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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 20, 15 May 1950, pp. 1 & 8.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Secretary of State Acheson has agreed, on behalf of Washington, to underwrite and finance French imperialism’s war against Viet-Nam to retain Indo-China within its colonial empire.
In so doing, the U.S., which was, at least up to 1948, widely looked on in Southeast Asia as a friend of freedom – comes out entirely openly for the first time since the end of the war as favoring the forcible suppression of Asia’s struggle for independence.
The explanation is the necessity of “containing Communism” and stopping the Russian threat. All indications are, however, that its effect can only be in the direction of pushing Asia’s nationalist aspirations into the fatal embrace of the Kremlin totalitarians – which, of course, will then be used to justify still further and more brutal suppression.
A “large part” of the $75 million assigned to President Truman’s foreign-aid kitty by Congress will be handed over for the “dirty war” – as it is known all over France, and not only in radical circles. Acheson will also recommend that additional millions be voted by Congress to keep French colonialism in power.
Justifying this course, the U.S. press and official propaganda plug away at three propositions: Ho Chi-minh, the Viet-Nam leader, is a Communist; Viet-Nam was recognized by Russia; Ho is receiving military aid from Mao Tse-tung in China. How unenlightening these propositions are can be seen only from a look at what has been happening in Indo-China since the end of the war.
During the war, the nationalist movement in Indo-China was pointed against the Japanese. Nazi-dominated Vichy France had yielded the country to them, so that the tenor of the independence fighters was anti-Japanese, pro-Free French and especially pro-U.S. The Stalinists joined the nationalist coalition only in 1942.
When Japan was defeated, Ho declared a republic. Bao Dai, the emperor of Annam (northern, largest and richest section of Indo-China), voluntarily abdicated, declared that he wanted to become a private citizen, and was given an annuity by the new government. That was in September 1945. The French returned with British and American arms to take back their colonial possession, but could not dislodge Ho. In September 1946 they came to an agreement with Ho, recognizing his government of Viet-Nam in the North, while retaining the southern provinces of Tonkin and Cochin-China.
But this was only a temporary deal in the eyes of French imperialism. They began a series of provocative "police actions" directed toward expanding their area and set up their own puppet and separatist regime in Cochin-China. Thus full-scale warfare was precipitated again in January 1947, continuing today.
The issue at this point was not the presently touted “Communist threat,” which has been built up since. It was the divide-and-rule policy of the French versus the national unification drive of Ho’s coalition and the Viet-Nam government.
France has been spending a half billion dollars a year on this, the last stand of open colonialism on the Asian continent. This represents half of its Marshall Plan funds, and a terrific drain on its economy. Yet, with all its billions, France has been almost completely unable to build a native army in Indo-China to fight Ho. The population is on the latter’s side in what is undoubtedly as popular a resistance movement for independence as has been seen anywhere in the world.
The forces fighting Ho are French troops, not those even of its puppet government, which has not been able to recruit any significant force. But they are French troops mainly in the sense that they have been imported by France. Because of the war’s unpopularity in France itself, the French had to recruit a large proportion of its fighting men from German prisoners of war in the internment camps, to whom they offered release on this condition. And most of the recruits among the Germans have been former SS men who were afraid to return to Germany.
France’s inability to find any substantial basis for its rule among the Indo-Chinese was shown up glaringly by the shifts it had to resort to in order to put together any kind of puppet regime even as a front. After the French reopened the war in 1947, Bao Dai was brought to the Riviera where the French kept him in style, and where he quickly achieved a reputation as a playboy. It was to this discredited nonentity that the Paris imperialists had to resort.
But even this Bao Dai proved a reluctant tool, so great was the hatred of the French and the support for the IIo government. He kept the French dickering for two and a half years. The Bao Dai faction demanded not only a proper stipend for the playboy, of course, but also definite commitments to the enlargement of the country’s independence; nationalism ran too deep for even this degenerate ex-monarch to ignore it completely.
The deal with Bao Dai was made in the middle of last year, and he was set up. Certain powers in internal affairs were assigned to him on paper, while all crucial powers – military, foreign affairs, economic – remained in the hands of the French, but the Bao Dai regime has been unable to recruit an administrative apparatus to take care of even the powers granted it.
Bao’s return has not changed the French situation. On the contrary, all reports indicate that France has been forced to throw in more and more to hold on; it has made no new gains except around Tonkin. Today its policy stands condemned both in Asia and in France, while it is helpless to achieve any solution at all, even by force of arms; meanwhile the war exhausts its domestic economy.
In France, as we have indicated, the war is denounced by extremely wide and varied sections of the people, from left to right – even by the leading conservative Paris newspaper, Le Monde. In all of Asia, as a result of this war, France has become the symbol of oppressive colonialism and hated for it.
At the Colombo conference of the British Commonwealth states, the British (toeing the State Department’s line) recognized the Bao regime, but the line could not be put across with India and Burma, which refused to go along despite great pressure.
Thailand (Siam) had the squeeze put on it by U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Jessup to recognize Bao early this year, together with a bait of susbtantial concessions in economic and military aid. The Thai government’s asking price was a quarter billion dollars, but it settled for $10 million. It then recognized Bao – even so with tremendous internal opposition – but soon after decided that “further protection” was necessary: another $25 million loan for military aid is now in the wind ...
And yet Thailand is the most reactionary of the Southeast Asian states. But so strong is the feeling that Ho’s government is that of the people of Indo-China, and so great is the hatred of France, that Ho’s agents still operate freely in smuggling operations across the Thai border. Not even Senator McCarthy could accuse the Thai government of being pro-Russian.
The French war against Viet-Nam is not a local affair in one corner of Asia. All of the Asian people are clear about it: the upsurge of independence for Asia is at stake. And it is in this light that the new Acheson policy will be viewed in that great portion of the world.
It would be an understatement to speak of merely “popular” sentiment in Indo-China itself. It is in this context that Ho’s relationship to Stalinism has to be understood. Ho Chi-minh is not Viet-Nam; he is the head of its independence struggle and of its government today. But neither his position nor especially that of the Stalinists in Indo-China is anything like that in China.
That Ho was a Stalinist is undoubted. The Trotskyist movement, which had very considerable influence before the war in both Saigon and Hanoi, particularly among the dock workers was part of the national movement. In 1946, Ho led an exterminationist campaign against these revolutionaries. All guerrilla groups under Trotskyist leadership were destroyed as part of Ho’s campaign of consolidation. Only in recent months have there been some rumors of a revival of such groups in Cochin-China, near Saigon.. Ho showed at least a willingness to be part of the world Stalinist drive against revolutionary socialists under Trotskyist leadership.
The nationalist movement was in full swing during the war as a broad coalition, and it is essentially today the same coalition: peasants, workers, native landlords, intellectuals, even the Catholics and former native bureaucrats of the ex-colonial regime. It has existed for five years under extreme conditions; it has stabilized the economy in its areas; it has engaged in reclamation work neglected for 50 years by the French; it has set up an extensive educational system – in short, it is a functioning state, while the Bao Dai puppet regime is not.
With regard to its political character, the long and short of it is that no one knows much about it. The French have established an effective blockade. From such reports as are available we can gather: up to at least six months ago, the CP was in truth one of the leaders of the nationalist coalition but it remained a coalition. Unlike China, the CP has been unable to act independently or separately in its own name. The nationalist coalition has shown no serious indications of being pro-Russian or Russian-oriented.
In his last press interview, Ho steered clear of any Russian commitment at the very time when CPs all over the world were defiantly avowing publicly that they would never fight against Russia. Ho’s recognition of Tito left many things unclear but it certainly did not point in the direction of Russian puppetry. As recently as five months ago, important elements in the State Department have been unequivocal in refusing to regard the Ho government as simply a Stalinist regime, as it is now being painted in justification of the Acheson turn.
Whatever is the strength of the CP, up till now it has had to follow a nationalist line in order to keep the coalition intact and the loyalty of the people. To date the only reports of Chinese CP help to Ho have come from French sources.
In any case, what is directly to the point is something else. Here is a movement for national independence which is as nearly the unanimous will of a people as one has never seen elsewhere. Here is an imperialist power, France, which is trying to hang on to the last shred of colonialism in Asia in the face of a continent’s hatred. Here is a nationalist coalition strongly influenced by what might be a Stalinist, ex-Stalinist or national-Stalinist force but which is the only one the people look to. There is no doubt that Russia looks with greedy intentions for another conquest.
In the face of this the Western powers offer the Indo-Chinese people only the choice between submission to French imperialism recourse to Russia, which is willing enough to pose as their friend. But there IS a force which could dynamically offer them an independent alternative to both imperialisms. That is the idea, a live one there, of an independent Southeast Asian Federation of the peoples, together with India. Prime Minister Nehru has broached the idea; it could take fire; but Nehru himself is afraid to press it under pressure from the West.
Acheson’s declaration has shown the true colors of U.S. policy toward independence by chosing – France.
This is not because of any love borne by the U.S. toward French imperialism. It is the strategic place of France for the Atlantic Pact alliance, and therefore for Washington’s world plans, which makes Acheson go along in the Indo-China war.
The State Department’s last stand for a “liberal” Asian policy came over the question of who would get its aid, the Bao regime or France directly. Apparently Acheson has on this too accepted the French terms, in exchange for a promissory note. And not much of a promise at that. As the N.Y. Times reports (May 9) of the agreement:
“It apparently entailed agreement by the State Department that the democratic evolution of the Indo-Chinese states could take place adequately within the framework of the existing accords between France and those states. The recent impression here was that the State Department wanted additional independence or at least the promise of it from France.”
It is clear that the State Department has decided that a period is to be put to the national revolution in Asia, for the sake of its Atlantic Pact strategy. One thing is quite certain – that the people of all Asia will look upon this as a sellout. It will be surprising if the Ho government is not forced further into Russia’s lap. Such is the nature of Western imperialism’s policy of “containing Communism.”
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