Where the pink flag was raised

(Baonghean) -Visiting the memorial site of late General Secretary Le Hong Phong on the occasion of his 111th birthday, I was welcomed by Mr. Le Van Ngu, who is in charge of protecting and looking after the memorial site. Standing hesitantly in front of the humble thatched and bamboo house with the right hand supporting the parents, I wondered: "Is this comrade Le Hong Phong's house?". Mr. Ngu nodded, leading me to sit next to the bamboo chair...

“This memorial area was previously used to worship Le Hong Phong, but now it is used to worship his parents, Mr. Le Huy Quan and Mrs. Pham Thi Sau. The new memorial area was built right next to it according to the State's plan. But in terms of origin, only this small piece of land with this thatched house is where comrade Le Hong Phong spent his childhood. This house used to belong to Mr. Le Hong Phong's father, Mr. Le Huy Quan. Later, his descendants moved to another place to live, sold the land and the house.

Later, the land and the house were recovered by the State and restored in the memorial area as it is now. Most of the items in the house were restored, except for the rice chest in the corner of the main house, this dong, a dong inside and a bamboo bed under the kitchen that were kept original. As for the altar, the carpenter had previously made a mistake, but later, according to the conclusion of the Scientific Council, it was rebuilt, so the marks were left on these two main pillars. The sacrificial objects were all lost with the descendants of the family, and this set of sacrificial objects was restored exactly as it was.

Memorial house of General Secretary Le Hong Phong in the new memorial area

I listened and observed the simple objects in the small thatched house. All of them had the color of old time, as if they had witnessed Le Hong Phong’s childhood and welcomed him back during his short period of house arrest before being re-arrested and exiled to Con Dao in 1940. I turned back to look at Mr. Ngu, both curious and eager, still wanting to hear his story.

“Comrade Le Hong Phong and I are cousins, my father was his cousin. His real name was Le Huy Doan. My family line was originally Le Van, because we were civil officials, while another family line in Dong village was Le Sy, who had been military officials for generations. When comrade Le Hong Phong’s grandfather was in charge of the family, for some unknown reason, he changed it to Le Huy, so we now take back our original family name, Le Van. As for the name Le Hong Phong, it was because during that period of struggle, together with comrades Hong Thai and Hong Son, they became the three red winds of the Soviet movement. When comrade Le Hong Phong was arrested in this very house, my grandfather lived right next door and only dared to sit under the tree and look over.”

The old man led me to the new memorial area, the color of the tiles was still fresh. The new memorial area had a much larger and more airy campus, but perhaps because of that, it was somewhat less simple and intimate. I was absorbed in looking at the photos that depicted the comrade's revolutionary life: a student at the Oriental University in Moscow, a delegate to the 7th Congress of the Communist International in the Kremlin, a General Secretary of the Party Central Committee, a revolutionary prisoner who was not afraid of the enemy's whips. There were also identity cards with different names when he was active in Thailand, Russia, China and Vietnam. There were also arrest warrants and secret police files in French.

I stopped in front of the photo of cell number 5, ward II in Con Dao prison. The black and white photo that I thought was dyed red with blood, shuddered thinking of the revolutionary prisoner who, when he breathed his last on September 6, 1942, still resolutely said: "Please tell the Party that, until the last moment, Le Hong Phong still believed in the glorious victory of the revolution". I don't know if Mr. Ngu saw the red photo like me, but he said thoughtfully: "When I visited Con Dao prison, I exclaimed like this: I thought that the smell of blood, feces and urine of revolutionary prisoners would only remain in history books, but I didn't expect to still smell that foul smell here". I bit my lips and looked at the photo again. For a moment, I was surprised to realize that there was indeed a strong smell of blood lingering in the photo, or was it the smell of hatred and pain from a time when the country was in misery?

Saying goodbye to Mr. Ngu, the old man with the surname Le Van said that when he passed away, he hoped that the person guarding the land where a red wind of revolution arose would still be a member of the Le Van family. To have a connection with this memorial site is not only the duty of future generations to the General Secretary but also a blood relationship with the children of the homeland of Hung Thong, Hung Nguyen. Returning to Vinh City, I went to burn incense at the memorial site of Mrs. Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. Standing at the foot of the statue of the comrade, the faithful wife who pursued the revolutionary ideal with her husband, it seemed as if the red wind of years past was blowing in my ears.

Article and photos: Hai Trieu