Characteristics and historical significance of the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement and the Nghe Tinh Soviet
The revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 and the Nghe Tinh Soviet brought great significance and lessons, extremely important to the leadership of the Party and the Vietnamese revolution afterwards.
BNA• 10/29/2024 15:02
The revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 and the Nghe Tinh Soviet brought great significance and lessons, extremely important to the leadership of the Party and the Vietnamese revolution afterwards.
From the beginning of 1931, the struggle movement of the Vietnamese people, nationwide as well as in the Nghe Tinh region, began to decline. Although the number of struggles was still large, there were fewer and fewer large struggles that attracted many participants. From the end of April and the beginning of May 1931, the number of struggles gradually decreased and by the end of autumn 1931, the movement in Nghe Tinh as well as nationwide had completely subsided... However, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 and the Nghe Tinh Soviet brought about extremely great significance and lessons for the Vietnamese revolution..
CHARACTERISTIC
First featureof the revolutionary movement of 1930-1931 is: this is a movement with a clear political orientation. Hundreds of thousands of people across the three regions demonstrated massively under the Party's red hammer and sickle flag. Even the French colonialists and their lackeys called it "communist chaos". This is the clearest evidence that the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931, although taking place in different localities in many aspects, was definitely not a spontaneous mass movement, but a movement with a unified political orientation, organized and led by Vietnamese communists.
Second outstanding featureof the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement and the Nghe Tinh Soviet was: the movement had the massive and active participation of the masses, especially farmers and workers.Unlike the uprising organized and led by the Vietnam Nationalist Party, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 led by the Indochinese Communist Party took place mainly in the form of mass demonstrations and rallies.
It was the demonstrations of thousands, even tens of thousands of peasants and workers that initiated the nationwide wave of struggle from the beginning of 1930, bringing the struggle movement to a climax and disintegrating the local colonial-feudal government system, creating conditions for the birth of the Soviets. This method of struggle would continue to be promoted by the Party in the following revolutionary stages and would become the method of uprising and seizure of power on a nationwide scale during the August Revolution of 1945.
The third feature is:Although it peaked in Nghe Tinh, the revolutionary movement of 1930-1931 had a nationwide nature.In fact, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 was the continuous and continued development of the workers' and peasants' struggle movement launched, organized and led by the revolutionary organizations that were the predecessors of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which broke out sporadically in almost all industrial centers in all three regions.
After the communist organizations unified into a single Party, the wave of struggle on the occasion of International Labor Day (May 1) in 1930 launched by the Party created a "historical push", causing a strong mass struggle movement to explode nationwide. However, due to many objective and subjective reasons, the movement only reached its peak in Nghe Tinh with the birth of the Soviet government, existing and operating in the rural areas of Nghe Tinh for a period of more than half a year.
The struggle movement in other localities did not reach its peak, but during the period from September 1930 to mid-1931, many struggles still broke out in South Central Vietnam, Cochinchina and North Vietnam, especially when the Indochinese Communist Party issued a call to fight to protect "Red Nghe Tinh". The fact that the struggle movement in other localities did not develop into a climax, apart from some objective reasons, was mainly due to the direction of the Party Central Committee, after having learned from the experience of the rash and violent riots in Nghe Tinh.
Thus, it can be seen that even though it developed unevenly in localities, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 was still a movement of national scale and nature, led by a political organization, quite different from spontaneous uprisings of the masses, which were only local in nature.
Fourth feature:This is the first step in the harmonious coordination between the workers' movement and the peasants' movement, between the struggle in the countryside and the struggle in the cities, and the actual formation of a revolutionary alliance between workers, peasants and soldiers.As a Party document of that time commented: "How glorious! For the first time in the history of our country's revolution, workers, peasants and soldiers joined hands in the middle of the battle!"(1)This characteristic can be clearly observed in the early stages of the revolutionary movement, from early 1930 to around September 1930. Later on, the peasant movement became increasingly dominant, especially in Nghe Tinh. The workers' movement gradually declined, but it always existed in parallel, in coordination with the peasant movement.
The objective reason for this development trend is that the Vietnamese working class itself is relatively small compared to the peasantry. Moreover, in the condition that the situation of directly seizing power has not appeared, the movement in the cities cannot be maintained for many days like in the countryside.
The historical experience of the revolutionary movement of 1930-1931 shows that the starting and ending points of an uprising to seize power can be the struggle in the cities, but the foothold and the fulcrum that creates the durability of the mass movement is the countryside. Therefore, the revolution can only break out and win when the struggle in these two strategic areas is closely coordinated and harmonious with each other under the unified leadership of the Party. This is what Nguyen Ai Quoc firmly affirmed in 1928 in a thesis written for the Communist International, and reality will later show that this is the path to the victory of the August Revolution in 1945.(2).
The fifth characteristic is:The movement was launched and led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (later renamed the Indochinese Communist Party) nationwide, but local grassroots cadres also played a significant proactive role.Although newly established on the basis of unifying three communist organizations, the Communist Party of Vietnam, whose highest leadership body was the Provisional Central Committee, was determined to launch a strong wave of struggle on the occasion of the International Labor Day (May 1) in 1930. This wave of struggle was the starting point of the entire revolutionary movement of 1930-1931.
However, after launching this wave of struggle, the Party Central Committee did not completely maintain close direction over the development of the movement, so the movement developed, then became a climax with fierce forms of struggle, tending towards recklessness and premature violence, completely beyond the expectations and policies of the Party Central Committee.
However, the Party Central Committee always tried to keep up with the situation, promptly analyzed and continued to give timely and correct instructions for the development of the climax, promptly launched a nationwide struggle in coordination with the struggle of the masses in Nghe Tinh, and at the same time prevented immature riots in other localities. However, from October 1930, the new Central Committee of the Party seemed to have lost track of the situation. The Central Committee Conference in October 1930 took place right when the climax was developing most vigorously and needed the most timely guidance, but the Conference did not have any resolutions or instructions for the climax. When the climax began to decline, was severely suppressed and showed some serious deviations and mistakes, the Party Central Committee's guidance and correction were not timely, always responding to and passively following the developments of the situation. This is the historical experience from which the Party will draw useful lessons to fulfill its mission of leading the Vietnamese revolution in the following periods.
During the development of the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement, local Party cadres and bases, specifically the Central Region Party Committee and the Party base in Nghe Tinh, played a truly important role. They were the soul of the entire movement, the ones who directly organized, led, and sacrificed their last drop of blood for the movement. The great contribution of the Party committee and base cadres to the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement and the Nghe Tinh Soviet was extremely great.
However, the subjective mistakes they made due to not promptly grasping and thoroughly implementing the Central Committee's directives clearly caused serious losses to the movement, contributing to accelerating its decline. This was also one of the important lessons the Party learned from the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
In the modern history of Vietnam in general and the history of the Vietnamese revolution in particular, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 has a very special historical significance. Once again, the uprising of hundreds of thousands of people proved that the Vietnamese people were determined not to accept the colonial-feudal order, and were determined to rise up to gain national independence and the right to freely determine their own future.
Through this fierce struggle of the Vietnamese people, the French colonialists themselves had to admit that they could no longer maintain the old policy of exploitation and oppression. Therefore, after 1930, they had to conduct a series of surveys, investigations, reforms and repairs in order to permanently maintain the colonial regime in Vietnam.
For the Vietnamese revolution, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 was an important historical milestone, affirming in practice the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the formation and increasing sustainability of the worker-peasant alliance, the path of violent revolution... Through the victories and failures, successes and mistakes of the practical leadership of this climax, the Party has drawn extremely valuable lessons, serving as the basis for leading the Vietnamese revolution in the following stages.
The greatest and most significant achievement of the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement was the actual birth of a revolutionary government in the form of the Soviets in Nghe Tinh. This was the first time a new type of government was formed from the will and aspirations of the revolutionary masses. Although it only existed for a short time, the progressive policies and actions implemented by the Soviet government will forever remain in the feelings and political consciousness of the majority of the Vietnamese people, becoming an encouragement and an ideal for the Vietnamese people to strive for on the path of national and social liberation.
VWith all the above meanings, the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 was trulyfirst rehearsalof the Party and the revolutionary masses preparing for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945.
