I think many wrongly view the Cold War as a shift away from FDR’s pro-communist stance. Reality shows we remained anti-communist if it was a choice between that and colonialism
This is a great quote from Raoul Salan about what the loss of French Indochina meant for the rest of the French empire:
"It's through the loss of Indochina that the foundations of the French Empire were undermined. Losing an Empire, is to lose oneself, to remove all meaning from a man's life, from the life of a builder." - June 28, 1971. The quote can be found at the end of this biographical article on Salan:
You are very right about the impartial nature of French courts in Vietnam. For example, approximately 200 suspects arrested during the Yen Bay mutiny were released due to lack of evidence against them. Pham Quynh, a high-ranking Mandarin in the Nguyen court, was very faithful to the monarchy but saw the benefits of Annam and Tonkin (both imperial domains) being French protectorates. He and Nguyen Van Vinh (a Vietnamese intellectual who wanted direct French rule, as seen in Cochin China) had differing visions to how French rule could manifest itself. Quynh's biography can be read here:
Another area of interest is the way that the highland tribes were governmentally organised by French officials. For example, Leopold Sabatier, wanted French and Chinese business interests out off the Central Highlands so that highland minorities, such as the Rhade and Jarai, were protected from them. He was supported in his position by Pierre Pasquier, the governor-general of French Indochina (1928-1934). The French also made the Central Highlands and Tonkinese highlands domains of the Nguyen monarchy during the war against the Viet Minh. Jean Cousseau (you would have came across his name in Background to Betrayal) set up this scheme:
I can't help but make the connection between de-colonialism → communism → DEI. Same ideological direction, same agents, same methods, and eerily similar results.
Sure, it's just another strategy for the control of trade. Get rid of the current owners, so American investors can take over by proxy;
But it's concerning to realize that this is how the US was created and is maintained. Rebellious West European anti-colonialism colonialists (!) funded by subversive international financiers, e.g. Washington and Salomon.
The recipe works, sure, but apparently it turns us sick.
the road to dien bien phu by goscha. it was never a nationalist movement. it was always a communist movement cloaked in nationalism. land redistribution was the carrot for the masses and the stick for the land owners. executions always happen when communists win.
A tour de force of a piece, sir! I am very glad I found your page! This is a tremendous piece that every American, Frenchman and Vietnamese needs to read! Hiliaire du Berrier's book Background to Betrayal is an invaluable resource I was actually not familiar with before I read this piece. I learned so much from this piece! The United States made a HUGE mistake not supporting the French all the way in the war against Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh. Since World War II, they had been undermining their influence in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Middle Class in particular came to regret the end of French rule and came to see them as their friends. The Communists targeted them in particular. The United States should've done all it could to assist the French in fighting the Viet Minh. But the United States' twin obsessions with egalitarianism and anti-colonialism were such that we were blind to the fact we were walking ourselves and the people of Vietnam off a cliff. FDR and Harry Truman made the mistake of instead of fighting Communism, waging war on French colonialism. American liberals in general were the same way.
They thought ending colonialism more important than fighting Communism. What all these parties failed to understand was that French colonialism is Vietnam warts and all, had been very beneficial to the Vietnamese people. The arrival of the French in Vietnam had brought to its people the blessings of civilization. Now let me be clear, I am NOT saying the Vietnamese people were racially or genetically inferior to the French. I am saying they had a less developed, more primitive culture. The French brought the Vietnamese people in the modern age bringing to them things like just and impartial courts, global trade networks, capital inflows, modern medicine, widened employment opportunities, advanced technology, expanded education, creation of basic infrastructure, capitalism, the rule of law, the Christian faith, the French language, urban development, the introduction of new crops and agricultural practices, and much more.
But practical realities didn't matter to the Roosevelt administration, they had to rescue those "noble savages" from the big, bad Europeans and then nationalist governments would be put into place that would lead their countries to peace and prosperity. Thus, the United States assisted the Viet Minh and provided them with the war materials, and the Communist-infiltrated OSS trained them in the tactics they would use to drive the French out of their country and impose a reign of terror on the people of North Vietnam. While the United States seemed to think of Ho Chi Minh as some sort of Asian version of George Washington, in truth Ho Chi Minh was anything but.
Yes, he was a nationalist, but he was primarily a hardcore, doctrinaire Communist who got frostbite while visiting Lenin's tomb, was educated at Moscow's Orient University and was sent to China in 1925 where dutifully assisted Borodin, the Soviet agent tasked with helping Communize China. He would be a ruthless tyrant when he later came to power in North Vietnam. He would would go on to kill anywhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 people in political violence, massacres and the Vietnam War. After World War II came to end, America immediately betrayed their French allies and started supporting the Viet Minh. The French resistance groups who'd bravely fought the Japanese and risked their lives to help downed American pilots, were pushed outside virtually overnight and any American who questioned this policy or expressed forebodings about it was fired and blacklisted as a traitor working against his country.
However, the United States would grow weary of Ho Chi Minh, disillusioned with him and his movement and backed off support of it. But this wasn't because the elite had a change of heart. It was rather because they found themselves embroiled in the Korean War and saw nominal support for the French as helping to relieve the pressure on the UN forces in Korea. But our support of the French was pretty weak, and we were essentially just going through the motions. The French would be defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Shamefully, some Americans even helped in making this happen. American personnel drunk on anti-colonialism, were helping the Viet Minh attack the French. One OSS-connected individual even provided explosives to Viet Minh to pull off a deadly theater bombing in 1952 and yet America still brought him back into the country after the French were ousted. NGOs and the CIA also helped push the French out of Vietnam.
While America at least on paper was back the French, the state department, NGOs and press backed the Communists. The defeat at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French rule and the peace conference that followed expelled them from North Vietnam. But they were allowed to keep some troops in South Vietnam to protect European civilians and hunt down the Viet Cong. But the Americans objected loudly to this arrangement. We insisted we could protect French citizens ourselves and launched a violent and short-sighted media blitz against the French. The French would eventually bow to our demands and leave Vietnam altogether. The United States completely blundered in Vietnam. We refused to read or even have translated, any of the what would’ve been, very helpful literature the French had written about ruling Vietnam and fighting Communist rebels. Liberal democracy simply wouldn’t work in Vietnam which is another thing we didn’t understand. The Saigon police chief who had done an amazing job fighting Communists was fired because his anti-Communist measures were deemed “too harsh.” Lastly, the United States discarded Vietnam’s Emperor Bao Dai. Dai would’ve been a good, tradition-oriented figurehead to help rule Vietnam in the way Emperor Hirohito was for Douglas MacArthur and the American occupation forces in Japan. But sadly, it was not to be.
Coup would follow coup as with tradition out the door, it was a free for all. 58,000 Americans and 250,000 South Vietnamese would pay for their lives for these irresponsible, shortsighted and disastrous decisions by the United States. Here’s what should’ve happened FDR and Harry Truman should’ve backed the French to the hilt. They should’ve ignored Ho Chi Minh and his gang of thugs. The OSS should’ve been purged of all Communist influence and ordered to work with the French Resistance in Vietnam. During the French-Indochina War, the United States should’ve given the French anything and everything they wanted and needed. After the war, a massive French troop presence should’ve remained in South Vietnam to protect European civilians and to supplement the American forces on the ground. The United States should’ve embraced Bao Dai fully and without question, kept the Saigon police chief in place and quickly translated and voraciously read everything the French ever wrote about administering Vietnam and fighting Communist guerrillas.
America did not abandon this rather charming activity of theirs even after the Cold War ended. While communism as such was defeated, the ideological offshoots of that same root are still being enthusiastically forced down the throats of peoples who neither need nor deserve them.
If I had to highlight one thing in particular, it would be the consistent and ongoing screwing over of what we here tend to call the “bourgeoisie.” (People often confuse the bourgeoisie with the middle class, conveniently leaving out its most essential trait. A bourgeois is someone who, by nature, does not depend on the state. A bourgeois is independent.)
I find it quite amusing that these egalitarian do-gooders never whined about land redistribution in America or elsewhere. At least not until the estates were in private hands. One gets the impression that the goal all along was to make existence outside the state simply impossible.
The French were terrible colonial administrators. They refused any consideration of nationalist sentiment and preferred to work with corrupt landlords. They did nothing to foster civil society, civic participation or political education. They also fought like complete retards.
Communism is jewish colonialism. It's the most effective way for a minority to take the wealth from the target country without having any real sacrifice in the conquest.
In my opinion, much of the wave of decolonization that’s presented as irresistible was American and Soviet policy choices bearing fruit and destroying colonial states
the road to dien bien phu by goscha digs into the “nationalist”/communist sleight of hand.
I will add it to my list, thanks!
Americans fought and died for the victory of communism in the 2WW. What did anyone expect?
I think many wrongly view the Cold War as a shift away from FDR’s pro-communist stance. Reality shows we remained anti-communist if it was a choice between that and colonialism
This is a great quote from Raoul Salan about what the loss of French Indochina meant for the rest of the French empire:
"It's through the loss of Indochina that the foundations of the French Empire were undermined. Losing an Empire, is to lose oneself, to remove all meaning from a man's life, from the life of a builder." - June 28, 1971. The quote can be found at the end of this biographical article on Salan:
http://saigon-vietnam.fr/raoul-salan_en.php
You are very right about the impartial nature of French courts in Vietnam. For example, approximately 200 suspects arrested during the Yen Bay mutiny were released due to lack of evidence against them. Pham Quynh, a high-ranking Mandarin in the Nguyen court, was very faithful to the monarchy but saw the benefits of Annam and Tonkin (both imperial domains) being French protectorates. He and Nguyen Van Vinh (a Vietnamese intellectual who wanted direct French rule, as seen in Cochin China) had differing visions to how French rule could manifest itself. Quynh's biography can be read here:
https://madmonarchist.blogspot.com/2011/09/monarchist-profile-pham-quynh.html
Another area of interest is the way that the highland tribes were governmentally organised by French officials. For example, Leopold Sabatier, wanted French and Chinese business interests out off the Central Highlands so that highland minorities, such as the Rhade and Jarai, were protected from them. He was supported in his position by Pierre Pasquier, the governor-general of French Indochina (1928-1934). The French also made the Central Highlands and Tonkinese highlands domains of the Nguyen monarchy during the war against the Viet Minh. Jean Cousseau (you would have came across his name in Background to Betrayal) set up this scheme:
https://indochine.uqam.ca/en/historical-dictionary/323-cousseau-jean-germain-noel-bernard-1901.html
Thank you for this thoughtful comment and wealth of resources. I shall check them out!
Thanks for sharing! Well written.
I can't help but make the connection between de-colonialism → communism → DEI. Same ideological direction, same agents, same methods, and eerily similar results.
Sure, it's just another strategy for the control of trade. Get rid of the current owners, so American investors can take over by proxy;
But it's concerning to realize that this is how the US was created and is maintained. Rebellious West European anti-colonialism colonialists (!) funded by subversive international financiers, e.g. Washington and Salomon.
The recipe works, sure, but apparently it turns us sick.
Thank you! I quite agree. It all comes from the same place, I think
Reminds me of that extended version scene of Apocalypse Now with the french colonialists saying america doesnt know why it fights.
I need to go rewatch that
the road to dien bien phu by goscha. it was never a nationalist movement. it was always a communist movement cloaked in nationalism. land redistribution was the carrot for the masses and the stick for the land owners. executions always happen when communists win.
Will add it to my list, thank you
A tour de force of a piece, sir! I am very glad I found your page! This is a tremendous piece that every American, Frenchman and Vietnamese needs to read! Hiliaire du Berrier's book Background to Betrayal is an invaluable resource I was actually not familiar with before I read this piece. I learned so much from this piece! The United States made a HUGE mistake not supporting the French all the way in the war against Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh. Since World War II, they had been undermining their influence in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Middle Class in particular came to regret the end of French rule and came to see them as their friends. The Communists targeted them in particular. The United States should've done all it could to assist the French in fighting the Viet Minh. But the United States' twin obsessions with egalitarianism and anti-colonialism were such that we were blind to the fact we were walking ourselves and the people of Vietnam off a cliff. FDR and Harry Truman made the mistake of instead of fighting Communism, waging war on French colonialism. American liberals in general were the same way.
They thought ending colonialism more important than fighting Communism. What all these parties failed to understand was that French colonialism is Vietnam warts and all, had been very beneficial to the Vietnamese people. The arrival of the French in Vietnam had brought to its people the blessings of civilization. Now let me be clear, I am NOT saying the Vietnamese people were racially or genetically inferior to the French. I am saying they had a less developed, more primitive culture. The French brought the Vietnamese people in the modern age bringing to them things like just and impartial courts, global trade networks, capital inflows, modern medicine, widened employment opportunities, advanced technology, expanded education, creation of basic infrastructure, capitalism, the rule of law, the Christian faith, the French language, urban development, the introduction of new crops and agricultural practices, and much more.
But practical realities didn't matter to the Roosevelt administration, they had to rescue those "noble savages" from the big, bad Europeans and then nationalist governments would be put into place that would lead their countries to peace and prosperity. Thus, the United States assisted the Viet Minh and provided them with the war materials, and the Communist-infiltrated OSS trained them in the tactics they would use to drive the French out of their country and impose a reign of terror on the people of North Vietnam. While the United States seemed to think of Ho Chi Minh as some sort of Asian version of George Washington, in truth Ho Chi Minh was anything but.
Yes, he was a nationalist, but he was primarily a hardcore, doctrinaire Communist who got frostbite while visiting Lenin's tomb, was educated at Moscow's Orient University and was sent to China in 1925 where dutifully assisted Borodin, the Soviet agent tasked with helping Communize China. He would be a ruthless tyrant when he later came to power in North Vietnam. He would would go on to kill anywhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 people in political violence, massacres and the Vietnam War. After World War II came to end, America immediately betrayed their French allies and started supporting the Viet Minh. The French resistance groups who'd bravely fought the Japanese and risked their lives to help downed American pilots, were pushed outside virtually overnight and any American who questioned this policy or expressed forebodings about it was fired and blacklisted as a traitor working against his country.
However, the United States would grow weary of Ho Chi Minh, disillusioned with him and his movement and backed off support of it. But this wasn't because the elite had a change of heart. It was rather because they found themselves embroiled in the Korean War and saw nominal support for the French as helping to relieve the pressure on the UN forces in Korea. But our support of the French was pretty weak, and we were essentially just going through the motions. The French would be defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Shamefully, some Americans even helped in making this happen. American personnel drunk on anti-colonialism, were helping the Viet Minh attack the French. One OSS-connected individual even provided explosives to Viet Minh to pull off a deadly theater bombing in 1952 and yet America still brought him back into the country after the French were ousted. NGOs and the CIA also helped push the French out of Vietnam.
While America at least on paper was back the French, the state department, NGOs and press backed the Communists. The defeat at Dien Bien Phu signaled the end of French rule and the peace conference that followed expelled them from North Vietnam. But they were allowed to keep some troops in South Vietnam to protect European civilians and hunt down the Viet Cong. But the Americans objected loudly to this arrangement. We insisted we could protect French citizens ourselves and launched a violent and short-sighted media blitz against the French. The French would eventually bow to our demands and leave Vietnam altogether. The United States completely blundered in Vietnam. We refused to read or even have translated, any of the what would’ve been, very helpful literature the French had written about ruling Vietnam and fighting Communist rebels. Liberal democracy simply wouldn’t work in Vietnam which is another thing we didn’t understand. The Saigon police chief who had done an amazing job fighting Communists was fired because his anti-Communist measures were deemed “too harsh.” Lastly, the United States discarded Vietnam’s Emperor Bao Dai. Dai would’ve been a good, tradition-oriented figurehead to help rule Vietnam in the way Emperor Hirohito was for Douglas MacArthur and the American occupation forces in Japan. But sadly, it was not to be.
Coup would follow coup as with tradition out the door, it was a free for all. 58,000 Americans and 250,000 South Vietnamese would pay for their lives for these irresponsible, shortsighted and disastrous decisions by the United States. Here’s what should’ve happened FDR and Harry Truman should’ve backed the French to the hilt. They should’ve ignored Ho Chi Minh and his gang of thugs. The OSS should’ve been purged of all Communist influence and ordered to work with the French Resistance in Vietnam. During the French-Indochina War, the United States should’ve given the French anything and everything they wanted and needed. After the war, a massive French troop presence should’ve remained in South Vietnam to protect European civilians and to supplement the American forces on the ground. The United States should’ve embraced Bao Dai fully and without question, kept the Saigon police chief in place and quickly translated and voraciously read everything the French ever wrote about administering Vietnam and fighting Communist guerrillas.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment!
America did not abandon this rather charming activity of theirs even after the Cold War ended. While communism as such was defeated, the ideological offshoots of that same root are still being enthusiastically forced down the throats of peoples who neither need nor deserve them.
If I had to highlight one thing in particular, it would be the consistent and ongoing screwing over of what we here tend to call the “bourgeoisie.” (People often confuse the bourgeoisie with the middle class, conveniently leaving out its most essential trait. A bourgeois is someone who, by nature, does not depend on the state. A bourgeois is independent.)
I find it quite amusing that these egalitarian do-gooders never whined about land redistribution in America or elsewhere. At least not until the estates were in private hands. One gets the impression that the goal all along was to make existence outside the state simply impossible.
The French were terrible colonial administrators. They refused any consideration of nationalist sentiment and preferred to work with corrupt landlords. They did nothing to foster civil society, civic participation or political education. They also fought like complete retards.
Colonialism and imperalism will eventually be completely destroyed, cope and seethe neocon
Thinking America shouldn’t aid communism abroad is not what being a neocon means, you deranged buffoon
Communism is jewish colonialism. It's the most effective way for a minority to take the wealth from the target country without having any real sacrifice in the conquest.
Thank you very much! Glad this helped
In my opinion, much of the wave of decolonization that’s presented as irresistible was American and Soviet policy choices bearing fruit and destroying colonial states