In the Crossfire : Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary

Appendix, Part 5 : Abbreviations
Abbreviations CP Communist Party TR Trotskyist VF Vietnamese radical who had spent time in France AIP member of Annamite Independence Party (1927–1929) TN member of Thanh Nien (1925–1930) ICP member of Indochinese Communist Party/Communist Party of Vietnam (1930-) LO member of one or more Left Opposition groups (ca. 1928–1934) LL member of La Lutte group (1933–1946) LIC member of League of Internationalist Communists (1935–1939, 1945–1946) WM member of Workers’ Militia (1945–1946) UOI member of Union Ouvrière Internationale (Fran... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Appendix, Part 4 : Note on Names
Note on Names Vietnamese accents are omitted throughout this book. As in many other East Asian cultures, Vietnamese family names precede personal names. When consulting other sources, note that there are different ways of anglicizing Vietnamese place names. Yen Bai, for example, can also be found as Yen Bay, Yen bai, Yen bay, Yen-bai, Yen-bay, Yenbai and Yenbay. Note also that names of organizations are translated in a variety of ways. Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, for example, can be found as Revolutionary Youth League, League of Young Revolutionary Comrades, Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association, Association of Revolutionary Vietnamese Youth, etc. In a few cases we have indicated common alternative versions to the ones used in this book, but it is often best to use the original Vietnamese names when searching the Web or consulting book indexes. In order to help sort out the sometimes confusingly similar names of persons, groups and... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Appendix, Part 3 : Bibliography
Bibliography Works by Ngo Van (published in Paris unless otherwise indicated) Vu an Moscou, Nha xuat ban Chang trao luu (Saigon: Chong Trao Luu [Countercurrent Publications], 1937). Pamphlet denouncing the Moscow Trials. Divination, magie et politique dans la Chine ancienne [Divination, Magic and Politics in Ancient China]. Presses Universitaires de France, 1976; reprinted by You-Feng, 2002. Viêt-nam 1920–1945: révolution et contre-révolution sous la domination coloniale [Vietnam 1920–1945: Revolution and Counterrevolution Under Colonial Domination]. L’Insomniaque, 1995; reprinted by Nautilus, 2000. Translated into Vietnamese as Viet nam 1920–1945, cach mang va phan cach mang thoi do ho thuc dan (Chuong Re/L’Insomniaque, 2000). Avec Maximilien... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Appendix, Part 2 : Chronology
Chronology It is no exaggeration to say that a colonial war began the moment French troops landed in Indochina in 1859 and never stopped. Once established, the colonial regime engaged in an ongoing battle against the peasant and worker masses, who remained in latent or open revolt until the French and then the Americans were finally driven out more than a century later. The following chronology (mostly drawn from Ngo Van’s Vietnam 1920–1945 and from the British edition of an earlier text by Ngo Van, Revolutionaries They Could Not Break) mentions only a few of the more significant events in order to help orient the reader. 1615. Jesuit missionaries first set foot in Indochina. In order to facilitate the introduction of Christianity they create quoc ngu, a Romanized transcription of Vietnamese, to replace chu nom, the traditional Vietnamese writing system which used Chinese-style ideograms and w... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Appendix, Part 1 : Note on Stalinism and Trotskyism
Appendix Note on Stalinism and Trotskyism For those who are not familiar with the international political background of Ngo Van’s story, it may be helpful to make a few remarks about Stalinism and Trotskyism and to outline some of the twists and turns of the Third International under Stalin’s control. The Russian Revolution of 1917 consisted of two relatively distinct stages. The “February revolution” was a series of largely spontaneous popular struggles beginning in February and continuing over the next several months; the “October revolution” was essentially a coup d’état carried out by the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. The Bolsheviks had a reputation as radical revolutionaries, due in part to their having been one of the few leftist groups to oppose World War I; but once in power they repressed grassroots radical tendencies and morphed into a new ruling class. Although... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Ngo Van, Relayer of Living History Ngo Van lived through almost the entire twentieth century (1912–2005) and his life and work are intimately intertwined with the revolutionary hopes and conflicts of that century. In his writings he speaks not as an academically “neutral” historian, but as a participant actively engaged in the events he recounts; not as a “party spokesperson,” but as a humble individual struggling alongside so many other anonymous, unknown persons, the “wretched of the earth” who are also the salt of the earth, fraternal, generous and inventive. With them he experiences those sublime moments when people unite to attack the sources of their exploitation and enslavement; when they bre... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Caught in a Crossfire
Chapter 7: Caught in a Crossfire The Japanese army surrendered on August 15, 1945. The victorious Allies put the defeated forces in charge of maintaining order in Indochina until the Allied occupation army arrived. Nevertheless the troops of the Vietminh entered Hanoi on August 18. Saigon was reported to be in turmoil. Unable to stay away, I quit my job in Can Tho and set out for Saigon with Nguyen Van Linh. We reached a checkpoint outside the city at Tan An and there, standing right in front of me, was Nguyen Van Tao, the Stalinist leader I had known in prison. He, too, was naturally on his way to Saigon. He clapped me on the shoulder: “Listen, don’t do anything stupid! Think before you act!” His protective attitude was l... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

In the Mekong Delta
Chapter 6: In the Mekong Delta On the little train from Saigon to My Tho, my fellow passengers (barefoot peasants for the most part), whether out of tact or indifference, appeared not to notice the handcuffed prisoner with his police escort. After almost a month of confinement in the Sûerté at Phnom Penh and with an unknown jail sentence ahead of me, it was a sheer joy to watch the repetitive landscape roll by, the sparkling expanse of ricefields, the herds of peaceful buffalos, the straw huts sheltered by clumps of bamboo. But why was I being transferred to My Tho? As soon as we arrived, I was taken to the office of the examining magistrate, a native of India with a bloated, peevish face. “Ah, a Trotskyite! You gang of s... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Toward Other Shores
Chapter 8: Toward Other Shores In Saigon, Nguyen Van Linh took me to the home of one of his relatives, Dzu, a radical lawyer, who would be able to hide me for a while. But the lawyer’s bourgeois family were frightened to death by the presence of an “underground resistance fighter.” I was confined to a small isolated room in their magnificent house. Dzu was never there. At midday and in the evening a servant came to call me for meals. A strained silence reigned at the table. I would eat, then quickly leave, setting down my chopsticks in the ritual fashion. One day Sister Two came to visit me, bringing terrible news from our village. She told me that the Vietminh’s secret police in Thu Duc, before fleeing the French ad... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

In the Land of Héloïse
II. In the Land of Héloïse Chapter 10: Worker in the Promised Land I had left my country in the spring of 1948. The heartrending pain of a loving mother silently enduring the permanent departure of her prodigal son! ... The tears of a 12-year-old girl holding her little brother in her arms! The old tree drifting down the river can never return to its native land — this image flitted around in my head as the Messageries Maritimes freighter raised anchor in the Saigon harbor in that sad late afternoon. It took more than four weeks to lug us from Saigon to Marseilles. I traveled fourth class, in the hold with a dozen young men hoping to study in France. We slept in bunks. At one end of the hold were coffins bearing the remain... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)