The Vietnamese Communist Party’s Policy of Mobilizing Women in the 1930-1945 Revolution for the National Liberation *

(In Vietnam Journal of Family and Gender Studies, Dec2007, volume 2, number 2, from p 24 to p38)
Dang Thi Van Chi

In the early 20th century, as a result of two campaigns of colony exploitation by the French colonialists, there were important economic, social and cultural changes. These were important and necessary basics for the reception of bourgeois democratic thoughts from outside and the establishment of new trends in revolutionary propaganda. Along with these changes, the increasing presence of women in factories, plantations, and mines participating in socialized forms of labor brought about by capitalist methods of production and the emergence of a class of women intellectuals (teachers, journalists, writers, poets, etc.) caused women to become an important social force, attracting the attention and efforts of all contemporary political trends.

1. Political background and viewpoint of the Vietnamese Communist Party(1) about the role of women in the national democratic people’s revolution.

After World War I, in 1918, several political trends and parties took form in the petty capitalist and capitalist class in Vietnam. Political organizations had different viewpoints about women’s role depending on their political aims. For example, Pham Quynh, Minister of Education in the Hue court, who together with King Bao Dai planned to resume the implementation of the 1884 Treaty and called for “national sovereignty”, “constitutionalism”, “national unification”, highly appreciated Vietnamese women in history but only took upper-class women into account. According to him, “for women, the most important thing is to establish a character suitable to one’s social condition”. Under social changes and the influence of French culture, he believed that upper-class women could take part in innovating society, in other words Europeanization, but it should be within their own families, “making examples of their families” by doing charity and relief work, child protection, and setting up “salons to receive famous scholars to talk about national and life issues, with the hope it will affect the evolution of the Vietnamese nation” (Nam Phong Newspaper, October 1917). Bui Quang Chieu, leader of the Constitutionalist Party and Nguyen Phan Long, both of whom represented the middle-class national reformist trend, considered the “women’s role is in the house” (Bui Quang Chieu, Women New Literature, 20 June 1929) or “women should only choose to be housewives” (Nguyen Phan Long, Women New Literature, 11 July 1929), thus they did not need to take part in social work, the struggle for equal rights, and women liberation. They believed that women were not equal to men because of women themselves, “because of their nature, not through anyone’s fault”. The political objectives of the capitalist class as represented by Bui Quang Chieu were to ask the French Government to expand democratic and liberal rights in Indochina and to allow the native capitalist class greater participation in colonial councils. Therefore, he opposed women who asked for equal right to men, as he was afraid that assisting women in the struggle for equal rights would mean assisting them to become “protestors ... in the family as well as in society (Bui Quang Chieu, Women New Literature, 20 September 1929). In general, these organizations and political trends did not mention national liberation and thought that women should only be homemakers. Only Phan Boi Chau surpassed his contemporaries in terms of political viewpoint, moving gradually from monarchism to bourgeois democratic thought, and then approaching socialist thought. His patriotism helped Phan Boi Chau accurately assess the role of women in national liberation in the early 20th century. He also actively mobilized our people to struggle for national liberty. However, since his house arrest in Hue in 1925, Phan Boi Chau’s activities were restricted to speeches, propaganda leaflets, and his ideas about organizing and uniting women stated in the book “Women’s Issues” published 1929 were not implemented in revolutionary reality. The Vietnamese Nationalist Party, founded in December 1927, was a revolutionary party of the petty capitalist class and patriotic progressive intellectuals based on “Nam Dong literary society” group. The policy of this party was to promote a national revolution, fight against the French colonialists and the autocratic monarchy in order to establish democratic political institutions. However, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party did not have grassroots in the labor class. Although the initial regulations of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party allowed women to join the Party, they had to do their activities in a separate cell. Later, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party for some reason no longer allowed women to join the Party, but rather gathered them in a separate union called the Vietnamese Women’s Union (with the exception of one party cell of women founded before the change in policy that included the participation of Ms. Bac and Ms. Giang). According to the Regulations of the “Vietnamese Women’s Union”, the purpose of this union was to:

1. Cooperate with men in undertaking national revolution.

2. Establish a democratic republic group.

3. Assist and protect oppressed nations (Tran Huy Lieu, 1958: 118).

These above purposes indicate that the Vietnamese Nationalist Party was concerned with organizing and attracting women, but did not have a plan to mobilize women for their particular requirements. On 3 February, 1930 (according to pre-1945 revolutionary newspapers it was 6 January, 1930), the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was founded in Hong Kong by unifying three communist organizations established in Vietnam at the end of 1929, marking an important breakthrough in Vietnamese national history and ending a time of crisis in the national salvation of the Vietnamese people. The summary political program of the Party (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 2) clearly stated the objectives of the Party as doing “bourgeois revolution of civil rights and land revolution to progress towards a communist society” and “equal rights between men and women” - which was one of the 13 main policies of the Party, and one of the 10 objectives mentioned in the Appeal (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998:14) of the leader Nguyen Ai Quoc on the foundation of the Party. The 1930 political thesis (Vietnamese Communist Party, Volume 2, 1998: 95) of the Vietnamese Communist Party also clearly stated one of the ten “essential tasks of a bourgeois revolution of civil rights” which was implementing “equal rights between men and women”. The Resolution of the Central General Conference in October 1930 on mobilizing women clearly expressed the Party’s viewpoint on women’s role in the people’s democratic national revolution led by the Party, as well as the Party’s policy of mobilizing women. The determination that women were an important force accounting for “a large part of the proletarian class” who were exploited not only by capitalists and feudalists but also restricted by feudal customs and morality, and “did not have any freedom”, led to the confirmation that if women could be awakened to revolutionary ideas, they would enthusiastically join the revolution and become “an essential force. If the women in the public at large do not join the revolutionary struggle, the revolution cannot be victorious”. The Vietnamese Communist Party asserted the significant and decisive role of women in the people’s democratic national revolution, thus it regarded mobilizing women as “a very big and essential task” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 188). This is one of the basic differences between the Vietnamese Communist Party and other contemporary political organizations, at the same time; it is also a source of strength which led the Vietnamese Communist Party to victory.

2. The Indochinese Communist Party’s (ICP) policy of mobilizing women

In the 1930s, in publicly issued bourgeoisie newspapers, women’s rights and women liberation were mentioned quite often, with slogans demanding the right for women to go to school and calling on women to learn a trade in order to live independently, regarding this as a solution to the implementation of women’s rights and the objective of women’s propaganda. However, they still targeted only women in the upper class. It can be seen that this campaign for women’s rights had the features of the theory of women’s right to freedom - bourgeois women’s rights, which was entirely separate from the movement of national liberation. Therefore, in its resolution on the propagandizing of women, IC Party emphasized “helping women escape from capitalist thought, overthrowing the illusion of ’equal rights between men and women’ within the frame of capitalism” and propagandizing to women the awareness that only when the nation is independent and the feudal system removed would women have real opportunities for equality and freedom. Therefore mobilizing women to participate in revolutionary activities was very essential because “if women stand on the sidelines of the revolution of workers and peasants, the objective of national liberation will never be reached” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 189). Unlike all previous patriotic and revolutionary movements, the targets of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s propaganda were working women, female workers and peasants, which made up a majority in society. To mobilize women to participate in revolutionary activities, our Party emphasized that first of all women should be re-organized into workers’ unions, peasants’ unions, youth unions and separate women’s unions. Specifically, the Party set the following requirements for the workers’ unions: “Workers’ unions must set up a women’s commission to develop propaganda for women” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 139). The female commissioner of the workers’ union was responsible for examining living and working conditions of female workers in order to make recommendations to the General Workers’ Union for slogans suitable to women’s requirements and interests, then mobilizing and attracting female workers to take part in Workers’ Union activities. For the Peasants’ Unions, the Party also pointed out that “Under the executive committee, the Peasants’ Union organizes departments for the mobilization of women, to convince female peasants to participate in peasants’ union to struggle together” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 155), and that “if we want women to participate in revolutionary struggles, we have to first overturn all religious or moral customs, and give them political training ... making them more aware of social class in order to attract them to join the unions of the proletarian class”; “In the leading institutions of the Party and Youth Union (from local to central levels), Women’s Committees should be organized or there should be a person tasked specifically to manage this issue”. In addition, IC Party also planned “to establish women’s organizations like the ’Women’s Alliance’ to promote the interests of women and the complete liberation of women” and attract all women who were not members of Workers’ Unions and Peasants’ Unions such as “workers’ wives and street sellers” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 190-191). In leading the revolution, the Party was always concerned about and directed the organization and mobilization of women. The resolution of the second Central Conference (March, 1931), in the item addressing party cells, it was pointed out clearly that “if there are female workers in the factory, the party cell must send one or two party members to work with them, in accordance with the plan set forth by female officers of the City Party Committee or Zone Party Committee. Even if there are no female workers, they should also send someone to mobilize the wives of workers. These party members must maintain close contact with the female officers of the Workers’ Union”. (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1999: 111). At the first Party Congress of the Indochinese Communist Party in 1935, the mobilization of women was considered one of the urgent tasks of the Party. The Party pointed out clearly that it was necessary to organize women’s participation in the Party, Communist Youth Union and revolutionary unions, to admit active women into steering agencies, and to attract women to suitable organizations through public and semi-public forms. “Each level of Party cell has to set up a Women’s Commission. The person responsible for that commission is entitled to attend conferences of the Party Committee, to vote about women’s issues” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 2002: 66). Accordingly, there should be special propaganda documents for women. Newspapers of the Party and other revolutionary unions needed to have articles about mobilizing women as well as taking a stand against the tendency to denigrate women and reactionary propaganda of upper class and feudal theories aiming to prevent women from participating in the struggle. The Party also emphasized that in struggles with the participation of women “...there must be special slogans for women (such as equal wages for equal work, no night work, 2 months of maternity leave before and after giving birth with full salary in accordance with the action programs of the Party, Workers’ Union, Communist Youth Party... Oppose polygamy and the French government’s maintenance and exploitation of prostitution to collect tax)” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 2002: 66-67). Faced with our nation’s new opportunities, during the 1936-1939 period of democratic mobilization, the Party made timely plans about organizing work, specifically about women, emphasizing that “it is necessary to set up public and semi-public Women’s Unions ... to protect the common interests of all people and women in particular” such as Unions of ‘democratic women’, ‘liberated women’, ‘progressive women’, or ‘supporting women’ (Vietnamese Communist Party, 2000: 244), and in regions with many women’s organizations with different names, ‘Women’s Alliances’ should be set up to unite them. In the general election of people’s representatives in the North in August 1939, under the leadership of the Party, the Indochina Democracy Front proposed a list of candidates along with their minimum action program. The program stated slogans relating to women’s interests such as “oppose prostitution; equal salary for women and men with similar jobs; women with talents equal to men should be given similar positions in public and private institutions; protect women and children (before and after giving birth, women working in offices and factories shall all receive paid maternity leave, establish daycare facilities for newborns)” (The News, issue 12, dated 25-29 June 1938). In 1939, World War II broke out. In September 1940, the Japanese fascist army entered the North and on the 8th in May, 1941, the Central Conference decided to establish a broad United National Front called the Vietnam Independent Alliance (Viet Minh for short). One of the ten main programs of the Viet Minh was “equal right between men and women”. The organizational structure of the Front included a Women’s Union of National Salvation. The Union’s regulations stated clearly that it aimed to “unite all patriotic Vietnamese women to fight for women’s everyday interests and together with other organizations of national salvation to fight against French colonialists and Japanese fascists for the complete independence of Vietnam” (Tran Huy Lieu, 1960:8). In 1941, faced with the urgent situation of mobilizing the anti-imperialist movement, a Resolution of a conference of officers from the entire northern region gave the following instructions: do not use female agitprop officers for transportation work, rather “train others to do transportation work and let female agitprop officers do their work’; “It is necessary to train more female cadres by training female party members from members of the Women’s Union of National Salvation ... issue propaganda leaflets to appeal to urban women. Use all the means to unite women of all classes” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 2000: 198), because “Only with the participation of women will the national liberation struggle easily achieve success” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 2000: 301). Revolutionary reality showed that this correct policy of mobilizing women and the Indochinese Communist Party’s timely guidance of the women’s movement made a decisive contribution to the success of the August 1945 Revolution.

3. Revolutionary newspapers and propaganda leaflets - an effective means of propagandizing and mobilizing women

Right when it was founded, the VC Party was very concerned with mobilization and propaganda, considering it an important task “to convince people and the vast majority of workers and lead them in the struggle”. In the process of leading the revolution, the Party always closely supervised and offered timely guidance for the mobilization of women through revolutionary newspapers and propaganda leaflets, pointing out that “the Party’s newspapers are liaison instruments between the Party and the working people: “(Vietnamese Communist Party, 1999: 117). Therefore, revolutionary newspapers had to address the everyday life of the workers and peasants, introduce political issues, basic political concepts and suitable political slogans, and the literary style of the newspapers had to be simple, understandable for working people. Mobilization “must be based on the educational level of workers and peasants”. As for mobilizing women, the Party emphasized “Regarding propaganda, newspapers of the Party, Youth Union, Workers’ Union and Peasants’ Union must address practical issues for women or have a separate column for those articles” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1998: 191). It is remarkable that, apart from articles written specifically for women, in most propaganda leaflets and Party appeals women were always given equal standing with men through the pronouns of address “Men and women...” In 1930-1931, under the leadership of the Indochinese Communist Party, for the first time, workers and peasants united in the struggle. In this movement, the Party provided timely and close guidance for the work of organizing women. Most revolutionary propaganda leaflets of the Party during this period included slogans demanding rights for women, for example: equal rights between men and women; no marriages forced by parents; no polygamy; and the overturning of the unsound custom of despising women (Revolutionary propaganda leaflets. No BTCM 187/Gy374). On 8 March 1930, under the guidance of the Southern Regional Party Committee and the Southern Workers’ General Union, for the first time Vietnamese women celebrated Women’s Day. To guide women in the struggle, the Party launched a propaganda program and distributed leaflets to appeal to women to participate in the struggle. The program introduced the significance of the 8th of March as the day “to struggle for women’s liberation all over the world”, the day when women all over the world united to struggle against “all the tricks of exploiting and dominating women, against capitalism, an oppressing and exploiting regime, and against imperialist war”. The program also talked about Russian women, revealing the oppression and exploitation of Indochinese women under the colonialist regime. On this occasion, the Party issued propaganda leaflets with the appeal to women: “Working Indochinese women must participate actively in workers’ and peasant organizations in involved in the struggle, and together with men establish a revolutionary front to promote the liberation of the proletarian class and all oppressed people” (Revolutionary propaganda leaflets, No 1920/ Gy 616). Meanwhile, they also set up specific tasks for Indochinese women: “First of all, remove all unsound customs and traditions, the ruins of the feudal regime... discuss common demands of the proletarian class, participate in large numbers in organizations involved in the struggle... participate enthusiastically in everyday work... Regarding the everyday work of the people’s organizations, women and girls have to take an active part just as men do”, and affirmed that this was the only way by which women could “protect the interest of the proletarian class, and liberate women” (Vietnamese Communist Party, 1999: 67).

In revolutionary newspapers during this period, there was a lot of news about women’s activities and examples of women in the struggle. The newspaper The Proletarian Flag, issue 3, in 1931 reported: “On 21 January, a woman waited for the sanitary worker(2) at the market to give speech commemorating the anniversary of three comrades L”(3); “On 21 January in Hanh Thong Tay market (Gia Dinh), a woman gave a speech which was cheered by people, so much so a woman was moved to tears...”; the Workers and Peasants Newspaper, issue 26, 1 October 1931 reported that in Song Loc, a district chief beat a pregnant woman nearly to death. Some women going to market heard about it and immediately went to some neighboring communes to appeal to men and women for help. People in 6 neighboring communes (in Dang Xa zone) responded and the struggle soon became a demonstration of strength with approximately ten thousand people “surrounding the district chief, declaring his guilt and sentencing him to death, starting a widespread struggle” of people in Nghi Loc district. The Suffering Working People Newspaper, issue 13, published 18 September 1930 reported: “This fierce struggle is like other fierce struggles in Thanh Chuong, Ben Thuy, Can Loc, Ha Tinh which were led by women. Everywhere, women are bravely sacrificing themselves”. The article also affirmed that: “In this period of fierce struggle, while workers, peasants and soldiers are united in the struggle, women are also starting to participate in the struggle, and gloriously so, lending great strength to the people’s force. It means that women have broken the chains of slavery which had long confined them, and are participating in the struggle”. In the period from 1930 to 1935, French colonialists encouraged a movement of happiness and youthfulness to delude young people. Regarding women, there was a women’s liberation movement with ‘modern girls’, night fairs, speeches from the South to the North on the topic of ‘liberated women’ and ‘career women’, and articles in bourgeois newspapers like Women’s New Literature Newspaper (1929-1935), Women’s Discussion on Current Topics (1930-1934), Phong Hoa (1932-1936), which misled the women’s struggle. During this period, some progressive intellectuals like Phan Khoi, Diep Van Ky who were aware of the Vietnamese people’s condition of slavery, mobilized to liberate women from feudal morality. Some people who were influenced by the bourgeois women’s rights movement called for education and careers for women, and considered this to be the objective of the mobilization of women. To fight against these trends, during the period 1934-1935 the Women’s New Literature Newspaper published many communist journalists who disclosed the real situation of women: “Nine out of ten women are ignorant; all women are considered as children by the law .. women in Indochina can not organize themselves to protect their interests” and pointed out that the reasons for this were “the law does not allow women to set up trade unions and participate in all political and social rights related to their right to exist” (Women’s New Literature, 11 April 1935). They also pointed out that calling upon women to liberate themselves was only “idle talk” and emphasized the most pressing thing to be done: “The most important task in mobilizing women is to penetrate into the public. Firstly, the nation will be liberated, then all humankind will be liberated” (Women’s New Literature, 6 December, 1934). In 1936, the Popular Front was set up in France. The Popular Government took office and made some progressive reforms. The Indochinese Communist Party took advantage of this to launch a movement demanding freedom and democracy all over the country. Many revolutionary newspapers published publicly became the offices where the revolution was guided and led, specifically the new Young Spirit newspaper (issue 1, published 6 June 1936), New Society (issue 1, published 10 October, 1937), Present Life (issue 1, published 1 December 1938), New Day (issue 1, published 19 April, 1939), The News (issue 1, 2 April, 1938), Rice Branch (issue 1, published 15 January, 1937), The People (1938-1939), etc. Due to the favorable political situation, the Indochinese Communist Party planned to mobilize the establishment of legal public associations to organize and educate people as well as train cadres in order to create a force to be used in the struggle. To instruct people, many issues of the Labor Newspaper (1938-1939) included procedures to establish associations legally, the significance of legal associations, and techniques in dealing with the colonialist authority’s tricks to prohibit and disband fraternal associations. The News newspaper (issue 14, published on 2 - 6 July, 1938) analyzed “Women’s responsibilities” in the National Assembly election of 1938 and mobilized women to support representatives endorsed by The News and Present Day newspapers, emphasizing that mobilizing for “these candidates to be elected is to open a new era in the history of women’s liberation in this nation”. Newspapers were also where misleading thoughts in the mobilization of women were attacked. In the issue of the New Society newspaper published on 10 November, 1936, there was an article by Tam Kinh (Nguyen Thi Trac – an agent of the branch of the Northern Indochinese Congress) against the Present Day newspaper for publishing an article which criticized the conference of Northern women on 24 September, 1936. It pointed out the intention of the article in the Present Day Newspaper was to “take advantage of our low educational level and make sport of it for readers, which we strongly condemn”, and called upon women to “put themselves above that unconcious ridicule. We should just actively and enthusiastically do our work...” In the article titled Discussing Women’s Issues with the female writer Tuyet Dung (The People, issues 16, 17, 18 published on 14, 17, 21 September,1938), the author Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh criticized the fascist theory of “Women returning home” as aiming to take women back to the position of “good wives and mothers” who “run a house effectively”. The article emphasized and pointed out the fact that “advising women to be content with their fate as housewives does not only confine women to slavery but also misses out on half of the force that could be used in the struggle for national liberation in society, in general the liberation of humankind”. It also warned that “each man and woman should keep in mind that ’the family is broken when the nation is lost’ and that the family cannot be happy and equal if society at large is discontented”. Regarding some women’s incorrect awareness about women’s liberation, the article titled The Issue of Women’s Liberation (The People newspaper, issue 35, published on 7 December 1938) analysed and pointed out specific manifestations of this wrong thinking; “For example, some women are superficial because their family situation oppresses them, persecutes them and restrains them, which makes them think that liberation means leaving their families, escaping with an obscure thought about freedom... Some women misunderstand that liberation is dissolution and equality means romance. They are profligate and imitate various fashions, become utterly absorbed in impure pleasure-seeking and drawn-out dissipation in casinos full of material evils and carnal desire and forget about their responsibilities to family and society”. The article also emphasized that in order to deal conclusively with the issue of woman, women could not be separated in terms of gender, but rather “the essential aspect of the issue is the general aspect, the aspect of class”. By the year 1939 the Indochinese Communist Party was forced to work in secret, and the Party’s newspapers also had to publish secretly among the people. After the period of democratic mobilization the revolutionary public forces were trained in the practical aspects of the struggle, so revolutionary newspapers during this period focused on introducing international news, analysing the world and national situation, giving instructions for the struggle against the war, resisting the war, denouncing crimes of the French colonialists and Japanese facists towards our people, and in particular held up examples of model revolutionaries and instructed people to participate in specific activities to prepare for the general uprising to seize power. The Independent Vietnam Newspaper (1941-1945) had articles with questions and answers about the Work of Organizing Women and specific issues like: “Can women join armed units? If they cannot, what kind of work can they do? What are the weaknesses of our women?” (Independent Vietnam Newspaper 1941-1945, 2000:462). In 1945 New Year’s issue of the National Salvation Newspaper, there was an article “What Women Can Do” pointing out that in history, Vietnamese women had long been patriotic participants in wars against foreign aggression with typical examples like the Two Trung Sisters, Lady Trieu, and the female general Bui Thi Xuan; or more recently Miss Tam carrying weapons for Phan Dinh Phung, the third wife of De Tham, Miss Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, Miss Giang, etc. And the article concluded that women could shoulder hard work like men, and moreover “they have to do the work that men find difficult to do well”. Specifically “acting as street vendors to go on reconnaissance” or “guarding offices and venues where revolution is discussed” or “acting as good-natured peddlers” who transport weapons, working as couriers, carrying out agitation and propaganda among enemy troops, providing emergency medical care, or “even joining guerilla troops and running for election to revolutionary councils”, etc. Revolutionary newspapers during this period were published and handed out in Viet Bac revolutionary bases and countryside, so the literary style was simple, understandable, easy to remember and learn by heart, and used a lot. For example, on the issue of the Drive Off The Enemy newspaper published on 15 July 1944, there was a long poem encouraging women to struggle against the war with detailed instructions: Women! Don’t cry as it is no use... Roll up your trousers and go to the army camp. We urge and convince our husbands to come home. Lie down to block trains. Let’s shout at fascists... Or in the Freedom Newspaper issue 6 published in 1941, there was an article “A Beautiful Woman Draws The Sword” with strongly appealing poem: ...Stand up, women! We can draw the sword as well as anyone. Who is our national enemy? They are the French colonialists, Japanese fascists and unpatriotic Vietnamese... Break down the unjust regime, which has sunk women in a life of hardship for ages... When the newspapers were published, these articles encouraged women to participate in the revolutionary struggle, becoming an essential force in the general uprising to seize power in August 1945.

Conclusion

When the Vietnamese Communist Party was first founded, it accurately assessed the important role of Vietnamese women in the revolutionary movement. Women were enlightened and drawn into most of the struggles led by the Party. Many women were leaders in strikes and demonstrations showing strength. Many actions by women became the catalyst for larger movements like the Xo Viet Nghe Tinh movement, etc. Women were always present at demonstrations, strikes for demands, demanding freedom and democracy, freedom of trade union, protesting colonial reactionaries, etc., in the 1936-1939 movement of democratic mobilization. Especially, in the 1939-1945 movement of national liberation, women played an important role in the pre-uprising struggle as well as the general uprising of the August revolution. The victory of the August revolution affirmed the correctness of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s policy of mobilizing women, which was to clearly perceive the essential role of women and to inspire and mobilize the patriotic tradition of fighting foreign aggression in the historical spirit of “When the enemy comes to the home, even the women fight”. The victory of the August revolution was also the victory of closely linking the objectives of liberating the nation, liberating the classes and liberating women; it was the victory of using newspapers and revolutionary propaganda leaflets effectively. Meanwhile, the victory of the August revolution also expresses that the Vietnamese Communist Party’s policies about women fulfilled women’s aspirations in a way that was compatible with our nation’s tradition of respecting women.

Dang Thi Van Chi

* Sources: Vietnam Journal of Family and gender studies

Dec 2007, volume number 2

from p24 to p39

Notes

(1) The Vietnamese Communist Party, founded on 3 February 1930, was renamed the Indochinese Communist Party in October, 1930.

(2) This is an informal way to refer to the work of changing toilet-bins in the city previously.

(3) Meaning Lenin, Lepneck and Luxemburg

References

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