Nghe - Tinh is truly worthy of the title 'red'!

RED TURMERIC

The two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh are located 360 kilometers north of Hue, the capital of Annam (where the puppet king established his court), and 326 kilometers south of Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina. Nghe An province has 3 prefectures and 6 districts with a population of 614,000 in 942 villages. Ha Tinh province has 2 prefectures, 6 districts, 601 villages with a population of 405,000. Of the 500,000 men in both provinces, 120,000 have to pay a poll tax of 2.20 dong per person per year.

Ha Tinh has no industry. Vinh is the main city of Nghe An. In Vinh, there is a large railway station, a water and electricity plant, a match factory, five sawmills, two auto repair shops and several small workshops, all employing 4,000 workers.

Apart from those workers and a similar number of officials, plantation owners and traders..., the people of the two provinces were all poor and middle peasants (more than 1 million).

The terrain of the two provinces is mountainous and forested, the land is barren, there are no rivers or agriculture, floods and storms often occur here, so the people are hungry and thirsty, and there is a very miserable place to live. Heavy taxes and social and political oppression make their situation even more dire.

People of Nghe - Tinhfamously stubborn. During the French invasion as well as during the national revolutionary movements (1905-1925), Nghe - Tinh was famous. In the current struggle, workers and farmers of Nghe - Tinh are stillmaintain revolutionary traditionmine

From May to December, Nghe An (Vinh) workers went on strike eight times and demonstrated with 2,500 participants. During the same period, 137 demonstrations broke out involving a total of 300,000 farmers.

Damage: 625 farmers were killed by bombers and machine guns, 8 villages were destroyed, more than 1,000 soldiers were imprisoned, hundreds were exiled.

In both provinces, more than 60,000 farmers (men, women and youth) were organized into the Association.

Nghe - Tinh is truly worthy of the title "red"!

II

From December 26 to January 19, there are two big festivals near Vinh: a "red" festival.”and a "golden" ceremony”.

The first ceremony was held in Loc Da village, 2 kilometers from Vinh. 4,000 workers from Vinh city and farmers from Hung Nguyen and Nghi Loc attended the memorial service for the soldiers who died on December 11, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Guangzhou Commune.

A hammer and sickle flag was hung on the altar filled with incense and flowers, surrounded by 100 red flags and a string of 200 red lights. At 10 p.m., when everyone had arrived, two bicycle groups were arranged to patrol the roads to Vinh and Ben Thuy from which the French soldiers could come, while another group surrounded the crowd and sang the Internationale. Order“silence”was suddenly brought out. The master of ceremonies read the eulogy. Then the representatives of the Trade Union, the Farmers' Association and the representatives of the villages came up to speak.

A delegate proposed: The next day, all markets in Hung Nguyen and Nghi Loc should be closed.

The suggestion was enthusiastically received by everyone. The next day, as promised, all the markets were deserted.

While the ceremony was taking place, the workers cut off the electricity, causing the entire city of Vinh - Ben Thuy to be submerged in darkness for 10 minutes.

III

Bombs, machine guns, burning houses, military posts (28 new posts were built in Nghe An alone), government propaganda, press...evenpowerless to suppress the revolutionary movement of Nghe - Tinh. Therefore, the French imperialists came up with a new trick: organizing counter-revolutionary demonstrations and forcing the city's people to participate.

On January 19, the people of 24 neighborhoods were dragged into the streets, marching in groups to the beat of drums, carrying five yellow flags with three colors pressed against the corners. The yellow flag was the national flag of the Kingdom of Annam. The groups of "submissive" people (the French gave them this name even though those poor Annamese people had never fought) were led to the royal palace (where the mandarins often went to pay their respects to the king, even though he never went there). They were received by the governor in ceremonial uniform. The mandarin told them: "Now that the people of the city have apologized and submitted to the Southern Dynasty Government and the French Government, they must take care of maintaining order and security in the city. Do not listen to the nonsense propaganda and do not commit reprehensible acts" (the governor wanted to talk about the revolution, but he did not dare to use such harsh adjectives when talking about the revolution in front of the people). The governor told everyone to bow three times before the king's portrait to show their loyalty to the king. Then he led the people before the embassy and forced them to bow three times to show their loyalty to the French empire.

The imperialists and feudalists of the Southern Dynasty considered that demonstration of loyalty a great success for them and the next day the news was widely reported in the newspapers.

They intended to continue organizing such demonstrations in Nghe-Tinh. But in villages with revolutionary farmers, it was as difficult to organize as in the city where they could only gather a few stupid people.

February 19, 1931