I haven't read it, but I got the Terzani book, if it's maybe worth uploading? I'm guessing it's somewhat sympathetic to the Vietnamese "Communist" Party, but it's still a first-hand account of the "liberation" of Saigon that might contain some useful info to contest right-wing/imperialist narratives.
"But the liberation of Vietnam from foreign imperialists and domestic landlords is a good first step. The American Revolution, too, was only a beginning."
I think this article is a good example of being too quick to publish. While the immediate end of the fighting seems to have been relatively peaceful the Vietnamese Communist party did soon enact collective punishment against populations in the country they viewed as not loyal, ethnic Chinese, Cambodians, minorities living in the hills that were accused of supporting the Americans. Many of the Vietnamese diaspora who fled oppression came in the years after the war ended.
I've read accounts of the Khmer Rouge entry into Phnom Penh that were of the same content and tone as Zinns. And I've seen photographs of the mass parades which are similar to the footage circulated of the fall of Saigon. And I'm quite alarmed that Zinn is aware of the re-education camps but immediately dismisses them as not important. The VCP had drawn up lists of names of thousands of Vietnamese who had to report to re-education prisons for forced labour, including dangerous work like mine and bomb disposal. Some were kept in these prisons until the 1989 when Reagan intervened. I don't know the specifics but at least one Vietnamese American organisation raises funds to locate the grave sites of inmates who died while in them.
Reddebrek wrote: I think this article is a good example of being too quick to publish. While the immediate end of the fighting seems to have been relatively peaceful the Vietnamese Communist party did soon enact collective punishment against populations in the country they viewed as not loyal, ethnic Chinese, Cambodians, minorities living in the hills that were accused of supporting the Americans. Many of the Vietnamese diaspora who fled oppression came in the years after the war ended.
Hi, I think Zinn is fairly careful to avoid an uncritical endorsement of the VCP. He expresses skepticism, for example, over Terzani's positive portrayal of the "liberation" of Saigon and alludes to how revolutions can turn tyrannical:
Zinn wrote: Is this too romantic a picture of the liberation, which Terzani gives us in his book? Perhaps. Revolutions can become tyrannical, lose their early spirit. Perhaps they need continuous rejuvenation, as Karl Marx and Thomas Jefferson both said in different ways.
Zinn's article was also undoubtedly influenced by his and other antiwar activists' opposition to the "bloodbath theory." The "bloodbath theory," as pushed by Nixon and other American conservatives, argued how "untold horrors" awaited the South Vietnamese, along with the rest of the so-called "free world," if the U.S. were to withdraw aid to the Saigon regime. Zinn's article should really be understood within this historical context; the U.S. and Saigon regime lied extensively about the violence committed by the North and "Viet Cong," a term which the National Liberation Front never even employed and whose widespread use attests to the effectiveness of U.S.-Saigon propaganda. For example, one could note how the U.S. concealed how most Vietnamese in fact supported the NLF and VCP, as well as the Viet Minh (in the First Indochina War) who had expropriated land from landlords to give to the peasants (i.e. the majority of Vietnamese).[1] American officials reference the fact that the "communists" had widespread support throughout the internal documentary record; the South's later land reform, "The Land to the Tiller Program," was also explicitly aimed at "winning over the peasantry." Similarly, the U.S. and Saigon regime portrayed the North's land reform as far more violent than was actually the case (e.g. Nixon at various points argued that over a million people were "senselessly slaughtered"). Such lies provided a justification for American involvement in Indochina. They also served the broader goal of preventing the spread of "communism" and keeping Southeast Asia open to economic exploitation.
I don't think Zinn was really indifferent to Vietnamese refugees who fled Vietnam in the postwar years (e.g. the "boat people"), which peaked a little bit after when he was writing. As mentioned, Zinn's article was mostly responding to the American anti-"communists" who wanted to prolong American involvement in Indochina. Zinn and other antiwar activists were also largely correct in their dismissal of the "bloodbath theory"; there was no "bloodbath," at least not in the sense of the people who pushed this idea, at the hands of the VCP following the "liberation" of the South (with the exception of the Khmer Rouge who carried out massacres against Vietnamese, leading to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime). In fact, one could also argue, as Chomsky and others have, that the Khmer Rouge itself was greatly assisted by Nixon's bombing campaign over Cambodia, killing thousands of innocent Cambodians and helping to undermine the more moderate "communist" leaders. However harsh reunified Vietnam may have been in the years after the war (especially to those who cooperated with the Saigon government), these actions pale in comparison to the anti-"communist" aggression of the U.S. and Saigon regime.
For what it's worth, this text is also listed under the Bibliography section of Zinn's website, which is where I originally came across it.
1. The Diem government immediately reversed this situation by allowing landlords to collect lands (along with back rent) that the Viet Minh had given to the peasants, which didn't win Diem much sympathy.
Hi there, most of your comment is an irrelevant tangent so I won't bother with it. You're free to be impressed with Zinn's few comments hedging if you like, that doesn't address the criticism of the piece.
Zinn has written about an event and actively downplayed and excused acts of repression by a government in power, and the justification for this is that the US government were wrong. Either he didn't know the reality of what was going on or he did and decided having a crack at the pentagon was worth misleading his audience. And we know it works because here you are in 2023 trying to stir the conversation away from the actions of the Vietnamese government.
If you just wanted to prove the bloodbath of Vietnamese in the cities was false a look at the list of massacres would've sufficed.
Reddebrek wrote: Hi there, most of your comment is an irrelevant tangent. . . .
Reddebrek wrote: Zinn has written about an event and actively downplayed and excused acts of repression by a government in power, and the justification for this is that the US government were wrong.
Zinn really was only responding to the bloodbath fear-mongering in America... as I tried to explain to you... but which you dismiss as a tangent. I'm fairly certain Zinn was not indifferent to refugees trying to flee Vietnam or the repression of the Vietnamese government. The information you're harping on about likely wasn't even available to him at the time or had yet to even occur. The deaths in the reeducation camps were, as I mentioned, quite different from what Nixon and others were arguing would happen if the U.S. were to stop supporting the South (that's what the article is about!!). The reeducation camps were also a far cry from the American bombing of civilians in Cambodia (likely assisting the rise of the Khmer Rouge) or the use of Agent Orange throughout all of South Vietnam, the effects of which are still being felt today. That you would even cite the deaths in the reeducation camps (mostly of people who cooperated with the repressive Saigon regime—not that that justifies their deaths) in the first place suggests an ignorance of the sort of arguments American anti-"communists" were giving in defense of keeping troops in Vietnam. Part of the argument for why the U.S. should "defend the South" in the first place was the ridiculous equation of "communism" to Nazism; some Americans thought that the U.S. should act more decisively in Vietnam rather than accommodate the enemy, as the Western powers did with Nazi Germany with disastrous results. It is also worth reiterating that many Vietnamese actually supported the North and NLF, including their "liberation" of the South. And that doesn't mean that I agree with the VCP; that's just stating the facts of the matter, the same facts that you find throughout the American documentary record.
Comments
I haven't read it, but I got…
I haven't read it, but I got the Terzani book, if it's maybe worth uploading? I'm guessing it's somewhat sympathetic to the Vietnamese "Communist" Party, but it's still a first-hand account of the "liberation" of Saigon that might contain some useful info to contest right-wing/imperialist narratives.
If that sounds great
Yes that sounds great
"But the liberation of…
"But the liberation of Vietnam from foreign imperialists and domestic landlords is a good first step. The American Revolution, too, was only a beginning."
I think this article is a good example of being too quick to publish. While the immediate end of the fighting seems to have been relatively peaceful the Vietnamese Communist party did soon enact collective punishment against populations in the country they viewed as not loyal, ethnic Chinese, Cambodians, minorities living in the hills that were accused of supporting the Americans. Many of the Vietnamese diaspora who fled oppression came in the years after the war ended.
I've read accounts of the Khmer Rouge entry into Phnom Penh that were of the same content and tone as Zinns. And I've seen photographs of the mass parades which are similar to the footage circulated of the fall of Saigon. And I'm quite alarmed that Zinn is aware of the re-education camps but immediately dismisses them as not important. The VCP had drawn up lists of names of thousands of Vietnamese who had to report to re-education prisons for forced labour, including dangerous work like mine and bomb disposal. Some were kept in these prisons until the 1989 when Reagan intervened. I don't know the specifics but at least one Vietnamese American organisation raises funds to locate the grave sites of inmates who died while in them.
https://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/2012/03/01/excavations-of-burial-sites-at-vietnamese-re-education-camps-by-the-returning-casualty/
Reddebrek wrote: I think…
Hi, I think Zinn is fairly careful to avoid an uncritical endorsement of the VCP. He expresses skepticism, for example, over Terzani's positive portrayal of the "liberation" of Saigon and alludes to how revolutions can turn tyrannical:
Zinn's article was also undoubtedly influenced by his and other antiwar activists' opposition to the "bloodbath theory." The "bloodbath theory," as pushed by Nixon and other American conservatives, argued how "untold horrors" awaited the South Vietnamese, along with the rest of the so-called "free world," if the U.S. were to withdraw aid to the Saigon regime. Zinn's article should really be understood within this historical context; the U.S. and Saigon regime lied extensively about the violence committed by the North and "Viet Cong," a term which the National Liberation Front never even employed and whose widespread use attests to the effectiveness of U.S.-Saigon propaganda. For example, one could note how the U.S. concealed how most Vietnamese in fact supported the NLF and VCP, as well as the Viet Minh (in the First Indochina War) who had expropriated land from landlords to give to the peasants (i.e. the majority of Vietnamese).[1] American officials reference the fact that the "communists" had widespread support throughout the internal documentary record; the South's later land reform, "The Land to the Tiller Program," was also explicitly aimed at "winning over the peasantry." Similarly, the U.S. and Saigon regime portrayed the North's land reform as far more violent than was actually the case (e.g. Nixon at various points argued that over a million people were "senselessly slaughtered"). Such lies provided a justification for American involvement in Indochina. They also served the broader goal of preventing the spread of "communism" and keeping Southeast Asia open to economic exploitation.
I don't think Zinn was really indifferent to Vietnamese refugees who fled Vietnam in the postwar years (e.g. the "boat people"), which peaked a little bit after when he was writing. As mentioned, Zinn's article was mostly responding to the American anti-"communists" who wanted to prolong American involvement in Indochina. Zinn and other antiwar activists were also largely correct in their dismissal of the "bloodbath theory"; there was no "bloodbath," at least not in the sense of the people who pushed this idea, at the hands of the VCP following the "liberation" of the South (with the exception of the Khmer Rouge who carried out massacres against Vietnamese, leading to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime). In fact, one could also argue, as Chomsky and others have, that the Khmer Rouge itself was greatly assisted by Nixon's bombing campaign over Cambodia, killing thousands of innocent Cambodians and helping to undermine the more moderate "communist" leaders. However harsh reunified Vietnam may have been in the years after the war (especially to those who cooperated with the Saigon government), these actions pale in comparison to the anti-"communist" aggression of the U.S. and Saigon regime.
For what it's worth, this text is also listed under the Bibliography section of Zinn's website, which is where I originally came across it.
1. The Diem government immediately reversed this situation by allowing landlords to collect lands (along with back rent) that the Viet Minh had given to the peasants, which didn't win Diem much sympathy.
Hi there, most of your…
Hi there, most of your comment is an irrelevant tangent so I won't bother with it. You're free to be impressed with Zinn's few comments hedging if you like, that doesn't address the criticism of the piece.
Zinn has written about an event and actively downplayed and excused acts of repression by a government in power, and the justification for this is that the US government were wrong. Either he didn't know the reality of what was going on or he did and decided having a crack at the pentagon was worth misleading his audience. And we know it works because here you are in 2023 trying to stir the conversation away from the actions of the Vietnamese government.
If you just wanted to prove the bloodbath of Vietnamese in the cities was false a look at the list of massacres would've sufficed.
Reddebrek wrote: Hi there,…
Zinn really was only responding to the bloodbath fear-mongering in America... as I tried to explain to you... but which you dismiss as a tangent. I'm fairly certain Zinn was not indifferent to refugees trying to flee Vietnam or the repression of the Vietnamese government. The information you're harping on about likely wasn't even available to him at the time or had yet to even occur. The deaths in the reeducation camps were, as I mentioned, quite different from what Nixon and others were arguing would happen if the U.S. were to stop supporting the South (that's what the article is about!!). The reeducation camps were also a far cry from the American bombing of civilians in Cambodia (likely assisting the rise of the Khmer Rouge) or the use of Agent Orange throughout all of South Vietnam, the effects of which are still being felt today. That you would even cite the deaths in the reeducation camps (mostly of people who cooperated with the repressive Saigon regime—not that that justifies their deaths) in the first place suggests an ignorance of the sort of arguments American anti-"communists" were giving in defense of keeping troops in Vietnam. Part of the argument for why the U.S. should "defend the South" in the first place was the ridiculous equation of "communism" to Nazism; some Americans thought that the U.S. should act more decisively in Vietnam rather than accommodate the enemy, as the Western powers did with Nazi Germany with disastrous results. It is also worth reiterating that many Vietnamese actually supported the North and NLF, including their "liberation" of the South. And that doesn't mean that I agree with the VCP; that's just stating the facts of the matter, the same facts that you find throughout the American documentary record.