But it was not only in those early days of my revolutionary life that Uncle’s name was to be familiar to me. Later, at the time of the democratic movement in Hanoi, when I wrote for Notre Voix (Our Voice), the Party’s official organ published in French, the editorial board often received articles signed “P. C. Lin” sent from abroad as contributions to the paper. These typed articles were read carefully again and again, for we knew they were written by Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc. In them, Uncle expressed his opinions about a broad-based democratic front, or his opinions on the international situation, and the experiences provided by the Chinese Revolution. Each of these articles began with sentences which cleverly drew the attention of the readers, such as “If I were a Vietnamese revolutionary I …” or, “If the Yenan experience of the Chinese Communist Party is to be introduced, even a thick book would not be enough to expound it all, here I would like to give only a summary …”
All these images, ideas, all the tasks I performed at that time, are still fresh in my memory. And till the day when I was to meet Vuong, I hoped and I felt sure that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc himself, especially when I recalled Thu’s words as I was leaving the country. All that made me impatient.
It was already June, midsummer in Kunming. One day, Phung Chi Kien asked me to accompany him to Tsuy Hu where Vuong was waiting for us. We walked leisurely on the Tsuy Hu bank and came across a thin middle-aged man wearing a European-style suit and a gray fur hat. Kien introduced him to me as “Comrade Vuong.” I immediately recognized the man as Nguyen Ai Quoc. Compared with the photograph I had seen, he was much more active, more alert. And compared with what he was twenty years previously, he was as thin as before, the only difference was that at that time he was young and had had no beard. I still remember that, when I met him, I had no particular feeling as I had expected I would, except that I found in him that simplicity of manner, that lucidity of character which later when I worked by his side, had the same impact on me. Right at that first meeting I found him very close to me as if we were old acquaintances. I thought that a great man like him was always simple, so simple that nothing particular could be found in him. One thing which nevertheless struck me was that he used many words peculiar to central Vietnam. I never expected that a man who had been so long abroad would still speak dialects of his native place with their particular accents.
VIETNAM
Vuong, Kien, and I talked while walking slowly along the Tsuy Hu bank like the many fresh-air seekers around us. He inquired about our journey, the difficulties we had to face. He asked about the Democratic Front and the movement at home in recent times. About revolutionary work he said, “It is a good thing that you have come; you are badly needed here.” I did not forget to ask him, as Thu had suggested, about the League of Oppressed Peoples. He said, “An important question indeed, but conditions are not ripe enough for its organization.”
Then we parted. After that, I met him quite often together with Phung Chi Kien, Vu Anh, and Pham Van Dong. He often talked about the world situation, analyzed minutely the situation in China, and the Chinese resistance war against the Japanese. He laid particular stress on the double-faced attitude of the Kuomintang, apparently cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party in the fight against the Japanese but in reality striving to destroy it. The great task of the Chinese Communist Party was to unite all the anti-Japanese forces of the nation. As regards the Kuomintang, it must also unite with it, striving to win over the relatively progressive elements in its rank for the common struggle against the Japanese. But unity must go together with the fight against their wrong ideas and more particularly with vigilance against rightist tendencies among them, vigilance against the pro-Japanese group and those inclined to make concessions and to stop fighting.
As regards our work, he said, “You will go to Yenan. There you’ll enter the Party school to study politics. Strive to study military technique as well.”
At subsequent meetings before we went to Yenan, Uncle asked us again and again also to study military technique.
Thus, three of us, Pham Van Dong, Cao Hong Lanh, and I left Kunming for Kweiyang. The journey took three days in the hot sun. At Kweiyang we had to wait for a bus for Yenan.
At Kweiyang, we stayed at the office of the Eighth Route Army.* Since my coming to China, I had realized all the more clearly to what extent the Chinese and Vietnamese revolutions were closely related to each other. I was especially aware of the heartfelt care the Chinese Communist Party showed the Vietnamese revolution. Our Chinese comrades were very helpful. Wherever we went we were treated like blood brothers. At the Kweiyang office of the Eighth Route Army, I had the opportunity to read for the first time the paper Liberation and to learn about the situation in Yenan. Another thing to which our attention was drawn was the high esteem our Chinese comrades showed Uncle. We didn’t know how many times he had come to Kweiyang, but there everybody, from the man in charge of the office to those who did the cooking, knew Ho Quang very well. (Ho Quang was Uncle’s pseudonym.) Each of them talked about Ho Quang in a different way but all loved him. Many wished that Ho Quang would come often to their office to work and teach them Russian and English.
As food supplies in a region situated deep in the country like Kweiyang were very difficult to find and the Party’s finances were limited, we had to grow our own vegetables. Meat was very scarce. But the question of transportation was the greatest of our difficulties. We had to wait quite a long time for a bus.
Just when we were about to leave for Yenan, we received a message from Ho Quang telling us to wait for him instead. At that time Paris fell, the German fascists had already occupied France; we thought that, because of this new development, there had been a new decision. Some days later, Phung Chi Kien and Vu Anh also arrived at Kweiyang. They said that in the face of the new situation, they had come on Uncle’s instructions to go with us to Kweilin and from there to try to return to Vietnam. As France had surrendered, they added, there must be new developments in the situation in Indochina.
Thus, we didn’t go to Yenan, but to Kweilin instead.
In Kweilin, we contacted the office of the Eighth Route Army. As in Kweiyang, our Chinese comrades there did a great deal to help us. They often organized meetings with pressmen to whom we were to give information on the situation in Vietnam and the Vietnam revolutionary movement. As Vietnamese revolutionaries, we made contact with Gen. Ly Tji-shen, director of Chiang Kai-shek’s Southwest Headquarters. During the talk, Ly Tji-shen put forward the question of Allied troops entering Indochina and requested our help in elaborating plans for the coming of Chinese troops to Vietnam.
When Uncle came to Kweilin, and after we had told him of this request, he said, “We must have a clear-cut understanding regarding this question. Only the Soviet Red Army and the Chinese Red Army are fraternal to us, are really our allies. We really welcome them. As to Chiang Kai-shek troops, though they are also anti-Japanese to some extent, their nature is reactionary. In the Nationalist-Communist collaboration they talked of fighting the Japanese but actually sought every possible means to destroy the Communists. We must realize their reactionary character; otherwise it will be dangerous.”
At that moment if all of us stayed in Kweilin for a long time, we would be discovered by the Kuomintang authorities. Moreover, “the Kiangnan incident” occurred when Chiang Kai-shek troops launched a sudden attack against a unit of the New Fourth Army led by Seng Yang right in Kweilin city. They arrogantly confiscated and banned all books and papers in the local libraries. Terror reigned. The situation was tense. We were in a predicament. At any moment arrest could befall us should the Kuomintang happen to be on our trail.
Uncle suggested that we should move close to the Vietnam border and continue our revolutionary work there. We could thus get out of difficulty. But the main reason justifying the decision was that the situation at home required us to do so.
Chiang Kai-shek’s general, Chiang Fa-kwei, had already set up a Frontier Work Group placed