Bernard B. Fall

Selected Writings, 1920-66

Ho Chi Minh - on Revolution

nhu ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

Besides this temporal power, there are spiritual "saviors" who, while preaching the virtue of poverty to the Annamese, are no less zealous in seeking to enrich themselves through the sweat and blood of the natives. In Cochinchina alone, the "Sainte Mission Apostolique" on its own possesses one-fifth of the ricefields in the region. Though not taught in the Bible, the method of obtaining these lands was very simple: usury and corruption. The Mission took advantage of the years when crops failed to lend money to peasants, obliging them to pawn their lands as a guarantee. The rate of interest was usurious, and the Annamese could not pay off their debts at the due time; as a result, all pledged lands fell into the possession of the Mission. The more or less generous governors to whom the mother country entrusted the destiny of Indochi-na were generally dolts or blackguards. It was enough for the Mission to have in its hands certain secret, personal, and compromising papers to be able to frighten them and obtain from them whatever it wanted. In this way, one Governor General conceded to the Mission 7,000 hectares of river land belonging to natives, who were thus at one stroke reduced to beggary.

From this brief survey, one can see that behind a mask of democracy, French imperialism has transplanted in Annam the whole cursed medieval regime, including the salt tax, and that the Annamese peasant is crucified on the bayonet of capitalist civilization and on the Cross of prostituted Christianity.

Ho Chi Minh - on Revolution quotes

Join the club