Indo-China: End of an Epoch
Rader, Jack
The Geneva agreement which brought the fighting in Indo-China to an end wrote finis to the French Empire in Asia. France is the last of the European powers to have been driven out of Asia, and...
...He is new to the country, looked upon with suspicion by the old Viet Nam politicians...
...The implications of this are enormous, but here it may be possible merely to sketch a few suggestive and rather speculative notes...
...Ho, an extremely astute political leader, is aware that in his organization too there are such divergent tendencies...
...There are some indications, particularly from the behavior of his emissaries at Geneva, that they are not wildly enthusiastic about the arrangement...
...Such a prospect is not immediate, but no one can say that it will not happen within the next two years, given the frustration of U. S. policy in that area...
...Such a course, we are convinced, would in itself mean very little, other than providing immediate relief...
...A deal prompted largely by fear of U. S. intervention, it is true, but exactly what Ho and his supporters think of this, no one knows...
...The French could neither defeat nor restrain his armies...
...314 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954...
...It would not meet the issues at stake there in any way...
...his organization is compact...
...But the Asian socialists, either weak or beleaguered at home or lacking a clear sense of the Communist danger, could not be expected to carry the brunt of any effort to defeat the Communists in Indo-China...
...Such a military adventure would be a disaster for all parties with a real danger of ultimate catastrophe...
...Whether he can create something overnight, is extremely doubtful...
...It also points to a special problem in the case of Indo-China, which did not exist in China...
...that they feel sold out because power and territory which they thought they could take and hold were given away by their friends...
...If these are some of the elements in the price that must be paid by India, Burma, etc., for emerging now as nations, how can we measure the cost in Indo-China where the commitments to the Communist power bloc are made in advance by Ho Chi Minh...
...Aufumn 1954 • DISSENT • 313 What of the possibility of a serious struggle by the genuine nationalists in consort, perhaps, with other Asian nationalists, liberals and socialists...
...now that the Europeans have been driven out, or have beat a retreat, what can fill the socio-economic vacuum...
...France is the last of the European powers to have been driven out of Asia, and with its defeat a whole epoch of Asian history—the struggle for national independence—seems to be coming to an ambiguous close...
...There is good ground for believing that Ho felt capable of taking not only the Delta and Hanoi, but likewise the rest of Annam and Cochin-China to the south...
...In every Asian Communist party there are presently two inclinations, if not two wings, with one looking toward Moscow for guidance and the other toward Peiping...
...Meanwhile, from a larger point of view, the settlement in Indo-China proves again how ambiguous and false are the claims of the Asian Communists to speak in the name of Asian national interests...
...The likelihood is therefore that the Communists, after their military victory, will gain a political victory if and when an election is held in IndoChina...
...And the likelihood appears to be that France will not quickly or gracefully exit...
...Except for Malaya, where nationalism is not yet a full-fledged political force, and a few minor enclaves which exist mainly as outposts for European flags but do not decisively influence Asiatic politics, the European powers are through...
...As for the non-Communist Asian powers, they are insecure, wary, frightened in foreign affairs...
...Is there still a chance for salvaging the South of Indo-China...
...In the North the Catholics were strong, but this helps him very little in the South...
...He is a Catholic in a Buddhist country...
...Could such a movement challenge Ho...
...Can the economic well-being of England and France, which rested at least in part on their extensive imperial holdings, now be recaptured once they have been rendered poorer by Asia...
...We are now in a position to evaluate the results...
...His handicaps are enormous...
...So far as one can presently tell, the new Vietnamese Premier is a sincere and devoted nationalist and he has paid for his belief with years of exile...
...Not tomorrow, or the next year, perhaps, but in time these divergent tendencies may come forth in Ho's party and with Ho's tacit approval...
...and therefore challenge him at the root of his power...
...If the Communists capture all of Indo-China, would it not be to the interests of China to keep its southern neighbor in approximately the same kind of subordinate status—at least economically —in which France kept it, i.e., as a source for coal, tin and rice...
...The real question, unfortunately, is not Indo-China any longer, but whether the Indo-Chinese tragedy is only the curtain raiser on an ominous age that is opening for all South Asia which would lock that area, so recently emancipated, in the vise of conflict between the two world powers...
...it is literal fact...
...He has no party or movement, nor is there such an embracing, coherent force in French-held areas...
...France is finished in Indo-China, and the only possibility for a revival of Western power there is blunt intervention by the United States...
...The Indo-Chinese, like the rest of mankind, are paying for the sins of capitalism, for the failure of socialism, for the whole social decay of the modern world which has made the rise of Communism possible...
...his army has been tried and steeled in battle...
...The socialist government of Burma is beset by hazards of its own...
...He is immensely popular...
...Nor is this political hyperbole...
...There is always a chance—in this case a paper thin one...
...They operated at Geneva, not like intermediaries or advisors, but like men with complete authority to barter...
...If the Geneva conference marked the end of 300 years of European expansionism into Asia, it also marked something far less desirable and indeed ominous—the first successful colonial war waged under the leadership of the Communists, the first time a war for the "national liberation" of a colony from its mother country has triumphed under the auspices of a Communist movement...
...certainly they would win overwhelmingly today, so far as one can determine...
...What kind of economy can West Europe work out without the buttress of colonies...
...It is customary to wonder how this will affect the future of Asia, but it is at least as interesting to wonder how it will affect the future of Europe...
...The catastrophe is complete with all the inevitability of high tragedy...
...Years of rapacity, exploitation and stupidity cannot be undone by some brilliant political stroke at the 12th hour...
...And they are paying for the incredibly blind and venal French policy during the past few years which did everything in its power to make certain that nationalist sentiments were channelled into the hands of the Communists and that no other nationalist movement be allowed to survive...
...That must come from within, where it does not exist...
...THE INDO-CHINESE COMMUNISTS WON THE WAR, but it is at least possible that they feel they were deprived of the full fruits of their victory...
...The people of Asia have paid a heavy price for freedom from foreign rule but they succeed to their own national states in a world in which sov ereignty is devalued, nationhood brings few automatic advantages, and the Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 311 extent of control that new states are able to exercise even on development within their domestic domains depends on vast uncontrollable world forces...
...To be honest, very little...
...He holds office under the sign of Bao Dai and France, which renders him suspect before most of the people...
...At best, this would not be easy...
...There is talk of U. S. economic aid to Southern Indo-China...
...the Indonesian regime subsists on the verge of chaos...
...If the French pull out immediately and unconditionally and if they allow full political liberty and the beginnings of genuine political life to develop as they withdraw, then perhaps there might develop some sort of genuine nationalist or nationalist-liberal movement in the South which under the compulsions of crisis could find its own course...
...the Indian regime of Nehru can hardly be counted upon for any decisive action and none in Asia against the Stalinists...
...Conversely, what kind of society can the former colonies develop in a world that is increasingly lop-sided and uneven in its distribution of economic power and resources, that is riven by an irreconcilable conflict between two social systems, that cares least of all to help the nations of Asia industrialize, vitalize their agricultures and human resources and thereby step onto the modern stage as truly independent forces...
...Regardless of who takes over Indo-China —and at the moment the odds are it will be the Communists—this will be a key problem in attempting to reestablish any sort of political and economic order...
...Is there any chance that Indo-China might yet save itself from Communism...
...During the last two years, it is true, the Chinese and Russians helped with arms and diplomacy, but the fighting in Indo-China had been going on for some eight years during which Ho Chi Minh built up an independent power...
...But one thing is sure: that if the French remain in their ineffectual way, if they hang on with Bao Dai or some equivalent, then there will not even be a political struggle worthy of the name...
...All other nationalist movements in Asia during the 20th century have been under either bourgeois or intellectual leadership...
...In many parts of the South there is no effective government whatsoever since the French never permitted an Indo-Chinese government apparatus to develop...
...Now at the very moment before victory, the Russians and Chinese—Ho's Big Brothers—have stepped in to make a deal...
...An assessment of the forces at work on the scene leaves little doubt as to the outcome...
...With two years presumably ahead of them before the decisive election to settle the country's fate, certain elements around Bao Dai would still like to see a U. S. supersession of France, even if this required making the country a military base and transforming the struggle into an international one...
...If it were to appear it would have to arise from subterranean sources of popular strength that are now for Ho...
...The Geneva agreement which brought the fighting in Indo-China to an end wrote finis to the French Empire in Asia...
...No one has yet given the Indo-Chinese masses a good reason to do this...
...For clearly 312 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 both Molotov and Chou En-Lai, whatever their differences, set the interests of the Communist world bloc far above the interests of the colonial people...
...Aware that with his victory the Russians and Chinese now have something to fight over, he is certain to make the most of his bargaining possibilities...
...He inherits disaffection, disintegration, defeatism...
...By and large, the present economics of the Asian countries have been fashioned during the last three centuries to the needs of their European rulers...
...The day when such palliatives had meaning has long since gone...
...they acted as if they had the power to give away what they pleased in Indo-China...
...The socialists of Asia could serve, perhaps, as an auxiliary force in an all-Asian effort to win the political struggle within Indo-China during the next two years...
Vol. 1 • September 1954 • No. 4
