History of the Communist Party of Vietnam

In the spring of that year the young man born Nguyễn Sinh Cung—under the pseudonym Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot) but best known as Hồ Chí Minh (Ho the Enlightened One)—established the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Thanh Niên Kách Mệnh Hội—commonly: "Thanh Niên") a Communist political organization.

[7] Thanh Niên was conceived of as a relatively open mass organization, with the most trusted members part of a directing center called the Communist Youth Corps (CYC).

[11] The lack of contacts with a unified headquarters catalyzed an organizational split, with movement radicals beginning to take instructions from the Comintern via the Communist Party of France and others following a different path.

[10] In September 1928 the radical Bac Ky Regional Committee of Thanh Niên held a conference at which it affirmed the Comintern's new Third Period analysis, positing a revolutionary upsurge around the world.

[13] In a letter to the Comintern, Thanh Niên estimated that approximately 90 percent of its membership consisted of intellectuals; a full-scale offensive to win mass support was desired.

[15] This gathering, held 1–9 May 1929 and attended by 17 delegates from each of the three main administrative districts of Vietnam, plus Hong Kong and Siam, would prove the occasion for a split between those who placed primary emphasis on the so-called "national question" (independence from colonialism) and those who sought social revolution.

[16] The conclave was chaired by Nguyen Cong Vien, making use of the pseudonym Lam Duc Thu, who summarily ruled the question of formation of a proper Communist party out of order, prompting a walkout of three members of the northern delegation, leaving only an informer working on behalf of the French secret police at the session as the Tonkin representative.

[16] The walkouts were sharply critical of those who refused to split, charging the remaining Thanh Niên leaders as "false revolutionaries" and "petit-bourgeois intellectuals" who were attempting to build bridges with the "anti-revolutionary and anti-worker" Kuomintang.

[17] On 17 June more than 20 delegates from cells throughout the Tonkin region held a conference in Hanoi, where they declared the dissolution of Thanh Niên and the establishment of a new organization called the Communist Party of Indochina (ICP).

[19] The two warring offspring of Thanh Niên joined with individual members of a third Marxist group founded by Phan Bội Châu at a "Unification Conference" held in Hong Kong from 3–7 February 1930.

"[24] The session was held in Hong Kong in October 1930 and renamed the organization the Indochinese Communist Party (Vietnamese: Đông Dương Cộng sản Đảng) (ICP) to mark Comintern's imposed changes.

At the same time, a Comintern Congress in Moscow adopted a policy towards a popular front against Fascism and directed Communist movements around the world to collaborate with anti-fascist forces regardless of their orientation towards socialism.

[29] In July 1930, declaring that, "being at all times a reactionary ideology, nationalism cannot succeed but to forge a new chain for the working class",[30] party dissidents in France had formed an Indochinese Group within the Communist League [Liên Minh Cộng Sản Đoàn/Groupe indochinois de la Ligue Communiste (Opposition)],[31] the French section of Trotsky's International Left Opposition.

Hồ Hữu Tường, once considered "the theoretician of the Vietnamese contingent in Moscow,"[32] formed the October Left Opposition (Ta Doi Lap Thang Moui) and called for a new "mass-based" party.

[33] Reacting to the severe repression of 1930-32 that had shattered and disorganised all anti-colonial political groupings, the local ICP party leader Nguyễn Văn Tạo found others, around Tạ Thu Thâu, willing to cooperate in a common program.

On the basis of a mutual political armistice they produced the newspaper La Lutte (The Struggle) and presented a common workers' slate in Saigon municipal, and Cochinchina Colonial Council, elections.

[34][35][36] The Lutteurs entered their own Popular Front, the Indo-Chinese Congress Movement (Phong-tiao-Dong-duong-Dai-hoi) with the bourgeois Constitutionalist Party, in order to draw up demands relating to the political, economic and social reforms that were to be presented to the new government in Paris.

[37][38] Pressured under the lengthening shadow of the Moscow Trials to denounce their Trotskyite collaborators as "the twin brothers of fascism", Nguyễn Văn Tạo and his comrades rejected a motion by Thâu attacking the Popular Front for betraying the promises of reform in the colonies and in June 1937 they withdrew from La Lutte.

[41] Governor-General Brévié, who set the results aside, wrote to Colonial Minister Georges Mandel: "the Trotskyists under the leadership of Ta Thu Thau, want to take advantage of a possible war in order to win total liberation."

After an uprising in Cochinchina in 1940, most of the Central Committee leaders were arrested, killed, including Nguyễn Văn Cừ (General Secretary), Hà Huy Tập; and Lê Hồng Phong was deported to Côn Đảo and died later.

[46] The Viet Minh originally downplayed their social objectives, painting themselves as a patriotic organization battling for national independence to garner maximum public support against the Japanese military occupation.

Despite its position as the core of the Viet Minh organization, the Indochinese Communist Party remained very small through the war years, with an estimated membership of 2–3,000 in 1944.

This was accompanied by attacks upon rival political formations, including the nationalist VNQDĐ, the syncretic Hoa Hao and Cao Dai sects, and the Trotskyists—the Socialist Workers Party in the north (Dang Tho Thuyen Xa Hoi Viet Bac) and the Fourth Internationalists in the south (Trăng Câu Đệ Tứ Đảng)--and the execution of their leading cadres.

The Third National Congress, held in Hanoi in 1960, formalized the tasks of constructing socialism in what was by then North Vietnam and committed the party to liberation in the South.

[54] He acquired more influence by installing his supporters, notably Lê Ðức Thọ, in top positions, then took on responsibility for planning the offensive in the south, while his main rival within the party, Trường Chinh, concerned himself primarily with the socialist transformation of the north.

During these hard times, conservatives launched a campaign led by Đào Duy Tùng, the editor-in-chief of Communist Review (Vietnamese: Tạp chí Cộng Sản).

However, at the 10th Central Committee meeting of the 7th Party Congress, he was accused of "anti-democratic behaviour" and abuse of power and because of it, he was not reelected to the Politburo, attaining only 10 percent of the vote.

The fall of Đào Duy Tùng, Đỗ Mười's planned successor, led to a compromise solution where the general secretary, prime minister and president were reelected at the 8th Party Congress because of the lack of a majority driven by the conservative – reformist power struggle.

[79] The Asian financial crisis and the power struggle within the party crippled efficient administration, presenting Lê Khả Phiêu with a daunting task.

[85] In 2021, General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, was re-elected for his third term in office, meaning he is Vietnam's most powerful leader in decades.