Viet Cong extermination of Vietnamese Trotskyists: class issues?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the immediate post-WWII period for Vietnam, the Viet Cong exterminated the Vietnamese Trotskyists within a matter of months. To what extent was this political repression a form of bourgeois nationalism (even if anti-colonial) rearing its ugly head? To what extent was this political repression an expression of peasant hostility towards the proletarian demographic minority becoming the prospective new ruling class in the country?

[Rafiq]

How politically relevant were the Vietnamese Trotskyists and did they appeal to the proletariat?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Well the VC were phenomenal anti-colonial shock troops, but they were clearly useful in imposing a unified political structure on society through some pretty ugly atrocities. How was the oppression of political dissidents (Trots) in the 40s different from the oppression of ethnic minorities (Hmong, Montagnards, etc) which occurred a few decades later by the hands of both the VC and the NVA?

Was it an expression by the peasants of their fear of the urban proletariat, or was it just the conflict within the Bolshevik party shaping the conflicts of other parties around the world?

Also as a technicality, weren't the NVA and Viet Cong both not in existence when the Trotskyists were killed, and that the "Red Army" at the time was the Viet Mihn?

[Hrafn]

I'd point more towards mere rivalry than a class basis.

[RedMaterialist]

In the immediate post-WWII period for Vietnam, the Viet Cong exterminated the Vietnamese Trotskyists within a matter of months. To what extent was this political repression a form of bourgeois nationalism (even if anti-colonial) rearing its ugly head? To what extent was this political repression an expression of peasant hostility towards the proletarian demographic minority becoming the prospective new ruling class in the country?

Did the Vietnamese Trotskyists want to sacrifice national liberation to international socialism? Or possibly it was a Stalin-Trotsky rivalry issue. According to Wikipedia there were several Vietnamese Communist groups which were eliminated by Ho Chi Minh.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How politically relevant were the Vietnamese Trotskyists and did they appeal to the proletariat?

Comrade, I think they did have enough political support among the proletariat to attract the Viet Cong's untimely attention.

[PhoenixAsh]

This was during the 40's and the VC had nothing to do with it. This was done by the Viet Minh.

The Trotskyists under Thau were quite popular and influential at that time and within a year or two they were whiped out.

Here is an article about a book written on the subject:

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backiss/vol5/no4/richardson4.html

[Rafiq]

Comrade, I think they did have enough political support among the proletariat to attract the Viet Cong's untimely attention.

I see. The question was not rhetorical, I do not necessarily doubt this possibility simply by merit of them being Trotskyists.

Were they significantly popular among the proletariat in comparison with any support from the peasantry? If so it is very possible. More information would be required to assess this, however.

[Geiseric]

This is after Uncle Ho started cuddling with the french against the Japanese, so as usual it was only a matter of time until the Stalinists betrayed everybody and were caught looking like idiots when the capitalists took advantage of the liquidation of a large, active section of the revolutionary workers.

[RedMaterialist]

This is after Uncle Ho started cuddling with the french against the Japanese, so as usual it was only a matter of time until the Stalinists betrayed everybody and were caught looking like idiots when the capitalists took advantage of the liquidation of a large, active section of the revolutionary workers.

Ho Chi Minh would have cuddled with anybody against the Japanese. That doesn't make him a Stalinist. Ho Chi Minh was, however, leading his country in a war of national liberation from Western colonial rule. He was necessarily involved in a socialist struggle for the liberation of a single country, which forced him to fight for socialism in one country, i.e., for that reason he was a Stalinist.

[Raquin]

Ho Chi Minh would have cuddled with anybody against the Japanese. That doesn't make him a Stalinist. Ho Chi Minh was, however, leading his country in a war of national liberation from Western colonial rule. He was necessarily involved in a socialist struggle for the liberation of a single country, which forced him to fight for socialism in one country, i.e., for that reason he was a Stalinist.

That doesn't make any sense. Socialism in One Country was a theory advanced in the 1920s and 1930s by the Soviets because the Soviet Union was the only country in the world with a socialist government. After the second World War, there were numerous countries with socialist governments, the notion of someone fighting for "socialism in one country" is laughable in this time period.

[Raquin]

This is after Uncle Ho started cuddling with the french against the Japanese, so as usual it was only a matter of time until the Stalinists betrayed everybody and were caught looking like idiots when the capitalists took advantage of the liquidation of a large, active section of the revolutionary workers.
Seems like the Trots were caught looking like idiots since they got killed off while the so-called Stalinists ultimately won and greatly humiliated all of their enemies.

[RedMaterialist]

That doesn't make any sense. Socialism in One Country was a theory advanced in the 1920s and 1930s by the Soviets because the Soviet Union was the only country in the world with a socialist government. After the second World War, there were numerous countries with socialist governments, the notion of someone fighting for "socialism in one country" is laughable in this time period.

I should have said he was fighting for national liberation through socialism.

Numerous socialist governments? Maybe China. Surely you don't mean the bourgeois welfare states in Europe or Stalinist imposed socialism in Eastern Europe? Fighting for socialism in one country: Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Chile, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. Not only fighting, but bloody, mass slaughter.

Even Israel counts. I think the govt in Israel owns all the land and the major industries; national health care, free education, etc. They even have their own Stalinist open air prison: Gaza.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I see. The question was not rhetorical, I do not necessarily doubt this possibility simply by merit of them being Trotskyists.

Were they significantly popular among the proletariat in comparison with any support from the peasantry? If so it is very possible. More information would be required to assess this, however.

The class dynamics of post-WWII Vietnam may make for an interesting case study into fatal political consequences for agitating in favour of class rule by the proletarian demographic minority (by driving the rural and urban petit-bourgeoisie into the arms of the bourgeoisie).

[Geiseric]

I should have said he was fighting for national liberation through socialism.

Numerous socialist governments? Maybe China. Surely you don't mean the bourgeois welfare states in Europe or Stalinist imposed socialism in Eastern Europe? Fighting for socialism in one country: Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Chile, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. Not only fighting, but bloody, mass slaughter.

Even Israel counts. I think the govt in Israel owns all the land and the major industries; national health care, free education, etc. They even have their own Stalinist open air prison: Gaza.

Nope israel is the opposite. They have a completely corporate economy which, due to racism, benefits jews rather than muslims. Big difference.

[John Nada]

I should have said he was fighting for national liberation through socialism.

Numerous socialist governments? Maybe China. Surely you don't mean the bourgeois welfare states in Europe or Stalinist imposed socialism in Eastern Europe? Fighting for socialism in one country: Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Chile, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. Not only fighting, but bloody, mass slaughter..What should they have done? What do you think "socialism in one country" is? Just curious.