Our readers speak out
1988 1988-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 14 →
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Dear editor, I am writing to you about a campaign calling for "justice to be done to the Vietnamese Trotskyist leaders" of the 1930s and 1940s, demanding the republication of their writings in Vietnam and free access to documents about their history.
The campaign follows the recent similar campaign for the names of the Moscow Trials victims to be cleared. [See pages 8-9 in this issue.] The campaign was initiated by the Vietnamese Trotskyist Group (Groupe Trotskyste Vietnamien, part of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire in France) and a number of other Trotskyist organizations. I personally am a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party, which is supporting the campaign.
An appeal has been drawn up as the basis of the campaign. We are building up the appeal including participants War moven king-class itself.
La list of signatories to from many people, intellectuals, former in the anti-Vietnam ent, and from the wormovement in Vietnam Simon Pirani, Support The campaign that Simon Pirani refers to is being carried out on behalf of the Vietnamese Trotskyist leaders who were executed without trial after being arrested by the Vietminh in 1945.
These men-including Ta Thu Thau, Tran van Thach, Nguyen van So, Phan van Hum, Phan van Chanh, and Huynh van Phuonghad a great following in the Saigon working class through the 1930s. They played an important role in the trade unions and the Indochinese Congress, and several took leading parts in the 1945 uprising against colonial rule.
The Vietnamese government and Communist Party have refused to comment on the evidence that the Trotskyist leaders were murdered. But the government has used slander to try to justify the arrests of the Trotskyists. For example, the latest edition of a Vietnamese government publication, "The August 1945 Revolution," states that the Trotskyists were "Japanese spies" and "saboteurs."
For a copy of the appeal and for additional information, contact the Groupe Trotskyste Vietnamien; BP 746 75532, Paris Cedex 11, France.
Detached
Dear editor, Living in the desert Southwest leaves me with a sense of detachment from the struggle. That means that the paper Socialist Action and related pamphlets are even more valuable to me. I plan to extend my subscription as well as become a sustainer.
Scan page 15
SociAlist Action
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Vietnamese Trotskyists