1. What are the main characteristics of Vietnamese History & Culture?

- Firstly, Vietnam has a long history filled with a lot of wars, especially resistant wars against
foreign invaders. During the Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, Chao To conquered Au Lac in
179BC and then established Nan Yue Kingdom until 111BC when Han Dynasty replaced,
starting 10 centuries of Chinese domination. During this period, there were a lot of Vietnamese
people’s uprisings against Chinese ruler such as uprising 2 sister Trung, Ms Trieu, Phung
Hung, Ly Bi, Trieu Quang Phuc, … Finally, in 938AD, Ngo Quyen defeated Southern Han
troops on Bach Dang River, beginning an independent era of our country. After that, there was
a civil war between 12 warlords until Dinh Bo Linh unified the country. In the Earlier Le
Dynasty, Le Hoan defeated Sung troops from China. After that, our army won against 0.5
million Mongolian – Yuan troops when they attacked our country 3 times during Tran
Dynasty. Later, Le Loi swept out Ming troops, established Later Le Dynasty in 1427-1428.
However, in the next period, Vietnam faced a national division into Northern Court, ruled by
the Mac and Southern Court, ruled by the Le. When Mac collapsed in 1592, civil wars and
peasant wars took place, the most significant one is Trinh – Nguyen War, which finally ended
in the 18th century when 3 Tay Son brothers stood up. In 1788 – 1789, Nguyen Hue defeated
290,000 Tsing troops, only 5,000 survived, starting Tay Son Dynasty. In 1858, Vietnam was
attacked by French colonials. While fighting against the French, our army also had to face
200,000 Tuong Gioi Thach troops from China. From 1846 to 1954, there was Indochina War
which was a resistant war against French imperialism. Soon after we defeated the French, we
immediately faced The Vietnam War – which was a resistant war against American for nation
salvation. The final general offensive and uprising 1975 totally defeated the Neo-colonialism
and unified our country. After seizing independence, Vietnam armies faced Southwest Border
War and fought against 600,000 Chinese troops in 1979. Up until now, we still have to fight
over sea territory against China.
- Secondly, Vietnam has special culture which has acculturation, or cultural exchanges. The
most important exchanges are Sinicization and DE Sinicization - the process whereby non-Han
Chinese societies come under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society and
conversely, the elimination of Chinese influences. Sinicization includes normal exchanges and
compulsory exchanges – which were the result of Chinese assimilation during 1000 years of
Chinese domination. However, Vietnam also went DE Sinicized, which means choosing the
bets to improve. For example, Vietnamese people did not completely use Han scripts but
changing to Nom scripts, which was based on Chinese but included newly invented characters
meant to represent native Vietnamese words... Moreover, we even pronounced in Han –
Vietnamese. Another acculturation is Westernization and DE westernization, which started
from the 16th century until now. Like Sinicization, Westernization also had normal and
compulsory exchanges, including the adoption of the Latin alphabet and the spread of
Catholicism and Protestantism – which soon became a new religion in Vietnam. Meanwhile,
DE westernization was shown through the process of how Vietnamese people build the
structure of university and education system. We learnt to apply Western technology. Art and
music were also affected. Some foreign words that we borrowed from Western languages were
Vietnamized in pronunciation. Marxism was approved and adapted through Ho Chi Minh
ideology. Currently, Vietnam is in the process of DE westernization to build up modern
Vietnamese culture with Vietnamese identity. On the other hand, Vietnamese culture also
acquired Hinduism, for example, My Son Holy Land in the central Vietnam.
- Thirdly, Vietnamese history & culture has 2 cycles of civilization. The 1st one is Red River
civilization, or Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, a civilization is full of cultural achievements.
Van Lang and Au Lac were the 2 first states of Vietnamese people. The reunion of tribes
showed that we already had enough differentiations of classes and enough strength to control
and build up cannel along the Red River. If there had been not Van Lang – Au Lac civilization,
there would be no Vietnam today. This civilization formed and built up the fundamental
foundation of Vietnamese identity of Vietnamese culture. After it collapsed, the country
experienced 10 centuries of Chinese domination. However, with the winning of Ngo Quyen in
938 against Southern Han on Bach Dang River, the 2nd era of Vietnamese civilization started as
Great Viet/ Dai Viet civilization during Ly – Tran – Later Le Dynasty. This civilization created
a lot of new things. Without Dai Viet civilization, there would be no Vietnam today too. Its
collapse in the 16th century resulted in division, civil wars, and peasant wars. After that,
Vietnam was put under colonization, bringing about the impoverishing living standard. After
the Doi Moi Policy in 1986, Vietnamese people hope to return to civilization with the new
establishment of Vietnamese Socialist.
- Finally, another main characteristic is that Vietnamese history & culture has special
development of socio-economic formation. For instant, compared with European world which
went through primitive communist, slave-owning mode of production, federalism and
capitalism, Vietnamese world also started with primitive communist, but then continued with
Asiatic mode of production, federalism, and then semi-feudal colonial society along with
colonial capitalism. European culture had seeds of new society in old society, while remains of
old society still existed in new society, but they only lasted for a short time then stopped
completely. Meanwhile, Vietnamese socio-economic formation did not stop at any time. All
mode of productions continuously existed throughout the history of the country up until 1945.
For example, primitive society was still on some mountainous areas. There were no landlords,
just rich and poor people. In other words, Vietnamese world experienced multi-mode of
production.

2. What were relations between the Red River civilization and the formation of
Vietnamese identity?
- A country’s identity is the most distinguished element in culture, including changeable and
unchangeable values. Vietnamese identity includes 4 characteristics. Firstly, Vietnamese
people have deep community mind. Living as a community, Vietnamese people had strong and
deep nationalism and patriotism. They treasured family values, village values and country
values. Secondly, Vietnamese identity includes flexibility and synthesis. In other words, they
are open-mindedness, Vietnamese people had no conservativeness, dogmatism, xenophobia,
and segregation. Besides, they were known to had tolerance, especially religious tolerance. As
we know, there were no religious wars throughout the entire Vietnamese history. Vietnamese
followed & respected, waiting for a favorable moment to upset. For example, in politics and
military, when the Vietnamese defeated an army, we sent delegation to excuse, organized
diplomatic talk, and established the reasons for the army to withdraw, … Another example in
religion is that the Vietnamese combined religions under Ly – Tran Dynasty. When a
Vietnamese person shouted “Trời Phật ơi” – it included the three religions: Taoism,
Confucianism and Buddhism in just one phrase. Thirdly, there was deep sentimentalism
among the Vietnamese. Relations between people was based on cooperation, no friends mean
no cooperation. They also used family position to call the society, such as addressing older
women as aunts, older men as uncles, etc. Finally, in Vietnamese identity, we paid full respect
to women. We called “cái” (female) for the biggest part such as “Sông Cái” (Big River), “ngón
cái” (thumb), … We also called Bà Điểm, Bà Quẹo, Hai Bà Trưng, … to show respect for
women.
- From the 8th century BC to the 2nd century BC, Van Lang and Au Lac culture together formed
the Red River civilization, along with its identity. There were a lot of relations between the
Red River civilization and the formation of Vietnamese identity.
● Even though it was not a nation yet, just only a strong ethnic group with national
orientation, but it was the primary or starting factor for nationalism later. Rising from the
needs of controlling water from Red River, ancient Viet tribes were needed to unify and make
solidarity to survive. Wars and conflicts between primitive tribes taking place during that
period leaded to the reunion of Viet tribes. Also, archeologists have found many weapons in
ancient tombs, which shows that ancient Viet people believed that they could use in another
world. Unlike ancient communes such as Greek and Latin ones and German commune, Red
River civilization was based on Asiatic commune, which had only public ownership of land
and had no private ownership. This resulted in the social stratification as a community,
forming the deep community mind of Vietnamese identity.
● Also, the cultural exchanges during the Red River civilization formed the flexibility and
synthesis of Vietnamese identity. Its culture was influenced from North China and Southeast
Asia, making a cultural combination and diversity. Red River civilization is a result of
combination and cultural exchanges in history. Vietnamese could not survive without
exchanges.
● At that time, hunting and farming were Viet people’s basic methods to earn their living.
The agricultural culture formed the deep sentimentalism among Vietnamese people, which was
the foundation of the formation of Vietnamese identity.
● On the other hand, with the long domination of Matriarchy in the previous time, the
formation of Vietnamese identity brought about the respect for women.
- All of these things combined together and founded the formation of Vietnamese identity.
Before Chinese domination, Vietnamese had had already independent culture and diversified
civilization.

3. What were the processes of Sinicization and DE Sinicization during over 10

centuries of Chinese domination (Explain why the Vietnamese people could
reserve Vietnamese identity after over 10 centuries of Chinese domination)
- In theory, Sinicization means Chinalization – the process whereby non-Han Chinese societies
come under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society. In the contrast, DE
Sinicization is the elimination of Chinese influences. The combination of these 2 process are
called cultural exchanges – a rule for cultural development. In culturology and socio-cultural
anthropology, this is a special category.
- Sinicization and DE Sinicization were resulted from the Chinese domination in Vietnam over
10 centuries. During and after this period, Vietnamese people could still reserve Vietnamese
identity because they knew how to practice special acculturation. When Chao To conquered
Au Lac in 179BC and Han Dynasty ruled the country in 111BC, Vietnam was divided into
administrative sub units, named as Chiao Chih (Giao Chỉ) and Chiu Chen (Cửu Chân), which
belonged to Chiao Chou (Giao Châu). Later, Vietnam was called An Nam Colonial district
While ruling Vietnam, Chinese enacted some policies. They carried out bloody suppression in
politics and military by hegemonism and ethnic cleansing. They used Vietnamese people to
rule Vietnamese people in the 2 controlled Chinese districts and autonomies of Vietnam in
villages – which could not be controlled by the Chinese but the Vietnamese. They kept the old
system that Vietnamese people used in the previous time – having Military functionary and
Literature under the chief. Moreover, the Chinese rulers conducted economic exploitation –
which was part of their “feudalist colonialism”. They also enacted immigration policy, which
means bringing the Chinese to Vietnam to live, including prisoners, peasants, soldiers,
intellectuals, officials, landlords, merchants, …) More seriously, the Chinese did the cultural
assimilation over Vietnam. Vietnamese people had to learn Chinese writings, wear Chinese
clothes, … Until that time, Vietnam had only 2 groups surviving: Au Viet & Lac Viet, the
remaining 98% had been assimilated by the Chinese. In other words, Vietnamese people knew
how to desinicize.
- Even though Vietnamese could not keep the race identity (material), we could keep the
cultural identity (mental). For the Sinicization, Vietnamese people experienced both normal
exchanges and compulsory exchanges. Normal exchanges, which means positive sides, were
shown as how Vietnamese learnt Chinese, but Chinese also learnt Vietnamese. In history, no
exchange means no development. Therefore, everyone was free to choose, everyone has the
equal opportunity to learn together. However, there were also compulsory exchanges, which
are known as assimilation - Chinese authority wanted to assimilate Vietnamese into Chinese.
Likewise, by DE Sinicization, Vietnamese people not only experienced normal exchanges by
accepting, receiving, improving and adapting selectively, but also struggling against
assimilation through compulsory exchanges.
- The processes of Sinicization and DE Sinicization took place mainly on language and
religion – the most 2 important elements of an identity or a culture. Regarding language,
Chinese wanted to destroy Vietnamese spoken language. However, Vietnamese soon practiced
the DE Sinicization by selecting the best to improve. We accepted and learnt Han script but
kept Vietnamese spoken language in the villages. We pronounced Han script in Vietnamese
way, which was called Han – Viet pronunciation. We created our own national words. For
example, we did not call the moon as “nguyệt” like the original Chinese but “trăng”.
Vietnamese people did not completely use Han scripts but changing to Nom scripts, which was
based on Chinese but included newly invented characters meant to represent native
Vietnamese words. This is also a way to enrich Vietnamese vocabulary.
- In the aspect of religion, the process of Sinicization and DeSinicization was shown as a
combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. We accepted and selected
advantages to follow. For example, Confucianism affected most in education and politics.
Vietnamese people respected intellectuals or learning. We gave prominence to social bonds
such as “Tam cương” (the relationship between emperor and servant, father and son, husband
and wife) and “Ngũ thường”/Five Virtues (humanism, etiquette, loyalty, intelligence and
sincerity). However, Vietnamese people did not follow the idea of not respecting manual labor
and women in Confucianism, since we considered “first my wife, second my heaven” (“nhất
vợ nhì trời”) in daily cultural dialogues. Vietnamese people mainly followed Buddhism, parts
of it came from Chinese as Phật, the remaining came directly from India as Bụt. We created
new and unique combination of 3 religions, known as “Tam giáo đồng nguyên”. We leant
Chinese orders and centralized monarchy court.
- The result of Sinicization and DE Sinicization has some significances to Vietnamese culture.
It was the best way to keep Vietnamese identity, the best way to develop, to be diversified
more and more, the best way to enrich Vietnamese culture. This is the foundation for the 2nd
era of Vietnamese civilization – Dai Viet/Great Viet civilization.

4. What were the formation and development of Đại Việt civilization under Lý –
Trần Dynasty?
- Đại Việt civilization was formed under 3 historical needs: political, cultural, and socio-
economic.

● Under political conditions, after more than 10 centuries of Chinese domination,

Vietnamese people need to protect and defend sovereignty and independence. Therefore,
reunification and solidarity are the most important conditions to prevent losing independence
again when facing the danger of invasion. Moreover, we also had to struggle against
decentralization, which was the autonomy of villages and centralization, which was the
reunion of villages and tribes. In 968, After Đinh Bộ Lĩnh stopped the anarchy of 12 warlords
and unified the country, we needed the strongest state, so we could not use Văn Lang – Âu Lạc
structure. As a result, we learnt the Chinese model in politics: we needed a centralized
monarchy, in which the emperor was the son of the heaven with absolute power to decide
everything. Besides, we needed the strongest army to fight against enemies. For example, Lê
Hoàn defeated Sung army and established Earlier Lê Dynasty in 981. A perfect centralized
monarchy was the most important condition for Lý – Trần civilization.
● Under cultural conditions, Văn Lang – Âu Lạc origins continued to be kept. Community
minds and filial piety (chữ “Hiếu”) existed along with results of exchanges – the culture
forming after 10 centuries. Until Lý – Trần Dynasty, it was the combination of origins and
creation that formed the cultural needs for Đại Việt civilization.
● Under socio-economic conditions, we had a wet rice agriculture, which was a system of
canals and dams to control water. The Asiatic mode of production in our country before meant
there was no private ownership, only public ownership existed. After 10 centuries of Chinese
domination, Chinese landlords had private ownership, but the number was very small, and
Vietnamese landlords were even fewer. Therefore, at the 10th century, public ownership
accounted for ¾ of the area. Under Lý – Trần Dynasty, we inherited, continued, and developed
capacity for wet rice agriculture, which included labor, productivity, … till the 16th century
when Đại Việt civilization collapsed and caused famine and death of starvation.
- The development of Đại Việt civilization was the top achievement of culture in terms of both
material and intellectual (or mental or spiritual) aspects.

● Under material content, we built 10,000 kilometers of canals in North VN, which still
exists until now. Thăng Long imperial citadel was 40 km2 in total. In architecture, we built One
Pillar Pagoda, Phổ Minh Temple, Quy Điền Tower, … In handicrafts, we had Bát Tràng
village which was specialized in pottery, and many other villages with specialization in
ceramics, textile, bronze casting techniques, … We also developed on-water transportation.
This was the top development of wet rice agriculture with high capacity of production.
● Meanwhile, the intellectual content was the most important. The tolerance of religions
in our country meant there was a combination of 3 religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, and
Taoism. 3 within 1, 1 within 3. Vietnamese mind, spirit, sentimental feelings were influenced
by Buddhism while Vietnamese education, politics and social relations were based on
Confucianism, with 3 social bonds: Emperor – servant, father – son, husband – wife and 5
virtues: benevolence, righteousness, priority, intelligence, and sincerity. Meanwhile, Taoism
affected Vietnamese attitude to nature, in which people enjoyed living together with the nature.
We selected the best ones from 3 religions to form Vietnamese identity. Lý Anh Tông
established the school of 3 religions and taught simultaneously. Monks of 3 religions could be
officials. Moreover, these 3 religions also had influences in poetry and literature. Buddhism
was applied in many areas, such as military arts. In addition, we had a deep, special, and
unique nationalism, including a special art of political art and military art to ensure national
solidarity. Political art featured some special relationships: general – army such as Trần Hưng
Đạo, emperor – officials formed a royal family, and a good relation between majority and
minority under political marriages between princesses and chiefs of minorities. Military art
consisted of diplomatic measures, segregation and use of guerilla and regular armies to defeat
Mongolians. For the law, we had writing court and criminal court. In education, we established
the 1st school named Quốc Tử Giám.
In conclusion, if there had been no Đại Việt civilization, there would be no Vietnam today.
Later generations continue to inherit a lot from Đại Việt civilization.
5. What were the socio – economic, political transformation during the period of
15th – 18th century?
First, we look at historical background. In 1400, Hồ Dynasty was established until 1408 when
Ming army invaded our country. In 1428, Lê Lợi defeated them and established Later Lê
Dynasty. In 1527 Mạc Đăng Dung usurped the throne of Lê emperors. Shortly after this, in
1533 Đại Việt was divided into 2 parts: the Northern Court ruled by Mạc and Southern Court
of Lê emperors controlled by Nguyễn Kim. In 1558, Nguyễn Hoàng went to the south, which
he wanted to build up the southern area. In 1592, Southern Court defeated Northern Court,
continuing the division of the country with Trịnh lords in the North and Nguyễn lords in the
South. From 1627 to 1672 there were civil wars with GianhRiver was the boundary between 2
regions. Starting from 1771 in Quy Nhơn, Nguyễn Nhạc, NguyễnHụê and Nguyễn Lữ began
the uprising. Then in 1785, Tây Sơn army had Rạch Gầm – Xoài Mút victory, defeated 50,000
Siamese troops. After defeating Nguyễn, in 1786, Tây Sơn army passed GianhRiver and
defeated Trịnh. In November 1788, 290.000 Tsing troops headed by Soun Che Y came directly
to Thăng Long citadel. In December 1788, Nguyễn Huệ proclaimed himself as the new
emperor and made a counterattack. Only 5000 Tsing troops were alive. New dynasty was
established, which meant new feudalization started until 1792 when Quang Trung died.
However, in the south, Nguyễn Ánh recovered force and made a counter – attack the north
until 1802 when Tây Sơn collapsed while Nguyễn Ánh took the throne and established Nguyễn
Dynasty. In late 18th century, the territory was as the present day by clearing the land.
The political changes during the period of 15th – 18th century had both negative side and
negative side. For the negative side, the most severe one was the division of the country into
northern part and southern part for 3 centuries. According to the historical law, reunion makes
a country stronger and stronger; in contrast, division makes it weaker and weaker. In addition,
there were civil wars among feudalist groups such as Mạc - Nguyễn Kim, Trịnh - Nguyễn, Tây
Sơn - Nguyễn Ánh. Meanwhile, the positive side features peasant movements during 16th – 18th
century. The strongest development of peasant movements was peasant wars when 3 Tây Sơn
brothers stood up to defeated Trịnh - Nguyễn and Tsing army. The reason for peasant wars was
the contradiction notables, landlords, which were the collapse of political regimes, and
peasants. The significances of peasant wars included 3 ideas. First, they were dynamics for
changing society. Second, Tây Sơn won feudalism while before, peasants were limited.
However, peasants did not know how historical rule to form a new society. After the winning,
Tây Sơn built up and established Tây Sơn Court - Tây Sơn feudalism, but peasants could not
represent mode of production. Third, we recognized and overcame historical limitation. Tây
Sơn movements fought for both class interest and national interest. Not only did they stopped
the deeper reasons for national division by destroying Trịnh - Nguyễn but they defeated
foreign invaders (Siamese and Tsing army)
The socio – economic changes included land ownerships or land tenure. From 11th to 15th
century, public ownership dominated 2/3 of the land, while private land only accounted for
1/3. Public land included state-owning land and communal land; private landowners included
landlords and small peasants. However, in 18th century, there were changes in direction of
decreasing public land and increasing private land. 2/3 of public land reduced to only 1/3. The
increase of small peasants and landlords was positive. However, the peasant movements could
not answer the question: “What were the historical needs?” No class understood “a cry for
land”, which was also “land to the tiller”. As a result, history failed into crisis.
In addition, there were new factors in society. Seeds of capitalism appeared, which was higher
development of “commodity economics”, and seeds of wage labor. The establishment of
handicrafts factories was the sign of differentiation of classes. However, these elements were
very small, and they developed very slowly or even did not develop. The reason for this was
the conservativeness of multi-mode production and feudalism. Poor peasants did not dare to
leave the villages or avoid feudalism. They continued to stay in the villages because of
communal land, as for every 6 years, communal land was redistributed and given to peasants,
unlike European case when peasants left to form factories. This caused a stagnation of the
seeds of capitalism for a long time.
Socially, the structure of classes also experienced some changes. In the 18th century, the
number of notables decreased significantly while landlords increased very fast, along with
tenants and small peasants. However, there was a deep contradiction between landlords and
peasants. Generally, no development of industry and progressive classes, which were capitalist
and workers resulted in no strata, no revolution in the society and led to comprehensive crisis.
6. Why did the Nguyễn Court lose the independence of Vietnam in the late 19th
century?
First, we look at the historical background during this period. On August 31st, 1858, French
first came to Vietnam in Đà Nẵng. The failure in Đà Nẵng battle made French turn to attack
Gia Định. By 1862, through Nhâm Tuất agreement, French controlled 3 eastern provinces:
Biên Hòa, Gia Định, Định Tường, along with 3 western provinces: Vĩnh Long, An Giang, and
Hà Tiên by 1867. Southern Vietnam was put under control of French Colonial. In 1873, French
attacked Hà Nội citadel for the 1st time, Nguyễn Tri Phương died. In 1874, by the 2nd
agreement, Nguyễn Court officially recognized the domination of French in Vietnam. In 1882,
French attacked Hà Nội secondly, Hoàng Diệu committed suicide. In August 1883, Nguyễn
Court signed Harmand Treaty with the French before signing Patenotre treaty in 1884 as a
complete surrender agreement.
The reasons for losing the independence of Vietnam contain two aspects: objective and
subjective. The objective reasons also meant international conditions. In the 19th century, the
world-wide capitalism changed for the 2nd time. In the 1st phase, capitalism of free competition
changed into imperialism, which was monopolized capitalism, and France was among
imperialists. As a result, colonialism became the objective trend of capitalism’s development.
Because domestic natural resources became smaller and smaller, and domestic labor,
manpower, man force became limited, the need to expand and find out new natural resources,
new market, new sources of cheap labor were necessary. Imperialists wanted to get more
“higher monopoly interest” in colonies, which was the deep reason of colonizing the world –
colonization. Therefore, imperialist colonized a lot of countries, especially Asia, Latin
America, and Africa. This was the objective process of colonization. Most of the countries
were colonized by Western countries; however, some could avoid colonization. Thailand and
Japan were sample cases. It depended on the talented leadership of the country. In Japan, the
authority practiced the exact policies through Meiji reform, which was like capitalist
revolution. They wanted to modernize the country, which meant industrialism and capitalism.
The reform covered many fields, including improving foreign, capitalizing Japanese economy,
infrastructure for capitalism. Education was prioritized by focusing on modern subjects such as
Mathematics and Physics. In Vietnam, Nguyễn Trường Tộ’s proposal featured similar
suggestions like Japan, but Tự Đức emperor did not accept, and he did not allow to apply into
economy. As a result, Vietnam fell significantly. Meanwhile, Thailand belonged to the buffer
area of Britian and France, so it was put under balanced influence of these 2 countries.
Thailand emperors practiced open-door policies. In Asia especially, feudalish authority was the
most important. If they had good policies to adapt the situations, which was subjective.
In Vietnam, subjective reaons in Vietnam belonged to the responsibility of Nguyễn Dynasty
because they made a lot of mistakes in internal and external policies. They practiced the wrong
model for the development of the country, making Vietnam weaker and weaker and soon
become a delicious decoy for foreign invaders. In economics, Nguyễn Court practiced closed-
door policy, which meant stopping exchange with foreigners. They paid attention but followed
obsolete agriculture with low capacity and productivity. The absolute ownership of landlord
class resulted in reactionary attitude in economic development, as it supported feudalism
which was the negative sign of history in the 19th century. Nguyễn Court gave a lot of barriers
to stop import and export, such as heavy tax. Handicraft and industry had no condition to
develop. Besides, there was no development in monetary system, which meant no
modernization in economy.
In social policy, there was a deep contradiction between landlord class and small, tenant
peasants. There were many peasant’s uprisings under 4 independent emperors during this
period because peasants had to pay tax, labor levies and rice rent to landlords, sometimes
including interest, as peasants had no land to cultivate, so they had to rent land from landlords.
Meanwhile, Nguyễn Dynasty controlled communal land and public land. Landlords became
notables in villages and controlled private land and communal land. The redistribution of
communal land was practiced in the way which was more beneficial to landlords and led to
inequality in society. At that time, the feudalist class, which included notables and bureaucratic
rank became ruling class, while ruled class were peasants, laborers, …
In political policy, Nguyễn Court copied Tsing feudalist monarchy, which emphasized on
centralized power. The bureaucratic system became dictatorship. In the court, the imperial
censor could not criticize the emperor when he made mistakes, which led to corruption. Even
though Nguyễn Trường Tộ wrote many proposals to Tự Đức emperor from 1861 to 1871 after
traveling around many countries to reform the country like Meiji reform, the king and other
officials ignored because they did not understand Western countries.
In military, Nguyễn army were very weak because they did not have modern weapons, so they
could not modernize the army. In addition, they did not have enough training and lacked
strategies to defend independence of the country. There was no strong navy, as well as
powerful warships.
In culture, education had no change, but traditional education could not develop the country.
For example, Hán scripts and Chinese ancient books from classic scholars were too difficult to
learn. Besides, Nguyễn Court paid attention to only Confucianism with absolute respect. The
Sung Confucianism was reactionary ideology to protect obsolete relationship between the king
and servants. It defended feudalism monarchy and made many mistakes. Traditionally,
Vietnamese were very open-minded and flexible towards religion. But Nguyễn did not accept
new religion and stopped that tradition by killing a lot of Catholic believers of Christianity but
still could not stop it.
On the other hand, Nguyễn Court had wrong strategies when French attacked in negotiation
peace. There were many favorable moments for Vietnamese to counterattack but Nguyễn
Court did not take advantages, which was a wrong national defense policy. During 1858 and
1861, there were only 1000 French troops, but Nguyễn army did not dare to counter attack,
which was unreasonable. In 1862, we had a suitable time to counter-attack, but Nguyễn signed
negotiation agreement, which was also unreasonable.

7. What were the cultural, socio-economic transformations in Vietname under the

French domination and exploitation in the early 20th century?
First, we look at the historical background, after the Patenotre agreement in 1884, from 1897 to
1913, French practiced the phase I of exploitation program under General Governor Paul
Doumer, which focused on establishing infrastructure for mining industry. From 1914 to 1918,
because of World War I, French stopped exploitation but after this, in from 1919 to 1928,
under the General Albert Sarraut, French practiced phase II of exploitation, which focused on
agricultural exploitation in Mekong Delta but continued to exploit mining in North and Central
Vietnam. The colonial objective of French was colonial exploitation: hunting for higher
monopoly interest based on exploiting cheap labor, raw material resources.
In Vietnam particularly and Indochina generally, the colonial policies covered many aspects.
In politics, French practiced “division to rule” - using Vietnamese to beat Vietnamese, along
with bloody suppression. In culture, they practiced assimilation through Westernization and
“stupid people” policy. In economics, the colonial exploitation was aimed to search for more
and more super interests.
To summarize, the basic policies contained four things.

● First, French recognized the most important thing for them was to keep “multi-mode of
production” in socio-economic formation. Before French domination, Vietnam already had 3
modes of production: primitive, Asiatic and feudalist. When coming to Vietnam, French
declared to civilize Vietnamese. Instead of the stopping old modes of production and
developing modern ones, which was the responsibility of revolution, French continued to
develop such old modes. No modernization meant no civilization. Besides, French introduced
a new style of relation into Vietnam: colonial capitalism – new industry, commerce, banking
system, transportation, … were controlled by French.
● Second, French wanted to keep Vietnam in the orbit of world-wide market of French
colonialism. For 50 years from 1890 to 1939, the first 9 years was trade deficit, or import
overbalance, while the remaining 41 years was trade surplus, or export overbalance. By doing
this, French was successful in hunting for super interests, but in the society, Vietnamese people
suffered from impoverishment.
● Third, French gave privileges and concession, or special support to French
businessmen. They did not have to compete because they received priority to monopoly:
buying at low prices but selling at expensive prices to get more monopoly interests
● Fourth, French wanted to limit industrialization. They focused on exploiting industry,
especially mining industry such as coals for exportation. However, they limited manufacturing
industry, such as making chemicals, food, textile, rubber, … because they did not want
Vietnam to compete with French industry.
Under the French domination in the early 20th century, Vietnam experienced some changes in
both negative and positive sides.

● In economics, the “economic traite” policy was “economy milked”. To be more

specific, Vietnam was cows for milking, and French was “selfish colonialism” because they
got many benefits, but they did not supply good grass for Vietnamese cows. Every 100-franc
produced, 90 was sent directly to France, but only 10 was for reinvestment. For nearly 1
century, there had been not yet industrialization, but there were some good signals in the
economy. New economic structure was formed in direction of modernization, and new process
of capitalist urbanization appeared with new-styled cities such as Sài Gòn, Hà Nội, Hải Phòng,
which were economic centers, especially Sài Gòn was a seaport city. Compared to the pre-
colonial era, the industry now included both traditional handicraft and modern industry, which
contained exploiting coals, tin, gold, wolfram, … and manufacturing electricity, water,
chemicals, mechanicals, textile, food, tobacco, rubber, … Agriculture was basically the same
as in the previous time, as obsolete agriculture still dominated Vietnamese economic structure.
There were still traditional ploughs with low productivity, obsolete equipment but new
plantation. In commerce, import and export were modernized, from shipping through small
boats and ships to sea ships. Transportation was improved by moving on water with large and
modern sea ships and seaports such as Sài Gòn, Hải Phòng and on ground with a big railroad
system and a system of routes. There was a national road from the north to the south of
Vietnam. In the pre-colonial era, there was still no financial or banking system, but in the
colonial era, French established Indochina Bank to issue money.
● In society, the differentiation of classes also had transformation. In the pre-colonial
time, in the structure of class there were only landlords, feudalist strata and peasants. These
classes still existed in the colonial era, but landlords developed very strongly. Great landlord
class accounted for 2.4% of the owners, owning 48.3% of area in Cochin China. Meanwhile,
peasants became impoverished, causing a negative sign in the history. Despite this, there were
still some positive changes. New classes were formed, with the appearance of capitalist class,
small bourgeoisie which included intellectuals and small traders, and workers class which was
also called proletariat. Currently, there were 2 basic social contradictions in the society:
national contradiction between Vietnamese and French colonist and class contradiction
between landlords and peasants.
● In culture. There was acculturation of Westernization and DE westernization. French
started to teach history of France and Vietnamese national language as a foreign language.
Vietnamese had to struggle against cultural assimilation by keeping and developing
Vietnamese spoken language, Vietnamese writings, and history of Vietnam. The process of DE
westernization included the formation of Quốc Ngữ writing. Vietnamese national writing was
Romanized and Latinized in pronunciation. In religion, Christianity and Catholicism were
introduced to Vietnam. Vietnamese people had chances to approach new ideology, new poetry,
and new style of literature.
In conclusion, we should recognize both sides of the transformation. Even though negative
side was mainly considered, positive side was very necessary for Vietnamese to continue
developing.

8. Which was the crisis of way for national salvation from the late 19th until the
early 20th century?
First, we look at the historical background. Since the attack of French in 1858, Nguyễn
Dynasty always released the wrong strategies for national defense. From 1861 to 1867 there
were many patriotic uprisings of Nguyễn Trung Trực, Trương Định, Thủ Khoa Huân, … but
most of them fell. In July 1883, Tự Đức passed away. During only a few months from
November 1883 to early 1884, there were 3 emperors: Dục Đức, Hiệp Hòa, Kiến Phúc. In May
1884, Hàm Nghi enthroned. In July 1885, “Cần Vương proclamation”, which meant “loyalty to
emperor” was released to call for the support from people to fight against French.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, there were 3 patriotic movements
significantly. For the late 19th century movement, the most remarkable one was “Cần Vương
proclamation” with typical uprisings: Ba Đình (1886 – 1887) in Thanh Hóa, Bãi Sậy (1883 –
1892) in Hưng Yên, Hương Khê (1886 – 1892) in Hà Tĩnh and Hoàng Hoa Thám (1884 –
1913) in Bắc Giang, which was a peasant movement. The reasons for the failure of these
uprisings were because there was no good preparation because it could not make solidarity
among different uprisings. The ideology of Cần Vương uprisings was feudalism, but feudalist
class (Huế Court) had no leading role in defending independence. Hàm Nghi patriotic but he
could not represent the feudalist class. The Patenotre agreement in 1884 already meant
surrendering completely. All Cần Vương uprisings followed feudalist ideology, and they
wanted to recover feudalism influenced by Confucianism, which was obsolete and no longer
suitable. After the failure of Cần Vương, Vietnamese patriotics fell into crisis of way for
national salvation.
The early 20th century patriotic movements were influenced from China and Japan. In China,
Kang Yew Wei and Liang Ki Chao were reformists who wanted to change from feudalist to
democracy, which affected Confucianists in Vietnam. In Japan, the Meiji reform spread the
inspiration to Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh, resulted in new patriotic movements.
According to Phan Bội Châu’s ideology, from 1904 to 1908, he sent Vietnamese students to
Japan to study as he wanted to count on Japanese assistance. However, French discovered and
discussed with Japanese authority to expel Vietnamese out of Japan. After that, Phan Bội Châu
returned to China. After the uprisings of Chinese Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat Sen in 1911,
he continued to go to Thailand and organized patriotic activities. French sent some spies to
China to capture Phan Bội Châu in Shanghai and sentenced his life. Meanwhile, according to
Phan Châu Trinh’s ideology, he believed he could build up cooperation with French. In fact, it
was impossible because French wanted to invest Vietnam and search for surplus interest. They
did not want to cooperate with Vietnam for development. Phan Châu Trinh mistook when
recognizing the nature of French colonialism. The failure of the early 20th century patriotic
movements was because they were in the wrong way. Phan Bội Châu made mistakes when
thinking that because Japan had similarities in culture with our country. He did not recognize
the major of Japanese were imperialism. Moreover, Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh did
not understand the socio-economic transformation and social contradictions between French
and Vietnamese, landlords and peasants. They did not know who enemies were. Phan Bội
Châu recognized exactly that French was one enemy, but French was not the only enemy. He
did not know the role of farmers and peasant class, which accounted for 90% of the population.
Phan Chu Trinh recognized exactly the feudalism, as he criticized Khải Định emperor, but he
did not know all the feudalist class. He wanted to reform many things, but it did not change
much at all. He did not recognize exactly enemies and the role of peasant class as well,
resulted in crisis of way. To be deeper, it was the crisis of progressive class, which was leading
class. In the early 20th century, before World War I, worker class was very small, so they did
not take the leading role in society. Phan Bội Châu & Phân Chu Trinh learned capitalism but
un-Vietnam, there was no capitalist, as it was in ideology only. The historical limitation was
that Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh were very talented but at that time, there was no
leading class, so they could not overcome historical limitation.
The 3rd patriotic movements were after World War I. In 1920s, Vietnam had some influences
from China with “Three people” slogan: independence – happiness - freedom, France with
French revolution ideology, and Soviet Union, especially the October Revolution. In 1919 –
mid 1920s, among the capitalist class, reformism was promoted with the establishment of
Constitutional Party by Bùi Quang Chiêu. He wanted to be practiced political reform. In 1923,
Vietnamese people struggled against the monopoly of Sài Gòn port. Movements by small
bourgeoisie and intellectuals developed as well. In press, there were appearances of
progressive newspapers such as Cracked Bell by Nguyễn An Ninh, L’Annam, Times of
Indochina, The voice of people, … to criticize French colonialism strongly. In addition,
struggles of the mass were strained to call for releasing Phan Bội Châu from sentence his life
to outside prison, organizing Phan Chu Trinh’s funeral and demonstration. Besides, many
political parties appeared such as Party of Mind by Phạm Hồng Thái in Guangzhou,
Vietnamese Revolutionary Party, Party of Youths, Aspiration of Youths Party by Nguyễn An
Ninh, Association of Revolutionary Youths by Nguyễn Ái Quốc. The reasons for the failure of
these movements were partly the same as previous period’s ones. We were practicing the
wrong ways to save the country. No party recognized exactly the enemies and the way for
national salvation. They recognized French colonialist, but they did not know landlord class
was the 2nd enemy of Vietnamese people. Therefore, they did not know basic contradictions in
Vietnamese society after World War I. Moreover, they did not recognize exactly the
revolutionary forces. Vietnamese Nationalist Party by Nguyễn Thái Học did not have slogans
like Chinese Nationalist Party, which paid attention to landlords, workers, and peasants. The
crisis of no leading class resulted in a spontaneous process. Methodology was wrong because it
caused separation, no solidarity, no unification. Vietnam continued to fall into crisis.
To overcome this crisis, there were influences from October Revolution and Nguyễn Ái
Quốc’s activities. In 1911, Nguyễn Tất Thành left Sài Gòn for seeking national salvation. He
respected Phan Bội Châu, Phan Chu Trinh but he recognized something wrong, so he would
like to seek another way. In 1920, Nguyễn Ái Quốc became the 1st communist of Vietnam and
participated to be a member of French Communist Party. In the next 10 years, he wanted to
disseminate Marxism and Leninism into Vietnam, which was a new way for national salvation.
In August 1925, he established Association of Revolutionary Youths. From 1925 to 1928, he
practiced a lot of activities, such as publishing Youths newspaper, opening training classes to
prepare for the formation of the party in Guangzhou, publishing many books to make clear
new way for national salvation. He pointed out who were enemies of Vietnamese people, who
were the revolutionary forces, who were our friends to cooperate, … The role of communist
party was dignified. Finally, in February 1930, Nguyễn Ái Quốc established Vietnamese
Communist Party based on reunifying 3 communist parties at that time. This was the final
point for crisis of way for national salvation.

9. What were reasons for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945?
After the establishment of Vietnamese Communist Party in 1930, which later changed to
Indochina Communist Party, we had a preparation of 15 years, divided into 3 periods of
movements until the August Revolution in 1945, which took only 2 weeks. This victory gave
declaration for independence of Vietnam.
There were 2 kinds of reason for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945: objective and
subjective. The failure of fascism in the World War II was the most important objective
reason. In 1945, Japanese fascists surrendered, which was a very favorable condition for
Vietnamese revolution, as Japanese army fell into posture of dilemmas. When the World War
II started in 1939, the face of the world was divided into 2 sides: Allied Army (Ally) which
included United States, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, France, … and Axe of Fascism,
which included Germany, Italy, and Japan. From 1939 to 1943, Fascist was almost in active
posture, but in 1943, after the counterattack of Red Army of Soviet Union in the Battle of
Stalingrad, which was considered as the turning-point of the European theatre of the war, the
situation changed when Fascist turned into passive posture. In late 1944 - early 1945, many
Eastern European countries were liberated. In May 1945, German fascism collapsed, bringing
about the failure of fascism in general. This was the favorable moment for Vietnamese to up
rise. Many Western historians considered this was the most important reason for our victory of
the August Revolution in 1945, but we had to re correct that opinion, because the subjective
reasons were the most important.
The subjective reasons belonged to the leadership of the Indochina Communist Party headed
by Hồ Chí Minh, and the heroism of Vietnamese people. To be more specific, it was thanks to
the long preparation for the August Revolution for 15 years and the talented leading role in art
of mastering favorable moments. With Hồ Chí Minh’s short manifesto and Trần Phú’s thesis,
throughout 15-year preparation, Vietnamese Communist Party would lead people to gain the
government by struggles of the mass in economics and politics, then develop to military
struggles and wait for favorable moments for military uprisings. It was clear that the
revolutionary forces included peasants, proletariat, small bourgeoisie, national capitalist, …
We needed international solidarity from colonial people in Western countries and international
proletariat. In the high tide 1930 – 1931, the Soviet Union in Nghệ - Tĩnh was the first
preparation for the future. It built up revolutionary government but soon be suppressed
bloodily by French and collapsed. However, it left some deep significances behind the failure.
It demonstrated Vietnamese Communist Party’s lines Vietnamese revolution by making
solidarity among classes. In addition, it left many good lessons and experiences on how to
organize uprisings for the future.
The 1936 – 1939 phase was for democratic movements, which was the 2nd preparation. The
appearance and development of fascism became new and the most important danger of the
world, as it would destroy socialism and many democratic countries. Every country needed to
focus on struggling Fascism internationally. As a result, Vietnam had to change tactics to
struggle and started a new movement so-called as “Indochina Democratic Movement”. We
focused on struggling Fascism – who was the direct enemy. In this situation, we reaffirmed
direct enemies were reactionary colonialists, Fascists, and their followers. We used a lot of
semi-legal measures. Combined with secret activities of the communist party, we utilized
opportunities to make propaganda, which was a good chance to disseminate Marxism,
Leninism, and revolutionary lines of the communist party.
The 3rd preparation - 1939 – 1945, was the direct preparation for the August Revolution, which
was divided into 3 periods. From 1939 to 1941, we prepared lines for the revolution through 3
meetings of Central Committee of Indochina Communist Party: 6th (11.1939), 7th (11.1940),
and 8th (5.1941) – in which Nguyễn Ái Quốc attended after returning to Vietnam. In 1940,
Nguyễn Ái Quốc predicted the failure of fascism, so that was the time for many countries,
including Vietnam to uprise, The 3 meetings made clear the ways for the August Revolution.
They pointed out the most important objective was national liberation. There were 2 strategic
objectives: defeating French for national independence and beating landlord class for “land-to-
the-tiller” slogan. For a long time, we did not know the exact answer which was more
important. After that, the preceding slogan was replaced to get land from enemies (French,
reactionary landlords) and redistribute land to poor peasants and landless peasants. This was
very important to build up solidarity. Besides, we built up national solidarity through “Front” –
front for great national solidarity including many classes, ranks, strata, … In the 8th meeting,
Việt Minh Front was established. The most critical standard was patriotic individuals. Above
all, the most important was the preparation of military uprisings, which was the direct
responsibility to decide the favorable moments, forces… for uprisings and to make clear
formation of uprisings in Vietnam. Local uprisings were practiced first as the pre-conditions
for general uprisings when having favorable moment.
From 1941 to March 9th, 1945, we prepared revolutionary forces and bases. We defined the
political forces with the establishment of Việt Minh Front, which included many organizations
for women, youths, peasants, … for national salvation. For the military forces, after the
collision of Bắc Sơn uprisings in 1940, Hồ Chí Minh established small unit guerrillas called
Bắc Sơn guerrillas, then developed to army for national salvation – platoon. On December
22nd 1944, the National-liberating Vietnamese army for propaganda was founded. We built up
bases in mountainous provinces in North Vietnam: Cao – Bắc – Lạng – Hà – Tuyên – Thái. In
February 1941, Nguyễn Ái Quốc returned to Cao Bằng, he established Cao Bằng base. After
Bắc Sơn uprisings, Cao Bằng related to Bắc Sơn - Võ Nhai base, which was the foundation for
Việt Bắc base.
In the 3rd period from March 9th to August 1945, we prepared local uprisings. From Fall 1940
to March 1945, Japanese and French co-dominated Vietnam, but on March 9th, Japanese upset
French domination in just one night to gain power. In early 1945, the imbalance between
Allied Army and Fascism led to the risk that Fascism was on the verge of collapse. In the
future, Allied Army would come to Indochina to disarm Japanese. Therefore, the only way for
Japanese was to upset French. This was the new favorable moment for local uprisings. We
focused on resistance to Japanese fascists and mobilized against them. We organized political
struggles and mass movements to avoid terrible famine, which made more than 2 million
people die of starvation. We developed military units and established Việt Bắc base in June
1945. There were also local uprisings in mountainous areas. As soon as Hồ Chí Minh predicted
Japanese’ surrender, he sent messages to representatives and waited until August 1945, when
new favorable moment came, he holds national conference in Tân Trào to officially uprise.
Since the first uprising on August 14th, it was only 2 weeks for general uprisings. We took
advantage of the good time, which was soon after Japanese surrender but before Allied Army
came to Vietnam to disarm Japanese. Why we did not organize revolution before that time was
because the imbalance of power between Vietnamese revolutionaries and Japanese fascists,
who have hundreds and thousands of troops and many modern weapons. At that time, Japanese
could suppress Vietnamese easily. And why we also did not do that after that time was because
in the north of Vietnam was Chiang Kai Shek troops, and the south of Vietnam was British
army, followed by French army, which was very crowded and strong.