The fundamental position of the people and the government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam is: Peace, independence, unity and democracy. These are the main aspirations and the sacred right to the reali- sation of which the peoples of Viet Nam have devoted them- Selves and for the carrying out ef which they will struggle to the end; the. just fight of the peoples of the whole world and on the. part of all peace-loving and freedom-loving people. * After the French colonialists had seized our country, they pur- sued an extremely brutal policy directed at the division of our na- tion and exploitation and exterm- ination of our people. Since that time the Vietnamese people have continued to unite closely and struggle heroically’ against the invaders for their national in- dependence, for the unity of the country, for the right to enjoy democratic freedoms and for their peaceful existence on the national territory. ; The Second World War broke out. The German, Italian ‘and Japanese fascists made an at- tempt to conauer and to enslave the whole world. , The Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and other states standing for peace and democracy united in the struggle against the fascist coalition and crushed it. Inspired by the same hatred for the fascist invaders, all the Vietnamese people began their fight against the enemy of hu- manity. Some months after Petain pass- ed over to the German fascists, the French authorities in Indo- china in their turn passed over to the Japanese fascists and in Sep- tember 1940, surrendered Indo- china to them, pledging them- selves to cooperate by all means with the Japanese fascists against the allies and the peoples of Indochina. Despite the fact that the French authorities in Indochina showed examplary loyalty to the Japanese this collaboration was short-lived. Having suffered de- feats inflicted by the allies in all theatres of military operations, the Japanese fascists tried to strengthen their positions in In- dochina by attempting. to enlist the peoples of Indochina in their cause. To carry out this plan the Ja- panese fascists on March 9, 1945, dissolved the French colonial machinery and at the same time played a comedy of establishing an “independent” government of Viet Nam which they proclaimed included. in the “sphere of co- “prosperity” of Eastern Asia. Instead of being a French co- leny, Indochina became a Japan- ese colony. From the first day of the Japan- ese occupation, the Vietnamese people, rallying around-the Lea- sue for Independence of Viet Nam (Viet Minh) and in close co- Operation with the nations of thé world which were carrying on a gigantic struggle against fascism, rose in a military fight against the Japanese fascists and their sueces- Sive lackeys, first French and later Vietnamese. In August 1945,. on the eve of the Japanese surrender, the Con- gress of the Representatives of Why did these labo : By ADAM LAPIN [° is always bad news when an independent venture in pub- lishing is forced to fold up. It is especially bad. news when that venture is a string of daily news- papers published by a trade union. 4 While continuing two daily and two weekly papers in the United States, the International Typo- Braphical Union has announced it is suspending five daily news- Papers it created to give com- petition to union-busting publish- ers and jobs to displaced printers. The reason is essentially that monopoly control of the press is daily tightening its grip through- out the US. 5 A recent survey by Raymond B. Nixon of the University of Min- nesota School of Journalism show- ined that there are only 87 cities in the U.S. with competing news- Papers; in 1945 there were 117 such cities. Monopoly-controlled ¢ Five crack paratroop battalions. were among the 16,000 French ~ troops killed, wounded. or captur- ed when the French fortress of Dien Bien Phu in Viet Nam was captured by the Vietnamese People’s Army under its ‘com- mander-in-chief, General Giap (below). French losses included 16 colonels and 1,749 other of- ficers, including the French com- mander, Brigadier General de Castries, who was taken prisoner. ® A typical soldier of the defeat- ed French forces is shown above, the Vietnamese people met in the liberated zone of Viet Bac. Dele- gates came from all parts of the ccuntry and represented all sec- tions of the population. The congress adopted the decis- — ion about the general uprising and elected the National Com- mittee of Liberation under the chairmanship of the great leader ot the Vietnamese people, Ho Chi Minh, to lead the uprising. The whole population in the north and in the south, in villages and towns, enthusiastically took part in this general uprising and with- in a very short period succeeded in seizing power from the Japan- ese and the Bao Dai government. The general uprising resulted in full victory throughout the country on August 19, 1945. Bao Dai abdicated, recognizing the negative role of his rule in the following words: _ “We cannot help feeling cer- tain regret while thinking about chains today have 45.3 percent of all daily newspaper circulation and own 485 newspapers as against 368 in 1945. In the case of the ITU, the de- cisive factor was the monopoly press’ grip on the advertising revenues essential to make a commercial success of any news- Paper. The ITU’s Daily News-Digests Couldn’t keep up their advertising because advertisers were directly threatened by. the big commercial publishers, Advertisers reported in One case that-they were afraid that if the rru publication were Suspended that ‘the local publish- er “will become highly vindictive and carry out his thinly-disguised threats to injure our present ten- der relationship with the shop- ping public.” As ‘a policy Statement by the ITU summed suffered losses in advertising re- venues because of the doubt en- it up, “the Digests the twenty years of our rule, dur- ing which we were unable to render any appreciable service to. our country. Now we are happy to be a free citizen in an independent country. We shall not allow anybody to abuse our name or the name of the royal family to sow dissension among our countrymen. Long live the independence of Viet Nam! Long live our Demo¢ratic Repub- lic!” The corrupt feudal regime of _ kings and mandarins, always an _ obedient tool in the hands of any foreign aggressor, was abolished. The National Committee of Lib- eration became the provisional government of Viet*’Nam headed by President Ho Chi Minh. * On September 2, 1945, Presi- dent Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the preliminary convention of March 6, 1946. President Ho Chi Minh, in order to avoid a complete break- down of the Fontainebleau Con- ference and to ease the tense at- mosphere created nearly every- where by the French colonialists and also to open the door for the forthcoming negotiations, con- cluded modus vivendi with the French government on September 14, 1946. But the French colonialists did not want peace. Their only aim was to extend the hostilities in order to take over the whole of Indochina. » * Despite the terms of the modus vivendi agreement, the French colonialists established their own customs service in Haiphong and on November 20, 1946, they pro- voked bloody incidents. Their artillery killed tens of thousands of ‘our civilians. At the same time they occupied Longson in the capital city of Hanoi. On December- 19, Gen- eral Moliere, commander of the French forces in north Indochina, ’ handed an ultimatum to the Viet- namese authorities demanding that security troops and self-de- fense detachments in Hanoi be disarmed. ; The same day, Phesident Ho Chi Minh sent a telegram to the president of the French National Assembly requesting him to put \ an end to provocations and blood- shed caused by the French troops- Even after the beginning of the conflict, President Ho Chi Minh repeatedly addressed the French government calling upon it to end hostilities and to resume nego- tiations with the aim of re-estab- lishing peace. | On April 19, 1947, atter Emile Bollaert had been appointed as high commissioner, Viet Nam formally proposed ending of hos- tilities and opening of negotia- tions for the peaceful settlement of the conflict to the French gov- ernment. sh On May 13, High Commissioner Bollaert sent President Ho Chi Minh a proposal for an armistice, insisting in particular, upon ces- sation of hostilities,. surrender of all armaments within the period of three weeks, freedom of. sta- tioning French troops in the whole of the territory of Viet Nam. That was a demand for uncon- ditional surrender. Naturally the government of Viet Nam refuse to accept it. h At the end of 1947, the Frenc colonialists began a large-scale at- tack at Viet Bac, expecting a VIC tory which would win the wa for them. The attack was a fall ure. The Vietnamese people gained an important victory an demonstrated the power of thelt resistance. The war entered a new phase: It became more intensive 2 more violent on all fronts, and, — gradually the situation became more favorable for Viet Nam. It was then that the U.S. int perialists began their intervel tion in the war in Indochina. The thousands of French soldiers returning wounded, maimed and blinded — and the thousands who will never return — from the “dirty war” in Indochina have swellled the national demand for gendered in minds of advertisers that the competitive Digests would continue publication in otherwise monopoly fields.” Continued existence of the Papers could have been. assured only by increased union sub- sidies — which the membership, divided by factional bickering around the whole venture, failéd to vote. Of course, some day the labor movement will own and run lots of daily newspapers. In the mean- time, a hopeful and. promising venture in labor newspaper pub- lishing has been forced to curtail sharply. It could not ‘survive against the power of the mono- poly press. — é ag UR oR os I suspect that one of the rea- sons for what is at least a tem- porary setback is not that the: challenge to the monopoly press was too bold but that it was not bold enough, PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 21, 1954 — PAGE 19 an end to this most unpopular of all French wars. r dailies go under? Labor’s Daily, published West Virginia by the ITU, frank: ly presents a labor point of vieW- It has considerable labor suppol in a strong union territory, are it is not one of the papers whic! is being forced to close. It continuing publication. Pf While presenting less biasé news than the monopoly press: the five suspended News-Digests did not aim primarily at pres enting labor’s viewpoint. The= -function was the limited one ° giving jobs to displaced printer® and harassing publishers into S¢ tling with the union. ly A fortright challenge not 02” to the actual economic monop? A of the big publishers but a their editorial policies is, to course, enormously difficult hi maintain. But it does create fe Possibilities for generating a crusading spirit and the enthue’ iastic support necessary for SUY vival.