1. What are the main characteristics of Vietnamese History & Culture?

- Firstly, Vietnam has a long history filled with a lot of wars, especially resistant wars against foreign
invaders. During the Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, Chao To conquered Au Lac in 179BC and then
established Nan Yue Kingdom until 111BC when Han Dynasty replaced, starting 10 centuries of
Chinese domination. During this period, there were a lot of Vietnamese people’s uprisings against
Chinese ruler such as uprising 2 sister Trung, Ms Trieu, Phung Hung, Ly Bi, Trieu Quang Phuc, …
Finally, in 938AD, Ngo Quyen defeated Southern Han troops on Bach Dang River, beginning an
independent era of our country. After that, there was a civil war between 12 warlords until Dinh Bo
Linh unified the country. In the Earlier Le Dynasty, Le Hoan defeated Sung troops from China. After
that, our army won against 0.5 million Mongolian – Yuan troops when they attacked our country 3
times during Tran Dynasty. Later, Le Loi swept out Ming troops, established Later Le Dynasty in
1427-1428. However, in the next period, Vienam faced a national division into Northern Court, ruled
by the Mac and Southern Court, ruled by the Le. When Mac collapsed in 1592, civil wars and peasant
wars took place, the most significant one is Trinh – Nguyen War, which finally ended in the 18th
century when 3 Tay Son brothers stood up. In 1788 – 1789, Nguyen Hue defeated 290,000 Tsing
troops, only 5,000 survived, starting Tay Son Dynasty. In 1858, Vietnam was attacked by French
colonials. While fighting against the French, our army also had to face 200,000 Tuong Gioi Thach
troops from China. From 1846 to 1954, there was Indochina War which was a resistant war against
French imperialism. Soon after we defeated the French, we immediately faced The Vietnam War –
which was a resistant war against American for nation salvation. The final general offensive and
uprising 1975 totally defeated the Neo-colonialism and unified our country. After seizing
independence, Vietnam armies faced Southwest Border War and fought against 600,000 Chinese
troops in 1979. Up until now, we still have to fight over sea territory against China.
- Secondly, Vietnam has special culture which has acculturation, or, cultural exchanges. The most
important exchanges are Sinicization and DeSinicization - the process whereby non-Han Chinese
societies come under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society and conversely, the
elimination of Chinese influences. Sinicization includes normal exchanges and compulsory exchanges
– which were the result of Chinese assimilation during 1000 years of Chinese domination. However,
Vietnam also went Desinicized, which means choosing the bets to improve. For example, Vietnamese
people did not completely use Han scripts but changing to Nom scripts, which was based on Chinese
but included newly invented characters meant to represent native Vietnamese words... Moreover, we
even pronounced in Han – Vietnamese. Another acculturation is Westernization and
Dewesternization, which started from the 16th century until now. Like Sinicization, Westernization
also had normal and compulsory exchanges, including the adoption of the Latin alphabet and the
spread of Catholicism and Protestantism – which soon became a new religion in Vietnam. Meanwhile,
Dewesternization was shown through the process of how Vietnamese people build the structure of
university and education system. We learnt to apply Western technology. Art and music was also
affected. Some foreign words that we borrowed from Western languages were Vietnamized in
pronunciation. Marxism was approved and adapted through Ho Chi Minh ideology. Currently,
Vietnam is in the process of Dewesternization to build up modern Vietnamese culture with
Vietnamese identity. On the other hand, Vietnamese culture also acquired Hinduisation, for example,
My Son Holy Land in the central Vietnam.
- Thirdly, Vietnamese history & culture has 2 cycles of civilization. The 1st one is Red River
civilization, or Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, a civilization is full of cultural achievements. Van
Lang and Au Lac were the 2 first states of Vietnamese people. The reunion of tribes showed that we
already had enough differentiations of classes and enough strength to control and build up cannel
along the Red River. If there had been no Van Lang – Au Lac civilization, there would be no Vietnam
today. This civilization formed and built up the fundamental foundation of Vietnamese identity of
Vietnamese culture. After it collapsed, the country experienced 10 centuries of Chinese domination.
However, with the winning of Ngo Quyen in 938 against Southern Han on Bach Dang River, the 2nd
era of Vietnamese civilization started as Great Viet/ Dai Viet civilization during Ly – Tran – Later Le
Dynasty. This civilization created a lot of new things. Without Dai Viet civilization, there would be no
Vietnam today too. Its collapse in the 16th century resulted in division, civil wars and peasant wars.
After that, Vietnam was put under colonization, bringing about the impoverishing living standard.
After the Doi Moi Policy in 1986, Vietnamese people hope to return to civilization with the new
establishment of Vietnamese Socialist.
- Finally, another main characteristic is that Vietnamese history & culture has special development of
socio-economic formation. For instant, compared with European world which went through primitive
communist, slave-owning mode of production, federalism and capitalism, Vietnamese world also
started with primitive communist, but then continued with Asiatic mode of production, federalism and
then semi-feudal colonial society along with colonial capitalism. European culture had seeds of new
society in old society, while remains of old society still existed in new society, but they only lasted for
a short time then stopped completely. Meanwhile, Vietnamese socio-economic formation did not stop
at any particular time. All mode of productions continuously existed throughout the history of the
country up until 1945. For example, primitive society was still on some mountainous areas. There
were no landlords, just rich and poor people. In other words, Vietnamese world experienced multi-
mode of production.

2. What were relations between the Red River civilization and the formation of
Vietnamese identity?
- A country’s identity is the most distinguished element in culture, including changeable and
unchangeable values. Vietnamese identity includes 4 characteristics. Firstly, Vietnamese people have
deep community mind. Living as a community, Vietnamese people had strong and deep nationalism
and patriotism. They treasured family values, village values and country values. Secondly,
Vietnamese identity includes flexibility and synthesis. In other words, they are open-mindedness,
Vietnamese people had no conservativeness, dogmatism, xenophobia and segregation. Besides, they
were known to had tolerance, especially religious tolerance. As we know, there were no religious wars
throughout the entire Vietnamese history. Vietnamese followed & respected, waiting for a favorable
moment to upset. For example, in politics and military, when the Vietnamese defeated an army, we
sent delegation to excuse, organized diplomatic talk and established the reasons for the army to
withdraw, … Another example in religion is that the Vietnamese combined religions under Ly – Tran
Dynasty. When a Vietnamese person shouted “Trời Phật ơi” – it included the three religions: Taoism,
Confucianism and Buddhism in just one phrase. Thirdly, there was deep sentimentalism among the
Vietnamese. Relations between people was based on cooperation, no friends means no cooperation.
They also used family position to call the society, such as addressing older women as aunts, older men
as uncles, etc. Finally, in Vietnamese identity, we paid full respect to women. We called “cái”
(female) for the biggest part such as “Sông Cái” (Big river), “ngón cái” (thumb), … We also called Bà
Điểm, Bà Quẹo, Hai Bà Trưng, … to show respect for women.
- From the 8th century BC to the 2nd century BC, Van Lang and Au Lac culture together formed the
Red River civilization, along with its identity. There were a lot of relations between the Red River
civilization and the formation of Vietnamese identity.
 Even though it was not a nation yet, just only a strong ethnic group with national orientation,
but it was the primary or starting factor for nationalism later. Rising from the needs of controlling
water from Red River, ancient Viet tribes were needed to unify and make solidarity in order to
survive. Wars and conflicts between primitive tribes taking place during that period leaded to the
reunion of Viet tribes. Also, archeologists has found many weapons in ancient tombs, which shows
that ancient Viet people believed that they could use in another world. Unlike ancient communes such
as Greek and Latin ones and German commune, Red River civilization was based on Asiatic
commune, which had only public ownership of land and had no private ownership. This resulted in the
social stratification as a community, forming the deep community mind of Vietnamese identity.
 Also, the cultural exchanges during the Red River civilization formed the flexibility and
synthesis of Vietnamese identity. Its culture was influenced from North China and Southeast Asia,
making a cultural combination and diversity. Red River civilization is a result of combination and
cultural exchanges in history. Vietnamese could not survive without exchanges.
 At that time, hunting and farming were Viet people’s basic methods to earn their living. The
agricultural culture formed the deep sentimentalism among Vietnamese people, which was the
foundation of the formation of Vietnamese identity.
 On the other hand, with the long domination of Matriarchy in the previous time, the formation
of Vietnamese identity brought about the respect for women.
- All of these things combined together and founded the formation of Vietnamese identity. Before
Chinese domination, Vietnamese had had already independent culture and diversified civilization.

3. What were the processes of Sinicization and DeSinicization during over 10 centuries of
Chinese domination (Explain why the Vietnamese people could reserve Vietnamese
identity after over 10 centuries of Chinese domination)
- In theory, Sinicization means Chinalization – the process whereby non-Han Chinese societies come
under the influences of dominant Han Chinese state and society. In the contrast, DeSinicization is the
elimination of Chinese influences. The combination of these 2 process are called cultural exchanges –
a rule for cultural development. In culturology and socio-cultural anthropology, this is a special
category.
- Sinicization and DeSinicization were resulted from the Chinese domination in Vietnam over 10
centuries. During and after this period, Vietnamese people could still reserve Vietnamese identity
because they knew how to practice special acculturation. When Chao To conquered Au Lac in 179BC
and Han Dynasty ruled the country in 111BC, Vietnam was divided into administrative sub units,
named as Chiao Chih (Giao Chỉ) and Chiu Chen (Cửu Chân), which belonged to Chiao Chou (Giao
Châu). Later, Vietnam was called An Nam Colonial district While ruling Vietnam, Chinese enacted
some policies. They carried out bloody suppression in politics and military by hegemonism and ethnic
cleasing . They used Vietnamese people to rule Vietnamese people in the 2 controlled Chinese
districts and autonomies of Vietnam in villages – which could not be controlled by the Chinese but the
Vietnamese. They still kept the old system that Vietnamese people used in the previous time – having
Military functionary and Literature under the chief. Moreover, the Chinese rulers conducted economic
exploitation – which was part of their “feudalist colonialism”. They also enacted immigration policy,
which means bringing the Chinese to Vietnam to live, including prisoners, peasants, soldiers,
intellectuals, officials, landlords, merchants, …) More seriously, the Chinese did the cultural
assimilation over Vietnam. Vietnamese people had to learn Chinese writings, wear Chinese clothes, …
Until that time, Vietnam had only 2 groups surviving: Au Viet & Lac Viet, the remaining 98% had
been assimilated by the Chinese. In other words, Vietnamese people knew how to desinicize.
- Even though Vietnamese could not keep the race identity (material), we could still keep the cultural
identity (mental). For the Sinicization, Vietnamese people experienced both normal exchanges and
compulsory exchanges. Normal exchanges, which means positive sides, were shown as how
Vietnamese learnt Chinese, but Chinese also learnt Vietnamese. In history, no exchange means no
development. Therefore, everyone was free to choose, everyone has the equal opportunity to learn
together. However, there were also compulsory exchanges, which are known as assimilation - Chinese
authority wanted to assimilate Vietnamese into Chinese. Likewise, by DeSinicization, Vietnamese
people not only experienced normal exchanges by accepting, receiving, improving and adapting
selectively, but also struggling against assimilation through compulsory exchanges.
- The processes of Sinicization and DeSinicization took place mainly on language and religion – the
most 2 important elements of an identity or a culture. In regard to language, Chinese wanted to
destroy Vietnamese spoken language. However, Vietnamese soon practiced the DeSinicization by
selecting the best to improve. We accepted and learnt Han script but still kept Vietnamese spoken
language in the villages. We pronounced Han script in Vietnamese way, which was called Han – Viet
pronunciation. We created our own national words. For example, we did not called the moon as
“nguyệt” like the original Chinese but “trăng”. Vietnamese people did not completely use Han scripts
but changing to Nom scripts, which was based on Chinese but included newly invented characters
meant to represent native Vietnamese words. This is also a way to enrich Vietnamese vocabulary.
- In the aspect of religion, the process of Sinicization and DeSinicization was shown as a combination
of Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. We accepted and selected advantages to follow. For
example, Confucianism affected most in education and politics. Vietnamese people respected
intellectuals or learning. We gave prominence to social bonds such as “Tam cương” (the relationship
between emperor and servant, father and son, husband and wife) and “Ngũ thường”/Five Virtues
(humanism, etiquette, loyalty, intelligence and sincerity). However, Vietnamese people did not follow
the idea of not respecting manual labor and women in Confucianism, since we considered “first my
wife, second my heaven” (“nhất vợ nhì trời”) in daily cultural dialogues. Vietnamese people mainly
followed Buddhism, parts of it came from Chinese as Phật, the remaining came directly from India as
Bụt. We created new and unique combination of 3 religions, known as “Tam giáo đồng nguyên”. We
leant Chinese orders and centralized monarchy court.
- The result of Sinicization and DeSinicization has some significances to Vietnamese culture. It was
the best way to keep Vietnamese indentity, the best way to develop, to be diversified more and more,
the best way to enrich Vietnamese culture. This is the foundation for the 2nd era of Vietnamese
civilization – Dai Viet/Great Viet civilization.

4. What were the formation and development of Đại Việt civilization under Lý – Trần
Dynasty?
- Đại Việt civilization was formed under 3 historical needs: political, cultural and socio-economic.
 Under political conditions, after more than 10 centuries of Chinese domination, Vietnamese
people need to protect and defend sovereignty and independence. Therefore, reunification and
solidarity are the most important conditions to prevent losing independence again when facing the
danger of Chinese’s conquer. Moreover, we also had to struggle against decentralization, which was
the autonomy of villages and centralization, which was the reunion of villages and tribes. In 968, After
Đinh Bộ Lĩnh stopped the anarchy of 12 warlords and unified the country, we needed the strongest
state, so we could not use Văn Lang – Âu Lạc structure. As a result, we learnt the Chinese model in
politics: we needed a centralized monarchy, in which the emperor was the son of the heaven with
absolute power to decide everything. Besides, we needed the strongest army to fight against enemies.
For example, Lê Hoàn defeated Sung army and established Earlier Lê Dynasty in 981. A perfect
centralized monarchy was the most important condition for Lý – Trần civilization.
 Under cultural conditions, Văn Lang – Âu Lạc origins continued to be kept. Community minds
and filial piety (chữ “Hiếu”) existed along with results of exchanges – the culture forming after 10
centuries. Until Lý – Trần Dynasty, it was the combination of origins and creation that formed the
cultural needs for Đại Việt civilization.
 Under socio-economic conditions, we had a wet rice agriculture, which was a system of canals
and dams to control water. The Asiatic mode of production in our country before meant there was no
private ownership, only public ownership existed. After 10 centuries of Chinese domination, Chinese
landlords had private ownership but the number was very small, and Vietnamese landlords were even
fewer. Therefore, at the 10th century, public ownership accounted for ¾ of the area. Under Lý – Trần
Dynasty, we inherited, continued and developed capacity for wet rice agriculture, which included
labor, productivity, … till the 16th century when Đại Việt civilization collapsed and caused famine and
death of starvation.
- The development of Đại Việt civilization was the top achievement of culture in terms of both
material and intellectual (or mental or spiritual) aspects.
 Under material content, we built 10,000 kilometers of canals in North VN, which still exists
until now. Thăng Long imperial citadel was 40 km2 in total. In architecture, we built One Pillar
Pagoda, Phổ Minh Temple, Quy Điền Tower, … In handicrafts, we had Bát Tràng village which was
specialized in pottery, and many other villages with specialization in ceramics, textile, bronze casting
techniques, … We also developed on-water transportation. This was the top development of wet rice
agriculture with high capacity of production.
 Meanwhile, the intellectual content was the most important. The tolerance of religions in our
country meant there was a combination of 3 religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. 3 within
1, 1 within 3. Vietnamese mind, spirit, sentimental feelings were influenced by Buddhism while
Vietnamese education, politics and social relations were based on Confucianism, with 3 social bonds:
Emperor – servant, father – son, husband – wife and 5 virtues: benevolence, righteousness, priority,
intelligence and sincerity. Meanwhile, Taoism affected Vietnamese attitude to nature, in which people
enjoyed living together with the nature. We selected the best ones from 3 religions to form Vietnamese
identity. Lý Anh Tông established the school of 3 religions and taught simultaneously. Monks of 3
religions could be officials. Moreover, these 3 religions also had influences in poetry and literature.
Buddhism was applied in many areas, such as military arts. In addition, we had a deep, special and
unique nationalism, including a special art of political art and military art to ensure national solidarity.
Political art featured some special relationships: general – army such as Trần Hưng Đạo, emperor –
officials formed a royal family, and a good relation between majority and minority under political
marriages between princesses and chiefs of minorities. Military art consisted of diplomatic measures,
segregation and use of guerilla and regular armies to defeat Mongolians. For the law, we had writing
court and criminal court. In education, we established the 1st school named Quốc Tử Giám.
In conclusion, if there had been no Đại Việt civilization, there would be no Vietnam today. Later
generations continue to inherit a lot from Đại Việt civilization.
5. What were the socio – economic, political transformation during the period of 15th –
18th century?
First, we take a look at historical background. In 1400, Hồ Dynasty was established until 1408 when
Ming army invaded our country. In 1428, Lê Lợi defeated them and established Later Lê Dynasty. In
1527 Mạc Đăng Dung usurped the throne of Lê emperors. Shortly after this, in 1533 Đại Việt was
divided into 2 parts: the Northern Court ruled by Mạc and Southern Court of Lê emperors controlled
by Nguyễn Kim. In 1558, Nguyễn Hoàng went to the south, which he wanted to build up the southern
area. In 1592, Southern Court defeated Northern Court, continuing the division of the country with
Trịnh lords in the North and Nguyễn lords in the South. From 1627 to 1672 there were civil wars with
GianhRiver was the boundary between 2 regions. Starting from 1771 in Quy Nhơn, Nguyễn Nhạc,
NguyễnHụê and Nguyễn Lữ began the uprising. Then in 1785, Tây Sơn army had Rạch Gầm – Xoài
Mút victory, defeated 50,000 Siamese troops. After defeating Nguyễn, in 1786, Tây Sơn army passed
GianhRiver and defeated Trịnh. In November 1788, 290.000 Tsing troops headed by Soun Che Y
came directly to Thăng Long citadel. In December 1788, Nguyễn Huệ proclaimed himself as the new
emperor and made a counter-attack. Only 5000 Tsing troops were alive. New dynasty was established,
which meant new feudalization started until 1792 when Quang Trung died. However, in the south,
Nguyễn Ánh recovered force and made a counter – attack the north until 1802 when Tây Sơn
collapsed while Nguyễn Ánh took the throne and established Nguyễn Dynasty. In late 18th century, the
territory was as the present day by clearing the land.
The political changes during the period of 15th – 18th century had both negative side and negative side.
For the negative side, the most severe one was the division of the country into northern part and
souther part during 3 centuries. According to the historical law, reunion makes a country stronger and
stronger; in contrast, division makes it weaker and weaker. In addition, there were civil wars among
feudalist groups such as Mạc - Nguyễn Kim, Trịnh - Nguyễn, Tây Sơn - Nguyễn Ánh. Meanwhile, the
positive side features peasant movements during 16th – 18th century. The strongest development of
peasant movements was peasant wars when 3 Tây Sơn brothers stood up to defeated Trịnh - Nguyễn
and Tsing army. The reason for peasant wars was the contradiction notables, landlords, which were
the collapse of political regimes, and peasants. The significances of peasant wars included 3 ideas.
First, they were dynamics for changing society. Second, Tây Sơn won feudalism while before,
peasants were limited. However, peasants did not know how historical rule to form a new society.
After the winning, Tây Sơn built up and established Tây Sơn Court - Tây Sơn feudalism, but peasants
could not represent mode of production. Third, we recognized and overcame historical limitation. Tây
Sơn movements fought for both class interest and national interest. Not only did they stopped the
deeper reasons for national division by destroying Trịnh - Nguyễn but they defeated foreign invaders
(Siamess and Tsing army)
The socio – economic changes included land ownerships or land tenure. From 11th to 15th century,
public ownership dominated 2/3 of the land, while private land only accounted for 1/3. Public land
included state-owning land and communal land; private land owners included landlords and small
peasants. However, in 18th century, there were changes in direction of decreasing public land and
increasing private land. 2/3 of public land reduced to only 1/3. The increase of small peasants and
landlords was positive. However, the peasant movements could not answer the question: “What were
the historical needs?” No class understood “a cry for land”, which was also “land to the tiller”. As a
result, history failed into crisis.
In addition, there were new factors in society. Seeds of capitalism appeared, which was higher
development of “commodity economics”, and seeds of wage labor. The establishment of handicrafts
factories was the sign of differentiation of classes. However, these elements were very small, and they
developed very slowly or even did not develop. The reason for this was the conservativeness of multi-
mode production and feudalism. Poor peasants did not dare to leave the villages or avoid feudalism.
They continued to stay in the villages because of communal land, as for every 6 years, communal land
was redistributed and given to peasants, unlike European case when peasants left to form factories.
This caused a stagnation of the seeds of capitalism for a long time.
Socially, the structure of classes also experienced some changes. In the 18th century, the number of
notables decreased significantly while landlords increased very fast, along with tenants and small
peasants. However, there was a deep contradiction between landlords and peasants. Generally, no
development of industry and progressive classes, which were capitalist and workers resulted in no
strata, no revolution in the society and led to comprehensive crisis.
6. Why did the Nguyễn Court lose the independence of Vietnam in the late 19th century?
First, we take a look at the historical background during this period. On August 31st, 1858, French first
came to Vietnam in Đà Nẵng. The failure in Đà Nẵng battle made French turn to attack Gia Định. By
1862, through Nhâm Tuất agreement, French controlled 3 eastern provinces: Biên Hòa, Gia Định,
Định Tường, along with 3 western provinces: Vĩnh Long, An Giang, and Hà Tiên by 1867. Southern
Vietnam was put under control of French Colonial. In 1873, French attacked Hà Nội citadel for the 1st
time, Nguyễn Tri Phương died. In 1874, by the 2nd agreement, Nguyễn Court officially recognized the
domination of French in Vietnam. In 1882, French attacked Hà Nội secondly, Hoàng Diệu committed
suicide. In August 1883, Nguyễn Court signed Harmand agreement with the French before signing
Patenotre treaty in 1884 as a complete surrender agreement.
The reasons for losing the independence of Vietnam contain two aspects: objective and subjective.
The objective reasons also meant international conditions. In the 19th century, the world-wide
capitalism changed for the 2nd time. In the 1st phase, capitalism of free competition changed into
imperialism, which was monopolized capitalism, and France was among imperialists. As a result,
colonialism became the objective trend of capitalism’s development. Because domestic natural
resources bacame smaller and smaller, and domestic labor, manpower, manforce became limited, the
need to expand and find out new natural resources, new market, new sources of cheap labor was
necessary. Imperialists wanted to get more “higher monopoly interest” in colonies, which was the
deep reason of colonizing the world – colonization. Therefore, imperialist colonized a lot of countries,
especially Asia, Latin America and Africa. This was the objective process of colonization. Most of the
countries were colonized by Western countries; however, some could avoid colonization. Thailand
and Japan were sample cases. It depended on the talented leadership of the country. In Japan, the
authority practiced the exact policies through Meiji reform, which was similar to capitalist revolution.
They wanted to modernize the country, which meant industrialism and capitalism. The reform covered
many fields, including improving foreign, capitalizing Japanese economy, infrastructure for capitalism.
Education was prioritized by focusing on modern subjects such as Mathematics and Physics. In
Vietnam, Nguyễn Trường Tộ’s proposal featured similar suggestions like Japan, but Tự Đức emperor
did not accept, and he did not allow to apply into economy. As a result, Vietnam fell down
significantly. Meanwhile, Thailand belonged to the buffer area of Britian and France, so it was put
under balanced influence of these 2 countries. Thailand emperors practiced open-door policies. In Asia
especially, feudalish authority was the most important. If they had good policies to adapt the situations,
which was subjective.
In Vietnam, subjective reaons in Vietnam belonged to the responsibility of Nguyễn Dynasty because
they made a lot of mistakes in internal and external policies. They practiced the wrong model for the
development of the country, making Vietnam weaker and weaker and soon become a delicious decoy
for foreign invaders. In economics, Nguyễn Court practiced closed-door policy, which meant stopping
exchange with foreigners. They paid attention but followed obsolete agriculture with low capacity and
productivity. The absolute ownership of landlord class resulted in reactionary attitude in economic
development, as it supported feudalism which was the negative sign of history in the 19th century.
Nguyễn Court gave a lot of barriers to stop import and export, such as heavy tax. Handicraft and
industry had no condition to develop. Besides, there was no development in monetary system, which
meant no modernization in economy.
In social policy, there was a deep contradiction between landlord class and small, tenant peasants.
There were many peasant’s uprisings under 4 independent emperors during this period because
peasants had to pay tax, labor levies and rice rent to landlords, sometimes including interest, as
peasants had no land to cultivate, so they had to rent land from landlords. Meanwhile, Nguyễn
Dynasty controlled communal land and public land. Landlords became notables in villages and
controlled private land and communal land. The redistribution of communal land was practiced in the
way which was more beneficial to landlords and led to inequality in society. At that time, the feudalist
class, which included notables and bureaucratic rank became ruling class, while ruled class were
peasants, laborers, …
In political policy, Nguyễn Court copied Tsing feudalist monarchy, which emphasized on centralized
power. The bureaucratic system became dictatorship. In the court, the imperial censor could not
criticize the emperor when he made mistakes, which led to corruption as a whole. Even though
Nguyễn Trường Tộ wrote many proposals to Tự Đức emperor from 1861 to 1871 after traveling
around many countries to reform the country similar to Meiji reform, the king and other officials
ignored because they did not understand Western countries.
In military, Nguyễn army were very weak because they did not have modern weapons, so they could
not modernize the army. In addition, they did not have enough training and lacked strategies to defend
independence of the country. There was no strong navy, as well as powerful warships.
In culture, education had no change, but traditional education could not develop the country. For
example, Hán scripts and Chinese ancient books from classic scholars were too difficult to learn.
Besides, Nguyễn Court paid attention to only Confucianism with absolute respect. The Sung
Confucianism was reactionary ideology to protect obsolete relationship between the king and servants.
It defended feudalism monarchy and made many mistakes. Traditionally, Vietnamese were very open-
minded and flexible towards religion. But Nguyễn did not accept new religion and stopped that
tradition by killing a lot of Catholic believers of Christianity but still could not stop it.
On the other hand, Nguyễn Court had wrong strategies when French attacked in negotiation peace.
There were many favorable moments for Vietnamese to counter-attack but Nguyễn Court did not take
advantages, which was a wrong national defense policy. During 1858 and 1861, there were only 1000
French troops but Nguyễn army did not dare to counter attack, which was unreasonable. In 1862, we
had a suitable time to ounter-attack, but Nguyễn signed negotiation agreement, which was also
unreasonable.

7. What were the cultural, socio-economic transformations in Vietname under the French
domination and exploitation in the early 20th century?
First, we take a look at the historical background, after the Patenotre agreement in 1884, from 1897 to
1913, French practiced the phase I of exploitation program under General Governor Paul Doumer,
which focused on establishing infrastructure for mining industry. From 1914 to 1918, because of
World War I, French stopped exploitation but after this, in from 1919 to 1928, under the General
Albert Sarraut, French practiced phase II of exploitation, which focused on agricultural exploitation in
Mekong Delta but still continued to exploit mining in North and Central Vietnam. The colonial
objective of French was colonial exploitation: hunting for higher monopoly interest on the basis of
exploiting cheap labor, raw material resources.
In Vietnam particularly and Indochina generally, the colonial policies covered many aspects. In
politics, French practiced “division to rule” - using Vietnamese to beat Vietnamese, along with bloody
suppression. In culture, they practiced assimilation through Westernization and “stupid people” policy.
In economics, the colonial exploitation was aimed to search for more and more super interests.
To summarize, the basic policies contained four things.
 First, French recognized the most important thing for them was to keep “multi-mode of
production” in socio-economic formation. Before French domination, Vietnam already had 3 modes of
production: primitive, Asiatic and feudalist. When coming to Vietnam, French declared to civilize
Vietnamese. Instead of the stopping old modes of production and developing modern ones, which was
the responsibility of revolution, French continued to develop such old modes. No modernization meant
no civilization. Besides, French introduced a new style of relation into Vietnam: colonial capitalism –
new industry, commerce, banking system, transportation, … were controlled by French.
 Second, French wanted to keep Vietnam in the orbit of world-wide market of French
colonialism. For 50 years from 1890 to 1939, the first 9 years was trade deficit, or import overbalance,
while the remaining 41 years was trade surplus, or export overbalance. By doing this, French was
successful in hunting for super interests, but in the society, Vietnamese people suffered from
impoverishment.
 Third, French gave privileges and concession, or special support to French businessmen. They
did not have to compete because they received priority to monopoly: buying at low prices but selling
at expensive prices to get more monopoly interests
 Fourth, French wanted to limit industrialization. They focused on exploiting industry,
especially mining industry such as coals for exportation. However, they limited manufacturing
industry, such as making chemicals, food, textile, rubber, … because they did not want Vietnam to
compete with French industry.
Under the French domination in the early 20th century, Vietnam experienced some changes in both
negative and positive sides.
  In economics, the “economic traite” policy was “economy milked”. To be more specific,
Vietnam was cows for milking, and French was “selfish colonialism” because they got many benefits
but they did not supply good grass for Vietnamese cows. Every 100 franc produced, 90 was sent
directly to France, but only 10 was for reinvestment. For nearly 1 century, there had been not yet
industrialization, but there were some good signals in the economy. New economic structure was
formed in direction of modernization, and new process of capitalist urbanization appeared with new-
styled cities such as Sài Gòn, Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, which were economic centers, especially Sài Gòn
was a seaport city. Compared to the pre-colonial era, the industry now included both traditional
handicraft and modern industry, which contained exploiting coals, tin, gold, wolfram, … and
manufacturing electricity, water, chemicals, mechanicals, textile, food, tobacco, rubber, … Agriculture
was basically the same as in the previous time, as obsolete agriculture still dominated Vietnamese
economic structure. There were still traditional ploughs with low productivity, obsolete equipment but
new plantation. In commerce, import and export were modernized, from shipping through small boats
and ships to sea ships. Transportation was improved by moving on water with large and modern sea
ships and sea ports such as Sài Gòn, Hải Phòng and on ground with a big railroad system and a system
of routes . There was a national road from the north to the south of Vietnam. In the pre-colonial era,
there was still no financial or banking system, but in the colonial era, French established Indochina
Bank to issue money.
 In society, the differentiation of classes also had transformation. In the pre-colonial time, in the
structure of class there were only landlords, feudalist strata and peasants. These classes still existed in
the colonial era, but landlords developed very strongly. Great landlord class accounted for 2.4% of the
owners, owning 48.3% of area in Cochinchina. Meanwhile, peasants became impoverished, causing a
negative sign in the history. Despite this, there were still some positive changes. New classes was
formed, with the appearance of capitalist class, small bourgeoisie which included intellectuals and
small traders, and workers class which was also called proletariat. Currently, there were 2 basic social
contradictions in the society: national contradiction between Vietnamese and French colonist and class
contradiction between landlords and peasants.
 In culture. There was acculturation of Westernization and Dewesternization. French started to
teach history of France and Vietnamese national language as a foreign language. Vietnamese had to
struggle against cultural assimilation by keeping and developing Vietnamese spoken language,
Vietnamese writings and history of Vietnam. The process of Dewesternization included the formation
of Quốc Ngữ writing. Vietnamese national writing was Romanized and Latinized in pronunciation. In
religion, Christianity and Catholicism were introduced to Vietnam. Vietnamese people had chances to
approach new ideology, new poetry, and new style of literature.
In conclusion, we should recognize both sides of the transformation. Even though negative side was
mainly considered, positive side was very necessary for Vietnamese to continue developing.

8. Which was the crisis of way for national salvation from the late 19th until the early 20th
century?
First, we take a look at the historical background. Since the attack of French in 1858, Nguyễn Dynasty
always released the wrong strategies for national defense. From 1861 to 1867 there were many
patriotic uprising of Nguyễn Trung Trực, Trương Định, Thủ Khoa Huân, … but most of them fell
down. In July 1883, Tự Đức passed away. During only a few months from November 1883 to early
1884, there were 3 emperors: Dục Đức, Hiệp Hòa, Kiến Phúc. In May 1884, Hàm Nghi enthroned. In
July 1885, “Cần Vương proclamation”, which meant “loyalty to emperor” was released in order to call
for the support from people to fight against French.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, there were 3 patriotic movements significantly. For
the late 19th century movement, the most remarkable one was “Cần Vương proclamation” with typical
uprisings: Ba Đình (1886 – 1887) in Thanh Hóa, Bãi Sậy (1883 – 1892) in Hưng Yên, Hương Khê
(1886 – 1892) in Hà Tĩnh and Hoàng Hoa Thám (1884 – 1913) in Bắc Giang, which was a peasant
movement. The reasons for the failure of these uprisings was because there was no good preparation
because it could not make solidarity among different uprisings. The ideology of Cần Vương uprisings
was feudalism, but feudalist class (Huế Court) had no leading role in defending independence. Hàm
Nghi patriotic but he could not represent the feudalist class. The Patenotre agreement in 1884 already
meant surrendering completely. All Cần Vương uprisings followed feudalist ideology, and they
wanted to recover feudalism influenced by Confucianism, which was obsolete and no longer suitable.
After the failure of Cần Vương, Vietnamese patriotics fell into crisis of way for national salvation.
The early 20th century patriotic movements were influenced from China and Japan. In China, Kang
Yew Wei and Liang Ki Chao were reformists who wanted to change from feudalist to democracy,
which affected Confucianists in Vietnam. In Japan, the Meiji reform spread the inspiration to Phan Bội
Châu and Phan Chu Trinh, resulted in new patriotic movements. According to Phan Bội Châu’s
ideology, from 1904 to 1908, he sent Vietnamese students to Japan to study as he wanted to count on
Japanese assistance. However, French discovered and discussed with Japanese authority to expel
Vietnamese out of Japan. After that, Phan Bội Châu returned to China. After the uprisings of Chinese
Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat Sen in 1911, he continued to go to Thailand and organized patriotic
activities. French sent some spies to China to capture Phan Bội Châu in Shanghai and sentenced his
life. Meanwhile, according to Phan Châu Trinh’s ideology, he believed he could build up cooperation
with French. In fact, it was impossible because French wanted to invest Vietnam and search for
surplus interest. They did not want to cooperate with Vietnam for development. Phan Châu Trinh
mistook when recognizing the nature of French colonialism. The failure of the early 20th century
patriotic movements was because they was in the wrong way. Phan Bội Châu made mistakes when
thinking that because Japan had similarities in culture with our country. He did not recognized the
major of Japanese were emperorlism. Moreover, Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh did not
understand the socio-economic transformation and social contradictions between French and
Vietnamese, landlords and peasants. They did not know who were enemies. Phan Bội Châu
recognized exactly that French was one enemy, but French was not the only enemy. He did not know
the role of farmers and peasant class, which accounted for 90% of the population. Phan Chu Trinh
recognized exactly the feudalism, as he criticized Khải Định emperor, but he did not know all the
feudalist class. He wanted to reform many things but it did not change much at all. He did not
recognize exactly enemies and the role of peasant class as well, resulted in crisis of way. To be deeper,
it was the crisis of progressive class, which was leading class. In the early 20th century, before World
War I, worker class was very small, so they did not take the leading role in society. Phan Bội Châu &
Phân Chu Trinh learned capitalism but un Vietnam, there was no capitalist, as it was in ideology only.
The historical limitation was that Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh were very talented but at that
time, there was no leading class, so they could not overcome historical limitation.
The 3rd patriotic movements were after World War I. In 1920s, Vietnam had some influences from
China with “Three people” slogan: independence – happiness - freedom, France with French
revolution ideology, and Soviet Union, especially the October Revolution. In 1919 – mid 1920s,
among the capitalist class, reformism was promoted with the establishment of Constitutional Party by
Bùi Quang Chiêu. He wanted to practiced political reform. In 1923, Vietnamese people struggled
against the monopoly of Sài Gòn port. Movements by small bourgeoisie and intellectuals developed as
well. In press, there were appearances of progressive newspapers such as Cracked Bell by Nguyễn An
Ninh, L’Annam, Times of Indochina, The voice of people, … to criticize French colonialism strongly.
In addition, struggles of the mass were strained to call for releasing Phan Bội Châu from sentence his
life to outside prison, organizing Phan Chu Trinh’s funeral and demonstration. Besides, many political
parties appeared such as Party of Mind by Phạm Hồng Thái in Guangzhou, Vietnamese Revolutionary
Party, Party of Youths, Aspiration of Youths Party by Nguyễn An Ninh, Association of Revolutionary
Youths by Nguyễn Ái Quốc. The reasons for the failure of these movements were partly the same as
previous period’s ones. We were practicing the wrong ways to save the country. No party recognized
exactly the enemies and the way for national salvation. They recognized French colonialist but they
did not know landlord class was the 2nd enemy of Vietnamese people. Therefore, they did not know
basic contradictions in Vietnamese society after World War I. Moreover, they did not recognize
exactly the revolutionary forces. Vietnamese Nationalist Party by Nguyễn Thái Học did not have
slogans like Chinese Nationalist Party, which paid attention to landlords, workers and peasants. The
crisis of no leading class resulted in a spontaneous process. Methodology was wrong because it caused
separation, no solidarity, no unification. Vietnam continued to fall into crisis.
To overcome this crisis, there were influences from October Revolution and Nguyễn Ái Quốc’s
activities. In 1911, Nguyễn Tất Thành left Sài Gòn for seeking national salvation. He respected Phan
Bội Châu, Phan Chu Trinh but he recognized something wrong, so he would like to seek another way.
In 1920, Nguyễn Ái Quốc became the 1st communist of Vietnam and participated to be a member of
French Communist Party. In the next 10 years, he wanted to disseminate Marxism and Leninism into
Vietnam, which was a new way for national salvation. In August 1925, he established Association of
Revolutionary Youths. From 1925 to 1928, he practiced a lot of activities, such as publishing Youths
newspaper, opening training classes to prepare for the formation of the party in Guangzhou,
publishing many books to make clear new way for national salvation. He pointed out who were
enemies of Vietnamese people, who were the revolutionary forces, who were our friends to
cooperate, … The role of communist party was dignified. Finally, in February 1930, Nguyễn Ái Quốc
established Vietnamese Communist Party on the basis of reunifying 3 communist parties at that time.
This was the final point for crisis of way for national salvation.

9. What were reasons for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945?
After the establishment of Vietnamese Communist Party in 1930, which later changed to Indochina
Communist Party, we had a preparation of 15 years, divided into 3 periods of movements until the
August Revolution in 1945, which took only 2 weeks. This victory gave declaration for independence
of Vietnam.
There were 2 kinds of reason for the victory of the August Revolution in 1945: objective and
subjective. The failure of fascism in the World War II was the most important objective reason. In
1945, Japanese fascists surrendered, which was a very favorable condition for Vietnamese revolution,
as Japanese army fell into posture of dilemmas. When the World War II started in 1939, the face of the
world was divided into 2 sides: Allied Army (Ally) which included United States, Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics, France, … and Axe of Fascism, which included Germany, Italia and Japan. From
1939 to 1943, Fascist was almost in active posture, but in 1943, after the counter-attack of Red Army
of Soviet Union in the Battle of Stalingrad, which was considered as the turning-point of the European
theatre of the war, the situation changed when Fascist turned into passive posture. In late 1944 - early
1945, many Eastern European countries were liberated. In May 1945, German fascism collapsed,
bringing about the failure of fascism in general. This was the favorable moment for Vietnamese to up
rise. Many Western historians considered this was the most important reason for our victory of the
August Revolution in 1945, but we had to recorrect that opinion, because the subjective reasons were
the most important.
The subjective reasons belonged to the leadership of Indochina Communist Party headed by Hồ Chí
Minh, and heroism of Vietnamese people. To be more specific, it was thanks to the long preparation
for the August Revolution during 15 years and the talented leading role in art of mastering favorable
moments. With Hồ Chí Minh’s short manifesto and Trần Phú’s thesis, throughout 15-year preparation,
Vietnamese Communist Party would lead people to gain the government by struggles of the mass in
economics and politics, then develop to military struggles and wait for favorable moments for military
uprisings. It was clear that the revolutionary forces included peasants, proletariat, small bourgeoisie,
national capitalist, … We needed international solidarity from colonial people in Western countries
and international proletariat. In the high tide 1930 – 1931, the Soviet Union in Nghệ - Tĩnh was the
first preparation for the future. It built up revolutionary government but soon be suppressed bloodily
by French and collapsed. However, it left some deep significances behind the failure. It demonstrated
Vietnamese Communist Party’s lines Vietnamese revolution by making solidarity among classes. In
addition, it left many good lessons and experiences on how to organize uprisings for the future.
The 1936 – 1939 phase was for democratic movements, which was the 2nd preparation. The
appearance and development of Fascism became new and the most important danger of the world, as it
would destroy socialism and many democratic countries. Every country needed to focus on struggling
Fascism internationally. As a result, Vietnam had to change tactics to struggle and started a new
movement so-called as “Indochina Democratic Movement”. We focused on struggling Fascism – who
was the direct enemy. In this situation, we reaffirmed direct enemies were reactionary colonialists,
Fascists and their followers. We used a lot of semi-legal measures. Combined with secret activities of
the communist party, we utilized opportunities to make propaganda, which was a good chance to
disseminate Marxism, Leninism and revolutionary lines of the communist party.
The 3rd preparation - 1939 – 1945, was the direct preparation for the August Revolution, which was
divided into 3 periods. From 1939 to 1941, we prepared lines for the revolution through 3 meetings of
Central Committee of Indochina Communist Party: 6th (11.1939), 7th (11.1940), and 8th (5.1941) – in
which Nguyễn Ái Quốc attended after returning to Vietnam. In 1940, Nguyễn Ái Quốc predicted the
failure of fascism, so that was the time for many countries, including Vietnam to uprise, The 3
meetings made clear the ways for the August Revolution. They pointed out the most important
objective was national liberation. There were 2 strategic objectives: defeating French for national
independence and beating landlord class for “land-to-the-tiller” slogan. For a long time, we did not
know the exact answer which was more important. After that, the preceding slogan was replaced to get
land from enemies (French, reactionary landlords) and redistribute land to poor peasants and landless
peasants. This was very important to build up solidarity. Besides, we built up national solidarity
through “Front” – front for great national solidarity including many classes, ranks, strata, … In the 8th
meeting, Việt Minh Front was established. The most critical standard was patriotic individuals. Above
all, the most important was the preparation of military uprisings, which was the direct responsibility to
decide the favorable moments, forces,… for uprisings and to make clear formation of uprisings in
Vietnam. Local uprisings were practiced first as the pre-conditions for general uprisings when having
favorable moment.
From 1941 to March 9th 1945, we prepared revolutionary forces and bases. We defined the political
forces with the establishment of Việt Minh Front, which included many organizations for women,
youths, peasants, … for national salvation. For the military forces, after the collision of Bắc Sơn
uprisings in 1940, Hồ Chí Minh established small unit guerrillas called Bắc Sơn guerrillas, then
developed to army for national salvation – platoon. On December 22th 1944, the National-liberating
Vietnamese army for propaganda was founded. We built up bases in mountainous provinces in North
Vietnam: Cao – Bắc – Lạng – Hà – Tuyên – Thái. In February 1941, Nguyễn Ái Quốc returned to Cao
Bằng, he established Cao Bằng base. After Bắc Sơn uprisings, Cao Bằng was connected with Bắc Sơn
- Võ Nhai base, which was the foundation for Việt Bắc base.
In the 3rd period from March 9th to August 1945, we prepared local uprisings. From Fall 1940 to
March 1945, Japanese and French co-dominated Vietnam, but on March 9th, Japanese upset French
domination in just one night to gain power. In early 1945, the imbalance between Allied Army and
Fascism led to the risk that Fascism was on the verge of collapse. In the future, Allied Army would
come to Indochina to disarm Japanese. Therefore, the only way for Japanese was to upset French. This
was the new favorable moment for local uprisings. We focused on resistance to Japanese fascists and
mobilized against them. We organized political struggles and mass movements to avoid terrible
famine, which made more than 2 million people die of starvation. We developed military units and
established Việt Bắc base in June 1945. There were also local uprisings in mountainous areas. As soon
as Hồ Chí Minh predicted Japanese’ surrender, he sent messages to representatives and waited until
August 1945, when new favorable moment came, he hold national conference in Tân Trào to officially
uprise. Since the first uprising on August 14th, it was only 2 weeks for general uprisings. We took
advantage of the good time, which was soon after Japanese surrender but before Allied Army came to
Vietnam to disarm Japanese. Why we did not organize revolution before that time was because the
imbalance of power between Vietnamese revolutionaries and Japanese fascists, who have hundreds
thousands troops and many modern weapons. At that time, Japanese could suppress Vietnamese easily.
And why we also did not do that after that time was because in the north of Vietnam was Chiang Kai
Shek troops, and the south of Vietnam was British army, followed by French army, which was very
crowded and strong.