1. What are the main characteristics of Vietnamese History & Culture?

Firstly, Vietnam has a long history filled with a lot of wars, especially resistant wars against
foreign invaders. During the Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, Chao To conquered Au Lac in 179BC
and then established Nan Yue Kingdom until 111BC when Han Dynasty replaced, starting 10
centuries of Chinese domination. During this period, there were a lot of Vietnamese people’s
uprisings against Chinese ruler such as uprising 2 sister Trung, Ms Trieu, Phung Hung, Ly Bi, Trieu
Quang Phuc, … Finally, in 938AD, Ngo Quyen defeated Southern Han troops on Bach Dang River,
beginning an independent era of our country. After that, there was a civil war between 12 warlords
until Dinh Bo Linh unified the country. In the Earlier Le Dynasty, Le Hoan defeated Sung troops from
China. After that, our army won against 0.5 million Mongolian – Yuan troops when they attacked our
country 3 times during Tran Dynasty. Later, Le Loi swept out Ming troops, established Later Le
Dynasty in 1427-1428. However, in the next period, Vienam faced a national division into Northern
Court, ruled by the Mac and Southern Court, ruled by the Le. When Mac collapsed in 1592, civil wars
and peasant wars took place, the most significant one is Trinh – Nguyen War, which finally ended in
the 18th century when 3 Tay Son brothers stood up. In 1788 – 1789, Nguyen Hue defeated 290,000
Tsing troops, only 5,000 survived, starting Tay Son Dynasty. In 1858, Vietnam was attacked by
French colonials. While fighting against the French, our army also had to face 200,000 Tuong Gioi
Thach troops from China. From 1846 to 1954, there was Indochina War which was a resistant war
against French imperialism. Soon after we defeated the French, we immediately faced The Vietnam
War – which was a resistant war against American for nation salvation. The final general offensive
and uprising 1975 totally defeated the Neo-colonialism and unified our country. After seizing
independence, Vietnam armies faced Southwest Border War and fought against 600,000 Chinese
troops in 1979. Up until now, we still have to fight over sea territory against China.
Secondly, Vietnam has special culture which has acculturation, or, cultural exchanges. The
most important exchanges are Sinicization and DeSinicization - the process whereby non-Han
Chinese societies come under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society and
conversely, the elimination of Chinese influences. Sinicization includes normal exchanges and
compulsory exchanges – which were the result of Chinese assimilation during 1000 years of Chinese
domination. However, Vietnam also went Desinicized, which means choosing the bets to improve.
For example, Vietnamese people did not completely use Han scripts but changing to Nom scripts,
which was based on Chinese but included newly invented characters meant to represent native
Vietnamese words... Moreover, we even pronounced in Han – Vietnamese. Another acculturation is
Westernization and Dewesternization,which started from the 16th century until now. Like
Sinicization, Westernization also had normal and compulsory exchanges, including the adoption of
the Latin alphabet and the spread of Catholicism andProtestantism – which soon became a new
religion in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Dewesternization was shown through the process of how
Vietnamese people build the structure of university and education system. We learnt to apply Western
technology. Art and music was also affected. Some foreign words that we borrowed from Western
languages were Vietnamized in pronunciation. Marxism was approvedand adapted through Ho Chi
Minh ideology. Currently, Vietnam is in the process of Dewesternization to build up modern
Vietnamese culture with Vietnamese identity. On the other hand, Vietnamese culture also acquired
Hinduisation, for example, My Son Holy Land in the central Vietnam.
Thirdly, Vietnamese history & culture has 2 cycles of civilization. The 1st one is Red River
civilization, or Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, a civilization is full of cultural achievements. Van
Lang and Au Lac were the 2 first states of Vietnamese people. The reunion of tribes showed that we
already had enough differentiations of classes and enough strength to control and build up cannel
along the Red River. If there had been no Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, there would be no Vietnam
today. This civilization formed and built up the fundamental foundation of Vietnamese identity of
Vietnamese culture. After it collapsed, the country experienced 10 centuries of Chinese domination.
However, with the winning of Ngo Quyen in 938 against Southern Han on Bach Dang River, the 2nd
era of Vietnamese civilization started as Great Viet/ Dai Viet civilization during Ly – Tran – Later Le
Dynasty. This civilization created a lot of new things. Without Dai Viet civilization, there would be
no Vietnam today too. Its collapse in the 16th century resulted in division, civil wars and peasant
wars. After that, Vietnam was put under colonization, bringing about the impoverishing living
standard. After the Doi Moi Policy in 1986, Vietnamese people hope to return to civilization with the
new establishment of Vietnamese Socialist.
Finally, another main characteristic is that Vietnamese history & culture has special
development of socio-economic formation. For instant, compared with European world which went
through primitive communist, slave-owning mode of production, federalism and capitalism,
Vietnamese world also started with primitive communist, but then continued with Asiatic mode of
production, federalism and then semi-feudal colonial society along with colonial capitalism. European
culture had seeds of new society in old society, while remains of old society still existed in new
society, but they only lasted for a short time then stopped completely. Meanwhile, Vietnamese socio-
economic formation did not stop at any particular time. All mode of productions continuously existed
throughout the history of the country up until 1945. For example, primitive society was still on some
mountainous areas. There were no landlords, just rich and poor people. In other words, Vietnamese
world experienced multi-mode of production.
2. What were the relations between the Red River civilization and the formation of Vietnamese
identity?
- A country’s identity is the most distinguished element in culture, including changeable and
unchangeable values. Vietnamese identity includes 4 characteristics.
Firstly, Vietnamese people have deep community mind. Living as a community, Vietnamese people
had strong and deep nationalism and patriotism. They treasured family values, village values and
country values.
Secondly, Vietnameseidentity includes flexibility and synthesis. In other words, they are open-
mindedness, Vietnamese people had no conservativeness, dogmatism, xenophobia and segregation.
Besides, they were known to had tolerance, especially religious tolerance. As we know, there were no
religious wars throughout the entire Vietnamese history. Vietnamese followed & respected, waiting
for a favorable moment to upset. For example, in politics and military, when the Vietnamese defeated
an army, we sent delegationto excuse, organized diplomatic talk and established the reasons for the
army to withdraw, … Another example in religion is that the Vietnamese combined religions under
Ly – Tran Dynasty. When a Vietnamese person shouted “Trời Phật ơi” – it included the three
religions: Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism in just one phrase. Thirdly, there was deep
sentimentalism among the Vietnamese. Relations between people were based on cooperation, no
friends means no cooperation. They also used family position to call the society, such as addressing
older women as aunts, older men as uncles, etc.
Finally, in Vietnamese identity, we paid full respect to women. We called “cái” (female) for the
biggest part such as “Sông Cái” (Big river), and “ngón cái” (thumb), … We also called Bà Điểm, Bà
Quẹo, Hai Bà Trưng, … to show respect for women.
- From the 8th century BC to the 2nd century BC, Van Lang and Au Lac culture together formed the
RedRiver civilization, along with its identity. There were a lot of relations between the Red River
civilization and the formation of Vietnamese identity.
● Even though it was not a nation yet, just only a strong ethnic group with national orientation, but it
was the primary or starting factor for nationalism later. Rising from the needs of controlling water
from Red River, ancient Viet tribes were needed to unify and make solidarity in order to survive
Wars and conflicts between primitive tribes taking place during that period leaded to the reunion of
Viet tribes. Also, archeologists has found many weapons in ancient tombs, which shows that ancient
Viet people believed that they could use in another world. Unlike ancient communes such as Greek
and Latin ones and German commune, Red River civilization was based on Asiatic commune, which
had only public ownership of land and had no private ownership. This resulted in the social
stratification as a community, forming the deep community mind of Vietnamese identity.
● Also, the cultural exchanges during the Red River civilization formed the flexibility and synthesis
of Vietnamese identity. Its culture was influenced from North China and Southeast Asia, making a
cultural combination and diversity. Red River civilization is a result of combination and cultural
exchanges in history. Vietnamese could not survive without exchanges.
● At that time, hunting and farming were Viet people’s basic methods to earn their living. The
agricultural culture formed the deep sentimentalism among Vietnamese people, which was the
foundation of the formation of Vietnamese identity.
● On the other hand, with the long domination of Matriarchy in the previous time, the formation of
Vietnamese identity brought about the respect for women. - All of these things combined together and
founded the formation of Vietnamese identity. Before Chinese domination, Vietnamese had had
already independent culture and diversified civilization
3. What were the processes of Sinicization and DeSinicization during over 10 centuries of
Chinese domination (Explain why the Vietnamese people could reserve Vietnamese identity
after over 10 centuries of Chinese domination)
- In theory, Sinicization means Chinalization – the process whereby non-Han Chinese societies come
under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society. In the contrast, DeSinicization is the
elimination of Chinese influences. The combination of these 2 process are called cultural exchanges –
a rule for cultural development. In culturology and socio-cultural anthropology, this is a special
category.
- Sinicization and DeSinicization were resulted from the Chinese domination in Vietnam over 10
centuries. During and after this period, Vietnamese people could still reserve Vietnamese identity
because they knew how to practice special acculturation. When Chao To conquered Au Lac in 179BC
and Han Dynasty ruled the country in 111BC, Vietnam was divided into administrative sub units,
named as Chiao Chih (Giao Chỉ) and Chiu Chen (Cửu Chân), which belonged to Chiao Chou (Giao
Châu). Later, Vietnam was called An Nam Colonial district While ruling Vietnam, Chinese enacted
some policies. They carried out bloody suppression in politics and military by hegemonism and
ethniccleasing . They used Vietnamese people to rule Vietnamese people in the 2 controlled Chinese
districtsand autonomies of Vietnam in villages – which could not be controlled by the Chinese but the
Vietnamese. They still kept the old system that Vietnamese people used in the previous time – having
Military functionary and Literature under the chief. Moreover, the Chinese rulers conducted economic
exploitation – which was part of their “feudalist colonialism”. They also enacted immigration policy,
which means bringing the Chinese to Vietnam to live, including prisoners, peasants, soldiers,
intellectuals, officials, landlords, merchants, …) More seriously, the Chinese did the cultural
assimilation over Vietnam. Vietnamese people had to learn Chinese writings, wear Chinese clothes,
…Until that time, Vietnam had only 2 groups surviving: Au Viet & Lac Viet, the remaining 98% had
been assimilated by the Chinese. In other words, Vietnamese people knew how to desinicize.
- Even though Vietnamese could not keep the race identity (material), we could still keep the cultural
identity (mental). For the Sinicization, Vietnamese people experienced both normal exchanges and
compulsory exchanges. Normal exchanges, which means positive sides, were shown as how
Vietnamese learnt Chinese, but Chinese also learnt Vietnamese. In history, no exchange means no
development. Therefore, everyone was free to choose, everyone has the equal opportunity to learn
together. However, there were also compulsory exchanges, which are known as assimilation - Chinese
authority wanted to assimilate Vietnamese into Chinese. Likewise, by DeSinicization, Vietnamese
people not only experienced normal exchanges by accepting, receiving, improving and adapting
selectively, but also struggling against assimilation through compulsory exchanges.
- The processes of Sinicization and DeSinicization took place mainly on language and religion – the
most 2 important elements of an identity or a culture. In regard to language, Chinese wanted to
destroy Vietnamese spoken language. However, Vietnamese soon practiced the DeSinicization by
selecting the best to improve. We accepted and learnt Han script but still kept Vietnamese spoken
language in the villages. We pronounced Han script in Vietnamese way, which was called Han – Viet
pronunciation. We created our own national words. For example, we did not called the moon as
“nguyệt” like the original Chinese but “trăng”. Vietnamese people did not completely use Han scripts
but changing to Nom scripts, which was based on Chinese but included newly invented characters
meant to represent native Vietnamese words. This is also a way to enrich Vietnamese vocabulary.
- In the aspect of religion, the process of Sinicization and DeSinicization was shown as a combination
of Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. We accepted and selected advantages to follow. For
example, Confucianism affected most in education and politics. Vietnamese people respected
intellectuals or learning. We gave prominence to social bonds such as “Tam cương” (the relationship
between emperor and servant, father and son, husband and wife) and “Ngũ thường”/Five Virtues
(humanism, etiquette, loyalty, intelligence and sincerity). However, Vietnamese people did not follow
the idea of not respecting manual labor and women in Confucianism, since we considered “first my
wife, second my heaven” (“nhất vợ nhì trời”) in daily cultural dialogues. Vietnamese people mainly
followed Buddhism, parts of it came from Chinese as Phật, the remaining came directly from India as
Bụt. We created new and unique combination of 3 religions, known as “Tam giáo đồng nguyên”. We
leant Chinese orders and centralized monarchy court.
- The result of Sinicization and DeSinicization has some significances to Vietnamese culture. It was
the best way to keep Vietnamese indentity, the best way to develop, to be diversified more and more,
the best way to enrich Vietnamese culture. This is the foundation for the 2nd era of Vietnamese
civilization – Dai Viet/Great Viet civilization.
4. What were the formation and development of Đại Việt civilization under Lý – Trần Dynasty?
- Đại Việt civilization was formed under 3 historical needs: political, cultural and socio-economic.
●Under political conditions, after more than 10 centuries of Chinese domination, Vietnamese people
need to protect and defend sovereignty and independence. Therefore, reunification and solidarity are
the most important conditions to prevent losing independence again when facing the danger of
Chinese’s conquer. Moreover, we also had to struggle against decentralization, which was the
autonomy of villages and centralization, which was the reunion of villages and tribes. In 968,
AfterĐinh Bộ Lĩnh stopped the anarchy of 12 warlords and unified the country, we needed the
strongest state, so we could not use Văn Lang – Âu Lạc structure. As a result, we learnt the Chinese
model in politics: we needed a centralized monarchy, in which the emperor was the son of the heaven
with absolute power to decide everything. Besides, we needed the strongest army to fight against
enemies. For example, Lê Hoàn defeated Sung army and established Earlier Lê Dynasty in 981. A
perfect centralized monarchy was the most important condition for Lý – Trần civilization.
● Under cultural conditions, Văn Lang – Âu Lạc origins continued to be kept. Community minds and
filial piety (chữ “Hiếu”) existed along with results of exchanges – the culture forming after 10
centuries. Until Lý – Trần Dynasty, it was the combination of origins and creation that formed the
cultural needs for Đại Việt civilization.
● Under socio-economic conditions, we had a wet rice agriculture, which was a system of canals and
dams to control water. The Asiatic mode of production in our country before meant there was no
private ownership, only public ownership existed. After 10 centuries of Chinese domination, Chinese
landlords had private ownership but the number was very small, and Vietnamese landlords were even
fewer. Therefore, at the 10th century, public ownership accounted for ¾ of the area. Under Lý – Trần
Dynasty, we inherited, continued and developed capacity for wet rice agriculture, which included
labor, productivity, … till the 16th century when Đại Việt civilization collapsed and caused famine
and death of starvation. - The development of Đại Việt civilization was the top achievement of culture
in terms of both material and intellectual (or mental or spiritual) aspects.
● Under material content, we built 10,000 kilometers of canals in North VN, which still exists until
now. Thăng Long imperial citadel was 40 km2 in total. In architecture, we built One Pillar Pagoda,
Phổ Minh Temple, Quy Điền Tower, … In handicrafts, we had Bát Tràng village which was
specialized in pottery, and many other villages with specialization in ceramics, textile, bronze casting
techniques, … We also developed on-water transportation. This was the top development of wet rice
agriculture with high capacity of production.
● Meanwhile, the intellectual content was the most important. The tolerance of religions in our
country meant there was a combination of 3 religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. 3
within1, 1 within 3. Vietnamese mind, spirit, sentimental feelings were influenced by Buddhism while
Vietnamese education, politics and social relations were based on Confucianism, with 3 social bonds:
Emperor – servant, father – son, husband – wife and 5 virtues: benevolence, righteousness, priority,
intelligence and sincerity. Meanwhile, Taoism affected Vietnamese attitude to nature, in which people
enjoyed living together with the nature. We selected the best ones from 3 religions to form
Vietnameseidentity. Lý Anh Tông established the school of 3 religions and taught simultaneously.
Monks of 3 religions could be officials. Moreover, these 3 religions also had influences in poetry and
literature. Buddhism was applied in many areas, such as military arts. In addition, we had a deep,
special and unique nationalism, including a special art of political art and military art to ensure
national solidarity. Political art featured some special relationships: general – army such as Trần Hưng
Đạo, emperor – officials formed a royal family, and a good relation between majority and minority
under political marriages between princesses and chiefs of minorities. Military art consisted of
diplomatic measures, segregation and use of guerilla and regular armies to defeat Mongolians. For the
law, we had writing court and criminal court. In education, we established the 1st school named Quốc
Tử Giám. In conclusion, if there had been no Đại Việt civilization, there would be no Vietnam today.
Later generations continue to inherit a lot from Đại Việt civilization.
5. What were the socio – economic, political transformation during the period of 15th – 18th
century?
First, we take a look at historical background. In 1400, Hồ Dynasty was established until
1408 when Ming army invaded our country. In 1428, Lê Lợi defeated them and established Later Lê
Dynasty. In 1527 Mạc Đăng Dung usurped the throne of Lê emperors. Shortly after this, in 1533 Đại
Việt was divided into 2 parts: the Northern Court ruled by Mạc and Southern Court of Lê emperors
controlled by Nguyễn Kim. In 1558, Nguyễn Hoàng went to the south, which he wanted to build up
the southern area. In 1592, Southern Court defeated Northern Court, continuing the division of the
country with Trịnh lords in the North and Nguyễn lords in the South. From 1627 to 1672 there were
civil wars with Gianh River was the boundary between 2 regions. Starting from 1771 in Quy Nhơn,
Nguyễn Nhạc, NguyễnHụê and Nguyễn Lữ began the uprising. Then in 1785, Tây Sơn army had
Rạch Gầm – Xoài Mút victory, defeated 50,000 Siamese troops. After defeating Nguyễn, in 1786, Tây
Sơn army passed GianhRiver and defeated Trịnh. In November 1788, 290.000 Tsing troops headed by
Soun Che Y camedirectly to Thăng Long citadel. In December 1788, Nguyễn Huệ proclaimed himself
as the new emperor and made a counter-attack. Only 5000 Tsing troops were alive. New dynasty was
established, which meant new feudalization started until 1792 when Quang Trung died. However, in
the south, Nguyễn Ánh recovered force and made a counter – attack the north until 1802 when Tây
Sơn collapsed while Nguyễn Ánh took the throne and established Nguyễn Dynasty. In late 18th
century, the territory was as the present day by clearing the land.
The political changes during the period of 15th – 18th century had both negative side and
negative side. For the negative side, the most severe one was the division of the country into northern
part and souther part during 3 centuries. According to the historical law, reunion makes a country
stronger and stronger; in contrast, division makes it weaker and weaker. In addition, there were civil
wars among feudalist groups such as Mạc - Nguyễn Kim, Trịnh - Nguyễn, Tây Sơn - Nguyễn Ánh.
Meanwhile, the positive side features peasant movements during 16th – 18th century. The strongest
development of peasant movements was peasant wars when 3 Tây Sơn brothers stood up to defeated
Trịnh - Nguyễn and Tsing army. The reason for peasant wars was the contradiction notables,
landlords, which were thecollapse of political regimes, and peasants. The significances of peasant
wars included 3 ideas. First, they were dynamics for changing society. Second, Tây Sơn won
feudalism while before, peasants werelimited. However, peasants did not know how historical rule to
form a new society. After the winning, Tây Sơn built up and established Tây Sơn Court - Tây Sơn
feudalism, but peasants could not representmode of production. Third, we recognized and overcame
historical limitation. Tây Sơn movements fought for both class interest and national interest. Not only
did they stopped the deeper reasons for national division by destroying Trịnh - Nguyễn but they
defeated foreign invaders (Siamess and Tsing army)
The socio – economic changes included land ownerships or land tenure. From 11th to 15th
century, public ownership dominated 2/3 of the land, while private land only accounted for 1/3. Public
land included state-owning land and communal land; private land owners included landlords and
small peasants. However, in 18th century, there were changes in direction of decreasing public land
and increasing private land. 2/3 of public land reduced to only 1/3. The increase of small peasants and
landlords was positive. However, the peasant movements could not answer the question: “What were
the historical needs?” No class understood “a cry for land”, which was also “land to the tiller”. As a
result, history failed into crisis.
In addition, there were new factors in society. Seeds of capitalism appeared, which was higher
development of “commodity economics”, and seeds of wage labor. The establishment of handicrafts
factories was the sign of differentiation of classes. However, these elements were very small, and they
developed very slowly or even did not develop. The reason for this was the conservativeness of multi-
mode production and feudalism. Poor peasants did not dare to leave the villages or avoid feudalism.
They continued to stay in the villages because of communal land, as for every 6 years, communal
landwas redistributed and given to peasants, unlike European case when peasants left to form
factories. This caused a stagnation of the seeds of capitalism for a long time.
Socially, the structure of classes also experienced some changes. In the 18th century, the
number of notables decreased significantly while landlords increased very fast, along with tenants and
small peasants. However, there was a deep contradiction between landlords and peasants. Generally,
no development of industry and progressive classes, which were capitalist and workers resulted in no
strata, no revolution in the society and led to comprehensive crisis.
6. Why did the Nguyễn Court lose the independence of Vietnam in the late 19th century?
First, we take a look at the historical background during this period. On August 31st, 1858,
French firstcame to Vietnam in Đà Nẵng. The failure in Đà Nẵng battle made French turn to attack
Gia Định. By 1862, through Nhâm Tuất agreement, French controlled 3 eastern provinces: Biên Hòa,
Gia Định, Định Tường, along with 3 western provinces: Vĩnh Long, An Giang, and Hà Tiên by 1867.
Southern Vietnam was put under control of French Colonial. In 1873, French attacked Hà Nội citadel
for the 1st time, Nguyễn Tri Phương died. In 1874, by the 2nd agreement, Nguyễn Court officially
recognized the domination of French in Vietnam. In 1882, French attacked Hà Nội secondly, Hoàng
Diệu committed suicide. In August 1883, Nguyễn Court signed Harmand agreement with the French
before signing Patenotre treaty in 1884 as a complete surrender agreement.
The reasons for losing the independence of Vietnam contain two aspects: objective and
subjective. The objective reasons also meant international conditions. In the 19th century, the world-
wide capitalism changed for the 2nd time. In the 1st phase, capitalism of free competition changed
into imperialism, which was monopolized capitalism, and France was among imperialists. As a result,
colonialism became the objective trend of capitalism’s development. Because domestic natural
resources bacame smaller and smaller, and domestic labor, manpower, manforce became limited, the
need to expand and find out new natural resources, new market, new sources of cheap labor was
necessary. Imperialists wanted to get more “higher monopoly interest” in colonies, which was the
deep reason of colonizing the world – colonization. Therefore, imperialist colonized a lot of countries,
especially Asia, Latin America and Africa. This was the objective process of colonization. Most of the
countries were colonized by Western countries; however, some could avoid colonization. Thailand
and Japan were sample cases. It depended on the talented leadership of the country. In Japan, the
authority practiced the exact policies through Meiji reform, which was similar to capitalist revolution.
They wanted to modernize the country, which meant industrialism and capitalism. The reform
covered many fields, including improving foreign, capitalizing Japanese economy, infrastructure for
capitalism. Education was prioritized by focusing on modern subjects such as Mathematics and
Physics. In Vietnam, NguyễnTrường Tộ’s proposal featured similar suggestions like Japan, but Tự
Đức emperor did not accept, and he did not allow to apply into economy. As a result, Vietnam fell
down significantly. Meanwhile, Thailand belonged to the buffer area of Britian and France, so it was
put under balanced influence of these 2 countries. Thailand emperors practiced open-door policies. In
Asia especially, feudalish authority was the most important. If they had good policies to adapt the
situations, which was subjective.
In Vietnam, subjective reaons in Vietnam belonged to the responsibility of Nguyễn Dynasty
because they made a lot of mistakes in internal and external policies. They practiced the wrong model
for the development of the country, making Vietnam weaker and weaker and soon become a delicious
decoy for foreign invaders. In economics, Nguyễn Court practiced closed-door policy, which meant
stopping exchange with foreigners. They paid attention but followed obsolete agriculture with low
capacity and productivity. The absolute ownership of landlord class resulted in reactionary attitude in
economic development, as it supported feudalism which was the negative sign of history in the 19th
century. Nguyễn Court gave a lot of barriers to stop import and export, such as heavy tax. Handicraft
and industry had no condition to develop. Besides, there was no development in monetary system,
which meant no modernization in economy.
In social policy, there was a deep contradiction between landlord class and small, tenant
peasants. There were many peasant’s uprisings under 4 independent emperors during this period
because peasants had to pay tax, labor levies and rice rent to landlords, sometimes including interest,
as peasants had no land to cultivate, so they had to rent land from landlords. Meanwhile, Nguyễn
Dynasty controlled communal land and public land. Landlords became notables in villages and
controlled private land and communal land. The redistribution of communal land was practiced in the
way which was more beneficial to landlords and led to inequality in society. At that time, the feudalist
class, which included notables and bureaucratic rank became ruling class, while ruled class were
peasants, laborers, …
In political policy, Nguyễn Court copied Tsing feudalist monarchy, which emphasized on
centralized power. The bureaucratic system became dictatorship. In the court, the imperial censor
could not criticize the emperor when he made mistakes, which led to corruption as a whole. Even
though Nguyễn Trường Tộ wrote many proposals to Tự Đức emperor from 1861 to 1871 after
traveling around many countries to reform the country similar to Meiji reform, the king and other
officials ignored because they did not understand Western countries.
In military, Nguyễn army were very weak because they did not have modern weapons, so
they could not modernize the army. In addition, they did not have enough training and lacked
strategies to defend independence of the country. There was no strong navy, as well as powerful
warships.
In culture, education had no change, but traditional education could not develop the country.
For example, Hán scripts and Chinese ancient books from classic scholars were too difficult to learn.
Besides, Nguyễn Court paid attention to only Confucianism with absolute respect. The Sung
Confucianism was reactionary ideology to protect obsolete relationship between the king and
servants.It defended feudalism monarchy and made many mistakes. Traditionally, Vietnamese were
very open-minded and flexible towards religion. But Nguyễn did not accept new religion and stopped
that tradition by killing a lot of Catholic believers of Christianity but still could not stop it.
On the other hand, Nguyễn Court had wrong strategies when French attacked in negotiation
peace. There were many favorable moments for Vietnamese to counter-attack but Nguyễn Court did
not take advantages, which was a wrong national defense policy. During 1858 and 1861, there were
only 1000 French troops but Nguyễn army did not dare to counter attack, which was unreasonable. In
1862, we had a suitable time to ounter-attack, but Nguyễn signed negotiation agreement, which was
also unreasonable.
7. What were the cultural, socio-economic transformations in Vietnam under the French
domination and exploitation in the early 20th century?
First, we take a look at the historical background, after the Patenotre agreement in 1884, from
1897 to 1913, French practiced the phase I of exploitation program under General Governor Paul
Doumer, which focused on establishing infrastructure for mining industry. From 1914 to 1918,
because of World War I, French stopped exploitation but after this, in from 1919 to 1928, under the
General Albert Sarraut, French practiced phase II of exploitation, which focused on agricultural
exploitation in Mekong Delta but still continued to exploit mining in North and Central Vietnam. The
colonial objective of French was colonial exploitation: hunting for higher monopoly interest on the
basis of exploiting cheap labor, raw material resources.
In Vietnam particularly and Indochina generally, the colonial policies covered many aspects.
In politics, French practiced “division to rule” - using Vietnamese to beat Vietnamese, along with
bloody suppression. In culture, they practiced assimilation through Westernization and “stupid
people” policy.In economics, the colonial exploitation was aimed to search for more and more super
interests. To summarize, the basic policies contained four things:
●First, French recognized the most important thing for them was to keep “multi-mode of
production” in socio-economic formation. Before French domination, Vietnam already had 3 modes
ofproduction: primitive, Asiatic and feudalist. When coming to Vietnam, French declared to civilize
Vietnamese. Instead of the stopping old modes of production and developing modern ones, which was
the responsibility of revolution, French continued to develop such old modes. No modernization
meantno civilization. Besides, French introduced a new style of relation into Vietnam: colonial
capitalism – new industry, commerce, banking system, transportation, … were controlled by French.
●Second, French wanted to keep Vietnam in the orbit of world-wide market of French
colonialism. For 50 years from 1890 to 1939, the first 9 years was trade deficit, or import
overbalance,while the remaining 41 years was trade surplus, or export overbalance. By doing this,
French was successful in hunting for super interests, but in the society, Vietnamese people suffered
from impoverishment.
●Third, French gave privileges and concession, or special support to French businessmen.
They did not have to compete because they received priority to monopoly: buying at low prices but
selling at expensive prices to get more monopoly interests
●Fourth, French wanted to limit industrialization. They focused on exploiting industry,
especiallymining industry such as coals for exportation. However, they limited manufacturing
industry, such as making chemicals, food, textile, rubber, … because they did not want Vietnam to
compete with Frenchindustry.Under the French domination in the early 20th century, Vietnam
experienced some changes in both negative and positive sides.
●In economics, the “economic traite” policy was “economy milked”. To be more specific,
Vietnam was cows for milking, and French was “selfish colonialism” because they got many benefits
but they did not supply good grass for Vietnamese cows. Every 100 franc produced, 90 was sent
directly to France, but only 10 was for reinvestment. For nearly 1 century, there had been not yet
industrialization, but there were some good signals in the economy. New economic structure was
formed in direction of modernization, and new process of capitalist urbanization appeared with new-
styled cities such as Sài Gòn, Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, which were economic centers, especially Sài Gòn
was a seaport city. Compared to the pre-colonial era, the industry now included both traditional
handicraft and modern industry, which contained exploiting coals, tin, gold, wolfram, … and
manufacturing electricity, water, chemicals, mechanicals, textile, food, tobacco, rubber, …
Agriculture was basically the same as in the previous time, as obsolete agriculture still dominated
Vietnamese economic structure. There were still traditional ploughs with low productivity, obsolete
equipment but new plantation. In commerce, import and export were modernized, from shipping
through small boats and ships to sea ships. Transportation was improved by moving on water with
large and modern sea ships and sea ports such as Sài Gòn, Hải Phòng and on ground with a big
railroad system and a systemof routes . There was a national road from the north to the south of
Vietnam. In the pre-colonial era, there was still no financial or banking system, but in the colonial era,
French established Indochina Bank to issue money.
●In society, the differentiation of classes also had transformation. In the pre-colonial time, in
the structure of class there were only landlords, feudalist strata and peasants. These classes still
existed in the colonial era, but landlords developed very strongly. Great landlord class accounted for
2.4% of the owners, owning 48.3% of area in Cochinchina. Meanwhile, peasants became
impoverished, causing a negative sign in the history. Despite this, there were still some positive
changes. New classes was formed, with the appearance of capitalist class, small bourgeoisie which
included intellectuals and small traders, and workers class which was also called proletariat.
Currently, there were 2 basic social contradictions in the society: national contradiction between
Vietnamese and French colonist and classcontradiction between landlords and peasants.
●In culture. There was acculturation of Westernization and Dewesternization. French started
to teach history of France and Vietnamese national language as a foreign language. Vietnamese had to
struggle against cultural assimilation by keeping and developing Vietnamese spoken language,
Vietnamese writings and history of Vietnam. The process of Dewesternization included the formation
of Quốc Ngữ writing. Vietnamese national writing was Romanized and Latinized in pronunciation. In
religion, Christianity and Catholicism were introduced to Vietnam. Vietnamese people had chances to
approach new ideology, new poetry, and new style of literature.
In conclusion, we should recognize both sides of the transformation. Even though negative
side was mainly considered, positive side was very necessary for Vietnamese to continue developing.
8. Which was the crisis of way for national salvation from the late 19th until the early 20th
century?
First, we take a look at the historical background. Since the attack of the French in 1858,
Nguyễn Dynasty always released the wrong strategies for national defense. From 1861 to 1867 there
were many patriotic uprising of Nguyễn Trung Trực, Trương Định, Thủ Khoa Huân, … but most of
them fell down. In July 1883, Tự Đức passed away. During only a few months from November 1883
to early 1884, there were 3 emperors: Dục Đức, Hiệp Hòa, Kiến Phúc. In May 1884, Hàm Nghi
enthroned. In July 1885, “Cần Vương proclamation”, which meant “loyalty to emperor” was released
in order to call for the support from people to fight against French.From the late 19th century to the
early 20th century, there were 3 patriotic movements significantly. For the late 19th century
movement, the most remarkable one was “Cần Vương proclamation” with typical uprisings: Ba Đình
(1886 – 1887) in Thanh Hóa, Bãi Sậy (1883 – 1892) in Hưng Yên, Hương Khê (1886 – 1892) in Hà
Tĩnh and Hoàng Hoa Thám (1884 – 1913) in Bắc Giang, which was a peasant movement. The reasons
for the failure of these uprisings was because there was no good preparation because it could not make
solidarity among different uprisings. The ideology of Cần Vương uprisings was feudalism, but
feudalist class (Huế Court) had no leading role in defending independence. Hàm Nghi patriotic but he
could not represent the feudalist class. The Patenotre agreement in 1884 already meant surrendering
completely. All Cần Vương uprisings followed feudalist ideology, and they wantedto recover
feudalism influenced by Confucianism, which was obsolete and no longer suitable. After the failure of
Cần Vương, Vietnamese patriotics fell into crisis of way for national salvation.
The early 20th century patriotic movements were influenced from China and Japan. In China,
Kang Yew Wei and Liang Ki Chao were reformists who wanted to change from feudalist to
democracy, which affected Confucianists in Vietnam. In Japan, the Meiji reform spread the
inspiration to Phan BộiChâu and Phan Chu Trinh, resulted in new patriotic movements. According to
Phan Bội Châu’s ideology, from 1904 to 1908, he sent Vietnamese students to Japan to study as he
wanted to count on Japanese assistance. However, French discovered and discussed with Japanese
authority to expel Vietnamese out of Japan. After that, Phan Bội Châu returned to China. After the
uprisings of Chinese Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat Sen in 1911, he continued to go to Thailand and
organized patriotic activities. French sent some spies to China to capture Phan Bội Châu in Shanghai
and sentenced his life. Meanwhile, according to Phan Châu Trinh’s ideology, he believed he could
build up cooperation with French. In fact, it was impossible because French wanted to invest Vietnam
and search for surplus interest. They did not want to cooperate with Vietnam for development. Phan
Châu Trinh mistook when recognizing the nature of French colonialism. The failure of the early 20th
century patriotic movements was because they was in the wrong way. Phan Bội Châu made mistakes
when thinking that because Japan had similarities in culture with our country. He did not recognized
the major of Japanese were emperorlism. Moreover, Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh did not
understand the socio-economic transformation and social contradictions between French and
Vietnamese, landlords and peasants. They did not know who were enemies. Phan Bội Châu
recognizedexactly that French was one enemy, but French was not the only enemy. He did not know
the role of farmers and peasant class, which accounted for 90% of the population. Phan Chu Trinh
recognized exactly the feudalism, as he criticized Khải Định emperor, but he did not know all the
feudalist class. He wanted to reform many things but it did not change much at all. He did not
recognize exactly enemies and the role of peasant class as well, resulted in crisis of way. To be
deeper, it was the crisis ofprogressive class, which was leading class. In the early 20th century, before
World War I, worker class was very small, so they did not take the leading role in society. Phan Bội
Châu & Phân Chu Trinh learned capitalism but un Vietnam, there was no capitalist, as it was in
ideology only. The historical limitation was that Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh were very
talented but at that time, there was no leading class, so they could not overcome historical limitation.
 The 3rd patriotic movements were after World War I. In 1920s, Vietnam had some influences
from China with “Three people” slogan: independence – happiness - freedom, France with French
revolution ideology, and Soviet Union, especially the October Revolution. In 1919 – mid 1920s,
among the capitalist class, reformism was promoted with the establishment of Constitutional Party by
Bùi Quang Chiêu. He wanted to practiced political reform. In 1923, Vietnamese people struggled
against the monopoly of Sài Gòn port. Movements by small bourgeoisie and intellectuals developed
aswell. In press, there were appearances of progressive newspapers such as Cracked Bell by Nguyễn
An Ninh, L’Annam, Times of Indochina, The voice of people, … to criticize French colonialism
strongly. In addition, struggles of the mass were strained to call for releasing Phan Bội Châu from
sentence his life to outside prison, organizing Phan Chu Trinh’s funeral and demonstration. Besides,
many political parties appeared such as Party of Mind by Phạm Hồng Thái in Guangzhou, Vietnamese
Revolutionary Party, Party of Youths, Aspiration of Youths Party by Nguyễn An Ninh, Association of
Revolutionary Youths by Nguyễn Ái Quốc. The reasons for the failure of these movements were
partly the same as previous period’s ones. We were practicing the wrong ways to save the country. No
party recognized exactly the enemies and the way for national salvation. They recognized French
colonialist but they did not know landlord class was the 2nd enemy of Vietnamese people. Therefore,
they did not know basic contradictions in Vietnamese society after World War I. Moreover, they did
not recognize exactlythe revolutionary forces. Vietnamese Nationalist Party by Nguyễn Thái Học did
not have slogans like Chinese Nationalist Party, which paid attention to landlords, workers and
peasants. The crisis of no leading class resulted in a spontaneous process. Methodology was wrong
because it caused separation,no solidarity, no unification. Vietnam continued to fall into crisis.
To overcome this crisis, there were influences from October Revolution and Nguyễn Ái
Quốc’s activities. In 1911, Nguyễn Tất Thành left Sài Gòn for seeking national salvation. He
respected Phan Bội Châu, Phan Chu Trinh but he recognized something wrong, so he would like to
seek another way. In 1920, Nguyễn Ái Quốc became the 1st communist of Vietnam and participated
to be a member of French Communist Party. In the next 10 years, he wanted to disseminate Marxism
and Leninism into Vietnam, which was a new way for national salvation. In August 1925, he
established Association of Revolutionary Youths. From 1925 to 1928, he practiced a lot of activities,
such as publishing Youths newspaper, opening training classes to prepare for the formation of the
party in Guangzhou, publishingmany books to make clear new way for national salvation. He pointed
out who were enemies of Vietnamese people, who were the revolutionary forces, who were our
friends to cooperate, … The roleof communist party was dignified. Finally, in February 1930, Nguyễn
Ái Quốc established VietnameseCommunist Party on the basis of reunifying 3 communist parties at
that time. This was the final point for crisis of way for national salvation.
9. What were the reasons for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945?
After the establishment of the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1930, which later changed to
IndochinaCommunist Party, we had a preparation of 15 years, divided into 3 periods of movements
until the August Revolution in 1945, which took only 2 weeks. This victory gave declaration for
independence of Vietnam. There were 2 kinds of reason for the victory of the August Revolution in
1945: objective and subjective. The failure of fascism in the World War II was the most important
objective reason. In 1945, Japanese fascists surrendered, which was a very favorable condition for
Vietnamese revolution, as Japanese army fell into posture of dilemmas. When the World War II
started in 1939, the face of the world was divided into 2 sides: Allied Army (Ally) which included
United States, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, France, … and Axe of Fascism, which included
Germany, Italia and Japan. From 1939 to 1943, Fascist was almost in active posture, but in 1943, after
the counter-attack of Red Army of Soviet Union in the Battle of Stalingrad, which was considered as
the turning-point of the Europeantheatre of the war, the situation changed when Fascist turned into
passive posture. In late 1944 - early 1945, many Eastern European countries were liberated. In May
1945, German fascism collapsed, bringing about the failure of fascism in general. This was the
favorable moment for Vietnamese to up rise. Many Western historians considered this was the most
important reason for our victory of the August Revolution in 1945, but we had to re correct that
opinion, because the subjective reasons were the most important.
The subjective reasons belonged to the leadership of the Indochina Communist Party headed
by Hồ Chí Minh, and the heroism of Vietnamese people. To be more specific, it was thanks to the
long preparation for the August Revolution during 15 years and the talented leading role in art of
mastering favorable moments. With Hồ Chí Minh’s short manifesto and Trần Phú’s thesis, throughout
15-year preparation, Vietnamese Communist Party would lead people to gain the government by
struggles of the mass in economics and politics, then develop to military struggles and wait for
favorable moments for military uprisings. It was clear that the revolutionary forces included peasants,
proletariat, small bourgeoisie, national capitalist, … We needed international solidarity from colonial
people in Western countries and international proletariat. In the high tide 1930 – 1931, the Soviet
Union in Nghệ - Tĩnh was the first preparation for the future. It built up revolutionary government but
soon be suppressed bloodily by French and collapsed. However, it left some deep significances
behind the failure. It demonstrated Vietnamese Communist Party’s lines Vietnamese revolution by
making solidarity amongclasses. In addition, it left many good lessons and experiences on how to
organize uprisings for the future.
The 1936 – 1939 phase was for democratic movements, which was the 2nd preparation. The
appearance and development of Fascism became new and the most important danger of the world, as
itwould destroy socialism and many democratic countries. Every country needed to focus on
struggling Fascism internationally. As a result, Vietnam had to change tactics to struggle and started a
new movement so-called as “Indochina Democratic Movement”. We focused on struggling Fascism –
who was the direct enemy. In this situation, we reaffirmed direct enemies were reactionary
colonialists, Fascists and their followers. We used a lot of semi-legal measures. Combined with secret
activities of the communist party, we utilized opportunities to make propaganda, which was a good
chance to disseminate Marxism, Leninism and revolutionary lines of the communist party.
The 3rd preparation - 1939 – 1945, was the direct preparation for the August Revolution,
which was divided into 3 periods. From 1939 to 1941, we prepared lines for the revolution through 3
meetings of Central Committee of Indochina Communist Party: 6th (11.1939), 7th (11.1940), and 8th
(5.1941) – in which Nguyễn Ái Quốc attended after returning to Vietnam. In 1940, Nguyễn Ái Quốc
predicted the failure of fascism, so that was the time for many countries, including Vietnam to uprise,
The 3 meetings made clear the ways for the August Revolution. They pointed out the most important
objective was national liberation. There were 2 strategic objectives: defeating French for national
independence and beating landlord class for “land-to-the-tiller” slogan. For a long time, we did not
know the exact answer which was more important. After that, the preceding slogan was replaced to
getland from enemies (French, reactionary landlords) and redistribute land to poor peasants and
landless peasants. This was very important to build up solidarity. Besides, we built up national
solidarity through “Front” – front for great national solidarity including many classes, ranks, strata, …
In the 8th meeting, Việt Minh Front was established. The most critical standard was patriotic
individuals. Above all, the most important was the preparation of military uprisings, which was the
direct responsibility todecide the favorable moments, forces,… for uprisings and to make clear
formation of uprisings in Vietnam. Local uprisings were practiced first as the pre-conditions for
general uprisings when having favorable moment.
From 1941 to March 9th 1945, we prepared revolutionary forces and bases. We defined the
political forces with the establishment of Việt Minh Front, which included many organizations for
women, youths, peasants, … for national salvation. For the military forces, after the collision of Bắc
Sơn uprisings in 1940, Hồ Chí Minh established small unit guerrillas called Bắc Sơn guerrillas, then
developed to army for national salvation – platoon. On December 22th 1944, the National-liberating
Vietnamese army for propaganda was founded. We built up bases in mountainous provinces in North
Vietnam: Cao – Bắc – Lạng – Hà – Tuyên – Thái. In February 1941, Nguyễn Ái Quốc returned to Cao
Bằng, he established Cao Bằng base. After Bắc Sơn uprisings, Cao Bằng was connected with Bắc Sơn
- Võ Nhai base, which was the foundation for Việt Bắc base.
In the 3rd period from March 9th to August 1945, we prepared local uprisings. From Fall
1940 to March1945, Japanese and French co-dominated Vietnam, but on March 9th, Japanese upset
French domination in just one night to gain power. In early 1945, the imbalance between Allied Army
and Fascism led to the risk that Fascism was on the verge of collapse. In the future, Allied Army
would come to Indochina to disarm Japanese. Therefore, the only way for Japanese was to upset
French. This was the new favorable moment for local uprisings. We focused on resistance to Japanese
fascists and mobilized against them. We organized political struggles and mass movements to avoid
terrible famine, which made more than 2 million people die of starvation. We developed military units
and established Việt Bắc base in June 1945. There were also local uprisings in mountainous areas. As
soon as Hồ Chí Minh predicted Japanese’ surrender, he sent messages to representatives and waited
until August 1945, when new favorable moment came, he hold national conference in Tân Trào to
officiallyuprise. Since the first uprising on August 14th, it was only 2 weeks for general uprisings. We
took advantage of the good time, which was soon after Japanese surrender but before Allied Army
came to Vietnam to disarm Japanese. Why we did not organize revolution before that time was
because the imbalance of power between Vietnamese revolutionaries and Japanese fascists, who have
hundreds thousands troops and many modern weapons. At that time, Japanese could suppress
Vietnamese easily.And why we also did not do that after that time was because in the north of
Vietnam was Chiang Kai Shek troops, and the south of Vietnam was British army, followed by
French army, which was very crowded and strong.