User:Donald Trung/Vietnamese August Revolution (September 2022 expansion)

This page serves as "the editing history" of the English Wikipedia page "August Revolution" and is preserved for attribution.

August Revolution
When the Japanese surrendered on 15 August, the Việt Minh immediately launched the insurrection that they had already prepared for a long time. 'People's Revolutionary Committees' across the countryside took over administrative positions, often acting on their own initiative, and in the cities, the Japanese stood by as the Vietnamese took control. On the morning of 19 August, the Việt Minh took control of Hanoi, seizing northern Vietnam in the next few days.

Tran Trong Kim's government had resigned earlier, on 13 August, yielding to Hồ Chí Minh's new Vietnamese Provisional Government. Later that month, Emperor Bảo Đại formally abdicated and turned over the imperial seal to the Việt Minh government. He was then offered a position as supreme advisor. On 2 September, Hồ Chí Minh declared independence for the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam, headquartered in Hanoi.

However, while the people celebrated their victory in the north, the Việt Minh faced various problems in the south, which was politically more diverse than the north. The Việt Minh had been unable to establish the same degree of control in the south as in the north. There were serious divisions in the independence movement in the south, where the Việt Minh, Cao Đài, Hòa Hảo, other nationalist groups and the Trotskyists competed for control.

On 25 August, the communists established a Provisional Executive Committee with Tran Van Giau at its head. The committee took over public administration in Saigon but followed Allied orders for the Japanese to maintain law and order until Allied troops arrived.

Lê Trọng Nghĩa, who took part in the August Revolution in Hanoi and later became the head of the Intelligence Department for both the Communist Party and the military, said about the events in Hanoi: 'The government did not hand over power or collapse, the Việt Minh made the decision to destroy what was there, the entire administration. We were bold. Approaching the Japanese, harnessing the energy around the popularity of the Democratic Party of Vietnam to influence the outcome of the people's uprising, and using our covert operatives within the puppet apparatus to collapse things within'.

Preparation and supply
Archimedes Patti stated that when he arrived in Kunming in March 1945, the French colonials were either unwilling or unable to assist him in establishing an American intelligence network in Indochina and so he turned to "the only source [available]," the Viet Minh. Patti was introduced to Ho Chi Minh by Colonel Austin Glass, the OSS expert in Indochina. Patti met Ho Chi Minh on the French Indochinese-Chinese border in late April 1945. Patti agreed to provide intelligence to the allies if he could have "a line of communication with the allies."

On 16 July 1945, the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Special Operations Deer Team and 3 French special operatives arrived by parachute at the Việt Minh headquarters at Kim Lung. The remaining six members of the OSS Deer Team would arrive by parachute on 29 July. When the Deer Team arrived they were greeted by Võ Nguyên Giáp who apologised for their leader's absence as Ho Chi Minh was weak and dying suffering from "malaria, dengue fever, dysentery, or a combination of all three.", as OSS medic Paul Hoagland was a trained nurse he supplied Ho Chi Minh with the right medicine to let him recover from his illness. Though there is controversy if the Americans saved Ho Chi Minh from "an early grave" or if he would have recovered without their help.

In the first six days of August 1945 the OSS Deer Team build a training camp for the Việt Minh, this training camp consisted of 3 barracks with one being for the Việt Minh recruits, another one being for the OSS members, and another serving as a warehouse, infirmary, and radio centre. Chairman Ho referred to these barracks as the Bo Doi Viet-My, the Vietnamese-American Force. The Việt Minh supplied the OSS with 110 recruits of which the Deer Team would choose the 40 most promising to give special training instructing them how to use American weapons and drilling them like American soldiers from 9 to 15 August. More weapons and ammunition were dropped near them during the third OSS aid drop on 10 August. Võ Nguyên Giáp wanted to make sure that his newly equipped forces would be witnessed by as many people as possible showcasing them to people who would cheer them on and welcome them as liberators. By the time of the Japanese surrender OSS Major Alison Kent Thomas had already given most of his weapons to the Việt Minh's Vietnamese-American Force, which became an issue when he received a message from Kunming, China that he was to return all OSS equipment to an American base stationed in China. However, by the time Thomas received this message both the Việt Minh's Vietnamese-American Force and the OSS Deer Team were on the road to Hanoi to proclaim a revolution.

While in early August 1945 the end of the war still seemed far away, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it would become clear that the Japanese were on the losing side and as American troops moved closer to the Japanese Mainland, Ho Chi Minh's sense of urgency would grow causing him to ramp up preparations in order to proclaim a swift and decisive revolution following the official surrender of Japan in order to take the country before the French could return. In order to retain his leadership he knew that he had to demonstrate both legitimacy and strength and quickly called for a meeting between the Việt Minh and other Vietnamese nationalist political figures, on 13 August many delegates met at Tan Trao where they established the National Insurrection Committee, its first order was to commence a general military insurrection on 14 August.

On 8 August 1945, Hanoi's political situation became more and more heated due to the upheavals of the Second World War. The Japanese army suffered one defeat after another on allied fronts. During that time, the Việt Minh leadership instructed to conduct secret contacts with Khâm sai Phan Kế Toại, who represented the Court of the Nguyễn dynasty in the North, asking him to side with the Việt Minh. Toại was puzzled by the Việt Minh's invitation to join their government.

According to later accounts the American government claimed that it only gave "a few revolvers" to the Việt Minh but according to author David Halberstam this is contradicted by "a considerable of evidence" suggesting that the Allied forces supplied the Việt Minh with 5,000 weapons during the summer of 1945. According to both Communist and French accounts the Việt Minh's military numbered only around 5,000 at the time of the fall of Japan. As 5,000 weapons would have been a highly significant amount American intelligence scholar Bob Bergin questioned Halberstam's claims as he provided no evidence, meanwhile Bergin estimated that perhaps only around 200 or so weapons had been given to the Việt Minh by the Americans during this period. Bergin noted that Ho Chi Minh learned from his own experiences that the Americans wouldn't supply him with a sufficient amount of weapons if he asked for them and that an insufficient supply of weapons had always plagued the Việt Minh. The weapons supplied to them were supposed to have been used by the Vietnamese-American Force if the war would have continued.

During an event known as "Gold Week", Ho Chi Minh asked the Vietnamese people to contribute their gold to the Việt Minh to be able to purchase more armaments from both the Imperial Japanese forces and Chiang's National Revolutionary Army, within only a short amount of time people "from all walks of life" had contributed 370 kilograms of gold and 20,000,000 piastres for the purchasing of weaponry. Historian Bernard B. Fall later commented on the success of "Gold Week" saying that the Vietnam People's Army was able to purchase 3,000 rifles, 50 automatic rifles, 600 submachine guns, and 100 mortars of American manufacture. According to Fall the Vietnam People's Army also secured substantial French and Japanese stocks of firearms and other military equipment (31,000 rifles, 700 automatic weapons, 36 artillery pieces, and 18 tanks) which were supposed to have been secured by the Chinese after the surrender of Japan, but were unable to.

Initial stages of the revolution
On 16 August the first National People's Congress was formed and it consisted of delegates from all the different political parties that formed the Việt Minh, the first National People's Congress included various mass organisations and representatives of different ethnic groups and religious groups. During the meeting the attendees were greeted by disciplined soldiers well-armed in uniform and at building photographs of Claire Lee Chennault were prominently displayed next to portraits of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and the Chinese Communist Mao Zedong indicating that the Việt Minh enjoyed "secret" support from the Allies. During the meeting Ho Chi Minh emphasised that for the revolution to be successful they would rapidly need to take power in order to be able to provide strong opposition when the Allied forces will occupy French Indochina. 3 days later the Việt Minh would successfully take Hanoi and most of northern Vietnam.

When OSS Indochina operations chief Archimedes Patti arrived in Hanoi on 21 August with an OSS team, and accompanied by a five-man French military team to handle prisoner-of-war (POW) matters, he was shocked to see the situation in Hanoi. Patti soon found himself having to calm down the French and was worried that the demonstrations in Hanoi could soon turn into bloody situations. Patti radioed the American military base in Kunming telling them to persuade the OSS Deer Team and the 3 OSS Special Operations teams in northern Tonkin to return to Kunming as soon as possible and that no further help should be given to the Việt Minh. Archimedes Patti hoped to quickly distance the Americans from both the French and the Việt Minh to avoid getting involved in the internal struggles going on Vietnam. However, this was already too late as the Deer Team at this point was already fighting alongside the Việt Minh against the Japanese.

From 20 to 25 August the Việt Minh engaged in the battle of Thái Nguyên against the Japanese. Earlier on 16 August 1945 the OSS Deer Team had joined the Việt Minh despite Major Thomas having received clear orders to "sit tight until further orders" from the OSS. While the reasons for the battle of Thái Nguyên remain unclear, Bob Bergin speculates that the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) leaders wanted to test the combat capabilities of the Vietnamese-American Joint Force and that they had hoped for an easy victory that would both psychologically and politically reenforce the legitimacy and strength of the Việt Minh. According to American historian Douglas Pike, the battle of Thái Nguyên was the event that officially "marked the liberation of Vietnam". During the battle itself only sporadic fighting broke out, as the Japanese were situated in an old French fort and the Americans were all, except for Major Thomas, away from the battle in an outside safehouse. On 25 August the final battle at Thái Nguyên ended with the Japanese surrendering agreeing to stay "confined to their post". This marked the liberation of the city of Thái Nguyên from Japanese rule, after the battle ended Thái Nguyên erupted in celebrations and held an independence parade. From this point onwards the Americans completely disassociated themselves from engaging in the August Revolution.

Hanoi uprising


In a telegram sent to Tokyo, the Japanese ambassador to Indochina in Hanoi confirmed: "On the afternoon of the 19th, the Ambassador was 'invited' to attend a meeting with the leaders of Etsumei (Việt Minh) and participated in discussions with them, considered as official authorities."

Events in Huế
According to Nguyễn Kỳ Nam on 12 August 1945 a Japanese general entered the city of Huế and asked to meet with the Minister of Justice Trịnh Đình Thảo saying that there were urgent and confidential matters. At that time, the journalist Nguyễn Kỳ Nam was present because he was General Manager of the Ministry of Justice office in Huế of the Trần Trọng Kim cabinet. He informed the minister that he had come from Saigon, Cochinchina to ask for an audience with the Emperor to ask for permission to deal with the Việt Minh's uprising.

On 17 August 1945, the government of Trần Trọng Kim held a national rally, but because of the support of the people, the rally turned into a march in support of the Việt Minh forces. As the imperial government of Vietnam saw the success of the August Revolution minister Trần Đình Nam suggested to Trần Trọng Kim to dissolve the government in favour of the Việt Minh in solidarity around the strongest and most enthusiastic organisation noting that this would disallow foreigners to play "divide and conquer" in Vietnam. Among his suggestions was not just to dissolve the cabinet but to abolish the Nguyễn dynasty altogether and ask for the Emperor to abdicate, in response Trần Trọng Kim got furious at Trần Đình Nam for daring to suggest that the Emperor should relinquish his position causing a heated debate between the two men.

On 23 August, the Việt Minh-led uprising in Huế won. The people directing the uprising were Nguyễn Chí Thanh and Tố Hữu. The uprising was contributed by the Frontline Youth (Thanh niên tiền tuyến, also known as the Thanh niên Phan Anh), which was originally the policing department of Trần Trọng Kim's government but when the revolution broke out, it turned to support the Việt Minh.

Events in Cochinchina
In Saigon-Cholon, the important symbolic act of the transfer of power was Field Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi's pledge on 22 August to Trần Văn Giàu and Phạm Ngọc Thạch – two senior representatives of the Việt Minh – that the Japanese would not intervene if the Việt Minh seized power. Terauchi also handed over his personal sword (Wakizashi) and personal gun to Việt Minh representatives as a symbolic act.

Abdication of the Bảo Đại Emperor
The telegram sent by Un comité de patriotes représentant tous les partis et toutes les couches de la population set an ultimatum of 12 hours for Bảo Đại to abdicate, otherwise they couldn't guarantee that he or his family would survive the August Revolution. Bảo Đại claimed that he had attempted to contact the American President Harry S. Truman, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, King George VI, and General Charles de Gaulle for help but that none of them answered. A young tutor of Crown Prince Nguyễn Phúc Bảo Long begged for Bảo Đại to take shelter in the Imperial Tomb but he refused. Bảo Đại later received a second telegram from Hanoi asking for his abdication.

It is not known who convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, as it might have been Huỳnh Thúc Kháng or Phạm Khắc Hòe. The latter drew a comparison with this situation and the fate of King Louis XVI. A French military force entitled "Lambda" consisting of 6 men led by the French captain Castelnat parachuted 28 kilometers from Huế in order to try to prevent Emperor Bảo Đại from abdicating. However, they were captured by the Việt Minh as soon as their parachutes hit the ground.

The abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại was officially announced on 25 August 1945. The imperial edict ending the Nguyễn dynasty was composed by Emperor Bảo Đại with the help of Prince Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Cẩn on the night of 22 August 1945 at the Kiến Trung Palace within the Citadel of Huế. The next morning, when the representatives of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Trần Huy Liệu and Cù Huy Cận came to the palace to receive the documents of resignation, Emperor Bảo Đại at first gave the declaration to Trần Huy Liệu, but Liệu then convinced the Emperor to hold a formal ceremony announcing his abdication.

Together with his edict declaring his abdication, Emperor Bảo Đại also promulgated an edict which was directed at the imperial family of the Nguyễn dynasty, reminding them of his attachment to the dân vi qúi philosophy and of his vow that he would rather be only a citizen of an independent country than the puppet ruler of an enslaved country. He called on the members of the imperial family to support the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and that they should also work to preserve Vietnam’s independence. Both of these edicts made it clear that Emperor Bảo Đại's will to step aside on behalf of the new government in Hanoi. The edicts also contained the notion that he was unambiguously transmitting his mandate voluntarily rather than under any form of coercion.

As a part of his official abdication, Emperor Bảo Đại personally gave his regalia to representatives of the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in ceremony. In this ceremony he handed over the Hoàng Đế chi bảo (皇帝之寶) seal weighing around 10 kilograms and the jade-encrusted silver sword (An dân bảo kiếm, known as the "Sword of the State") to the Communist government. The passing of the ceremonial seal and sword had been seen as symbolically "passing the Mandate of Heaven over to the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam".

The August Revolution was proclaimed to be successful, on 25 August 1945, President Hồ Chí Minh together with the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Trung ương Đảng) and the National Committee for the Liberation of the People (Ủy ban Dân tộc giải phóng) returned to Hanoi. The abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại further symbolised the end of the military government and the beginning of a civilian government for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

It is said that during the ceremony the Bảo Đại Emperor sais that he was rather "be a citizen of a free country than the Emperor of an enslaved country". At the end of the abdication ceremony it is reported that the crowd loudly exclaimed "Việt Nam độc lập muôn năm!", "Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa muôn năm!" (Ten thousand years to an independent Vietnam! Ten-thousand years to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam!). On the afternoon of 27 August and the morning of 28 August 1945, Phạm Khắc Hòe had an inventory of assets in the imperial Citadel to hand over to the Revolutionary Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The most valuable items were the historical pearl and ivory objects of the Nguyễn Emperors. These were stored in a large tunnel behind the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Phạm Khắc Hòe would organise the handover ceremony that was to be held on 30 August 1945.

Following his abdication former Emperor Bảo Đại accepted President Hồ Chí Minh's offer to become an advisor to the new Vietnamese government in Hanoi. Hồ Chí Minh gave him the title of Conseiller suprême du gouvernement (Supreme-councilor of the government), but Bảo Đại understood that this position was one that could have easily resulted in his death if he ever stepped out of line. President Hồ Chí Minh hoped that he could make Bảo Đại into the "Souphanouvong of Vietnam" but failed.

Events in Saigon following the declaration of independence
On 2 September year 1945, thousands of people from many provinces and in Saigon flocked to Norodom square (near the Notre Dame Cathedral) waiting to hear President Ho Chi Minh read Declaration of Independence in Hanoi. But due to the bad weather and the level of technology at that time, Ho Chi Minh's proclamations to the nation did not reach the people attending the rally. Trần Văn Giàu, Chairman of the Administrative Committee of Nam Bộ, stepped on the stage to call on the people to unite around Ho Chi Minh's government, raise vigilance against the colonisers in case they return to invade Vietnam again. The rally soon turned into an anti-French protest, in response the French started shooting at the protestors killing 47 and injuring more.

British declare martial law
When the British entered southern French Indochina after the surrender of Japan they became politically involved and imposed martial law in order to keep anti-colonial forces under control.

Hanoi uprising (expansion)
On the afternoon of 15 August 1945, when it was announced that Japan officially surrendered to the Allies, Tran Tu Binh and Nguyen Khang, two representatives of the Bắc Kỳ Party Committee assigned to stay in Hanoi, quickly discussed and went to Hanoi. decided to establish the Hanoi Revolutionary Military Committee (Uỷ ban Quân sự Cách mạng Hà Nội) of the Việt Minh Front - chaired by Mr. Khang and four members: Tran Quang Huy, Nguyen Duy Than, Le Trong Nghia and Nguyen Quyet. advisor Tran Dinh Long - to urgently prepare armed uprisings to seize power. The Uprising Committee will directly organize rallies, marches, and show force to confuse the government of Tran Trong Kim before going to seize power. At the same time, increase mobilization so that Kham Sai Mr. Phan Ke Toai quickly decided to resign and hand over the government to the Việt Minh, thereby limiting incidents that caused bloodshed for the revolutionary forces.

The Great Purge
As a direct result of the August Revolution the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) began purging its ideological opponents. Among the targeted were not just anti-Communists but also Trotskyists. After the 1940's Trotskyism would forever disappear from Vietnam due to the actions taken by the Stalinist Indochinese Communist Party directly after the August Revolution.

Three more bloody decades of fighting lay ahead which would end in defeat for two major world players. From March to July 1946, the Viet Minh systematically set about, as Ho's lieutenant Lê Duẩn said, "(to) wipe out the reactionaries." Known as the "Great Purge", the goal was to eliminate everyone thought dangerous to the Communist Party of Vietnam and tens of thousands of nationalists, Catholics and others were massacred from 1946 to 1948.

Between May and December, Ho Chi Minh spent four months in France attempting to negotiate full independence and unity for Vietnam, but failed to obtain any guarantee from the French. After a series of violent clashes with Viet Minh, French forces bombarded Haiphong harbor, captured Haiphong and attempted to expel the Viet Minh from Hanoi, a task that took two months.

19 December 1946 is often cited as the date for the beginning of the First Indochina War, as on that day 30,000 Viet Minh under Giap initiated their first large-scale attack on the French in the Battle of Hanoi. The War in Vietnam of 1946–54, had begun.

Japanese war crimes in Vietnam
thumb|left|Victims of the famine in Vietnam (1945).

Looting and plundering
On 17 August 1970, the North Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Truong Chinh reprinted an article in Vietnamese in Nhan Dan, published in Hanoi titled "Policy of the Japanese Pirates Towards Our People" which was a reprint of his original article written in August 1945 in No 3 of the "Communist Magazine" (Tap Chi Cong San) with the same title, describing Japanese atrocities like looting, slaughter and rape against the people of north Vietnam in 1945. He denounced the Japanese claims to have liberated Vietnam from France with the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere announced by Tojo and mentioned how the Japanese looted shrines, temples, eggs, vegetables, straw, rice, chickens, hogs and cattle for their horses and soldiers and built military stations and airstrips after stealing land and taking boats, vehicles, homes and destroying cotton fields and vegetable fields for peanut and jute cultivation in Annam and Tonkin. Japan replaced the French government on 9 March 1945 and started openly looting the Vietnamese even more in addition to taking French owned properties and stole watches, pencils, bicycles, money and clothing in Bac Giang and Bac Can.

The Japanese spread false rumours that the French were massacring Vietnamese at the time to distract the Vietnamese from Japanese atrocities. The Japanese created groups to counter the Viet Minh Communists like Vietnam Pao ve doan (Vietnam protection group) and Vietnam Ai quoc doan (Vietnam Patriotic Group to force Vietnamese into coolie labour, take taxes and rice and arrested ant-Japanese Vietnamese with their puppet government run by Tran Trong Kim. The Viet Minh rejected the Japanese demands to cease fighting and support Japan, so the Japanese implemented the Three Alls policy (San Kuang) against the Vietnamese, pillaging, burning, killing, looting, and raping Vietnamese women. The Vietnamese called the Japanese "dwarfed monsters" (Wa (Japan)) and the Japanese committed these atrocities in Thai Nguyen province at Dinh Hoa, Vo Nhai and Hung Son. The Japanese attacked the Vietnamese while masquerading as Viet Minh and used terror and deception. The Japanese created the puppet Vietnam Phuc quoc quan (Vietnam restoration army). and tried to disrupt the Viet Minh's redistribution and confiscation of property of pro-Japanese Vietnamese traitors by disguising themselves as Viet Minh and then attacking people who took letters from them and organizing anti-French rallies and Trung sisters celebrations. Japanese soldiers tried to infiltrate Viet Minh bases with Viet Minh flags and brown trousers during their fighting. The Japanese murdered, plundered and raped Vietnamese and beheaded Vietnamese who stole bread and corn, while they were starving according to their martial law. They shot a Vietnamese pharmacy student to death outside of his own house when he was coming home from guard duty at a hospital after midnight in Hanoi and also shot a defendant for a political case in the same city. In Thai Nguyen province, Vo Nhai, a Vietnamese boat builder was thrown in a river and had his stomach stabbed by the Japanese under suspicion of helping Viet Minh guerillas. The Japanese slit the abdomen and hung the Dai Tu mayor upside down in Thai Nguyen as well. The Japanese also beat thousands of people in Hanoi for not cooperating. Japanese officers ordered their soldiers to behead and burn Vietnamese. Some claimed that Taiwanese and Manchurian soldiers in the Japanese army were participating in the atrocities against the Vietnamese but Truong Chinh said that even if it was true Taiwanese and Manchurian soldiers were committing the rapes and killing, their Japanese officers were the ones giving the orders and participating along with them. Truong Chinh said that the Japanese wanted to plunder Asians for their own market and take it from the United States and Great Britain and were imperialists with no intent on liberating Vietnam.

Rape, comfort women, and other sexual violence
The Japanese forced Vietnamese women to become comfort women and with Burmese, Indonesia, Thai and Filipino women they made up a notable portion of Asian comfort women in general. Japanese use of Malaysian and Vietnamese women as comfort women was corroborated by testimonies. There were comfort women stations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea and South Korea. A Korean comfort woman named Kim Ch'un-hui stayed behind in Vietnam and died there when she was 44 in 1963, owning a dairy farm, cafe, US cash, and diamonds worth 200,000 US dollars. 1 million Vietnamese were starved to death during World War II according to Thomas U. Berger. 2 billion US dollars worth (1945 values) of damage, 148 million dollars of them due to destruction of industrial plants was incurred by Vietnam. 90% of heavy vehicles and motorcycles, cars and 16 tons of junks as well as railways, port installations were destroyed as well as one third of bridges. Some Japanese soldiers married Vietnamese women like Nguyen Thi Xuan and Nguyen Thi Thu and fathered multiple children with the Vietnamese women who remained behind in Vietnam while the Japanese soldiers themselves returned to Japan in 1955. The official Vietnamese historical narrative view them as children of rape and prostitution.

Famine
In the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 1 to 2 million Vietnamese starved to death in the Red river delta of northern Vietnam due to the Japanese, as the Japanese seized Vietnamese rice and didn't pay. In Phat Diem the Vietnamese farmer Di Ho was one of the few survivors who saw the Japanese steal grain. The North Vietnamese government accused both France and Japan of the famine and said 1-2 million Vietnamese died. Võ An Ninh took photographs of dead and dying Vietnamese during the great famine.

On 25 March 2000, the Vietnamese journalist Trần Khuê wrote an article "Dân chủ: Vấn đề của dân tộc và thời đại" where he harshly criticized ethnographers and historians in Ho Chin Minh city's Institute of Social Sciences like Dr. Đinh Văn Liên and Professor Mạc Đường who tried to whitewash Japan's atrocities against the Vietnamese by portraying Japan's aid to the South Vietnamese regime against North Vietnam as humanitarian aid, portraying the Vietnam war against America as a civil war. changing the death toll of 2 million Vietnamese dead at the hands of the Japanese famine to 1 million and calling the Japanese invasion as a presence and calling Japanese fascists at simply Japanese at the Vietnam-Japan international conference. He accused them of changing history in exchange for only a few tens of thousands of dollars, and the Presidium of international Vietnamese studies in Hanoi did not include any Vietnamese women. The Vietnamese professor Văn Tạo and Japanese professor Furuta Moto both conducted a study in the field on the Japanese induced famine of 1945 admitting that Japan killed 2 million Vietnamese by starvation.

Japanese war crimes against Vietnamese people in Laos
Large numbers of French officials in Laos were then imprisoned or executed by the Japanese. The staunchly pro-French King Sisavang Vong was also imprisoned and forced by the Japanese, and at much urging from Prince Phetsarath, into declaring the French protectorate over his kingdom over while accepting the nation into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere on 8 April 1945.

The Japanese tried to play the Vietnamese against the French and play the Laotians against the Vietnamese by inciting Lao people to kill the Vietnamese as Lao murdered 7 Vietnamese officials in Luang Prabang and Lao youths were recruited to an anti-Vietnam organization by the Japanese when they took over Luang Prabang.

Allied occupation and Việt Minh consolidation
Just as Hồ Chí Minh and the Việt Minh had begun to extend DRV control to all of Vietnam, the attention of his new government was shifting from internal matters to the arrival of Allied troops. At the Potsdam conference in July 1945, the Allies divided Indochina into two zones at the 16th parallel, attaching the southern zone to the Southeast Asia command and leaving the northern part to Chiang Kai-shek's China to accept the surrender of the Japanese.

The occupation period proved to be a great challenge for Ho Chi Minh and the ICP. When British forces from the Southeast Asia Command arrived in Saigon on 13 September, they brought along a detachment of French troops. The acquiescence of British occupation forces in the south allowed the French to move rapidly to reassert control over the south of the country, where its economic interests were strongest, DRV authority was weakest and colonial forces were the most deeply entrenched.

However, in the north, the occupation period became the critical opportunity for the Việt Minh to consolidate and triumph over domestic rivals. On 20 August, Chiang Kai-shek gave orders for the Chinese First Front Army, under the command of General Lu Han of Yunnan, to cross into Vietnam to accept the surrender of the Japanese 38th Army. The Chinese, unlike the British in the south, refused to prepare the way for an immediate French return; to maintain order in Hanoi and keep the city functioning, they allowed the Vietnamese Provisional Government to remain in control. With that breathing space, Hồ Chí Minh was able to maneuver against and then to eliminate his domestic rivals, thus strengthening Việt Minh control over northern Vietnamese politics.

Entry of Chinese troops into northern Vietnam
General Lu Han's 200,000 Chinese soldiers occupied north Vietnam starting August 1945. 90,000 arrived by October, the 62nd army came on 26 September to Nam Dinh and Haiphong. Lang Son and Cao Bang were occupied by the Guangxi 62nd army corps and the red river region and Lai Cai were occupied by a column from Yunnan. Vietnamese VNQDD fighters accompanied the Chinese soldiers. Ho Chi Minh ordered his DRV administration to set quotas for rice to give to the Chinese soldiers and rice was sold in Chinese currency in the red River delta. Lu Han occupied the French governor general's palace after ejecting the French staff under Sainteny. Chinese soldiers occupied northern Indochina north of the 16th parallel while the British under the South-East Asia Command of Lord Mountbatten occupied the south. Chiang Kai-shek deliberately withheld his crack and well trained soldiers from occupying Vietnam since he was going to use them to fight the Communists inside China and instead sent undisciplined warlord troops from Yunnan under Lu Han to occupy north Vietnam and Hanoi north of the 16th parallel to disarm and get Japanese troops to surrender.

Ho Chi Minh confiscated gold taels, jewelry and coins in September 1945 during "Gold Week" to give to Chinese forces occupying northern Vietnam. Rice to Cochinchina by the French in October 1945 were divided by Ho Chi Minh, and the northern Vietnamese only received one third while the Chinese soldiers were given two thirds by Ho Chi Minh. For 15 days elections were postponed by Ho Chi Minh in response to a demand by Chinese general Chen Xiuhe on 18 December 1945 so that the Chinese could get the Dong Minh Hoi and VNQDD to prepare. The Chinese left only in April–June 1946. Ho Chi Minh gave golden smoking paraphernalia and a golden opium pipe to the Chinese general Lu Han after gold week and purchased weapons with what was left of the proceeds.

Starving Vietnamese were dying throughout northern Vietnam in 1945 due to the Japanese seizure of their crops by the time the Chinese came to disarm the Japanese and Vietnamese corpses were all throughout the streets of Hanoi and had to be cleaned up by students. While Chiang Kai-shek, Xiao Wen (Hsiao Wen) and the Kuomintang central government of China was disinterested in occupying Vietnam beyond the allotted time period and involving itself in the war between the Viet Minh and the French, the Yunnan warlord Lu Han held the opposite view and wanted to occupy Vietnam to prevent the French returning and establish a Chinese trusteeship of Vietnam under the principles of the Atlantic Charter with the aim of eventually preparing Vietnam for independence and blocking the French from returning.

Ho Chi Minh sent a cable on 17 October 1945 to American President Harry S. Truman calling on him, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Premier Stalin and Premier Attlee to go to the United Nations against France and demand France not be allowed to return to occupy Vietnam, accusing France of having sold out and cheated the Allies by surrendering Indochina to Japan and that France had no right to return. Ho Chi Minh dumped the blame on Dong Minh Hoi and VNQDD for signing the agreement with France for returning its soldiers to Vietnam after he had to do it himself. Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh tried to organize welcome parades for Chinese soldiers in northern Vietnam and covered for instances of bad behavior by warlord soldiers, trying to reassure Vietnamese that the warlord troops of Lu Han were only there temporarily and that China supported Vietnam's independence. Viet Minh newspapers said that the same ancestors (huyết thống) and culture were shared by Vietnamese and Chinese and that the Chinese heroically fought Japan and changed in the 1911 revolution and was attacked by western imperialists so it was "not the same as feudal China". Ho Chi Minh forbade his soldiers like Trần Huy Liệu in Phú Thọ from attacking Chinese soldiers and Ho Chi Minh even surrendered Vietnamese who attacked Chinese soldiers to be executed as punishment in the Ro-Nha incident in Kiến An district on 6 March 1946 after Hồ Đức Thành and Đào Văn Biểu, special commissioners sent from Hanoi by Ho's DRV examined the case. Ho Chi Minh appeased and granted numerous concessions to the Chinese soldiers to avoid the possibility of them clashing with the Viet Minh, with him ordering Vietnamese not to carry out anything against Chinese soldiers and pledging his life on his promise, hoping the Chinese would disarm the Japanese soldiers and finish their mission as fast as possible.

Chinese communist guerilla leader Chu Chia-pi came into northern Vietnam multiple times in 1945 and 1948 and helped the Viet Minh fight against the French from Yunnan. Other Chinese Communists also did the same.

French war crimes after the revolution
Vietnamese civilians were robbed, raped and killed by French soldiers in Saigon when they came back in August 1945. Vietnamese women were also raped in north Vietnam by the French like in Bảo Hà, Bảo Yên District, Lào Cai province and Phu Lu, which caused 400 Vietnamese who were trained by the French to defect on 20 June 1948. Buddhist statues were looted and Vietnamese were robbed, raped and tortured by the French after the French crushed the Viet Minh in northern Vietnam in 1947–1948 forcing the Viet Minh to flee into Yunnan, China for sanctuary and aid from the Chinese Communists. A French reporter was told "We know what war always is, We understand your soldiers taking our animals, our jewelry, our Buddhas; it is normal. We are resigned to their raping our wives and our daughters; war has always been like that. But we object to being treated in the same way, not only our sons, but ourselves, old men and dignitaries that we are." by Vietnamese village notables. Vietnamese rape victims became "half insane".

6 March Franco-Vietnamese Accord
As southern Vietnam's disunited resistance forces struggled to push back French advances, Hồ Chí Minh and the DRV started to negotiate with France in the hope of preserving national independence and to avoid war. In March 1946, the two sides reached an accord.

Instead of obtaining French recognition of Vietnamese "independence," Hồ Chí Minh agreed to his government being weakly identified as a "free state" within the Indochinese Federation under the French Union. For their part, the French agreed to two provisions that they had no intention of honouring. French troops north of the 16th parallel were limited to 15,000 men for a period of five years, and a referendum was to be held on the issue of unifying the Vietnamese regions. The agreement entangled the French and Vietnamese in joint military operations and fruitless negotiations for several months.

However, the status of southern Vietnam was the sticking point. The March accord, which called for a referendum to determine whether the south would rejoin the rest of the country or remain a separate French territory, left the fate of former Cochin China in flux.

First Indochina War
The preliminary accord was but the first step toward an intended overall and lasting agreement. Southern Vietnam's future political status had to be negotiated. From June to September 1946, Hồ Chí Minh met with French representatives in Vietnam and France to discuss that and other issues. Unfortunately, almost immediately after the signing of the 6 March accord, relations began to deteriorate. Negotiations at Dalat and then at Fontainebleau broke down over the issue of the fate of southern Vietnam. As talks failed to bring results, both sides began to prepare for a military solution. Provocations by both French and DRV troops led to the outbreak of full-scale guerrilla war on 19 December 1946. Nearly one year after the August Revolution, the DRV and France were fighting the First Indochina War.

The Japanese coup d'état had, in the words of diplomat Jean Sainteny, "wrecked a colonial enterprise that had been in existence for 80 years."

French losses were heavy. 15,000 French soldiers in total were held prisoner by the Japanese. Nearly 4,200 were killed with many executed after surrendering - about half of these were European or French metropolitan troops. Practically all French civil and military leaders as well as plantation owners were made prisoners, including Decoux. They were confined either in specific districts of big cities or in camps. Those who were suspected of armed resistance were jailed in the Kempeitai prison in bamboo cages and were tortured and cruelly interrogated. The locally recruited tirailleurs and gardes indochinois who had made up the majority of the French military and police forces, effectively ceased to exist. About a thousand were killed in the fighting or executed after surrender. Some joined pro-Japanese militias or Vietnamese nationalist guerrillas. Deprived of their French cadres, many dispersed to their villages of origin. Over three thousand reached Chinese territory as part of the retreating French columns.

What was left of the French forces that had escaped the Japanese attempted to join the resistance groups where they had more latitude for action in Laos. The Japanese there had less control over this part of the territory and with Lao guerilla groups managed to gain control of several rural areas. Elsewhere the resistance failed to materialize as the Vietnamese refused to help the French. They also lacked precise orders and communications from the provisional government as well as the practical means to mount any large-scale operations.

In northern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh started their own guerilla campaign with the help of the American OSS who trained and supplied them with arms and funds. The famine in Vietnam had caused resentment among the population both towards the French and the Japanese (although US bombing played a part). They established their bases in the countryside without meeting much resistance from the Japanese who were mostly present in the cities. Viet Minh numbers increased especially after they ransacked between 75 and 100 warehouses, dispersed the rice and refused to pay taxes. In July OSS with the Viet Minh—some of whom were remnants of Sabattiers division—went over the border to conduct operations. Their actions were limited to a few attacks against Japanese military posts. Most of these were unsuccessful however as the Viet Minh lacked the military force to launch any kind of attack against the Japanese.

Japanese soldiers in French Indochina after 1945
After 1945 a number of Japanese soldiers would stay behind in French Indochina, several of them took Vietnamese war brides and would sire children with them (Hāfu). Many of these leftover Japanese soldiers would work with Hồ Chí Minh and the Indochinese Communist Party after the war to fight against French colonialism.

In 1954, the Vietnamese government had ordered the Japanese soldiers to return home. They were “encouraged” to leave their families behind effectively abandoning their war children in Vietnam.

Việt Minh takeover
In Hanoi on 15–20 April 1945 the Tonkin Revolutionary Military Conference of the Việt Minh issued a resolution that was reprinted on pages 1–4 on 25 August 1970 in the Nhan Dan journal. It called for a general uprising, resistance and guerilla warfare against the Japanese by establishing 7 war zones across Vietnam named after past heroes of Vietnam, calling for propaganda to explain to the people that their only way forward was violent resistance against the Japanese and exposing the Vietnamese puppet government that served them. The conference also called for training propagandists and having women spread military propaganda and target Japanese soldiers with Chinese language leaflets and Japanese language propaganda. The Việt Minh's Vietnamese Liberation Army published the "Resistance against Japan" (Khang Nhat) newspaper. They also called for the creation of a group called "Chinese and Vietnamese Allied against Japan" by sending leaflets to recruit overseas Chinese in Vietnam to their cause. The resolution called on forcing French in Vietnam to recognize Vietnamese independence and for the DeGaulle France (Allied French) to recognize their independent and cooperate with them against Japan. Truong Chinh wrote another article on 12 September 1945, No 16 in Liberation Banner (Co Giai Phong) which was also reprinted on 16 August 1970 in Nhan Dan. He commemorated the August revolution against the Japanese, after the Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945 then the Việt Minh started attacking and slaughtering Japanese and disarming them in a nationwide rebellion on 19 August 1945. The Japanese had already disarmed the French and the Japanese themselves lost morale so the Việt Minh managed to seize control after attacking the Japanese. Việt Minh had begun fighting in 1944, when the French were attacked on Dinh Ca in October 1944 and in Cao Bang and Bac Can French were attacked by Viet Cong in November 1944 and the French and Japanese fought each other on 9 March 1945, so in Tonkin the Viet Cong began disarming French soldiers and attacking the Japanese. In Quang Ngai, Ba To, Yen Bai and Nghia Lo political prisoners escaped Japanese were attacked st din Son La by Meo (Hmong) tribesmen and in Hoa Binh and Lang Son by Muong tribesmen. Việt Minh took control of 6 provinces in Tonkin after 9 March 1945 within 2 weeks. The Việt Minh led a brutal campaign against the Japanese where many died from 9 March 1945 to 19 August 1945. Truong Chinh ended the article with a quote from Sun Yatsen, "The revolution is not yet won, All comrades must continue their al out efforts!"

On 26 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter calling for struggle against the French mentioning they were returning after they sold out the Vietnamese to the Japanese twice in 4 years.

Japan surrendered when Emperor Hirohito announced the capitulation on 16 August. Soon after Japanese garrisons officially handed control to Bảo Đại in the North and the United Party in the South. This, however, allowed nationalist groups to take over public buildings in most of the major cities. The Việt Minh were thus presented with a power vacuum, and on the 19th the August Revolution commenced. On 25 August, Bảo Đại was forced to abdicate in favour of Ho and the Việt Minh - they took control of Hanoi and most of French Indochina. The Japanese did not oppose the Việt Minh's takeover as they were reluctant to let the French retake control of their colony. Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam's independence on 2 September 1945.

Allied takeover
Charles de Gaulle in Paris criticized the United States, United Kingdom and China for not helping the French in Indochina during the coup. De Gaulle however affirmed that France would regain control of Indochina.

French Indochina had been left in chaos by the Japanese occupation. On 11 September British and Indian troops of the 20th Indian Division under Major General Douglas Gracey arrived at Saigon as part of Operation Masterdom. After the Japanese surrender all French prisoners had been gathered on the outskirts of Saigon and Hanoi and the sentries disappeared altogether on 18 September. The six months spent in captivity cost an additional 1,500 lives. By 22 September 1945, all prisoners were liberated by Gracey's men and were then armed and dispatched in combat units towards Saigon to conquer it from the Vietminh. They were later joined by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (which had been established to fight the Japanese), having arrived a few weeks later.

Around the same time General Lu Han's 200,000 Chinese National Revolutionary troops occupied Indochina north of the 16th parallel. 90,000 arrived by October, the 62nd army came on 26 September to Nam Dinh and Haiphong. Lang Son and Cao Bang were occupied by the Guangxi 62nd army corps and the Red River region and Lai Cai were occupied by a column from Yunnan. Lu Han occupied the French governor general's palace after ejecting the French staff under Sainteny. Ho Chi Minh sent a cable on 17 October 1945 to American President Harry S. Truman calling on him, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Premier Stalin and Premier Attlee to go to the United Nations against France and demand France not be allowed to return to occupy Vietnam, accusing France of having sold out and cheated the Allies by surrendering Indochina to Japan and that France had no right to return.

French Permanent Military Tribunal in Saigon
The French Permanent Military Tribunal in Saigon, also known as Saigon Trials, was a war crimes tribunal which held 39 separate trials against suspected Japanese war criminals between October 1946 and March 1950.

On 9 March 1946, the French Permanent Military Tribunal in Saigon (FPMTS) was set up to investigate conventional war crimes ("Class B") and crimes against humanity ("Class C") committed by the Japanese forces after the 9 March 1945 coup d'état. The FPMTS examined war crimes committed between 9 March 1945 and 15 August 1945. The FPMTS tried a total of 230 Japanese defendants in 39 separate trials, taking place between October 1946 and March 1950. According to Chizuru Namba, 112 of the defendants received prison sentences, 63 were executed, 23 received life imprisonment and 31 were acquitted. Further 228 people were condemned in absentia.

Its scope was limited to war crimes committed against the French population of French Indochina after the Japanese coup d'état in French Indochina. Unlike other war crime tribunals in South East Asia no persecutions were made for war crimes against Indochina's native population. FPMTS served as an instrument of French foreign policy, aiming to highlight France as a victim of Japanese aggression while simultaneously showcasing the ability of the colonial authorities to govern the region.

Shifts in French foreign policy during the Cold War and disruptions caused by the First Indochina War caused the number of convictions to dwindle. As judges opted to discontinue criminal charges against the defendants or commuted their sentences.

Vietnamese-language Wikipedia version

 * https://vi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1ch_m%E1%BA%A1ng_Th%C3%A1ng_T%C3%A1m

Usually recurring sources

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To use














Sources to use

 * https://www.cia.gov/static/a0c34085dfe487b73cc90c8a92bb077d/oss-ho-chi-minh.pdf
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 16:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 16:59, 7 September 2022 (UTC).


 * https://www.historynet.com/how-american-operatives-saved-the-man-who-started-the-vietnam-war/
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 18:50, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 18:50, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * https://duonghoa.thuathienhue.gov.vn/?gd=7&cn=85&tc=1523