From 1928, the VNQDD attracted attention through its assassinations of French officials and Vietnamese collaborators. A turning point came in February 1929 with the , a French labour recruiter widely despised by the Vietnamese people. Although the perpetrators' precise affiliation was unclear, the French authorities held the VNQDD responsible. Between 300 and 400 of the party's approximately 1,500 members were detained in the resulting crackdown. Many of the leaders were arrested, but Hoc managed to escape.
In late 1929, the party was weakened by an internal split. Under increasing French pressure, the VNQDD leadership switched tack, replacing a strategy of isolated clandestine attacks against individuals with a plan to expel the French in a single blow with a large-scale popular uprising. After stockpiling home-made weapons, the VNQDD launched on February 10, 1930 at Yen Bai with the aim of sparking a widespread revolt. VNQDD forces combined with disaffected Vietnamese troops, who mutinied against the French colonial army. The mutiny was quickly put down, with heavy French retribution. Hoc and other leading figures were captured and executed and the VNQDD never regained its political strength in the country.
Some remaining factions sought peaceful means of struggle, while other groups fled across the border to Kuomintang bases in the Yunnan province of China, where they received arms and training. During the 1930s, the party was eclipsed by Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party . Vietnam was occupied by 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. However, after a falling out, Ho purged the VNQDD, leaving his communist-dominated Vietminh unchallenged as the foremost anti-colonial militant organisation. As a part of the post-war settlement that ended the First Indochina War, Vietnam was . The remnants of the VNQDD fled to the anti-communist , where they remained until the Fall of Saigon in 1975 and the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule. Today, the party survives only among overseas Vietnamese.
Origins
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 the Nam Dong Thu Xa . They aimed to promote violent revolution as a means of gaining independence for Vietnam from , and published books and brochures about Sun Yat-sen and the , as well as opening a free school to teach ''quoc ngu'' to the working class. The group soon attracted the support of other progressive young northerners, including students and teachers led by Nguyen Thai Hoc. Hoc was an alumnus of Hanoi's Commercial School, who had been stripped of a scholarship because of his mediocre academic performance.
Harassment and censorship imposed by the French colonial authorities led to the commercial failure of the Nam Dong Thu Xa. By the autumn of 1927, the group's priorities turned towards more direct political action, in a bid to appeal to more radical elements in the north. Membership grew to around 200, distributed among 18 cells in 14 provinces across northern and central Vietnam.
Formation
The Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang was formed at a meeting in Hanoi on December 27, 1927, with Nguyen Thai Hoc as the party's first leader. It was Vietnam's first home-grown revolutionary party, established three years before the Indochinese Communist Party. The party advocated socialism, but at the outset there was considerable debate over its other fundamental objectives. Many wanted it to promote worldwide revolution, rather than limiting itself to campaigning for an independent Vietnamese republic; but there were fears that this would lead to accusations of communism, putting off potential Vietnamese supporters who yearned above all for independence. In a bid for moderation, the final statement was a compromise that read:
Although the VNQDD modelled itself on Sun Yat-sen's Chinese Nationalist Party , even down to copying the "Nationalist Party" designation, it had no direct relationship with its Chinese counterpart and in fact did not gain much attention outside Vietnam until the Yen Bai mutiny in 1930. Like the KMT, it was a clandestine organisation held together with tight discipline. Its basic unit was the cell, above which there were several levels of administration, including provincial, regional and central committees. Also like the KMT, the VNQDD's revolutionary strategy envisaged a military takeover, followed by a period of political training for the population before a constitutional government could take control.
Most party members were teachers, employees of the French colonial government or non-commissioned officers in the colonial army. The VNQDD campaigned mainly among these facets of society—there were few workers or peasants in its ranks. The VNQDD admitted many female members, which was quite revolutionary for the time. It set about seeking alliances with other nationalist factions in Vietnam. In a meeting on July 4, 1928, the Central Committee appealed for unity among the Vietnamese revolutionary movements, sending delegates to meet with other organisations struggling for independence. The preliminary contacts did not yield any concrete alliances.
Initial activities
Financial problems compounded the VNQDD's difficulties. Money was needed to set up a commercial enterprise, a cover for the revolutionaries to meet and plot, and for raising funds. For this purpose, 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 preliminary action. The first notable reorganisation of the VNQDD was 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. The report stated that there were landlords and wealthy peasants among the members, but that few were of scholar–gentry rank.
Beginning in 1928, the VNQDD attracted substantial Vietnamese support, provoking increased attention from 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 of Hanoi-based French labour recruiter Hervé Bazin on February 9, 1929, was a turning point that marked the beginning of the VNQDD's decline. A graduate of the ?cole Colonial in Paris, Bazin directed the recruitment of Vietnamese labourers to work on colonial plantations. Recruiting techniques often included beating or coercion, because the foremen who did the recruiting received a commission for each enlisted worker. On the plantations, living conditions were poor and the remuneration was low, leading to widespread indignation. In response, Vietnamese hatred of Bazin led to thoughts of an assassination. A group of workers approached the VNQDD with a proposal to kill Bazin. Hoc felt that assassinations were pointless because they would only prompt a crackdown by the French ''S?reté'', 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 colonial apparatus.
Turned down by the VNQDD leadership, one of the assassination's proponents—it is unclear whether or not he was a party member—created his own plot. With an accomplice, he shot and killed Bazin on February 9, 1929, as the Frenchman left his 's house. The French attributed the attack to the VNQDD and reacted by apprehending all the party members they could find: between three and four hundred men were rounded up, including 36 government clerks, 13 French government officials, 36 schoolteachers, 39 merchants, 37 landowners and 40 military personnel. The subsequent trials resulted in 78 men being 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, though Hoc and Nhu were among the few who escaped from a raid on their hideout at the Vietnam Hotel.
Internal split and change in strategy
In 1929, the VNQDD split when a faction led by Nguyen The Nghiep began to disobey party orders and was therefore expelled from the Central Committee. Some sources claim that Nghiep had formed a breakaway party and had begun secret contacts with French authorities.
Perturbed by those who betrayed fellow members to the French and the problems this behaviour caused, Hoc convened a meeting to tighten regulations in mid-1929 at the village of Lac Dao, along the Gia Lam–Haiphong railway. This was also the occasion for a shift in strategy: Hoc argued for a general uprising, citing rising discontent among Vietnamese soldiers in the colonial army. More moderate party leaders believed this move to be premature, and cautioned against it, but Hoc's stature meant he prevailed in shifting 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, where VNQDD forces would join 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 prepared for the revolt. They located and manufactured weapons, storing them in hidden depots. The preparation was hindered by French police, particularly the seizure of arms caches.
Yen Bai mutiny
At around 01:30 on Monday, February 10, 1930, approximately 40 troops belonging to the 2nd Battalion of the Fourth ''Régiment de Tirailleurs Tonkinois'' stationed at Yen Bai, reinforced by around 60 civilian members of the VNQDD, attacked their 29 French officers and warrant officers. The rebels had intended to split into three groups: the first group was to infiltrate the infantry, kill French NCOs in their beds and raise support among Vietnamese troops; the second, supported by the VNQDD civilians, was to break into the post headquarters; and the third group would enter the officers' quarters. The French were caught off guard; five were killed and three seriously wounded. The mutineers isolated a few more French officers from their men, even managing to raise the VNQDD flag above one of the buildings. About two hours later, however, it became apparent that the badly-coordinated uprising had failed, and the remaining 550 Vietnamese soldiers helped quell the rebellion rather than participate in it. 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.
That same evening, two further insurrectionary attempts failed in the Son Duong sector. A raid on the ''Garde indigène'' post in Hung Hoa was repelled by the Vietnamese guards, who appeared to have been tipped off. In the nearby town of Kinh Khe, VNQDD members killed the instructor Nguyen Quang Kinh and one of his wives. After destroying the ''Garde indigène'' post in Lam Thao, the VNQDD briefly seized control of the district seat. At sunrise, a new ''Garde indigène'' unit arrived and inflicted heavy losses 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 threw bombs at government buildings, which they regarded as part of the repressive power of the colonial state. On the night of February 15–16, Hoc and his remaining forces seized the nearby villages of Phu Duc and Vinh Bao, in and Hai Duong Provinces respectively, for a few hours. In the second village, the VNQDD killed the local mandarin of the French colonial government, Tri Huyen. On February 16, French warplanes responded by bombarding 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 S?reté 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 prosecute those 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 argued in their own defence 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 from 39 to 13. Hoc and Chinh were among the 13 who were executed on June 17, 1930. The condemned men cried "Viet Nam!" as the guillotine fell. Hoc wrote a final plea to the French, in a letter that claimed that he had always wanted to cooperate with French authorities, but that their intransigence had forced him to revolt. Hoc contended that France could only stay in Indochina if they dropped their "brutal" policies, and became more amiable towards the Vietnamese. The VNQDD leader called for 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, Le Huu Canh—who had tried to stall the failed mutiny—attempted to reunite what remained of the party under the banner of peaceful reform. Other factions, however, remained faithful to Hoc's legacy, recreating the movement in the Hanoi–Haiphong area. A failed assassination attempt on Governor-General Pasquier led to 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 its members from the Chinese government while funds were raised by robbery and extortion along the Sino-Vietnamese border. This eventually led to a Chinese government crackdown, 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 continued to run the party from his cell. Upon his release in 1933, Nghiep consolidated the party with similar groups in the area, including some followers of Phan Boi Chau who had formed a -based organisation with similar aims in 1925. Chau's group had formed in opposition to the communist tendencies of Ho Chi Minh's Revolutionary Youth League. With nationalist Chinese aid, Chau's followers had set up a League of Oppressed Oriental Peoples, a Pan-Asian group that ended in failure. In 1932 the League made 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 began losing political relevance, with only moderate activity until the outbreak of World War II and in 1940. They attempted to organise workers along the Yunnan railway, threatening occasional border assaults, with little success.
The VNQDD was gradually overshadowed as the leading Vietnamese independence organisation by Ho's Indochinese Communist Party . In 1940, Ho arrived in Yunnan, which was a hotbed of both ICP and VNQDD activity. He initiated collaboration between the ICP and other nationalists such as the VNQDD. At the time, World War II had broken out and Japan had conquered most of eastern China and replaced the French in Vietnam. Ho moved east to the neighbouring province of Guangxi, where Chinese military leaders had been attempting to organise 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 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 renamed the Viet Nam Giai Phong Dong Minh . 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 dominate the league. This prompted the local authorities to shut down the front's activities.
Post World War II
In August 1945, Ho's Vietminh seized power and set up a provisional government in the wake of Imperial Japan's withdrawal from Vietnam. This move violated a prior agreement between the member parties of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi , which included the VNQDD as well as the Vietminh, and Ho was pressured to broaden his government's appeal by including the VNQDD .
After the seizure of power, hundreds of VNQDD members returned from China, only to be killed at the border by the Vietminh. 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, in addition to decreasing 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 banded with them to from an anti-Vietminh alliance. Armed confrontations between the Vietminh and the nationalists occurred regularly in major northern cities. Ho scheduled elections for December 23, but he made a deal with the VNQDD and the Dong Minh Hoi, which assured them of 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 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 who were supposed to be maintaining order. As a result, the VNQDD were further attacked by the French, who often encircled VNQDD strongholds, enabling Vietminh attacks. Giap's army hunted down VNQDD troops and cleared them from the Red River Delta, seizing arms and arresting party members, who were falsely charged with crimes ranging from counterfeiting to unlawful arms possession. The Vietminh massacred thousands of VNQDD members and other nationalists in a large scale purge. Most of the survivors fled to China or French-controlled areas in Vietnam. When the National Assembly convened 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 20 remained by the end of the session. By the end of the year, Tam had resigned as foreign minister and fled to China, and only one of the three original VNQDD cabinet members was still in office.
Post-independence
After Vietnam gained independence in 1954, the into a communist north and an anti-communist south, but stipulated that there were to be 300 days of free passage between the two zones. During Operation Passage to Freedom, most VNQDD members migrated to the south.
The VNQDD was deeply divided after years of communist pressure, lacked strong leadership and no longer had a military presence. The party's disarray was only exacerbated by the actions of autocratic President Ngo Dinh Diem, who imprisoned many of its members. During the Diem era, the VNQDD were implicated in two failed coup attempts. In November 1960, a paratrooper revolt failed after the mutineers agreed to negotiate, allowing time for loyalists to relieve the president. In 1963, VNQDD leaders Tam and Vu Hong Khanh were among those arrested for their involvement in the plot; Tam committed suicide before the case started, and 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 in a bid to kill the president's family, but their targets escaped unharmed. Many VNQDD members were part of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, which sought to prevent South Vietnam from being overrun by communists during the Vietnam War.
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 , where they continued their political activities. The VNQDD remains respected among some sections of the overseas Vietnamese community as Vietnam's leading anti-communist organisation.
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