Trường Chinh (, meaning "Long March"; born Đặng Xuân Khu; 9 February 1907 – 30 September 1988) was a Vietnamese communist political leader, revolutionary and theoretician. He was one of the key figures of Vietnamese politics for over 40 years, and played a major role in the 1946–1954 war against the French.Stein Tonesson, Vietnam 1946: How did the War Began (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), p. 20. Trường also played an important role in shaping the politics of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and creating the socialist structure of the new Vietnam.Vo Nguyen Giap, People’s War People’s Army (Ha Noi: The Gioi Publisher, 2004), pp. 33-139; John R Nordell, The Undetected Enemy: French and American Miscalculations at Dien Bien Phu, 1953 (Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1995), pp. 65-73. During his time in the Workers' Party of Vietnam he was considered the head of the Maoist camp.
Between November 9, 1940 and November 11, 1945, when the party dissolved, Trường was General Secretary of the Indochinese Communist Party Central Committee. Between 1946 and 1954, the First Indochina War led to the fall of French Indochina and the partitioning of Vietnam between north and south. On 19 February 1951, Trường became First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam Central Committee. After the failure of the land reform program in 1956, he was dismissed from his post of General Secretary and had less power.
Despite his dismissal as General Secretary, Trường Chinh remained an influential force in the party during the Vietnam War and after the reunification of Vietnam. He was Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam from 1960 to 1981 and head of state of Vietnam from 1981 to 1987 as 3rd President of Vietnam. Following the death of Lê Duẩn in July 1986, Trường again became General Secretary, and held the post until December 18, 1986. His last vital role was to carry forward the Đổi Mới renovation that still affects Vietnam to this day.
Early life Trường Chinh's name at birth was Đặng Xuân Khu. He changed his name to Trường Chinh, which means "Long March", in honor of the 6,000-mile military retreat of the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1934 and 1936 led by Mao Zedong.Nguyen Lien-Hang T., Hanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), p. 21. He was born on February 9, 1907, in the Hành Thiện village, Xuân Hồng sub-district, Xuân Trường district, Nam Định province (in the area of the Red River delta, 120 kilometers from Hanoi). He was the oldest son among five children of the Đặng family which was an important family of the village. His siblings were Đặng Thị Yên, Đặng Thị Uẩn, Đặng Thị Tường, and Đặng Xuân Đỉnh.Nguyễn Hương Giang, Phạm Hùng và Trung Kiên, Tổng Bí Thư Trường Chinh: Cuộc đời và Sự nghiệp Cách mạng (Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh: NXB Chính trị-Hành chính, 2013), pp. 20-21. He grew up in a Confucian family which was not wealthy. His family background and his father highly shaped his knowledge and influenced him to join the anti-colonial movement. He learned Classical Chinese from his father and was sent to the district school.
His grandfather, Đặng Xuân Bảng, was a Confucian intellectual who worked for the Nguyễn court under the reign of Emperor Tự Đức and published many books about history, literature and Confucian ideology written in Hán scripts.Ibid., pp. 15-17. His father was Đặng Xuân Viện who was a famous Confucian scholar and wrote many history books. Unlike his grandfather, Viện was not interested to work for the Nguyễn court. Instead, he participated in the Đông Kinh Nghĩa thục (Tonkin Free School) movement against French colonialism in 1907.Ibid., p. 18. Trường Chinh's mother was Nguyễn Thị Từ (1880-1964) who grew up in a Confucian mandarin family of the Nguyễn court.Thông Tấn Xã Việt Nam(Vietnam News Agency), Đồng Chí Trường Chinh (Comrade Truong Chinh) (Nhà Xuất Bản Thông Tấn: Hà Nội, 2007), pp. 21-22. Trường Chinh married Nguyễn Thi Minh, who remained loyal and carried on the burden of looking after the family, especially her husband's family after he was jailed for his political beliefs.Ibid., pp. 30-37.
Leader of student movement
In the midst of the political and social transition in Indochina, particularly the spread of French educational system in the nineteenth century. Trường Chinh was sent to educate in the French school, which was the starting point for his political movement.Nguyen Lien-Hang T., Op.cit., pp. 21-22. In 1923, he was sent to Thành Chung secondary school, the first secondary school for the local people and taught in the Western educational system, located in Nam Định province.Nguyễn Hương Giang, Phạm Hùng và Trung Kiên, Op.cit., p. 22. In the school, Trường Chinh was inspired by the French philosophers’ works such as Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Montesquieu as well as the French Revolution and the 1911 Revolution.Thông Tấn Xã Việt Nam (Vietnam News Agency), Đồng Chí Trường Chinh (Comrade Truong Chinh) (Nhà Xuất Bản Thông Tấn: Hà Nội, 2007), p. 25. In Nam Định, he lived with a poor labour family who worked in the industrial factory. His childhood experience urged him to set up a student movement with his schoolmates, Nguyễn Văn Hoan, Đặng Châu Tệ, Phạm Năng Độ, Nguyễn Khắc Lương, and Nguyễn Đức Cảnh.Viện Hồ Chí Minh Huyện Xuân Thủy, Op.cit., pp. 41-42. This group, later on, joined the student movement in Tonkin. They published newspapers in order to spread their thoughts on the anti-colonial movement.
In 1925, when Phan Bội Châu, the respectful nationalist, was captured in China and brought back to Vietnam, Trường Chinh was in the second year in high school. He joined the nationalist movement and printed leaflets together with his friends demanding the release of Phan Bội Châu.Ibid., pp. 43-45. This was the first time he personally participated in a political movement. His second involvement was a year after that. In 1926, the death of Phan Chu Trinh (Phan Châu Trinh), the well-known nationalist, led to the huge protests all over Vietnam. Trường Chinh and his schoolmates asked a permission from the local authority to organize a mourning for Phan Chu Trinh.Nguyễn Hương Giang, Phạm Hùng và Trung Kiên, Op.cit., p. 24-26.
Trường Chinh became the head of the student movement in Nam Định and cooperated with other schools. Not only students but peasants, labourers, and villagers numbering more than ten thousand also participated in the Phan Chu Trinh commemoration.Viện Hồ Chí Minh Huyện Xuân Thủy, Op.cit., pp. 44-45. The gathering turned violent and, as a result, Trường Chinh and other student leaders were taken away by the police together with more than 200 people. After this event, the French colonial administrators kept an eye on him.Nguyễn Hương Giang, Phạm Hùng và Trung Kiên, Op.cit., pp. 25-26. He quit school in Nam Định. After that, he did self-study and passed the secondary school level exam. He moved to Hanoi to pursue his study in Indochinese trade college (trường Cao đẳng Thương mại Đông Dương).Ibid., p. 26. In Ha Noi, he still focused on political movement with his friends from Nam Định and wrote for newspapers.
Road to Communist Party
When Trường Chinh was in Ha Noi, he had an opportunity to choose his revolutionary path. In 1928, he joined the national salvation movement together with other Vietnamese young intellectuals.Ibid., pp.29-30. He read widely on Socialist works such as Marx and Engels, and Lenin. In 1929, he was one of first groups that founded the Communist Party of Indochina (1929–1930). He started to work on the Party's published works such as Búa Liềm newspaper and Người sinh viên newspaper aimed to educate the people on the Socialist path; at condemning the French colonial government and at arousing the local mass as to ally with the Party.Shawn Frederick McHale, Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam(Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2004), pp. 114-117.; Nguyễn Thành, Đồng chí Trường Chinh với báo chí(Hà Nội: NXB. Thanh niên, 2003), pp. 14-15. However, in 1930, the Nghệ Tĩnh-Soviet movement and the Yên Bái mutiny started their own rebellion in Tonkin and this led the French colonial government to purge the political movement in Indochina.Christopher E. Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, pp. 150-151.
In 1930 Trường Chinh became member of the Communist Party of Vietnam and was appointed to the Committee's propaganda of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Indochina. He was caught on November, 14th 1930 and was sentenced to twelve years, but was released in 1936.Phạm Hùng, Trung Kiên, Hoàng Phúc, Op.cit, pp. 32-33. Although Trường Chinh was imprisoned for his political beliefs Hỏa Lò prison in Hanoi and deported Sơn La prison in Sơn La province for seven years, he was continuously active in the political movement.Thông Tấn Xã Việt Nam, Op.cit., pp. 36-37. He was the leader of the Communist movement in the prisons where he published poems, articles, books about socialism and criticism of the Vietnam nationalist Party.Phạm Hồng Chương (Chủ biên), Trường-Chinh Tiểu sử (Hà Nội: NXB Chính trị Quốc gia, 2007), p. 62.
The colonial prison significantly became the revolutionary school for most of the intellectual revolutionists and communists.Peter Zinoman, Opcit., p. 212. After release from prison, he continued his political movement, especially through his books and newspaper articles. He was a journalist, a writer, and a socialist intellectual who used his writings under various pennames such as Trường Chinh, Sông Hồng, Tân Trào, T.C. and S.T. to fight the French colonial government since he was a teenager.Phạm Hồng Chương (Chủ biên), Op.cit., pp. 64-65. He was also a strategist for the Indochinese Communist Party.
Political roles and ideology
Trường Chinh's ideology was inspired by Marxism and Leninism and he was influenced by Hồ Chí Minh, as seen from his works on including revolutionary ideology, political and revolutionary strategies as well as cultural strategies and policies.Viện Nghiên cứu Hồ Chí Minh và các Lãnh tụ của Đảng, Trường-Chinh và Cách Mạng Việt Nam (Hà Nội: NXB Chính trị Quốc gia, 1997), pp. 8-22; Trần Nhâm. Trường Chinh: Một tư duy sáng tại, Một tài năng kiệt xuất (Hà Nội: NXB Chính trí Quốc gia, 2007), pp. 1-15. According to the Communist Party, Trường Chinh was "Ho Chi Minh's excellent student",Trần Nhâm, Trường Chinh: Một tư duy sáng tại, Một tài năng kiệt xuất (Hà Nội: NXB Chính trí Quốc gia, 2007), p. 12. although he did not always agree with Ho Chi Minh's ideas.Thai Quang Trung, Collective leadership and factionalism: an essay on Ho Chi Minh's legacy (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1985), pp. 15-19.
There are two main arguments about Trường Chinh's ideology. Firstly, his ideology was seen as radical and based on Mao Zedong Thought which is clearly evident in his published works and the pattern of the land reform program that he had borrowed from China.Ibid., pp. 9-17.; Mark Philip Bradley, Imaging Vietnam and America: The Making of Post-Colonial Vietnam, 1919-1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 32. Secondly, it was a hybrid incorporating Marxism and Leninism that formed the core of Trường Chinh's ideology which supported the anti-colonial movement and did not oppose nationalism. His ideology firstly was influenced by the Soviet bloc, after that, China bloc, and was adopted in Vietnam contexts.Tuong Vu,Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 15-19.
First Secretary of the Communist Party