World situation and external influences leading to the revolutionary climax of 1930-1931 and the Nghe Tinh Soviet

In 1929 - 1933, the capitalist world suffered a serious economic crisis. The French Empire put all the burden of the crisis in France on the shoulders of its colonies. Indochina was dragged into that crisis and suffered dire consequences: Farmers went bankrupt and starved to death; workers were increasingly exploited and unemployed; the newly born bourgeoisie was suffocated by the French bourgeoisie.

The repression and terror of the French colonialists took place everywhere, creating a tense political atmosphere. The conflict between the Vietnamese people and the French colonialists became increasingly fierce, pushing the Vietnamese people to rise up and fight more strongly and fiercely against the enemy to win their lives.

The First World War broke out in Western Europe, the center of the capitalist world at that time, not only disintegrating the power order that had been considered quite stable since the end of the 19th century, but also collapsing the social, cultural and moral institutions that had been considered the superior values ​​of Western Europe for centuries. Therefore, even before the fierce conflict between the great powers had ended, the whole of Europe was seething and shaken by a wave of fierce class struggle and revolution.

In November 1917, the Russian October Revolution broke out and won, and the world's first proletarian dictatorship was born. Following that, the struggle movement of workers and working people in many countries rose strongly. Encouraged by the victory of the Russian October Revolution, Communist Parties were born in many Western European countries, and the communist movement became an increasingly strong trend. On March 19, 1919, the Communist International - the fighting staff of the communist and workers' movements around the world - was established in Moscow. The uprising movement developed strongly in Europe.

During the period from 1918 to 1923, in many regions of Hungary, Germany, Austria, Türkiye, Poland... the proletariat won power and established a revolutionary government following the Soviet model in Russia.

Faced with the strong outbreak of the revolutionary movement, the reactionary imperialist forces in Europe immediately united, hoping to encircle and destroy the young Soviet Russia and suppress the uprising movements in other countries. Until about the end of 1923, although Soviet Russia still existed and in 1922 the Soviet Union (USSR) was born, most of the Soviets and other revolutionary states in Europe were defeated by the reactionary imperialist forces. From 1924 to 1929, the capitalist world entered a period of rapid recovery and development.

In order to heal the wounds of war and restore the economy, along with suppressing the revolutionary movement in the mother country, the imperialist and colonialist countries also tried to exploit and exploit the colonies. The common characteristics of the colonial exploitation policy of the colonial countries applied in most of the colonies in Africa and Southeast Asia are: On the one hand, they increased investment in exploitation and exploitation, turning the colonies from places that provide raw materials and markets for goods into industrial export markets, even capitalist export markets. On the other hand, in terms of politics and society, they both intensified the fierce suppression of all resistance from the native people, and at the same time, systematically tried to implement populist policies, aiming to attract the cooperation of the "upper class" (elite) newly formed native.

As a result, in the two decades after World War I, the economic and social structures of the colonies in Southeast Asia underwent profound changes, including the emergence and development of three new classes: the national bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, and the working class. These profound economic and social changes would create the social foundation for the leapfrogging developments of the anti-colonial movement in new forms, led by new social forces, and with new political orientations.

Right after the Russian Revolution of 1905, Asia began to awaken with the formation and increasingly strong development of the national movement. In particular, under the influence of the October Revolution, the nationalist movement increasingly tended to follow the trajectory of the proletarian revolution. In May 1920, the Indonesian Communist Party and the Indian Communist Party were founded, the first communist parties in Asia. Then, in July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was born, quickly winning the support of tens of millions of peasants, workers and intellectuals. In the following years, the influence of the Russian October Revolution and the Communist International increasingly strengthened the national liberation movement in Asia.^[1].

Next toVietnam Revolutionary Youth AssociationFounded by Nguyen Ai Quoc in June 1925, many revolutionary organizations with communist tendencies also appeared in several other Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Burma (Myanmar), and Malaysia, preparing for the birth of proletarian political parties in a series of countries in this region in the first half of the 1930s of the last century.^[2].

The strong spread and diffusion of Marxism-Leninism and the influence of the October Revolution created a leap forward in the development of patriotic and revolutionary movements in East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. In December 1926, the Indonesian Communist Party launched a fierce armed uprising in Baten, and the following year rose up again in West Sumatra. The uprising failed, but it shook the entire country under Dutch colonial rule, paving the way for the birth of the Indonesian National Party in 1927 led by Sukarno.

In China, the revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party of China also developed strongly in both urban and rural areas. Under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia, the nationalist movement led by the Kuomintang also developed strongly under the banner of “New Three Principles of the People”^[3]The first Nationalist-Communist Alliance was formed, receiving support from the Soviet Union in many aspects. The revolutionary forces grew stronger and stronger, many revolutionary armies were formed, numbering tens of thousands, carrying out many attacks on the warlord groups, creating momentum for the peasant uprising movement to erupt in many provinces in North and South China.

However, after Sun Yat-sen passed away (1925), Chiang Kai-shek, a right-leaning warlord, became the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party. The Kuomintang-Communist alliance in China was increasingly weakened, and in July 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-insurrection, attacking and massacring many bases of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, Tianjin and many other provinces. Faced with this situation, communist cadres led the masses of workers and peasants to revolt in many places, especially in Hubei, Henan, Wuhan, Guangzhou..., establishing a revolutionary government based on the Soviet model.

The Communist International made a great contribution to the strong development of the revolutionary movement in East and Southeast Asian countries. Immediately after its establishment, the Communist International showed an increasingly strong interest in the national movement and anti-colonialism in the colonies and dependent countries. The Lenin Oriental University and other training schools of the Communist International were established, annually training hundreds of cadres for the revolutionary movements in East and Southeast Asian countries.

During the late 1927-1930s, in the context of the strong development of the revolutionary movement in Asia and the collapse of the Nationalist-Communist alliance in China, the 6th Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in the summer of 1928 was an important event.^[4] Based on the signs of instability and recession of the world capitalist economy, the Congress predicted that a strong revolutionary movement could and would certainly explode throughout the world, especially in colonial and dependent countries.

Therefore, the Communist International directed communist parties in colonies and dependent countries to immediately end all contacts and cooperation with nationalist and bourgeois parties, and at the same time, to strengthen "Bolshevization", that is, to strengthen the workers' character of the party, to completely eliminate the influences of bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideology in the party, thereby strengthening the revolutionary and vanguard character of the party, and to be ready to lead the revolutionary movement of the masses.^[5]From late 1927 to around late 1928, the Communist International also organized groups of senior experts to urgently study and summarize the experiences of previous revolutions and uprisings, and at the same time, opened many training courses for military command cadres for communist parties in many countries.^[6]

At the same time, the Communist International regularly directed communist parties in European countries, especially those with colonies in the East, to strengthen the combination of the working class struggle of the mother countries with the anti-colonial struggle movement in the colonies.

In Moscow, the Communist International established various committees responsible for monitoring and assisting in all aspects, including giving advice on the development of strategic and tactical lines, organization and struggle of communist parties in the colonies. Through such methods, the Communist International truly had great influence and contributed to the strong development of the revolutionary movement for national liberation in the colonies and dependencies in Asia.

At the very moment when the Communist International was calling on and directing the communist parties to prepare for the predicted revolutionary climax, at the end of October 1929, the Great Depression broke out in the United States, quickly collapsing the entire financial - banking - monetary system of the capitalist world. This signal further strengthened the Communist International's judgment about the outbreak of the world revolutionary climax. The communist parties received even stronger guidance and encouragement from Moscow in preparing to lead and launch a new revolutionary climax.^[7].

The strong development of the revolutionary movement in the colonies and dependent countries, especially the uprising movement and the establishment of the Soviet Union in China; the new revolutionary strategy of the Communist International and the outbreak of the world economic crisis were the international factors that strongly influenced the outbreak of the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement and the Nghe Tinh Soviet in Vietnam.