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Authors: Monique Brinson Demery
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behind them.
Late the night before, the distant rumbling that had surrounded the city for days turned into distinctive, acute booms that rattled the windowpanes ferociously. Madame Nhu knew then that they had ignored city officialsâ orders to evacuate for too long. But as to who was out there fighting in the streets, âOn lâignoraitââno one knew.
The Vietnamese were still reeling from all the shocks their country had suffered during the last year of World War II. Ruthless in their demands for labor and unquenchable in their thirst for raw materials, the Japanese had imposed crop requisitions at two or three times the rate of the French, sapping the countryside of manpower and resources. Hungry peasants ate into their seed stocks, which meant they planted still fewer seeds. Rice yields fell due to a particularly nasty spell of weather, and a devastating famine struck northern Vietnam in 1944. In urban areas, people got ration cards; in the countryside, people were cut off and left to die. Lines of walking corpses streamed into the cities. First came the men; straggling behind them were withered women, then children with bloated bellies and the elderly on spindly legs. The fields they passed through were silent. Even the birds hadsuccumbedâthe famine upset the natural order of the food chain. The hungry foraged for bugs and crickets for extra protein. They ate grass and leaves and even pulled the bark from trees. Every day, hundreds of corpses, people who had died from hunger on the side of the road, were gathered up for disposal. Historians estimate the famineâs death toll at over 2 million people.
The famine of 1944 and 1945 became the perfect proving ground for Communist thought and ideology. The Communists breathed life into a political and military organization named the Viet Minh, but they kept the groupâs identity cloaked in nationalism to try to reach the broadest base possible. Vietnamese who might initially have been put off by the close link to the Indochinese Communist Party were drawn to the Viet Minh. No one elseânot the French, not the âindependentâ government propped up by Japan, and certainly not the Japanese themselvesâdid anything to alleviate the pain and suffering in the countryside. Madame Nhu had hardly noticed it from within her rarified cocoon. It was the Viet Minh who reached out with famine relief. Their network helped people find food, and their manpower helped farmers replant. They earned the devotion of the countryside for their actions.
The loyalty of the people would come in handy in the wake of the Japanese defeat at the end of World War II, when Vietnam suddenly found itself in a political vacuum. The French assumed that they could step right back in to retake their colony and that they would be welcomed with open arms, but they were wrong. Many families formerly under the French thumb, like the Chuongs, had collaborated with the Japanese. They didnât want to see the French return. The Japanese had dangled the promise of freedom in front of them, and not surprisingly they didnât want the nation to revert to a French colony. But rich families like the Chuongs didnât like the alternative the Viet Minh offered. Communist themes of class struggle and wealth redistribution threatened their comfort and safety. The leader of the Viet Minh, who also founded the Indochinese Communist Party, had finally stepped out of the shadows. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam independent. He was ready to fight the French for the country, and suddenly the postwar period in Indochina devolved into a politicalmess. Who was in charge of what region changed from day to day, province to province. The most practical concern for a bystander like Madame Nhu was survival.
On that chilly December morning in 1946, Madame Nhu didnât know who was fighting whom anymore, but the women and children gathered in her parlor stood well
Late the night before, the distant rumbling that had surrounded the city for days turned into distinctive, acute booms that rattled the windowpanes ferociously. Madame Nhu knew then that they had ignored city officialsâ orders to evacuate for too long. But as to who was out there fighting in the streets, âOn lâignoraitââno one knew.
The Vietnamese were still reeling from all the shocks their country had suffered during the last year of World War II. Ruthless in their demands for labor and unquenchable in their thirst for raw materials, the Japanese had imposed crop requisitions at two or three times the rate of the French, sapping the countryside of manpower and resources. Hungry peasants ate into their seed stocks, which meant they planted still fewer seeds. Rice yields fell due to a particularly nasty spell of weather, and a devastating famine struck northern Vietnam in 1944. In urban areas, people got ration cards; in the countryside, people were cut off and left to die. Lines of walking corpses streamed into the cities. First came the men; straggling behind them were withered women, then children with bloated bellies and the elderly on spindly legs. The fields they passed through were silent. Even the birds hadsuccumbedâthe famine upset the natural order of the food chain. The hungry foraged for bugs and crickets for extra protein. They ate grass and leaves and even pulled the bark from trees. Every day, hundreds of corpses, people who had died from hunger on the side of the road, were gathered up for disposal. Historians estimate the famineâs death toll at over 2 million people.
The famine of 1944 and 1945 became the perfect proving ground for Communist thought and ideology. The Communists breathed life into a political and military organization named the Viet Minh, but they kept the groupâs identity cloaked in nationalism to try to reach the broadest base possible. Vietnamese who might initially have been put off by the close link to the Indochinese Communist Party were drawn to the Viet Minh. No one elseânot the French, not the âindependentâ government propped up by Japan, and certainly not the Japanese themselvesâdid anything to alleviate the pain and suffering in the countryside. Madame Nhu had hardly noticed it from within her rarified cocoon. It was the Viet Minh who reached out with famine relief. Their network helped people find food, and their manpower helped farmers replant. They earned the devotion of the countryside for their actions.
The loyalty of the people would come in handy in the wake of the Japanese defeat at the end of World War II, when Vietnam suddenly found itself in a political vacuum. The French assumed that they could step right back in to retake their colony and that they would be welcomed with open arms, but they were wrong. Many families formerly under the French thumb, like the Chuongs, had collaborated with the Japanese. They didnât want to see the French return. The Japanese had dangled the promise of freedom in front of them, and not surprisingly they didnât want the nation to revert to a French colony. But rich families like the Chuongs didnât like the alternative the Viet Minh offered. Communist themes of class struggle and wealth redistribution threatened their comfort and safety. The leader of the Viet Minh, who also founded the Indochinese Communist Party, had finally stepped out of the shadows. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed Vietnam independent. He was ready to fight the French for the country, and suddenly the postwar period in Indochina devolved into a politicalmess. Who was in charge of what region changed from day to day, province to province. The most practical concern for a bystander like Madame Nhu was survival.
On that chilly December morning in 1946, Madame Nhu didnât know who was fighting whom anymore, but the women and children gathered in her parlor stood well
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