The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation (Volume 66)

Ohio RIS Southeast Asia Series #66

by Tran Tu Binh, John Spragens Jr. (Contributor), David G. Marr (Editor)

Phu Rieng was one of many French rubber plantations in colonial Vietnam; Tran Tu Binh was one of 17,606 laborers brought to work there in 1927, and his memoir is a straightforward, emotionally searing account of how one Vietnamese youth became involved in revolutionary politics. The connection between this early experience and later activities of the author becomes clear as we learn that Tran Tu Binh survived imprisonment on Con Son island to help engineer the general uprising in Hanoi in 1945.

The Red Earth is the first of dozens of such works by veterans of the 1924–45 struggle in Vietnam to be published in English translation. It is important reading for all those interested in the many-faceted history of modern Vietnam and of Communism in the non-Western world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, School

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1985

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Red Earth is a fascinating and strange historical document. In the early 1960s, North Vietnam published over 100 memoirs by veterans of the 'protracted struggle' from 1925-1940 as part of preparing the people for the war against America. At the time, Tran was ambassador to China, a key role. This memoir focuses on his early career as an organizer at a Michelin rubber plantation, where Tran helped lead a successful strike.

Tran was a member of the emerging Vietnamese intelligentsia. His parents were poor peasants, but they managed to send him to seminary, where he learned Latin, French, and how to write before being kicked out for opposing the priest over a funeral for a Vietnamese historian. He worked as an itinerant Bible teacher, before poverty and a desire to 'proletarianize' himself, to join the workers, lead him to sign on as a laborer in a rubber plantation.

Rubber harvesting is hard, dangerous work under good conditions, and French colonialism was far from good conditions. The contract, which the mostly illiterate workers couldn't read anyways, promised a certain amount of food and good treatment. Instead, workers face starvation rations, arbitrary beatings, and no medical care. Tran describes workers kicked to death, shackled and forgotten until they starved, or simply worked to death on the plantation. Rape was omnipresent, and according to Tran due to poor food, rice of the worst quality and rotten slated fish, all children were stillborn. Transported hundreds of miles and cut off from community, they had no support but each other.

Tran was part of an embryonic party cell, and as a natural organizer he formed links with the other workers to create a union. In 1930, they successfully organized a strike, shutting down work at the factory, driving off the French soldiers, and then beating and disarming a small patrol sent to recapture the plantation. Some of the strikers argued for a general revolt, for building barricades and fighting to the the death, but Tran knew that would lead only to annihilation. He argued that they must outwit the enemy. The strikers left their guns by the manager's mansion, and said they'd return to work if conditions improve.

It was a victory, but these were amateur revolutionaries, and due to poor security, all the ringleaders, including Tran were arrested and sentenced to prison. Jail was a true revolutionary college, and when Tran left, he was a committed communist and organizer, though the book does not cover that part of his life.

The Red Earth is a fascinating account of collective action and an illuminating portrait of how and why the Vietnamese Communist Party organized as it did, heading into the deadly struggles post 1945.

[Samuelh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short memoir about life on a French Rubber Plantation in the 1930s. The actual writing is nothing to write home about but the story is incredible. The brutality of Michelin and the draw that Communism had to impoverished peasants are pretty interesting to understand. Also, some may have concerns that the book is propaganda, as it was published by the North Vietnamese govt in the 1960s. While small details may have been embellished, both my professor of Vietnamese history, and my Professor of French Colonialism have said that conditions on French Rubber plantations were that bad, and the strike played out in the way Tran Tu Binh claimed it did.

[Krayfish1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author goes to work on a rubber plantation for the French from 1927-1930. The treatment of workers was terrible (and is described extensively) and he helps organize protests among the workers there, culminating in a major strike in 1930, after which he is arrested and tried for "disrupting the peace" and also "being a Communist". The story is recorded in the 1960s and translated in the 1980s.

It is an interesting bit of history.

[Marcus Pehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing isn’t anything special, and at times it can be somewhat confusing or lack detail. However, his story is amazing. From Tran being expelled from his seminary school as a kid to successfully organizing a 5,000 person strike at a French-run rubber plantation in Northern Vietnam. A really interesting and engaging book.

[Kent Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Viet Cong memoir. Does a good highlighting the growth of grassroots communism in Vietnam starting in the early 1920’s.

[Maxime Vigier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very poignant autobiography

[Tin · Rating 4 out of 5]

good reading for class -- kind of difficult to trace events sometimes but also fits with the circumstances of the writing
very good set up to understanding uprisings and revolution in vietnam

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written from the perspective of a young man from a Catholic peasant village of the north who would later join the VN communist party, this short piece gives a searing account of the conditions of a destitute colonial labor force and their rebellions. Reminds me of stories a friends grandfather would tell me of working on a French rubber field as a boy.

[Bridget Bernstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

2015 Challenge: 51/40

I've read memoirs similar to this one before and I didn't enjoy them very much. I found this one to be interesting, especially with the beginnings of communism in Vietnam. I didn't love this book by any means, but it was definitely worth a read.

[Ceres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for a class but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's a real life account of a Vietnamese rubber plantation worker during the height of French colonization in Vietnam. It gave an insight to the struggles of these workers and to the roots of Communism in Vietnam.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anybody interested in history.
I read this for my class on Comparative French Colonialism.