Vietnam Revolutionary Press - Stories of the early days The Vietnamese Revolutionary Press is about to reach the 100th anniversary of its establishment and development. To have the glorious and impressive achievements today, we cannot fail to mention the context of the early days and the efforts to build the Vietnamese Revolutionary Press by Leader Nguyen Ai Quoc. What were the early days of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Press like, what conditions and factors contributed to the birth of the Revolutionary Press... will be the main content of the topic "Vietnamese Revolutionary Press: Stories of the early days". |
“ In today’s era, without a political newspaper, there can be no so-called political movement”, “what we need first of all is a newspaper, without it we cannot systematically conduct a very principled and comprehensive propaganda and agitation ”, Leader Nguyen Ai Quoc on his journey to find a way to save the country, seemed to have taken to heart VI Lenin’s views on the press. And that was also one of the first reasons for the birth of Thanh Nien newspaper of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Press.
From the crisis and deadlock in the path to national salvation in the early 20th century
“ Phan Chu Trinh only asked the French to carry out reform... That was wrong, no different from asking the enemy for mercy/Phan Boi Chau hoped that Japan would help to expel the French. That was very dangerous, no different from “letting in a tiger through the front door and a leopard through the back door”/Hoang Hoa Tham was even more realistic, because he was directly fighting against the French. But according to people, he still had a heavy feudal character” - those were the comments of the young patriot Nguyen Tat Thanh in the early 20th century before the consecutive failures in the path of saving the country of his predecessors. Nguyen Tat Thanh greatly admired the patriotic spirit of the scholars, literati, and patriots who sacrificed themselves for the country, but he did not agree with the path of saving the country of his predecessors. Although Nguyen Tat Thanh's patriotic ideology had not yet encountered socialism at that time, it demonstrated a stature that surpassed the contemporary view of saving the country, which was to go out on your own to find a way to save the country, not to rely on any country; not to ask for help or call on others to help you.
From the deadlock and crisis of the way to save the country in Vietnam at that time, the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh was determined to leave to find a way to save the country. Later, he told the Soviet journalist Osip Mandelstam: “ When I was thirteen years old, I first heard three French words: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. For us, every white person is a French person. The French said so... In the schools for natives, the French taught people like parrots. They hid books and newspapers from our people. Not only books by new writers, but also Rousseau and Montesquieu were banned. So what to do now? I decided to find a way to go abroad .”
On June 5, 1911, from Nha Rong Wharf - Saigon Port, the patriotic young man Nguyen Tat Thanh left the Fatherland on the ship Amiral Latouche Treville to fulfill his ambition of liberating the country from the yoke of colonialism and imperialism. (Photo: VNA archive)
And on June 3, 1911, he boarded a French merchant ship and was hired as a kitchen assistant on board. On June 5, 1911, the ship Amiral Latouche Treville left Nha Rong port carrying a 21-year-old Vietnamese man named Nguyen Tat Thanh.
To the admiration of Lenin's views on journalism
The ship Amiral Latouche Tréville arrived in Marseille on July 6, 1911. However, the young man Nguyen Tat Thanh did not stay in France, but also went to several countries in Africa, America, England, participated in many activities and only returned to France at the end of 1917.
From here, he began his years of active revolutionary activities abroad. In early 1919, Nguyen Tat Thanh joined the French Socialist Party. That same year, at the Versailles Conference, on behalf of the Association of Vietnamese Patriots in France, Nguyen Tat Thanh, along with Phan Chau Trinh and Phan Van Truong, drafted the "Demand of the Annamese People" (the Eight-Point Declaratory) and sent it to the Conference, causing a stir in France and the world at that time. In July 1920, Nguyen Ai Quoc read Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Issues. In December 1920, Nguyen Ai Quoc attended the Congress of the French Socialist Party. Here, he voted in favor of the Third International and participated in the founding of the French Communist Party, becoming the first Vietnamese Communist. In 1921, with the help of the newly established French Communist Party, he and a number of revolutionaries in the French colonies established the Union of Colonial Peoples to fight against colonialism.
It was also during these years that he encountered and deeply appreciated VI Lenin's views on the press: " In today's era, without a political newspaper, there can be no movement called politics", "first of all, we need a newspaper, without it, we cannot systematically conduct a very principled and comprehensive propaganda and agitation"; "The press is the propagandist, the agitator, the general organizer, the general leader".
He clearly recognized the importance of revolutionary journalism, considering it a front, a powerful weapon in the struggle for national independence. He affirmed: revolutionary journalism must be the mouthpiece of the revolutionary organization, a guide in ideology and politics, guiding propaganda about revolutionary policies and lines, reflecting the lives and aspirations of the people. Nguyen Ai Quoc realized that: “ The press is a form of voice that is recorded, widely spread, and disseminated to a large number of readers, helping them understand more about issues they do not understand, expect, and wonder about, etc. The newspaper will be like a propagandist who is not present but still reaches the masses. The newspaper still has the presence and existence of a revolutionary organization. It presents the truth, so it is much more convincing than speeches and propaganda.”
He also clearly recognized that without revolutionary theory, there would be no revolutionary movement; without a vanguard organization to lead the revolution in the right direction and steps, the revolution could not succeed. And to launch and rapidly expand the revolutionary movement, to reach consensus on theory, politics and ideology to build a vanguard revolutionary organization, there must be a revolutionary newspaper. That newspaper - according to Lenin's concept - would be like a part of a giant forge that would fan every spark of the class struggle and of the people's anger into a great fire.
Lenin once expressed his opinion: In our opinion, the starting point of the activity, the first practical step towards establishing the desired organization, and finally the main thread that if we grasp it, we can continuously develop, consolidate and expand that organization must be the establishment of an All-Russian political newspaper. We need first of all a newspaper, without which it is impossible to systematically conduct a very principled and comprehensive propaganda campaign. From clearly understanding that point of view, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc affirmed that the first practical step towards establishing a desired political organization is to immediately establish a newspaper as a mouthpiece with the task of collective propaganda, without which it is impossible to convey policies and viewpoints to grassroots organizations and members, especially in conditions of secret operation. Nguyen Ai Quoc creatively applied Lenin's thought: What we absolutely need at this time is a political newspaper. If the revolutionary party does not know how to unify its influence on the masses through the voice of the press, then the desire to influence by other, more powerful methods is just an illusion.
Anh Thu
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