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The Politics of Nationalism in the Vietnamese Communist Discourse Thuy Thu Mai A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirement for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Science and Law, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies 30th January 2019 Word Count: 81,365 words Abstract The Vietnamese communists have always defined their revolution in national terms, telling the story of how the communists led the Vietnamese people to rescue and rebuild the nation from the plight of French colonisation and American aggression. This research problematises this national frame. Using post-structuralist discourse theory, it studies the process whereby the nation was imagined and became ‘real’ in the Vietnamese communist discourse and how this national imagining contributed to the legitimization of the socialist state in Vietnam. It argues that the Vietnamese nation is a discursive construct which legitimises the rule of the communist party and the socialist state in Vietnam. This argument is developed on three central findings. Firstly, the Vietnamese nation was constructed in the communist discourse in the very representation of French colonists, American interventionalists and their sponsored governments as enemies of the nation. Secondly, the nation was able to be imagined to be more real among the mass in the discursive fixing of national independence as the indispensable condition for the survival of the Vietnamese people, which occurred around the 1945 August Revolution. Last, this national imagination enabled the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and its socialist state to legalize its rule in Vietnam. Socialism and the leadership of the VCP are articulated as the indispensable condition to maintain national independence and to ensure that the national construction succeeds in Vietnam. The socialist regime, which includes the VCP and the socialist state, is equated with the nation in the communist discourse. The nation-making project of the Vietnamese communists is essentially a political project. It makes possible the establishment of socialism and allows the VCP to attain a monopolistic rule in Vietnam. It rules out other possibilities in Vietnamese politics, for example the possibility of having a non-communist government. It involves the destruction of enemies outside and inside the national self, whether they are foreign or Vietnamese, and the sacrifice of its own subjects to protect this national self. Moreover, the national identities of the Vietnamese communists and the boundaries of their national project are not objective but politically decided. The Vietnamese communists previously claimed to represent only the working class and made an enemy of other classes within the Vietnamese population. The boundaries of the nation used to be articulated to be close with the limits of the peasantry. This is in stark contrast with the VCP’s present claim to represent the whole nation. Author’s declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University’s Regulations and Code of Practices for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate’s own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: THUY THU MAI DATE: 30th January 2019 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Reverend Professor Martin Gainsborough and Professor Jutta Weldes, for the continued support during my PhD study, for their intellectual advice and encouragement and for their patience as my research evolves. They are the best mentors I could have had for my PhD study. Besides my supervisors, I also want to thank my fellow PhD friends for their support and kindness, for being my company all along. A special thank goes to Dr Natasha Carver, who has provided me with both intellectual and technical helps. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. My husband has been an endless source of encouragement. My children have enabled me to have necessary distractions, and so, more time to reflect on this research. Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………….4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REIVEW Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………...16 2.1. Nationalism Studies ........................................................................................................16 2.2. The Official Narrative in Vietnam ……………………………………………………22 2.3. International Literature on Vietnamese Nationalism .................................................26 Infancy Stage ……………………………………………………………………….. 26 Adolescence Period …………………………………………………………………. 27 The Revisionist Wave ……………………………………………………………… 30 New Scholarship ……………………………………………………………………. 34 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………. 37 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKD AND METHODLOGY Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 41 3.1. Theoretical Framework ………………………………………………………………41 Post-structuralism …………………………………………………………………...41 Discourse ……………………………………………………………………………42 Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe ……………………………………………45 Foucault’s Genealogical Approach ………………………………………………….49 3.2. The Case of Vietnamese Nationalism ………………………………………………...51 Research Objects …………………………………………………………………….51 Temporal Dimension ………………………………………………………………...53 Research Objectives …...…………………………………………………………….54 3.3. Methodology ……………………………………………………………………………55 Data and Collecting Methods ………………………………………………………..55 Methods of Analysis ….. …………………………………………………………….58 Translation …………………………………………………………………………...60 3.4. Self-Reflection ………………………………………………………………………….61 CHAPTER 4: FRENCH COLONISATION AND THE IDENTITY CRISIS IN VIETNAM 1 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………...... 62 4.1. Vietnam at the Time of the French Arrival ………………………………………….63 4.2. The Identity Crisis of the Vietnamese Elite ...………………………………………. 66 French Arrival and the Vietnamese Identity …………………………………………67 Confucianism as the Traditional Vietnamese Elite Discourse ……………………….72 Dislocations of the Confucian Discourse .........………………………………………78 France’s ‘Mission Civilisatrice’ and its Failure ………………………………….......81 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………… 84 CHAPTER 5: IDENTIFICATION PROJECTS WITH THE NATION Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 86 5.1. The Last Scholar Gentry: A Family Nation ………………………………………... 87 5.2. Reformers and/or Collaborators: A Nation under French Tutelage ……………….92 5.3. Radicalism: Individual Freedom and the Nation ……………………………………95 5.4. The Revolutionaries: Violence and the Nation ………………………………………98 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………103 CHAPTER 6: THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST DISCOURSE: BRING THE MASS IN Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………….105 6.1. Nguyen Ai Quoc and His Early Writings .…………………………………………..106 6.2. The Vietnamese Communist Discourse .……………………………………………..110 The Nodal Point: Revolution ………………………………………………………..111 The Myth of the Nation ……………………………………………………………..113 The Myth of Socialism: Bring the Mass in ..………………………………………..115 6.3. The Dominance of the Socialist myth ………………………………………………..120 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………124 CHAPTER 7: THE NATION: FROM MYTH TO a SOCIAL IMAGINARY Introduction .........................................................................................................................126 7.1. The Dominance of the Nationalist Myth ……………………………………………128 Japanese Occupation and Further Dislocation of the Vietnamese society …………128 The Dominance of the National Myth ………………………………………………139 7.2. The Nation: From Myth to Social Imaginary ………………………………………131 2 Famine, Viet Minh and the Beginning of the National Imaginary …………………132 The Independence Declaration and the National Frame ……………………………136 7.3. The French Return and the Consolidation of National Imaginary ………………..140 7.4. The Knowledge Claim about a Binary World