Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism: Ton Duc Thang and the Politics of History and Memory

282 Pages·2004·1.47 MB·English

by  Christoph Giebel

Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies
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Critical Dialogues in Southeast Asian Studies
These new perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies reconsider traditional
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Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism:
Ton Duc Thang and the Politics of Memory
by Christoph Giebel
Imagined
Ancestries
of Vietnamese
Communism
TON DUC THANG
AND THE POLITICS
OF HISTORY AND MEMORY
CHRISTOPH GIEBEL
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle & London
in association with
SINGAPORE UNIVERSITY PRESS
© 2004 by the University of Washington Press
Printed in the United States of America
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans-
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including pho-
tocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published simultaneously in the United States and Singapore.
University of Washington Press, P.O. Box 50096, Seattle, WA 98145
www.washington.edu/uwpress
Singapore University Press, NUS Publishing
3, Arts Link, Ground floor AS3, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
Singapore 117569
Fax: [phone] [email protected]
www.nus.edu.sg/npu
ISBNs 9971-69-308-9 cloth 9971-69-309-7 paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giebel, Christoph.
Imagined ancestries of Vietnamese communism : Ton Duc Thang and
the politics of history and memory / Christoph Giebel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-295-98428-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 0-295-98429-5 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Tôn, Dú’c Tha˘´ng, 1888–1980. 2. Communism—Vietnam—History.
3. Vietnam—History—20th century. 4. Vietnam—Historiography.
5. Presidents—Vietnam (Democratic Republic)—Biography. I. Title:
Ton Duc Thang and the politics of history and memory. II. Title.
DS560.72.T66G54 2004 2004041953
The paper used in this publication is acid-free and recycled from 20 percent
post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the mini-
mum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.
FOR MY TEACHERS,
WITH DEEP RESPECT AND GRATITUDE

Contents
List of Abbreviations viii
A Note on Spelling and Translations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xv
PART I. CONSTRUCTIONS
1. The Black Sea Mutiny in the Late Colonial Moment 3
2. The Black Sea Mutiny in the Revolutionary Moment 33
3. The Black Sea Mutiny in the Post-Recognition Moment 59
PART II. CONTESTATIONS
4. Striking Images: Ba Son in the Post-Partition Moment 87
5. The Secret Labor Union in the Post-Unification Moment 127
PART III. COMMEMORATIONS
6. Telling Life: Ton Duc Thang’s Official Biography
in the Posthumous Moment 149
7. Museum-Shrine: The Revolution’s Guardian Spirit
in the Post-Socialist Moment 168
Conclusion 189
Notes 197
Select Bibliography 231
Index 249
vii
Abbreviations
BNCLSDTU Ban Nghien Cuu Lich Su Dang Trung Uong (Central
Commission for the Research of Party History)
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CFRF Club of Former Resistance Fighters (1986–90)
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
DLD Dang Lao Dong (Vietnamese Labor Party, 1951–76)
DMH Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League)
DRVN Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (1945–76)
FCP French Communist Party
GMD Guomindang (Chinese Nationalist Party; also KMT)
ICP Indochinese Communist Party (1930–45/1951)
NXB Nha Xuat Ban (Publishing House)
OSS Office of Strategic Services
PRC People’s Republic of China
QDND Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People’s Army of Viet Nam)
SRVN Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (since 1976)
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union)
VFTU Viet Nam Federation of Trade Unions
VNCP Vietnamese Communist Party (since 1976)
VNQDD Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist
Party)
VRYL Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League (Viet Nam
Thanh Nien Cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi, or Thanh Nien,
1925–29)
viii
A Note on Spelling and Translations
I have chosen to follow Vietnamese usage in separating the syllables
of, for example, place names such as Ha Noi, Sai Gon, and Viet Nam.
The widespread but never fully uniform Western convention of com-
bining syllables (e.g., Vietnam) appears to be slowly receding. On the
other hand, since this book is written in English, I have eschewed pro-
viding the Vietnamese diacritics and tone markers (although I might
be on the losing end of academic trends in this case). Chinese personal
and place names are rendered throughout the study in the pinyin tran-
scription system (e.g., Guomindang instead of Kuomintang in the old
Wade-Giles style).
Rather than bringing them into more polished English, I have kept
my translations of Vietnamese and French texts in an English form
that closely reflects the syntax and tone of the originals.
ix