WEBVTT - Part Two: Ngo Van & Vietnamese Resistance Before the Vietnam War 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:04.040 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, which 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.560 is a podcast that you are listening to. I'm your host, 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.040 Margaret Kiljoy. With me today is my guest, the One 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.239 and Only Snow from Yellow Peril Tactical I Snow. How 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.200 are you on this totally different day than last time? Hello, 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:24.400 I am doing well. Yeah. Yeah, it's sunny, so that's good. Yeah. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.520 I'm having one of those days where like it was 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.560 like sixty degrees in the mountains and I'm like, oh, yeah, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.479 it's so nice. I can go do things outside. And 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:37.400 then I'm like it shouldn't be. This is bad. Yeah, 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.480 mixed feelings on the on the good weather, I hear. Yeah. Yeah, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.839 I'm really looking forward to our future where our seasons 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:50.120 are summer, summer, summer, hell Mouth and those are four seasons. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.000 Maybe like an ice storm as a tree every like 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.400 a few years. Oh yeah, totally like during any of 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:02.120 the seasons. Yeah. Yeah, that's exciting. I'm really excited about 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.320 the future. Sophie is our producer. High Sophie, how are you. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.240 I had the exact same conversation with my mom to there. 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.360 I was like, oh, it's so nice. I'll look at 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.520 this blue sky and then I was like, oh, ship, yeah, 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.520 it's probably not supposed to be that way. This is 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.720 probably you probably want as much rain as you can 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.520 get in the winter. Yeah yeah, I was like, oh shit, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:30.880 not good. I was like, ah hoo hoo. Yeah, but anyways, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.319 glad to be here. Yeah. Is our audio engineer and 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.199 our theme music was written for us by a woman. 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.960 This is part two of our two part series, which, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.880 for those who are doing the math, means it's the 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:47.520 second and final part about the Previetnam War resistance French 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.720 colonialism in Vietnam. And of course we've got two protagonists 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.320 we've declared cool. There's no von who wrote a memoir 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.680 called In the Crossfire that a decent chunk of this 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.520 is based on any anything that feels narrative of I'm 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.680 probably getting from that memoir. Any other cool person is 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:07.520 Vietnamese people who funked up everyone in the world who 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:12.679 sucked with them, And don't you forget it? No, I hope, 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:14.680 and no one listening this ever forgets it and tries 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.519 to colonize Vietnam. I don't really want them to colonize anywhere. 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.399 If you're listening to this, I'm indifferent, Okay, I will 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.360 come out on the I don't know if it counts 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.359 this colonization if it's a planet with no living life 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.760 forms on it. I've got like mixed feelings about Mars colonization, 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.120 but I don't think it could be understood in the 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.680 same context as colonization of people. That's my um wild 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:44.240 cancellable take. Interesting. You look like you don't agree with 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.200 me here. You know, I just when I hear Mars 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.280 and colonization of Mars, I think about Octavia Butler's Parable 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.760 of the Sower and Talents Well, and then that's as 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.000 far as I get, because then I think about that 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.560 book and then I stopped listening. I'm sorry. Yeah, I 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.240 know that's fair. I'm really excited for Elon Musk to 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.440 lead an expeditionary um mission to Mars as well as 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.000 he has led Twitter. I hope he dies, Yeah exactly, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:18.399 I mean no, yeah, and it's on tape. Yeah yeah, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.840 I want to see it. Yeah. People try and spread 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:25.720 around on what's left of Twitter. That's like, you know, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.160 you know that man is a dead man switch for Twitter, though, 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.320 you know that if he doesn't, if he doesn't press 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.359 the button once every hour, all of Twitter goes down. Yeah, 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.880 I felt like you might have been dying yesterday based 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.360 on how poorly the app was working. Yeah. Is it 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.400 just like connected to his spinal cord you think? Oh? 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:51.280 Probably like like pure Cyder tracks exactly. Yeah, fair enough. Oh, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.320 I hope it's a two way okay, And um, so 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.240 where we left off, resistance, the French Indo China was 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.200 starting to heat up again, and to be honest, never 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.120 really actually stopped being hot, but it would, like, you know, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.480 cycle between hot and very hot. Communists and nationalists and 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.600 religious groups and bandits and just a whole goddamn ton 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.320 of people who didn't want to listen to the French 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.720 are doing some fighting. And we've made it up to 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.719 nineteen thirty. Our hero No Vaughan is about seventeen or 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.280 eighteen at this time. He's not quite on the main 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:21.920 stage yet, but he's starting to be around. For the 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.800 events that happened in garrison of Vietnamese troops led by 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.320 the French mutinied as part of a conspiracy by a 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.520 secret society more than fifteen hundred people, because once again, 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.919 secret societies are doing all kinds of ship. Unfortunately, the 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.920 leaders of this group were guillotined but many of the 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.800 rank and file fled the country and they're going to 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.480 come back later. They're like, they try to do this mutiny, 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.680 it fails. All their leaders get guillotined because guillotine is 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.320 not actually a symbol of working class resistance. And I 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.160 was just gonna say that last episode we talked about 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.640 like the French being like no revolutions like are thing 0:04:55.720 --> 0:05:00.440 we we and so they're gonna bring guillotines, and Okay, 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.480 I'm just okay, I just want to make sure everybody 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.840 heard that the guillotine fucking hundreds or thousands of Vietnamese 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.679 colonial subjects who were revolting against them, um during this time, 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:13.680 which I think they've only gotten one king, and so 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.880 I feel like one king to all of these codes. Anyway. Yeah, um, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.279 I wanted to like the guillotine as a symbol, but 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.279 I no longer do. Damh. I should maybe get that 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:29.800 tattoo removed them. See, I always liked it because I 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.440 always thought it was the symbol that contained its own critique. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.200 You know, It's like being like, hey, sometimes violence and 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.440 revolutionary situations might be necessary, but we all know it 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.680 could easily go too far. Because that's what I thought 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.440 that we all do. The guillotine meant was revolutionary violence 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.520 going too far, but instead people just completely on ironically 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.520 liked it. And I'm like, yeah, there are other means 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.440 that people used to get rid of tyrants that um anyway, 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.320 So all of these the rank and file who lose 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.440 uh and flee the country, they show up again later 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.560 and just continue throwing down. They just like kind of 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:03.960 take a break, come back later, and they're fucking cool. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.080 Peasants are running around torching official records with kerosene. Poor 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.080 workers in the city are rioting against the capitulation task 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.080 tax tax that's the word I can't pronounce this time, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.080 and being gunned down for it. And news about all 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.000 these revolts are spreading around by illegal newspapers. Many of 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.680 them are basically zenes going hand to hand between workers 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.640 and peasants. We love a good scene, I know, and 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.360 between workers and peasants, I like literally mean both directions 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.000 in a really cool way that we're gonna keep talking 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.600 about a little bit um. This whole like dichotomy of 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.160 like the workers versus the peasants. That's like fucking nonsense, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.800 And I think the Vietnamese resistance shows it really well. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.320 By the end of nineteen thirty is just open revolt 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.880 all over the place. Prisoners are being set free, cop 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.760 shops are being ransacked, Whole villages and then regions where 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.000 the French do not dare step foot. And importantly to 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.360 our story, when peasants take over an area, they tend 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.520 to form democratic councils to administer the region. And there's 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.120 a word for this type of local rule by democratic council. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.320 That word is Soviet. Because that's what people forget, is 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:09.200 that the word Soviet means fucking local control of a 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:18.520 reach anyway or upon It's Soviet, excellent, excellent, which okay, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.560 but like instead of like saying like say levies, so 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:27.320 be it like okay, anyway, so vit. I want to 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.800 quote no Von directly here. In September, in the villages 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.320 of Naen, which had been abandoned by the notables and 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.440 the local militia. Not is this I'm no longer quoting 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.360 not and is this whole big fucking province in north 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.680 central Vietnam, the peasants began organizing themselves into soviets. They 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.600 took over the administration, and without touching the landed property, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.680 proceeded to share out the communal land that had been 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.480 annexed by the landlords. They confiscated rice reserves and distributed 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.840 them to the starving, allocated agricultural work, collectively abolished taxes, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.000 imposed lower farm rents on the landowners, and launched a 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.600 literacy campaign. The Soviets extended themselves to the provinces of Ha, 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:10.600 tin Con, Low, thak Ha and home San the French 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.120 no longer quoting. The French responded by just carpet bombing 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.920 people's because of course they did. Hundreds of people were 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.360 killed at a time. But this is like literally the 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.560 coolest thing that I can imagine in any episode I 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.720 ever do, Like people fucking taking over their areas and 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.520 running them through democratic councils and like const remaining the 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.240 land evenly. It just doesn't get better than that, No, 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:36.360 it doesn't. I mean that's what it really should be 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:42.360 all about, like all of our work. Yeah, totally. The 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.040 cities are fighting too. The revolt is less intense in 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.839 the cities. I think basically there's like less capacity to 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.800 actually take and hold terrain strikes in marches and the 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.120 occasional assassination are happening in the cities. The government being 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.920 French set up the guillotine in front of Saigon's central prison. 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.240 Over the over a few years of this revolt, there's 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.760 twelve thousand political arrests with almost a hundred beheadings, and 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.080 no Von he's seventeen or so at this point, and 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.240 he's bicycling back to his village with the zines rolled 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.480 up in the handlebars to distribute among the peasants, which 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.600 just fucking rules. That's creative. I know, I would never 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.160 think to look there, and he's reading them to people 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.520 who can't read. When he gets there soon he's organizing 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.280 with people at his work. They can't even say words 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.840 like labor union, so instead they build a mutual aid society, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.480 one of these things where everyone like takes care of 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.719 each other or whatever, and they pull money to take 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.360 care of each other, and they meet at under the 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.640 guise of like birthday parties and ship because in order 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.400 to have the French don't let more than like I 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:47.360 can remember if it's seventeen or twenty seven, some low 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.640 number of people. M Vietnamese people meet in one place 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.280 at any given time without getting like special permission. That's 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.880 so funned, because we have such big families yes, kids, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.080 one of thirteen. Yeah, like our our family, Like my 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.240 mom like it's like your fifth cousin. And I'm like 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:08.800 what yeah, yeah, all right. Well, and so they can 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.000 get permission for birthday parties and so they use those. 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.679 The birthday parties become the labor organizing meetings, and then 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.720 the coolies, the least paid people at the job, the 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.240 at his place, they go on strike, and so he 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.320 goes up and he's like, hey, our our quote unquote 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:30.280 mutual aid fund, it is now your strike fund. Ah sick, yeah, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:32.560 do what you want with it. And then he acts 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.719 as an interpreter for the strikers and they win a 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.120 modest pay raise. So this is how he gets into 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:43.080 labor organizing. Inasmuch as anyone is organizing the huge revolt, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.800 there's two major players. Both are Communists. Um, there's the 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.520 Communist Party, which takes its orders from the common turn 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.640 the Bolsheviks up in Russia and they're already doing some 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:58.400 wacky stuff. They had a revolutionary tribunal. It's like, way 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.680 before they have any power any territory, they have a 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.960 revolutionary tribunal for one of their own members and sentenced 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.280 him to death and kill him because he fell in 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.520 love with another comrade and that took his mind off 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.600 his duties. That is at least how it is presented 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.920 by no Van. The person who ever sees this tribunal 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.400 is Tom Duke Tongue, who later succeeds Ho Chi Minh 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.000 and is like this great revolutionary hero or whatever. And 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.080 one of the other people who was also part of 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:32.880 the like murder of this guy, ends up being like 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.240 second in commando ho chie Men and stuff later down 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:43.920 blood in. Yeah. Um, that's the State Communists. Then there's 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.880 the Communist Opposition, the Communist Left Opposition group uh not 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.240 a incredibly original name, and they basically are the communist 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.079 who don't take order from Russia. I like them more 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.320 so that my bias is going to be towards them, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.280 and no Van is with them soon enough, and they're 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.640 more or less trout skifts. They are Trotskyists, which basically 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.280 at this point is like a Communist who doesn't like Stalin. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.560 Anarchists are there and involved in all this struggle too, 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.320 but not to the same degree. I believe it's isolated 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.600 individuals and small groups. I haven't been able to find 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.520 more information specifically about that yet. So the people who 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.920 are the major players and a lot of this organizing 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.040 stuff who are like die hard about one ideology or another. 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:31.120 They are not most people. Um, most people are poor 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.120 workers and peasants who are like, I'm a funk up 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.480 the French and taking care of each other sounds good, 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.120 rather than being like specifically ideologically committed. And so you'll 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.680 see the majority of people who are the actual fighters 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.040 will shift allegiances back and forth. Um, it's not just 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:52.960 like the left opposition, like yeah, these two different communist 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.040 tendencies like kind of go back and forth a lot. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.640 The major players of both parties get arrested and exiled 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 at the end of this whole nine one thing. Um 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.120 there sentenced to their exile or sense to hard labor 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.640 or given the old chopity um. By the end of 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.840 nineteen thirty one, the revolt is crushed for good and 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.160 France still rules Vietnam to this day. Just just kidding. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.520 They're very chumba womba. They get right back up again 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.400 and they do something particularly cool that imprisoned journalist on 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.480 nin he's out now and as of ninety one he 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.320 gets out and he refuses to align himself to one 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.959 of these communist parties or another. Um later after his death, 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:36.960 the Communist Party is like, Oh, his whole thing about 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.079 refusing to align to parties, it's because he liked us. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.240 It was just to get people to join the Communist Party. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:50.520 That's why he refused to it. Yeah, yeah, he um. 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.120 Not only but he refused to join the parties, the left, 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.199 opposition or the you know the Trotsky story of the Stalinists, 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.240 but he was completely down to work with them. And 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.240 his whole thing was that he kept the two together 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.640 for years, like long after the rest of the world 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:07.960 where the Trotskis and the Stalins are murdering each other, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.480 he's holding them together together with the Party, communists, opposition, 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.760 communists and anarchists. He starts a newspaper called The Struggle. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.240 Um it's in French, not Vietnamese. And the reason it's 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.120 in French is because the French belief in free speech 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:30.760 in French. Oh okay, got it. I'm with you. If 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.000 you live in Psigan at this point, you can have 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.200 a journal with free speech as long as it's in French. 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:40.680 If it's in Vietnamese, it needs to be approved. Okay. 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:46.840 So basically every single article and every single issue is like, please, 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:48.680 for the love of God, translate this and tell it 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.480 to people who don't speak French. And for most of 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.560 the paper's existence it was legally owned by a white man, 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.120 an anti colonial Frenchman named Edgar Ganowski, who you to 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.360 citizenship to get help them get away with ship. Privilege 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.080 doesn't save him in the end, he dies in poverty 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.760 in the early nineteen forties. But he's basically like, there's 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:13.120 gonna be a couple um French colonials who are entirely 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.720 militantly committed to the um anti colonial struggle. Okay, well 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.400 they can hang yeah. And this was a particular achievement 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:24.960 that it gets the Stalinist and the trotsky Is working 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.680 together because at this point Stalinists are hunting down and 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.080 doing the old murder, which is a euphemism for killing 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.680 um on Trotskyists in Vietnam. There was some piece which 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.200 really lends credit to the idea that even the party 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:38.880 communists there at the end of the day, we're actually 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.120 looking to free Vietnam more than they were like looking 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.600 to specifically be like, oh my god, we love the 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.360 USSR or whatever the fuck. And the paper starts running 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:53.080 political candidates it's like this big central leftist organization basically 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:55.480 at this point, and it includes a popular front of 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.160 candidates from both the Communist Party and the Communist Opposition, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.560 and they fund all of this by opening a bar. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:08.280 Interesting I like them. No Van starts writing for it, 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.880 basically information about what's going on in the plantations. I 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:15.440 think through his connections in the villages where he's from. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:20.520 The peace between the Communist doesn't last. Yeah, the thing 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.320 about being beholden to a foreign power is that you're 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:27.560 beholden to a foreign power, and this thing happens that 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:33.880 normally is kind of good. Elsewhere. On May second, Russia 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.520 and France make friends the Franco Soviet Mutual Assistance Pack, 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.800 and from their point of view it makes some sense. Right. Um, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.040 you know, Hitler is starting to get all hit larry 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.120 in and history shows pretty clearly that it takes Western 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.200 Europe and Russia working together to stop the Nazis. So yeah, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.600 that's okay. So like, okay, you you get why why 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:56.840 the USSR wants to be friends with friends for a moment, 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:05.119 but beholden to foreign power. The Communists are no longer 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.199 allowed to fight the French part on. Yeah, in Vietnam. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.840 Orders came from the common turn the high the Communist 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:17.280 Party that the Vietnamese Communist Party has to stop trying 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.480 to become free of France because France is Russia's ally, 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.720 and the Communist Party is beholden to Russia and can't 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.360 make their own decisions. That's why tons of the Communist 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:30.359 Party go along with this. I think a ton of 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.359 other people stopped being in the Communist Party because there 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:36.479 they were willing to be in the Communist Party as 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.520 a means to get rid of the French the struggle. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:42.120 That newspaper it doesn't report on any of this because 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:48.359 it's trying desperately to keep the peace. But now the 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.280 Trotskyists are like, Okay, if we don't start doing our 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.760 own thing, resistance to France is just going to become 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.800 bourgeois nationalist. It's just going to be you know, the 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.919 rich people who want to like restore the monarchy or 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.959 have a bourgeois republic or whatever. Because the state Communis 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.879 are out of the fight, so uh No, Vaughn and 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.040 some others decide to act and they formed the League 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:16.280 of Internationalist Communists. And their strategy, which I really like, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.840 is that workers peasants and industrial like workers. Both peasants 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.840 and industrial workers should form action committees, elect delegates and 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:29.520 create a bottom up communist revolution. Okay, I got no notes, Um, 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.439 sign me up. Yeah uh. He still had to keep 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.240 his day job and him at night. He and his 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.879 friends start building a printing press that of salvaged parts 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.200 and starting an illegal Vietnamese language newspaper called Permanent Revolution, 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:48.720 which supported revolt and condemned Russia's open support for French imperialism. 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.240 That's so sweet. You know, things get spicy again real quick. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.840 Wagon drivers go on strike and the internationalist communists support them. 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.200 Repression goes after that. Um, the Popular Front newspaper burn 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.720 of the struggle and his editors end up going back 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.760 to jail. The paper keeps going even as it's like 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.879 main people get thrown in jail. Vaughan and his friends 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.360 have to move their press constantly. They're weird steampunk salvage 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:17.160 parts fucking press. That is honestly so cool, just thinking about, 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:21.280 like I couldn't do that now with the Internet and 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:28.040 like hive YouTube videos. Yeah no, totally, he's a clerk. Yeah, 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.520 oh my god. Yeah, it's it's not a coincidence. How 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:38.080 many historical revolutionaries. Background is type setting like, but there's 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.280 hope on the horizon, and people are actually there's a 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.679 very hopeful period, partly because the workers in France go 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.680 on strike two in the mid mid thirties. The revolution 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:49.720 feels so close that they can touch it. They set 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.560 about pulling together a call for workers to, as van 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:56.440 put it, stormed the gates of hell then and then 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:01.720 um and then they all get arrested, including including Vom, 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:04.919 before they could do any storming or even any advocacy 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:10.399 of storming. He's he's twenty two or twenty three. But 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:18.600 you know who else is prison? Not puppy therapy. No, no, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.720 that's true. Yeah, you know what, let's let's stick to 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:23.560 puppy therapy. And what was the other one? Was the 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:28.920 other today's sponsor? Yeah, free hot soup. Well everyone, if 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.080 you want free hot soup, go to food not bombs. 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.119 If you don't have one, you should start one. Or 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.440 if you don't like that particular framework, call something else, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.760 sup with your friends, super your family. Yeah, call it 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.879 soup with your fab for your family. And that is 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.160 the advertiser that's enough that could support, that has enough 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:53.640 money to run this podcast, right, well, if we need 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.760 the extra money, will use some other ads. Yeah, okay, okay, okay, 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.359 And we are back and he's about to go to jail. 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.360 He's twenty two or twenty three at this point. They 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:10.639 come into the offices he's working out of and they 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.679 drag him off and they make him watch as they 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.120 raid both his mother's house. Basically, they like, I think 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.600 he probably planned this with his mother, because he's kind 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.640 of a um. He gets along well with his mom. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:26.320 He tells them. He's like, they're like, where do you live? 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.520 And he's like, my mom's house. And so they go 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:30.159 to his mom's house and they like take some of 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:32.719 those books and stuff from his old room and then 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:34.400 they're like, yeah, but where are your clothes? And he's 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.600 like a ship, you got me. So if you're planning, yeah, 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:39.800 if you're planning to use your mom's house, that's the 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.000 place you claim to live, you need to keep enough 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.240 clothes there to make it believable. So then they go 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.720 to his own house and they raid it as well, 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.679 and at this point he's like, I'm in it. This 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.639 is my life, Like okay, I I mean he's already 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:57.639 started groups, he's already been working on this stuff. But 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.360 he's like, this is this is the moment. And then 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.520 his quote unquote civilizers take him to jail and torture 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:09.080 the ship out of him. Humans are very creative at 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:14.240 exactly two things, execution and torture. I'm not gonna read 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.040 tell you about this particular torture, but it's one i'd 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:21.320 never heard of before. It sucked. And then they sent 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:25.800 him to prison, which also sucked. And they while in 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.680 prison with along with his other prisoners, he started organizing 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:33.880 because of course you do. Because I can't stop. We'll stop, Yeah, 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.000 he said, organizers to prison. You're getting an organized prison. 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.640 The twenty or so prisoners in a cell elected him Delicate, 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:44.520 and he was tasked with making demands of the prison. 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.600 First it was we need another drug of water. So 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:49.639 when they came in the screws came in the morning, 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:51.240 he was like, hey, we need another drug of water 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:53.320 and they were like what. He's like, we needed to 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:54.960 drug of water, and so they drag him off in 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.520 front of the head jailer who screams at him, says 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.359 I'm going to disembowel you, holds up the book of 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:05.880 French rules, and then gives them another drug of water. Okay. 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.800 Every morning thereafter, the prisoners compiled a list of their 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.280 needs and delivered them to the guards. Yes, and they 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:14.320 do the best they can. Life sucks in the prison, 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:16.399 but his family walks all the way from the village 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.960 to see him. When they can. They all pass news 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.600 about the prison out to the radical press. And the 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.720