Politics, Protest and Revolution: The Origins and Evolution of the Urban Networks of the NLF and the Communist Party in Central Vietnam, 1930-1975

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2021This project combines political history, social history and memory to convey a perspective of the war through the eyes of the people of Central Vietnam who participated in the urban movement of the Vietnamese Revolution. It is intended to address conspicuous gaps within the historical record through an examination of how and why urban networks of the Communist Party, the Việt Minh and the NLF evolved and attracted new members in Huế and Central Vietnam in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.Beginning with the inception of the Communist Party in Huế in 1930, this project tracks the various affiliated underground network’s development and evolution through World War II, the French War of decolonization, the Diệm government, the Struggle Movement and the Tết Offensive, concluding in the early 1970s. It offers a view of the Vietnamese revolution and the Vietnam Wars (1945-1975) from the perspective of the people in Huế and Central Vietnam who joined the, the Communist Party, the NLF and the student and Struggle Movements. Chapters 1 and 2 follow the development of the Communist Party and affiliated networks in central Vietnam through the 1940s and 1950s. Based primarily on recent interviews with participants and eyewitnesses, Chapters 3,4 and 5 are a narrative which incorporates a collection of perspectives of NLF underground agents, dissidents and political activists, who, riding a wave of anti-American nationalism and Buddhist and student anger at the undemocratic policies of the military government in early 1960s central Vietnam, made a choice to become committed revolutionaries. Chapter 5 also addresses the Tết Offensive in Huế and surrounding controversies in some detail