Ngô Văn Xuyết (Tan Lo, near
Saigon
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
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, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
, 1913–Paris, 1 January 2005), alias Ngô Văn was a Vietnamese revolutionary who chronicled labour and peasant insurrections caught "in the crossfire" between the colonial French and the
Indochinese Communist Party
The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), km, បក្សកុម្មុយនីស្តឥណ្ឌូចិន, lo, ອິນດູຈີນພັກກອມມູນິດ, zh, t=印度支那共產黨 was a political party which was t ...
of Nguyễn Ái Quốc (
Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...
). As a
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
militant in the 1930s, Ngô Văn helped organise Saigon's waterfront and factories in defiance of the Party's "Moscow line" which sought to engage indigenous employers and landowners in a nationalist front and the French in an international "
anti-fascist
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
" alliance. When, after 1945, further challenges to the Party met with a policy of targeted assassination, Ngô Văn went into exile. In Paris, experiences shared with
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
and
Poumista
The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( es, Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM; ca, Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista) was a Spanish communist party formed during the Second Spanish Republic, Second Republic and mainly active a ...
refugees from the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
suggested "
new radical perspectives." Drawn into the
Council Communist
Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany a ...
circles of
Maximilien Rubel
Maximilien Rubel (10 October 1905, in Chernivtsi – 28 February 1996, in Paris) was a famous Marxist historian and council communist.
Rubel was born in western Ukraine and was educated in law and philosophy in Vienna and Chernivtsi National Un ...
and
Henri Simon, Ngô Văn "permanently distanced" himself from the model of "the so-called workers's party."
Trotskyist militant, Saigon 1927-1940
Ngô Văn left his village at the age of 14 to work in a metallurgical works in
Saigon
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
. He soon became involved in labour
strikes and in demonstrations in support of
freedom of assembly
Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...
, of the press, and of education. A high-school educated workmate provided him introduction to
French literature
French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than Fr ...
, to the journalism of
Nguyen An Ninh
Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元)is a different word and surname.
By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...
, and, eventually, to Ho Huu Tuong. Once considered "the theoretician of the Vietnamese
ommunist Partycontingent in Moscow," Ho Huu Tuong had become a leading light in the Left-Opposition group ''Thang Muoi'' (October). Opposed to the general line of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and in particular to the nationalist-front policy of Nguyễn Ái Quốc, ''Thang Muoi'' called on activists to "bond" with rank-and-file urban workers and build a "mass-based" party.
In 1936 Ngô Văn parted with comrades willing to continue cooperation with "
Stalinists
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
" around the weekly, ''
La Lutte'' and in the presentation of a common "Workers' List" in Saigon municipal, and Cochinchina council, elections. With Ho Huu Tuong he joined the League of Internationalist Communists for the Construction of the Fourth International (formed by Lu Sanh Hanh in 1935). This produced a weekly ''Le Militant'' (which carried
Lenin's ''Testament'' with its warnings about Stalin, and
Trotsky's polemics against the strategy of
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
) and an agitational bulletin, ''Thay Tho'' (Wage and Salary Workers).
Committed to the notorious ''Maison Centrale'' in Saigon, Ngô Văn was disturbed by the case of Nguyen Trung Nguyet, the longest serving female prisoner. As understood by Van, Nguyet had been implicated (alongside
Tôn Đức Thắng
Tôn Đức Thắng (August 20, 1888 – March 30, 1980) was the second and last president of North Vietnam and the first president of the reunified Vietnam under the leadership of General Secretary Lê Duẩn. The position of president is cerem ...
, who was later to be first president of a unified Vietnam) in the Party's execution of a young comrade. His "crime" was a love affair that compromised "total devotion to the revolution." For Văn it was an illustration of "how readily a party of professional revolutionaries can end up imposing authoritarian control over every aspect of life."
Between arrests, Ngô Văn engaged in support of the major dock and railway strikes of 1937. Judging by the frequency of the warnings in the clandestine Communist press against
Trotskyism
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
the influence of the oppositionists in the labour unrest was "considerable" if not "preponderant." He also produced pamphlets in Vietnamese condemning the
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
and exploring the dynamics of
syndicalism
Syndicalism is a Revolutionary politics, revolutionary current within the Left-wing politics, left-wing of the Labour movement, labor movement that seeks to unionize workers Industrial unionism, according to industry and advance their demands t ...
.
In April 1939 he was back out on the streets, able to celebrate what a later reviewer of his history described as "the only instance prior to 1945 in which the politics of '
permanent revolution
Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and ...
' oriented to worker and peasant opposition to colonialism won out, however ephemerally, against Stalinist 'stage theory' in a public arena." In elections to the colonial
Cochinchina
Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exony ...
Council a "United Workers and Peasants" slate, led by
Ta Thu Thau of the now wholly Trotskyist ''La Lutte'' grouping, triumphed alike over the Communist Party's Democratic Front and the "bourgeois" Constitutionalists. As understood by Van, however, the partisans of the
Fourth International
The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...
succeeded at the ballot box for reasons relatively mundane. The election had been primarily a tax protest, a rejection of the new
French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
defence levy that the Communist Party, in the spirit of Franco-Soviet accord, had felt obliged to support. Governor General Brévié indeed had praise for the defeated the Stalinists who, in contrast to the Trotskyists, "understood that the interests of the
Annamese masses bring them closer to France."
The political opening against the Communist Party, such as it was, closed with the
Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 23, 1939. Moscow ordered a return to direct confrontation with the French. The Party obliged, triggering a
peasant revolt in south.
to whose bloody suppression Ngô Văn, having been exiled to the
Mekong Delta
The Mekong Delta ( vi, Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long, lit=Nine Dragon River Delta or simply vi, Đồng Bằng Sông Mê Kông, lit=Mekong River Delta, label=none), also known as the Western Region ( vi, Miền Tây, links=no) or South-weste ...
, was witness.
The September 1945 Saigon Uprising
Opportunity for open political struggle returned with the formal surrender of the occupying Japanese in August 1945. But events then moved rapidly to demonstrate the Trotskyists' relative isolation in Saigon. Văn and his comrades had little intimacy with developments to the north where, in Hanoi, on September 2, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
. The lack of connection was made "painfully clear" when they found they had "no way of finding out what was happening" following reports that in the
Hongai-Camphai coal region north of
Haiphong
Haiphong ( vi, Hải Phòng, ), or Hải Phòng, is a major industrial city and the third-largest in Vietnam. Hai Phong is also the center of technology, economy, culture, medicine, education, science and trade in the Red River delta.
Haiphong wa ...
30,000 workers (under the indifferent gaze of the defeated Japanese) had elected councils to run mines, public services and transport, and were applying the principle of equal pay. (Months later they received a report that the "Democratic Republic" had—in the name of national unity—crushed the commune).
In Saigon itself, the initiative lay with the Communist-front
Viet-Minh (supported, Ngô Văn records, by the leadership of the Jeunesse d'Avant-Garde/Thanh Nien Tienphong (
Vanguard Youth, a "formidable" movement that had contributed to civil defence and policing under Japanese). Only when, for the declared purpose of disarming the Japanese, the Viet-Minh accommodated the landing and strategic positioning of the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
did rival political forces turn out in force. The brutality of the French restoration triggered a general uprising.
Under the slogan "Land to the Peasants! Factories to the workers!," Ngô Văn and his comrades joined residents in popular councils and in a "Workers' Militia." In the "internationalist spirit of the League," streetcar workers had broken with their union, General Confederation of Labour (renamed by the Viet Minh "Workers for National Salvation"). Refusing the yellow star of the Viet-Minh, they mustered under the unadorned red flag "of their own class emancipation." Like other independent formations, these were soon caught in the crossfire as the Viet-Minh returned to engage the French.
As Ngô Văn's Militia group fell back from the city, they reached out to local peasants: "we explained to them that we were fighting not only to 'drive out the French' but also
rawing the distinction with the Viet-Minhto get rid of the indigenous landlords, to end the forced labour in the rice fields, and to liberate the
coolie
A coolie (also spelled koelie, kuli, khuli, khulie, cooli, cooly, or quli) is a term for a low-wage labourer, typically of South Asian or East Asian descent.
The word ''coolie'' was first popularized in the 16th century by European traders acros ...
s." But for a timely rescue, Ngô Văn, captured on reconnaissance, would likely have been executed by Viet-Minh alongside a surveyor (and ''La Lutte'' supporter) condemned for having helped peasants divide expropriated land.
"Harassed by the
Sûreté
(; , but usually translated as afety" or "security)"Security" in French is ''sécurité''. The ''sûreté'' was originally called ''Brigade de Sûreté'' ("Surety Brigade"). is, in many French-speaking countries or regions, the organizational ...
in the city and denied refuge in a countryside dominated by the two terrors, the French and the Viet-Minh," and suffering from tuberculosis, in the spring of 1948 Ngô Văn took the decision to board a merchant ship bound for
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
.
"New radical perspectives" from exile
In France, Ngô Văn found "new allies in the factories and elsewhere, among French people, colonised people, and refugees from the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939--
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
and Poumistas
eterans_of_the_POUM,_The_Workers'_Party_of_Marxist_Unification.html" ;"title="POUM.html" ;"title="eterans of the POUM">eterans of the POUM, The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification">POUM.html" ;"title="eterans of the POUM">eterans of the POUM, The Workers' Party of Marxist Unificationwho had gone through a parallel experience to ours. In Vietnam, as in Spain, we had been engaged in a simultaneous battle on two fronts: against a reactionary power and against a Stalinist party struggling for power." To these "encounters" Ngô Văn credits "new radical perspectives." These "permanently distanced" him from "Bolshevism-Leninism-Trotskyism." With his fellow exile Nguyễn Văn Nâm he was persuaded that once in power "so-called 'workers' parties'" form "the nucleus of a new ruling class and bring about nothing more than a new system of exploitation." Visiting
Tito's Yugoslavia in 1950, his scepticism was again confirmed. The
Yugoslav League of Communists denied him permission to visit their "re-education camps".
Ngô Văn's first political home in France was the ''Union Ouvrière Internationale''
nternational Workers's Association Having split with the Trotskyist ''Parti Communist Internationale'' over their "defence of the USSR" as a "degenerated workers’ state," the UOI supported Văn in taking issue with his exile community. "Despite the assassination of almost all their comrades in Vietnam by Ho Chi Minh's hired thugs," the Vietnamese Trotskyists had adopted the slogan "Defend the government of Ho Chi Minh against the attacks of imperialism"
[Văn (2010), p. 199]
In "''Prolétaires et paysans, retournez vos fusils!''"
orkers and Peasants, Turn Your Guns in the Other Direction! an opinion piece appearing under the name Dong Vu in the Trotskyist paper ''Tieng Tho'' (Workers' Voice) (October 30, 1951), Ngô Văn argued that if Ho Chi Minh won out over the French-puppet
Bảo Đại
Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...
government, workers and peasants would simply have changed masters. Those with guns in their hands should fight for their own emancipation, following the example of the Russian workers, peasants and soldiers who formed
soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in th ...
in 1917, or the
German worker's and soldiers' councils of 1918–1919.
In 1952 Ngô Văn and his partner Sophie Moen joined a less formal group around the "marxologist"
Maximilien Rubel
Maximilien Rubel (10 October 1905, in Chernivtsi – 28 February 1996, in Paris) was a famous Marxist historian and council communist.
Rubel was born in western Ukraine and was educated in law and philosophy in Vienna and Chernivtsi National Un ...
. Rubel inspired a re-reading of Marx as a "theoretician of anarchism". He also introduced Văn to other of Marx's contemporaries, such as
Soren Kierkegaard Soren may refer to:
*Søren, a given name of Scandinavian origin, also spelled ''Sören''
*Suren (disambiguation), a Persian name also rendered as Soren
*3864 Søren, main belt asteroid
*Sōren, also known as ''Chongryon'' and ''Zai-Nihon Chōsenji ...
and
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
, who had espoused "new sets of values, new reasons for living, new norms for acting, a new ethic." Văn recalled that Nietzsche had strongly influenced
Nguyen An Ninh
Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元)is a different word and surname.
By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...
, the radical journalist and publicist whose celebrity had first awakened his own political consciousness in the late 1920s (and who, in a brief encounter in the ''Maison Centrale',' ''had shared with Văn
Céline
Céline, sometimes spelled Celine, is a French female first name of Latin origin, coming from ''Caelīna'', the feminine form of the Roman cognomen ''Caelīnus'', meaning "heavenly". 's "explosive" ''Voyage au bout de la nuit''
Journey_to_the_End_of_the_Night">nowiki/>
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In_1958_Ngô_Văn's_study_and_discussion_circle—which_later_adopted_the_name_Council_communism.html" "title="Journey_to_the_End_of_the_Night.html" ;"title="Journey_to_the_End_of_the_Night.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Journey to the End of the Night">nowiki/>Journey to the End of the Night">Journey_to_the_End_of_the_Night.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Journey to the End of the Night">nowiki/>Journey to the End of the Night.
In 1958 Ngô Văn's study and discussion circle—which later adopted the name Council communism">Council Communist
Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany a ...
Group—began to cooperate closely with the Henri Simon in the ICO (''Informations et correspondances ouvrières''). The project sought to bring together workers in different companies who "no longer had any confidence in the traditional working-class organisations." A distinct nucleus, ''Regroupement Interenterprises'', was set up, and Văn was one of those involved. The meetings organised were small, usually between 10 and 20, but they slowly began to grow in the run-up to 1968.
Paris, May 1968
In a wave of such labour actions across France, in May 1968 Ngô Văn joined in the occupation of his workplace, the Jeumont-Schneider factory in electrical engineering plant in Paris. From the outset he noted that CGT (General Confederation of Labour (France), Confédération Générale du Travail) union officials (who formed the factory's
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
cell) sought to keep the workers isolated within the factory. They turned away students and other curious visitors. When the officials insisted that the red flag workers had mounted on the gate be paired with the tricolour, Van took it as a signal that he would, again, be witness to a sacrifice of class interests to national party-political ambition. It was a concern he believed was borne out by the unions' acceptance of relatively minor concessions in the national
Grenelle Agreements
The Grenelle Agreements (french: Accords de Grenelle) or Grenelle Reports were negotiated 25 and 26 May, during the crisis of May 1968 in France by the representative of the Pompidou government, the trade unions
A trade union (labor union ...
.
Văn acknowledges, however, that in his factory the discussion of more radical demands was desultory at best.
Worker self-management
Workers' self-management, also referred to as labor management and organizational self-management, is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a def ...
was mentioned but his colleagues "thought themselves incapable of carrying out such a task effectively." The nature of the modern economy was such that democratic management presented "a worldwide problem," not something they believed "could not be carried out within an individual factory, or even within a single country." In general "the workers had little to say."
Writing and Reflections
Ngô Văn retired in 1978. He devoted his remaining years to researching and relaying the history of popular struggle in Vietnam, reflecting upon his own experience, and memorialising his fallen friends and comrades. He also took time to study at the
École des Hautes Etudes, earning a doctorate in the history of religions.
He covered the years of his own engagement both in a substantial history, ''Việt Nam 1920-1945, révolution et contre-révolution sous la domination coloniale''
ietnam 1920–1945, Revolution and Counterrevolution under Colonial Domination(1996), and in a personal memoir, ''Au pays de la cloche fêlée : Tribulations d'un cochinchinois à l'époque coloniale''
n the Land of the Cracked Bell: Tribulations of a south Vietnamese in the Colonial Era(2000). Together with notes for a second autobiographical volume, this is published in English as ''In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary'' (2010).
''Le joueur de flute et l'oncle Ho - Vietnam 1945-2005''
he Flute Player and Uncle Ho: Vietnam 1945–2005(2005) covers the decades since his exile. It is the story of the Communist Party's consolidation of power in "the long war" ("The victory of the 'heroic little people'—what victory?") and, with reference to strikes and other signs of revolt, of the opening of the new economy to foreign capital.
Ngô Văn's last completed work, written in 2004 when he was 91 years old, was an introduction to the history of peasant revolts in China, with special emphasis on their
Taoist
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...
origins and utopian and libertarian inspirations. With Hélène Fleury he also brought out a collection of Vietnamese folk tales for children.
In 1997 for the first time since 1948, Ngô Văn was able to visit his homeland. But for all the evidence he would have witnessed of a preceding half century of social and economic change, the now
''Socialist'' Republic of Vietnam remained for Ngô Văn, first and foremost, a society in which producers "still do not enjoy collective ownership of the means of production, nor
ave
''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...
time for reflection, nor the possibility of making their own decisions, nor means of expression." Asked why he so "stubbornly" persisted in bearing witness to past history, Văn replied "Because the world hasn't changed."
Family
In his published work, Ngô Văn said very little about his family. His mentions being visited in police detention in June 1940 by his "partner, with a toddler in her arms". This unidentified woman and her child did not accompany him into exile. He records his distress in 1956 at being hospitalised for "tubercular pleurisy" just months after he suceeded in bringing over from Saigon his twelve year old son Da. He describes the child as having white hairs on his head, the legacy of a "terrifying night he had spent during the previous year (1955), bullets whistling over his head as he crouched under the bed during a battle
n his straw-hut neigborhoodbetween the
Bình Xuyên pirates and
Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of ...
's mercenaries".
Hélène Fleury, who accompanied Văn to Vietnam in 1997, records her friend as having had two other children (not, it seems, including the toddler from 1940): Do (born 1932) who, as one of the "
boat people
Vietnamese boat people ( vi, Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its h ...
", made it to France in the late 1970s, and a daughter Oanh (born 1935) who he met for the fist time in more than fifty years on that 1997 visit.
[Translators' Notes, Văn (2010), p. 232.]
Published works
* 1937--''Vụ án Moscow, nhà xuất bản Chống Trào Lưu'', Saigon, (pamphlet in Vietnamese denouncing the Moscow Trials)
* 1976--''Divination, magie et politique dans la Chine ancienne''
ivination, magic and politics in ancient China(Paris, PUF, 1976)
* 1995--''Revolutionaries They Could Not Break'' (London, Index Books)
* 1996--''Viêt-nam 1920-1945, révolution et contre-révolution sous la domination coloniale'' (Paris, L’insomniaque; Nautilus, 2000)
* 1997--''Une amitié, une lutte'', 1954–1996. (Paris, L’insomniaque) (An account of Van's political work, and friendship, with Maximilien Rubel)
* 2000--''Việt Nam 1920-1945, Cách mạng và phản cách mạng thời đô hộ thực dân''(Paris, L’insomniaque) (Vietnamese edition of ''Viêt-nam 1920-1945'')
* 2000--''Au Pays de la cloche fêlée, tribulations d’un Cochinchinoisà l’époque coloniale'',
n the country of the cracked bell: the trials of a Cochinchinese in the colonial age(Paris, L’insomniaque). (Van's autobiography, covering the period up to 1945)
* 2001--''Contes d'autrefois du Viêt-nam/Chuyện đời xưa xứ Việt'',
ietnamese Tales from Bygone Dayswith Hélène Fleury, (Paris) (Vietnamese folk tales for children in a bilingual French-Vietnamese edition)
* 2004--''Utopie antique et guerre des paysans en Chine'',
ncient utopias and peasant war in China(Paris, Chat qui Pêche)
* 2005--''Le Joueur de flûte et Hô chi Minh, Viêt-nam 1945-2005'',
ietnam 1945-2000: the flute player and Uncle Ho(Paris-Méditerranée).
* 2005--''Au Pays d’Héloïse'' (Paris, L’insomniaque)
* 2005--''In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary'' (Oakland, AK Press) (Translation of ''Au pays de la cloche'' with Ngo Van's notes for a second autobiographical volume).
See also
*
La Lutte
*
Tạ Thu Thâu
Tạ Thu Thâu (1906–1945) in the 1930s was the principal representative of Trotskyism in Vietnam and, in colonial Cochinchina, of left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh). He joined to Left Oppo ...
*
Nguyen An Ninh
Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元)is a different word and surname.
By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...
*
Phan Văn Hùm Phan Văn Hùm (9 April 1902 – 1946) was a Vietnamese journalist, philosopher and revolutionary in French colonial Cochinchina who, from 1930, participated in the Trotskyist left opposition to the Communist Party of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh).
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Trotskyism in Vietnam
Trotskyism in Vietnam ( vi, Trăng-câu Đệ-tứ Đảng) was represented by those who, in left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh), identified with the call by Leon Trotsky to re-found "vanguard ...
References
External links
Ken Knabb's Introduction to Ngô Văn ''In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary''Manfred McDowell, extended review of Ngô Văn ''In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary''The final chapter of Ngô Văn ''Việt Nam 1920-1945, révolution et contre-révolution'' in English translationBooks by Ngo VanA short biography of Vietnamese libertarian socialist and metal worker Ngo Van XuyetNgo Van's impressions of May 1968
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ngo, Van Xuyet
1913 births
2005 deaths
Marxist writers
Vietnamese revolutionaries
Vietnamese Trotskyists
Vietnamese writers
Libertarian socialists
Vietnamese democracy activists
French-language literature of Vietnam