1
p In early February 1941, six men were making their way through the thick undergrowth covering the picturesque mountain slopes at the juncture of the Chinese province of Guangxi and the Vietnamese province of Can Bang. They were moving in a southwesterly direction. All six were clad in the usual homespun indigo dress worn by Nung natives. The group was headed by a lanky man of about fifty, the oldest of the group. He carried a bamboo cane, but leaned on it only when descending a steep slope. His gait, though, was youthful and light, as he leaped from rock to rock.
p By evening, having cleared several mountain passes and elbowed through the dense mass of reeds, they reached a huge keisi tree, whose mighty crown could have provided shade for half a dox.en peasant huts. Nearby stood a striped pillar of stone with the number 108 on it. A sign in French and Chinese announced the beginning of Vietnamese territory.
p The middle-aged man laid down his cane at the foot of the hill, knelt, took a handful of earth and put it to his lips. The others followed suit. Hethen raised his eyes and gazed south, as though trying to catch a glimpse of his faraway native village somewhere there, on the hazy horizon. In the distance, at the foot of a majestic mountain, one could barely make out the outlines of peasant huts on piles scattered here and there amid the yellow fields of maize. The green rice paddies scaled the mountain slopes. The air was laden with the smell of peach and apricot blossoms. Their rosy (lowers stood out among the mulberry, grapefruit, guava and wild banana trees.
p Nguyen Ai Quocfor it was he could not tear his eyes away from that blessed land. For thirty years he had dreamed of that day, fancying in his sleep the joyous moment when, after so much wandering and misery, he would at long last return to his native Vietnam. Looking at the mountain peaks receding in the ha/.c beyond the horizon, where the orange sun was now setting, he remembered the long and arduous home stretch of his thirty-year journey.
125p He remembered the dreary expanses of the Gobi Desert and the towns of Urumchih, Xian, and Yanan, just as dreary and devoid of vegetation, through which he passed after having left Alma-Ata and crossed the Soviet-Chinese border in October 1938. He remembered the dangerous trek from Xian to Yanan, which had taken a week. It had been mostly on foot, holding onto one of the wagons carrying rags for the manufacture of cloth-shoes. Some of those wagons were quite a sight, drawn by a threesome consisting of an ox, an ass, and a horse.
p Yenan, situated in the Yanshui River valley and surrounded by flat hills, was the capital of the Liberated Areas and the headquarters of the Chinese Red Army and the Communist Party of China. The loess hills resembled honeycombs, riddled with hundreds of caves housing army depots and providing shelter for servicemen, party .functionaries, and peasants from neighbouring villages. Every now and then there would be an air alert, as Japanese bombers were becoming frequent visitors.
p In Yanan, Nguyen Ai Quoc met several old Chinese acquaintances with whom he had made friends in Moscow, at the Comintern Executive. By force of habit they continued to call him Comrade Ling, although his identification papers said he was Hu Kuan, a Chinese citizen. From them he learned that a United National Front had finally taken shape in China. Chiang Kaishck’s government had declared it would recognise the existence of the Liberated Areas and the armed forces under Communist Party command. Besides the North of the country, Liberated Areas existed in Central China, the Yangtse basin, where the New 4th Army operated under the command of Communist Yeh Tin.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc decided to press southward through the provinces of Shensi and Hunan. He was accompanied by another Vietnamese whom he had met by chance in Yanan. To avoid unwanted attention, each played a role and dressed accordingly: Nguyen’s companion was a travelling mandarin and Nguyen was his servant. Although the stretch to Kweilin, an administrative centre in Quangxi Province, took a long time, it went off smoothly. The travellers decided to stop over in Kweilin and make contact with the Indochina Communist Party’s Central Committee.
p
But their attempts were in vain. So they moved to the neighbouring
province of Yunnan. Finally, in Kunming, Nguyen was located by
a Party liaison, who several days later put him in touch with a group of
top Party officials, including Truong Tin, Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen
Giap, and Phung Chi Kien. Their meeting coincided with the sad news
from faraway Europe that on June 14, Paris had fallen to the German
army and a few days later France had surrendered. That changed the
situation radically and demanded urgent decisions. At a meeting in
Kunming, Nguyen Ai Quoc said that most, if not all, Party cadres
126
working abroad should return to Vietnam. Nguyen himself, and his
companions, went to the border town of Chihsi and prepared to cross the
border into Vietnam.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc remembered the large junk that took them to Chihsi. On board were a few Chinese and several Vietnamese they did not know. To be on the safe side, Nguyen Ai Quoc spoke Chinese only, passing himself off as a local journalist. They spoke as little as possible, but it was hard to conceal the excitement they felt. When their last landing stage came in sight, one of Nguyen’s comrades dropped ashes from his cigarette on his trousers, which began to smoulder. Nguyen Ai Quoc exclaimed:
p “Hey, you’re burning!"
p Then he bit his tongue, for he had said it in Vietnamese. Later, already on shore, they all had a good laugh at his blunder.
p In Chihsi they had a pleasant surprise: a large group of young people from Cao Bang Province had crossed the border in search of the leaders of the patriotic movement and said they had come to take part in the revolution. The first leader these young people had met was Truong Boi Kong, a functionary of the National Party who had long since emigrated from Vietnam and had joined the right wing of the Chinese Kuomintang. Although he had no military training, Chiang Kaishek had made him brigadier-general and entrusted him with recruiting men for the Kuomintang from among Vietnamese emigres.
p When he met the young people from Cao Bang Province, Truong Boi Kong referred to himself as a well-known patriotic leader and veteran revolutionary, and said he would take them under his wing. However, his free-and-easy manner put the young people on their guard. Soon, most of them realised that he was no revolutionary and, to use a Vietnamese idiom, had the head of a dragon but the tail of a shrimp. If Nguyen Ai Quoc and his comrades hadn’t arrived when they did, most of those young people would have crossed the border back again.
p For Nguyen Ai Quoe and his friends this meeting was also welcome. Many of the young people were experienced guides. They knew secret trails through the forest, and willingly agreed to take their new acquaintances across the border. While preparations were under way for the crossing, Nguyen organised a political crash course for the Cao Bang youths who were joined by a couple of clo/en Vietnamese from Chiang Kaishek’s army yearning to return home. The lectures were held in a shady grove on a hillside right outside the town. And shortly before the let holiday, they had a makeshift graduation ceremony. The young men lined up in the middle of the clearing, and each came forward and kissed a red flag with a yellow star. Neither the young men from Cao 127 Bang nor their Vietnamese comrades had ever seen such a flag before. 11 had appeared only two months earlier among the insurgents on the bank of the Tien river.
p Having finished the crash course, the Vietnamese returned to their homeland in small groups. After seeing off the last group, Nguyen Ai Quoc said:
p
“Well, forty-three eagles have taken to the sky. We shall hear glad
tidings from them before long. Let us, too, prepare to depart."
p Now Nguyen Ai Quoc was looking at Pac Bo from the top of the mountain which marked the frontier. A line of boulders descended the slope, showing the way to the faraway village. A new leaf was being inscribed in his own life and in the history of Vietnam’s liberation movement. It was symbolic also that the new chapter just like that of 1930, when the Party was being born began during the Tet holiday, a holiday that fell in spring, with which every Vietnamese, no matter where he happened to be, connected his most fervent hopes.
p (Jetting ready to cross the frontier, they decided to stay the night at the home of Mai Ly, a local Nung peasant who sympathised with the revolution. However, after going to see Mai Li alone, Nguyen Ai Quoc changed his mind: six men would hardly find room in the small bamboo hut. Besides, it was in the middle of the village, and was not entirely safe from prying eyes.
p “There’s a cosy little cave in the jungle not far from the village,” Mai Ly suggested. "Its entrance is concealed by a thick growth of reeds. Every time bandits raid our village, we hide there."
p He led the group down a jungle path and then up an almost bare cliff. The cave was, indeed, pretty small there was just enough room for half a dozen men. At the entrance was a huge boulder, which the wind and rain had sculpted to a human form. Mai Ly called the cave Koc Bo, which in the local dialect meant "a spring”. Somewhere near it was the source of a mountain stream, which weaved its way around the cliff and crashed down in a frothy waterfall.
p Everyone seemed to like this natural shelter. They brought a few boards from the village, which the men covered with dry leaves and grass to sleep on. After that, the six decided to explore the neighbourhood. They stopped beside the stream, and Nguyen Ai Quoc said thoughtfully, as (hough continuing an earlier conversation:
p “I have an idea. This stream is as pure as a pearl. Besides, it has its source here. I suggest we give it the name of Lenin. And that majestic mountain (he pointed to the left), let’s call it Karl Marx Peak."
p In the morning, Nguyen Ai Quoc got up with the birds and woke the others. Then he did a set of strenuous exercises on a little patch he had 128 cleared outside the cave. Instead of dumbells he used stones. He also climbed up cliffs barefoot, choosing the steepest ones. "You’ve got to train your feet to do all kinds of work,” he explained to his friends. After the workout, he went down to the stream and took a dip in the ice-cold water. The path leading to the stream was very sleep and almost entirely grown over by thorny bushes. After a rain, it was so slippery that it was almost impossible to climb. Meanwhile, tree leaches would drop from the branches on people’s heads and backs.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc also worked by the stream where he found a Hat polished boulder that served him as a desk. His tool was a typewriter with Vietnamese letters, given him by friends a few years before. His desk was well concealed by a thick growth of rubber plants. Behind him was the cliff, in front was the Lenin Stream, which at this point broadened out and flowed freely. From time to time he would throw grains of cooked rice into the crystal-clear vsater. attracting scarlet-finned goldfish. Within a few days they had got to know him, and gathered near the bank as he approached. It was in that peaceful spot that he wrote the following verse, known to every Vietnamese:
p
I come, to the stream in the morning.
And the cave gives me shelter at night.
The meal that we cook is
OJ tender bamboo shoots.
On a boulder I unite the translation
Of the history oj Russia’s Bolsheviks.
A lije devoted to the right cause
Is glorious forever.
p In rainy weather the cave became damp and cold. Water dripped from the moss-covered vault, relentlessly as in a torture chamber. So as not to freeze at night, they had to keep a fire going. ;i»d stayed up by turns to watch it. Before going to sleep, the men liked to sit around the fire and listen to their leader and older friend. He had indeed seen a lot. He told them about his visits to the Soviet Union, and the momentous achievements of the world’s first socialist state. Listening to him, they pictured to themselves the vast expanses of Russia and her gigantic building-sites. He spoke of the Soviet conquest of the Arctic and of the Soviet pilots who flew to America over the North Pole.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc and his comrades would later remember the months spent in the cave as a joyous holiday coloured by the anticipation of great change. They were directly involved in the revolutionary renewal of society; they were witnessing and, moreover, were instrumental in creating a new life, a fundamentally new people and a new type of relationship. And if Vietnam still continued to live under the colonial 129 jackboot, here revolution had, in effect, triumphed, with a new democratic system arising.
Never before had Nguyen Ai Quoc- worked so hard. He felt he was twenty years younger. He wrote articles, translated, met Party comrades, messengers, local residents, and looked into all matters. Kvery morning he would ask his companions what each of them was doing. For those who were not busy he would immediately find a task, including such seeming trifles as mending clothes and shoes. All those who worked with him were impressed by his organisational talent, which he showed from the moment he set foot on Vietnamese soil, and such qualities as total commitment to each undertaking and personal responsibility for its completion, efficiency and promptitude, simplicity in dealing with his associates, his demanding attitude, close rapport with the local people, and the drive to give them essential political knowledge. In a word, Nguyen Ai Quoc possessed the qualities of a Party leader described as Lenin’s stvle of work.
2
p The swift political developments in Vietnam and around it presented the Communist Party of Indochina with a new formidable challenge. After France’s surrender, fascist elements siding with the Vichy puppet regime came to power in Indochina. But an even greater threat came from the North. By May 1940, Japanese forces had occupied South China and approached the Vietnamese border. Since France no longer existed as a great power, Japan put pressure on the Vichy authorities. In August 1940, Vichy and Tokyo signed an agreement under which the French recognised Japan’s supremacy in the Far East and conceded certain military rights in Indochina.
p That did not, however, satisfy the Japanese. In September 1940, they mounted a military intervention, taking a number of Vietnamese towns near the border and landing a naval force at Haiphong. After that, taking advantage of the weakness of the French authorities, who made one concession after another, the Japanese continued their "peaceful expansion" in Indochina. By the end of 1941, whenjapan attacked Pearl Harbor, unleashing a war in the Pacific, it controlled the whole of Indochina and turned it into a staging area for further expansion in Southeast Asia. Having established control over Indochina, the Japanese left intact the French colonial machine on a power-sharing basis. Thus the Vietnamese people came under a double yoke.
p Vietnamese patriots responded with insurrections. One revolt flared 130 up after another. The one that began in South Vietnam on November ’23, 1940, had the most serious implications.
p The conditions for a nationwide uprising were highly unfavourable. So the 7th Plenum of"the Party’s Central Committee, which was held in late October 1940 in North Vietnam, turned down the proposal of starting an uprising. That, it said, would be ill-timed. It was important, the Plenum stated, to preserve and build up the revolutionary forces, establish a network of guerilla bases, and prepare for a nationwide uprising.
p However, the Plenum’s decision did not reach the Namki Party branch. Its delegate was arrested right after he returned to Saigon. Besides, the French secret police managed to intercept a message stating the date and hour of the uprising. Many of the leaders were arrested and the revolutionary-minded Vietnamese soldiers disarmed and locked up in their barracks. Nevertheless, the uprising started as planned. At first, theinsurgents scored some major successes with people’s Soviets being set up in several districts. They survived for nearly two months but were brutally crushed. More than a hundred people were executed, including several prominent leaders of the Vietnamese Communist movement.
p Among the victims were some of Nguyen Ai Quoc’s closest associates and disciples Le Hong Phong, Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, and Minh Khai, Secretary of the Saigon Party Committee. Le Hong Phong, "the Red Wind”, had been betrayed by a renegade and caught by the secret police back in 1938. But the police lacked enough evidence to send him to the guillotine. He was jailed on charges of carrying forged identification papers. The authorities were waiting for a chance to do away with the revolutionary altogether. Such a chance presented itself or so it seemed when at the height of the preparations for the uprising, Minh Khai, Le Hong Phong’s wife, walked into a police trap. The last time the young husband and wife had met was at a confrontation in the Saigon central prison.
p It seemed it had been only yesterday that they roamed, her hand in his, along the Moskva embankment and stood on Red Square listening to the chimes of Kremlin’s Spassky ’Lower. Now they stood handcuffed opposite each other in the stuffy interrogation room. Though exhausted after weeks of torture, their eyes did not betray that they knew each other. They knew that one of them must survive for the Party, for the revolution, and for the tiny helpless creature, their daughter, who had been born only a year before. In memory of their stay in the Soviet Union, they had named their newborn Hong Minh, Red Aurora.
p For her loved ones she would always remain the tender and cheerful Minh Khai; for the colonialists she was "a most dangerous ringleader”. A mere ten years had passed since the day her hair was gathered up in a bun with a silver clip to indicate her coming of age. In those ten years 131 the authorities had sentenced her in nbxenlia to a five-year prison term, then to twenty years of solitary confinement, then to hard labour for life, and twice to death. The last of these sentences they finally managed to carry out: on May 24, 1941, together with other members of the Party’s Central Committee Ha Huy Tap, Nguyen Van Cu, Phan Dang Luu, and Vo Van Tan she was shot in the prison yard shot, but not broken. Her last words were: "Long live the Communist Party of Indochina!" and "Long live the Soviet Union!"
p In Minh Khai’s cell an inscription was found scratched on the wall: "I’m not worried about myself. All my thoughts are about saving the Party."
p Her husband lived only a little longer. From the Saigon prison he was moved to Poulo Condor to die a slow death with hundreds of other rebels. Locked up in a "tiger cage”, he was humiliated, denied (bod and water, beaten and tortured. Alter a few months of sue!) treatment, he contracted galloping consumption. On September 6, 1942, he died. His death was witnessed by the inmate of a neighbouring cage, Duong Bach Mai, another graduate of Moscow’s Kastern University. Le Hong Phong begged him as he died:
p
“Comrade, tell the Party that I, Le Hong Phong, was true to our
revolutionary cause to my last breath."
p The Party survived and continued to fight. But to get on its feel again and lead the national liberation movement to victory, it needed a new strategy that would match the new political situation. This new tactic was outlined in November 1939 at the 6th Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee secretly convened in Saigon. The Plenum resolved thai tinParty should concentrate on national liberation and begin with establishing a united national anti-imperialist front. The slogan calling for confiscation of all privately owned land and transfer of land to the peasants was temporarily replaced by a slogan calling ’or confiscation of land belonging to the French colonialists and their collaborationists. The Plenum also temporarily replaced the idea of setting up a government of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Councils with the idea of forming a Union of Democratic Republics of Indochina as "a form of government representing all the sections of society taking part in the national liberation movement, including that part of the bourgeoisie which aspires to national independence with (he toiling masses".
p The Plenum decisions laid the groundwork for a broad national liberation front under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party of Indochina. However, this policy was put into practice onlyafter Nguyen Ai Quoc and the other members of the Standing Bureau of the Parlv’s Central Committee returned to Vietnam.
132p Immediately after his return. Nguyen Ai Quoc started preparing the ground for the next Plenum of the Central Committee. As in Hongkong in 1930, he acted as a Comintern representative. World War II had disrupted the work oi the Comintern’s foreign seetions both in the West and the East, and Nguyen Ai Quoc had received no news from the Comintern Executive for some time. Yet he remained true to the international communist brotherhood and still considered himself the Comintern’s envoy plenipotentiary, acting on its behalf in the Caobang backwoods.
p On May 10, 1941, a bamboo hut on piles hidden in the jungle became the venue of the 8th Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee. There were almost no delegates from the Nam Ky Party branch most of its leaders had been killed, or jailed, or sent to Poulo Condor.
p The meeting was chaired by Nguyen Ai Quoc. His authority was indisputable. Among the delegates who had met the Party’s founder for the first time was the young Communist Hoang Quoe Viet. When he was introduced to the wiry, middle-aged man and told it was Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc, representative of the Comintern, the young man was so overwhelmed that he lost the power of speech and only squeezed Nguyen’s hand.
p “Nguyen Ai Quoc! His name was the inspiration for all Party members, for all Vietnamese,” Hoang Quoc Viet wrote later for all those whose hearts beat in unison with the heart of their country and people. "When the news of his arrest in Hongkong reached us in Poulo Condor, we were gripped with anxiety- But when we learned that the International Organisation of Assistance to Revolutionary Fighters had managed to secure his release, it was a tremendous load off our minds. In later years, we undergrounders often remembered Nguyen Ai Quoc with love and admiration. But few believed that they would ever meet him in person..."
p The participants in the Plenum, which was in session for ten days, analysed the causes and development of the Second World War and expressed their confidence that it would end in the total destruction of fascism.
p “Having crushed France, Na/.i Cermany has conquered half of Europe,” said Nguyen Ai Quoc, who was the main speaker on international issues. "The Na/.is are getting ready to invade the Soviet Union, the first workers’ and peasants’ state in the world. But we Communists are confident that the day Hitler attacks the Soviet Union will be the beginning of the end for Cerman fascism. We can be sure that, whereas the First World War resulted in the creation of the first socialist state, this time the rout of fascism will spark off victorious socialist revolutions in many other countries."
133p These words were reflected in the Plenum’s resolution, which pointed out that the Vietnamese revolution was an integral part of the world revolution, and fully supported the international anti-fascist movement. Therefore, the destiny of the Vietnamese people was for the first time in history directly connected with that of the Soviet Union. And the victory of the Vietnamese revolution was fully dependent on whether the anti-fascist forces would stand up to the Axis.
p The conferees endorsed the previous plenums’ decisions on tactical changes in the Party’s policy with priority going to national liberation objectives.
p “We’ve had three uprisings within the space of just a few months,” said Nguyen Ai Quoe. "In September 1940 at Bacson, two months later at Nam Ky, and in January this year there was the mutiny of the Tonkin riflemen at Doluong in Nghe-an Province. All these events show that our nation will take any opportunity to rise up in arms. Today more than at any time our people are determined to win independence. We must fully appreciate their revolutionary enthusiasm and use it intelligently. The Party should appeal to people’s patriotic feelings, try to win the support of all sections of society, and rally the nation’s forces to drive out the French and Japanese."
p The Plenum’s resolution stated that the banner of national liberation was in the reliable hands of the Party, which was calling upon all those who cared about the future of Vietnam to join the liberation movement: "Today, individual and class interests should be subordinated to the interests of the nation, since it is now a question of life and death for our country. If our country does not achieve national independence, not only will the whole nation forever remain in shackles, but the right of every individual and every class will be trampled underfoot."
p A year earlier, Nguyen Ai Quoc had spoken of the need to establish a mass patriotic organisation whose objectives, structure, and whose very name would appeal to the broadest sections of the population, while the Communist Party would be its guiding force. Now, at the Plenum, this idea was put into practice. After a prolonged discussion, the participants came up with a suitable name. Someone suggested League for National Resurgence, but it was rejected: these sacred words had already been defiled by pro-Japanese elements, who called the replacement of French colonialism by the Japanese occupation the national resurgence of Vietnam. The word “anti-imperialist” did not suit either, because it was too radical in relation to the goals that the Communists set for the new national front. Finally, the organisation was called League for the Independence of Vietnam. Nguyen Ai Quoc insisted that the League should also have a short everyday name -pleasing, easily remembered, and imaginative. He suggested Vietminh it was 134 accepted, and for many years sounded like a call to the people lo join the battle for their country’s freedom.
p The Plenum decided that the various anti-imperialisl patriotic organisations under Party control representing different sections of the population workers, peasants, young people, women, servicemen, and Buddhists would be called national salvation societies. The Vietminh programme adopted at the Plenum stated that for the Vietminh the nation’s interests were uppermosl and that it was ready to co-operate with all individuals and organisations who sincerely wanted to drive out the French and Japanese and form an independent and free slate of Vietnam. Subsequent events showed thai this programme, based on general democratic demands which look into account the interests of the national bourgeoisie, was entirely consonant with the aspirations of the broadest sections of society and helped to rally people in a united national front.
p After analysing the situation in the country and on the international scene, the 8th Plenum came to the conclusion that for the revolution to succeed there had to be an armed uprising. Its resolution staled that "preparation for an uprising was the Party’s and nation’s main objective at the present stage”. Drawing on the experience of the People’s Councils in Nghclinh and the Party-led uprisings at Bac Son and Nam Ky, the Plenum adopted a new Party strategy in preparing for (he armed uprising: first, setting up guerilla bases wherever possible; second, armed revolts and sei/ure ol power in separate areas, above all those inaccessible to enemy troops; and third, starling a nationwide armed uprising when objective and subjective conditions, including a favourable international situation, permitted.
p Vietnamese historians today see this important decision of the 8th Plenum as the creative development of Marxist-Leninist theory applied lo the specific conditions of colonial Vietnam.
p The Plenum also demonstrated a new approach to the nationalities question. In the past, the Party considered this question in the context of (he colonial Union of Indochina, whereas the 8lh Plenum look into account the deepening social and political differences between the three countries of Indochina, especially aggravated since the Japanese invasion, and suggested addressing the nationalities question within each country separately. Consequently, the Parly’s slogan for "establishing a government of the Federal Republic ol" Indochina" was replaced Indie slogan lor "establishing a Democratic Republic of Vietnam”. This new approach helped to foil (he propaganda plans of France and Japan, who had intended to drive a wedge between the patriotic forces of Vietnam, Cambobia and, as subsequent developments showed, encouraged the national liberation movement in all three countries.
135
p
At the same lime, it was emphasised once again thai the national
liberation revolutions in all three countries were closely connected and
should support each other.
p The Plenum was held in a shack in a remote part of the jungle where human beings were rare visitors. The forest resounded with the shrieks and incessant chattering of monkeys and the shrill cries of birds. Now and then, one heard the roar of a tiger. The lush growth of branches, leaves and lianas concealing the shack was so dense that there was little air to breathe. In the mornings, the conferees would struggle to the edge of a clearing for a breath of fresh air.
p Yet by the end of the session even this became impossible because of the rain. The downpour raged for several days. The tons of water crashing down from the sky were reminiscent of an avalanche. The small stream near the shack left its hanks, engulfing the piles and coming dangerously close to the entrance.
p It was hard to believe that there, in that wild jungle, far away from any human settlement, in a flimsy bamboo shack on piles, prominent leaders of the Communist Party of Indochina were gathered round an improvised table to take decisions that made Vietnamese history and had profound implications for the entire revolutionary movement of Indochina.
The customary form of address among Party members was dongti, comrade. But Nguyen Ai Quoc was seldom addressed in this manner. In Pac-bo the locals had nicknamed him Thu Son, Forest Dweller, and since he had a beard and whiskers, they called him Grandfather Thu. Yet grandfather was hardly appropriate, since his hair was still jet-black even on his temples and he was always so cnergelic in his work. A comrade once called him Bac that was the way village youngsters call adults, it is something like “uncle”, although the English word does not convey all its shades of meaning. The name stuck: they called him Bac Thu, which became Bac Ho when he called himself Ho Chi Minh, and in his later years simply Bac. Whenever this commonly used form of address, “uncle”, was written with a capital letter, everyone knew that President Ho Chi Minh was meant.
3
p When the water went down a little and the sky cleared, the conferees started leaving. The first to go were the delegates from the central and southern provinces, who had the longest way to travel. Bidding them farewell, Nguyen Ai Quoc said:
136p “I hope you haven’t forgotten whal I told you whatever you do, don’t carry around written records of our meeting here."
p It turned out that some of the delegates had ignored Nguyen Ai Quoc’s warning and had summarised the proceedings on tiny hits of paper, which they had then rolled up and sewn into (lie seams ol their clothes. Nguyen Ai Quoc insisted that they destroy all the evidence right then and there.
p ”How many limes must I say it? Our grandfathers and greatgrandfathers used to say: ’Even jungles have paths, even walls have ears.’ Remember how many failures we’ve had. The youngest ones here are a little over twenty, the rest are approaching thirty. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t you know how much effort the Party has invested to make reliable and staunch fighters out of you? If through your own negligence you fall into enemy hands, who’s going to replace you? I’ve told you already that you’ll get all the documents of the Plenum later, from our liaison."
p The mass arrest of Parly members in Canton, Hongkong and Saigon, and Nguyen Ai Quoc’s own experience had taught him to be cautious and vigilant. He devised a ramified network of outposts at Pac-bo to protect Party headquarters at first the cave of Koc-bo and later, in the latter half of 1941, the shack in the jungle. The approaches to the guerilla camp were protected by local residents; the most vulnerable spots were guarded by guerilla patrols, and sentries were posted outside headquarters around-the-clock.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc stood watch at night just as everyone else, although the others protested, saying he could be excused because of his age and poor health. Since their protests were ignored, they decided not to wake him when his turn came. But that did not help. Uncannily, lie would wake up by himself.
p Vu Anh, a veteran Communist, who had lived a long time with Nguyen Ai Quoc at Pac-bo, recalls what importance the latter attached to the rules of conspiracy. Without knowing these rules, he said, a revolutionary was doomed. Once, Vu Anh relates, a new messenger girl from the Central Committee arrived in Caobang with a letter for Comrade Thu. On entering the Pac-bo cave, she saw a man dressed in Nung clothes. It was Nguyen Ai Quoc. He took the letter from her, and said: "Comrade Thu is out at the moment. I’m his liaison and I’ll give him the letter.” The girl stayed on at the guerilla camp to attend the political course. A few days later, she noticed that most of the lectures were byComrade Thu’s liaison. "What remarkable people,” she thought. "I’ve never heard an ordinary liaison explain politics like that."
p She never did meet Comrade Thu, but on several occasions heard young people at the courses talk about a Nguyen Ai Quoc. After 137 completing the course, the girl was sent to Hadong Province, where she took part in an armed uprising. In August 1945, after the triumph of the revolution, a provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was announced. However, hard as she looked at the list of names, the girl could not lind either that of Comrade Thu or that of Nguyen Ai Quoc. By that time it was Ho Chi Minh. Only on September 2, 1945, when the new government appeared on Hanoi’s Baclinh Square, did she find to her surprise that the President was the old liaison to whom she had given the letter.
p It was thanks to Nguyen Ai Quoc’s tireless ellorts to impress upon his comrades the need lor vigilance that the colonial secret police never did locate the Party’s headquarters, although they knew that the head Communist was somewhere in Caobang Province. Several times, enemy scouts were a few hundred yards from his headquarters, but never found it.
p As the guerillas stepped up their activity, the authorities cracked down. All roads and mountain trails leading to the area were now patrolled by Green Girdles, the emperor’s security police. A curfew was imposed. Anyone found outside his village alter dark was arrested.
p The guerillas learned thai some of their secret hideouts had become known to the police, possibly even the headquarters. 11 was decided that Nguyen Ai Quoc should move to a safer place. But that was easier said than done. At night it was almost impossible to move through the jungle and, besides, one could walk into an enemy ambush. And to try to penetrate the line of security agents in the daytime would have been sheer madness. The situation looked hopeless. But Nguyen Ai Quoc, having heard the different options, said:
p “Has anyone ever used a shaman?"
p “Of course,” his comrades said.
p In fact, people in those parts had hardly ever seen a physician in the European sense of the word. Instead, there were shamans or witch doctors.
p “Then get me all the things a shaman needs,” Nguyen Ai Quoc replied.
p A young Nung Party member agreed to escort him. His comrades got him a shaman’s paraphernalia. The young man carried a yoke over his shoulder with two baskets containing a couple of ancient books on black magic, wooden chips with magic’ signs, a box of goose feathers, a small gong, incense sticks, a magnum of moonshine, and a live chick, whose blood shamans use to drive out diseases. Nguyen Ai Quoc wore a black ankle-length gown with mysterious Chinese inscriptions embroidered on it, cloth slippers on his feet, an improvised turban on his head, a cone-shaped straw hat on his back, and a bamboo stall’in his hand.
138p He set out around noon. At the first checkpoint the young man explained he was bringing a shaman to treat his sick wile. Thus, they cleared several checkpoints without much trouble. After a while they saw ahead of them a group of peasants returning from the market, and going in the same direction. Nguyen Ai Quoc and his young companion decided to join the group. At the next checkpoint, the search seemed to be more thorough than before. The soldiers scrutinised every object, leafed through the shaman’s books and even palpated the chick.
p At that moment, they were approached by the security chief of the local commune.
p “What on earth makes you travel in such heat?" he asked.
p “I’m taking the shaman to see my sick mother-in-law,” the young man answered obsequiously.
p “Oh,” the officer exclaimed, "my wife is also sick. Could I ask you to see her too?"
p “He only treats colds,” the young man mumbled in confusion. " Besides, he’s hard of hearing."
p He looked around and noticed in the group of peasants an old acquaintance, a member of the national salvation society. The young man instinctively felt for the gun hidden under his clothes. If things got bad, he thought, he’d signal the man, who must also have a gun. They’d make a dash for the forest together. There were plenty of men around who’d provide help.
p Meanwhile, the officer approached the shaman and, tapping him on the shoulder, repeated his request:
p “Could I ask you to come and see my wife?"
p The old man slowly turned his head, and put his hand to his ear:
p “What’s that?" he asked.
p The officer got a glimpse of the old man’s goldish-black teeth. It was an old custom in Vietnam to coat one’s teeth with black lacquer to protect them from rot. Even today you find old people in Vietnamese villages with teeth edged with red from chewing betel. And before setting out on his journey, Nguyen Ai Quoc had rubbed his teeth with young resin to look like an old village man.
p “He’s hard of hearing. But my mother-in-law is so sick ... We really should be getting on,” the young man said.
p “Oh, all right, run along,” the officer gestured. "But tell the old man to come to my place on his way back, will you?"
p The rest of the journey was uneventful. When they reached their destination, the young man told his comrades about their adventure. His face was beaded with cold sweat, his voice excited. Every now and then lie would exclaim:
139p “Uncle Thu has such nerve! Such nerve! II it hadn’t been for him, I’d have spoiled everything.’
p In June 1911, Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote an appeal to his fellowcountrymen, calling on them to take up arms lor national liberation. He wrote that "the French rulers have become even more ruthless in carrying out their policy of exploitation, repression and massacre,” while "shamelessly surrendering our country to japan... As a result our people are languishing under a double yoke of oppression. They serve not only as beasts of burden to the French, but also as slaves to the Japanese.
p “What sin have our people committed to be reduced to such a wretched fate?" Nguyen Ai Quoc asked. "Are we to await death with folded arms? No! Certainly not! The twenty-odd million descendants of Lac and Hong [139•* are resolved to win freedom."
p I he address ended with a call to start an armed uprising to throw out the Japanese and the French.
It was heard by the whole nation. Leaflets with its text were passed from hand to hand. In town and country, agitators went from door to door.
4
p The Vietminh movement gathered momentum. New national salvation societies and selfdelence detachments sprang up in Caobang Province. Gradually, guerilla camps appeared in neighbouring provinces too. Yet the conditions lor a large-scale guerilla movement were (ar from favourable. The guerillas had almost no firearms. All they had were spears, swords and daggers. But worst of all, there were too few politically competent and committed Party activists who could explain the Party’s policies to ordinary people and rouse them to action. At Party meetings, Nguyen Ai Quoc often pointed out:
p “The revolutionary movement is like a tide, and reliable Party activists are like boulders, that hold down the newly-brought sand when the water recedes."
p
Often, explaining something to his colleagues, Nguyen Ai Quoc
would refer to the experience of the CPSU(B).
p The political courses that had been started outside Chingsi continued at Pac-bo. Beyond the village outskirts was a craggy hill. On one of its slopes, a house was perched. In former times it used to combine the functions of a prayer-house, a community centre, and a town hall. Hidden behind 140 the house was a deep cleft in the rock, which could accommodate several do/en people. It was there that the lectures were to proceed.
p Veteran revolutionary Vo Nguyen Giap recalls: "Phung Chi Kien, Vu Anh, Pharn Van Dong and I worked out the training programme under Uncle’s guidance. Each of us had to elaborate a programme: propaganda, organisation, training, or struggle. Uncle worked with great patience and care. He paid keen attention to the political content as well as to lucidity, conciseness and intelligibility of the material. As regards any work, any writing of ours, he asked questions and cross-questions, and paid particular attention to practical work. This style of training was of great benefit and guided me in my military work all through the resistance war. It also brought home to me that only by meeting the aspirations of the masses could we arouse their spirit. It was thanks to that spirit, to the experience I got from that first course of training, that I was later successful, in my practical work in the liberated area."
p Nguyen Ai Quoc’s colleagues often asked him about the Soviet Union. He himself, too, liked to illustrate his thoughts with examples from life in Russia. He told people, many of whom were illiterate, how the Russian nation had suffered under the tsar and how Lenin established a party of the working class, which rallied the people to fight for freedom, equality and happiness. Sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, Nguyen Ai Quoc would pause and then pronounce with great conviction, gesturing to emphasise his words:
p “What the people of Russia have done, we can also do. We must learn from the Russian revolution."
p It was no easy time for the Soviet Union the Nazi armies were approaching Moscow. Many young Communists asked Nguyen Ai Quoc if he thought the Soviet Union could withstand the onslaught.
p “The Nazis are sure of a blitz victory over the Soviet Union. But that will never happen,” he would answer. "Even in the 19th century, when Russia was suffocating under tsarist tyranny, the invincible Napoleon was crushed by the Russian people. Now Russia is a socialist state, has been for more than two decades already, the people have had a taste of the new life, a life free from exploitation, a life that is improving every day. The Soviet people are well organised. They have a high level of political awareness, and have been brought up in the spirit of patriotism and loyalty to revolutionary ideals. They are led by the Communist Party. You can never bring such a people to its knees. I can assure you, the cradle of the world revolution will fight to the end. The Red Army will soon mount a counleroffensive and drive the Na/.is back."
p At this point he would cast a glance over his hushed audience, and then sav:
141p “The day the Soviet people win the war should be the signal for our revolution. To bring that day closer, we must spare no effort today."
p After these words, even the most sceptical listeners were fired by new hope, and the assignments that had seemed so trifling before, especially about work among the population, took on an altogether different complexion.
p Nguyen Ai Quoc kept reminding his colleagues of the priority importance of political agitation and ideological education of the masses. If you want a good crop, plough deep, he liked to say. To create revolutionary armed forces and lay the groundwork for victory in a nationwide armed uprising, you first had to have an army of propagandists, an army of political agitators. He would refer to the experience of the CPSU. The most striking example of effective and purposeful political work in the history of the Russian Revolution, he said, was the period between the summer months and October 1917. when the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin managed to win over broad sections of the working people after securing the bolshevisation of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.
p He personally briefed and examined Party activists who were going to outlying areas of Caobang Province and the neighbouring provinces of Bac Kan and Lang Son to set up new guerilla bases there and promote the cause of the Vietminh.
p “Imagine that I’m an illiterate rustic and you’ve come to my house to convert me to the Revolution,” he would say with a mischievous smile. "Let’s see, what would you start with..."
p Some of the agitators were illiterate themselves and, besides, were forbidden to carry any revolutionary printed matter, since there had been cases when the security police shot detainees on the spot after finding copies of Vietminh newspapers on them. For this reason, Nguyen Ai Quoc had to write thirty poems, each dealing with a specific situation, to be memorised by his agitators: how to arouse government troops, how to influence women, old people, Buddhists, Catholics, and so on.
p All those who returned to Paqbo after a mission were debriefed by Nguyen Ai Quoc personally: he wanted to know what and how they had told the local villagers, how the latter had reacted and what they had been doubtful about. Then he would explain what mistakes had been made, if any. He tongue-lashed those who violated the rules of propaganda.
p “If you’re a Party activist,” he would say, "you must yourself be the bearer of truly revolutionary morality. People must trust, respect, and love you. For them to trust you, you must be honest and sincere in everything you do. For them to respect you, you must share all their misfortunes. For them to love you, you must honour (he elderly, respect the 142 women, and treat the children like a father. Last but not least, yon must always respeet local customs, no matter how strange they might appear. As the saying goes, it’s better not to pay your taxes to the king than to violate the customs of the village.”
p In some of the agitators’ reports he heard a note of pessimism. What’s the use, some would ask no sooner do you put together the core’ of a local national salvation society than the- Green Girdles round up all the newly-converted activists, take some away with their hands lied, and scare the rest. After such a raid, you’d better not appear in the village again no one will want to speak to you. Nguyen Ai Quoc would explain:
p “Among those who sympathise with the revolutionary cause, you can single out three categories. There are those who, once embarked on the path of struggle, remain faithful to it to the end of their days. Others seem at first to throw themselves passionately into the revolution, but then, after facing the police once or twice, withdraw, like a snail into its shell. Still others, on the contrary, are infuriated by police reprisals and become active revolutionaries. That is why we should not be afraid of reprisals. Like a sieve they separate the weak from the staunch and committed. It often happens that after a wave of reprisals, only three or lour remain loyal to the cause, while the rest fall back. That doesn’t matter the main thing is to convince as many people as possible that the revolution is close. Then, even if they are afraid to contact us, their hearts will belong to the revolution. They are poor, they hate the feudal lords and colonialists, and they yearn to see their country liberated. As soon as the thunder of the revolution echoes, they will immediately join."
p Nguyen Ai Quoc attached just as much importance to the kind ol language the agitators used. Ultra-revolutionary rhetoric coming from newly-Hedged Party activists made him wince. He would cut short such a /ealous orator by saying:
p “Comrade, go easy on the big words, avoid high-flown talk. If you want to be a real propagandist, you’ve got to learn to speak the language of the people only then will the people listen to you. Start bytalking to them about their most vital problems, about their parents and children, and whether they manage to make ends meet, and only then start talking about those who are to blame for their poverty and suffering."
p People who showed oil their knowledge ol foreign words also came under sharp criticism. Nguyen Ai Quoc would quote a Vietnamese proverb: "The ugly girl wants to become a beauty, and the ignorant man wants to sound scholarly.” In those days Vietnamese revolutionaries borrowed the Chinese word doting ket, solidarity, which was, of 143 course, unknown to ordinary villagers. Nguyen Ai Quoc would suggest to those who overused the new-fangled word:
p “Why not quote the well-known saying: one tree is a tree, three trees are a high mountain? Or else tell them of the chopsticks: it’s easy to break one chopstick, but try breaking a bundle! People will then understand what solidarity is all about."
p Those who were with Nguyen Ai Quoc at Paqbo recall how he won the hearts of local villagers. The very night he settled down in the Kocbo cave, he struck up a conversation with old Mai Ly. The latter spoke no Vietnamese, being a Nung, and they communicated by writing Chinese characters with a twig in the sand. The old Nung complained that the district authorities and local elders were making life intolerable. Nguyen Ai Quoc argued that the main enemies were the colonialists, while the local authorities were no more than their lackeys. But Mai Ly was hard to convince. Nguyen Ai Quoc thought for a moment, then wrote:
p “Suppose our nation is a tree, the village elders and district authorities are nails, and the colonialists are a hammer. The hammer can drive the nails into the tree trunk. But if we throw the hammer away,” he crossed out the character denoting the hammer and gestured with his hand, as if throwing away an imaginary object, "then the nails can do nothing".
p The old Nung fondled his luxuriant beard pensively. Then his wrinkled face lit up and he gave a hearty laugh.
p
“You’re right,” he wrote. "That’s the way things are. Somehow, I’d
never thought of it."
p After the 8th Central Committee Plenum, the work of Party activists was mainly judged by the number of local people they managed to recruit for the Vietminh movement. As a result, the much more important job of replenishing the Party ranks receded to the background. At one of the Party cell meetings, Nguyen Ai Quoc suggested that each Party member take upon himself to prepare at least one local resident lor enrolment in the Party. He himself picked young Dai Lam, the son of a long-time Nung acquaintance, who had already done a lot to help the guerillas. After that meeting, Dai Lam was often seen in the company of Nguyen Ai Quoc. A few months later, he was accepted into the Party. Later, he would become a colonel in the Vietnamese People’s Army.
p Dai Lam mentioned an episode that had impressed him: "I left my village and lived in a guerilla camp in the ]iingle. But my fellow-villagers managed to find me there anyway. They needed a shaman to make a sacrifice to the evil spirits. My father used to be quite skilled in the art 144 and he would often lake me along. Later, when he got too old lor such things. I sometimes went instead of him to houses where somebody was ill. But after I became a revolutionary, I quit. Although my neighbours often tried to persuade me, I would tell them: ’There aren’t any spirits or devils. You should treat the sick with medication and wholesome food.’ Some of those whom I refused to help, despaired. ’There was no one to drive the evil spirits out of their home. Rumours of this reached Bac Thu, and the next time we met, he asked: ’Is it true that you don’t exercise spirits any more?’ I told him what I thought of spirits, devils and all that rot, proud at the thought that Bac Thu would praise me for having got rid of the old superstitions. Instead, he scolded me: ’I’m pleased to hear that you’re such a x.ealous advocate of revolutionary ideas, but don’t you think you’re divorcing yourself from your pecple? At present the people must, first of all, hate the feudal lords and imperialists. We must help them develop a revolutionary class consciousness. Only later will we have the right to tell them little by little to give up their superstitions.’ ”
Through Nguyen Ai Quoc’s persistent efforts to impress upon his colleagues the need for a realistic approach to religious and age-old popular beliefs, the Vietnamese Communists won over large sections of the two major religious communities the Buddhists and Catholics including a large portion of the clergy. Frequently, Buddhist pagodas and Catholic churches provided refuge for Party activists fleeing from the police. Sometimes, they were the venue of Party conferences and even plenary meetings of the Central Committee. The Party developed close ties with these large religious communities in the framework of the Vietminh and later the Fatherland Front of Vietnam and the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation.
Ho Chi Minh’s father, Nguyen Sinh Sac
Ho Chi Minh’s childhood home
5
p During the months that Nguyen Ai Quoc spent at Paqbo he wrote prolifically, and translated.
p Immediately after his arrival at Paqbo, Nguyen Ai Quoc insisted on the need of issuing a Party newspaper. That was not easy. For one thing, instead of a printing press they made do with an old lithographic stone and a box of India ink. Out of bamboo pulp they made a sort of rough paper, which had a light-green tinge. Finally, the first issue of Independent Vietnam came out, becoming the Vietminh’s official organ. In a short time, it gained a wide circulation in the guerilla-controlled /one.
p During his stay at Paqbo, Nguyen Ai Quoc devoted much attention to military science he was convinced that in Vietnam a revolution 145
Ho Chi Minh in I’Yance, 1920
Ho Chi Minh speaking at the Tours Congress of the French Communist Party, 1920
This is ihc ship young Ho Chi Minh boarded in June 1911 to begin his travels
p Tribune du ProUttriit Colonial
p Pale hr Ware et Cote
p UntalfatrT.ilii.1it
p Indochine et Pacifique
p LCtploiltlia, mlr,ulft d,, AmmtmHt,
Ho Chi Minh’s cartootis often appeared in Le Paria
p Ho Chi Minh in 1923, when he lirsl eame to the Soviet Union
p Nguyen-Ai-Quoc
p LE PROCES
p d« U
p Colonisation Francaise
p fflctiirs Coloniales
p UBRA1RIE DU TRAVAIL. Q..i ij«..p«,% . PARIS
Title page of Ho Chi Minh’s hook, French Colonisation on Trial, 1925
Ho Chi Minh in Canton, 1925 to 1927
Title page of Ho Chi Minh’s book, 7"he Revolutionary Road
Ho Chi Minh among delegates to the 5th Congress of the Comintern, bottom row, left
Tran Phu, first General Secretary of the Communist Parly of Indoehina
Ho Chi Minh returns home after 30
years abroad (painting by artist Trinh
Phong)
The decision to establish the Yietminh front was taken in a forest shark like this one
The first armed unit of the Vietnamese revolution. Vo Nguyen Giap (left)
Ho (’.hi Minh in September 1945
The President of the Democratic Re-public of Vie-liia
At an observation post during the war of resistance, 1950
Ho Chi Minh was an excellent walker
In a cave in the Vietbac mountains
On the eve of the historic Battle of Dien Bien Phu
A Vietnamese Hag is raised over General cle Clastri’s eormnand post
One of the last sittings of the Democratic Republic’s government in Vietbac
Ho Chi Minh on the day of victory, 1954
The glorious capital regiment back in Hanoi
The joy of constructive peaceful labour
Ho Chi Mnih was very fond of children
In the the park outside the presidential palace
A guest of the Soviet Young Pioneers
Ho Ch! Minh and Ton Due Thang at a National Assembly session
Visiting Lenin’s study and Hat in the Moseow Kremlin
a Chairman of the DRV Supreme Defence Council visiting the Navy
A meeting with the heroie freedom fighters of South Vietnam
These fliers had shot down U.S. Phantoms
The procession at Ho Chi Minh’s funeral in Hanoi
The Soviet
m. s. Ho Chi Minh
calls frequently
in Vietnam ports
The stream of people beside (he Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi is endless
What once was Saigon is now known as Ho Chi Minh City
This is how Ho Chi Minh is forever impressed upon
the memory of his countrymen
p In Paqbo, he also wrote two historical poems. Both were written in the traditional Vietnamese lucbal metre, with lines of six and eight onesyllable words alternating, and a combination of internal and tailrhymes producing an especially expressive and melodious effect. The first, named "The History of Our Country”, which he had started to write when he was a student in Moscow, recounted the principal events in Vietnamese history, starting from the country’s first mythical king, Hong Bang, and ending with the French invasion. The poem’s message was that unity had always brought the Vietnamese people success and victory, whereas lack of unity brought failure and defeat. The victories won by the great martial leaders of old were due to their ability to rally and lead the mass of ordinary people. Of the country’s national hero Quang ’I rung, he wrote:
p
He had wilt-power
He had a mighty brain
Besides, the people
Gathered under his banner.
p The same leitmotif is seen in the poem’s closing lines addressed to his fellow countrymen:
p
Oh, heirs of the Dragon and Fairy,
Lose no time, and unite.
p The other poem, "The History of Vietnam from 1847 to 1947,” features a chronology of Vietnamese history during the nearly one hundred years of French colonial domination. Although it was written in early 1942, its last entry read: "1945, Independent Vietnam.” Vu Anh recalls in this connection: "Bac wrote at the end of his chronology that Vietnam would win independence in 1945. The date caused much controversy among our comrades. Some were genuinely distressed that they had to wait so long, while others believed 1945 was unrealistic. Bac, however, would only smile, and say: ’We shall see.’ "
At the end of his prophetic poem, Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote: "A nation that is so passionately patriotic must certainly be united and independent.” Three years later, his prophecy came true. And although after that the Vietnamese people had to fight for almost three decades, the cause of unity and independence led to triumph.
Notes
[139•*] According to Vietnamese tradition. Lac Loni; and Iloni; Bant; were the country’s first king’s.
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