Emulation and Collective Morality

4In 1948, patriotic emulation tried to reposition the Vietnamese citizen at the centre of his community. The revolution — or more precisely, the revo-lutionary struggle — was first and foremost a moral issue. Hồ Chí Minh wrote, “Like a river that is fed by its spring, and dries up without it, a tree needs to have roots, and dies without them. A revolutionary needs to have morality; without it, regardless of his abilities, he cannot lead the people.”5 This transformation of morals did not, however, aim for a rupture between the old and the new. Hồ Chí Minh had mastered the art of gradual change and tactical moderation to a much greater extent than had Mao. The new Vietnamese Republic, based in the Việt Bắc province until the end of the war with the French, initially hoped to gain the upper hand over the pro-French nationalist government of General Nguyễn Văn Xuân (1948–49), its primary political rival. The revolutionaries were not trying to orient the country towards a foreign model of a progressivist society; rather, they wanted to create a homegrown alternative6 and to renew their political purity, rejecting the compromises of the outdated, traditionalist ideology of the provisional central government. President Hồ hoped to win over the peasantry, who tended more towards conservatism than Bolshevik conversion.7 By the end of the 1940s, efforts towards the “new life” were much more concerned with opposing “collaboration with France” than with aping an internationalist movement. The DRV sought a new legitimacy of power centred on collective morality, and concepts of family and filial duty underpinned these patriotic emulation campaigns.

5The new man was first of all an enemy of the Nguyễn regime. The Việt Minh did not approach their patriotic war in terms of class; it was a just war that they fought against “invaders and oppressors, safeguarding the freedom and independence of the entire nation”.8 The myth of national purity was not set against feudalism in the Marxist-Leninist sense. The DRV was engaged in a progressivist struggle since it was founded on de-fending the vital interests of the common people; the government thus wanted to improve living conditions and increase democratic rights. Declaring its intention to defend the people helped to anchor the DRV’s legitimacy in the countryside and facilitate a general mobilisation of the nation’s working population. DRV leaders claimed a direct lineage with the heroes and heroines of the nation’s glorious past. The discourse was about unity, but a union that the revolutionary movement wanted to take credit for. Patriotic emulation would first serve to “train new cadres and improve old ones in a new spirit of collective solidarity”.9 The government evoked the need to promote collective heroes capable of guiding the people towards the path of “people’s liberation”, a heroic collective mass which would give rise to a few exemplary individuals.10

6As the war progressed, the Việt Minh had to step up its mobilisation. Though they had not invented the concept of the new man, the Vietnamese resistance hoped that emulation would strengthen the bonds of solidarity in a nation that had been divided by the colonial administration. In January 1948, DVR leaders reacted to several military setbacks by announcing the beginning of a second phase, one of “equilibrium”. Patriotic emulation campaigns were launched as part of this change in strategy. The DRV increased the numbers of its regular troops, provincial forces, and local militia groups: from 50,000 at the beginning of the war to 250,000 soldiers and militia forces in 1948. Even though the French still occupied most of the area around the Red River Delta, the Việt Minh launched a “phase of pacification of the free zones” to strengthen its political activities in the villages. Võ Nguyên Giáp, Minister of National Defence, affirmed that guerrilla warfare no longer suited the political objectives of the new phase of action.11 They had to take command on the battlefield and increase their mobilisation. Already in December 1945, the DRV had instituted administrative reforms to increase its hold on the local elite.12

7Việt Minh leaders had a second objective in 1948: the rapid unification of a population that was “dismembered, forced together, and heterogeneous”. The unanimous support of the people for the Việt Minh is a myth of communist historiography. In July 1945, Trường Chinh had already criticised the people of Tonkin for their poor engagement in the struggle to liberate their country. In his study on the August Revolution, the historian David Marr points out that barely 10 per cent of the population from the liberated mountainous regions in the North were actually enlisted in the National Liberation Army.13 The August insurrection was not the sole effort of the Việt Minh, since there were many other local groups that called themselves Việt Minh without having the slightest idea about the Party line. Two years later, in late 1947, the Việt Minh was confronted with not only the advances of the French army but also an erosion of their political legitimacy in the countryside due to the waves of repression and the decline of communal autonomy. Since the 1930s, the Party fought to safeguard its influence in rural areas by lowering taxes, abolishing monopolies, and distributing rice paddies. When the war resumed in December 1946, the DRV again offered to reduce interest rates and farm rents in order to secure peasant support.

8On the eve of the first emulation campaign, the DRV’s activities to mobilise the population turned out to be rather disappointing on the ground. Trường Chinh admitted that their measures had done little to win the good graces of poor peasants. For the most part, new Việt Minh recruits came from the urban and industrialised areas of the country while the rural population was reluctant to join mass organisations in the villages. Peasants’ Associations loyal to the Việt Minh barely garnered 820,000 members throughout the country.14 For Defence Minister Giáp, the key priority was not so much to combat French occupying forces but to rebuild “the spirit of the Vietnamese man”, so he could distinguish for himself the just cause — that of the Việt Minh. Propaganda organs repeated that the resistance would lead to the “metamorphosis of the Vietnamese people”.15 DRV leaders would have to establish a new mass mobilisation movement that would finally reach their objective — transforming Man to better secure his allegiance to their cause. The patriotic emulation campaign of 1948 was their attempt to resolve the political and moral dysfunction in society. Emulation was supposed to be a springboard towards a “new life” whereby the Việt Minh would offer the peasant class a “legitimate reason” for mobilising and uniting under the flag of patriotism. The formation of minds was to be the final step in the DRV’s attempt to allay the chronic weakness in their quest for support in the countryside.

The First Patriotic Emulation Campaign

9The first campaign for patriotic emulation was laid out in the spring of 1948. The movement, it was announced, would acquire the human and material means to victory and would strengthen the credibility of the Việt Minh resistance in the eyes of the communist world.16 On 19 June 1948 — the thousandth day of fighting against France — patriotic emulation was officially launched throughout the country:

What is the patriotic emulation competition? Competing with patriotic feeling in everything one does in order to obtain good results. Mobilising the masses to achieve victory. Exterminating the three enemies: invaders, hunger, and ignorance. What are its main goals? Politically, we must establish the basic organisations of the Party, the people, and political authority in the occupied zones. We must develop and consolidate the popular organisations of the Liên Việt [the reformed and renamed Việt Minh] and set up autonomous cells. Economically, we must make weapons, increase the production of rice and rice paddies to put aside reserves, reorganise the cooperatives and create new ones, reduce farm taxes by twenty-five percent, and sabotage the enemy’s economy. Culturally, we must eradicate illiteracy and advocate the new life. Lastly, militarily we must develop the people’s war, create the foundations for a guerrilla war, buy resistance bonds and contribute to the Resistance Fund. The patriotic emulation competitions must have the characteristics of a popular movement.17

10A national emulation committee or bureau was created to oversee the programme. It was made up of government representatives, delegates of the National Assembly, and members of the leadership committees of all mass organisations. Each level (national, zone, province, district, and commune) was supposed to have a branch office staffed by three or four people to organise local campaigns. The government wanted them to pay particular attention to the make-up of the committees, suggesting they assign people who were not Party members.18 Villagers deemed progressivist were the natural choice to lead these new bodies. They were told to avoid village elders or scholars and to choose instead people who were active and successful in their field, since it would take a well-selected committee to win over the rural population, which traditionally shied away from change.

11On the communal level, the emulation bureau made a list of its model citizens, then shared their stories with people in the area. These men and women were part of a vanguard that had to go out and educate the villagers. In reality, however, not many of these branch offices saw the light of day. At the end of the first season of emulation, only the military zones or a few provinces had emulation facilities. At the village level, the president of the commune or the Party secretary was in charge. In response to this shortfall, the government shifted the main burden of its emulation policy to provincial authorities. Delegates from provincial committees received training in the military zones and served as a relay between the central government and the local collectives within their area. The province delegated two types of officials: emulation cadres who devised programmes adapted to the particular conditions of their area, and itinerant cadres who would help implement the movement throughout the territory. In 1949 there were only a few itinerant cadres, so the provinces sent them first to the more populated villages in the valleys or low mountains. Lacking time, they would just hold short informational meetings to explain how people could benefit from participating in the emulation campaigns. Cadres from the provincial apparatus ran up against the conservatism of the villagers, who were not very open to new ideas.19 Absenteeism was high. To combat this lack of interest, cadres wrote down the names of those who did not show up and later paid them a visit to explain the error of their ways. The organisation of this first emulation campaign in the provinces of North Vietnam was carried out by these small groups of itinerant cadres (sent by the province or, when not available, by the district).

12Communal authorities launched collective operations (cleaning and draining canals, clearing land, etc.) to show the benefits of group work and its advantages in terms of productivity and effort. Village chronicles by the new government describe the “collective and jovial [atmosphere] that suddenly arose among the villagers” whenever they came to help each other. The National Emulation Committee printed out patriotic songs that cadres handed out to the local people to sing as they worked:

Uncle Ho called for emulation, let’s see who succeeds and who fails. Go to the Front to fight the foreigners, and to the fields for the harvest. If you are poor you’ll stay poor, since you cannot fight alone against the morning heat and the afternoon rain. If you want enough rice and money to feed every soldier, you must boldly take a stand. Young children must stand by their aging mothers, older ones by their younger siblings. And you, you must try to see farther, fight on so many fronts, cut down so many heads; to every husband and every wife, tell me who will receive recompense — the ones who take the lead in emulation.20

13Educational groups used Hồ’s declaration of 19 June to launch emulation as a pedagogic tool. Youth organisations sent groups of two or three chil-dren to villages to recite poems and sing songs about emulation. They had to overcome the prejudices and mistrust of the peasants. In each hamlet, government representatives created emulation units made up of 20 to 50 families.21 Provincial cadres studied the data to establish “programmes adapted to local conditions”. The division of land was carefully examined; the various professions and modes of production were indexed as well as the standard references (gender, age, family situation, attitude towards the resistance, etc.) and the physical ability of the inhabitants. The province asked its cadres to talk with village elders to avoid the risk of confrontation (mainly hostilities among families), which would impede the campaign’s progress. Finally, villagers were gathered together to present their assessment of the operation. The government advised its cadres to “speak quite firmly, if necessary, to show the villagers what they had to do” but “with a spirit of simplicity and flexibility”.22 Emulation leaders first brought up the “congenital” bond between the villager and his nation before explaining the organisation of a local competition for patriotic emulation.

14The notion of a competition was familiar to the people but in its traditional form. Before, gruelling competitions were held to elect officials of the imperial state; now the key to success rested on one’s patriotism and allegiance to the Việt Minh struggle. It was no longer a question of competition but of solidarity between the members of a community; one did not have to study Chinese classical literature but government directives. The winner was the one who most enthusiastically responded to the government’s productivist, military, or political needs. At the end of each emulation season or campaign (lasting three to six months), the government selected the “most progressive elements”. In the villages, cadres awarded all participants an emulation certificate with a simple inscription: “I take part in emulation” (tôi thi đua). They had to display it at home so that cadres could freely control their participation in the movement. Within the ranks of the army (both regular and regional forces) or the people’s militia, the certificate was in the form of a pennant or flag issued by the Minister of Defence.23 Within each sector of activity, steering committees organised closing meetings to elect the best representatives of the season. The National Emulation Committee explained to the people what they personally stood to gain from taking part in the movement.24

15In the Soviet Union, socialist emulation took pains to “offer all Stakhanovites special privileges in kind or in services that were previously unavailable to their income level”.25 In the same vein, the Vietnamese government promised to reward “virtuous people” for their engagement in the struggle of “legitimate forces”. In Asian societies, a medal was like a gift. A gift demanded reciprocity, not a quantitative one, but one based on honour. The recipient becomes a debtor and must return the gift in order to ease the temporary imbalance in social order. The gift brought about a distinction that was unacceptable to the perenniality of the collective. A family rewarded by the State gained legitimacy over those around them, thus creating a source of disorder. The cultural continuity of the principle of “gift/counter-gift” gave the State a vector for further emulation to strengthen its mobilisation of the masses. A reward pay scale was drawn up by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly in May 1948.26 An Institute of Decorations was created to award new patriotic titles to the “exemplary men of the DRV”: the Hồ Chí Minh Prize, the Medal of Military Merit and Medal of the Combatant, the Gold Star, the Hồ Chí Minh Medal, the Medal of Independence, and the Medal of Resistance. These individual and collective awards came with a small sum of money. The government saw this reward policy as a way to strengthen its influence on the minds of the people.

Emulation in Nghệ Tĩnh Province

16Long considered by the government as a pillar in its efforts to establish authority, Nghệ Tĩnh province (which encompasses the territory of Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh) had been a defensive shield against the south for centuries.27 The Party’s Central Committee chose Thanh Hoá and Nghệ Tĩnh in early 1947 as rear bases for the battles to come in the centre of the country. Their watchword was “Protect the South, advance towards the South, push the enemy towards the South”, and Thanh Hoá and Nghệ Tĩnh were to be bulwarks against the advances of the French army. In mid-1947 the region of Bình Trị Thiên fell into the hands of Franco-Vietnamese forces, so the strategic importance of Nghệ Tĩnh increased and the mobilisation of its people became a priority.

Figure 3. Map of Nghệ Tinh province

17The first campaign of patriotic emulation was meant to follow the popular mobilisation movements put into place when the war with France began. As of the summer of 1947, the Women’s Association from Nghệ An had been put in charge of creating units of mothers of combatants from each commune. Other groups were in charge of collecting food, clothes, and money. Patriotic emulation was a variant of these campaigns of patriotic solidarity. A conference was organised in Nam Đàn (seat of Nam Đàn district) in June 1948 to outline the nature and objectives of the movement. Under the supervision of the local branch of the Party, the Provincial Committee of Resistance and Administration brought together representatives from the people’s assemblies, the Liên Việt, mass organisations, and from each administrative level in the area to explain the procedure. The emulation campaign was spread over eleven months and comprised two distinct phases, from 1 August–23 December and from 1 March–19 June 1949. The Ministry of Labour advised the communes and districts to create special bureaus to manage the programme, but this was largely ignored. Instead, communal cadres entrusted the dissemination of the movement to mass organisations, while the management would be shared between themselves and Party representatives.

18In 1948, however, not all communes had Party cells (it should also be noted that the Party had been officially dissolved in November 1945 as a means of disguising its leadership over the provisional government established in September).28 The movement had the quickest success within the army. Political commissioners held informational meetings with their troops (within the military zone of the district) and then offered courses in politics, military strategy, and guerrilla tactics. The government wanted to increase the number of revolutionary organisations, communal forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the People’s Militia, and guerrilla units. In June, the province launched a movement called “One month in the people’s militia forces”. All men from 18–45 years of age and women from 18–35 were encouraged to join local resistance groups. Official statistics show excellent results: in just a few weeks, membership in the provincial people’s militia went from 166,460 to 387,530. Security forces were established on the communal and town levels. Village security groups, made up of five families, were formed and put in charge of neighbourhood safety. In February 1949, the district of Nam Đàn created the first group of “senior” soldiers in North Vietnam, attracting 43,380 people before the year was out. By the end of the year, the Supreme Council for National Defence entrusted the financing of the people’s militia forces to the provinces. The Party organised a collection in the villages of the area to raise the necessary funds. In January 1949, the village of Ốc Khê in Can Lộc district (Hà Tĩnh) was chosen to test out the new campaign.29

After increasing membership in the patriotic forces, the emulation movement added a second objective: improving agricultural, artisanal and industrial production. People were encouraged to clear new land and plant on tracts that lay fallow. Official sources confirm that Nghệ An increased its cultivable land area by almost two thousand hectares (nearly five thousand acres) in November 1948. The government encouraged peasants to improve their productivity with the help of fertilizers, both natural (vegetable and animal manure, compost) and industrial (phosphates). Cadres explained that it was more productive to get together in small groups, to share the workload, encourage each other, and provide criticism. They explained how to set up support cells. In June 1949, the district of Nghi Lộc (Nghệ An) had 462 collective production groups, with the participation of some twenty thousand peasants.

19On the provincial and district level, agricultural committees were created to train new “cadres of agricultural production”. These technicians would be the link between the communal committees and mass organisations, and would help choose the outstanding workers of the village. It was thus that in 1948, the agricultural committee from Nghệ An province awarded the first award to the Catholic peasant Hoàng Hanh (Xuân Lậc, Nam Đàn), four years before he was given the first title of “Hero of Agricultural Labour” during the conference at Tuyên Quang in May 1952. In the area of artisanal and industrial production, however, the patriotic emulation movement turned out to be less effective. In the late 1940s, Nghệ Tĩnh’s industrial infrastructure was still very poorly developed. Only the provincial seat, Vinh, and the surrounding areas, had a few factory workshops — but in 1948 the small town of Vinh was still solidly held by the French. In the outlying areas, however, there were a few workshops in the hands of the Việt Minh, such as the grenade plant in the district of Nam Đàn. Official statistics showed that these small Việt Minh-controlled plants saw a real increase in production as a result of the emulation movement.

20Patriotic emulation also helped in the fight against illiteracy. The DRV had already established mass education in 1945, but in 1947 only 15 per cent of the population of Hà Tĩnh could read and write. The government made it a point of honour to fight against what it considered a “deficiency of the colonial administration”. In Confucian societies, it was the ruling power’s duty to teach its citizens and its legitimacy depended on its ability to educate the people. The DRV’s mission was thus a traditional one. In 1949, the provincial administration rewarded Hoàng Thị Liên, a former illiterate, for her work as a teacher in the village of Nghi Hượng (Nghi Lộc district). Resistance committees tried to reach out to teachers who had been trained and employed by the French, encouraging them to “return to the village” to host mass education groups. In exchange, the government awarded certificates of patriotism to those who wanted to erase their “collaborationist indiscretions”. In Quỳnh Lưu, an Association for Educational Development was created to persuade the nation’s scholars to teach in these “official training programmes”. The administration solicited donations from the people to cover costs. Within the people’s militias, those who could read were placed in cultural groups and sent to teach in their hamlets or families. In 1949, the government proudly proclaimed a “total victory against the scourge of illiteracy, one month before the close of the first phase of patriotic emulation”.

21Lastly, patriotic emulation aimed at creating a “new life”. Local cadres praised government efforts in public hygiene. The Việt Minh press claimed that within a few months, latrines, collective showers, enclosures for livestock, and hundreds of hospital beds had been set up around the communes of Nghệ Tĩnh. In reality, however, the number of places that actually had these facilities in the late 1940s were still rare or even nonexistent. The government also encouraged participation in sports and fought to eradicate opium use, prostitution, feudal beliefs, etc. In the spirit of “Cultivate the mind, build the nation”, local cadres urged young women to cut their hair short and stop wearing traditional necklaces and bracelets in order to “espouse the spirit of patriotic emulation”. In the village of Văn Hải (Quỳnh Lưu district), the Party cadre Hoàng Ngọc Oanh suggested that people get together to destroy the communal halls and pagodas in the area and use the building materials (bricks, stones, wooden beams) to build “progressive buildings”. However, aside from the actions of a few cadres in a couple of villages, most Vietnamese villages did not undergo any profound changes in the late 1940s.

22In Nghệ Tĩnh as in the rest of the country, the emulation campaign served primarily to further establish the mechanisms for ideological training in the countryside. In May 1949, the district of Nghi Lộc had five new organisations: a group of local officials, a network of cultural groups, an association for Marxist studies, a teachers’ federation, and a student group. New Party cells were created by the hundreds throughout the area. The sudden increase in membership of “progressive organisations” was amazing. According to official statistics, Việt Minh membership went from 21,160 to 31,050, the Liên Việt from 10,307 to 32,957, the youth association from 6,070 to 10,450, the association of women grew from 300 to 5,212, and the Association of Mothers of Combatants from 1,700 to 3,540. Cadres of the DRV saw patriotic emulation in 1948–49 as a tool for winning over the villages. But one year after the start of the first campaign, several government reports pointed out weaknesses in the operation. DRV leaders noted with some disappointment that “many provinces were still barely affected by the movement”,30 but admitted that “patriotic emulation was a new movement that had disoriented the people and cadres to some degree”.31

23Once a province had established a broad ideological infrastructure, the State sometimes criticised its cadres for seeing emulation only as a way of increasing Party membership or improving the training of local leaders while offering nothing to the people. By following only the directive “Emulation to help build the Party”, these zealous cadres were accused of showing a “segregationist attitude that threatened national unity”, while the government wanted to rely more on people who were outside of the Party.32 Hồ Chí Minh brought up this issue during a public speech on 1 August 1949 and said it was because “Party cadres did not understand the meaning of the patriotic emulation campaign”.33 Local cadres were criticised for not explaining the notion of emulation well enough to the villagers, for forgetting to nominate leaders in the communes, for not encouraging the sharing of experiences, for not sending enough activity reports from their level, or for neglecting the standard forms of propaganda (arts, popular theatre, etc.) to spread “the spirit of the campaign to the popular masses”. The campaign’s poor implementation at the communal level sometimes made it seem like just a new patriotic tax imposed by the central government. Hồ Chí Minh reminded the people that “patriotic emulation was in their own best interest, in the interest of their families, the village, and the nation, regardless of one’s ethnicity”.34 Most importantly, patriotic emulation was not a passing phase but defined “the new life of the Vietnamese people”.35

The Sino-Soviet Reform of Emulation

24Since its creation in 1941, the Việt Minh’s political strategy was that of a united front. Trường Chinh stressed the need to “rely on the solidarity of an entire nation” in the country’s resistance against France. It would take the land itself, insisted Hồ Chí Minh, to win over the favour of the rural population. Resistance against the foreign oppressor should be accompanied by agrarian reform. In 1948–49, however, word from Hồ’s entourage was that agrarian reform was not ready yet for implementation. Trường Chinh reiterated that progressive land reform had always been envisaged so as not to alienate a segment of the population.36 Prudence on the part of the government resulted in the less-than-rigorous implementation of the programme in the countryside. The DRV was not officially looking for a model, but it was also not in a position to defend one. The journal Sự thật (Truth) discussed this issue in its edition of 6 January 1950.37 Government leaders sought a third way between Stalinist emulation and capitalist-style competition, while hardliners defended the higher principle of solidarity within the community. But this concept of solidarity — which I call “filial” or “Confucian” for convenience — was different in many ways from the internationalist understanding of the term. After quite prudently affirming that the class struggle was also a reality in Vietnam, the government advocated a national specificity in their conception of emulation policy. The goal of Vietnamese-style emulation was to unite the people to better fight “foreign oppression” — basically they wanted a patriotic emulation that was adapted to the socio-cultural conditions of the country.

25This stance was not universally supported within the Party. In the autumn of 1948, the communist Trần Ngọc Danh criticised the Party’s approach in the Cominform journal, For Lasting Peace, for People’s Democracy, a diatribe against the excesses of Hồ Chí Minh’s system that circulated for a long time among high Soviet authorities.38 Trần Ngọc Danh accused North Vietnamese leaders of repudiating proletarian internationalism, of being obsessed with nationalism, and for lacking solidarity with the causes of a progressive world. Shortly before the official diplomatic recognition of the DRV by Beijing and Moscow in January 1950, the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the fall of 1949 marked an important turning point. The defence of national specificity was not a new concept for leaders of the Việt Minh, but this was the time of the schism in Yugoslavia and the communist world was divided. Any nationalist deviation from the Marxist-Leninist line was harshly condemned by Stalin. In December 1949, Mao Zedong cleverly dedicated his victory against the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek to the Russian leader. His government made sure to increase its acts of deference toward the lord of the Kremlin as Stalin dreaded the emergence of a challenger to his supremacy in the communist world.

26In January 1950, Hồ Chí Minh and Trần Đăng Ninh set out for Moscow where a new partnership was hammered out between the Soviets, Vietnamese, and Chinese. The Kremlin demanded that the Vietnamese take the path of “internationalist progressivism”.39 An agreement was secretly signed between the Soviets and the Chinese — with Vietnamese representatives conspicuously absent — entrusting the supervision of Vietnam’s revolutionary development to China. The stakes were high for the DRV as they needed to regain the confidence of the socialist world as well as secure military help from Beijing and, to a lesser degree, from other Eastern European countries. It seems clear that the agreement was more of a diktat than a free political choice, but the resumption of hostilities did not allow them much choice. The Soviet government demanded a profound recasting of the system of ideological training in North Vietnam in order to propel the country quickly into agrarian reform. Patriotic emulation was entering a totally new phase, and the arrival of Chinese advisors in the northern provinces announced a complete transformation of patriotic emulation nationwide.

27In the spring of 1950, Hồ Chí Minh knew these reforms were crucial if he wanted to retain the military, economic, and diplomatic support of the communist world. In 1947, General Nguyễn Sơn, known for his Maoist leanings,40 was the first to propose the organisation of “rectification sessions”.41 Việt Minh leadership, however, deemed the method unsuited to the “Vietnamese spirit”: “Hồ Chí Minh did not want to change Man from one day to the next, but to teach him gradually to help him evolve. He did not like to rush into things. The idea that consciousness could leap forward did not even cross his mind.”42 The Việt Minh criticised China’s approach for its anti-intellectualism and ideological orthodoxy. In the spring of 1950, however, Beijing went even further and oriented itself towards “an operation to remodel the character, temperament, ideas, or basically the entire psychology of Man. The goal was not intellectual but emotional: it was a matter of creating a new mentality, a new behaviour.”43

28On 6 May 1950, Hồ Chí Minh finally decided to bring up the issue during a “training and study meeting” in which he openly criticised the Maoist model of re-education, advocating a closely supervised reform of the Vietnamese man:

The process of re-education must be positive and meticulous. One must know exactly who needs to be re-educated, who should be in charge, of what this should consist, how to do it and on what basis. One must be sure to follow closely the training process and the driving force of this teaching. One must correct overzealousness immediately and without hesitation. One must know how to use one’s principles well rather than use them too much; it is useless to open re-education classes anarchically, if a class has too many participants then the levels are not equal, the program will not be suitable … and this will undoubtedly have an effect on the whole re-education process.44

29Bùi Tin, a former colonel in the PAVN who ran afoul of the government and went into exile in Paris in 1990, writes in his memoirs that Hồ Chí Minh clearly feared a Chinese takeover of the ideological terrain at the time.45 When Hồ spoke of self-criticism he was referring more to a therapy that could bring out the best in community members. The Vietnamese method left room for difference and flexibility and its aim was to garner the people’s support for the just cause.

30In the spring of 1950, however, the Maoist model of re-education dominated, despite Hồ’s reservations. From changing its citizens to creating the new man, the recasting of Vietnam’s emulation policy aimed to produce a whole cache of new men, which was necessary for the launching of large-scale agrarian reform. The Soviet Union was especially keen for Vietnam to speed up changes in this regard. After the agreement reached in Moscow in February 1950, the CPSU sent a group of cadres specialising in ideological matters to Beijing to organise a training seminar for Chinese advisors bound for Vietnam.46 From 17–28 April 1950, several conferences were held on organisational matters. The Soviets stressed the key role played by socialist emulation in the formation of the masses. 27 April was entirely dedicated to “the work, Party organisation, and socialist emulation experience of the Serp & Molot [Russian: sickle and hammer] factory in Moscow”. Soviet instructors explained in detail how to organise a socialist emulation campaign. They sang the praises of the emulation fighter and explained to Chinese cadres the advantages of the Soviet experience and the way to adapt its model in China and Vietnam:

As for developments in the culture and the consciousness of our workers, we have already accomplished a lot, seen a great show of will, and had many victories. The extraordinary qualities of the Soviet man are clearly expressed via the socialist emulation movement. For the Party, emulation means: telling workers about a certain work experience, generalising it, making it clear to everyone, and sharing it as much as possible with others. In practice, this happens in the following way: a worker has a high rate of production, so his success puts into question his neighbour’s methods; the neighbour then understands the error of his ways and doesn’t want to be considered a bad worker, so he learns from his neighbour’s experience, corrects his faults, and becomes an exemplary man himself. The workers sign an agreement on emulation and take it upon themselves to improve performance. Our job is to support such initiative and support emulation champions for taking such interest in their work. In factories, top workers are awarded certificates of honour and their names and photos are inscribed in a book and in an honour roll. Their stories are shared in magazines, news-papers, on the radio and in meetings. We have organised Stakhanovite conferences in order to change work habits via shared successful experiences. Thanks to emulation, we feel a great force pushing our society forward every day. Emulation has become a social movement, one that is alive, indispensable, and an integral part of individual consciousness. The Communist Party supports new emulations and supervises the movement.47

31Mikhail Chiaureli’s epic 1949 film about a labour hero (Ivanov), The Fall of Berlin, was cited as an example.48 It showed how traditional heroism based on success in battle, found its modern-day counterpart in productivist performance. In North Vietnam, the Ministries of Labour and Culture were given the order to use the film to spread the new socialist emulation through the countryside. The “Ivanov syndrome” was supposed to penetrate into youth organisations, professional groups, and other mass movements. In the autumn of 1950, the Vietnamese delegate to the PRC, Hoàng Văn Hoan (1905–1991), proudly announced to the Soviet ambassador that Vietnamese audiences were flocking by the thousands to see The Fall of Berlin in the border provinces of Hà Giang, Cao Bằng, and Lạng Sơn.49 The propaganda machine extolled the virtues of “the glorious Red Army and its eternal victory over Nazi Germany”, and Ivanov’s struggle was now that of the exemplary Vietnamese worker, and what’s more, that of the patriot seeking freedom.50 Starting in 1950, DRV leaders sent bi-annual reports to the Soviet Union detailing their progress in organisational matters, of which a large part was devoted to the creation of the new man51 whose transformation was brought about by emulation. Phạm Văn Đồng soon announced to the Soviets that they had elected the first seven heroes in the history of the DRV, “a huge success in the resistance and the national construction of the Vietnamese people”.52 Thanks to the help of their Chinese advisors, he explained, the figure of Ivanov served as a model for Ngô Gia Khảm, Ivanov’s Vietnamese alter ego who was awarded the title of “labour hero” in the mountains of Tuyên Quang in May 1952.

Figure 4. Mikhail Chiaureli’s film, The Fall of Berlin

32In March 1950, China sent a first preparatory mission to Vietnam under the supervision of Luo Guibo (1908–1995), Central Committee representative, head of the committee overseeing the Chinese advisors in Vietnam and special advisor to Hồ Chí Minh from January 1950 to August 1954. The question of patriotic emulation was at the very heart of ideological reform, which called for the DRV to “align itself absolutely with its Chinese allies”. Beijing insisted that the North Vietnamese regime rethink its entire ideological programme for mass ideological training. Hồ Chí Minh admitted several years later that “what had happened in China really did help the emulation movement work better in Vietnam.”53 In 1950, Chinese advisors increased the number of training sessions with Vietnamese mass organisations, holding conferences for the Student Union, the Youth Movement, the Peasants’ Association, the National Union, etc. In August, the Việt Minh Youth Movement was unified;54 and in late September, the Peasants’ Association divided the peasants into two distinct groups: landlords and rich peasants joined the Liên Việt, while poor and middle peasants were accepted into the Peasants’ Association for National Salvation once they turned 18.55 From then on, the government demanded increased vigilance from Party leaders in their choice of members. Potential members had to undergo probation while the merits of their candidacy were being examined. The waiting period before integration varied according to the candidate’s social standing. A worker had to wait two months, a peasant four, a scholar or businessman six, and former members of other organisations had to wait at least a year.56

33For the celebration of Workers’ Day, 1 May 1950, the DRV created a new medal for its exemplary blue- and white-collar labourers.57 This had three ranks, with the highest distinction awarded by the President of the Republic while the others were issued by the office of the Prime Minister. The government set up local bureaus under the Institute of Medals to manage candidate files and gather information.58 On the local level, this new institution was made up of the president of the province, the head of the provincial Labour Department, delegates from the professional branch (head of Economic Department and the Bureau of Rural Affairs, for example), and finally the representative of mass organisations (the peasant union or association). The Institute of Medals oversaw these activities on the national level (the institute was replaced by a medals commission in 1961).59 The State propaganda machine continually repeated to the Vietnamese people that “the exploits of the workers deserve this new reward hierarchy to speed up the mobilisation of the masses”.60 Virtuocratic regimes use honorific distinctions as key elements in their education and propaganda efforts.

34While the medals given out during the first years of the war were distributed by the central government or the office of the president, the recasting of the system in 1950 aimed at a more popular broadening of the system. The theme was changed to: “More individual awards than before; more people who deserve it.” The DRV wanted to reach out to more people and a more diverse crowd — in other words, to democratise its patriotic awards. Two new awards were created: the Certificate of Satisfaction and the Certificate of Merit. At the village level, local cadres selected individuals, production units, and exemplary cells, then distributed Certificates of Satisfaction to the deserving candidates. The Certificate of Merit was awarded by the province, the regiment, the military zone, or directly by the administrative branch in charge of the deserving subject. Local cadres (from the commune or district) were told to organise solemn award services “as often as possible”, in conjunction with provincial administration committees. The award (be it a medal, certificate, or some form of decoration) linked its recipient to a world of “respectability and patriotic exemplarity”. Titles and decorations created, in return, a feeling of duty in those honoured. The newfound pride earned by the peasant or labourer had no quantifiable value. The State used “the honour won by the common people” as a springboard for the conquest of minds.

35From then on, emulation policy fell to the Ministries of National Defence, Labour, and Agriculture. Following the model of its brother nations, the DRV created its first title of emulation fighter in 1950, reserved for workers, peasants, and outstanding combatants. The Ministry of Agriculture, symbolically, bestowed the first title of Agricultural Fighter on 4 November. The journal Nhân dân (The People) explained to its readers:

… in order to achieve positive results in the selection of emulation fighters, we must encourage and honour the exemplary men and women within the agricultural emulation movement. This selection must be completely democratic. Representatives of each family at the village level must select the best among them, a similar choice will then be done at the communal level, then the district, province, and finally zone. When the selection process is finished in all military zones of the country, all exemplary individuals will be summoned to a national conference to select emulation fighters on the national level. The selection must be a popular one, the people must be active participants.61

36By the end of 1950, the DRV had a new administrative hierarchy of patriotic merit. At its base, in the villages, communes or production units, the government nominated “exceptional workers” (lao động xuất sắc) at the end of each emulation season. The units got together every three months to choose their best workers. Local cadres in charge of emulation then took up these lists and went through another selection to determine the outstanding workers of the year. Until 1953–54, a distinction was made between those nominated for short-term efforts and those who were selected for longer periods, but eventually the certificate of exemplary worker was only given to the former, while the latter received the title of “emulation fighter” (Chiến sĩ thi đua). Finally, in the spring of 1952, the DRV crowned this new hierarchy of merit with the selection of the first contingent of “new heroes” (Anh hùng mới ), thus achieving in scarcely two years the recasting of the hierarchy of patriotic merit.

37In order to produce a new society made up of outstanding citizens and new men, the government and its foreign advisors had to increase the rate of recruitment. The old emulation system had two large-scale campaigns per year (from February–May and June–December), but now they had to do more, and in less time. From then on the government organised three separate campaigns per year. A first session opened on 3 February (the anniversary of the foundation of the ICP) and closed on 19 May (Hồ Chí Minh’s birthday). The second began as the first one ended and continued until 2 September (Independence Day); and the third session lasted from 19 December (celebrating the creation of the PAVN in 1944) to 3 February, dedicating itself to a review of the year’s activity.

38The arrival of the new man in Vietnam was accompanied by the creation of a bureaucracy of heroism to manage the patriotic competitions. In 1948, a national committee began coordinating the emulation activities of each ministry. Then in the summer of 1950, Chinese advisors were sent to re-evaluate the efficiency of the system, from the central level to the de-localised bureaus in the provinces and military zones of North Vietnam. The DRV needed a solid response to the failure of the first emulation campaign. On the advice of Chinese experts, Vietnamese cadres reorganised the emulation campaigns according to the type of activity (agriculture, light industry, heavy industry, arms, education, etc.). Each ministry created an emulation planning cell, with Chinese advisors active in the decision-making process. The programme elaborated by the ministerial branch was then communicated to the administrative committees of the military zones, which supervised the implementation of these directives on the provincial level. Emulation bureaus in the zones and provinces were led by a representative of the administrative committee and comprised six members: the director of the Department of Labour, the secretary of the Communist Workers’ Union, the director of the Propaganda Department, the director of Public Works, the president of the Peasants’ Association, and a representative from the Department of Social Assistance.

39As a relay between communes and the central government, the pro-vincial emulation commissions transmitted ministerial instructions to their areas via mass organisations and collected the end-of-year reports by the various branches of activity for submission to their respective ministries.62 This was supposed to revive the dialogue with the countryside, but reform did not come easily. In late 1951, the provinces still had problems esti-mating the results of their emulation activities. Nguyễn Ba Kính, President of the Administrative Resistance Committee of Sơn La province, explained that in his area, “the population is quite backward and is battling hunger, [so] the emulation movement did not take hold among the people.”63 In April 1951, the journal Nhân dân criticised the town of Bắc Giang for not working actively enough with the Peasants’ Association to set up emulation campaigns.64 Since no committee had actually been created on the provincial level, the government suggested that the Peasants’ Association take over emulation activities in the area. The situation was even more uncertain for industries or businesses. The lack of steering committees for emulation led the government to strengthen cooperation between the Party and the Communist Workers’ Union in order to improve awareness among workers. State enterprises (weapons, consumer goods, mining, etc.) had to serve as examples for the private sector. The government stressed that the emulation campaign would only succeed with a strict collaboration between mass organisations and the administrative apparatus in the nation’s districts and communes.65

40The selection of an emulation fighter was a novelty in Vietnamese villages. The State wanted to base the programme on productivist merit and class origin, which then freed it from the traditional age requirements. The DRV sent itinerant cadres into villages, accompanied by a “Chinese comrade” when possible, to explain the validity and necessity of reform to the people. Traditionally, peasants respected and feared cadres from other places. A high-placed cadre had more success implementing change than his counterpart in the commune, who was often just a neighbour, a cousin, or even a family enemy. The selection of new exemplary men offered the central government a way to reaffirm its control over the commune and “perfect the education of cadres, train new servants of the State, and correct the ideological deviations of some local officials”.66 The government took advantage of this to increase its patriotic tax and recruit new members to the VWP. Government leaders understood that villagers would not accept the appointment of this alter ego without explanation or through intimidation:

To avoid misunderstanding in the process of selecting an emulation fighter, which has happened in some provinces, we must clearly under-stand the meaning of these selections. Choosing an agricultural emulation fighter consists of singing his praises and sharing his experiences in agricultural production … To achieve this end, each administrative level must send cadres to the level below. They must go into the communes, to each village, and correctly explain the reasons for these selections and the criteria required to obtain the title.67

41Once the candidates were nominated by village production groups and mass organisations, a file on each “exemplary worker” was to be sent to the next level up. Once the province received the files, they could start preparing conferences by branch (peasants, workers, the military) to choose which “outstanding citizens” would represent the jurisdiction at the national congress.

42On 16 January 1952, the People’s Committee of Vĩnh Phú province gathered its 24 agricultural emulation fighters.68 After an inaugural speech by the president of the province, and in the presence of a representative from the ministry, the peasants seated on the podium read out a résumé of their productivist and political performance. Three of them were then chosen to represent their province at the next national conference for peasant emulation fighters: Tạ Văn Cừu (Phương Khoan commune, Lập Thạch district), Khổng Văn Cúc (Cao Phong, Lập Thạch), and Nguyễn Thị Hiên, a young woman from the village of Văn Quán (Lập Thạch). The title of provincial emulation fighter was awarded to all 24 participants and the day ended with a buffet. At this stage, the number of candidates receiving awards varied from one province to another. Lạng Sơn, for example, sent 7 outstanding combatants to the national conference, among the 32 nominated.

43The penultimate step in forging the new hero in Vietnam was to hold national conferences with all provincial winners, grouped by branch of activity. For the national conference of outstanding peasants in the spring of 1952, 42 emulation fighters were invited: 8 from guerrilla zones and 34 from liberated zones. The national committee chose 11 exemplary com-batants from ethnic minorities (6 Thổ, 2 Nùng, 2 Mường, and 1 Yáo), some women, and some youth representatives. The day began with labour meetings led by Party cadres, during which the exemplary peasants studied theory on new heroism and the Party’s role in society. In the evening, everyone got together to watch plays, films, or concerts, to “facilitate the education of these men and woman and make it enjoyable”.69 The peasants were thus able to share their professional experiences. The meeting ended with an awards ceremony to issue certificates, special prizes, and the title of “national agricultural emulation fighter” for all participants. In 1952, 5 peasants received a title of the First Rank, 5 got the Second Order, 27 the Third, and 5 were ranked as “encouraging.”70 During the first season, the emulation movement in industry chose 1,221 exemplary workers, 41 of whom were invited to the national conference in April.71 Finally, within the army, 50 combatants from 5 sectors were invited: 16 per cent were cadres working in defence, 12 per cent were guerrilla fighters, 22 per cent were from communal forces of the PAVN, 44 per cent from the PAVN itself, and 6 per cent were technical specialists.72

44All of these outstanding peasants, workers, and soldiers were carefully selected for their productivist or military performance, but also for their social or ethnic backgrounds. Among the 50 emulation fighters chosen from the army, 42 of them (82 per cent) had been classified “proletarian-peasant” and “poor peasant.”73 Since 1945, government leaders had fought to offer the classes once oppressed by the previous regime a special place within the new system. An “exemplary society”, by giving rise to the emergence of a virtuous elite, led to the reform of the social link among members of the community. The “new honourees of the DRV” were primarily recruited according to the social criteria established during the classification campaigns organised by Chinese advisors.

45In the spring of 1952, the war hindered the efforts of agrarian reform teams to reclassify and select a new patriotic elite. The spread of emulation was deemed satisfactory in the military Interzones IV and V, and in the Việt Bắc, while nothing was done in Interzone III or anywhere in the South. Regardless of these disparities, the national congress for the first heroes of the DRV was still held on 1 May 1952 and 230 emulation fighters from the national level (peasants, workers, and soldiers) were invited to Tuyên Quang province. In his opening speech, Hồ Chí Minh resituated the Vietnamese experience in a context of internationalist cooperation, declaring to his foreign guests that the success of the reorganisation of Vietnamese emulation since 1950 was due entirely to the experience of the Soviets and Chinese.74 North Vietnamese leaders chose seven of those selected on the national level to receive the title of “new hero” of the DRV (one of them posthumously). Among the 50 emulation fighters from the PAVN, 4 received the certificate of “military hero”: La Văn Cầu, Nguyễn Quốc Trị, Nguyễn Thị Chiên, and the martyr Cù Chính Lan. Of the 42 distinguished workers on the national level, 2 were awarded the title of “labour hero”: the engineer Trần Đại Nghĩa, who invented the Vietnamese bazooka, and the arms specialist Ngô Gia Khảm. Lastly, the peasant movement was represented by 42 national figures, of whom only one won the title “agricultural hero”: Hoàng Hanh, an elderly Catholic farmer from Nghệ An province.

46In the traditional agricultural societies of Southeast Asia, the recognition of an individual’s heroic qualities “inspired loyalty that could help form groups and gain political influence. Their extraordinary individual abilities reveal leadership qualities and confer upon their ruler an aura of miraculous virtue, and thereby his affinity with supernatural powers.”75 The Tuyên Quang conference of 1952 marked the high point of the reorganisation of the bureaucracy of heroism, carried out with the help of Vietnam’s brother nations, especially China.76 This was all part of an evolution — whether desired or suggested by the government — to remodel the social relationship between members of the community. The government still lamented the poor implementation of some of its directives, which had led to the unequal development of the programme around the country. Yet, despite the internal weaknesses of the movement, the DRV had at least shown to the communist world its respect for the decisions of January 1950. Hồ Chí Minh liked to tell Soviet authorities: “The Chinese people are very close to us, we are exalted by their example.”77 The new heroic figure answered Stalin’s demand that they quickly develop new “exemplary men” in order to launch agrarian reform. But — and this is especially true of the heroes at Tuyên Quang — the “newly elect of the DRV” were there mainly to rework the hierarchy of patriotic merit in order to solidify the new government’s hold on power. Though the turning point of 1952 did not lead to any real reflection on the role of the new heroic figure, it answered the demands of the era, quickly transforming the emulation fighter and the new hero into the exemplary citizen of past times.

Figure 5. Ngô Gia Khảm