still in Canton, had formed the Association of Revolutionary Annamite Youth, some of whose members returned to Vietnam to recruit other followers and set up clandestine political cells. One of the steps taken at this time was the elimination of the greatly respected nationalist leader Phan Boi Chau, now considered by Ho to be a formidable rival. Allegedly, Ho arranged to deliver Chau to the French Security Service for a reward of 100,000 piasters.'

10

Ho Chi Minh and his comrades took a major organizational step on 3 February 1930 when they merged the Communist groups of the north, center, and south of Vietnam into the Communist Party of Indochina. The party then qualified as a national section of the Comintern. Hardly had the party been formed when it launched an offensive. On 1 May, the Communists began to organize mass riots and foment unrest in parts of Annam and Cochin China, efforts that continued into 1933. Predictably, Communist terrorism bred counteraction by the French. The French success in quashing the rebellion was a serious setback to the Indochinese Communist Party and one that almost proved fatal. Ho himself has described the years 1931-1933 as a period of disintegration."

Following these abortive Communist revolts, Ho ordered the party to go underground. He soon was apprehended by the British police in Hong Kong. The French authorities previously had asked for his extradition to Indochina where a death sentence awaited him. Since they viewed Ho as a political refugee, the British refused, Ho then was transferred to a Hong Kong prison hospital because of a worsening of the tuberculosis from which he long had suffered. The last entry made in Ho's file by the French security police read: "died in Hong Kong prison, 1933." 12

Actually, the "dead" Ho had been slipped out of the prison hospital in 1932 by a British lawyer named Frank Loseby and placed on board a boat bound for Amoy, where he hid for six months. In 1933 Ho resumed his political activities in Shanghai. Some time later, to escape Chiang Kaishek's hunt for Communists, Ho boarded a Soviet ship which sailed to

10 Ibid., p. 18; Ellen J. Hammer, Vietnam: Yesterday and Today (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 129; Hall, History of South-East Asia, p. 719; Marr, Vietnamese Anticolonialism, p. 260.

11

Ho, On Revolution, pp. 127, 208; Ralph Smith, Viet-Nam and the West (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971), pp. 105-07; Giap, Banner of People's War, p. 8; Joseph Buttinger, From Colonialism to the Vietminh, Vol. I of Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), pp. 217-20.

Vladivostok. From there Ho traveled by train to Moscow. In Moscow, under the name of Livov, he studied at the Lenin Institute, where he also taught Vietnamese history to students in the Asiatic department.13

A change in strategy of the world Communist movement gave the Communists in Indochina the chance to accumulate powers on a wider basis. In 1934 the Soviet Union pressed for "collective security" against the threat of aggression by Germany and Japan. The Seventh World Congress of the Comintern was convened in August 1935. Concerned with fascism -particularly its advent to power in Germany-and the danger of an attack on the U.S.S.R., the congress declared that the main and immediate task was to establish a "united fighting front." While long-range goals continued to be the overthrow of capitalism and the victory of the proletarian revolution, the united front tactics were to be applied in a new manner in the struggle against fascism. It was deemed the duty of Communist parties to seek to "reach agreements with the organizations of the working people of various political trends for joint action on a factory, local, district, national, and international scale." The parties were to participate in election campaigns on a common platform and a common ticket with the anti-fascist front, while reserving for themselves freedom to use the methods of political agitation and criticism. The congress considered it "necessary to draw the widest masses into the national liberation movement" in the colonial and semi-colonial countries.1

14

In an effort to create a friendly accord with France, the Comintern directed the French Communist Party to cease its subversive activities against the French armed forces. A popular front government temporarily came into power in France, and a Franco-Russian alliance was signed in 1936.

Ho Chi Minh adapted his party's line to the new Comintern policy, stating:

For the time being, the Party cannot put forth too high a demand (national independence, parliament, etc.). To do so is to enter the Japanese fascists' scheme. It should only claim for democratic rights, freedom of organization, freedom of assembly, freedom of press and freedom of speech, general amnesty for all political detainees, and struggle for legalization of the Party.

He sought to form a broad "Democratic National Front," including "progressive French" as well as Indochinese "bourgeoisie" and "toiling

13

14

Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh, pp. 64–65; Chen, Vietnam and China, pp. 28-30.

Quoted in VII Congress of the Communist International (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1939), pp. 570-86.

people." The party was to "win over the elements that can be won over and neutralize those which can be neutralized." Ho Chi Minh stressed that the Indochinese Democratic Front should work closely with the French Popular Front and the French Communist Party. He also urged that the party show itself to the people to be the most active and loyal organ, and thus win the leading position in the Indochinese Democratic Front.1

15

Leaders of the Indochinese Democratic Front in Tonkin were Pham Van Dong, future premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vo Nguyen Giap who, as commander of the North Vietnamese Army in 1954, defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. According to Giap:

Our Party [during the 1936-1939 period] cleverly combined the overt, legal, semi-overt, and semi-legal struggles with secret and illegal activities and started a vigorous movement of political struggle in the cities and rural areas, to oppose colonialist reactionaries and the feudalistic king-official clique, to demand freedom, democracy, and a better life, to oppose aggressive fascism, and to protect world peace.1

16

Ho had remained in Moscow since 1933. In the fall of 1938 he returned to China where he wrote articles, using the pen name P. C. Lin, for publication in Vietnam, and was otherwise active in behalf of the Communist revolutionary cause in Indochina.

Japanese Seapower and Indochina

In the decade of the 1930s Japan applied increasing pressure in Southeast Asia. In 1931–1932, the Japanese Navy supported military operations against China in response to that country's boycott of Japanese goods. Aerial bombing of the civilian population, shore bombardment, and infantry actions resulted in thousands of Chinese deaths before the Japanese withdrew their forces. In November 1936, Japan signed an agreement with Germany to cooperate in combating activities of the Communist International.

The following July a skirmish between Chinese troops and a Japanese military detachment stationed near Peking provided Japan with an excuse

15

16

Ho, On Revolution, pp. 130–31.

'Giap, Banner of People's War, p. 8; Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), p. 182.

for outright war. The Japanese immediately blockaded the Chinese coast. However, a land route into China used for supplying badly needed munitions, which began at the French Indochina port of Haiphong and crossed the border into Yunnan Province, remained open. In August 1937, Japan protested the French shipment of munitions through Indochina. A concerned French government sought to placate Tokyo by restricting supplies destined for China to gasoline, trucks, and textiles.1

Increasingly it became evident to American policy-makers that the future of Southeast Asia hinged on the ability of Britain and the United States to counterbalance the naval might of Japan. Informal Anglo-American staff conversations, held in London during December 1937 and January 1938, explored the possibility of American and British naval cooperation in containing Japanese expansion. Although no agreement was reached, the discussions dealt with the concept that the Royal Navy would base major forces at Singapore, while the United States Navy would establish a concentration at Pearl Harbor.18

The European colonies in Southeast Asia were of particular importance to Japan, both as a source of raw materials, particularly oil, and as a lucrative market for manufactured goods. Late in 1938, in announcing the basis on which Japan expected to make peace, Prince Fuminaro Konoye, the Japanese Prime Minister, spoke not only of military occupation and the development of an economic protectorate in China, but also of the establishment of a "New Order in East Asia." Later the Japanese referred to the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." 19

That same year, as part of her continuing attempts to dominate China, Japan advanced south by sea, launching amphibious operations to capture Hankow and Canton. French apprehension for the safety of Indochina mounted in February 1939, when a Japanese naval task force landed troops on the island of Hainan at the entrance to the Gulf of Tonkin. A month later, when the Japanese occupied the nominally French-controlled

17

For a more detailed description of the Japanese-French negotiation, see Buttinger, From Colonialism to the Vietminh, p. 228.

18

Samuel E. Morison, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April 1942, Vol. III of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1948), p. 49; John McVickar Haight, Jr., "Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Naval Quarantine of Japan," Pacific Historical Review, XL (May 1971), pp. 203-06.

19

Richard W. Leopold, The Growth of American Foreign Policy: A History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p. 538; Togo Shigenori, The Cause of Japan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), pp. 37-42.

Spratly Islands, 300 miles southeast of Indochina, it became clear to France that its Indochinese colonies and protectorates were indeed in jeopardy. Evidence that Japan was furnishing military aid to Thailand, so that the latter could regain territory that then was part of the French protectorate in Cambodia, confirmed these fears.20

At this juncture, Britain, facing the increasing probability of war, asked the United States to reopen staff conversations. In May 1939, a British officer informed the Navy's War Plans Division in Washington that the need for naval ships in the Mediterranean would prevent the deployment of a battle force to Singapore. The British suggested that the United States undertake the defense of the Malaya barrier. No longer could American planners count on substantial British naval assistance in the Far East.21

On the international scene, the Communists temporarily abandoned the anti-fascist theme when the Soviet Union signed a treaty of non-aggression with Germany on 23 August 1939. Following the German invasion of Poland eight days later and the start of World War II, France outlawed the Communist Party at home and in its colonies. The French Security Service then carried out mass arrests in Cochin China. An uprising initiated by the Communists on 22 November 1940, was crushed by the French who employed troops, police, and aircraft against the insurgents.

22

At the outbreak of war, France had in Far Eastern waters a small force consisting of 2 cruisers, 6 sloops, 1 surveying ship, and 2 additional auxiliaries, as well as a number of river gunboats.23 Although the United States Navy was not present in strength in the Far East, it had the only major force in the Pacific capable of challenging Japanese control of the sea.

When Hitler overran Holland and France in 1940, he created almost perfect circumstances for the Japanese to seize then largely defenseless French Indochina. Just prior to the fall of France, Japan demanded that the government newly installed at Vichy terminate all military shipments to China via Haiphong and that a Japanese military control commission be stationed at the Vietnamese-Chinese border to enforce the ban. An impotent French government conceded these demands on 20 June. On 30 August, Vichy recognized Japan's "pre-eminent position" in the Far

22

Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History, p. 185.

Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, p. 49.

Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, p. 85.

Jacques Mordal, The Navy in Indochina, trans., N.L. Williams and A.W. Atkinson, 1967, Naval History Division copy (Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953), pp. 3–4.