply a no-contest pact or involved joint propaganda around a lowest common denominator program.” I. Milton Sacks, in his article “Marxism in Vietnam” (in F. Trager, ed.. Marxism in Southeast Asia. Stanford. 1959) states that the Ta Thu Thau group and Indochinese Communist Party ran on a common electoral program which “stressed mainly a series of democratic demands (right to strike, right to form unions, voting rights, etc.) and a number of welfare measures designed to alleviate the condition of the Vietnamese workers (lighter taxes, housing, recreational facilities, etc.).”
Part 2 of your series ( WV, 11 May I973) states that “Seeking to avoid any appearance of revolution, the Viet Minh asked for and received the abdication of Bao Dai...” The Viet Minh were so anxious to avoid “any appearance of revolution” that they actually did not ask for the abdication of Bao Dai and were anticipating working within the framework of the monarchy. The Stalinist “two-stage revolution” which divides the democratic and national tasks in the colonial countries from the socialist revolution, and proscribes a prior “democratic-national revolution” which is supposed to be carried out in alliance with the colonial bourgeoisie, is converted in practice into a “three-stage revolution” with a prior “progressive aristocratic-comprador bourgeois” stage! The Stalinists in inverted fashion are aware of the dynamic of the permanent revolution outlined by Trotsky, i.e., that to carry through the tasks of the democratic and national revolution the tasks of the socialist revolution are necessarily placed on the agenda. Thus, the Stalinists, in order to delay the socialist revolution, must also prevent the tasks of the national and democratic revolution from being carried through. So it was in Spain where the Stalinists prevented the expropriation and redistribution of land; so it was in Vietnam; and so it is today in Chile. Ho Chi Minh’s futile attempt to recrown the “progressive monarch” Bao Dai, puppet of French and Japanese imperialism, anticipated Mao Tse-tung’s courtship of that cast-off puppet-Prince of U.S. and French imperialism, Sihanouk, by 25 years. Bao Dai’s actual abdication was the result of a telegram sent on 21 August 1945 by a mass meeting of the Hanoi General Association of Students, in response to a motion raised by Ho Huu Thong, leader of the Trotskyist lndochinese Communist League.
Comradely,
Reuben Samuels
18 May 1973
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Notes
1 Ahn-Van and Jaqueline Roussel, Mouvements nationaux et lutte de classes au Vietnam. Paris, 1947, pp. 47-51. Except where otherwise indicated, most of the factual information is taken from this book.
2 Le Thanh Khoi, Le Viet-Nam, Paris, 1955, p. 448.
3 Ellen Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina 1940-1955, Stanford, 1954, p. 92.
4 Philippe Devillers, Histoire du Viet-Nam de 1940 à 1952, Paris, 1952, p. 69.
5 La Lutte, No. 205, 14 August 1938.
6 Hammer, op. cit., p. 92.
7 Jean Chesneaux, Contribution à l’histoire de la nation vietnamienne, Paris, 1955, p. 230.
8 Lucien, “Quelques étapes de la révolution au Nam-Bo du Viet-Nam,” Quatrième Internationale, September-October 1947, p. 43. Much of the factual information in this section is taken from this article.
9 Devillers, op. cit., p. 156.
10 Lucien, op. cit., p. 45.
11 Ibid., p. 47.
12 Ibid.
13 Pierre Rousset, Le parti communiste vietnamien, Paris, 1973, p. 26.
14 “1945: The Saigon Insurrection,” Spartacist West No. 17, 22 August 1969. Most of the details on the September insurrection come from this article.
15 Alan W. Cameron, ed., Viet-Nam Crisis. A Documentary History, Vol. 1, pp. 66-67.
16 I. Milton Sacks, Nationalism and Communism in Vietnam, unpublished dissertation, Yale University, 1960, p. 224.
17 “Les Trotskystes au Tonkin (lettre de Hong Kong),” Quatrième Internationale, January-February 1948, pp. 71-72.
18 Quoted by Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh, New York, p. 148.
19 Chesneaux, op. cit., p. 245.
20 Harold Isaacs, No Peace for Asia, pp. 173-174.
21 Bob Potter, “The Rape of Vietnam,” Solidarity pamphlet, p. 9.
22 Quoted in Hammer, op. cit., p. 190.
23 Potter, op. cit., p. 9; Hammer, op. cit., pp. 198, 200.
24 Hammer, op. cit., p. 178.
25 Chesneaux, op. cit., p. 298.
26 Ibid., pp. 297, 300.
27 Douglas Pike, Viet Cong, Cambridge, 1966, pp. 51-52.
28 NY Times, The Pentagon Papers, New York, 1971, p. 48.
29 Bernard Fall, ed., Ho Chi Minh on Revolution, New York, 1967, p. 246.
30 Ibid, pp. 272-273.
31 Le Duan, On the Socialist Revolution in Vietnam, Hanoi, 1965, Vol. I.
32 “Program of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (1960),” in Bernard Fall and Marcus Raskin, eds., The Viet-Nam Reader, New York, 1967, pp. 216-218.
33 Quoted in Wilfred Burchett, Vietnam: Inside Story of the Guerilla War, New York, 1965, p. 187.
34 Comité central, Groupe communiste internationaliste vietnamien en France, “Nouvelle étape de la contre-révolution et de l’offensive impérialiste en Indochine.” Quatrième Internationale, November-December 1947, p. 64.
35 Rousset, op. cit., p. 98.
36 Ibid., p. 44.
37 Newsletter, 9 September 1969.
38 Ibid.
39 “The Vietnamese Revolution and the Fourth International.” Fourth International, February 1968.
40 Newsletter, 9 September 1969.
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