Phan Văn Hùm
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Phan Văn Hùm (9 April 1902 – 1946) was a
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...
journalist, philosopher and revolutionary in French colonial Cochinchina who, from 1930, participated in the
Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
left opposition to the Communist Party of Nguyen Ai Quoc (
Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...
). Phan Văn Hùm first became a public figure when in 1929 his account of imprisonment with Nguyen An Ninh for agrarian agitation was circulated among patriotic youth. As a student in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
In 1930, influenced by
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 the Left Op ...
's
left opposition The Left Opposition () was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed '' de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within th ...
to the
united front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political and/ ...
policies of the
Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
he joined the Trotskyist
Communist League The Communist League ( German: ''Bund der Kommunisten)'' was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and th ...
. After a period of uneasy co-operation with “ Stalinists” on the Saigon paper '' La Lutte'', with Thâu he triumphed over the Communists in the 1939 elections to the Cochinchina Colonial Council on a platform that opposed a policy of defense collaboration with the French. After the surrender of the occupying Japanese in August 1945, Hum participated in the independent Trotskyist resistance to a French restoration. Taken prisoner by the Communist
Viet Minh The Việt Minh (, ) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam ( or , ; ), which was a Communist Party of Vietnam, communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1 ...
, he was executed in early 1946.


Early life

Phan Văn Hùm was born in the village of An Thanh,
French Cochinchina French Cochinchina (sometimes spelled ''Cochin-China''; ; , chữ Hán: ) was a colony of French Indochina from 1862 to 1949, encompassing what is now Southern Vietnam. The French operated a plantation economy whose primary strategic product wa ...
(southern Vietnam). His father was an educated
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
and a small landowner. In the early 1920s he worked as a technician in
Huế Huế (formerly Thừa Thiên Huế province) is the southernmost coastal Municipalities of Vietnam, city in the North Central Coast region, the Central Vietnam, Central of Vietnam, approximately in the center of the country. It borders Quảng ...
where he was a frequent visitor to veteran nationalist and anti-colonial campaigner
Phan Bội Châu Phan Bội Châu (; 26 December 1867 – 29 October 1940), born Phan Văn San, courtesy name Hải Thụ (later changed to Sào Nam), was a pioneer of 20th century Vietnamese nationalism. In 1904, he formed a revolutionary organization called ...
, then under house arrest as the founder of “Vietnamese Restoration League” (''Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội''). In
Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...
Phan Văn Hùm befriended the charismatic publicist Nguyen An Ninh. Together they travelled the countryside, spreading ideas of liberation among the peasants. They were arrested and confined to Saigon's ''Maison Centrale'', the "Colonial Bastille". Banned as a book, his account of their ordeal was serialised in the paper ''Than Chung'' and widely circulated among patriotic youth.


With the Left Opposition in France

In September 1929 he left for France where, from the
Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...
, he obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in philosophy. In Paris he met
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 the Left Op ...
who had clashed with Moscow-aligned Communists from the very outset of his political engagement in Paris. Accusing the French Communist Party of infiltrating his Annamite Independence Party (''A Nam Độc lập Đảng''), Thâu argued that if “the oppressed of the colonies" were to secure their "place in the sun," they would have to "unite against European imperialism--against Red imperialism as well as White." Following a public protest in front of the Élysée Palace over the execution of the leaders of the
Yên Bái mutiny The Yên Bái mutiny () or officially Yên Báy general uprising () was an uprising of Vietnamese soldiers in the Troupes coloniales, French colonial army on 10 February 1930. This took place in collaboration with civilian supporters who were mem ...
on 22 May 1930, Hùm went underground with Hồ Hữu Tường. In July 1930 they formed an Indochinese Group within the Communist League (''Lien Minh Cong San Doan''), the French section of the International
Left Opposition The Left Opposition () was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from 1923 to 1927 headed '' de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. It was formed by Trotsky to mount a struggle against the perceived bureaucratic degeneration within th ...
whose members were systematically expelled by the
Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...
.


''La Lutte'' and the Workers and Peasants Platform

In 1933 Phan Văn Hùm was reunited with Tạ Thu Thâu and Hồ Hữu Tường in Saigon. For three years, until countermanded by central party directives, local cadre of the then
Indochinese Communist Party The Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) was a political party which was transformed from the old Vietnamese Communist Party () in October 1930. This party dissolved itself on 11 November 1945. It is considered the first stage in the history of th ...
cooperated with Hùm and Thâu on the paper '' La Lutte'' (The Struggle)''.'' In the April 1939 Colonial Council elections, Hùm was on a “Workers an Peasants” slate with Thâu that triumphed over both the Communist “Democratic Front" and the bourgeois Constitutionalists on a platform that called for radical labor an agrarian reform and opposed defense collaboration with the French. For having campaigned against war loans and war taxes, they were both sentenced to five years' hard labor and ten-year restricted residence. Hùm spent three years in the Côn Đảo island prison, Poulo Condore (where his old prison comrade Nguyen An Ninh died in 1943), from 1939 to 1942.


Interest in the Hòa Hảo movement

Following his release, and while still under house arrest, Phan Văn Hùm had two works of philosophy published in Hanoi: ''Phat Giao Triet Hoc'' (1942) on the populist interpretation of Buddhist philosophy in the
syncretic Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus ...
Hòa Hảo Hòa Hảo is a Vietnamese new religious movement. It is described either as a Syncretism, syncretistic Vietnamese folk religion, folk religion or as a sect of Buddhism. It was founded in French Cochinchina, Cochinchina in 1939 by Huỳnh Phú S ...
movement; and ''Vuong Duong Minh, Than The Va Hoc Thuyet (''1944) on the 16th century Chinese master
Wang Yangming Wang Shouren (, 26 October 1472 – 9 January 1529), courtesy name Bo'an (), art name Yangmingzi (), usually referred to as Wang Yangming (), was a Chinese statesman, general, and Neo-Confucian philosopher during the Ming dynasty. After Zhu ...
whose
neo-Confucianism Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a moral, ethical, and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768–824) and Li Ao (772–841) i ...
proposed both an innate human understanding of good and evil, and action as the source of knowledge. There are conflicting accounts of Phan Văn Hùm's relationship to the Hòa Hảo "saint" Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1920–1947) whose method of practicing Buddhism "without monks and nuns, temples, and bells” had gained as many as two million adherents in the villages and provincial towns of the south. The Communist
Nguyễn Văn Trân Nguyễn Văn Trân (15 January 1917, Yên Phong, Bắc Ninh, Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcon ...
credited Hum with drafting the social-democratic platform of the Hòa Hảo's political party ''Dan Xa''. Both Hum and Tạ Thu Thâu were interested in meeting with Huỳnh Phú Sổ and in understanding the strength of his movement in the countryside where their own organization was weak. After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, now called the International Communist League (Vietnam) (ICL), or less formally as The Fourth Internationalist Party (''Trăng Câu Đệ Tứ Đảng''), it appeared alongside the Hòa Hảo in demonstrations in Saigon calling for resistance to a return of the French. They did so, however, independently of the United National Front in which the Hòa Hảo and other participants--the Cao Dai, the nationalist VNQDĐ, the Vanguard Youth, the Public Service Workers Union--were grouped. The Fourth Internationalists paraded under their own flags and slogans: Land to the Peasants, Factories to the Workers, and All Power to People's Committees (the popular councils that had formed spontaneously in the city).


Rejection of the Vietminh, and execution

Recognising the relative weakness of their popular base, the new self-proclaimed
Vietminh The Việt Minh (, ) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam ( or , ; ), which was a communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Vi ...
provisional government in Saigon offered positions to leading figures in a number of southern political organizations including to Phan Văn Hùm. Hum refused. In mid September he learned of the Viet Minh's arrest of Tạ Thu Thâu. Under growing pressure from the British-assisted French forces, the situation in the Saigon was deteriorating, disrupting publication of Hùm's newspaper ''Tranh Dau'' (which had reached a print run of 20,000), and forcing the Fourth Internationalists' worker militia, and other fighting units, out of the city. According to his comrade Ngo Van, who in later exile was to be the chief witness and historian of the Trotskyist movement in Vietnam, Phan Văn Hùm survived the massacre of his comrades in October 1945 at the Thị Nghè bridge by French and British troops. Later, in the same month, he was hunted down by the Vietminh security led by Dương Bạch Mai, with whom he had originally collaborated on ''La Lutte'', and, meeting the same fate as Thâu, was executed early in 1946.


Mai Huỳnh Hoa, his wife

Phan Văn Hùm was survived by his second wife, the writer and poet Mai Huỳnh Hoa. Herself a former inmate of the ''Maison Centrale,'' Hoa, like her father who died in prison in 1933, was a member of the Communist Party. She first met Hùm when at a meeting he was addressing she stood up and cried "Down with the Trotskyist Phan Văn Hùm". They were married in 1936. In 1957, she helped prepare a second edition of his book on the works of her grandfather, the anti-colonial writer and poet Nguyễn Đình Chiểu (''Nỗi lòng Đồ Chiểu'' originally published in 1938), for which she wrote a dedication. Mai Huỳnh Hoa died in Ho Chi Minh City in 1987 at the age of 77.


List of Works

Source: * ''Ngoi Tu Kham Lon'' (In the Central Prison), Saigon 1929 * ''May Duong To'' (A Few Poems) * ''Nỗi lòng Đồ Chiểu'' (Do Chieu's Heart), Saigon: Bốn Phương, 1938. Second Edition, Saigon: Tân Việt, 1957. * ''Sa Da Du Tu'' (Journal of a Wanderer: Impressions of Life and Travel in France), published in Than Chung. ''Bien Chung Phap Pho Thong'' (Dialectics Made Easy), Saigon 1939. * Nguyen Phi Hoanh (pseudonym), ''Tolstoy'', Saigon 1939. * ''Phật giáo triết học'' (Buddhist philosophy), Hanoi 1942. * ''Vuong Duong Minh, Than The Va Hoc Thuyet'' (The Life and Teaching of Wang Yangming), Hanoi 1944. * ''Ngồi tù Khám Lớn, lần 2'', (Second prison memoir). Dân tộc, 1957


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 the Left Op ...
* Ngo Van * Nguyen An Ninh * Trotskyism in Vietnam


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phan, Van Hum 1902 births 1946 deaths Executed communists Vietnamese Trotskyists People from Bình Dương province