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The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, also known as VNQDD or Việt Quốc, is the Vietnamese Nationalist Party, a socialist revolutionary political party that engaged in militant activity against the French colonisation of Vietnam in the early 20th century in an attempt to gain independence. The genesis of the VNQDD was formed in the mid 1920s by a group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals who distributed revolutionary material through their printing house. In 1927, the VNQDD was formed under the leadership of Nguyen Thai Hoc after the group's commercial ventures failed due to French harassment and censorship. Modeling itself on the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek, the VNQDD gained a following among northerners, particular teachers and intellectuals. The party had little following among the peasants or industrial workers and clandestinely organised itself into small cells. Beginning in the 1928, the VNQDD began to generate attention through its assassinations of French officials and Vietnamese collaborators. The turning point came in February 1929 with the assassination of Bazin, a French labor recruiter who was widely despised by the Vietnamese populace. Although the membership of the perpetrators was unclear, the French authorities attributed the killing to the VNQDD and launched a crackdown, arresting between 300 and 400 of the approximately 1,500 members. Many of the leadership group were arrested, but Hoc managed to escape.

Later in 1929, the party weakened following an internal split. With increasing French pressure on its activities, the VNQDD leadership resolved to change strategy and discarded their clandestine activities in favour of a large-scale open uprising, hoping to expel the French in a single wave of attacks. After stockpiling home-made weapons, the VNQDD launched an uprising on February 10, 1930 at Yen Bai. VNQDD forces combined with a mutineering by Vietnamese troops in the French colonial army, attempting to spark a widespread revolt against French rule. The mutiny was quickly put down and the retribution was heavy. Along with other leading figures, Hoc was captured and executed. The VNQDD was never to regain its strength in Vietnam. Some remaining factions sought peaceful means of struggle, while other groups fled across the border to Kuomintang bases in Yunnan, where they received arms and training. During the 1930s, the party was eclipsed by Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). Vietnam was occupied by Japan during World War II and in the chaos that followed the Japanese surrender in 1945, the VNQDD and the ICP briefly joined forces in the fight for Vietnamese independence. Ho soon went back on his word and purged the VNQDD as his communist-dominated Vietminh soon became unchallenged as the dominant anti-colonial militant organisation. In 1954, Vietnam secured independence after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the nation was partitioned. The remnants of the VNQDD fled to the anti-communist south, where they remained until the Fall of Saigon in 1975, which saw the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. Today, the party exists only among overseas Vietnamese.

Genesis

In late 1925, a small group of young Hanoi-based intellectuals, led by a teacher named Pham Tuan Tai and his brother Pham Tuan Lam, started a publishing house, named the Nam Dong Thu Xa (Southeast Asia Publishing House). The aims of the business were to achieve commercial success and promote revolutionary means of gaining Vietnamese independence. The organisation initially focused on editing books and brochures about Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese revolution. They opened a free school to teach quoc ngu (Romanised Vietnamese script) to the working class. The group soon attracted the support of other progressive young northerners, including a group of students and teachers led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. Hoc was a former student at the Commercial School in Hanoi who had been stripped of his scholarship on the grounds of mediocre academic performance.

Due to harassment by French colonial authorities and the censorship of its publications, the Nam Dong Thu Xa was a commercial failure. By the autumn of 1927, the group's priorities had turned towards politics, and the party strengthened by shifting its appeal to the more radical elements in the north. It expanded to eighteen cells in fourteen provinces throughout northern and central Vietnam, totalling around two hundred members. The VNQDD admitted many female members, something that was revolutionary compared to Vietnamese norms of the time.

Formation

Led by Hoc, the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD) was formed on December 27, 1927 at a plenary meeting in Hanoi. The moderate socialist organisation was the first revolutionary party in Vietnam, preceding the establishment of the Indochinese Communist Party by three years. There was considerable debate over the platform and ideology of the party. Many wanted to expand the aim from the establishment of an independent Vietnamese republic to that of promoting worldwide revolution. There were fears that such an agenda would result in accusations of communism, thereby not maximising its support base all Vietnamese who wanted independence. The final statement was a compromise that read:

The aim and general line of the party is to make a national revolution, to use military force to overthrow the feudal colonial system, to set up a democratic republic of Vietnam. At the same time we will help all oppressed nationalities in the work of struggling to achieve independence, in particular such neighboring countries as Laos and Cambodia.

Although the VNQDD bore the same name and modelled itself on the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) of Sun Yat-sen, later led by Chiang Kai-shek, it had no direct relationship with its Chinese counterpart. It did not gain any notice outside of Vietnam until the Yen Bai mutiny in 1930. The VNQDD was clandestinely organised, held together with tight discipline in a model similar to the KMT. There were several strata of administrative levels from the basic unit—the cell—up through provincial, regional and central committees. The revolutionary plans were also similar; first there would be a military takeover, followed by a period of political training for the population before a constitutional government took control.

Most of the party members were teachers, employees of the French colonial government and non-commissioned officers in the French colonial army. The VNQDD campaigned mainly among these facets of society—there were few workers or peasants in its ranks. It also set about seeking alliances with other nationalist factions in Vietnam. In a meeting on July 4, 1928, the Central Committee of the VNQDD appealed for unity among the Vietnamese revolutionary movements, sending delegates to meet with other organizations struggling for independence. The preliminary contacts did not yield any concrete alliances.

Initial activities

Financial problems compounded the difficulties facing the VNQDD were financial problems. Money was needed to set up a commercial enterprise, which would be used as a cover for the revolutionaries to meet and plot, as well as for raising funds. As such, a hotel-restaurant named the Vietnam Hotel was opened in September 1928. The French colonial authorities were aware of the real purpose of the business and put it under surveillance, without taking further action. The first notable reorganisation of the VNQDD took place in December, when Nguyen Khac Nhu replaced Hoc as chairman. Three proto-governmental organs were created, to form the legislative, executive and judicial arms of government. The records of the French secret service estimated that by early 1929, the VNQDD consisted of approximately 1,500 members in 120 cells, mostly in areas around the Red River Delta. The intelligence reported that most members were students, minor merchants or low-level bureaucrats in the French administration. There were some landlords and wealthy peasants among the membership, but few were of scholar-gentry (mandarin) rank.

Beginning in 1928, the VNQDD attracted substantial Vietnamese support and with it, the attention of the French colonial administration. This came after a VNQDD death squad killed several French officials and Vietnamese collaborators who had a reputation for cruelty towards the Vietnamese populace.

Assassination of Bazin

The assassination Hanoi-based French labor recruiter Herve Bazin on February 9, 1929, marked a turning point and the beginning of the decline of the VNQDD. A graduate of the École Colonial in Paris, Bazin was a labour recruitment supervisor in French Indochina. Under Bazin's direction, Vietnamese foremen were hired to recruit their countrymen to work on plantations. The working conditions which the Vietnamese endured generated indignation. The recruiting techniques often included beating or coercion, as the foreman received a commission for each recruit. The living conditions were poor and the remuneration was low. In response, Vietnamese hatred of Bazin led to thoughts of an assassination. A group of workers approached the VNQDD to propose a revenge killing of Bazin. Hoc felt that assassinations were pointless because they would only prompt a crackdown by the French Sureté Generale, thereby weakening the party. He felt that it was better to strengthen the party until the time was ripe to overthrow the French, viewing Bazin as a mere twig on the tree of the French colonial administration.

Having been turned down by the VNQDD leadership, one of the proposers of the assassination—whose membership or lack thereof is unclear—created his own plot. With the help of an accomplice, he shot and killed Bazin as the Frenchman left the home of his mistress on February 9, 1929. The shooting was the first major attack by the VNQDD. The French reacted by apprehending all known members of the VNQDD that they could track down. Various sources estimated that between three and four hundred men were rounded up. Of those seized, 36 were government clerks, 13 were French government officials, 36 were schoolteachers, 39 were merchants, 37 were landowners and 40 were military personnel. Eventually 78 men were convicted and sentenced to jail terms ranging between five and twenty years. The arrests severely depleted the VNQDD leadership. Most of the Central Committee were captured; Hoc and Nhu were among the few who managed to escape from the hideout at the Vietnam Hotel.

Internal split

In 1929, the VNQDD suffered an internal split as a dissident faction led by Nguyen The Nghiep began to disobey party orders. As a result, Nghiep's faction was driven from the Central Committee. As a result, some sources reported that Nghiep had formed his a breakaway party and began making secret contacts with French authorities. Perturbed by the difficulty caused by traitors who had betrayed members to the French following Bazin's assassination, Hoc convened a meeting at the village of Lac Dao along the Gia Lam-Haiphong railway in mid-1929 to tighten regulations. The meeting saw a shift in party strategy when Hoc cited rising discontent among Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army as a reason for a general uprising. Moderate leaders in the party cautioned against such a move, believing it to be premature, but Hoc's stature shifted the party's orientation towards violent struggle. The plan was to provoke a series of uprisings at military posts around the Red River Delta in early 1930, with VNQDD forces outside the military bases joining the Vietnamese soldiers in an attack on the two major northern cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. The leaders agreed to restrict their uprisings to Tonkin, because the party was weak elsewhere.

For the remainder of 1929, the party focused on the preparation of the revolt. They located and manufactured weapons, storing them in hidden depots. The preparation was hindered by French police activity, particularly the seizure of arms caches.

Yen Bai Mutiny

At around 01:30 on Monday, February 10, 1930, reinforced by around 60 civilian members of the VNQDD, approximately 40 troops belonging to the 2nd Battalion of the Fourth Régiment de Tirailleurs Tonkinois stationed at Yen Bai attacked their 29 French officers and warrant officers. The rebels had intended to split into three groups. One group was to infiltrate the infantry, kill French NCOs in their beds and raise support among Vietnamese troops. The second, which included the external VNQDD members, was to break into the post headquarters, while the third group would enter the officers' quarters. The Frenchmen were caught off guard and five were killed, with three seriously wounded. The mutineers managed to isolate a few more French officers from their men, even managing to raise the VNQDD flag above one of the buildings. About two hours later, it became apparent that the badly coordinated uprising had failed, as the remaining 550 Vietnamese soldiers helped to quell the rebellion rather than participate in the mutiny. In addition, the insurrectionists had failed to liquidate the Garde indigène town post and could not convince the frightened townspeople to join them in a general revolt. At 07:30, a French Indochinese counterattack scattered the mutineers; two hours later, order was re-established in Yen Bai.

On the same evening, two further VNQDD insurrectionary attempts failed in the Son Duong sector. A raid on the Garde indigène post in Hung Hoa was repelled by the Vietnamese guards of the French Indochinese Army, who appeared to have been tipped off. In the nearby town of Kinh Khe, the instructor Nguyen Quang Kinh, and one of his wives were slain by VNQDD members. After destroying the Garde indigène post in Lam Thao, the VNQDD briefly seized control of the district seat. At sunrise, a newly-arrived Garde indigène unit inflicted a heavy loss on the insurgents, mortally wounding Nhu. Aware of the events in the upper delta region, Pho Duc Chinh fled and abandoned a planned attack on the Son Tay garrison, but he was captured a few days later by French authorities.

On February 10, a VNQDD member injured a policeman at a Hanoi checkpoint; at night, arts students pelted government buildings with bombs. The students targeted the buildings because they symbolised what the students regarded as the repressive power of the colonial state. On the night of February 15–16, the nearby villages of Phu Duc and Vinh Bao in Thai Binh and Hai Duong Provinces respectively, were seized for a few hours by Hoc and his remaining forces. In the second village, the VNQDD killed the local mandarin of the French colonial government, Tri Huyen. On February 16, French warplanes responded with the bombardment of the VNQDD's last base at Co Am village; on the same day, Tonkin's Resident Superior René Robin dispatched 200 Gardes indigènes, eight French commanders and two Sûreté inspectors. A few further violent incidents occurred until February 22, when Governor-General Pierre Pasquier declared that the insurrection had been defeated. Hoc and his lieutenants, Chinh and Nguyen Thanh Loi, were apprehended.

A series of trials were held to try VNQDD members arrested during the uprising. The largest number of death penalties was handed down by the first Criminal Commission, which convened at Yen Bai. Among the 87 people found guilty at Yen Bai, 46 were servicemen. Some of them defended themselves on the grounds that they had been "surprised and forced to take part in the insurrection". Of the 87 convicted, 39 were sentenced to death, five to deportation, 33 to life sentences of forced labour, nine to 20 years imprisonment, and one to five years of forced labour. Of those condemned to death, 24 were civilians and 15 were servicemen. Presidential pardons reduced the number of death penalties pronounced at Yen Bai from 39 to 13. Among the 13 who were executed on June 17, 1930 were Hoc and Chinh. The condemned men cried "Viet Nam!" as the guillotine fell. Hoc made a last plea to the French through a letter. In it, he claimed that he had always wanted to cooperate with French authorities, but their intransigence had forced him to revolt. Hoc contended that France could only stay in Indochina if it dropped policies that he termed as "brutal", and became more amiable towards the Vietnamese. The VNQDD leader called for the introduction of universal education, training in commerce and industry, and an end to the corrupt practices of the French-installed mandarins.

Exile in Yunnan

Following Yen Bai, the moderate Le Huu Canh—who tried to stall the attempted mutiny—attempted to reunite the remnants of the party under the ideology of peaceful reform. Other factions attempted to perpetuate the legacy of Hoc, recreating the movement in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. A failed assassination attempt on Governor-General Pasquier resulted in French crackdowns in 1931 and 1932. The survivors escaped to Yunnan in southern China where some of Nghiep's supporters were still active. The Yunnan VNQDD was in fact a section of the Chinese Kuomintang, who protected the members from the Chinese government while funds were raised by robbery and extortion along the Sino-Vietnamese border. This eventually led to a government crackdown on such activities within Chinese territory, but VNQDD members continued to train at the Yunnan Military School; some enlisted in the nationalist Chinese army while others learned to manufacture weapons and munitions in the Yunnan arsenal.

Nghiep was briefly jailed by Yunnan authorities, but he managed to continue running the party from his prison cell. Upon his release in 1933, Nghiep arranged for the consolidation of the party and similar groups in the area, including some followers of Phan Boi Chau who had formed their own Canton-based VNQDD in 1925. Chau's group had formed their organisation in opposition to the communist tendencies of Ho Chi Minh's Revolutionary Youth League. With nationalist Chinese aid, Chau's group had set up a League of Oppressed Oriental Peoples , a Pan-Asian group that ended in failure. In 1932 it went to the point of declaring a "Provisional Indochinese Government" at Canton. In July 1933, Chau's group was integrated into Nghiep's Yunnan organisation. In 1935, Nghiep surrendered to the French consulate in Shanghai. The remainder of the VNQDD was paralysed by infighting and was only moderately active until the outbreak of World War II. They attempted to organise workers along the Yunnan railway, threatening occasional border assaults, with little success. The VNQDD began losing political relevance.

The VNQDD was gradually overshadowed as the leading Vietnamese independence organisation by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) of Ho Chi Minh, who later led Vietnam to independence. In 1940, Ho arrived in Yunnan, then a hotbed of both ICP and VNQDD activity. He initiated collaboration between the ICP and other nationalist groups such as the VNQDD. At the time, World War II had erupted and Japan had replaced the French in Vietnam and conquered most of the coastal half of China. Ho then shifted eastwards to the neighbouring province of Guangxi, where Chinese military leaders had been attempting to use Vietnamese nationalists against the Japanese. The VNQDD had been active in Guangxi and some of their members had joined the KMT army. Under the umbrella of KMT activities, a broad alliance of nationalists emerged. With Ho at the forefront, the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Independence League, usually known as the Viet Minh) was formed and based in the town of Chinghsi. The pro-VNQDD nationalist Ho Ngoc Lam was named as the deputy of Pham Van Dong, later to be Ho's Prime Minister. The front was later broadened and was renamed as the Viet Nam Giai Phong Dong Minh (Vietnam Liberation League). The cooperation in the border area lasted for only a few months before VNQDD officials complained to the local KMT officials that the communists—led by Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap—were attempting to take over the league. This prompted the local authorities to shut down of the front's activities.

Post World War II

In August 1945, Ho's Vietminh seized power after the withdrawal of Imperial Japan from Vietnam. The Vietminh set up a provisional government, violating an agreement between the member parties of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League), which included the Vietminh and the VNQDD. Ho was pressured to include the VNQDD—now led by Nguyen Tuong Tam—in his government to broaden its appeal. After the seizure of power, hundreds of VNQDD members returned from China, only to be killed by the Vietminh at the border crossing. Nevertheless, the VNQDD arrived in northern Vietnam with arms and supplies from the KMT, in addition to its prestige as a Vietnamese nationalist organisation. Nationalist China backed the VNQDD in the hope of gaining more influence over its southern neighbour. Ho tried to broaden his support in order to strengthen himself as well as to close out Chinese and French power. The VNQDD dominated the main control lines between northern Vietnam and China near Lao Cay. They funded their operations from the tribute that they levied from the local populace. Once the majority of the non-communist nationalists had returned to Vietnam, the VNQDD formed an alliance with them to oppose the Vietminh. Armed confrontations between the Vietminh and the nationalists regularly occurred in the major cities of northern Vietnam. Elections were scheduled by Ho for December 23, but he had made a deal with the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi, assuring them 50 and 20 seats in the new national assembly respectively, regardless of the poll results. This only temporarily placated the VNQDD, which continued its skirmishes against the Vietminh. Eventually, Chinese pressure on the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi eventually saw them accept a coalition government, in which Tam served as foreign minister.

War against French colonial rule

The Ho Sainteny agreement signed on March 6, 1946 saw the return of French colonial forces to Vietnam, replacing the Chinese nationalists. As a result, the VNQDD found themselves further attacked by the French. The French forces often encircled VNQDD strongholds, enabling the Vietminh to attack them. When the Chinese troops who were supposed to be helping to maintain order left, General Giap of the Vietminh openly turned on the VNQDD. Giap's army hunted down the VNQDD troops and cleared them out of the Red River Delta; arms were seized and party members were arrested and falsely charged with crimes ranging from counterfeiting to unlawful arms possession. Thousands of VNQDD members and other nationalists were massacred by the Vietminh in a large scale purge. Most of the survivors fled to China or French-controlled areas in Vietnam. When the National Assembly convened on in Hanoi on October 28, only 30 of the 50 VNQDD seats were filled. Of the 37 VNQDD and Dong Minh Hoi members who turned up, only twenty were left by the time the session ended. By the end of the year, Tam had resigned as foreign minister and fled to China. Of the three original VNQDD representatives in the cabinet, only one remained in office.

Post-independence

After Vietnam gained independence in 1954, the Geneva Accords saw the partition of Vietnam into a communist north and an anti-communist south. Under the stipulations of the Geneva Accords, there were to be 300 days of free passage between the two zones. During Operation Passage to Freedom, most VNQDD members migrated into the south. The VNQDD was deeply divided after years of communist pressure and lacked strong leadership. They were kept in disarray by the autocratic rule of President Ngo Dinh Diem, who imprisoned many of the members. During the Diem era, the VNQDD were implicated in two failed coup attemps. In November 1960, a attempted coup against Diem failed after the mutineers agreed to negotiate, allowing time for loyalists to relieve the president. In 1963, a trial was held and the VNQDD leaders Tam and Vu Hong Khanh were charged with involvement. Tam committed suicide before the case started, while Khanh was jailed. In February 1962, two Vietnam Air Force pilots, Nguyen Van Cu—son of a prominent VNQDD leader—and Pham Phu Quoc bombarded the Indepedence Palace, hoping to kill Diem and his family, but the Ngos escaped unharmed.

After the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the remnants of the VNQDD were again targeted by the victorious communists. Some VNQDD members fled to the West, where they continued their political activities. The VNQDD remains respected among some sections of overseas Vietnamese community as Vietnam's leading anti-communist organisation.

Notes

1. ^ Tucker, p. 442.
2. Hammer (1955), p. 82.
3. Duiker p. 155.
4. ^ Duiker, p. 156.
5. Tucker, p. 489.
6. ^ Duiker, p. 157.
7. ^ Duiker, pp. 160–161.
8. Duiker, pp. 161–162.
9. Duiker, p. 162.
10. Rettig, p. 310.
11. ^ Duiker, p. 163.
12. Rettig, p. 310.
13. ^ Rettig, p. 311.
14. ^ Rettig, p. 316.
15. ^ Hammer (1955), p. 84.
16. ^ Duiker, p. 164.
17. Duiker, p. 165.
18. Tucker, p. 175.
19. Duiker, pp. 272–273.
20. ^ Hammer (1955), p. 139.
21. Hammer (1955), p. 140.
22. ^ Tucker, p. 443.
23. Hammer (1955), p. 144.
24. Hammer (1955), p. 176.
25. Hammer (1955), p. 178.
26. Hammer (1955), p. 181.
27. Karnow, pp. 252–253.
28. Hammer (1987), pp. 154–155.
29. Karnow, pp. 280–281.

References

• Duiker, William (1976). The Rise of Nationalism in Vietnam, 1900–1941. Ithaca: Cornell University. ISBN 0-8014-0951-9.
• Hammer, Ellen J. (1987). A Death in November. E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-242104.
• Hammer, Ellen J. (1955). The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955. Stanford: Stanford University.
• Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam: A History. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
• Rettig, Tobias (2002). "French military policies in the aftermath of the Yên Bay mutiny, 1930: old security dilemmas return to the surface". South East Asia Research. 10 (3): pp. 309–331. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |year= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Tucker, Spencer C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-040-0. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

External links

• Viet Quoc official home page

• Political parties in Vietnam
• 1927 establishments
• Vietnamese anti-communists
• Anti-communist organizations
• Vietnamese revolutionaries
• Overseas Vietnamese organizations
• Socialist parties