126 lines
6.8 KiB
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126 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
<em>Ngo Van Xuyet Born 1913, Vietnam, died 2005, France</em>
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Ngo Van Xuyet , author of The [Saigon
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Commune](Saigon_Commune "wikilink"), started his political career as a
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Trotskyist but by the end of his life had developed libertarian
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analyses.
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“The so-called ‘workers’ parties’ (Leninist parties especially) are
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embryonic state regimes. Once in power, these parties form the nucleus
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of a new ruling class, and can only give rise to a new system of
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exploitation of man by man.”
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He joined the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement in 1932 at the age of 19.
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He left his village at the age of 14 to work in a metalworking factory
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in Saigon. He became involved in the demonstrations and strikes against
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French rule.
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The hard life that the Vietnamese masses experienced under the French
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yoke meant that his formal education had suffered. He began reading Marx
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in the Saigon public library after work. He made contact and joined the
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Trotskyist left opposition within the Communist Party of Indochina.
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Trotskyists and Stalinists cooperated in Saigon for 3 years (1933-1936)
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around the weekly magazine La Lutte. The Trotskyists then left to form
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the League of International Communists for the Construction of the
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Fourth International. Van learnt to set type for the group’s underground
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literature.
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He organised a strike for better wages in his factory. He was finally
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arrested in the factory storeroom at the age of 24. He was put in the
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Maison Centrale in Saigon, where he was tortured. He joined a hunger
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strike demanding political prisoner status equivalent to that in France.
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Van and members of his group were constantly arrested, tortured and then
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freed for a short length of time. He was eventually exiled to Travinh,
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an island in the Mekong delta. A peasant uprising broke out in the
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surrounding area. The French then executed 200, and killed thousands in
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bombing raids. Around about this time Van realised he had contracted TB.
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In March 1945 the Japanese occupied South Vietnam. The Trotskyists
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called on the Vietnamese masses to rise up against all oppressors
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whatever their nationality, unlike the Communist Party, which called for
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an alliance with the Allies. 30,000 miners set up councils to run the
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mines public services and transport and started a literacy campaign.
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After the collapse of the Japanese occupation, a wave of revolutionary
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action swept through the country. The Trotskyists called for the arming
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of the people, and the setting up of workers’ and peasants’
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councils. The Saigon Communewas born. By October the uprising had
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waned. The Stalinists slaughtered hundreds of Trotskyists. Van fled
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Vietnam in spring 1948. He later learned that some of the comrades he
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had left behind had been horribly tortured to death by the Stalinists.
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Van ended up in Paris, where he joined the Union Ouvriere
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Internationale.(UOI).This group included the Spaniard Grandizo Munis,
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the leading SurrealistBenjamin Peret who had fought with the Durruti
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Column (named after Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti) in
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the Spanish Civil War and Revolution, and Sophie Moen. This group had
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left the Trotskyist Parti Communiste Internationale because they could
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not agree with its defence of the USSR as a “degenerated workers’
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state.”
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Van and Moen became partners. The UOI collapsed in 1954 and Van and Moen
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joined an informal discussion group around Maximilien Rubel and the
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writer Jean Malaquais. Most of the group were factory workers and they
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adopted many council communist ideas. The group corresponded with
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Pannekoek and Paul Mattick, among others. Readings of the council
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communists made Van break completely with the need for a Leninist party
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elite. Van preferred the term Marxian to Marxist, and like Rubel had an
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anti-authoritarian reading of Marx.
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Van worked in the Mors factory making railway signals. He founded a
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factory group there. In 1957, at the initiative of Trotskyists, a
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Liaison Committee of metalworkers of the Paris region was set up,
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following an assembly in October where activists from 11 factories,
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including Renault and Mors met together. A bulletin started appearing.
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The last meeting of the metalworkers decided to broaden the liaison to
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include activists in other industries. The events of 13th May 1958
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overtook this. The fascist and OAS threat led to the convoking of an
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assembly attended by Trotskyists of different persuasions,
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anarchosyndicalists, members of the syndicalist group around the paper
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La Revolution Proletarienne, members of Socialisme ou Barbarie and other
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groups attended.
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The Trotskyists of Tribune Ouvriere Renault launched Voix Ouvriere and
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various factory bulletins. Socialisme ou Barbarie saw the future in
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their industrial newssheet Pouvoir Ouvrier. Van and others on the other
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hand, advanced the concept of workers autonomy.
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Following a split within Socialisme ou Barbarie, Information Liasons
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Ouvrieres was set up. This advanced the need for liaison committees
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between workers in different industries. A distinct nucleus ,
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Regroupement Interenterprises, was set up, and Van was one of those
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involved in this. The assemblies organised by this grouping were small,
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usually between 10 to 20, but they slowly began to grow in the run-up
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to 1968.
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Both the ILO and the Regroupement collapsed, and the bulletin produced
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by the various factory militants became the monthly Information
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Correspondence Ouvriere (ICO) which ceased publication in 1973. Van
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often contributed to its pages.
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Van worked in the same factory up until 1978 and his retirement. His
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partner Sophie Moen died in 1995.
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Van continued to collaborate with the magazine set up by Henri Simon
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after the collapse of ICO, and continued to do so up until his death in
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January 2005.
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He was deeply interested in Asian peasants movements and wrote several
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articles on that subject. He wrote an autobiography In the Land of the
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Cracked Bell starting with his arrival in France and published two
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volumes on recent Vietnamese history. He also brought out a collection
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of Vietnamese folk tales for children. Some of Van’s writing circulates
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within Vietnam.
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In 1968, Van predicted on the Vietnam situation in an article that he
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wrote for Cahiers de Discussion pour le Socialisme des Conseils that
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“One day the massacres of America; will end…the survivors will return
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to the factories, offices and farm; busted faces, armless and legless,
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dragging on through the remainder of their decorated existence. Back
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there, the 'heroes of the resistance' - peasants and workers of Vietnam,
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will return in the ricefields or will be thrown into the factories of
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the new industrialisation... neither the capitalist system
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American-style or the state capitalism of Ho Chi Minh will put an end to
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their situation as the exploited submitted to a police dictatorship, and
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if the bourgeois and the big landowners are chased off, it is the
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bureaucracy that will perpetuate exploitation, with more efficiency.” |