An independent and charismatic figure, Ninh was able to conciliate between different anti-colonial factions including, for a period in the 1930s, between the Communist Party of Nguyen Ai Quoc (aka "Ho Chi Minh", then in exile) and its left opposition— the Trotskyists who looked to Ta Thu Thau.
Nguyễn An Ninh was born on 6 September 1900, in Chợ Lớn, Saigon, Cochinchina (a direct rule colony incorporated with four protectorates in the French Indochinese Union).
His father Nguyen An Khuong, "a middling landowner, who preferred to think of himself as a country scholar",[1] was a supporter of the Duy Tân hội or Đông Du (Association for Modernization, 1904–1912) reform movement.
[8] Nguyễn An Ninh published La Cloche Fêlée (the title from the poem by Baudelaire, The Cracked Bell) as a "Journal for the Propagation of French Ideas."
[11] Ninh published his own translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract under the title The Ideal of Annamese Youth (Cao-vọng cúa bọn thanh niên An-Nam.
[18][19] In 1929 more than a hundred peasants and day labourers were convicted in Saigon for membership of "Nguyễn An Ninh Secret Society" (otherwise known as Thanh niên Cao vọng Đảng, the Youth Salvation Party).
[22] The only concrete piece of advice Ninh is said to have given is for people to withhold their taxes, with the suggestion—in the recollection of one village school teacher—that within three years the colonialists would either capitulate or face a popular uprising.
[20] In a serialised and widely circulated account of their shared experience of Saigon's Maison Centrale,[24] the "Colonial Bastille,"[25] Phan Văn Hùm eulogised his friend as a man who, forsaking government offers of land and position, had struck "terror into the hearts of corrupt, servile sycophants" and shaken "the corner of the southern sky".
[29] While Ninh was in prison, Pham Văn Chieu appears to have maintained contact with many of his erstwhile supporters in the countryside, and after the rural protests of 1930 to have led them into the Communist Party.
He later thrust into Ngo Van's hands Céline's "explosive" Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night).
The French shattered the structure of every anti-colonial faction including (at a time when most their leading cadres were already in prison or, with Ho chi Minh, abroad) the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI).
Gathering around the independent figure of Nguyễn An Ninh, several of surviving representatives decided to bury their differences and together oppose the government in the Saigon municipal elections of April–May 1933.
The group, which included Nguyễn Văn Tạo of the PCI, the Trotskyist Tạ Thu Thâu, the anarchist Trinh Hung Ngau, and the independent nationalist Tran Van Thach, put forward a common "Workers's List" (So lao dong) and briefly published the paper La Lutte (The Struggle) to rally support for it.
"[32] However, from 1936 the lengthening shadow of the Moscow Trials (obliging the Party loyalists to denounce their Trotskyist colleagues as "twin brothers of fascism"), and the failure of the Communist Party-supported Popular Front government in France to deliver on promises of colonial reform, ensured a split.
When released early in 1939, but still under house arrest, he was persuaded to let his name go forward with Nguyễn Văn Tạo, and other Party cadres, as a Democratic Front candidate in the April 1939 Cochinchina Colonial Council elections.