{"id":723,"date":"2026-07-14T09:52:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/?p=723"},"modified":"2026-07-16T09:33:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T12:33:31","slug":"the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The United States continues to court allies in the Asia-Pacific as it pursues greater competition with China. In 2023, Vietnam moved closer to supporting U.S. imperialist interests. The two countries announced that they were upgrading their relationship<\/a> to a \u201ccomprehensive strategic partnership,\u201d the highest level of U.S. diplomatic engagement with other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden encouraged technology and aviation companies to work more with Vietnamese companies. This signals that the United States may soon be using Vietnam as a new front in the developing \u201cchip war\u201d with China. How Trump relates to Vietnam as part of this trade war (which he is sure to escalate) is to be seen, especially since Trump puts forward a more protectionist policy focused on increasing U.S. manufacturing. Whatever the case, there should be no doubt that any American technology companies operating in Vietnam will subject Vietnamese workers to intense, dehumanizing exploitation. This is a tragic state of affairs for the Southeast Asian country, which once dealt one of the most important blows to U.S. imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vietnam won its national liberation by militarily defeating France and the United States and by expropriating capitalists and big landlords. How could such a country now partner with U.S. imperialism to develop a tech industry within the framework of a larger capitalist rivalry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covering the full trajectory of postrevolutionary Vietnam is not the aim of this article. Instead, the goal here is to explore a buried history of revolutionary Vietnam, a history that runs from the 1930s to 1945 and reveals how Vietnam\u2019s fight for liberation won despite blows dealt by the very leaders who are now remembered as revolutionaries and anti-imperialists. This is the history of a different revolutionary leadership in Vietnam, one that fought not just for national liberation but for proletarian internationalism and the leadership of the Vietnamese working class. It is the history of Trotskyism in Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Seeds of Revolution in Vietnam<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1887, France colonized Vietnam (then known as French Indochina). Over the next several decades, the country stood out for its production of rice, rubber, and other resources. French colonialism created conditions of uneven and combined development: while the economy and society were largely agrarian, the South of Vietnam became industrialized, creating a distinct working class and a national bourgeoisie that reaped some benefits of the industrial development from French colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the colony developed, so did the aspirations of the Vietnamese people, who were subjected to exploitation, violence, and humiliation by the French. This led to a nationalist movement that, though largely petty bourgeois in character, sought to rally the peasantry behind it. This movement, led by the Viet Quoc (a nationalist party similar to the Chinese Kuomintang), reached its apex in February 1930 with the Yen Bai revolt. Although this revolt was important to the development of class struggle in Vietnam, it failed to win over the Vietnamese masses and was easily crushed. As a result, several Vietnamese intellectuals began developing a deeper Marxist perspective for revolution in Vietnam. Yet they did so amid a fierce battle over the development of socialism itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Russia was undergoing a Stalinist counterrevolution, while Leon Trotsky waged a struggle to maintain the revolutionary ideas that led the Russian Revolution to victory, such as the leadership of the working class and an emphasis on internationalism. This battle for the continuity of revolutionary Marxism and Leninism is encapsulated in Leon Trotsky\u2019s theory of Permanent Revolution, which contrasts the success of the Russian Revolution with the defeat of the 1927 Chinese Revolution. Trotsky critiques Stalin\u2019s \u201cstageist\u201d conception of revolution, which suggests that the proletariat in underdeveloped countries is obligated to endure a phase of capitalist development before a socialist revolution can happen, disconnecting the tasks of the bourgeois revolution (national liberation, for example) from those of socialism, and forcing the working class to play a backseat role to the national bourgeoisie. Trotsky also criticized Stalin\u2019s theory of \u201csocialism in one country,\u201d according to which Russia could maintain socialism in isolation, even though capitalism exists on a global scale and informs all material relations, and so affects all attempts at socialism. This is how Stalin justified the abandonment of the international revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Vietnamese intellectual named Ta Thu Thau<\/a> drew similar conclusions to those of Trotsky, having followed the Chinese Revolution of 1927 and seeing how Stalin directed the Chinese communists to subordinate their struggle to the bourgeois Kuomintang, setting them up to be betrayed and massacred by this national bourgeois leadership and undermining the revolution. Shortly after the defeat of the Chinese Revolution, Stalin would do a 180 and direct communist parties to engage in ultraleft actions. This policy informed the activity of the Vietnamese communists who participated in the Yen Bai revolt. Informed by the defeat of the Chinese Revolution and the Yen Bai uprising, Ta Thu Thau would go on to join Trotsky\u2019s Left Opposition, which fought the Stalinist counterrevolution. Writing from exile in France in 1930, Ta Thu Thau argues<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Yen Bay revolt, characterized by an ideological insufficiency, not to say an absence of a theoretical basis linked to reality\u2026 raises more than ever the problem of the Marxist training of the militants. Being part of the \u201crevolutionary\u201d movement for five years, we have more than once had the opportunity to witness betrayals and discouragements, coming from a lack of ideological preparation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 1930, the Vietnamese Stalinists founded the Communist Party of Indochina (PCI). The Trotskyists developed a program<\/a> as a fraction fighting for revolutionary ideas within the PCI. Their program, published in 1930, argues fiercely against the Stalnists\u2019 arguments that colonies were too weak to have a proletarian revolution and that first communists must fight for a bourgeois revolution. The Trotskyists\u2019 program, in contrast, presented the need for workers\u2019 hegemony in the anti-imperialist struggle and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the way to deliver national independence and other democratic demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1931, Ta Thu Thau was deported back to Vietnam from France, and when he arrived, he connected with other Trotskyist sympathizers. He would go on to be one of the main intellectual leaders of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement, though there would be many other important Trotskyist militants and leaders. The stage was set for a political struggle over the revolutionary movement\u2019s leadership in Vietnam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the confrontation between Trotskyists and Stalinists was not unique to Vietnam, it played out in a peculiar way. After the wave of nationalist uprisings, the French colonial regime greatly repressed political activity. With their limited forces, the Trotskyists and Stalinists worked together along with some important leaders of the nationalist movement in a joint effort to strengthen the workers and peasants\u2019 struggle against colonialism. Much of this history is documented by Ngo Van, a historian and ex-Trotskyist, who recounts the revolutionary activity of 1930s Vietnam in his memoir. He writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

With the peasant movement decapitated, several insurgents, most of whom had passed some time in France \u2014 Nguyen Van Tao (a Stalinist communist), Ta Thu Thau, Phan Van Chanh and Huynh Van Phuong (Trotskyist Opposition communists), Tran Van Thach and Le Van Thu (Trotskyist sympathizers), and Trinh Hung Ngau (an anarchist) \u2014 regrouped around their elder, Nguyen An Ninh, and took the initiative of legally opposing the regime during the Saigon City Council elections of April-May 1933. They launched a weekly French-language newspaper, La Lutte. \u2026 Thus it was that the two communist tendencies, Stalinist and Trotskyist, formed a common front in 1933 within La Lutte. This unique alliance, at the very moment the USSR and everywhere else in the world Stalin and the Communist Parties loyal to him were hunting down anyone even remotely suspected of \u201cTrotskyism,\u201d lasted nearly three years. Stalinists and Trotskyists, in a joint struggle against their immediate enemies, the colonial regime and the bourgeois Constitutionalist Party, worked together to publish a newspaper for the defense of workers, coolies and peasants.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

La Lutte\u2019s existence as a grouping of revolutionaries, as well as a legal newspaper, was vital for bringing revolutionary ideas to Vietnam\u2019s workers and peasants in the aftermath of the French crackdown on political activity. While the La Lutte group held no illusions that they could do away with colonialism through positions in the Colonial Council, they took advantage of the fact that the body designated 10 seats for Vietnamese. As a slate of six candidates, they used the elections to publicize revolutionary ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French historian Daniel Hemery explains<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The three principal slogans of the candidates, the \u201cThree Whales\u201d of the revolutionary movement, were first the Amnesty, secondly, raising wages, dividing up the great estates, and freedom for the trade union movement, and thirdly, the installation of peoples\u2019 power. They had a real impact. For the first time in Indochina an election took place with a radical challenge to the established political order, and on the claim to a parliament elected by universal suffrage. La Lutte had put the problems of ordinary people at the centre of its campaign, and supported a detailed programme of immediate demands.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The success of La Lutte in the election was in large part a product of their mix of legal, semilegal, and clandestine activity to connect to the masses. While the Stalinists focused on building alliances with bourgeois nationalists and trying to establish influence among the peasantry, the Trotskyists built deep connections<\/a> with Saigon\u2019s working class. Along with their legal propaganda in La Lutte, they developed a powerful network to spread socialism among the Saigon proletariat; militants distributed leaflets and flyers in working-class neighborhoods and factories, and they served as leaders in workplaces to popularize socialist ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Breakup of La Lutte<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The 1935 election marked the high point in collaboration between the Trotskyists and the Stalinists. Initially, the two tendencies had built and maintained a political agreement based on the general benefits of unity, but as the class struggle developed, their strategic differences became more acute. Among these differences, the question of internationalism and imperialism was key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the Stalinists and the Trotskyists superficially agreed on fighting French colonial oppression, but the how was a deal breaker for the revolutionary movement of the time. The Trotskyists believed that class struggle was the only way to fight for national independence, as opposed to promises from the national bourgeoisie. They argued that the revolutionary demand for national liberation was one that the Vietnamese bourgeoisie could not deliver, owing to its connection to French colonialism. It would have to be the workers and peasants who took up the demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing in 1930, Ta Thu Thau explained<\/a> his views on the subject:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The artificially-created indigenous bourgeoisie is not capable of making any revolution. The indigenous bourgeois bloc, incapable of an independent existence, has welded itself firmly to the French bourgeoisie \u2014 which holds on tight to it, and uses it to break up the revolutionary struggle in the name of Annamite2<\/sup><\/a> nationalism. \u2026 A revolution based on the organization of the proletarian and peasant masses is the only one capable of liberating the colonies. The question of independence must be bound up with that of the proletarian socialist revolution.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, and in line with the Stalinist theory of socialism in one country \u2014 which abandoned international revolution in favor of maintaining the interests of Russia by allying with imperialist powers \u2014 the Vietnamese Stalinists prioritized Moscow\u2019s foreign policy dictates, even when these undermined the development of class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundamental difference between the Trotskyists and Stalinists was exposed in 1935. After the failures of the ultraleft period (in which Stalin discouraged Communist parties from uniting with other left-wing parties and workers\u2019 organizers to fight the rising tide of fascism, leading to defeats of revolutions in Spain, Germany, and elsewhere), Stalin allied with French imperialism. Stalin foolishly believed that he could negotiate breathing room with the imperialists, promising these powers that if they left Russia alone, he would put the brakes on workers\u2019 revolutions expanding to imperialist countries. This ran in contrast to Lenin and Trotsky\u2019s understanding that the only way to protect the Russian Revolution was for the revolution to spread to the imperialist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In line with Moscow\u2019s popular front strategy, in which the working class would be subordinated to bourgeois leadership, the French Communist Party helped bring socialist Leon Blum to power. While many leftists, to this day, romanticize the French popular front for advancing important reforms for workers, the reality is far more complicated<\/a>. In the grand scheme, the popular front prevented class struggle from developing beyond reforms to a point of workers\u2019 revolution by getting workers to buy into a fundamentally bourgeois program which was building towards the confrontation between imperialist powers in the form of the Second World War. This bourgeois character of the popular front also had grave implications for the fight against French colonialism. Leon Blum essentially governed as the left wing of imperialism. As a result, his government restrained the further development of anti-imperialist struggle in France while maintaining the brutality of French colonialism abroad. This led Ta Thu Thau to describe Blum\u2019s regime as \u201cthe popular front of treason.\u201d Even in Vietnam, the Stalinists followed Moscow\u2019s line, defending Blum\u2019s popular front government as it oppressed the Vietnamese people. This began to create political tension within La Lutte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Hemery writes<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

This local United Front that was dictated by the necessities of the struggle against strong colonial oppression soon became disrupted by the evolution of the politics of the Russian Communist Party, and consequently the politics of the French party. The France-Soviet Pact of May 1935 converted France into an ally of Russia, and the French Communist Party now had the duty of defending \u201cFrench democracy\u201d against Fascism. The Stalinist group dutifully dispensed with its usual jargon of \u201cFrench Imperialism,\u201d no longer talked about national independence, and imparted a purely reformist direction to its slogans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

While Ta Thu Thau and the group of leaders around him worked to maintain their alliance with the Stalinists, two of the other Trotskyist leaders of La Lutte \u2014 one of whom was Ngo Van \u2014 broke off and launched the Internationalist Communist League, whose publications criticized the Stalinists for abandoning their opposition to French imperialism, as well as Ta Thu Thau for maintaining the alliance with the Stalinists.3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the Internationalist Communist League was formed, its leaders were arrested and would remain imprisoned or exiled until the revolutionary events of 1945. The La Lutte leaders, on the other hand, were about to witness the greatest surge in class struggle since the Yen Bai uprising. This time, however, it was the proletariat of Saigon at the forefront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hemery writes<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The ferment among the workers manifested itself in partial strikes that culminated in the general strike of 1937 that included workers in the arsenal at Saigon, of the Trans-Indo Chinese Railway (Saigon-Hanoi), the Tonkin miners and the coolies of the rubber plantations, the mass of the proletariat, in other words. They were demanding an eight hour day, trade union rights, the right to strike and convene, a free press, etc. It was during this struggle that the workers, assisted by the militants, organised their strike and support committees and their contacts throughout the country. There was something spontaneous in this wave of demands and chain explosions, and in the limited understanding of the workers and peasants. They were fed on the illusion of the possibilities of freedom and social reform offered by the Popular Front of the metropolitan country. Agitation and propaganda and the legal and underground activities of the organised political groupings, whose members could be counted on the fingers, are not enough to explain this vast movement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In response to the Vietnamese workers\u2019 activity, Blum\u2019s popular front regime showed that it was no different from the previous representatives of French imperialism. Unions were banned, militants were sent to prisons and even death camps, and the nationalist movement, which sought to develop Vietnamese capitalism, saw its organizations and press dissolved. Under the dictates of Moscow, the Vietnamese Stalinists continued to defend the popular front, even as it directly attacked all those struggling for liberation in Vietnam. The Trotskyists, on the other hand, called on the workers to organize action committees to carry forward their struggles. As a result of this agitation and the organic connection the Trotskyists had to the working class, hundreds of action committees began to form, in which workers democratically discussed their demands and strategized. The French regime worked to crush these committees, and in response, the Trotskyists exposed the Stalinists\u2019 alliance with the regime that was attacking the workers and holding back the development of class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1937 French companies were forced to negotiate with rank-and-file workers organizations (which were primarily led by Trotskyists). The Trotskysists were deeply involved in the 1936-37 strike wave, including its high point in which rail workers struck from July 10 to August 9, bringing the rail lines (and the country dependent on them) to a standstill from Saigon to Hanoi. A dossier from the colonial regime at the time names Trotskyist militant Ta Khac Triem as \u201cthe Trotskyist ringleader who played an important part in the general strike on the railways,\u201d according to Ngo Van\u2019s book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Trotskyists were also developing their propaganda work, using La Lutte to ruthlessly criticize Blum and the popular front and foment strikes and other workers\u2019 actions. They also had networks of militants distributing agitational leaflets. Despite Ta Thu Thau\u2019s attempts to maintain the alliance, the Stalinists broke from La Lutte in 1937, just as the sham Moscow Trials were taking place. The Moscow Trials purged all of Stalin\u2019s opposition in the communist party, massacred many of the fiercest revolutionaries in Russia, and secured the power of Stalin\u2019s bureaucracy. Stalin extended this attack on his opposition internationally. Under orders from Moscow, the Vietnamese Stalinists launched their own organization and press, in which they attacked the Trotskyists as spies and saboteurs, just days after they had been organizing with the Trotskyists as comrades. This break was largely fueled by the Trotskyists\u2019 refusal to remain silent about the repression carried out by the French popular front government, and which the Stalinists continued to defend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the colonial regime repressed the Vietnamese workers and peasants, the Stalinists remained consistent in their abandonment of anti-imperialism. In 1938, the colonial regime launched a bond measure to collect millions for war, and to conscript 20,000 additional infantry troops from the Vietnamese population. The conscription was so unpopular that recruitment centers were sites of protests, including self-mutilations. Rather than oppose the conscription, the Stalinists\u2019 propaganda argued that the colonial regime should lower the price of war bonds so that poorer workers and peasants could afford them. Governor-General Joseph-Jules Br\u00e9vi\u00e9 even sent a telegram to the colonial minister expressing his appreciation for the Stalinists\u2019 support, while noting that the Trotskyists continued to cause problems for the regime.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trotskyists certainly did cause problems for the colonial regime, and the strength of their denunciations of the popular front government, along with their now deep roots in the working class, showed in 1939 that they had in fact emerged as the trusted leaders of the Saigon proletariat. According to some historical accounts, they had 5,000 militants around this time. In the 1939 Colonial Council elections, the Trotskyists and Stalinists ran in competition with one another, and with contrasting programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ngo Van writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Stalinists, with their newspaper\u2026 and their \u201cDemocratic Front\u201d slate of candidates, were leading a campaign for democratic reforms in exchange for their support of the colonial regime\u2019s policy of \u201cdefending Indochina.\u201d The Trotskyist Tranh Dau\/La Lutte group opposed this and denounced all compromise with the colonial regime. They based their propaganda on the need for a \u201cunited front of workers and peasants\u201d against war, against the setting up of a national defense fund, against the raising of taxes and the creation of armaments taxes, and against forced conscription of more infantry troops. They put forward their revolutionary project: set up factory committees and peasant committees to control the activity of the banks, industries, businesses, and agricultural companies; put the management of transportation and postal services in the hands of the workers; divide up among poor peasants the lands belonging to the banks, the Church, and big landowners; entrust peasant committees with the task of abolishing feudal exploitation; and oppose war by working toward the eventual formation of a soviet federation of Asia.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It was the Trotskyists who won 80 percent<\/a> of the vote in these elections. At this point the Vietnamese proletariat\u2019s hunger for national liberation was stronger than ever. The Trotskyists ran as the only candidates who were unequivocal in their opposition to the imperialist policy of the popular front in France, winning the trust and respect of the masses, while the Stalinists paid for their capitulation to the colonial regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trotskyists\u2019 advance would, however, not last long. The outbreak of World War II came shortly after their victory, and so did another wave of repression. Both the Trotskyists and Stalinists were arrested, exiled, and forced into hiding. They would remain largely absent from developments in Vietnam for the next several years, but would have one final showdown in 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolution and Counterrevolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With most of the revolutionaries in prison, exile, or hiding, the imperialist world war played out in Vietnam. The most important change the war brought was the Japanese invasion of 1940, which overthrew French rule. Lacking the forces to fully occupy Vietnam, the Japanese regime relied on many of the administrators of the French colonial government, as well as youth militias formed from supporters of Vietnam\u2019s nationalist movement and religious sects. In this way, Japan controlled Vietnam up until 1945, when Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh movement, in partnership with the Allied powers, defeated the Japanese occupation in the North. Shortly after, Imperial Japan was defeated in the war. It was announced that the Allies were on their way to Vietnam, and Japan would continue to run the South of the country until they arrived. But with the Viet Minh victorious in the North, the contest over who would rule the country had already begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout Vietnam, workers and peasants began to organize, informed by the experience of the strike wave and action committees in the late 1930s. In the coal industry, for example, 30,000 miners elected workers\u2019 councils to manage production themselves. Such measures put workers in control not only of the mines but also of railways, the telegraph system, and public services. They set up a literacy campaign, mandated equal pay for all types of work, and organized themselves from the position of \u201cno bosses and no cops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the South, the Trotskyists and Stalinists began to reemerge amid the wave of revolutionary fervor. Even after imprisonment and exile, the Trotskyists were still remembered as the respected leaders of Saigon\u2019s working class. Meanwhile, strengthened by the conquest of power in the North, the Stalinists went around Saigon with loudspeakers calling for all to defend the Viet Minh and distributing leaflets claiming that they were on the side of the Russian, Chinese, British, and U.S. Allies for independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On August 21, the right-wing nationalist groups, organized under the United National Front, called a demonstration for national independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ngo Van describes<\/a> the atmosphere at the time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

On 21 August 1945, for the first time in the political life of the country, from the morning onwards, veritable masses of people assembled like ants and filled the Norodom Boulevard, then the Botanical Gardens near the governor\u2019s palace, and then crossed the major arteries in order chanting slogans: \u201cDown with French imperialism!\u201d (\u201cDa dao de quoc phap\u201d), \u201cLong live the Independence of Vietnam!\u201d (\u201cVietnam hoan toan doc lap\u2019\u201d) whilst the flags and banners floating above this moving army indicated the presence of the Vanguard Youth, who had been a pro-Japanese organisation only yesterday, peasants led by Stalinist militants who had come from the environs of Saigon, workers of Saigon-Cholon, Cao-daists, Buddhists of various sects grouped around their bonzes, the Hoa Hao, and the militants of the Trotskyist La Lutte and Internationalist Communist League groups. The latter, under the flag of the Fourth International, raised the slogans of \u201cthe land and ricefields to the peasants, the factories and enterprises for the workers!\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in fact everybody went down into the street with different aspirations. The only common but overwhelming sentiment was \u201cnever to see the French back in power, long live the end of the colonial regime!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Historian Richard Stephenson describes<\/a> the show of strength by the Trotskyists and workers at this demonstration, and the response of the Stalinists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Trotskyists of the International Communist League joined the march with banners demanding \u201cLand for the peasants and nationalization of industry under the control of the workers.\u201d Several tens of thousands of workers rallied behind their banners, and by the end of the day a provisional Central Committee for People\u2019s Committees was established, with a workers\u2019 guard for the Saigon-Cholon area under the leadership of Nguyen Hai Au (a Trotskyist from the north, where he had written a social novel).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Realizing the implications of this, the Stalinists in the Vietminh forced the United National Front to merge with them on August 23, and two days later established a de facto government, through a coup carried out with the right-wing nationalists.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Having seized power in alliance with the national bourgeoisie, the Viet Minh began declaring that those who supported peasants seizing farms would be \u201cpunished severely without mercy\u201d and that those who called on the people to take up arms would be \u201cconsidered saboteurs and provocateurs, enemies of national independence.\u201d These statements were clearly threats against the Trotskyists. The Viet Minh also began shutting down any mobilizations that they did not call. The Trotskyists continued calling for action committees, land for the peasants, and the arming of the people, but they offered \u201ccritical support\u201d for the Viet Minh. Meanwhile, the Viet Minh were offering their uncritical support to the imperialists, directing the masses to \u201cremain calm\u201d and prepare to welcome the British.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the British had no intention of negotiating with the Vietnamese. After they arrived, they suppressed mass demonstrations. The Viet Minh, hoping to get the British stamp of approval to run the country, directed the masses to give up their weapons. The police \u2014 now overseen by the Viet Minh \u2014 began disappearing leaders of the country\u2019s religious sects that had long been oppressed by French colonialism. These sects now hoped that winning independence would guarantee them religious freedom, something the Viet Minh and certainly the British had no interest in supporting. The British repression of the Vietnamese had begun, and the Viet Minh was helping carry it out. The masses, however, were not done fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ngo Van recounts<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

During the night of 22-23 September 1945 French troops, supported by Gurkhas commanded by British officers, reoccupied various police stations, the Post Office, the Central Bank and the Town Hall. They met no immediate resistance. The news spread like a trail of gunpowder and triggered off a veritable insurrection in the working class districts of the town. Explosions were heard in widely separate areas. The movement had broken without anyone giving any kind of directive. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all the outlying suburbs trees were cut down, cars and lorries turned over, and primitive furniture piled up in the streets. Elementary barricades were set up to prevent the passage of French and Gurkha patrols, and the taking up of strategic positions by the imperialist forces. The centre of the town rapidly fell under the control of the French and Japanese troops, supported by Gurkhas. But the poorer suburbs of Khanh Hoi, Cau Kho, Ban Co, Phu Nhuan, Tan Dinh and Thi Nghe were firmly in the hands of the rebels.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Vietnamese people, and particularly the workers, had begun to fight back<\/a>. But the Viet Minh was uninterested in a worker-led revolution that might challenge its leadership or its strategy of class collaboration. While dodging the British and French troops who were now fighting to snuff out this revolution, the Viet Minh began to massacre any Vietnamese groups fighting for independence based on the leadership of the proletariat. This included the revolutionary workers in the North, such as the recently formed workers\u2019 militia at the Go Vap tramway depot. These workers, who had organized so militantly that they had been able to win demands from Japanese imperialism just months earlier, were massacred by Ho Chi Minh\u2019s counterrevolutionary forces. The Trotskyists in the South would learn that their greatest leader, Ta Thu Thau, had been murdered in the North shortly after Ho Chi Minh came to power. In the South, they put up a fight but were no match for the combined terror of the British, French, and Viet Minh. Like Ta Thu Thau, the Trotskyists in the South were massacred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trotsky had warned in the Permanent Revolution<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Petty-bourgeois parties based on the peasantry are still able to retain a semblance of independent policy during the humdrum periods of history when secondary questions are on the agenda; but when the revolutionary crisis of society puts fundamental questions of property on the order of the day, the petty-bourgeois \u201cpeasant\u201d party automatically becomes a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At this point, however, the Vietnamese masses had seen that as workers, they could run the country themselves. The smaller peasants had seen how the land could be owned by those who work it. For a short time, Vietnam belonged to the Vietnamese, and they were not about to lose it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Permanent Revolution in Vietnam<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the conflict that played out between the Vietnamese Stalinists and Trotskyists from the 1930s to 1945, we can see the fundamental differences in Trotsky\u2019s theory of permanent revolution and Stalin\u2019s theory of socialism in one country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Russian Revolution showed decades earlier, the international development of capitalism creates conditions in which the workers of underdeveloped and even colonized countries can carry out revolution that enacts agrarian reform, expropriates capitalists, and puts workers in power in alliance with peasants. With this theory in mind, the Vietnamese Trotskyists contributed to the development of revolutionary workers\u2019 activity in Vietnam, building strong connections to the proletariat in Saigon and, as a result, winning some of the basic democratic demands that the Stalinists claimed had to be won by negotiating with the Blum regime and later the British. This is because \u2014 as Ta Thu Thau explains above \u2014 the Trotskyists saw in the proletariat the only class that was completely independent of French colonialism and other attachments to imperialism. Thus, the proletariat had everything to gain from a socialist revolution against both the national oppression under colonialism and their exploitation by capitalists, while the Vietnamese bourgeoisie had much to lose from such a revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trotsky put it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

There have been epochs in which the lower strata of the petty bourgeoisie were able to set up their revolutionary dictatorship. That we know. But those were epochs in which the proletariat, or precursor of the proletariat at the time, had not yet become differentiated from the petty bourgeoisie, but on the contrary constituted in its undeveloped conditions the fighting core of the latter. It is quite otherwise today. We cannot speak of the ability of the petty bourgeoisie to direct the life of the present-day, even if backward, bourgeois society, insofar as the proletariat has already separated itself off from the petty bourgeoisie and is pitted antagonistically against the big bourgeoisie on the basis of capitalist development, which condemns the petty bourgeoisie to nullity and confronts the peasantry with the inevitable political choice between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the Vietnamese Trotskyists were well aware that a revolution in Vietnam could not survive in isolation, but they had confidence that the victory of the Vietnamese workers and peasants against colonialism could inspire revolution throughout the other colonies, hence their vision for an eventual \u201csoviet federation of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about the peasants? Many Stalinists distort Trotsky\u2019s theory of permanent revolution, claiming that it writes off the peasants as reactionary, and claim that the examples of peasant revolutions, like the 1955 revolution in Vietnam, disprove Trotsky\u2019s ideas. But in reality, Trotsky had a far more nuanced understanding of the role of the peasantry in revolutions, and in Permanent Revolution he lays out in great detail how this analysis aligned with Lenin\u2019s own understanding. It is not that peasants cannot play an essential role in the revolution. In fact Trotsky and Lenin argued that in undeveloped countries, the workers\u2019 alliance with peasants was necessary for the success of the socialist revolution. However, because the peasantry does not represent a homogeneous class with shared interests, but rather a group ranging from petty-bourgeois landlords to oppressed toilers, as a class the peasants could not develop and deliver an independent, consistent revolutionary program. Rather, peasants could either take up a bourgeois program or be won over to a revolutionary workers\u2019 program depending on the development of class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trotsky even applied this idea to Vietnam, writing in response<\/a> to the Vietnamese Trotskyists\u2019 program published in 1930, arguing that the Vietnamese program did not give enough weight to the importance of the peasantry, as well as the national question. As he put it then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It is necessary to speak more clearly, more fully, and more precisely about the agrarian question: the role and significance of the semi-feudal landed proprietors and of those with large landholdings in general; and about how much land the revolution would have at its disposal and as a fund for land distribution if it expropriated the large landed proprietors in the interests of the poorest peasants. The peasant question<\/em> is left out of the declaration altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless the regime of colonial enslavement is overthrown, the expropriation of the large and medium-size landowners is impossible. These two questions, the national question and the land question, must be linked in the closest possible way in the consciousness of the workers and peasants.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the Stalinists had no faith that the workers or small peasants were prepared to run the country themselves, and depended on their alliance with Vietnamese nationalists who wanted to carve out their own space in the capitalist system and exploit the Vietnamese workers and small peasants themselves. As a result, the Stalinists did everything they could to appease the bourgeois nationalists even when that meant defending imperialist powers and subduing class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1945, the Stalinists\u2019 strategy was tested in reality and led to a defeat of the first ever seizure of power of the Vietnamese over their own country. The Viet Minh, however, would defeat the French eight years later. But this delayed victory was not a success of the Stalinist strategy. Quite the opposite. As Emilio Albamonte and Mat\u00edas Maiello argue in their book, Marxism and Military Strategy<\/em>, the French defeat was made possible by subjective conditions in world capitalist relations after World War II, conditions that allowed revolutions to develop and even win despite misleaderships. They write,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It was not until the CP abandoned the United National Front and was willing to call for an agrarian revolution that the situation took a fundamental turn. \u2026 This led to a sudden shift in the balance of power that surprised the French in the battle of Dien Bien Phu and resulted in victory against the forces of occupation. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, if to defeat the counterrevolutionary forces it was necessary in both China and in Indochina to abandon the most fundamental premises of the strategy of protracted war, what is the relationship between strategy and the triumph of the revolution in both countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To answer this question, it is essential to understand the exceptionally favorable conditions for the revolution prevailing at that time. Unlike World War I, World War II led to the design of a new world order. Its implementation was not only a matter of dividing the world into \u201careas of influence\u201d between the USSR and the imperialist powers and establishing the supremacy of the United States among the latter; the war between States had resulted in a series of civil wars, revolutions and situations of dual power, which needed to be resolved in one way or another. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in the context of the disrupted capitalist balance of the immediate postwar period and the weakness of imperialism worldwide in dealing with the various emerging contradictions that the triumph of the revolutions in China and Indochina would take place.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They go on to point out that, by abandoning their initial strategy in 1953, the Stalinists created a situation in which \u201cby the time the revolution finally triumphed, U.S. imperialism was more stable and was able to impose the partition of Vietnam in 1954.\u201d7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As everyone knows, the Vietnamese masses would go on to defeat the United States, though it would take two more decades, more than 3 million Vietnamese lives, and a complete desecration of land throughout the country, which still affects the Vietnamese people to this day. Again, this defeat of the United States came not because of the Stalinist strategy, but in spite of it. As Trotsky predicted in the Permanent Revolution, once the workers\u2019 and small peasants understood their own power, and once the role of the national capitalists was exposed, the revolution would spread. This spread of the revolution in Vietnam forced the Stalinsts to adopt elements of a workers\u2019 program, like expropriation of big landlords and nationalization of industry, in order to maintain their legitimacy and to resolve the contradiction of Vietnam\u2019s isolation from the imperialist powers. However, the top-down, bureaucratic leadership of the Stalinists would lead to Vietnam\u2019s revolution only achieving partial victory. In a sense, it created conditions of dual power in which the class contradictions in Vietnam went unresolved. The tensions between different classes were kept in check through the role of the state, but the existence of international capitalism left the always lingering possibility for the gains of Vietnam\u2019s revolution to be undone through the eventual advance of imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can thus see the bankruptcy of the Stalinist \u201cstageist\u201d revolution in modern-day Vietnam. Just as Ta Thu Thau argued in 1930, the Vietnamese bourgeoisie cannot carry out socialist revolution. Vietnam is now socialist only in name. What gains the Stalinist victory brought in the 1970s have mostly, if not entirely, been discarded in favor of capitalist restoration. The Vietnamese regime has opened the country to imperialist multinationals that seek to use cheap, precarious, unorganized Vietnamese workers in a capitalist competition between the United States and China. So much for national liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trotsky explains,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Under the conditions of the imperialist epoch the national democratic revolution can be carried through to a victorious end only when the social and political relationships of the country are mature for putting the proletariat in power as the leader of the masses of the people. And if this is not yet the case? Then the struggle for national liberation will produce only very partial results, results directed entirely against the working masses.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We can see these \u201cpartial results\u201d in Vietnam\u2019s having won its independence by expropriating the capitalists, but under an anti-democratic leadership that had already crushed the vanguard of the working class. Even as the Stalinists in Vietnam began building somewhat of a workers\u2019 state after defeating the United States, it was deformed by its lack of working-class democracy, and limited by its material isolation within the imperialist world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the \u201cpartial results\u201d that today fuel the restoration of capitalism and imperialist entrenchment in Vietnam, the national liberation victory of the Vietnamese working class and peasantry is rightfully still celebrated to this day. Their inspiring struggle against the United States fueled an international wave of revolutionary imagination and activity in the 1960s and 1970s, touching even the imperialist countries; French students occupied universities with barricades, and U.S. students, workers, and even troops and veterans protested en masse against the U.S. invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even to this day, there are young people in the heart of imperialism who study Vietnam\u2019s revolution as inspiration for our own political work. Vietnam is an active point of reference for youth in the heart of imperialism who are being politicized by the Palestinian struggle for national liberation. Yet far too many people \u2014 including this author at one time \u2014 have looked to the wrong leaders, those who waged a counterrevolution and won national liberation not because of, but in spite of, their class collaboration. Instead, we need to see what Ta Thu Thau and the Trotskyists saw: that it is the working class of past and present who must lead the revolution. In solidarity with the working class internationally, only they can defeat imperialism once and for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u21911<\/a><\/th>Ngo Van, In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary<\/em> (Oakland: AK Press, 2010), translated by Helene Fleury, Hilary Horrocks, Ken Knabb, and Naomi Sager, 56\u201357.<\/td><\/tr>
\u21912<\/a><\/th>Under French colonialism the Vietnamese people were referred to as Annamites<\/td><\/tr>
\u21913<\/a><\/th>There is a rich debate to be had over whether the Trotskyists at La Lutte subordinated their politics too much to their alliance with the Stalinists, and what role this may have played in limiting the spread of revolutionary ideas. With a lack of published materials available to study, and a lack of space in this article, that debate cannot take place here.<\/td><\/tr>
\u21914<\/a><\/th>Van, In The Crossfire<\/em>, 98\u2013100.<\/td><\/tr>
\u21915<\/a><\/th>Van, In The Crossfire<\/em>, 98\u2013100.<\/td><\/tr>
\u21916<\/a><\/th>Emilio Albamonte and Mat\u00edas Maiello, Estrat\u00e9gia socialista y arte militar<\/em> (Buenos Aires: Ediciones IPS, 2017), 377\u201378. An English-language edition of this book is forthcoming.<\/td><\/tr>
\u21917<\/a><\/th>Maiello and Albamonte, Estrat\u00e9gia socialista<\/em>.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before they were slandered as fascists and wreckers, Trotskyists led one of the most advanced processes of working-class activity in Vietnam\u2019s history. This buried revolutionary legacy provides lessons on anti-imperialist class struggle, lessons that are more valuable than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"crp_sub_category":"Vietnam","crp_read_time":"","crp_featured":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,116,51],"tags":[42,23,19],"coauthors":[99],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia","category-theory","category-vietnam","category-working-class-politics","tag-asia-pacific","tag-labor","tag-marxism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Before they were slandered as fascists and wreckers, Trotskyists led one of the most advanced processes of working-class activity in Vietnam\u2019s history. This buried revolutionary legacy provides lessons on anti-imperialist class struggle, lessons that are more valuable than ever.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"491\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sam Carliner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sam Carliner\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"22 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andre Acier\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c\"},\"headline\":\"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":6983,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Asia-Pacific\",\"Labor\",\"Marxism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"East Asia\",\"Theory\",\"Vietnam\",\"Working Class Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":491},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\",\"name\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"description\":\"Trotskyist left in Asia: news, analysis, and strategy from the camp of the Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/logo_crp_en.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/logo_crp_en.png\",\"width\":821,\"height\":160,\"caption\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c\",\"name\":\"Andre Acier\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g20480edfc1b511f2dc0b743ef5ac2514\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andre Acier\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/author\\\/andre\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","og_description":"Before they were slandered as fascists and wreckers, Trotskyists led one of the most advanced processes of working-class activity in Vietnam\u2019s history. This buried revolutionary legacy provides lessons on anti-imperialist class struggle, lessons that are more valuable than ever.","og_url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/","og_site_name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","article_published_time":"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":800,"height":491,"url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sam Carliner","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sam Carliner","Est. reading time":"22 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/"},"author":{"name":"Andre Acier","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/person\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c"},"headline":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam","datePublished":"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/"},"wordCount":6983,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg","keywords":["Asia-Pacific","Labor","Marxism"],"articleSection":["East Asia","Theory","Vietnam","Working Class Politics"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/","name":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg","datePublished":"2026-07-14T12:52:43+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-16T12:33:31+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/800px-Ta-Thu-Thau-Vietnamli-Trockist-onder-Trockist-1.jpg","width":800,"height":491},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/the-hidden-history-of-trotskyists-in-vietnam\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Hidden History of Trotskyists in Vietnam"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/","name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","description":"Trotskyist left in Asia: news, analysis, and strategy from the camp of the Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization","name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/logo_crp_en.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/logo_crp_en.png","width":821,"height":160,"caption":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/person\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c","name":"Andre Acier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g20480edfc1b511f2dc0b743ef5ac2514","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Andre Acier"},"url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/author\/andre\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}