The Origin of Vietnamese Revolutionary Journalism

President Ho Chi Minh - Founder of Vietnam's revolutionary journalism.

The birth of Vietnamese Revolutionary Press - an objective necessity

Entering the 20s of the 20th century, a new situation appeared in Vietnam. After World War I, the legitimate demands of the Vietnamese people expressed through the Eight-Point Petition that Nguyen Ai Quoc, on behalf of the Association of Vietnamese Patriots in France, sent to the Versailles Conference, were not considered by the victorious countries. Moreover, the French colonialists also tried to strengthen their governing apparatus in Vietnam. They issued a number of policies to promote the exploitation of rich resources in the colony, serving the motherland to restore the economy and maintain its position as a great power. "The French empire promised to give the Vietnamese people freedom after the war. But after the war, the colonial chains were tightened more than before."

Albert Sarraut was sent back to Indochina to assume the responsibilities of Governor General for the second time. In a speech delivered in Hanoi on the occasion of his inauguration, he openly declared "our (French) policy towards the natives" as follows:

"Vietnam is the market of France (…). From France, this country receives the merit of bringing an enlightened civilization that helps it transform: Without that civilization, Vietnam will forever languish in slavery and instability (!). In return, Vietnam will offer France a wonderful pedestal from which France will project the light of civilization further in this part of the earth, from Vietnam will spread more and more widely the influence of France in Asia"… (excerpt: History of Vietnamese Revolutionary Press - Associate Professor, Dr. Dao Duy Quat, Editor-in-Chief. National Political Publishing House - Hanoi 2013).

To implement that policy, the French flocked to Indochina. On the other hand, they also trained a number of native officials, but these officials were only allowed to hold lower positions than white people, received much lower salaries than their French colleagues, and were arranged in a derogatory way according to "subordinate ranks, main ranks", "Western ranks, Vietnamese ranks".

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese patriotic and revolutionary movements were at a deadlock in their policies. Comrade Truong Chinh analyzed: "The patriots of the Can Vuong faction advocated expelling the French colonialists but not abolishing the feudal regime. Other revolutionary predecessors such as Hoang Hoa Tham, Nguyen Thien Thuat, Phan Boi Chau, etc. all advocated expelling the French colonialists but did not clearly recognize that the targets of the Vietnamese revolution were the imperialists, the French colonialists and the landlord class that had surrendered to the imperialists. Meanwhile, Nguyen Thai Hoc and the Vietnam Nationalist Party followed Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People, but did not have a practical platform to implement them in the specific conditions of Vietnam."

Economically, although mainly serving the national economy, Vietnam's economy after World War I also had certain aspects of development. The French colonialists exploited our country's agricultural potential to the fullest.

The reclamation work in the Mekong Delta was accelerated, creating rice fields "as far as the eye can see". Noting "a new element in the Vietnamese economy" after World War I, Professor Tran Van Giau wrote: "French capitalists rushed into plantations" and "Colonialists rushed into the red soil of the Central Highlands like cats catching a piece of fat". A series of rubber plantations were established in all places where conditions allowed. Coffee trees were grown in large quantities in the North. Coal in the Northeast was exploited intensively. Waterway, road and railway transport gradually expanded. A number of small mechanical enterprises - mainly mechanical repair, a number of paper, textile, fiber, cement and processing factories - mostly milling rice for export - sprung up here and there according to the needs of the situation. According to estimates by American economist Callis, if in more than 30 years, from 1888, that is, right after the French colonialists established the colonial regime in Vietnam until 1920, private investment in Indochina was about 500 million gold francs, then in just 5 years, from 1924 to 1929, the total investment of French capital here had reached more than 3 billion gold francs. Vietnam's export turnover from a small figure of 60 million Indochina piastres in the early years of the 20th century gradually increased to 230 million piastres in 1929. Statistics from the French Labor Inspection Department in Indochina at that time showed that the workforce at this time was more than 220,000 people, of which 530,000 were miners, 86,000 were factory workers, commercial officials and 81,000 were plantation workers.

The development of production and the brutal exploitation of colonialism led to the formation of the Vietnamese proletariat. These were workers in factories, mines and rubber plantations; beside them was an increasing number of peasants who had no means of production and worked for a living all year round in extremely difficult conditions. Social conflicts became increasingly fierce between the colonialists and their feudal lackeys and the majority of the Vietnamese people; between the exploiters and the exploited. The intellectual and middle classes also felt increasingly bitter and frustrated.

However, the patriotism of the Vietnamese people, despite being suppressed, stifled, and exploited by many tricks, has not diminished and still flared up strongly. Through the press and many other channels, the echoes of the Russian October Revolution, of the French people's struggles for freedom, democracy, and improvement of people's lives gradually reached a number of people, first of all intellectuals and scholars. A few French newspapers published in Vietnam also had information - albeit very little - about the revolutionary situation in Russia and about VI Lenin. It was time for the Vietnamese patriotic and revolutionary movement to need a new direction. It was time for Vietnamese society to have all the necessary minimum conditions to move towards building a vanguard organization with the mission of leading the nation on the path of self-liberation, independence, and freedom.

Nguyen Ai Quoc approached Marxism-Leninism as early as the end of the first decade of the 20th century through contact with French socialists. In 1921, with the help of the newly established French Communist Party, he and a number of revolutionaries in French colonies established the Union of Colonial Peoples to fight against colonialism. After going to the Soviet Union and staying for a while to study the theory and practice of revolutionary movements, in 1924 Nguyen Ai Quoc returned to China to be closer to the Fatherland and have more conditions to directly lead the revolution.

Although he had been away from the country for more than ten years, wherever he went, he was very interested in following the current situation in his country. He had a good grasp of the activities of the domestic press. In Guangzhou, he had close relations with Tam Tam Xa, a revolutionary organization of Vietnamese patriots. In 1925, Nguyen Ai Quoc's book, The Verdict of the French Colonial Regime, was published in Paris. The book courageously exposed the crimes of the French colonialists against our people, stirred up public opinion in France and had a profound influence in the colonies. In the same year, in the country, the people of the three regions vigorously fought to demand that the French colonialists pardon the revolutionary Phan Boi Chau, who had just been arrested from China and brought back to Vietnam and sentenced to death. The speeches of patriot Phan Chu Trinh were warmly welcomed.

Starting from the standpoint of the working class and learning from the failed great undertakings of previous revolutionaries, Nguyen Ai Quoc clearly realized that if the Vietnamese revolution wanted to succeed, it had to follow a different path. It had to mobilize and lead the people in the country to rise up together, coordinate with the struggle of the French people in the motherland and the struggle of the people in other countries, overthrow the ruling regime of the colonialists, imperialists and their lackeys, liberate the Vietnamese people from the chains of slavery, and regain independence and freedom.

But, "without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement." Without a vanguard organization to lead the revolution in the right direction and steps, the revolution cannot succeed. And to launch and rapidly expand the revolutionary movement, to reach consensus on theory, politics and ideology to build a vanguard revolutionary organization, there must be a revolutionary newspaper. "That newspaper - according to Lenin's concept - will be like a part of a giant forge that blows every spark of class struggle and of popular indignation into a huge fire."

Nguyen Ai Quoc's thinking about the press coincided with Lenin's view on the role of newspapers in the period before the October Revolution in Russia. Lenin wrote: "In our opinion, the starting point of activity, the first practical step towards the establishment of the desired organization, and finally the main thread which, if grasped, will enable us to constantly develop, consolidate and expand that organization - must be the establishment of an all-Russian political newspaper. We need first of all a newspaper - without it it is impossible to systematically conduct a very principled and comprehensive propaganda campaign."

Like Lenin, Nguyen Ai Quoc understood that he had to hold a regularly published newspaper in order to have the conditions to conduct propaganda and agitation work regularly and comprehensively. Nguyen Ai Quoc creatively applied Lenin's thought: "What we absolutely need at this time is a political newspaper. If the revolutionary party does not know how to unify its impact on the masses through the voice of the press, then the desire to influence by other, more powerful methods is just an illusion."

Regarding organization, Nguyen Ai Quoc founded the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association). As the name suggests, this organization is not yet a Communist Party but only a transitional organization to establish a Communist Party. The Association is a furnace for enlightenment, training, and educating young workers, farmers, and students recruited from within the country and abroad. After attending training courses opened by him, these young people will return to the country to participate in revolutionary activities. They are the elite seeds of the Vietnamese revolution.

Regarding propaganda, it was necessary to publish a newspaper. Although he was far from home, Nguyen Ai Quoc had a clear understanding of the country's press situation. He understood the difficulties that patriotic, enthusiastic journalists had to face. In 1924, in Paris, Nguyen Ai Quoc once exclaimed: "In the middle of the 20th century, in a country with 20 million people, there is not a single newspaper! Can you imagine that? Not a single newspaper in our mother tongue... The French government decided that no newspaper in Annamese could be published without the permission of the Governor General, that they would only allow it on the condition that the manuscript for publication had to be submitted to the Governor General for approval first, and that they could revoke that license at any time. That was the spirit of the decree on the press."

Although he was abroad, Nguyen Ai Quoc clearly heard the complaints of domestic journalists: "Having a mouth but not being able to speak, having thoughts but not being able to express them, that is the fate of 25 million of our compatriots... The history of our press has gone through several decades, and journalists are completely deaf and mute... Every time I pick up a pen, pick up a newspaper, I cannot help but feel bruised, ashamed and heartbroken."

It was impossible to publish revolutionary newspapers in Vietnamese in the country. Publishing newspapers in French would not be popular among the working masses who were poorly educated, even illiterate. As someone who had studied the revolutionary experiences of many countries, especially the Russian revolution, and through his own experience, Nguyen Ai Quoc understood that without escaping the shackles of colonial censorship, he could not openly express his full voice, especially he could not loudly denounce colonialism, imperialism and feudal cliques to awaken his compatriots, as he had done abroad, when he wrote The Indictment of the French Colonial Regime and many outstanding journalistic and literary works that occupied the first three volumes of the Ho Chi Minh Complete Works. Through the works of K. Marx and Lenin, he learned from experience: There was only one way. That way was to organize, edit and publish a revolutionary newspaper abroad, then secretly bring it back to circulate (if conditions allowed, multiply it) in the country.

The birth of Thanh Nien newspaper, No. 1 published on June 21, 1925, was a wise and correct decision of Nguyen Ai Quoc. This decision had an extremely great effect on the revolutionary process of Vietnam from the mid-1920s onwards. With nearly 90 issues published almost regularly every week for two years, Thanh Nien newspaper did a great job of "circulating illegally in the country and starting to spread Marx-Leninism among our people". The work "The Revolutionary Path", mainly based on articles published in Thanh Nien newspaper, outlined the roadmap to bring our nation to the successful August Revolution, and continue to make the glorious career as it is today.

Thanh Nien newspaper, whose founder, director and editor was Nguyen Ai Quoc, had made great contributions in preparing the theory, politics, ideology and organization for the establishment of the Communist Party of Vietnam. With the birth of Thanh Nien newspaper, a new press stream, revolutionary press, appeared in the Vietnamese press. This was a very important contribution, a golden milestone in the process of building the Vietnamese national culture.

The birth of Thanh Nien newspaper, issue 1 published on June 21, 1925, was a wise and correct decision of Nguyen Ai Quoc.

Reflecting on the origins

When Thanh Nien newspaper published its first issue, the Vietnamese national literary press had existed for sixty years, starting with Gia Dinh newspaper. However, if we count from the day K. Marx founded the New Renani newspaper (June 1, 1848) as an organ of the Communist Alliance, opening the revolutionary press in the world, it was 77 years. In the vast Soviet Union, the revolutionary press had become the press of the ruling party and was a component part of the country's political system.

From that day until today, 97 years have passed. The Vietnamese revolutionary press has made very strong progress. During the period when our people had not yet gained power, under the fierce repression and harsh colonial rule, the revolutionary press had to operate illegally, but it never stopped but continued to develop. The Central Party's newspapers could be confiscated and stopped publishing because the Central Party's leaders had all been arrested, but the newspapers of the regional, provincial, and district Party Committees continued to circulate. After the August Revolution in 1945, every time the revolution went through a decisive turning point, the press had the conditions to develop to a new height. Through the ups and downs of the times, the Vietnamese revolutionary press always looked straight at its unchanging direction of striving for independence, freedom, and socialism. That is the reason why the Vietnamese revolutionary press always found suitable forms to adapt, survive, and develop.

Entering the new millennium, the Vietnamese people are proud of the achievements that the revolutionary press has achieved over the past 97 years. To fully understand the development process and especially to explain the steadfastness and consistency of the Vietnamese revolutionary press, it is impossible not to go back in time to find its origins.

1. The Vietnamese revolutionary press originated first of all from the patriotic and democratic tendency in the legal press, especially since the national press left its embryonic stage, heavily influenced by official newspapers, to gradually become a press system with all the characteristics of information and speech agencies, such as periodic publishing, wide circulation, stable readership, a team of professional journalists, etc.

Right in the second Vietnamese newspaper that was born after Gia Dinh Newspaper in the second half of the 19th century, Phan Yen, there was a series of articles openly criticizing the French colonialist's ruling policy. Of course, the authorities tried to deal with, prevent, and suppress. But the patriotic, democratic, and progressive voice reflecting the indomitable will of our people was not extinguished because of that, but on the contrary, continued to resound more and more clearly and loudly in many forms. The journalistic works of names such as Diep Van Cuong, Tran Chanh Chieu, Nguyen An Ninh, Phan Van Truong, Tran Huy Lieu, Phan Chu Trinh, Ngo Duc Ke, ... although published in legal and public newspapers, were mostly published with money and patronage from the authorities, but they were strongly denouncing and protesting against the colonial regime and its feudal lackeys; encourage patriotism, promote humanity, maintain strong will, encourage economic revival, demand freedom of business, freedom of the press, call for the elimination of bad customs, denounce corrupt officials...

2. In the internal source - which can be called tradition - of the Vietnamese revolutionary press, a very important source must be mentioned: patriotic and revolutionary poetry and literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are the works of Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Nguyen Thong, Doan Huu Trung, Tran Xuan Soan, Phan Dinh Phung, Nguyen Thuong Hien... in the second half of the 19th century. Among the works of this period, there are many anonymous cases but they were widely circulated among the people in the form of folk songs, folk songs, parallel sentences, funeral words, folk songs, and proverbs.

By the early 20th century, the content of journalistic and literary works (most of which were circulated outside the legal press) gradually lost its Confucian-style loyalty to the king, as in the late 19th century, and leaned towards reform, demanding the expansion of people's knowledge and civil rights. Phan Boi Chau's Blood Letter sent from overseas; Phan Chu Trinh's song "Tinh hon buoc" called on "young and talented people to go together to learn all civilized things", Ngo Duc Ke discussed political studies and heresy, criticized Pham Quynh's view of national destruction; Dang Nguyen Can promoted new learning; Tran Quy Cap advised people in the country to learn the national language, Do Co Quang mourned the twelve martyrs at Hoang Hoa Cuong... Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc published the book "Van minh tan hoc" (New Learning) which raised six major policies: Using the national language, revising open books, amending examination rules, encouraging talents, reviving technology and especially speaking very carefully and passionately about the urgent need to publish newspapers in the national language.

Patriotic and revolutionary journalistic works, poems and literature, either published through the media or circulated among the people through many other channels, are all direct and internal sources of Vietnamese revolutionary journalism. That stream of journalism and literature represents the fine tradition of the Vietnamese people, in which "patriotism is the focus of the focuses, the value of the values. It is the main ideology, the red thread running through the entire history of the Vietnamese people". From there, if we go further back, we can affirm that revolutionary journalism is deeply rooted in the tradition of patriotism, in the quintessence of Vietnamese culture.

3. Vietnamese revolutionary journalism also originates from the world's revolutionary, democratic and progressive journalism, and is deeply influenced by that journalism, while always maintaining a strong national character.

The founder of Vietnam's revolutionary press - Nguyen Ai Quoc began his career abroad. His first journalistic and literary works - including the most outstanding works - were written in France and published in progressive French newspapers, mainly newspapers and magazines sponsored by the Socialist Party (when the French Communist Party had not yet been established) and the French Communist Party; and then published in Russian and Chinese newspapers. It can be said that the French revolutionary press trained the writer Nguyen Ai Quoc when he was young. During his days of studying theory and practice in the Soviet Union, Nguyen Ai Quoc focused on studying the experience of the Russian revolutionary press. When he returned to China, he still maintained close contact and collaborated regularly with the Chinese revolutionary press.

Before the Thanh Nien newspaper was born, Nguyen Ai Quoc and his foreign friends and comrades in Paris published the first issue of Le Paria (The Miserable) on April 1, 1922, with clearly revolutionary content. Le Paria had many articles dealing with the Vietnam issue. However, the newspaper was published in French abroad and clearly stated in its title the Forum of Colonial Peoples (a short time later changed to Forum of the Colonial Proletariat). The Viet Nam newspaper originated from Nguyen Ai Quoc's intention to publish and circulate among Vietnamese people living in France. However, when he left France, the new newspaper was born with Nguyen The Truyen as editor-in-chief, and later on it failed to maintain its original purpose and principles. The two newspapers should be considered as the overseas origins of the Vietnamese revolutionary press.

4. Since its inception, the Vietnamese revolutionary press has gone through many ups and downs along with the revolutionary movement of our people before the August Revolution, with times of rising climax as well as times of temporary subsidence. After 1945, conditions were generally more favorable than during the period of secret activities, but it still could not avoid the direct impact of the times. In all circumstances, it has always maintained its complete and consistent revolutionary character to continue to develop unceasingly. Since 1986, when our Party initiated and led the cause of comprehensive national renovation in the direction of socialism, the Vietnamese revolutionary press has been given additional motivation to develop strongly and comprehensively. By November 30, 2021, with 816 press agencies, all types of press and 17,161 reporters and editors, the Vietnamese press has risen to stand shoulder to shoulder with the press of developed countries in the region and in the world.

This is because it has always been guided by the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thought. Based on the political and ideological foundation as well as through examining the basic characteristics of revolutionary journalism over the past 97 years, it can be affirmed that Marxism-Leninism is one of the roots of Vietnam's revolutionary journalism.

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*. Ho Chi Minh: Complete works, vol. 1, p. 428