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RESEARCH ESSAY

PETER ZINOMAN

Nhn Vn Giai Phm on Trial:


The Prosecution of Nguyn Hu ang
and Thy An

N hn Vn Giai Phm (NVGP) refers to the most significant movement


of domestic political protest in the history of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam (DRV) prior to the current reform era. The movement bears
the name of two feisty, oppositional journalsNhn Vn [Humanity] and
Giai Phm [Masterworks]published openly in H Ni during the fall of
, just two years after the foundation in northern Vietnam of the post-
colonial communist state. Produced by an illustrious group of intellectuals,
writers, academics and artists, virtually all of whom had loyally served the
DRV party-state in the past, the journals attacked the increasingly dictato-
rial, repressive and corrupt character of communist rule and called for
a range of liberalizing reforms. H Ch Minhs government shuttered the
journals in December but the movement survived, albeit under signif-
icant duress, till the end of the decade. By , however, the government
had silenced most members of NVGP through a host of extra-judicial puni-
tive measures. Those associated with the group were vilified in the state
press, forced to undergo public self-criticism, fired from their jobs and sent
away for terms of reformative labor. For the remainder of their lives,

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NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 189

members of NVGP remained subject to a special regime of police surveil-


lance, institutional discrimination and restricted civil rights.
While most members of NVGP were punished through extra-judicial
measures, five individuals linked to the movement were subjected to an
enigmatic show-trial staged by the Peoples Court of H Ni [Ta n Nhn
Dn H Ni] on January , . A puzzling feature of the trial is the odd
assortment of defendants brought before the court. They included only one
leading member of the movement, the political organizer and communist
theoretician Nguyn Hu ang (). A second high-profile defen-
dant, Thy An (aka Lu Th Yn, ) was a well-known female
writer who supported NVGP but was not herself one of its central figures.
Rounding out the accused were Phan Ti and L Nguyn Ch, two minor
accomplices of the principal defendants, and Trn Thiu Bo, the profes-
sional publisher who printed and distributed the journals associated with the
movement. According to coverage of the event in the communist press, the
trial concluded with the issuing of a pair of fifteen-year prison sentences for
Nguyn Hu ang and Thy An, a ten-year sentence for Trn Thiu Bo
and five- and six-year sentences respectively for Phan Ti and L Nguyn
Ch. In addition to jail time, each defendant received three-to-five-year term
of suspension of civil rights following release.
Since NVGP remains a politically sensitive topic in Vietnam today, gov-
ernment records about the show-trial have never been released and
none of the defendants left behind accounts of their experience. As a result,
knowledge of this unusual event comes only from brief, official notices in the
communist press. However, during several months of research at Vietnam
National Archives # in H Ni between and , I was fortunate to
discover and transcribe a -page report about the trial authored by Nguyn
Xun Dng, the chief justice who presided over it. Dated April , ,
the Nguyn Xun Dng Report provides a valuable insiders perspective on
the planning and execution of the trial written just three months after it
occurred. While it does not address all of the outstanding questions about
the trial (such as why this odd assortment of figures was singled out for
judicial punishment), the report discloses a previously unknown narrative of
events surrounding the preparation of the case and sheds considerable light
on the strategy of the prosecution, the interrogation of the defendants and
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the orchestration of the trial. Given how little is known about the inner
workings of political trials in Vietnam, the Nguyn Xun Dng Report is
far and away the most significant source currently available on this impor-
tant topic as well as a fascinating window into this curious chapter in the
history of NVGP.
One critical subplot of the report that intersects with a core theme of this
special issue of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies concerns a conflict between
a hardline approach to the case pushed by the Vietnam Workers Party
(VWP) Central Committee and a more moderate posture favored by organs
of the DRV state such as the Security Police [Cng an], the Peoples Court
and the Procuracy [Vin Cng t]. While state organs viewed the defendants
as perpetrators of a moderate ideological transgression, the Central Com-
mittee insisted that they had committed espionage, a much more serious
crime that warranted a heavier punishment. The outcome of this clash sheds
light on the balance of power between the VWP and the DRV during the
postcolonial era, an important emerging theme in the scholarship on the
relationship between party, state and law in communist Vietnam. The crux
of the issue concerns the relative authority and influence of a putatively law-
bound state and a party that, throughout its history, has frequently behaved
as if it were above the law. This issue has been addressed recently for a slightly
earlier period by David Marr and debated productively by Christopher
Goscha and Philippe Papin, among others. The decisive resolution of the
conflict over the show-trial in favor of the hardline position championed by
the Central Committee contributes to our understanding of this issue by
providing one vivid illustration of the complete domination of the party over
the state during the era.
Another subplot of the report concerns the intense conflict between the
authorities and the two main defendants: Thy An, and Nguyn Hu ang.
Because these high-profile figures appeared fragile, anxious and extremely
circumspect after leaving prison over a decade after the trial, they tend to
come off as passive victims of state repression in many conventional histor-
ical accounts of NVGP. It is especially notable, therefore, that the report
discloses a previously unknown history of spirited and courageous resistance
to the authorities on the part of these two defendants throughout the course
of the proceedings against them.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 191

Nhn Vn Giai Phm: History and Historiography


The emergence of a domestic political movement challenging the repressive
character of communist rule in the DRV at this particular historical moment
was no accident. After all, was the year of Nikita Khrushchevs famed
secret speech against Stalinist despotism delivered at the twentieth Con-
gress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the anti-Stalinist
uprisings in Poland and Hungary and Chinas liberalizing Hundred Flowers
Campaign. Inspired by these developments, NVGP championed a localized
revisionist (or reform communist) agenda designed to save and renew
Vietnamese communism through a rejection of the Stalinist model and
a return to Leninist humanism. This entailed an attack on local incarna-
tions of the cult of personality and the promotion of socialist legality,
intellectual freedom, expanded democracy and greater protection for human
and civil rights. For three months between September and late November
, Nhn Vn and Giai Phm (along with a handful of other short-lived
periodicals) promoted this basic anti-Stalinist line through a mix of essays,
editorials, fiction, poetry, interviews and political cartoons.
NVGP had local roots as well. One important context for the movement
was the Vietnamese party-states lurch to the left following the Chinese
communist victory in . This trend was most clearly manifest in the
murderous land reform, a Maoist-style campaign of violent social engi-
neering that the party-state imposed on a terrorized northern Vietnamese
countryside between and . Official efforts to redress the injus-
tices of the land reform through an inept and disruptive correction of
errors campaign in mid- only served to further erode confidence in
the party leadership. Members of NVGP denounced both the land reform
and the persistence of a censorship regime that prevented an honest exam-
ination of its horrors. Such support for intellectual freedom made NVGP
especially popular on university campuses. Another critical local context
for the emergence of the movement was the post-war character of H Ni
at the time. Leaders of NVGP were all veterans of the so-called resistance
war from and many were communist party members, creden-
tials which made them confident in their right to have their voices heard on
matters of broad public concern. Many were dismayed at the failure of
party officials to follow through on promises made during the war that
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restrictions on freedom of expression would be relaxed when the fighting


was over.
NVGP is significant in modern Vietnams history for several reasons. One
is its unusual scale. Roughly sixty people wrote for the journals and several
hundred sympathizers exhibited sufficient public support for the move-
ment to be targeted for punishment by the police. One issue of Nhn Vn
sold twenty thousand copies. While not quite a mass movement, NVGPs
size, duration, and popularity exceeds, by a wide margin, that of every other
domestic protest movement prior to the mid-s. NVGPs importance
also lies in the intensity and persistence of the party-states campaign against
it. Long after its destruction by the state, communist officials continued to
denounce the movement publicly and to vilify and persecute its members.
Virtually everyone associated with NVGP was silenced in the public sphere
for over a generation and leading figures were quietly rehabilitated only in
the late s. The repression of NVGP during the late s is also notable
for giving rise to the basic institutional infrastructure, still in operation
today, for policing Vietnamese artists and intellectualsan interlocking
network of so-called professional organizations known as the Writers
Association, the Music Association, the Theatre Association and the Fine
Arts Association.
An additional reason for the movements outsized influence is the
extraordinary, elite character of its membership. It included Phan Khi,
Vietnams greatest journalist and man of letters and Trn c Tho, the
countrys most brilliant philosopher. It featured the influential literary critic
Trng Tu and the important historian and lexicographer o Duy Anh.
Nguyn Sng and S Ngc, two of twentieth century Vietnams most cele-
brated artists, did illustrations and cover art for the group. Another partic-
ipant was Vn Cao, the beloved musician and composer of the national
anthem. A cohort of talented young army and party writers also played
an important role in NVGP: Trn Dn, Hong Cm, Phng Qun and L
t. The influence of the movement was clearly due, at least in part, to the
remarkable celebrity of this group.
The only leading figure of the movement put on trial in , Nguyn
Hu ang, stood out among NVGP members for his impeccable revolu-
tionary pedigree and for founding and managing the newspaper Nhn Vn.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 193

An activist with the pre-communist Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Lea-


gue during the late s, Nguyn Hu ang circulated within an old
revolutionary political landscape of schools, radical newspapers and prisons
throughout the s. Through his newspaper work, he befriended Trng
Chinh, the provisional secretary general of the Indochinese Communist
Party and joined the party in the s. He helped organize the indepen-
dence ceremony at Ba nh Square during the August Revolution and
he played a critical role in the DRVs National Cultural Congress in . He
served as Deputy Minister of Youth in H Ch Minhs government and later
helped supervise several important publications, including the orthodox
literary journal Vn Ngh. Through his official roles, Nguyn Hu ang
maintained many relationships with northern intellectuals, a network that
came in handy as he moved to establish Nhn Vn in September . In
addition to running the journal, he wrote several of its most hard-hitting
pieces, including an essay denouncing the land reform and another demand-
ing that the Party exhibit greater respect for the constitution and the rule of
law. In an interview with the German ex-Trotskyist Heinz Schutte in ,
Nguyn Hu ang speculated that he had been singled out for trial because
he was seen as the organizer and leader of the movement. While this
theory is not confirmed directly in the Nguyn Xun Dng Report, it
dovetails with Alec Holcombes view that Nguyn Hu angs high-level
revolutionary background led Party officials to view his leadership of the
movement as an act of personal betrayal.
Unlike Nguyn Hu ang, the other high-profile defendant at the trial,
Thy An, was not a leader of NVGP. Indeed, she never published in Nhn
Vn or Giai Phm and she did not hold an official position with either
journal. She was, however, a well-known literary figure of her day. A trail-
blazing novelist, journalist and newspaper editor during the s, Thy An
is the only female prose writer to have been deemed worthy of inclusion in
Nh vn hin i [Modern Writers], V Ngc Phans canonical encyclopedia
of interwar Vietnamese authors published in . Despite harboring rev-
olutionary and anti-colonial sympathies, she did not join the Vit Minh
during the First Indochina War. Instead, she continued working as an inde-
pendent journalist in French-controlled zones of the country. With the estab-
lishment of the DRV north of the seventeenth parallel in , she chose to
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take up residence in H Ni. There, she remained close to writers who


contributed to NVGP, some of whom treated her home as a literary salon.
As Lu M Trinh has argued: Thy Ans influence on the NVGP group was
undeniable.

She provided it with financial support, she taught its members English and
French, she exposed them to foreign films and literature and she regularly
hosted political and literary discussions. According to Nguyn Hu ang,
Thy An shared her interest in theater and film with NVGP members by
screening Hamlet and staging Marcel Pagnols Topaze. In October , she
also published a review of Japanese film that critically examined the role of
cinema. The writer L t commented on her impact in his confession: Each
time I left Thy Ans place, I felt myself more resentful of the Party, more
disillusioned.

Thy An provoked further skepticism among party officials due to her


relationship with Maurice Durand, the director of the cole franaise dEx-
trme-Orient who had long been suspected of spying against the DRV.
Equally scandalous was her romantic affair with nh o, a member
of the Vietnam Nationalist Party [Vit Nam Quc dn ng] who died
under questionable circumstances in . Nevertheless, given that many
members of NVGP played a much larger and more direct role in the move-
ment than Thy An, it remains unclear why she was singled out for judicial
punishment.
There exists a small, interesting body of scholarship on NVGP, but it
suffers from some serious limitations. The sole research monograph on NVGP
by the late ex-communist and ex-Vit Minh French historian, Georges
Boudarelfocuses on the pre-history of the movement in . The
best piece of original research on the topicby Alec Holcombe and Li
Nguyn ncenters on one of NVGPs most famous conservative opponents,
the poet Xun Diu. A useful study by Schutte uses no Vietnamese-language
sources but exploits valuable data from French language interviews that he
carried out in the late s with many principle figures in the movement
(virtually all now deceased). Article-length studies by Hirohide Kurihara,
Kim Ninh, Nguyn Ngc Tun, Vu Gia, L Hoi Nguyn and Shawn McHale
examine the movement through local press coverage and published sources,
including the journals themselves (which can now be found online). There
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 195

are also several interesting short studies of the topic based on Eastern Euro-
pean diplomatic reporting. Perhaps the most important research on the
movement is by the Paris-based Vietnamese journalist and radio personality,
Thy Khu. From her perch at the popular Radio France Internationale (RFI)
during a pre-internet era starting in , she conducted on-air oral histories
with surviving members of the group: Hong Cm, L t, Nguyn Hu
ang and Trn Duy. In , she published the transcripts of her interviews
along with over a dozen brief journalistic studies of important figures and
issues in the history of the movement.
Most of the existing scholarship relies on published material from the
Vietnamese-language press of the era and interviews with elderly leaders of
NVGP about traumatic events four decades in the past. Whats been missing
is contemporaneous Vietnamese archival material about the movement and
its repression by the party-state. This material remains difficult to access
because the case remains sensitive inside the country and party archives are
closed to independent researchers including all foreign scholars. The
absence of material from official archives has left big holes in the historiog-
raphy. In particular, we know a lot more about the political project of the
movement as expressed in its writingsthan we know about how it was
viewed and dealt with by the party-state. On this topic, all that we have are
the relentless attacks against the movement published in the official press.
This is what makes the Nguyn Xun Dng Report such a revelation.

The Nguyn Xun Dng Report


The Nguyn Xun Dng Report opens with the Public Security Police
handing over its relevant case file to the Procuracy, a legal office designed
along Soviet lines that married public prosecution functions with the need for
inspection and control of government actions. The case file contained
interrogation transcripts of the five defendants and various witnesses (includ-
ing the NVGP poets L t and Hong Cm), articles from Nhn Vn and
other incriminating documents. With this evidence in hand, state prosecu-
tors launched an investigation with three stated aims: to grasp the true
character of the case, to determine the guilt of the defendants and to prepare
for trial. The investigation was led by the Procuracy but its independence was
compromised from the start by its reliance on the original case file prepared by
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the Security Police. The autonomy of the investigation was also checked by the
Supreme Peoples Court, which appointed two research cadres [cn b
nghin cu] to the Procuracy to shape and monitor its work on the case.
The Procuracys initial review of the case file supported the original
conclusion of the Security Police that the defendants had committed polit-
ical crimes of moderate severity. Under interrogation, defendants had admit-
ted to taking advantage of intellectual freedom in the DRV for newspaper
and book publishing, theatrical performance and film-screening to under-
mine the regime. The language here recalls article of the constitu-
tion, a notoriously vague and menacing statute that forbids any person to
use democratic freedoms to the detriment of the interests of the State and of
the people. Interviews with witnesses revealed that Nguyn Hu ang
had planned to collude with counter-revolutionary elements from the
universities and the commercial classes to form a counter-revolutionary
party known as the Humanism Party [ng Nhn vn]. The case file also
recorded Nguyn Hu angs rejection of the most severe charges against
him. During his interrogation (summarized in the report but not cited
verbatim), he admitted to mistakes in the realm of ideology and conscious-
ness but denied that his motive was subversive or counter-revolutionary.
Thy Ans confession also contained qualifications. According to the report,
she confessed to colluding with a leader of the reactionary Vietnamese
Nationalist Party in Hi Phng and with the spy chief Maurice Durand in
H Ni as part of a plot to corrupt the minds of our literary circles, distort
state policy and demoralize the people. But she insisted that these trans-
gressions did not rise to the level of counter-revolutionary subversion. More-
over, her contact with members of NVGP had occurred after Nhn Vn had
closed in December , a detail that Thy An underlined to refute the
charge that she had colluded with the group.
The investigation complete, the Procuracy decided to indict and pass
a verdict against the defendants for committing the following crime: taking
advantage of the rights to freedom and democracy, freedom of the press,
freedom to publish and freedom of assembly to spread subversive propa-
ganda, to blacken the name of the regime, to incite the masses to launch an
uprising. According to the report, this approach was supported by both the
Peoples Court and the Security Police.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 197

Before moving forward, however, the court sought advice from above.
Because this was a big case with a wide influence, the report explained, the
Peoples Court submitted the case file to the Central Committee [trung
ng] to get its view on how to proceed. This remarkably unabashed
statement dovetails with conventional viewsboth popular and scholarly
about the absence of real judicial independence in the DRV. According to
Gareth Porter, protections for courts, judges and jurors written into DRV
constitutions have always been vitiated by the principle that party officials
are responsible for bringing the general trend of judicial judgments into line
with party policy. Legal scholars tend to highlight the control of local
courts by the Supreme Peoples Court (founded in ) and by VWP
administrative committees at the district and provincial levels. The
Nguyn Xun Dng Report supports this general view but it also offers
a rare verifiable example of the direct involvement of the Partys highest
political organthe Central Committeein determining a specific judicial
outcome. It is not known if the Central Committee meddled frequently in
this direct way in the workings of the courts or if the NVGP show-trial was
an exceptional case.
After reviewing the case file and examining recent episodes of interna-
tional espionage such as the Hungarian uprising, the Central Committee
rejected the Procuracys approach. Instead of prosecuting the defendants
narrowly for committing ideological crimes, the Central Committee urged
that they be charged with the more serious crime of espionage. According to
its reading of the case file, the key transgression in question was a plot by
a gang of subversive and counter-revolutionary spies to advance a program
of psychological warfare devised by the imperialists in order to encourage an
ideology of rebellion among the masses. The crime, in other words, was
a conspiracy guided by foreigners to overthrow the state. The reference to
the Hungarian uprising of October as an analogous act of espio-
nage suggests that high anxiety among DRV party officials generated by de-
Stalinization in Eastern Europe may have shaped the harsh approach to the
case that they eventually adopted.
In response to this pushback from the Central Committee, state officials
dug in their heels, albeit briefly. Some cadres of the court and the Procuracy
refused to accept the Central Committees view, the report stated. But, after
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re-examining the file and the accompanying material, the prosecutors and
the Court grasped the wisdom of the Central Committees position. This
reinforced their consciousness and loyalty and enhanced their determina-
tion to supplement the investigation so as to expose the true essence of the
case in accordance with the Central Committees views. Following this
abject surrender to Party dictates, the Procuracy, the Peoples Court, and
the Security Police worked together supplementing the file, interrogating
and educating the defendants and preparing for the trial. The remainder of
the report provided a review and appraisal of these three critical tasks.

Supplementing the File


Supplementing the file involved recovering new documentary evidence to
support the Central Committees view that Nguyn Hu ang and Thy An
conspired to carry out espionage and counter-revolutionary subversion.
This effort yielded several useful insights. It suggested that Thy An was
involved with Nhn Vn while it was still being published and had planted
an informant inside the journal named Hunh Sn. It showed that Thy An
and Nguyn Hu ang had colluded to found Nhn Vn with other artists
of bad character at an eighteen-day study conference organized by the
Writers Union in the summer of . And it revealed that Thy An plotted
with Phan Ti to support the journal Giai Phm by hosting dramatic per-
formances and film screenings at her home. The validity of these proposi-
tions cannot be established since the Nguyn Xun Dng Report does not
disclose the material evidence on which they are based. But the reports
zealous prosecutorial tone suggests that supplementing the file was more
of a deliberate effort to find incriminating evidence than a dispassionate fact-
finding mission.
Following this discussion, Nguyn Xun Dng turned to the interro-
gation and education of Thy An and Nguyn Hu ang. In a long
section of the report that comprised almost half of its total content, he
offered an unprecedented glimpse into the fate of these famous figures
during the weeks and months immediately before they disappeared into the
DRV prison system. This section also provides an unusually vivid account of
judicial interrogationa shadowy but critical part of the DRVs system of
political repression.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 199

Interrogating Thy An
The Nguyn Xun Dng Report describes the interrogation of Thy An as
an intense confrontation between unequal adversaries punctuated by dra-
matic acts of oppression and resistance plus one horrific episode of bodily
disfigurement. Thy An is a crafty spy, the account begins, experienced in
subverting the spirit of our revolution.

She employs all the tricks of the police informer. She initially confessed to
crimes such as fraternizing with our adversaries and supporting enemy plots.
But she is shifty. After confessing, she retracts; confesses and retracts again,
confusing her interrogators. Moreover, she employs shameless ploys; she
feigns madness and goes on a hunger strike. Her dramatic behavior peaked
when she poked out one of her eyes (and tried to poke out the other one), or
when she took off all of her clothes after being locked in a cell. During
interrogation, she always tried to measure the attitude of the interrogator.

It has long been known that Thy An lost an eye in the course of her
detention and imprisonment during the s and s but the circum-
stances of this tragic event have never been documented. Some accounts
claim that she suffered an accident while engaged in reformative labor.
Others maintain that she took out her own eye to protest the display of
a communist flag visible from the window of her prison cell. Produced by
a close partner of Thy Ans interrogators (if not a member of the team
itself), the Nguyn Xun Dng Report cannot be seen as a fully reliable
account of this episode. But it is revealing, nevertheless, that it treats Thy
Ans self-mutilation as one in a series of desperate gambits that she em-
ployed to obstruct and resist her interrogators.
Thy Ans combativeness also comes across in accounts of her energetic
verbal sparring. The report notes that she confessed to ideological errors
during her earlier police interrogation but, at the same time, denied emphat-
ically that she had engaged in espionage. She had remained in H Ni after
, she insisted, because she admired the North and hated imperialism.
She pushed back further by touting her progressive political credentials,
including her authorship of works that celebrated the revolution. She also
went on the offensive against her interrogators by calling attention to the
Partys many mistakes with the land reform.
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While Thy An resisted her interrogators energetically initially, they gained


the upper hand during a later round of questioning. Interrogators grilled her
about suspicious activities and contacts from every period of her life. They
tried to convince her to admit her errors and to acknowledge the counter-
revolutionary nature of her ideology. The report states that Thy An even-
tually became frightened by the authorities apparent command of the facts
surrounding her activities and, as a result, came to accept their charges against
her. It also linked her about-face to her growing respect for the decolonized
judicial culture of the DRV: We emphasized to her that our court reflected
a humanitarian spirit in stark opposition to the repressive courts of the im-
perialists; she appeared ready to accept reformative education in prison.
A series of questions concerned Thy Ans activities prior to the founding
of the DRV in . Interrogators charged her with secret collaboration with
the French during the s and with reactionary officials from the Asso-
ciated States of Vietnam in the late s and early s. Again, the report
touted its powers of persuasion: As we concluded the work of interrogating
and educating Thy An about her activities during the French and Occu-
pation eras, she said to us: For the first time in forty-three years, thanks to
the education of the court, I have paused and looked into my past life. Only
now do I dare to see my crimes clearly and to speak about them without
hiding anything.

She began to gain confidence in the resoluteness of our education and to show
repentance for her crimes against our regime. She claimed that, due to a high
level of brainwashing by the imperialists, she had a frightful impression about
our manner of dealing with spies. She had suspected that our way of dealing
with her and other guilty parties in detention (including the way we rushed to
tend to her after she poked her eye out) was a ruse. But now she began to see
through the distortions of the imperialists just as she began to recognize the
crimes that she had committed after the return of peace. She saw the leniency
of the government towards her, including the way that it facilitated her literary
activities. And she now saw that she had opposed the government and sub-
verted the revolution.

As the interrogation moved to her activities during the post- period,


Thy An broke down and, in a reversal from her earlier position, admitted to
the espionage charge.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 201

On the most crucial question at hand, Thy An admitted that she was a spy
whom the enemy had ordered to stay behind in order to subvert us. Regarding
other matters, such as her collusion with [Nguyn Hu] ang to launch
counter-revolutionary activities or to carry out the plots of the enemy, she
accepted culpability with relative ease. This helped to establish that this was
essentially a case of subversion and counter-revolutionary espionage.

With resistance overcome and the defendant willing to admit wrongdoing,


the authorities ordered her to write a confession that covered all her crimes
and the evolution of her stubborn thinking since the arrest. According to
the report, this served as both additional evidence and as a rehearsal for
her upcoming performance in court. Running over one hundred pages, her
confession listed her crimes and the evolution of her stubborn thinking since
her arresta process marked by admission and retraction, retraction and
admission. Now, she sincerely admits her crimes and she realizes that her
crimes are large. She accepts that the court can punish her as it sees fit and
she is grateful for any leniency it shows her.
In conclusion, the report boasted triumphantly that an especially stub-
born element had been crushed. But a final remark betrayed a measure of
anxiety about the authenticity of Thy Ans reformation. Thy Ans state of
mind fluctuated during the period from the end of the interrogation to the
start of the trial. She experienced minor episodes of anxiety and hysteria.
There were also times when her perverse and depraved state of mind flared
up, causing difficulties in the prison. This raised some questions that we
must attend to about the sincerity of her repentant attitude.

Interrogating Nguyn Hu ang


Conceding that Nguyn Hu ang posed even more difficulties as a defen-
dant than Thy An, the Nguyn Xun Dng Reports account of his inter-
rogation opened by listing four ploys that he had used to resist his
interrogators. Most importantly, he challenged the charges against him by
defending his motives and downplaying the gravity of his alleged trans-
gressions. On the question of motive, he denied that he harbored subver-
sive intent, claiming instead that he was inspired by a constructive desire
to build the regime. He also minimized the severity of his crimes by
depicting them as mistakes of ideology and consciousness related to
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cultural controversies exclusively. Another ploy of Nguyn Hu ang


was to tout the political credentials that he had earned as a Vit Minh cadre
during the anti-French Resistance. A third was his tendency to digress at
great length about literary theory, confusing and distracting his interroga-
tors. Finally, Nguyn Hu ang turned the tables on his interrogators, as
Thy An did, by harping upon the land reform errors that the Party had
recently admitted in public. Not only did this fourth ploy obstruct the
interrogation but it raised the worrying prospect that Nguyn Hu ang
might attempt to orchestrate a similar reversal before a large audience in
court. Such fears were deepened when Hong Cm informed investigators
that Nguyn Hu ang had once discussed such a scenario: He said to
Hong Cm before he was arrested that if he was ever hauled into court, he
would transform the case into something like the Dreyfus Affair in France,
a case in which the accused became the accuser [laccus accuse].
This reference to the famous late nineteenth-century case in which
trumped-up espionage charges against Alfred Dreyfus redounded against
the political establishment in France reveals that knowledge of recent French
history among Vietnams political elite shaped the way that partisans on
both sides of the NVGP case thought about the trial. For DRV officials, the
unexpected political consequences of the prosecution of Dreyfus struck
a cautionary note. For Nguyn Hu ang, they evoked an opportunity.
The remainder of this section of the report described how Nguyn Hu
angs interrogators overcame his obstructionist ploys. The report singled
out the recovery of incriminating documents Nguyn Hu angs pub-
lished and private writingsas critical for the ultimate success of the inter-
rogation. The documents raised questions about Nguyn Hu angs
self-professed loyalty to the regime by revealing his collusion with Thy
An (a notorious spy) and his traitorous plans to follow the enemy South
on four separate occasions. Other documents included transcripts of con-
versations about writing articles, publishing the journals and additional
Machiavellian plots devised by [Nguyn Hu] ang.
Prosecutors also zeroed in on Nguyn Hu angs literary subversion,
a process that entailed a broad search for oppositional ideology in his
writing. Before the start of questioning, Nguyn Xun Dng explained,
we examined each of his articles and identified their counter-revolutionary
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 203

content, refuting his claim that they expressed a constructive spirit. We then
dissected his arguments, breaking down his defenses and exposing the
counter-revolutionary character of his newspapers and articles. In spite of
these boasts, Nguyn Hu ang was likely a formidable opponent, especially
when challenged about the political content of his writing. Because he had
worked as a professional revolutionary activist and Vit Minh operative for
over two decades, his writings (including his essays in Nhn Vn) demon-
strated a deep engagement with theoretical Marxist-Leninism and Maoism.
Nguyn Hu angs effectiveness was acknowledged indirectly in Nguyn
Xun Dngs admission that we tried to avoid getting bogged down in
literary debates and maintain the initiative during the interrogation.
Finally, the report focused on Nguyn Hu angs subversive, counter-
revolutionary plotting, a crime much more dangerous, in the eyes of the
authorities, than his ideological deviation.

We asked about his plan to foment an uprising while the internal situation of
our country was in crisis and the socialist world faced serious upheavals such
as the uprising in Hungary and the protests in Pozna. When we asked him
about these matters, we both raised questions and offered critical analysis to
compel him to admit that he followed an ideology of opportunist revolution
[u c cch mng]or counter-revolution and as a result, he clearly opposed
the revolution. In addition, we reminded him of his discussions with Thy An
about the potential impact of Nhn Vn and about the proper guidelines for
their anti-revolutionary plotguidelines involving changes in strategic
direction, changes in key personnel and changes in organizational structure.
In the end, he admitted his crimes. Hence, with regard to Nguyn Hu ang,
we achieved a positive result with him admitting both his crimes and his
collusion with Thy An.

But alongside this final obligatory invocation of optimism and self-


congratulation were signs of doubt. In contrast to the interrogation of
Thy An, which succeeded eventually in illuminating a series of large
issues, the interrogation of [Nguyn Hu] ang remained stuck on small
problems as a result of his greater stubbornness and craftiness. Hence,
while he ultimately admitted guilt and expressed contrition, the intensity
of Nguyn Hu angs prior resistance raised enduring doubts about his
sincerity.
204 ZINOMAN

Education [Gio dc]


The mechanics of the interrogation process were shaped by the DRV legal
systems focus on education. Throughout the course of the interroga-
tions, the report explained, we used education to speed up our exploitation
of the defendants. The emphasis on education reflects Maoist and Stalinist
influence in the judicial culture of the DRV. It refers to the application of
non-violent techniques such as political instruction, persuasion, intimida-
tion and verbal threats to secure willful compliance. Compliance, in the
context of this case, involved both confession and contrition, or in the
straightforward language of the report: the defendants bowing their heads
and admitting guilt. While refusal to accept guilt provoked more threats
and worse punishments, forthright confessions and expressions of remorse
earned greater leniency. If the defendants express remorse, the report
explained, then our attitude when passing a verdict will, of course, be
different, because this is the nature of our penal policy.
The report expressed pride that the education project entailed no physical
violence, threats or bribes.

During education, we did not try to cajole the defendants or promise leniency.
Rather, we pointed out to them the good and humanitarian nature of our
regime and its humane treatment of counter-revolutionary elements like
themselves during arrest and detention. For example, when Thy An poked
out her eye, we cared for her and administered medicine . . . We induce
a voluntary response from defendants during interrogation; we do not torture,
coerce or abuse anyone.

Cryptic references to violence appear in another comment about the


mechanics of the education process.

We only make use of the big stick and giant spike [ao to ba ln] to scare
the defendants and to persuade them to testify. We require that the defendants
declare all the deeds that they have done. But it is natural for them to try to
protect themselves. For example, they may try to frame a counter-
revolutionary act as something done to further the revolution or benefit the
people. If we come off as hot-headed or try to coerce the defendants with
a big stick and giant spike or interrupt their testimony, the defendants may
stop testifying or refuse to reveal everything. They may lose faith in us or view
our methods as a form of entrapment. Hence, we must guarantee the
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 205

defendant the freedom to speak about anything. Once they have revealed
everything, we can start the struggle to explain to them the essential character
of their counter-revolutionary ideology and activities. When defendants are
stubborn, and boldly refuse to testify further, our response is to ask small
questions about transgressions that the defendants have already admitted.
This forces them to struggle ideologically with themselves or to mobilize their
own words against them which can induce them to abandon their stubborn
attitude.

The language here recalls projects of thought reform, behavioral modifica-


tion and brain-washing (as it was described in an earlier social science
scholarship) characteristic of Maoist and Stalinist systems. If more recent
accounts of police interrogation in Vietnam are any guide, it seems likely
that the big stick and giant spike were used at the time, although the report
does not reveal if Thy An and Nguyn Hu ang were its victims.

The Court
As described in the report, the main goal of the courtroom trial was to
clearly demonstrate to the public at large the significance of espionage
and counter-revolutionary subversion in the case. Not only did this didactic
objective reflect the distinct politico-educational function of the court sys-
tem in the DRV, but it revealed official anxiety about a growing public
skepticism towards the governments case. The report linked this skepti-
cism to the slowness of the investigation: The length of time that it has
taken us to investigate and try the case raised fears that we did not have
enough evidence to make the charges stick. To prove espionage and
counter-revolutionary subversion in the face of mounting public doubt,
the trial needed to show that the defendants conspired together as part of
a clandestine clique or a broader seditious network. Each defendant has
committed a crime, the report explained. From the outside it looks like
they are disconnected. But, in fact, these crimes are related in that they are all
controlled by [Nguyn Hu] ang. The court must expose these
connections.
Prosecutors believed that a carefully planned program of cross-
examination in court was critical to the successful public airing of their case.
All elements of the cross-examinationfrom the order of the questions to
206 ZINOMAN

the content of the questions to the style of the questions must support one
requirement: to demonstrate the presence of espionage and counter-
revolutionary subversion. For Thy Anthe first defendant to be ques-
tionedprosecutors planned to expose her as a high-level spy taking orders
from the enemy. Once Thy An was outed in this way, the guilt of other
defendants could be confirmed through their association with her. Hence,
a critical goal of the interrogation of Nguyn Hu ang was to corroborate
his collusion with Thy An. In addition, prosecutors planned to expose his
counter-revolutionary face, his support for the imperialists, his backing
for a revolt of the masses, his plans to flee South, and his work on Nhn
Vn. Other defendants faced different accusations. Prosecutors questioned
the publisher Trn Thiu Bo to expose him as a reactionary capitalist and
Phan Ti to portray him as a literary hooligan who turned his home into
a counter-revolutionary club that recreated the decadent life style of the
occupation era. The questioning of L Nguyn Ch focused merely on how
he had helped to make arrangements for Nguyn Hu ang to flee South,
a minor transgression but one that amplified the conspiratorial cadence of
the espionage charge.
Concern with the dynamics of cross-examination reflected the desire of
the prosecutors to secure public confessions that mirrored admissions of
guilt that had been made in private. We require that defendants admit
to spying and counter-revolutionary activities in their public testimony
just as they did in the course of their police interrogation. We must discour-
age retractions. Later, the report reiterated the significance of cross-
examination and public confession: [Our charges] must be backed-up by
confessions made by the defendants and upon corroborating documents.
The testimony of the defendant is the most crucial element for drawing up
an indictment.

The Trial
Among the reports most important revelations about the trial was its
acknowledgement that both the indictment and sentence were prepared
beforehand. This forthright admission supports a view of the trial as more
of a political and educational performance than as an open-ended judicial
proceeding. At the same time, however, the report touted the protection of
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 207

various elements of due process by the DRV legal system. The juxtaposition
of these liberal boasts with the courts complete lack of autonomy and utter
politicization is among the most striking and incongruous features of the
Nguyn Xun Dng Report and reflects the schizophrenic nature of DRV
statecraft.
The trial took place on January , and ran for eleven hours from
a.m. to p.m. It was attended by over five hundred representatives from
different government offices, the majority of whom the report identified as
intellectuals. In addition to Chief Justice Nguyn Xun Dng, the case
was presided over by three Peoples Assessors who participated in adjudi-
cation. The Peoples Assessor was a communist institutional innovation
designed to bring the people into the judging process and to distinguish
the DRV court system from its elitist French colonial predecessors. One
Peoples Assessor at the trial was an unnamed representative from the Gen-
eral Confederation of Trade Unions. Another was a printer, referred to in
the report as Comrade Ct, who worked at the Xun Thu Publishing House.
According to official accounts, the government had been induced to move
against NVGP when public-spirited workers from the Xun Thu House
objected to printing Nhn Vn. A third Peoples Assessor, Phng Bo
Thch, was a veteran journalist and member of the recently established
Journalism Association who had joined the Vit Minh during the late colo-
nial era after a distinguished career as a newspaperman. The presence of
a professional journalist among the peoples assessors reflects the DRV legal
principle that defendants ought to be judged by a jury of their peers, defined
in class and/or occupational terms.
Two other officials who played an active role in the trial were Dng Vn
m, the head of the Procuracy and Xun Sng a defense lawyer who
served as counsel for the defendants. The report does not indicate whether
Xun Sng enjoyed meaningful access to his clients prior to the trial but
it does boast that he was allowed to speak freely in court. We did not
constrain the defense lawyer, the report insisted, rather, we allowed him
to freely express his ideas and to carry out his duty to defend the defen-
dants. The report pointed to the tolerant attitude towards the defense
lawyer as an emblem of the enlightened quality of the DRV court system:
The arrangement of all the elements of the trial, including of the defense,
208 ZINOMAN

symbolizes the truly democratic character of our court system. The report
also claimed that defendants were apprised of certain rights including the
right to respond to the declarations of witnesses, the right to access new
evidence so as to prepare a defense and the right of the defendants to testify
to whatever they wish, without limits.
The courts first order of business was the cross-examination of Thy An,
followed by the introduction of incriminating testimony about her from
additional witnesses. The session was successful as Thy An confessed to
all of her crimes in a concrete manner. The court turned next to Nguyn
Hu ang. In addition to cross-examining him about his many crimes,
prosecutors questioned Thy An about his supervision of policy, personnel
and organizational issues connected to Nhn Vn. He admitted that he
played a major role in the journal from tending to its finances to writing its
major articles. He also conceded that he crafted articles to distort and
blacken the regime and to incite the masses. The report also pointed out
some mistakes made by the authorities, especially in the cross-examination
of Nguyn Hu ang:

The trial achieved its objectives, but in the latter part of the interrogation of
[Nguyn Hu] ang, there were shortcomings and a lack of initiative. We let
Nguyn Hu ang make roundabout testimony. We lacked flexibility. We
depended too much on the plan; therefore our struggle was messy. This error
occurred because we overestimated the enemy. Although we mastered the files
and the documents thoroughly and although all of the defendants had been
crushed during the investigation process, we remained fearful that they would
rise up and oppose us during the trial. Hence, we relied too much on the plan,
which we thought would ensure us a victory. We did not dare change the plan
to make it more efficient.

Despite these missteps, the report characterized the cross-examination of


Nguyn Hu ang as a success. He confessed to several crimes and did not
try any of the subversive ploys that he had used during his police inter-
rogation such as pontificating about the fine arts, minimizing his own
crimes as mistakes of consciousness and insisting that his errors had been
provoked by our errors in the Land Reform. The success of the trial in
general was apparent in its impact on public opinion. Before attending
the trial, the report explained, people harbored doubts about whether or
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 209

not this was actually a spy case. But after the trial, they recognized that it
truly was and even wondered why the sentences given to Thy An and
[Nguyn Hu] ang were so light. Among students and intellectuals
in general, the unanimous opinion is that this was, indeed, a spy case.
Observers were also impressed with the fair and professional way that the
trial was carried out. One was quoted in the report saying: A democratic
trial, good, brief, civilized; no abuse, no oppression.
In concluding remarks on the trial, the report lamented that the DRV
press failed to give the court adequate credit for its success. After the trial,
we should have promoted it in the press, the report complained. Unfor-
tunately, there was only one newspaper article published and it did not focus
on the issue of espionage or on the reactionary and destructive nature of the
case. Nor did it include the confessions of Thy An and Nguyn Hu ang.
This complaint by the Peoples Court of H Ni about a lack of coverage of
the trial in the government press is probably less a sign of political or
institutional conflict between different organs of the DRV state and more
of an indication of a simple lack of coordination caused by the political
systems weak administrative capacity and poor management skills.

Observations
A concluding section of the report entitled Observations related a handful
of thoughts and opinions on the experience of the case. The first two
observations took the form of lessons, emphasizing the need to recognize
the supreme power of the Party over the operation of the Peoples Courts.
The court operates within the dictatorial system of the state and serves
political demands, the report explained. Therefore it is always subject to
the leadership of the Party. This case has illustrated this theoretical point.
Had it not been for the leadership of the Party we would have crafted a case
ill-fitting the crime. We would not have exposed the true plot of the enemy.
A second observation continued in the same vein: Given its function, the
court needs to be tightly led and to have its political attitude strengthened by
the Party. This will allow it to achieve a unified ideology in every activity.
During the case, the ideological leadership of the cadres was not tight at first.
Hence, some people had doubts. It was only after the ideology of the doubt-
ers was gradually molded that we achieved good results.
210 ZINOMAN

A third observation chided the Peoples Court and the Procuracy for
over-relying on the police file and making few new discoveries based on
their own investigation. This reflected the reoccurrence of bad old habits
such as passivity and lack of initiative. A fourth observation reiterated the
importance of tight coordination between the police, the prosecutors and the
court while a fifth comprised a series of suggestions regarding the interlinked
process of interrogation, education and trial preparation.

Conclusion
In addition to illuminating an important but previously opaque chapter in
the history of NVGP and its repression by the party-state, the Nguyn Xun
Dng Report sheds a broader beam of light upon the history of communist
Vietnamese legal culture and on the relationship between the Party and the
state in the DRV after it secured sovereign authority over the northern half
of the country in . In general, the report indicates that DRV legal and
security officials paid lip service to norms of due process, including notions
of individual rights. This may be seen in the care taken by police and court
officials to ground charges leveled against the accused in documentary evi-
dence, to reject physical torture during interrogation, to permit the accused
to speak in their own defense and to provide defendants with the appearance
of legal representation in court. On the other hand, these trappings of due
process coexisted with legal practices symptomatic of the political culture of
communist dictatorship. Traces of this harsher legal culture may be seen in
the emphasis prosecutors placed on educating defendants during the
course of pre-trial detention and in their refusal to permit legal counsel to
be present during interrogations or to mount a genuine defense of the accused
during the trial itself. A more important indication of the true character of the
DRVs legal culture may be seen in Nguyn Xun Dngs strikingly casual
admission that the verdict in the case was prepared prior to the trial and in the
careful measures taken by officials to stage-manage the court proceedings so
as to convey an intimidating political message to the public at large. Finally,
the outcome of the conflict over the proper charges to be leveled against
the defendants as described in the Nguyn Xun Dng Report confirms the
naked dominance of Party authority over the legal and policing organs of the
state during this formative period in the history of the DRV.
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 211

P ETER Z INOMAN is Professor of History at the University of California,


Berkeley. I would like to thank Claire Edington and Haydon Cherry for
organizing the symposium for which this paper was prepared and for
providing valuable feedback on an earlier draft.

ABSTRACT

On January , , the Peoples Court of H Ni of the Democratic


Republic of Vietnam (DRV) staged a show-trial for five defendants accused
of participating in the famous domestic political protest movement known as
Nhn Vn - Giai Phm. The defendants included the well-known political
activist Nguyn Hu ang and the celebrated female writer Thy An, both
of whom were found guilty and issued fifteen-year prison sentences. Based
on a lengthy report about this case authored by the judge who presided at the
trial and only recently unearthed from state archives in H Ni, this paper
illuminates for the first time the mysterious inner workings of this notorious
judicial proceeding. It also sheds light on the nature of Vietnamese com-
munist legal culture and on the relative power of the party and the state
during this formative period in the history of the DRV.

KEYWORDS: Nhn Vn Giai Phm, Nguyn Hu ang, Thy An, show


trial, legal culture, Vietnamese communism, party-state relations

Notes
. P.V. Ngy --, Ta n Nhn Dn H Ni x v gin ip Nguyn
Hu ang v Thy An [January , , H Ni Peoples Court Tries the Spy
Case of Nguyn Hu ang and Thy An], (bo) Nhn Dn [Humanity],
October , , , .
. Trung tm lu tr quc gia III, Phng Gio S Nghin Cu Vn Hc ng Thai
Mai, H s : Ti liu ca ban chp hnh hi lin hip vn hc ngh thut VN
v cuc u tranh chng nhm ph hoi Nhn Vn Giai Phm trn mt trn
vn ngh nm [Documents of the Executive Committee of the United
Association of Vietnamese Literature and Arts regarding the Struggle against the
Subversive Clique Nhn Vn Giai Phm on the Cultural Front in ], Gii
thiu kinh nghim cng tc ca Ta n v v gin ip phn cch mng ph
hoi hin hnh Nguyn Hu ang v Thy An [Introducing our experience
working with the court on the subversive, counter-revolutionary espionage case
212 ZINOMAN

involving Nguyn Hu ang and Thy An], Chnh n Nguyn Xun Dng,
H Ni, April , . Hereafter: the Nguyn Xun Dng Report.
. Originally from Qunh i Village, Qunh Lu District, Ngh An Province,
Nguyn Xun Dng graduated summa cum laude from the Indochinese Law
College and was appointed Chief Justice of the Tonkin Appeals Court under the
French. His appointment to the Peoples Court of H Ni after indicates
some continuity in legal personnel from the colonial to postcolonial era. Email
correspondence with Trn Kin, July , .
. It does not explain, for example, why this odd assortment of defendants was
singled out for judicial sanction.
. David Marrs Vietnam: State, War and Revolution () (Berkeley:
University of California Press, ) and H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews , no.
(), http://h-diplo.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XIV-.pdf.
. For recent research on , see Polly Jones, The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization:
Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era (New York:
Routledge, ) and Terry Cox, Challenging Communism in Eastern Europe:
and it Legacy (New York: Routledge, ).
. For a useful brief biography of Nguyn Hu ang, see Christopher Goscha,
Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (): An International
and Interdisciplinary Approach (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian
Studies Press, ), . More information is in Thy Khu, Nhn Vn
Giai Phm v vn Nguyn i Quc [Nhn Vn Giai Phm and the
Question of Nguyn i Quc] (Falls Church-VA: Ting Qu Hng, ):
.
. Peter Zinoman, Nhn Vn Giai Phm and Vietnamese Reform Communism
in the s: A Revisionist Interpretation Journal of Cold War Studies , no.
(Winter ): .
. Nhng cuc trao i gia Heinz Schutte va Nguyn Hu ang [Conversations
between Heinz Schutte and Nguyn Hu ang] (ti H Ni nhng ngy v
thng , v thng nm , thng v thng nm , thng
nm .) Typescript provided by Heinz Schutte.
. Zinoman, Nhn Vn Giai Phm and Vietnamese Reform Communism in the
s: A Revisionist Interpretation, . See, footnote .
. V Ngc Phan, Nh vn hin i: ph bnh vn hc, [Modern Writers: Literary
Criticism] (H Ni: Tn Dn, ).
. Lu M Trinh, History, Memory and Hair in Thy Ans Short Stories,
(Seminar Paper for History , UC Berkeley, June, ).
. Georges Boudarel, Cent fleurs closes dans la nuit du Vietnam. Communimse et
Dissidence (Paris: Editions Jacques Bertoin, ); Georges
Boudarel, Intellectual Dissidence in the s: The NhnVn - Giai Phm
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 213

Affair, Adapted from the French by Phi-Linh Baneth The Vietnam Forum, no.
().
. Alec Holcombe and Li Nguyn n, The Heart and Mind of the Poet Xun
Diu, , Journal of Vietnamese Studies , no. (Summer ),
.
. Heinz Schtte, Hundred Flowers in Vietnam, , (SUDOSTASIEN
Working Papers No. , Berlin, . Published by the Department of Southeast
Asian Studies Humboldt University).
. Hirohide Kurihara, Changes in the Literary Policy of the Vietnamese Workers
Party, , in Takashi Shiraishi and Motoo Furata, eds. Indochina in the
s and s (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Cornell University, ),
. Kuriharas original Japanese-language essay was published in Ajia,
Afurika gengo bunka kenky [Journal of Asian and African Studies], ;
Kim Ninh, A World Transformed: The Politics of Culture in Revolutionary
Vietnam, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, ) (chapter
Intellectual Dissent: The Nhn Vn - Giai Phm Period); Nguyn Ngc Tun,
Socialist Realism in Vietnamese Literature: An Analysis of the Relationship
between Literature and Politics, PhD dissertation, Victoria University,
(chapter : The Nhn Vn- Giai Phm Affair, a Peace Crisis); Shawn McHale,
Vietnamese Marxism, Dissent, and the Politics of Postcolonial Memory: Trn
c Tho, , Journal of Asian Studies , no. (Feb. ), . Vu
Gia, Phan Khi Ting Vit, Bo Ch V Th Mi [Phan Khi Vietnamese
Language, the Press and New Poetry] (H Ch Minh City: i Hc Quc Gia,
). L Hoi Nguyn, V Nhn Vn Giai Phm T gc nhn mt tro lu
t tng, mt cuc cch mng vn hc khng thnh, originally published on
the poet Nguyn Trng Tos blog, republished on the website Bauxite Vit Nam,
August , : http://boxitvn.wordpress.com////v%E%BB%A-
nhn-van-giai-ph%E%BA%Am-t%E%BB%AB-gc-nhn-m%E%BB%t-tro-l
%C%Bu-t%C%B-t%C%B%E%BB%Fng-dn-ch%E%BB%A-m%E%
BB%t-cu%E%BB%c-caacu/ (accessed August , ), Zinoman, Nhn
Vn Giai Phm and Vietnamese Reform Communism in the s: A Revi-
sionist Interpretation.
. Balazs Szalontai, Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, ,
Cold War History , no. (Nov. ), ; Martin Grossheim, The Lao ng
Party, Culture and the Campaign against Modern Revisionism: The Democratic
Republic of Vietnam Before the Second Indochina War, Journal of Vietnamese
Studies , no. (Winter ): .
. Thy Khu, Nhn Vn Giai Phm v vn Nguyn i Quc.
. Mark Sidel, The Constitution of Vietnam: A Contextual Analysis (Portland: Hart
Publishing, ), .
214 ZINOMAN

. This material evidence included draft manuscripts of the lead article from
issue # of Nhn Vn and correspondence between Nguyn Hu ang and
several bourgeois, reactionary writers.
. The Supreme Peoples Court was a new judicial body established in to
replace the disbanded Ministry of Justice.
. Sidel, The Constitution of Vietnam: A Contextual Analysis, .
. Gareth Porter, Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, ): .
. Penelope Nicholson, Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law: The Vietnam
Court Experience, Australian Journal of Asian Law , no. (May ), ;
Nicholson, Borrowing Court Systems: The Experience of Socialist Vietnam
(Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, ), .
. Thy Khu, Nhn Vn Giai Phm v vn Nguyn i Quc, .
. At the same time, he refused to retract some of his controversial opinions such as
his admiration for the artist Nguyn Sng.
. The French experience also impacted the NVGP court case because the Moscow
show-trials on which it was loosely modeled were both conceived and perceived
as Soviet renditions of the highly theatrical public trials of the French Revolution.
Julie A. Cassiday, Marble Columns and Jupiter Lights: Theatrical and Cinematic
Modeling of Soviet Show Trials in the s, The Slavic and East European
Journal , no. (Winter ): .
. Eugene Huskey, Vyshinskii, Krylenko, and the Shaping of the Soviet Legal
Order, Slavic Review , no. / (Autumn-Winter ), . Vyshinskii was
particularly sensitive to the educative role of law. In the current conditions, he
wrote, revolutionary legality assumes special importance not only as a weapon
of proletarian struggle against class enemies, but as a school of educating and
reeducating unstable elements in the laboring classes.
. Walter D. Connor, The Manufacture of Deviance: The Case of the Soviet Purge,
, American Sociological Review , no. (August ), .
. Human Rights Watch, Public Insecurity: Deaths in Custody and Police Brutality
in Vietnam, Sept. , , https://www.hrw.org/report////public-
insecurity/deaths-custody-and-police-brutality-vietnam (accessed July , ).
. Elements from the intelligentsia and the mass were skeptical about the case.
Most suspicious has been the amount of time it has taken to investigate and try
the case. This has raised fears that dont have sufficient evidence to make the
charges stick. On the Educational Role of Courts in communist systems, see
Luke T. Lee, Chinese Communist Law: Its Background and Development,
Michigan Law Review , no. (Feb. ), .
. Nicholson, Borrowing Court Systems, .
NHN VN GIAI PHM ON TRIAL 215

. The report described more problems in the cross-examination of Nguyn Hu


ang: At one point, we should have zeroed in on editorial # exhorting the
masses to protest. But we were too rigidly tied to our original list of questions
which made us lose focus. When we finally returned to editorial #, which called
for street protests and a mass uprising, [Nguyn Hu] ang admitted that he
wrote it. But we mistakenly followed up this admission with a question about his
motives for penning the essay; we should have focused more narrowly on the
essays subversive content. Seizing this opening, he insisted that he meant no
harm. We made a further error in this line of questioning by failing to establish at
the outset the fact that he had once said to a friend: I have no regrets other than
wishing that Nhn Vn had been even stronger.

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