August Revolution
The August Revolution, also known as the August General Uprising, was a revolution led by the Việt Minh against the Empire of Vietnam from 13 to 28 August 1945. The Empire of Vietnam was led by the Nguyễn dynasty and was backed by Japan as a member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Việt Minh, a political league de facto led by the Communist Party, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the communists could command. The revolution had the participation of factions that did not follow the Việt Minh.
The Japanese army in Vietnam generally did nothing to prevent the revolution as they de facto surrendered to the Allies in World War II. There was a sporadic clash in Thái Nguyên with inconclusiveness. Facing a strong movement of the Viet Minh, the Empire of Vietnam refused Japan's request for help because its prime minister and emperor did not want foreign army to suppress the Việt Minh when they supported national unity and did not discover communist nature of this organization, leading to the revolution happening peacefully.
The Nguyễn dynasty with its pro-Japanese government of Trần Trọng Kim collapsed when its emperor Bảo Đại abdicated on 25 August 1945. He was later accepted as an advisor to the government of the Việt Minh and was "elected" a member of its National Assembly, but was later abandoned in China by the communists. The August Revolution sought to create a unified and independent state for Vietnam under the Việt Minh's rule. Việt Minh leader Ho Chi Minh declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September 1945 and the foundation of the DRV was the first time Vietnam became a republic, however initially no country recognized the DRV while French sovereignty over Indochina was recognized by the Allies. The Việt Minh used its non-communist cover to successfully attract many non-communist nationalists, but there were many other non-communist nationalists who did not accept communist rule. The Viet Minh did not hold power in the entire country and the Viet Minh's power in Cochinchina was weakest. The return of France and communist monopoly led to the purges of dissidents and the formation of a rival state led by ex-emperor Bảo Đại in 1949, a pro-French and anti-communist regime
as part of decolonization.
Historical background
French colonialism
French colonial rule
All of Vietnam was under the French colonial rule from 1883 until the Japanese coup d'état of March 1945. In 1887, the French created the Indochinese Union including the three separately-ruled territories of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, which were parts of Vietnam, and the newly acquired Cambodia; Laos was created at a later time. To justify their rule, the French claimed that it was their responsibility to help undeveloped regions in Asia become "civilized." Without French intervention, they asserted, these places would remain backward, uncultured, and impoverished. In a view based more on solid reality, French imperialism was driven by the demand for resources, namely raw materials and cheap labour.It is generally agreed that French colonial rule was politically repressive and economically exploitative to the original inhabitants; therefore, the Vietnamese struggle against French colonialism was well established by World War II, being close to a century in progress. Incursions by missionaries, gunboats, and diplomats in the 19th century had set off repeated periods of resistance because of the loyalty of the Vietnamese people to the Nguyễn monarchy and traditional Confucian values, which were completely in conflict with European, notably French, interests. From the beginning of the French occupation of Vietnam, thousands of poorly-armed Vietnamese reacted to foreign control with various rebellions, a major one being the Cần Vương movement, a large-scale Vietnamese insurgency between 1885 and 1896 against French colonial rule in favour of restoring the de facto, and not just de jure, power of the native dynasty.
In 1917, a band of political prisoners, common criminals and mutinous prison guards seized the Thái Nguyên Penitentiary, the largest penal institution in northern Tonkin. The extraordinary regional and social diversity of its force makes the Thái Nguyên uprising a compelling prequel to the modern nationalist movements of the 1930s. Although all of the rebellions failed without exception, they remained a powerful symbol of resistance and calling to better days in the local population.
Development of nationalist movements
During the colonial period, the French transformed Vietnamese society. Education and national industry were promoted, which had the unintended effect of stimulating the development of nationalist movements.In the north, the anti-colonial nationalist movement was dominated by communism after Ho Chi Minh created the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League in 1925. On 3 February 1930, a special conference was held in Hong Kong under the chairmanship of Ho Chi Minh, and the Vietnamese Communist Party was then born. In October, following a Comintern directive, this name was changed to Indochinese Communist Party. Until the party was officially disbanded by Ho Chi Minh in November 1945, it held a leading position in the Vietnamese anti-colonial revolution.
Ho Chi Minh went by many names during his rise to power, including Nguyen Tat Thanh "Nguyen Who Will Be Victorious," Nguyen O Phap "Nguyen Who Hates the French" and Nguyen Ai Quoc "Nguyen Who Loves His Country". The changes were used to further his cause of uniting the citizens and encouraging them to rebel. Ho Chi Minh means "Ho Who Aspires To Enlightenment".
In the south, the anti-colonial nationalist movement was more complicated than in the north due to political divisions. The Cao Đài was the first of southern Vietnam's three most influential politico-religious organizations to emerge in the colonial era. Officially founded by colonial civil servant Ngô Văn Chiêu in 1926, it would grow to be the largest of the region's politically oriented religious entities, and in many ways the most powerful. More than a decade later, in 1939, Prophet Huynh Phu So introduced another politico-religious organization into southern Vietnam's anti-colonial milieu by founding the Hòa Hảo.
His alleged miracle cures, preaching, and carrying out acts of extreme charity for the poor made Prophet Huynh Phu So, by the end of 1939, attract tens of thousands of adherents to the new Hòa Hảo organization. The third politico-religious organization called Bình Xuyên, can be traced back to the early 1920s, but Bình Xuyên did not become a truly organized political force until the end of the Second World War. All three organizations were major anti-colonial powers in southern Vietnam.
In the Saigon region, the Communists also contended with a Trotskyist left opposition. In April 1939, the United Workers and Peasants slate, led by the Trotskyist Tạ Thu Thâu, triumphed over both the Communist Party's Democratic Front and the "bourgeois" Constitutionalists in elections to the colonial Cochinchina Council. Governor-General Brévié, who set the results aside, wrote to French Colonial Minister Mandel: "the Trotskyists under the leadership of Ta Thu Thau, want to take advantage of a possible war in order to win total liberation." The Stalinists, on the other hand, are "following the position of the Communist Party in France" and "will thus be loyal if war breaks out."
World War II and the Japanese occupation
Japanese occupation and March 1945 coup
Before 1945, France and Japan had uneasily ruled Vietnam together for over four years.In September 1940, just months after France capitulated to Germany, Japanese troops took advantage of French weakness to station troops in northern Vietnam for the purpose of cutting off the supply route to the southern flank of the China Theatre. From 1940 to March 1945, the French retained their administrative responsibilities, police duties, and even their colonial army in exchange for allowing Japanese troops and material to pass through Indochina. By 1943, however, there were signs that the Japanese might lose the war. The United States had begun the island-hopping sweep through the South Pacific. A seaborne Allied landing in Indochina and an overland attack from China became real threats to the Japanese. In addition, an upsurge of Gaullist sentiment in Indochina after Charles de Gaulle returned to Paris at the head of the French Provisional Government in September 1944 added to Japanese concerns.
In the evening of 9 March 1945, the Japanese forces attacked the French in every center and removed the French from administrative control of Indochina. In less than 24 hours, the majority of the French armed forces throughout Indochina was put out of combat. The entire French colonial system, which had been in existence for almost 87 years, came tumbling down. Practically all French civil and military leaders were made prisoners, including Admiral Jean Decoux.
After the Japanese removed the French from administrative control in Indochina, they made no attempt to impose their own direct control of the civilian administration. Concerned primarily with the defense of Vietnam against an Allied invasion, the Japanese were not interested in Vietnamese politics although they also understood the desirability of a certain degree of administrative continuity. It was to their advantage to install a Vietnamese government that would acquiesce in the Japanese military presence. With that in mind, the Japanese persuaded the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty emperor, Bảo Đại, to co-operate with Japan and to declare Vietnam independent of France. On 11 March 1945, Bảo Đại did just that by abrogating the Franco-Vietnamese Treaty of Protectorate of 1884. In August, Vietnam regained Cochinchina. Vietnam's new "independence," however, rested on the government's willingness to co-operate with Japan and accept the Japanese military presence.