Markin comment:
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
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Ta Thu Thau
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Ta Thu Thau Tạ Thu Thâu (May 6, 1906–September 1945) was a Vietnamese Trotskyist and the leader of the Fourth International in Vietnam.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Political career
3 Assassination
4 Sources
5 See also
6 External links
[edit] Early life
Ta Thu Thau was born in a small hamlet in Tan Binh, 17 km (11 mi) south of Long Xuyen, the capital of An Giang Province in Southern Vietnam. His family were poor and leading a semi-peasant lifestyle. His father was an itinerant village carpenter and when his family was established in Long Xuyen, Ta Thu Thau went to primary school, and by working as a servant during holiday periods was able to continue his studies further. He was a brilliant student who went to France for university studies in 1927. Like many of his generation he lived a time when Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism was passing over to Marxism and communism.
[edit] Political career
Arrested during a protest demonstration against the execution of the Yen Bay rebels in front of the Elysee Palace on 22 May 1930, he was arrested and expelled back to Vietnam. Several left opposition groups were formed - the Communist League in Western Saigon in May 1931, Left Opposition and Indochinese Communism. These groups united and Ta Thu Thau was acknowledged as the most notable leader of the Trotskyists in Vietnam. In 1932 the French Colonial authorities arrested many members of the Stalinist Indochinese Communist Party and the Trotskyists. All left-wing activity in Indochina was clandestine.
However, in 1933 the Saigon Trotskyists and Stalinists formed an electoral bloc for the elections to the Saigon Municipal Council. The joint 'workers slate' was successful and the Trotskyists Tran Van Thach and Stalinist Nguyen Van Tao scored the highest votes. Though struck down by the Colonial authorities, this success indicated the growing popularity of the revolutionary groups. The other main activity of the united front was the publication of the legal newspaper La Lutte (newspaper). The united front split in 1937 over the issue of the 'popular front' policy of the Comintern and under pressure from the Stalinist Comintern via the French Communist Party.
La Lutte became an openly Trotskyist paper and in 1939, the Trotskyist candidates, Ta Thu Thau, Tran Van Thach and Phan Van Hum scored 80% of the vote, defeating three constitutionalists, two Stalinists and numerous independents. The Indochinese Communist Party vote in this election was one per cent. The Saigon Stalinists split, and so did the Trotskyists. When the Hitler-Stalin Pact was signed in the summer of 1939, the French authorities declared the Communist Party illegal and in Indochina, all the Communists and the Trotskyists leaders were rounded up. The revolutionary movement was decimated. With more support from farmers, the Stalinists managed to continue their underground activity in the countryside and began rebuild. The Trotskyists, reliant on working-class support in the cities, were virtually eliminated as a political force. Ta Thu Thau was arrested and incarcerated in Poulo-Condore during the war.
[edit] Assassination
After the end of World War II, Ta Thu Thau reconstituted the 'La Lutte' ('The Struggle') group and became the foremost leader of Vietnamese Trotskyism, but in the events of the August Revolution of 1945, and under the impact of the re-establishment of French colonial rule and repression from the Communist led Viet Minh, his political current lost any significant influence. Ta Thu Thau, along with other prominent Trotskyists and nationalists, was assassinated by the Viet Minh in 1945.
[edit] Sources
Richardson, A.(Ed.) (2003) The Revolution Defamed: A documentary history of Vietnamese Trotskyism, London: Socialist Platform Ltd.
Hemery, D. (1974) Révolutionnaires Vietnamiens et Pouvoir Colonial en Indochine: Communistes, trotskystes, nationalistes à Saigon de 1932 à 1937,Paris: François Maspero.
Hammer, E. (1954) The Struggle for Indochina, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
I. Milton Sacks, 'Marxism in Vietnam' [Chapter 4] in Trager, F.(1959) Marxism in South-East Asia, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Anh Van and Jacqueline Roussel (1947) National Movements and Class Struggle in Vietnam, London: New Park Publications [English translation 1987].
Bà Phuong-Lan[Bui-The-My](1974) Nhà Cách Mang:Ta Thu Thâu, Saigon: Nhà Sách KHAI-TRĺ [in Vietnamese].
Ngo Van (1995) Revolutionaries they could not break: The fight for the Fourth international in Indochina 1930-1945, London: Index Books.
Huynh kim Khánh (1982) Vietnamese Communism 1925-1945, London: Cornell University Press.
[edit] See also
Trotskyism
Vietnamese Trotskyism
International Communist League (Vietnam)
Stalinism
[edit] External links
A Short biographical article by Ngo Van Xuyet
An article on La Lutte
Loren Gouldner on Ngo Van and the trotskyist movement in the 1930s
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