La Lutte (newspaper)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Struggle Group (1933-1939)
 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper, media |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Indochinese Communist Party (1933-1937) Struggle Group (1933-1939) |
| Editor-in-chief | Edgar Ganofsky |
| Founded | 24 April 1933 |
| Language | French |
| Headquarters | Saigon, French Indochina |
La Lutte ('The Struggle') was a left-wing paper published (in French to get around print restrictions on Vietnamese) in Saigon, French-colonial Cochinchina (southern Vietnam), in the 1930s.[1] It was launched ahead of the April–May 1933 Saigon municipal council election as a joint organ of the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) and a grouping of Trotskyists (which became known as Nhom Tranh Dau, the 'Struggle Group', after La Lutte) and others who agreed to run a joint "Workers' slate" of candidates for the polls.[2][3][4] This kind of cooperation between Trotskyists and Comintern-linked communists was a phenomenon unique to Vietnam.[5] The editorial line of La Lutte avoided criticism of the USSR while supporting the demands of workers and peasants without regard to faction.[6] The supporters of La Lutte were known as lutteurs.[7]
La Lutte opposed both colonial rule and the Constitutionalist Party.[8] The first issue of La Lutte was published on April 24, 1933. In the election, the La Lutte grouping called its slate of candidates the 'Workers' List'. Two of the candidates of the Workers' List, Nguyen Van Tao and Tran Van Thach, were elected (there were six elected seats in total), but their election was invalidated in August 1933. Publication of La Lutte was discontinued after the election.[3][4]
Revival
La Lutte Front Mặt trận La Lutte | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | La Lutte Struggle Group |
| Leader | Tạ Thu Thâu (1939-1945) |
| Prominent leaders |
|
| Founded | 1933 |
| Dissolved | 1945 |
| Headquarters | Saigon |
| Ideology | Marxism-Leninism Vietnamese nationalism Trotskyism Vietnamese anarchism (factions) |
| Party flag | |
 | |
Flag of the Struggle Group[9] | |
With the conciliation of the charismatic and independent revolutionary figure of Nguyen An Ninh, the collaboration was revived in October 1934. The editorial line agreed between the Party group and the Trotskyists was: "struggle oriented against the colonial power and its constitutionalist allies, support of the demands of workers and peasants without regard to which of the two groups they were affiliated with, diffusion of classic Marxist thought, [and] rejection of all attacks against the USSR and against either current."[10] The editorial board consisted of Nguyen An Ninh, Le Van Thu, Tran Van Thach (left-wing nationalists), Nguyen Van Tao, Duong Bach Mai, Nguyen Van Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Luu (Communist Party), and Ta Thu Thau, Ho Huu Tuong, Phan Van Huu, Phan Van Chang and Huynh Van Phuong (Trotskyists).[3] Edgar Ganofsky, a Frenchman from the island of Réunion who identified with the coolies among whom he lodged, lent his French citizenship and experience in publishing his own paper La Voix Libre [The Free Voice], to assume official managerial responsibility for the newspaper.[11]
The united front formed around La Lutte ran various campaigns and participated in elections. In the March 1935 Cochinchina assembly election, albeit with restricted suffrage and government interference, leftist candidates obtained 17% of the votes. There was a joint La Lutte candidate slate for the May 1935 municipal election, and Tran Van Thach, Nguyen Van Tao, Ta Thu Thau and Duong Bach Mai were elected. The election of the latter three was, however, invalidated.[3] Moreover, the election was preceded by a controversy within the La Lutte alliance regarding the candidature of Duong Bach Mai, a Communist Party leader. He was labelled 'reformist' by Trotskyists, but defended by Ta Thu Thau.[12] In late 1936 and 1937 the grouping organized various strikes.[3]
La Lutte gave considerable attention to political prisoners held by the French colonial regime and campaigned for their amnesty.[3] Prisoners' protests were frequently reported in the pages of La Lutte.[13]
Unwilling to further muzzle criticism of the "Stalinists" and the Communist Party, early in 1936 Ho Huu Tuong and Ngo Van withdrew from La Lutte. With the League of Internationalist Communists for the Construction of the Fourth International they began publication of their own weekly "organ of proletarian defence and Marxist combat," Le Militant.[14]