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.)

From One Prison to Another
Chapter 5: From One Prison to Another On May 19, 1937, Marcel Gitton, of the Colonial Section of the French Communist Party, wrote to the Stalinist members of the La Lutte group: “According to the directives we have received concerning you, we consider it impossible to continue the collaboration between the Party and the Trotskyists. We have received a letter from a comrade about the situation in Indochina and the collaboration with the Trotskyists. We are going to transmit this letter to Moscow, along with our personal judgment.” This secret message was delivered to La Lutte by a French sailor. But amusingly enough, he mispronounced the name of the person it was addressed to — the Stalinist Tao — and it fell into th... (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.)

I. In The Land of the Cracked Bell Preface “The only historians I trust are those who risk getting their throats cut” (Pascal). Considering the present “Socialist” Republic of Vietnam and its official history, which is uncritically accepted virtually everywhere, I cannot read this maxim without a strong sense of how narrowly I managed to survive. In Vietnam 1920–1945: révolution et contre-révolution sous la domination coloniale, I attempted to rescue that period from oblivion — a period that was marked not only by the struggle against colonial imperialism, but also by movements striving instinctively for an internationalist social revolution, movements that refused to subordinate themselves ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

New Radical Perspectives
Chapter 11: New Radical Perspectives In 1948 my friend Nguyen Van Nam had told me that when I got to Paris I should contact Sania Gontarbert. Sania ran the tiny Camée Bookshop near the Carrefour des Gobelins in the 13th Arrondissement. In his memoirs he later described our first meeting: “The shop door opened and in came a tall, thin Indochinese man who had just arrived from Saigon and who, amazingly enough, had my address. This was the beginning of my long friendship with Van.” It was he who received for me the packages of rice sent from Saigon. Rereading Marx (illuminated by the work of Maximilien Rubel), discovering the existence of the Councilist Republic of Bavaria (1918–1919) and of the Kronstadt revolt in Rus... (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.)