1Dr. Serge Thion, a scholar in sociology and anthropology from the Sorbonne, taught in Saigon and Phnom Penh before joining the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris) in 1971. He is the author of Le Pouvoir Pale (Le Seuil, 1969) and co-author of Des Courtisans aux Partisans (Gallimard, 1971), in addition to many articles.
2 Truong
Chinh&Vo Nguyen Giap, The Peasant Question (1937-38) ed.,
transl. and intr. by Christine Pelzer White, Cornell University
Press, 1974, p.28.
3 See
Pierre Brocheux, L'Economie et la Société dans
l'Ouest cochinchinois pendant la période coloniale, unpubl.
thesis, Paris, 1969. Extract in Tradition et Révolution
au Vietnam ed. by J. Chesnaux, G. Boudarel&D. Hemery,
Paris, Ed. Anthropos, 1971, p.147-63.
4 "In
the XVth Century... (there was) no more great appanages; even
if the king distributed land to some high ranking dignitaries,
the area was limited and the privilege was no longer hereditary.
The buying of land by anyone who could afford it was legalized,
whereas in the court and in the administration, the highest functions
were open to all through examinations." Nguyen Nghe, "Un
grand lettre d'autrefois: Nguyen Trai", La Pensée,
110, Aug. 1963, p.131.
5 See
Camille Briffaut, La Cite Annamite, 3 volumes, Paris 1909-1912,
and Nguyen Huu Khang, La Commune annamite, Paris, Sirey,
1946.
6 Brève
histoisre du Parti des Travailleurs duVietnam, Hanoi, 1970.
7 "Le
programme d'action du Parti communiste indochinois", Partisans,
Paris, 48, JuneAugust 1969, p.58.
9 Truong
Chinh., op. cit., p.16-7.
11 Friederich
Engels, "Die Bauernfrage in Frankreich und Deutschland",
Werke, Berlin, Dietz, vol. XXII, p.488.
14 Karl
Marx, "Entwurfe einer Antwort den Brief von V.I. Sassulitsch,"
Werke, Berlin, Dietz, vol. XIX, p.384-406.
15 Pierre
Sorlin, "Lénine et le problème paysan en 1917",
Annales, Paris, March-April 1964, p.250-80.
16 V.
Yakovtsevskii, quoted by Basile Kerblay in his introduction to
Alexander V. Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy, Irwin,
Illinois, 1966, p. LXXIII.
17 Moshé
Lewin, La Paysannerie et le pouvoir soviétique,
1928-1930, Paris, La Haye, Mouton, repr. 1976, 480p.
18 See
for instance, The Basic Program of the Chinese Agrarian Law, (13.9.47),
published by Frank C. Lee, "Land Redistribution in Communist
China," Foreign Affairs, 2, 1, March l948, p. 30-2.
19 William
Hinton, Fanshen, l966. See chapter 48 for one example.
20 For
instance, see Mao Tse-Tung's speech (11.2.48) on the rectification
of the leftist deviations in the propaganda for land reform. Oeuvres
choisies, Pekin, IV, (1969), p.203-5.
21 Bernard B.
Fall, The Viet-Minh Regime, New York, Institute of Pacific
Relations, 2nd. ed. ,1956, p.172-8.
22 The
literature on this subject is vast. For a balanced North Vietnamese
view, see Nguyen Khac Vien, Expériences vietnamiennes,
Paris, Ed. sociales, 1970, p.73-97.
23 Said
the Governeur Pagès in the Colonial Council: "I do
not know if you understand that the land appropriation system
in Cochinchina will not last for ever. It may be in three years,
maybe five years, ten years, thirty years, fifty years, but events
will break out established positions," in La Lutte, Saigon,
26.10.34; quoted by Daniel Hemery, Révolutionnaires
vietnamiens et pouvoir colonial en Indochine, Paris, Maspero,
1976, p.92.
24 John
D. Montgomery, "Land Reform as a Means to Political Development
in Viet Nam", Orbis, 12, 1, Spring 1968, p.12.
26 See
"The Promise of Agricultural Reform in Japan", Foreign
Affairs, Jan. 1948. (with W. M. Gilmartin); "Agrarian
Reform in the Republic of Vietnam," in W. Fischel ed., Problems
of Freedom, New York, 1961; "Agrarian Reform in Asia",
Foreign Affairs, April 1964.
27 See
for instance the special issue of Asian Survey (Berkeley) 10,
8, Aug. 1970, on "Vietnam: Politics, Land Reform and Development
in the Countryside. "
28 According
to a North Vietnamese writer, during the war (1947-54), 660,000
ha. have been redistributed. Land rent has been reduced to 10
or 16 percent of the crop, in many places. The Diem policy was
mainly considered as an attempt to go backward. Vu Can, "Les
Luttes populaires contre le regime US-Diem", Etudes vietnamiennes,
Hanoi, 18-19, 1968, p.84.
29 John
L. Sorenson, "The Social Bases of Instability in Rural Southeast
Asia", Asian Survey, 9, 7, July 1969, p.540.