Before the First Indochina War: Redefining the Origins of Vietnam’s Long Civil War

• In Event: 99. Periods and Patterns in the Vietnamese Past

Abstract

Debates among historians of the Indochina Wars have centered on the degree to which they were characterized by colonialism or communism. Histories of the First Indochina War offer a distinct periodization of the conflict. First, an anti-colonial phase (1945-1948) characterized as a clear-cut battle between returning French colonialists and Vietnamese nationalists; second, a Cold War phase (1949-1954) when French diplomats internationalized the war and the Vietnamese, without any other recourse, aligned with the Soviet bloc. Finally, with the division of Vietnam after 1954, American for South Vietnam cements the Cold War in Vietnam through its support of Ngo Dinh Diem.

This periodization is largely based on an exogenous interpretation of the First Indochina War’s causes and a focus on external actors. Conversely, this paper argues for an understanding of the Indochina Wars as an endogenous process that originated within Vietnamese society, and not simply a tragedy authored by French colonialists and American internationalists. Achieving this understanding requires looking beyond 1945, back toward 1935 and even 1925. From Marseille to Saigon and Kunming to Canton, this paper follows the heated debates and battles between Vietnamese as they struggled over the character and pace of reform and revolution in Indochina. The competition between Vietnam’s communist and nationalist organizations, and the civil character of a war that would only end in 1975, were already apparent in this earlier era.

Author

• Brett M. Reilly, University of Wisconsin, Madison