Evening star., 1958-07-13
A LooK BACK AND AHEAD
Indo-China's Precarious -Four Years

the Communists in an electoral
test. As refugees continued TO pour
into the port city land national
capital) Of Saigon. they had to be
fed given temporary shelter. and
eventually resettled In new villages
where they could earn their live
lihood. A round-th -clock French
airlift and q continuing shuttle Of
French and United States Navy
ships finally ended In May, 1855,
when the Bamboo Curtain" rang
down upon Communist North Wet
Nam.
on May II, 1855. the last French
ship left North Wet Nam. BY sheer
coincidence, but fittingly enough,
its name was ''L'Esperance"--
Hope" Within South Wet Nam
itself, President Ngo Dinh Diem
was faced with three rebellious
sects which defied his authority.
In April and May. 1855, this re-
bellion fiared into open battle. and
the unexpected occurred: The de-
feated, demoralized, Vietnamese
Army stood firmly by the Presi-
dent. Within few months, the
bulk Of the rebels was captured or
dispersed. The next problem was
that Of given the Vietnamese state
q firm basis. South Wet Nam be-
came a republic in October. 1855,
and gave itself a constitution q
year later.
In the Communist zone, the old
revolutionary leader Ho Chi Mini
proceeded to build up a model
satellite. A land reform" pro-
gram, designed to take away all
land from Capitalist landlords"
was pushed through ruthlessly,
until even the small farmers,
driven to the wall by Communist
cadres, rebelled against the gov
ernment. At the very same time
as the city of Budapest rose
against the Russians, in Novem-
ber, 1856, at the other end of the
world the little Vietnamese farm
ers of Nghe-An Province rose
against their own brand Of Com
munist oppressors-and suffered
the same fate as the HungarianS,
with the difference that their
heroic stand never received amy
of the publicity which surrounded
the plight of the Hungarians.
Yet, their resistance had been
so fierce that, for a time at least,
Ho Chi Minis government had
to stop its peasant purges. More
than $4,000 innocently imprisoned
farmers we're released from jails
and labor gangs, the secretary
general of the Lao-Dong (''Labor,"
j. e., Communist) Party was fired
from his job, and for a brief time.
some literary magazines critical
of the regime were allowed to
appear. But not for long.
Purge trials of students, pro-
fesSorS and writer's involved in
this brief upsurge of freedom" in
a Communist country still con-
tinue today, true to form.
In the field Of economic de-
velopment, however, the Commu-
mist regime has not remained
idle. North Wet Nam had tradi-
tionally been the area where most
industry, built and owned by
French enterprises, was concen-
trated: Large cotton mills, q
modern cement plant, extensive
highgrade coal mines and some
smaller rare metal mines, one Of
which at least is known to pro-
duce highly valuable uranium
phosphate, now, of course, being
exported to Red China and the
Soviet Union.
Others Fare Better
The northern regime, aided by,
Red China and Russia embarked
upon an ambitious plant con-
struction and improvement pro-
gram. Railroads were re-estab-
Iished in record time through the
use of forced labor, and today.
one can travel by train from East
Berlin to Hanoi, via Peking. AS
in other Communist nations, how
ever, the emphasis on industrial
gains was paid for by sharp re-
ductions in living standards.
The two smaller states Of 1ndo-