Indochina - Ho Chi Minh
Translation: Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2021.
Is the communist regime applicable in Asia in general and in Indochina in particular? This is the question confronting us today.
To this question, we can answer affirmatively. In order to understand, we must examine the present situation of the Asian continent historically and geographically. This vast continent, with a surface area 80 times larger than France (45,000,000 square kilometers) and a population of nearly 800 million souls, has a rather complex political composition.
Of all the Asian nations, Japan is the most seriously affected by the conta-gious disease of capitalist imperialism. Since the Russo-Japanese war, the dis-ease has manifested itself more and more disturbingly, first by the annexation of Korea, then by collaboration in the war of the “Right” (the Great War).
To prevent it from sliding into the abyss of an irremediable Westernization, that is, before it could take deep roots in the Japanese islands, a Socialist Party was formed. Like all bourgeois governments, the Mikado government is doing everything it can to fight the movement. Like all workers’ forces, the Japanese Party—despite government repression—is making fairly rapid progress.
Congresses have been banned in Japanese cities; strikes and popular demon-strations have taken place.
China, which has been and still is the golden calf of European and Ameri-can capital, has just woken up. The coming to power of the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen in the South promises us a reorganized and proletarian China. It is perhaps not too much to hope that in the near future these two sisters—the new China and working-class Russia—will walk hand-in-hand fraternally for the good of democracy and humanity.
Now we come to suffering Asia.
Poor Korea is in the hands of Japanese capitalism. India—so populous and so rich—is enslaved to the English exploiters. Fortunately, the will for emancipation electrifies all these oppressed people, and an intense revolutionary agitation shakes all Hindu and Korean souls. All are slowly but wisely preparing for the supreme and liberating struggle.
And Indochina! Indochina, exploited by French capitalism, is used to enrich a few sharks! The Indochinese are murdered by imperialist butchery to defend a “homeland” of which they are ignorant. They are poisoned with alcohol and opium. They are kept in ignorance (there are 10 schools compared to 1,000 official drug outlets), plots are invented to make them taste the benefits of bourgeois civilization by putting them on the scaffolding, in prison or in exile!
75,000 square kilometers of land, 20 million inhabitants delivered for the cruel exploitation of a handful of colonial forbidding men. Such is Indochina today.
Let’s see now the historical reasons that allow communism to acclimatize easily in Asia, more easily than in Europe.
The Asian—although considered by Westerners as backward—under-stands better the necessity of a total reform of the present Society. And here is why:
Almost 5000 years ago, the emperor Huangdi (2697 BC),21 already applied the jingtian system; he divided the cultivable land by drawing two vertical and two horizontal lines. This made nine equal parts. Each farmer received one of the eight parts, the middle one was cultivated by all, and its product was destined for public utility works. The routes were used as irrigation canals.22
The Xia dynasty (2205 B.C.) inaugurated compulsory work23
The great Confucius (551 B.C.), advocated in favor of internationalism and preached the equality of fortune. He said, among other things, that “world peace can only come from a universal republic. One should not fear having little, but not having in an equal manner. Equality cancels poverty, etc.”
His disciple—Mencius—continued his doctrine and drew a detailed plan for the organization of production and consumption. The protection and development of a healthy childhood, the education and obligation to work for adults, the severe condemnation of parasitism, the retirement of the elderly—nothing was neglected in his thesis. The disappearance of inequality of enjoyment, the well-being—not only for the majority but for all. This is the economic policy of the Sage.
Answering a question by the king, he said straightforwardly: the interest of the people comes first, that of the nation comes after, and that of the king is nothing!
As far as private property is concerned, Annamese law prohibits the sale or purchase of all land. Moreover, one quarter of the cultivable land is compulsorily reserved as communal property. Every three years, this land is divided. Each inhabitant of the commune receives a share. This does not prevent some people from becoming rich, because the other three quarters can be bought and sold, but it can save many others from falling into pauperism.
We believe it is our duty to point out here, so that those of our comrades who have at heart the propagation of communism and who sincerely wish to help all the workers to shake off the yoke of the exploiter and to enter into the common home of the international proletariat—so that they can help us effectively, is that the things we lack in order to become communists, are the most elementary conditions of action:
Freedom of the press;
Freedom to travel;
Freedom of teaching and education;
Freedom of assembly (all this is savagely forbidden to us by our colonial civilizers).
The day when the hundreds of millions of martyred and oppressed Asians wake up to get rid of the abject exploitation of a few insatiable colonialists, they will form a colossal force and will be able, by suppressing one of the conditions of existence of capitalism—imperialism—to help their brothers in the West with the task of total emancipation.
21 Huangdi (2697-2597 BC), known as the Yellow Emperor. While his historicity is unsure, he is attributed with having invented many things such as math calculations, a code of laws, the Chinese calendar, traditional Chinese medicine, etc. and is seen as the father of Chinese civilization.
22 The jingtian zhidu, in English well-field system, was actually setup in the 9th century BC during the Zhou dynasty. It names come from the character 井, which looks like the way a field is divided. Hồ Chí Minh’s description isn’t the most accurate; the middle part of the plot was not actually cultivated by all for public utility, but for the landowning aristocrat.
23 Modern calculations show that the Xia dynasty actually ruled between 2070-1600 BC.
.jpg)
No comments