former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907–1988)
Trường Chinh (born Đặng Xuân Khu; 9 February 1907 – 30 September 1988) was a Vietnamese communist political leader and theoretician. He was one of the key figures of Vietnamese politics. He played a major role in the anti-French colonialism movement and finally after decades of protracted war in Vietnam, the Vietnamese defeated the colonial power. He was the think-tank of the Communist Party who determined the direction of the communist movement, particularly in the anti-French colonialism movement. During the transitional period in Vietnam between 1941 and 1956, Trường Chinh was the General Secretary of the Communist Party as well as the real leader of the communist party in terms of designing strategies as well as implementing them. In 1957, after the failure of the Land Reform program, he was dismissed from his post of General Secretary and had less power. Hồ Chí Minh selected Lê Duẩn to succeed him as the General Secretary and he became the most powerful person after the 1960s. However, Trường Chinh was still an influential thinker in the Party during the Second Indochina War and after the reunification of Vietnam; he was head of state of Vietnam from 1981 to 1987. Following the death of Lê Duẩn in 1986, he succeeded Duẩn as top party leader. His last vital role was to carry forward the Đổi Mới renovation that still affects Vietnam to this day.
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Our people. the overwhelming majority of whom are peasants, are making revolution, are fighting against the aggressors, and are building the country. To bring both our patriotic war and our national construction to victory, we must wipe out the imperialist aggressors and liberate our peasants from the feudalist yoke.
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Imperialism and feudalism, the two most reactionary forces, have dominated Viet Nam in collusion for more than 80 years now. It was the feudalists of the Nguyen dynasty who sold our country to the French imperialists, and who became the puppet administration, lackeys to the French imperialists who then occupied our country.
With inconceivable strength, the whole Vietnamese people rose up and did their utmost to break the yoke imposed by the French and Japanese fascists, and resolutely went forward; side by side with the peoples of China and Indonesia, they marched in the vanguard of the Far-East peoples' liberation movement.
Besides, the August Insurrection was a real revolution. The Vietnamese people, in bloody combat and with arms in their hands, had to struggle against the Japanese fascists to regain their freedom and independence. Immediately after this, to defend these rights, they had to shed more blood. It is by the August Revolution that the dictatorial and fascist monarchical regimes have been overthrown and the democratic republican regime set up.
The regime of feudal and semi-feudal exploitation must be abolished, and “land to the tillers” must be realized. So far, the Vietnamese Revolution has only restricted that feudal and semi-feudal exploitation. It must progress further to realise land reform and wipe out all vestiges of feudalism. In brief, the Vietnamese Revolution must fulfil both the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks to realize independence, freedom and happiness for the people. In other words, it must complete the task of democratization to pave the way to the socialist revolution in the future: to socialize all means of production, abolish from Vietnam the regime of exploitation of man by man.
We admit that, because of the extremely intricate situation of our country and the relatively limited strength of the Vietnamese Revolution, it was not possible to carry out a systematic elimination of the counter-revolutionary elements on Jacobean or Bolshevik lines. The Vietnamese Revolution was not opposing only the counter-revolutionary forces at home; other forces were intervening from abroad in favour of the French reactionaries and other traitors. It was due to this that the latter were able, in certain places, and at certain moments, to equal, and even to overpower the revolutionary forces (in Saigon, for example).
Born in the new times, the democratic republican regime in Vietnam inevitably bears the mark of the new times. The August Revolution is a revolution of national liberation in its form and one of new democracy in its content. In other words, the August Revolution is a revolution of national liberation with a new democratic character. It constitutes a step in the national democratic revolution of Vietnam.
Our people's patriotic war of resistance against US aggression has achieved great victories in all fields, compelling the American imperialists to unconditionally end their war of destruction against the North, withdraw part of their troops from the South and come to the four-party conference in Paris.
Marxism-Leninism is the acme of human thought in our time. It not only explains the world thoroughly, but transforms it radically. It is the beacon lighting the path of the international working class, the oppressed peoples and the whole of progressive man-kind, who are struggling to rid themselves of all oppression and exploitation and to build a new world, a world of genuine peace, freedom and happiness.
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We should ally ourselves not only with the French people, but also with all peace-loving and democratic peoples, particularly with the Chinese people, our great neighbours who are resolutely struggling for democracy, unification and independence. In a word, we must unite with all the oppressed peoples who are fighting to liberate themselves.
Our agrarian policy in the present revolutionary stage is aimed at abolishing imperialist and feudalist land ownership, in order to wipe out the feudal regime of exploitation of the landlord class. For this reason, apart from the land and property of the imperialists which we must confiscate, our policy is to confiscate, requisition, and forcibly purchase the land of the landlord class, but not to confiscate, requisition or forcibly purchase land in general upward of a certain area.
The cogency of Marxism precisely resides in its ability to reflect accurately the objective laws of historical development; and to represent the most advanced class, the most revolutionary class of modern society, the proletariat, and hence strike roots into the broad masses, to win the hearts and minds of millions and millions of people, and stir them into an implacable and uncompromising fight against the enemy of their class, against world bourgeoisie, and into the building of a classless, communist society.
Ever since the US imperialists ousted the French colonialists from South Vietnam and rigged up a puppet Saigon administration to their devotion, then sent troops for direct aggression against the South of our country, our entire people have been waging a sacred war of resistance against US aggression, for national salvation, in order to liberate the South, defend the North and proceed to the peaceful reunification of the country.