146

p With my health attacked by
China’s fickle weather.
And my heart grieved by Vietnam’s
lung suf/mng,
Oh, tn fall ill in prison, what a hitler trial!
Enough In make you weep, bul I prefer It) sing.

Ho Chi Miiih

1

p With the country’s occupation by Japan, the patriotic movement came up against new difficulties. The lines of communication between North and South were severed. The guerillas lost contact with the outside world, and Nguyen Ai Quoc and his comrades often had no idea how the Second World War was progressing, especially the antiJapanese resistance movement in China. In order to drive out the Japanese invaders and their French lackeys, the Vietminh, which in fact represented the interests of the entire Vietnamese nation, needed political and preferably also material support from the anti-Hitler coalition. The guerilla groups in the backwoods of Cao Bang, Lang Son and Bac Kan provinces had almost no firearms. Also, it was essential to re-establish contact with the numerous Vietnamese emigre organisations in South China and draw them into the Vietminh.

p In other words, the situation demanded that an authoritative representative of the Vietminh be sent to China. There was not much debate over who was to go. The only person who could competently represent the Vietminh in negotiations with any organisation and who would also know the complex situation in China, was Nguyen Ai Quoc.

p In late August 1942, he summoned Vu Anh and asked him to make two chops one of the Vietminh, and the other of the Vietnamese section of the International League Against Aggression.

p He then wrote for himself a letter of recommendation from the two above organisations in Chinese and French, issued to Mr. So-and-So, a Chinese emigre resident in Vietnam sent to China to establish contact with Chungking (the wartime seat of Chiang Kaishek’s government). In order to throw French and Japanese intelligence off the scent, he invented a new name for himself: Ho Chi Minh. The period of revolutionary activity as Nguyen Ai Quoc was now over. A new chapter was 147 started. As Ho Chi Minh he became known to the whole world as leader of the Vietnamese revolution and the Vietnamese Communists.

p On August 29, accompanied by two guides. Ho Chi Minh set out on his journey. ’I o be on the safe side, they walked separately, but without losing sight ol each other. Ho Chi Minh brought up (he rear, impersonating a weaksighted Nung probing his way with a stall’. After crossing the border, the\ got in touch with a Chinese veteran Communist, who replaced the two Vietnamese guides. At the town of Tiendung, they put up for the night at the local inn. In the small hours of the morning, the police broke in and led them away.

p For over a month, the Paqbo headquarters knew nothing of Ho Chi Minh’s fate. Several comrades were sent to China to look for him. Filially, one ol them returned with a copy of a Chinese provincial newspaper which he got from Ho Chi Minh through a bribed prison warden. The\ applied an iodine solution to the paper, and found a message from Ho Chi Minh written in rice-water. Later, such newspapers reached Paqbo almost every week. The brief messages were usually accompanied by a short verse. From the casual hints that Ho dropped, his comrades constructed a gruesome picture of torture and suffering.

p At first, Ho was held in (he town jail of Nanning. A few da\s after his arrest, someone reported to the authorities that the new inmate was "conducting Bolshevist propaganda”. The old man received ten cane strokes to his heels and was moved to another prison, then another, and another. VVumin, Woochow, Lungchin, Liuchow, Kwilin, and Liuchow again all in all Ho had a taste of thirty prisons in thirteen districts of Kwangsi Province. It was a nightmare of miasmic flea-infested underground cells, sgualid sheds, and sombre army dungeons. The moving from prison to prison was done on loot, \vilh a block of wood around his neck, under armed escort, along mountain trails and through marshlands, in the scorching sun or in pouring rain. The ordeal lasted a little over thirteen months, in which his hair turned grey and he lost some of his teeth.

p But he never lost heart, and as soon as the door of a new cell would slam shut behind him, he would sit down to write his poetic diary. Altogether in those thirteen months lie wrote 1 11 quatrains, published after the Vietnamese revolution in one volume and known worldwide as Ho’s Prison Diary.

p The jailers watched his every move and sei/ed everything he wrote in his strange language. But Ho found a way to lull their vigilance lie switched to the classical literary Chinese. Perhaps that is why ’I’he Prison Diary was not merely a set of quatrains it was his thoughts encased in the armour of a foreign language, seeking a way out of the darkness; it was an inner lire that helped him to survive, conserve his energy, and 148 then rejoin the revolutionary struggle. His courage and poetic talent combined to create a unique story in verso about a Communist jailed for his convictions, unbending, never losing hope, and firm in his belief that justice would ultimately triumph:

p Without the cold and bleakness oj winter
The warmth and splendour of spring could never be.
Mis fort lines have steeled and tempered me.
And even mure strengthened my resolve.

p Even in the grisliest of dungeons, where human dignity was completely trampled upon, Ho Chi Minh retained his sense of humour:

p The Stale feeds me, I stop at State-owned palaces,
Guards work in relays to keep me company.
Passing by mounts and streams,
I enjoy majestic views.
It fills a man with pride to be so privileged.

p And his sufferings faded before the love of life and optimism that permeated every poetic miniature:

p My arms and legs are tightly bound.
But in the hills birds sing and /lowers blossom.
Who can stop my pleasure in sweetness of scent and sound?
In my long trudge I may feel a little less lonesome.

p The Prison Diary ranks among such outstanding creations of revolutionary literature as Julius Fucik’s .\oles from the (lallnws. Vietnamese literary critics consider Ho Chi Minh the father of Vietnamese revolutionary poetry. Ho was both leader of the revolution and its bard. The purpose of revolutionary poetry, he wrote, was to rally and lead:

p Lei steel resound and sparkle in my verse.
The poet is a fighter leading fighters.

p The four hundred days in Chiang Kaishek’s dungeons impressed themselves in Ho’s memory as a continuous nightmare. Everywhere the same stifling cells, the same wooden bunks barely covered with straw, the same bowl of cooked millet and jug of muddy water, and the same beatings and humiliation. Yet there was one day in February 1943 that stood apart in his memory. At the Liuchow prison one of the wardens whose sympathy he had managed to win, smuggled in an issue of the local paper. Ho Chi Minh glanced at the headline and jumped with joy. "Red Army Routs Na/is at Stalingrad; 330,000 Germans put out of action.” he read. At last! Now liberation was not too far away.

p The event had to be celebrated. Ho extracted his last silver yuan from 149 its hiding place, called (he warden and asked him to buy some soybean rusks, a little bag of sweets, and some jasmin-scented tea.

p Similar celebrations were held by Ho Chi Minh’s fellow martyrs in Vietnam, on Poulo Condor Island, the political prison in Saigon, the central prison in Tonkin, and do/ens of others. The news of Germany’s debacle at Stalingrad reached them all there was no stopping it. More often than not it was the wardens themselves who brought word of it. Indeed, the echoes of the Battle of Stalingrad were so formidable that they were heard in faraway Vietnam.
 

p In his weekly messages. Ho wrote he believed his arrest was probably initiated by the Kwangsi authorities, who thought him a Chinese traitor. But later it was discovered that the Chiang Kaishek authorities had been tipped off by Truong Boi Gong and company, who were afraid the appearance of such a Vietminh envoy in China would undermine their own position among the Vietnamese emigres.

p Only the top Chiang Kaishek administration could secure Ho Chi Minh’s release. The Communist Party of Indochina mounted a campaign for his release among the Societies for the Salvation of Vietnam in the Vietbac /one and among Vietnamese emigres in South China. Hundreds of petitions were sent to Chungking. A special issue of Independent Vietnam was put out at Paqbo calling upon the Chinese people "to help release one of the oldest patriots of Vietnam”. The appeal was also sent to the Comintern, to TASS, and to a number of Chinese newspapers, democratic organisations, and political figures in China.

p Once in mid-1943 a Party liaison, Comrade Cap, returned to Paqbo with the news that Ho Chi Minh had died in prison. That is what he had been told by a Kuomintang official. It is hard to describe the grief of Ho Chi Minh’s comrades, and in fact of all the residents of Paqbo. It was decided to hold a commemoration meeting, and Pham Van Dong was asked to write an obituary. Following the old Vietnamese custom, Ho Chi Minh’s bamboo trunk was opened and his personal belongings distributed among his friends as keepsakes. A man was sent to China to find out the details of Ho Chi Minh’s death and to locate his grave.

p For several weeks there was no news. Then, Paqbo headquarters received another newspaper from China with the usual invisible message in the margin: "Best regards to my brothers at home. We are all right here,” followed by the usual verse:

p The mountains embrace the clouds,
The clouds hug the mountains,
The river below shines like a spotless mirror 150
On the slojies a/ lite II ’extern Rmige, niv heart
be/its us 1 icdiiilci, Looking tuiciirds Ilii- Sinillieni skies and thinking
ii/ old friends.

p His comrades did not know what to think, (lap was summoned to headquarters and shown Ho Chi Mind’s message.

p “Can you remember exactly what that Kuomintaiig man told you:’" (hey demanded.

p When Cap reconstructed his conversation with the Chinese official, the misunderstanding became clear. The official had said: chu Inn die’s already free:, whereas Cap thought he heard shi Inn ’he’s already dead). The first reaction was to punish Cap, but soon they found themselves laughing.
 

For a long time il was unclear why the Chiang Kaishek administration finally released the Vietnamese revolutionary. Later, Vietnamese historians came to the conclusion that Ho Chi Minh’s release had been ]ust another ruse in Chiang’s Vietnam policy. In the early 1910s, when Japan had occupied Indochina, the hawks in Chiang’s administration were planning to invade Vietnam on the pretext of assisting the Vietnamese to drive out the invaders.

2

p Soon the idea of invading Vietnam crystallised in the form of a " Vietnamese campaign" operational plan. The first step m implementing it was to create a filth column out of Vietnamese emigres living in China. The greatest hopes were pinned on former members of the National Party ol Vietnam crushed by the French, who had lived in China a long time and collaborated with the Kuornintang. The Kwangsi authorities received instructions from Chungking to organise loyal Vietnamese emigres into a broadly-based quasi-revolutionary organisation which would later assist the Chinese invasion.

p Such an organisation was created in Kwangsi Province’ m October 1942 under the pretentious name ol’Vietnam Revolutionary League. Its Central Committee was made up of men who had collaborated with the Kuomiutang for many years, including the notorious Truong Hoi Cong, a general in the Kuornintang army. His chief rival was Vu Hong Khan, leader of the National Party. Quilc an odious figure was the 70-year-old Nguyen Hai Than, another member of the Central Committee. He had emigrated from Vietnam to China m 1912 and had long since forgotten his native lanuuaue. Fora time he had collaborated with Phan Hoi Chan 151 and hence called himself his successor. In China, however, he became famous m quite another capacity as a fortune-teller which brought him considerable wealth.

p from the very first day ol its existence, the Revolutionary League was paralysed by a fierce struggle for power. Besides, the Yunnan section of the Vietminh sent a cable to Chiang Kaishek and Chang Fakui, Commander ol the 4th Kwangsi Military District, saying it did not recognise, the Revolutionary League since it was not represented in Vietnam and was headed by a Chinese general. Surprisingly, Chang Fakui responded favourably. He was interested in winning over the Vietminh which, he knew, enjoyed broad support in Vietnam. Setting the ground for a Chinese invasion, Chang Fakui sent his authorised representative to the Vietbac guerilla-controlled area. On his return, the latter reported:

p “Over eight) per cent of the population in the provinces thai I visited are solidly behind the Vietminh. If we want to succeed in Vietnam, we must at all costs secure Vietminh support."

p Chiang Kaishek acted fast. It was clear that the Second World War was drawing to a close. After its victory at Stalingrad, the Soviet Armywas driving the Na/.is back to the border. The Americans, meanwhile, sank the Japanese fleet in the Southeast Pacific. An Anglo-American lauding in Indochina was imminent. The Vietminh, with which Chiang Kaishek had not yet managed to find common ground, was growing stronger by the hour. Chiang Kaishek’s plan of invading Vietnam hung in the balance.

p Chiang Kaishek changed his tactics. He instructed Chang Fakui to promptly settle all problems within the Revolutionary League. In August 1943, a committee was set up at Liuow to prepare a conference of Vietnamese patriotic forces, including the Vietminh. These preparations coincided with Ho Chi Minh’s transfer from Kwcilin prison to Liuchow prison. When Chang Fakui learned that a man believed to be an important Vietminh representative was being kept at the Liuchow prison, he immediately ordered his release. This was in September 1943, thirteen months after Ho Chi Minh’s arrest.

p A released prisoner feels like a bird in the woods, says a Chinese proverb. Yet for a long time Ho Chi Minh would feel the aftereffects of his 400-day ordeal: his eyesight began to fail and his legs refused to obey him. But again his willpower conquered. Fvery day he went on long walks, and after dark would look into the darkness in the hope of regaining his eyesight. Slowly he returned to normal.

p At first, Ho turned down the offer to join the preparatory committee.

p “I’ve wasted so much time in prison already,” he said, "that I can’t afford to lose another clay. There’s urgent business to be done in Vietnam. I’m sure other Vietminh representatives will cope here."

152

p On the next day, however, he got a letter from Chang Fakui again asking him to take part in preparing the ground for the eonlerenee. The tone of the letter left no doubt that Chang Fakui regarded Ho Chi Minh’s cooperation as payment for Ins release. It was clear that lie wanted Ho Chi Minh’s backing to further the plan of invading Vietnam.

p Did the Kwangsi authorities and Chungking know that Ho was actually Nguyen Ai Quoe.’

p Veteran Vietnamese revolutionary Le Tung Son, who was in South China together with Ho Chi \lnih and was also included in the preparatory committee, thinks Chiang Kaishek’s men knew ver\ well who they were dealing with. One of the preparatory committee members, a certain Than Bao, who had lived in Canton in 1925-1927, knew Comrade Vuong in person. Now, being a x.ealous servant of the Chiang Kaishek regime, it would be strange if he did not report the true identity of Ho Chi Vlinh to his masters.

p It is almost certain, Le Tung Son writes, that the leaders of the Revolutionary League, as well as Chiang Kaishek, knew that Ho Chi Minh was Nguyen Ai Quoe. It was not surprising, therefore, that the administration was so cordial. They would have been poor politicians indeed if they had not attempted to use the authority of this famous Vietnamese revolutionary. Besides, the times had changed. The Kuomintang was fighting the Japanese in alliance with the Communist Party of China, and it was a known fact that in all countries overrun by Na/i Germany Communists were in the forefront of the resistance movement. In this context, why should not Chiang Kaishek cooperate with Bolshevik Nguyen Ai Quoe to drive the Japanese out of Indochina? In other words, Le Tung Son concludes, Ho Chi Minh was released when the Chiang Kaishek administration learned he was one of the principal leaders of the Vietnamese liberation movement.
 

p Ho Chi Minh’s participation in the preparatory committee changed the atmosphere. Previously, some members of the Revolutionary League were fiercely opposed to cooperation with the Communist Party of Indochina and the Vietminh. Now they were forced to shut up. Pretty soon, the committee agreed upon the list of parties to be invited to lake part in the national conference: the Communist Party of Indochina, the Vietminh, the Revolutionary League (Viet Cadi), the Nationalist Party (Viet Quoe), and the Dai Viet (Great Vietnam, a pro-Japanese bourgeois party). Some committee members were against inviting the Dai Viet because it was pro-Japanese, but Ho Chi Minh said it should not be ignored in order to win over the patriotic-minded intelligentsia of the Tuluc Vandoan literary association connected with the Dai Viet. Ho Chi Minh also suggested inviting organisations that were not, on the 153 face of it, concerned with political issues, such as the Union ol Buddhists, the Enlightenment Society, and the Society for the Promotion of the Quocngu alphabet. These organisations, he said, included a great many patriotic-minded people who could be of great use to the revolution.

p Heated debate was sparked oil"by Ho Chi Minlf s and Le Tung Son’s proposal that the national conference should include delegates from the Y’ietmmh’s constituent national salvation societies ordinary workers, peasants, women, and young people. Truong Boi Kong and his supporters were afraid that then the eonlerenee would be dominated by the Vietminh. There was also much argument about the timing of the conference. The Viet Cadi thought it should be convened in three months, whereas Ho Chi Minh and Le Tung Son said it should be in a year. They knew that in three months the Vietminh would not be able to get all its representatives across the border into China, in which case Truong Boi Cong and his people would monopolise the eonlerenee. No agreement was reached, and the session ended in a deadlock.

p After weighing all the pros and cons, Ho Chi Minh and Le Tung Son decided to resort to the arbitration of Chang Fakui. They sent him a letter detailing their plan: the preparatory committee should be transformed into a conference of foreign representatives; its participants should discuss the conditions for convening a national conference, which should be held in a year’s time in a guerilla-controlled /one of Vietbac instead of China; Ho Chi Minh would undertake to find a suitable venue; those wishing to take part in the conference on Vietnamese soil must send their applications to the preparatory committee in advance.

p Chang Fakui had great respect for Ho Chi Minh, calling him Delegate Ho. Ho Chi Minh appealed to him as a human being. Besides, Chang Fakui did not want to jeopardise the dialogue with the Vietminh. A few days after getting the letter, Chang Fakui invited all members of the preparatory committee to a luncheon. At the end of a copious meal, when the guests were brought the traditional hot scented towels lor their hands and faces, and their ornate porcelain bowls were steaming with fragrant green tea, Chang Fakui said:

p “I believe it would be a mistake to think that if we just sit and wait, the conference that we are pinning so much hope on will take care of itself. At this rale, it will never get oil’the ground. So I asked Delegate Ho for his suggestions on how to organise it. I have studied his proposals and think they constitute a revolutionary plan conceived in a spirit of equality and a desire to unite all the revolutionary parties and organisations of Vietnam. Here is what he suggests..."

p When Chang Fakui finished reading the letter, Truong Bo Cong had no choice but to thank Chang Fakui and Ho Chi Minh. The others followed suit.

154

p Finally came the- day ol the confcivncc e>f foreign represenlalives ol theVielnarnese revolulionary movement. 1 ’o avoid unwanted publie’ity and to be- fully in control of the conference proceedings, Chang Fakui oflere-el its participants the- use of the premises of the military dislricl hcadquarlers. 1 he conference was opened to the- sounds of a rousing march played by a Chinese arm)- band. The Chinese and their Viet Cach re-lainers iried to emphasise the special significance of the occasion. And no wonder: the Chiang Kaishek regime was congralulaling itself on having brought togelher represenlalives of all patriotic’ forces of Vietnam, main ol whom we-re- noi on speaking terms be-fore-. The Chinese and especially the- Vici Cach and Viet Quoc e/llicials wore their Sunday be-sl, ollicers strutting about bemedalk’d, and civilians sweating in iheir suits. Ho Chi Minh looked out of place in his shabby old suit with a frayed collar and patched shoulders and knees. His look spoke plainer than words thai thewhole occasion was deeply repulsive to him, but that, for the- sake- of a tactical advantage, he was ready to go along with politicians who were not to his liking and who represented forces hostile lo the revolution.

p Ho’s manner was simple and businesslike. He spoke of the Vielminh, emphasising the part played by Communists in the nationwide ell’ort to drive out the Japanese. Chang Fakui interrupted him several times with hearty applause, and the rest had to follow suit. Chang was obviously proud to show off Ho Chi Minh as his brainchild: it had been he, Chang Fakui, who had the bright idea of releasing the Vietminh leader, and it was thanks lo him that the Revolutionary League- represcnled so broad a spectrum of political forces. Chang attended the conference to the end, until He> Chi Minh was made an alternate member of the Revolulionary League’s Central Committee. Only then could Chang rest easy.

p Chang immediately sent a cable to Chungking: "Conference concluded. Can Ho Chi Minh re-turn to Vietnam;*" The reply permitting Ho Chi Minh to go home was, in ellect, the first official document confirming his release.

p As he was packing his bag, Ho Chi Minh tolel Le Tung Son:

p “I think the- conference has been a great success for us. 11 would havebeen a mistake to boycott it. True, we should have no illusions about Chiang Kaishek, but through China we can and must find a way of conlading the Allies and secure their support."

Another imporlant outcome of the many-monlhs-long epic’ with the preparatory committee and the conference, was that Ho Chi Minh could re-turn to his own country on the eve of the gre-at upheaval, and resume his place al the helm of the- revolution.