The Official Biography

2Vietnam’s official historiography had always made use of the official biography.2 It was a way for the nation to give meaning to the fleeting lives of its people. The biography was grafted onto the hero’s actual life and made sense out of the myriad daily activities of his existence. It diluted the details of an individual’s fate within the essence of the nation. The ethnologist K.H. Schreiner explained in his study of the heroic figure in Indonesia:

the person described is not, as it is with historical biographies, a historical figure who lived and worked in a particular era, in a particular place. At the centre of the work there is much more, an abstract form, the expression of an ideal. Any part of the character’s personality that doesn’t correspond to this heroic ideal is pushed aside, to the point where one loses the actual individual and his personal value. By this procedure, the hero’s biography becomes a sort of heroisation process, whereby a real person’s life is fused with that of a hero.3

3Communism and decolonisation in the Third World sparked a profound transformation of identity in countries that found themselves thrust into change. In Southeast Asia, this led to a widespread re-reading of national heritage. Borders alone could not define the boundaries of a nation whose territory had been repeatedly redrawn by foreign hands. The hero’s life was offered as a triumph to countries in search of a national identity. Throughout the centuries, ruling dynasties kept the flame of biographical identity alive by generating new patriotic genealogies. The communist regime in Vietnam did not question the inviolability of this principle. The hero represented the essence of the nation’s cultural identity so each new generation would be nourished by the exemplary figures of their glorious past. In 1954–55, the DRV began to reinterpret great historical figures as well as spread the stories about new heroic lives. The new hero’s story was part of a functionalist recasting of the national historiography. In Indonesia, it went against Javanese tradition to focus on the fate of one individual rather than a group, dynasty, or an entire people, but the Sino-Confucian world had always paid special attention to exceptional figures with a heroic destiny. In Vietnam, these life stories were always about a particular individual, and were officially presented by those in power. They never included any private details about a subject and his era. As far back as the fifteenth century, rulers rated the nation’s heroes according to patriotic merit, awarding them posthumous titles and organising patriotic rituals in their honour. The life stories of outstanding citizens reassured the mandarin bureaucracy, which sought to establish a social contract. These stories thus had an administrative and secular function. The Spiritual Powers of the Viet Kingdom, written in 1329, and the five-volume Heroes of the People’s Armed Forces, written 600 years later, provided their eras with vibrant descriptions of the heroes that protected the nation’s safety.4

4A hero’s life was always recounted by those in power. In communist Vietnam, they were written under the supervision of a special committee attached to the Party’s propaganda wing and followed the key principles of Hồ Chí Minh thought: “One naturally expresses what is useful to the people and to the nation. Just as one remains naturally silent on what is not useful to the people and the nation.” 5In 1952, biographical notices were entrusted to a group of progressivist intellectuals under the leadership of the writer Nguyễn Tuân (1910–1987). A member of this commission recalls:

When we got together to discuss a hero’s life, we first had to get rid of the parts that were not proper. Official biographers created idealised characters, made up on paper. But at the same time, we had to make sure we didn’t lie too much. Sometimes it was indeed difficult since the intellectuals often had very little contact with these heroes.6

5Cù Chính Thào, the younger brother of Cù Chính Lan, hero of the battle of Hòa Bình elected in 1952, affirms that the government never sent a cadre to his family to ask questions about his brother’s childhood or life. Historic accuracy was obviously not essential to the hero’s life story.

6Nguyễn Văn Trỗi (1940–1964) is a good example of someone with a double life story. In 1965, the North Vietnamese government wanted to offer people the exemplary life of a simple young man from the central part of the country (Quảng Nam-Đà Nẵng) who went to Saigon to make his life amidst the “misery of the Southern regime”. Once he saw the injustice of the system, Trỗi turned towards the Resistance. His engagement was due to his good sense, and his devotion was a model for the people of the South who were not very receptive to orders from the North. This idealised Nguyễn Văn Trỗi was pinned onto the average everyday reality of a young man “like everybody else”, who even sacrificed his love for his beautiful young girlfriend Phan Thị Quyên to fight for his country’s independence. In 1965, the government wanted to show the spontaneity and spirit of initiative of the South Vietnamese in their participation in the movement of national liberation. To do this, however, they had to tone down the actual influence of North Vietnam on operations so as not to offend a deeply rooted southern particularism. In 1975, when the reunification of the country was finally achieved, the government propaganda apparatus took another look at this hero from Đà Nẵng. We thus read in the army’s daily, Quân dội nhân dân, that Nguyễn Văn Trỗi did not go of his own accord to Saigon.7 He was apparently already an active member of the Communist Youth in Central Vietnam before his departure for the South, and had been sent by his organisation to strengthen the resistance movement there. On 17 February 1964, three months before his attack on the American Secretary of State Robert McNamara (9 May 1964), he had joined a secret commando unit of the PAVN on assignment in Saigon.

7When war broke out with the South, the propaganda department of the VWP decided to promote a contingent of heroes from that area: Nguyễn Văn Tư (Bến Tre, 1966), Tạ Thị Kiều (Bến Tre, 1966), Nguyễn Văn Bé (Thủ Dầu Một, 1967), Nguyễn Việt Hồng (Rạch Giá, 1970), etc. Thus in 1965, the government tasked the North Vietnamese writer Trần Đình Vân (aided by Trỗi’s widow, Phan Thị Quyên, from Hà Đông province in North Vietnam) with writing a story that would make Nguyễn Văn Trỗi the first “new hero” from the South to have national impact during the American War. In 1975, on the other hand, the Party was eager to show the predominance of Northern initiatives in the unification of the country. In this new version, Nguyễn Văn Trỗi was only an “agent of the North”, so his work with the Resistance could not symbolise any “Cochin-chinese specificity”. Trỗi’s charisma and his popularity on the international scene transformed him into a key figure in the legitimacy of the government in Hanoi.

Figure 6. Nguyễn Văn Trỗi

8The heroic biography questioned the nature of memory, both individual and collective. A life story that was written post mortem anchored the fate of an anonymous figure — who seemed an unlikely candidate for such honours while he was alive — in the upheavals of a nation’s history. The official biography focused on the details of daily life that had generally been overlooked by his contemporaries. With time, the memories of his close relations were reformed around the series of events reproduced in his mimeographed biography. The official life story was placed in direct competition with individual memory and transformed it from the inside. Biographical reconstruction was also applied to new heroes who were elected while still alive. The government removed the new hero from his geographical context immediately following his election, thereby hoping to sever his ties with the anonymous existence he had led until then. He was often promoted to positions outside of his native region. At regular intervals, however, they would orchestrate his return to his village, but this show of prestige barely left him time to see his own family. The propaganda apparatus wanted to limit the influence of individual memory on the construction of a new myth. A certain distance was required before the myth of the new hero could take hold in the minds of the Vietnamese peasant.

9The heroic biography offered the government a great way to take control of the nation’s diverse local history. Just as the heroic figures of the past fought to defend their country, the heroes of Tuyên Quang stabilised a village identity that had been shaken by the central government’s intrusion behind the “bamboo hedge”. The DRV was offering the commune the chance to feel that they were at the very heart of national reconstruction. In 1958, the State set up study committees on Party history at all administrative levels to develop a new historiography of the local.8 Provincial chronicles and heroic biographies were part of a re-homogenisation of the national patrimony. Through the exemplary lives of these “celebrated children”, the specific history of a village joined up with the great heroism of the entire nation.

The Myth of the Hero

10The “new hero” was basically a peasant issue in Vietnam. Most heroes came from the lower classes, offering the government a powerful tool for communicating with the rural population, which accounted for 93 per cent of North Vietnam’s 22 million people in 1955. Their reception varied according to the cultural milieu in which they were placed. The closer they were to the centres of power, the less effective they were. They worked best in areas with a weak cultural base, where the people were more receptive to the marvellous image of the new heroic national figure. A resident of Trạm Lộ village (Thuận Thành, Hà Bắc) remarked:

It’s impossible to become a hero! Many cadres from the province have come to talk to us about the heroes of national reconstruction. I always wanted to become one of them one day, but at the same time I was discouraged by the enormity of the task. So they encouraged me to imitate the example of these men. We men of the people, we often dream of becoming heroes but we are simple people. La Văn Cầu, for example, was a Party member with close ties to the government. We, on the other hand, are simple peasants, it’s just too hard.9

11Repeated mention of the exemplary worker or farmer’s exploits set the bar intimidatingly high. The State proposed a model to follow, a direction, rather than a concrete goal to attain. It expected its citizens to be totally dedicated to the collective: becoming a hero meant a reorganisation of their daily lives. By actively participating in the patriotic emulation movement, the inhabitants of Vũ Nông village (Nguyên Bình, Cao Bằng) knew they would have to leave their homes since a hero had to sacrifice his wife, family, and ancestors at the altar of the new regime. The frequent meetings and productivist requirements of the emulation campaigns were the physical embodiment of the “selflessness” demanded by the authorities. The new hero’s inaccessibility was thus announced with a certain fatality, which ran counter to the usual familiarity of these new elite from humble origins.10 For centuries, Vietnamese tradition granted secular authorities the power to “choose and endorse figures from the current dynasty”. The heroes of Tuyên Quang were progressively assimilated to the figure of the outstanding citizens of the past. The well-educated initially considered him a type of high official with a long career rather than as a mythical figure.

12In many areas, however, people knew nothing about government policy so continued to view the new hero as the stuff of myth. A feeling of exclusion imperceptively spread among the rural masses. The idea of coming across a real hero at a meeting organised by provincial authorities was unthinkable to the men and women whose lives revolved around working in the fields. A resident of the village of Quỳnh Bá (Quỳnh Lưu, Nghệ An) said: “A hero is somebody huge! When I went to study at the provincial People’s Committee, I listened attentively to the hero Nguyễn Trung Thiếp, but I didn’t dare talk to him. Everyone applauded after his speech, it was very impressive. I had a lot of respect for him and I never for one moment thought I could be a hero like him.”11 In the countryside, the sacred nature of the new hero was augmented by his gift for public speaking, his ability to speak Vietnamese if he was an ethnic minority, or his close familiarity with the leading cadres. But in any case, the new hero hardly ever ventured into the countryside. The peasant could only imagine him, viewing him as someone from far away, assimilated into the milieus of power and lying “outside of normality”. Cadres from the commune evoked his deeds on patriotic holidays. Within the popular imagination, the real heroic figure existed alongside one that was imagined and idealised. The less one actually saw of the hero, the more he represented an ethical absolute. By cleverly controlling his rare appearances, DRV propaganda made him into the symbol of the new patriotic and moral ideal.

The Hero’s Childhood

13The Party’s propaganda department traced the roots of the hero’s legitimacy to his childhood and early youth. Invariably full of misery and injustice, the hero’s origins denied him the right to blissful innocence. An official biography always began with a litany of suffering endured by the future heroic figure. The Catholic hero Hoàng Hanh (1952) began his tale with memories of a childhood scarred by “colonial oppression”. He wrote in his autobiography:

My previous life was no different from that of an insect, of an ant. You open your eyes and see sorrow and poverty. When I was twelve I worked as a servant. I had the body of a child but was already working very hard. I had enough to eat, but I was tired of always being beaten and insulted at work. They beat me whenever they felt like it. Whenever I talked to my family about it, I cried. Then when I was seventeen, my father died.12

14This list of injustices gave the government a way to put colonialism on trial. The hero’s first accomplishment was surviving the violence of an “illegitimate oppressive system”. All of the decorated national heroes from 1952–1962 were raised “under the yoke of colonial oppression”. Having endured the disintegration of the family unit caused by Western influence, the heroic child emerged with a halo of glory which remained with him throughout his career. Having managed to tolerate the intolerable with courage and dignity, he had triumphed over normality. Growing up with just one parent, or none at all, increased his aura of invincibility. A look at the first heroes elected in Tuyên Quang in May 1952 shows clearly that being an orphan increased one’s chances at winning this national title: Nguyễn Thị Chiên was an orphan, Ngô Gia Khảm lost his father and father-in-law, Hoàng Hanh lost his father when he was a child, as did Trần Đại Nghĩa and La Văn Cầu, and Cù Chính Lan lost his mother when he was very young — only Nguyễn Quốc Trị escaped the family tragedy. The official biography of the hero drew a parallel between the destruction of the family unit and the taking hostage of society by French forces. The rupture of this relationship of filial protection threw the adolescent into the abyss of injustice and exploitation.

15Vietnamese culture conferred upon its rightful leaders a filial responsibility towards those struck down by misfortune. According to this ancient tradition, if a government failed to shoulder this responsibility, then the people had the right to revolt against what they deemed irresponsible leadership. Government propaganda repeatedly stressed the suffering caused by the colonial administration in order to weaken the link between the people and their collaborationist leaders. In the late 1940s, the Việt Minh accused the “illegitimate” government of mistreating its citizens due to the “feudalism of the landowning classes and exploiters of the people”. Under constraint, the future hero sold his “labour potential” in the hopes of surviving the disappearance of his family. A classist exploitation turned him away from the roads of knowledge and education, violating once again the traditional responsibility of the State. The labour hero Ngô Gia Khảm (1952), for example, wrote in his memoirs about the cruel treatment he received as a servant in Hải Phòng.13 A child’s life invariably deteriorated after he left home. The heros’ childhood was indelibly marked by this filial bond such that the death of a parent was a trauma, yet one that the heroic child managed to rise above with fortitude.

16The hero’s filial piety towards his parents or ancestors was an important part of the heroic ideal. The tale of young Morosov — who joined forces against his own family out of loyalty to the Soviet Communist Party — would never work in Vietnam. On the contrary, a good hero was first a good Confucian in his attachment to the family and the Party. In a biography of the ethnic Mãn hero Bàn Văn Mình (1955), the writer Hải Như devotes more time to the hero’s relationship with his mother than to his connection with the central government.14 Readers understood from the story that the energy and initiative of their hero was primarily due to his deep respect for filial piety. The hero’s childhood was marked by both a traditional devotion to his ancestral spirits and a visceral hatred of the colonial government. Blasphemous foreigners were accused of undermining a relationship between members of the community that had stood for several thousand years. The heroic teen’s greatness lay in his determination to preserve a moral code in the face of a decaying social order. Shaken by social upheavals, the young hero set an example for his peers; his choices and his engagements had a purely axiological meaning.

The Hero and the Party

17The future hero had a double initiation into adulthood. As a child he had already learned to situate himself within the disorder of society, and was scarred in his youth by injustice. Then, carried away by his anger, the adolescent made the “wise” choice to align himself with the progressivist movement (mass organisations, military groups, self-defence units, etc.). Ngô Gia Khảm wrote in 1952:

I got involved in the movement and gradually began to understand. One day, a guy named Nhân [one of Trường Chinh’s pseudonyms] came up to me. He said that if the French imperialists stay one more day on our soil, our people won’t have enough rice to eat or enough clothes to wear. Then he told me about the Soviet Union. They had a Stalinist constitution that protected the rights of all workers; there was no evil [General] Lecuyer or Americans. Workers and people worked happily and enthusiastically to ensure everyone had enough food and clothing. I listened as he spoke about the USSR, my heart full of joy.15

18The future hero met people who helped him materialise and channel the excess anger that had been building up in him since childhood. His real intellectual apprenticeship began when he embarked upon the ideological training by the Việt Minh, which took the place of his missing family. He was welcomed and was initiated by a group that was inspired by the words and writings of the central government. Cadres talked to these promising young people and taught them to read and write. The future hero’s first initiation was a moral education, inaugurating his impending entry into the universe of excellence that was the Party.

19The future hero’s second initiation was the moment of his induction into the Party. Becoming a Party member was the ultimate honour and the only consecration that really mattered in the future hero’s life. Biographers embellished the sacred event with the tears and torments of so many sleepless nights. To earn the title of national hero, one had to undergo a political baptism into the Party. The dutiful individual finally attained the envied status of outstanding citizen within the new society. Ngô Gia Khảm wrote:

In 1939, I had the honour of becoming a member of the Indochinese Communist Party. I still remember when Comrade Lương Khánh Thiện, one of the Party cadres at the time, said during the ceremony: now, Comrade, you are a member of the Party. A comrade must try his best to follow the Party line. You will have to fight until your dying day. A comrade must be faithful to the Party his whole life, and believe that the revolution can win. I felt like I was leaving the darkness and was bathed in light. Tears rolled down my face. I began a new life. I didn’t sleep at all that night, and neither did my wife.

20Becoming a Party member provided a framework for understanding the inconsistencies and shortcomings of one’s time, and with it the ability to make it better. The group acknowledged the happy new arrival and his outstanding moral character. He reached the ultimate stage of knowledge during the induction ceremony. The future hero was grateful, and the Party showed that it cared about those whose lives had been shattered by the old regime. His official life story stressed the contrast between the hero’s past suffering and the justice and equality of his new life. Nguyễn Thị Chiên (1952) from Thái Binh and Mạc Thị Bưởi (1955) from Hải Hưng thus found a new way to live out their lives within the community.16 The government’s solicitude flattered those of modest means and offered proof that the tide could turn in their favour. The commune became the theatre of this reorganisation, where the virtuous man played the leading role. The future heroic figure earned social recognition. He helped organise the emulation movement and became an example for his peers. The new State apparatus made professional advancement accessible to the common people, and the official biography showed clearly that active participation in the VWP brought numerous advantages. In order to position the outstanding citizen within the hierarchy of honours, the biographical committee described in detail the government’s appreciation: “Núp was cherished by the villagers and his compatriots. He was elected Banner of the Emulation Movement for the Liberation Struggle of the compatriots of Tây Nguyễn. He received a medal of the highest order and Hồ Chí Minh himself presented him with some clothing and a badge.”17

Meeting Hồ Chí Minh

21The hero’s meeting with Hồ Chí Minh was meant to confirm the order inherent in the new society and established a direct connection between the government and its people. He brought the common man closer to the father of the nation, who had previously been out of reach. The hero was multi-faceted: he was a worker and a peasant, a Catholic and an ethnic minority, a man, woman and child. The government could thus offer a suitable heroic figure for every stratum of society. The production of these great men allowed the regime to ground its real power in a hierarchical relationship with the “hero of heroes”, the Head of State. The story of the hero’s meeting with Hồ was not repeated as often as the tales of his exploits, but it offered yet another glimpse of this new figure. In order to situate the new hero in a hierarchy of power, the government had to undercut his myth somehow, since he should in no way present direct competition to the State. The meeting between the two representatives of Sino-Confucian authority — political power (leaders) and traditional power (spirits and heroes) — was described in such a way as to erase any appearance of collusion. Their respective areas of jurisdiction had been precisely delineated. Though venerated at the local level, the hero owed his existence to the central government. He was completely subservient to it. Official biographies culminated with the details of this meeting.

Figure 7. Meeting with Hồ Chí Minh

22Sino-Confucian culture rests on its sense of hierarchy. Even though the DRV claimed to be a government by the people and for the people, Hồ Chí Minh still retained his right to intercede. For the average peasant, meeting Uncle Hồ was a sacred act, a privilege reserved for extraordinary people. The new hero became part of an elite for whom the unthinkable had become reality. Patriotic propaganda related at length the meeting between the president and his exemplary servants to situate the new hero within the hierarchy of honours. The hero took on the role of child before the father of the country. His tears were proof that his commitment was sincere, and his humility reinforced the sanctity of the nation’s leaders. The entire apparatus rested on Hồ Chí Minh’s personification of the new regime. The tears of the young Southern combatant, Tạ Thị Kiều (1966), reaffirmed his dominance as the sole representative “of a heroic people with a heroic history” — “This afternoon I met Uncle Hồ, I was extremely happy, I looked at him and couldn’t help breaking into warm tears.”18

Figure 8. Hero’s cemetery

The Recycling of the Hero

23Once awarded the national title and placed in a hierarchy according to his rank, the hero faded from the public eye. The State then elected new ones to keep up the momentum. The meeting with Uncle Hồ was the last chapter in the hero’s biography and signalled his death or dissolution into the illusion of an ideal. Officially, after the meeting the hero was sent back to his home province to begin spreading the movement. Once he returned to his family, his symbolic role was finished. The central government’s solicitude also limited his field of action. From now on he was expected to be modest and dedicated in his new daily life. His official biography stopped at the moment of his return home. If a new hero strayed from the ideal established by the Party, his errant behaviour must not contradict the exemplary course of his official existence. The State had already turned its attention to other “wonderful stories” and the new hero was destined to be forgotten. His return home — whether idealised or real — announced the final stage of his illustrious life.

Figure 9. Nguyễn Viết Xuân

Figure 10. Tomb of Kim Đồng

Figure 11. Tomb of Phan Đình Giót

24Silence was not the only way to close the book on the new hero’s official existence, however. Among the 148 heroes elected from 1952–1964, 13 per cent were awarded posthumously. The dead had an advantage over the living: they offered the State a finished picture of the revolutionary ideal, one that could never be tarnished. Unlike in mainland China, only soldiers who had fallen in battle received a heroic death in Vietnam. Until 1964, workers or peasants who died in work-related accidents were not commemorated, as Maoist China did with the young work hero Lei Feng.19 The death of a hero represented his profession of faith in the system via one final act, validating the sacrifice and the legitimacy of his martyrdom.

25Just before the outbreak of war with the South, the new hero had fulfilled his mission and the DRV could now take up arms. One suspects, however, that the official depictions do not fully reflect the reality of the heroic figure. Beyond the allegory of official discourse, what was the real face of the new hero in Vietnam from 1950–1960? What role did he actually play in the building of the nation? These questions led me to probe the image and myth of the new hero to examine the areas that remain in shadow.

The Making of the New Hero in Vietnam

26In 1952, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam created the titles of “Hero of the People’s Armed Forces” and “Labour Heroes”. Between the first national conference for emulation fighters and cadres held in Tuyên Quang from 1–6 May of that year, and the third national meeting in Hanoi in April 1962, the government elected 147 new heroes.20 Organised around Labour Day in the liberated zone, the Tuyên Quang conference marked the end of the Chinese-led patriotic emulation campaign begun in the summer of 1950. The State brought together the elite emulation fighters from the provincial level: 154 emulation fighters, including 41 peasants, 41 workers, 52 soldiers, 5 teachers, 7 civic workers, 6 exemplary cadres, and 2 exemplary students. Awarded were 7 new hero titles — 4 to soldiers and 3 to workers.21 The government was careful to reward all segments of the population, including ethnic minorities and Catholics, who had suffered from deep divisions during the war. During the inaugural session a special tribute was paid to Cù Chính Lan, the only posthumous recipient.

Figure 12. Hồ Chí Minh with the “New Heroes” at Tuyên Quang (1952)

Figure 13. Conference of 1956

27During the second awards period (on 31 August 1955 and 7 May 1956), the National Assembly simply validated the government’s decision to nominate 69 soldiers (26 in 1955 and 43 in 1956) as symbols of the victory over the French. Nineteen of them were promoted to the highest rank as martyrs for the national cause. Within the hierarchy of the PAVN, the nominations of 1955–56 were based on rankings provided by each unit during annual evaluation campaigns. Once the list was drawn up at the central level, political commissioners invited the nominees to Hanoi to receive their prizes. Of course, there were exceptions. Chu Văn Mùi (1955) was not rewarded as part of the emulation movement, but belonged to a guild that the DRV wanted to honour at the end of the war. Conversely, the gunner Phùng Văn Khẩu was already a famous figure when the government named him “Military Hero” in 1955. In 1952, everyone had been chosen based on the social stratum or class they belong to; in 1955–56, however, the State paid tribute to the courage and dedication of the army after the victory at Ðiện Biên Phủ (7 May 1954). These 69 nominations were part of the DRV’s policy to celebrate the heroism of the army.22

28With the return of peace, the DRV reoriented its emulation campaign around three distinct goals: carrying out the final phase of land reform, reorienting the economy toward socialist principles, and developing the mass culture movement. On 7 July 1958, Hồ Chí Minh opened the fourth national meeting in a spirit of internationalism. The two-day conference in Hanoi hosted the 456 people nominated during the various phases of the emulation campaign throughout the country. The government also invited 40 heroes elected in previous conferences (Ngô Gia Khảm, Trần Đại Nghĩa, Hoàng Hanh, La Văn Cầu, Núp, etc.) as well as foreign guests from brother nations, 50 government and Party officials, and 50 people from various government branches (zone, province, and city). The government’s main focus was now on the working class and on refugees from the South, known as “regroupees”. While ethnic and religious factors influenced the election of the first seven national heroes at Tuyên Quang, the main concern in 1958 was reconstruction and national reunification. Consequently, 76 per cent of those elected were workers (only 3 from an ethnic minority: 1 Thái and 2 Mường). In 1958, the government had other priorities. First they had to demonstrate that refugees from South Vietnam were actively working to rebuild the country. Many of them attended the conference, and six of them received the title of “labour hero”. Finally, the government had to root the conference in internationalist soil, so they officially recognised their debt to the People’s Republic of China by decorating the worker Hồ Xây Dậu, a miner from Cẩm Phả of Chinese origin (his family was originally from Canton).

Figure 14. Hồ Chí Minh, Conference of 1962

29Finally, in 1962, the DRV held one last national conference in Hanoi, their fifth, before war broke out with the South. Held in the days following Labour Day (4–6 May) under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Lê Thanh Nghị, the meeting put an end to three seasons of socialist emulation (1959, 1960, and 1961).23 It was part of the government’s new policy of economic recovery, including the widespread creation of cooperatives (agricultural, industrial, and commercial), establishment of a five-year plan (1960–64) similar to those of other socialist countries, development of a strong cultural policy focusing on remote areas, and the opening of economic resettlement zones.24 The 1962 conference announced a reorganisation of socialist emulation policy. Although the selection of candidates for new heroes was formerly under the National Emulation Committee and the Ministry of Labour, it now fell to the various branches of activity under the direction of their ministry. The third national conference produced 45 future labour heroes and 985 emulation fighters, to spearhead the reorientation of the nation’s economy.25 Almost half of the titles went to figures from the cooperative movement and outstanding workers from heavy and light industry (11 and 10, respectively). In addition, the government wanted to promote the integration of southern migrants, and so awarded nine people from South Vietnam. They also demonstrated their goodwill towards the Chinese minorities in the northeast (mostly in Hải Ninh) — an area which had always been a sensitive subject between the two nations26 — and elected three “overseas Chinese” to show their internationalist spirit: Châu Hoà Mủn, a fisherman from the border region of Hải Ninh, Voòng Nải Hoài, a truck driver from the Cẩm Phả mine, and Mai Tinh Kang, a worker in a power tool factory in Hanoi. In the end, the government chose just a few individuals from minority ethnic groups (Bàn Văn Mình, an ethnic Man from the Thái Mèo autonomous zone, was the ideal spokesman) and focused instead on the majority Kinh who worked in the new economic zones established within predominantly ethnic provinces.

30On the eve of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the DRV continued to produce its “great virtuous men”. During the five election sessions of these new men, the government endowed all of its provinces — with the notable exception of Ninh Bình — with a contingent of new heroes. They were spread out evenly throughout the country, which reflects the determination of the DRV’s policy on heroism. The geography of the new hero helped define a new political figure, whose genesis was intimately linked with the reconstruction of the national space.

Geography of the New Hero

31The Propaganda Committee of the VWP now had a contingent of new heroes that spanned the 24 provinces of North Vietnam. The final decision in the selection process rested with the government and its representatives, and the criteria were often based on some statistical objective (gender, ethnicity, social origin): “It was first a question of means and statistics. If a sector or a province already had a lot of heroes, the government would support another sector or province that had been overlooked.”27 Between 1952 and 1964, the only exception to this rule was the Catholic enclave of Ninh Bình province, which had still not seen a single new hero among their ranks. Elsewhere, the government respected a more localist orientation. The new hero personified the nation on the provincial level.

32If we divide North Vietnam’s 24 provinces into 3 sub-regions (the mountainous north, the Red River Delta and coast, and the southern provinces),28 and consider the heroes selected from South Vietnam and mainland China, it is clear that the creation of the hero mainly boiled down to demographics. The more populous a region was, the greater its chances of producing a significant number of new heroes. The provinces of the Red River Delta alone produced a third of the new heroes elected between 1952 and 1964. But production of “great men” was by no means an urban affair: Hanoi only had ten heroes from 1955 to 1962, and Hải Phòng only had one in 1958.29 The new heroism privileged the countryside. Rural provinces with a high population density played key roles in the organisation of the bureaucracy of heroism. Once again, the province of Nghệ Tĩnh (Nghệ An-Hà Tĩnh) was at the forefront of the national movement. Twenty of its citizens received a title, giving it the highest concentration of new heroes in the nation (13.5 per cent).30 The Nghệ Tĩnh rural zone, a small industrialised urban centre (Vinh) with a high population density and a majority of ethnic Kinh, was exactly the type of geo-demographic area targeted by the government. Along the same lines, the provinces of Vĩnh Phú (7 per cent), Hà Bắc (5.5 per cent), Nam Định (4.8 per cent), and Quảng Ninh (4.8 per cent) were at the head of the national movement.

33While the shift from military heroes to labour heroes should logically favour provinces with a heavy industrial base, this was not at all the case.31 This could suggest that the shaping of the new hero was in fact deter-mined by the socio-economic restructuring of society. Such an approach would support an intentionalist view of the emergence of the new heroic figure. As an example, Thái Bình province had over 70,000 workers but was granted no labour heroes between 1952 and 1964. The government seemed to think that it was already adequately represented by its two military heroes so did not really need one more (in terms of mobilising the masses).32 Similarly, the region of Hải Phòng, the industrial heartland of North Vietnam with more than 20,000 workers in 1959, only saw one worker elected labour hero in 1958. In contrast, Nghệ Tĩnh had 20 times fewer workers than Thái Bình but garnered more than 13 per cent of the national total.

34The uneven distribution of new heroes in North Vietnam sparked the emergence of a new geography of identity, with the province of Cao Bằng in the north (4.8 per cent of the national total), Vĩnh Phú in the Red River Delta (7 per cent), and Nghệ Tĩnh in the south (13 per cent) delineating this space. The DRV thus deliberately chose to create new heroes in the less ideologised areas, regardless of the outcome of the emulation campaign in the region. While the emulation fighter was a direct consequence of the emulation campaign, the new hero, on the other hand, was quite separate from the movement. Senior cadres in charge of emulation knew what they were doing, and the presence of heroes throughout the nation was indeed a result of careful organisation. The new outstanding citizen was then expected to concretise at the local level both national unification and ethnic homogenisation.

The New Hero’s Professional Career

35The new hero of Sino-Soviet extraction posed a challenge to Vietnamese society: how does one confer national prestige on a heroic figure who is still in activity (from 1952–1964, 87 per cent of the heroes were elected while they were still alive)? What does one do with these model citizens once the flamboyant tale of their exploits has been utilised? “A hero is a person who does not age”, they often say in the countryside. The hero of Tuyên Quang, however, grew increasingly bent over with the passing years. In reality, the title of hero heralded the moment when its recipient had to distance himself from his family. The government encouraged the hero’s disappearance to better control how he was remembered and to strengthen the myth surrounding him in the countryside. The new hero left his village only to lose himself in a distant city, far from any connection to his bloodline. He began a second life: the life of a government cadre with honorary responsibilities. What real role did these heroes have within the government apparatus?

36The title of “new hero” did in fact offer a means of social ascension. The government assigned its top heroes to carry out propaganda missions in their field, and stressed that the hero’s professional rise was also due to his exceptional productivity and/or success in battle. For government leaders, the new hero had not only performed exceptional deeds, he now also required personalised administrative placement, which was an incredible idea for most people. Crowned “Hero of the Armed Forces” in 1952, the ethnic Tày La Văn Cầu was a boon for the propaganda department of the VWP. In the beginning he still had trouble writing in quốc ngữ (a transliteration of the Vietnamese language), but the young soldier was sent to give talks in the Tày language about his experiences to units of the PAVN stationed clandestinely in the Việt Bắc. With the return of peace, all labour heroes had to do the same, and several times a year they had to host lectures and conferences in production areas (factories, agricultural cooperatives, etc.) and within the government apparatus.33 Once they were selected, the government reserved the right to terminate their propaganda activities if they did not achieve the desired results. The low cultural level of the new heroes often made further work in these areas impossible after the first probationary year. When the results were satisfactory, however, the administration appointed the new hero to a position overseeing propaganda. Thus Phùng Văn Khẩu (1955), after receiving his title and additional training, left his job as a gunner in 1961 to become deputy political commissioner of an artillery regiment. Similarly, the military hero Chu Văn Mùi (1955) was assigned by the Ministry of Defence to be head of Ideological Affairs of his regiment and a few years later was appointed secretary of the Party cell.

37Very few new heroes experienced this kind of career advancement, but their upward mobility was real and someone of humble origins could be propelled to the forefront of the local scene. But often the government did not want to proceed beyond that. It could be dangerous to promote someone to too high a level, given the presumed limitations of the candidates. Government leaders were afraid that the new hero’s reputation would suffer if he was unable to perform duties at the national level. In the end, the issue of heroism remained primarily a peasant affair for the government. They had no intention of forming an elitist body within society out of the new heroes, aiming instead to reaffirm their identification with the people. The military hero and the labour hero symbolised a reworking of the hierarchy of honours. In no way were they to be confused with actual political leaders, as this could have had a negative effect on the masses. The new model citizen gave the people the hope of upward mobility based on merit. If the emulation fighter was living proof of a tangible ideal, the new hero brought together both the accessible and the wondrous. The government contrived to position the heroic figure on this scale of political perception. Official propaganda stressed that the new hero was not only higher in the hierarchy than the emulation fighter, he also enjoyed greater political authority. Showing the new heroes flanked by portraits of Hồ Chí Minh was insufficient — the government wanted to give the hero the illusion of a political reality, albeit through subterfuge.

38In the late 1950s, the government was thus trying to integrate the carefully selected heroic figures into leadership positions within its administration. Already in 1954, “new men” were assigned important positions in the communal people’s assemblies.34 In 1959, their presence in the local decision-making apparatus was increased during elections of the people’s assemblies and committees at the communal, district, and provincial levels. In 1959 seats for the National Assembly were also up for re-election. The provincial People’s Committees were told to include the new heroes from their constituency in their electoral lists.35 In the end, only 7 of 32 provinces in North Vietnam did so, actually electing a “hero” to represent them in the National Assembly.36 The province of Cao Bằng put the soldier La Văn Cầu (1952) first on their list, and Hà Đông chose to be represented by the labour hero Cao Viết Bảo (1958). Elsewhere, local People’s Committees generated a mix of new heroes and political figures. The proposed list in the first electoral district of Hanoi included ten names (the capital was then divided into three electoral units): Hồ Chí Minh, Nguyễn Quảng Du, and Phạm Hùng (Deputy Prime Minister) were the first three, then came the disabled labour hero Ngô Gia Khảm (1952) and the national emulation fighter and future labour hero, Đỗ Văn Tiết (1962). In Hanoi, heroes made up 10 per cent of the delegates sent to the National Assembly.37 Elsewhere, the percentage of outstanding figures was sometimes higher: Phú Thọ had 18 per cent (2 of 11 delegates), Cao Bằng 16.5 per cent (1 of 6), Hải Dương 11 per cent (2 of 18), Hà Đông 11 per cent (1 of 9), or lower, as in Thanh Hóa (7.5 per cent, or 1 in 13) or Thái Bình (4.5 per cent, or 1 in 23). In 1960, the second legislative session of the National Assembly welcomed 11 new heroes: hardly more than 3 per cent of the 362 deputies of the new chamber.38 Note, however, that only La Văn Cầu (1952) and Đặng Đức Song (1956) had been elected from among the military heroes; the others were all labour heroes. Being a deputy, of course, did not put the new hero at the centre of the political scene. “One must admit that since their appointment to the National Assembly, these deputy-heroes never really played any particular political role.”39 La Văn Cầu (1952), elected representative of minority peoples on the floor of the Assembly, never had many illusions: “As a member of the National Assembly, I was there in principle as delegate for the army and minority peoples. It was important for the country to have people who speak minority languages to spread the spirit of these ethnic groups in Vietnamese society. But in fact the government did not consult me often.”40

39Three figures had a different experience, however: Trần Đại Nghĩa (1952), Phạm Ngọc Thạch (1958), and Tôn Thất Tùng (1962). Respectively, Chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology (1964–1971), Minister of Health (1958–1968), and Vice-Minister of Health (1947–1962), these three labour heroes — an engineer trained in France and two doctors — did not reflect the portrait of the hero we have sketched thus far. From a socially advantaged background, Tôn Thất Tùng was even a descendent of the royal family, and all three had been remarkable students during the old regime. Highly skilled and patriotic, they already held important positions in the government when they were named labour heroes. Trần Đại Nghĩa (1912–1997) invented the Vietnamese bazooka and was among the most gifted weapons designers of his generation.41 Phạm Ngọc Thạch (1909–1968) was a renowned physician and tuberculosis specialist who became head of the Central Medical Institute in Hanoi in 1958.42 And Tôn Thất Tùng (1912–1982) was a skilled surgeon who in 1962 ran the famous Việt Đức hospital in Hanoi.43 Still, neither of them really occupied key positions, and their political role was actually rather limited. The government rewarded them more for their professional accomplishments and assigned them technical positions in accordance with their skills. Except in the case of these three men, the DRV was not ready to grant too much visibility to these new heroes, so their positions in the government were primarily honorary.

Figure 15. Cover of the biography of the hero Trần Đại Nghĩa

The Status of the New Hero

40At the end of the Franco-Viet Minh War, the DRV wanted to increase the number of new heroes without “consequently decreasing their value”. In several reports, the Ministry of Labour was concerned about the possible loss of the title’s prestige. The government had to find a way to permanently etch the phenomenon into the people’s minds. One easy answer was to offer financial incentives to new patriotic honourees. If they could make these new awards pay off, the people would be much more interested. Lenin had already supported such a tactic for the Soviet Union in the 1920s. At the Tuyên Quang conference of 1952, the government gave out gifts to everyone who received an award. The Catholic Hoàng Hanh received a water buffalo, a set of towels, and photographs of his leaders; Nguyễn Quốc Trị received a Mao Zedong badge, a Parker fountain pen, and a set of towels and handkerchiefs; La Văn Cầu got a Stalin badge, a Canadian jacket, and a set of towels and handkerchiefs. Along with these small gifts, the government added money — rarely exceeding three months’ pay — and other staples (sugar, tea, chocolate, potatoes, cigarettes, etc.). This practice was common in Vietnamese tradition and was repeated during each of the many meetings held in the hero’s honour once he returned home.

41Receiving this honour thus enabled the recipient to rise several steps on the government pay scale. Following her appointment as labour hero, the heroine Nguyễn Thị Mi’s salary was increased by 225 per cent (from 27 to 61 dông monthly). Although the government tried to avoid putting a price tag on heroism, the hero’s progress up the corporate ladder was always indirectly accompanied by a significant raise. On top of the in-crease in pay, authorities also gave the new hero a home in his new location. Official records stressed these important material benefits to convince the people of the hero’s rise in society.44 The title of new hero offered very real economic benefits to people struggling with poverty and the difficulties of everyday life.

42The government also showed its thanks by sponsoring a “Journey to the West”. Since 1952, the government routinely sent a few “new men” with its delegations to brother nations.45 This journey undoubtedly increased the hero’s prestige among the people. Serving as ambassador or spokes-person for the national cause was an unexpected turn for the average peasant and worker. The trip also gave the hero the opportunity to meet the supreme leader, Hồ Chí Minh. In one of the few memoirs published on the subject, the heroine Nguyễn Thị Khương (1958) sums up this new status:

After the conference, I was invited by the Party and Uncle Hồ to visit China. After spending three days in our sister country we returned to Hanoi and met again with Uncle Hồ. He asked, ‘So, did you enjoy the visit? What did you like there?’ Comrade Hông Tiên, head of the delegation, rose to give his account, but our Uncle asked him to remain seated. ‘We both know I would rather hear from the rest of you.’ He looked at me and asked, ‘So, how did it go, Madame Khương? Will you be able to do the same thing at home?’ ‘The Party, the government, and you yourself offered me the chance to visit a sister country, and my heart is full of enthusiasm. I think that Vietnam can do as well as China.’46

43In the 1950s, foreign travel was a privilege of the powerful, so such a re-ward was a considerable step up for them in the eyes of their community.

44Apart from these honours, what long-term benefits did the highest-ranking new heroes receive? A model citizen’s virtue deserved some kind of government assistance in return. When Party leaders decided to increase the contingent of new heroes in 1954–55, health care was a prime concern, so the DRV proposed to take care of them throughout their lives. The government now paid for hospital fees, treatment, and the delivery of medication for heroes and their families — which sometimes sparked jealousy among the villagers. Not surprisingly, the DRV decided to describe in detail the dedicated care they were giving to their model subjects. Thus, when the labour hero Ngô Gia Khảm was seriously injured in a work accident at the clandestine weapons factory at Tuyên Quang in 1952, he was sent with great fanfare to a hospital in Moscow for treatment by the “best Soviet surgeons” in recompense of his patriotic commitment.

45Yet this did not suffice. Not everyone could expect medical care in foreign countries. In 1958, the government offered its ill or infirm new honourees a stay in a luxurious convalescent home. Anyone holding a national title (emulation fighter at the national level or new hero) was eligible. Local governments had to send the national administration a list of their candidates, not exceeding 30 per cent of the workforce. They had to be careful not to overdo it. An average stay at the home was not to exceed two weeks. The patient’s parent organisation (company, cooperative, local government) took care of his living expenses (estimated at 2,500–3,000 dông per day). They were treated to rest, comfort, and relaxing activities “to fortify the spirit of these exemplary men”. Upon their release, the government asked patients to hold talks in their workplace “describing the nature of their stay in these rest camps and showing how well the State had looked after them”.47 They had to spread the word. In the fall of 1958, the DRV had eight convalescent centres (in Hanoi, Thanh Hóa, Phú Thọ, Hải Phòng, Hồng Gai, Nam Định, Quảng Bình, and in the Thái-Mèo autonomous zone).48 The treatment centre in Hanoi, located in the hamlet of Nghi Tàm (zone no. 6 of Yên Phụ), was the biggest. Its buildings were “quiet and clean, the rest home in Nghi Tàm offered patients the highest possible care thanks to the excellent quality of service and quality meals”. When it was inaugurated in October 1958, however, the director was surprised that they had only 52 patients, including only 2 labour heroes: Lê Văn Hiến (1958), who was 68 years old, and Hồ Xây Dậu (1958), who was 38. In his first reports, he was pleased with the average length of stay: 42 of his patients (80 per cent) stayed at least 12.5 days of the 15 granted by the State. During these stays, the staff held lectures by cadres from the central government as well as touristic excursions, all “in an atmosphere of relaxation necessary for successful physical recovery.” Other rest homes in the country found themselves almost always full. Unfortunately, there are no official statistics on exactly how many new heroes actually took part in this programme between 1958 and 1964. It is also hard to know how often people went back for further treatment. Could someone return several times, and how soon after the previous visit? But this is all beside the point. These institutions, though few in number, allowed the government to show the extent of their concern. The DRV showed yet again that they would stand by anyone who made a commitment to the nation, and they would remain loyal to deserving citizens for the rest of their lives.

46Lastly, the professional journey of the new hero sometimes involved punishment for those who deviated from the Party’s collective discipline. The government tried to avoid any “degeneration of the new hero” (anh hùng bị phản bội), and I have not found any legal documents outlining the disciplinary measures that would have been enacted. The term “degenerate hero” first appeared in administrative reports of the early 1960s, but in any case, a breach of discipline was always dealt with behind closed doors. Vietnamese political culture has always dealt with its problems on two levels; the important thing was to keep it quiet. The myth of the unblemished patriotism of their finest citizens must not be tainted. When the punishment concerned a low-level hero (emulation fighter, exemplary worker, or outstanding cadre), the local Party cell suggested that the central government simply remove the title. The same was applied to new heroes charged with serious misconduct (corruption, ideological divergence, breach of discipline, etc.): “Generally, when confronted with such a problem, the Institute of Medals decided along with the Party to withdraw the title from the degenerate hero. But honestly, the title of hero was not a big deal. All you had to do was remove his biography from the new editions and make sure no one mentions his name during rallies and public discussions.”49 Time and the severity of the Party’s collective discipline did the rest. It was considered unseemly, if not dangerous, to inquire about someone who had been suddenly erased by the DRV. In the early 1970s, the labour hero Đỗ Tiên Hảo (1962) found himself the object of the governmental disgrace. Accused of embezzlement and corruption in his management of the Yên Duyên cooperative in the outskirts of Hanoi, Hảo was dragged to court, expelled from the Party, stripped of his title of labour hero, and deprived of all of his “privileges”. On the eve of the outbreak of war with the South, however, cases of “degenerate heroes” were still rare in northern Vietnam. The State undoubtedly had its hands full with the emulation fighters and exemplary workers who were less rigorously selected.

47The DRV’s piety towards the nation’s heroes was concretised in this need to take care of their daily needs. In the minds of the people, anyone with a title was part of an elite national body. The hero defined an ideal and thus deserved special treatment from the authorities. His accomplishments, whether fictionalised or real, placed him on a scale that was different from others. Official biographies, life stories, and heroic memoirs gave pride of place to the value of his great deeds. From soldiers under enemy fire to workers confronting production needs, cadre teachers, farmers, truck drivers, and engineers, everyone had to answer the demands of rising production standards in order to strengthen a nation in reconstruction and preparation for war. The greater a hero’s productivist or military deeds, the more it confirmed his mission as model citizen for the nation. At the same time, the hero was also presented as the herald of a repositioning of North Vietnamese society within the community of socialist nations. And as more and more heroes were produced, the State had a harder time managing all of them. In 1964, the young soldier Nguyễn Văn Trỗi fell in the line of duty and was posthumously awarded the title of military hero. Through him, the government was finally able to connect two long-standing heroic traditions: the imported new man began to acquire the kind of power held by the traditional historical figure, announcing the inexorable transformation of homo vietnamicus.