Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang - War Against French Colonial Rule

War Against French Colonial Rule

The Ho Sainteny agreement, signed on March 6, 1946, saw the return of French colonial forces to Vietnam, replacing the Chinese nationalists who were supposed to be maintaining order. The VNQDD were now without their main supporters. As a result, the VNQDD were further attacked by the French, who often encircled VNQDD strongholds, enabling Vietminh attacks. Giap's army hunted down VNQDD troops and cleared them from the Red River Delta, seizing arms and arresting party members, who were falsely charged with crimes ranging from counterfeiting to unlawful arms possession. The Vietminh massacred thousands of VNQDD members and other nationalists in a large scale purge. Most of the survivors fled to China or French-controlled areas in Vietnam. After driving the VNQDD out of their Hanoi headquarters on On Nhu Hau Street, Giap ordered his agents to construct an underground torture chamber on the premises. They then planted exhumed and badly decomposed bodies in the chamber, and accused the VNQDD of gruesome murders, although most of the dead were VNQDD members who had been killed by Giap's men. The communists made a public spectacle of the scene in an attempt to discredit the VNQDD, but the truth eventually came out and the "On Nhu Hau Street affair" lowered their public image.

When the National Assembly reconvened in Hanoi on October 28, only 30 of the 50 VNQDD seats were filled. Of the 37 VNQDD and Dong Minh Hoi members who turned up, only 20 remained by the end of the session. By the end of the year, Tam had resigned as foreign minister and fled to China, and only one of the three original VNQDD cabinet members was still in office. In any case, the VNQDD never had any power, despite their numerical presence. Upon the opening of the National Assembly, the communist majority voted to vest power in an executive committee almost entirely consisting of communists; the legislature met only once a year. In any case, the façade of a legislature was dispensed with as the First Indochina War went into full flight. A small group of VNQDD fighters escaped Giap's assault and retreated to a mountainous enclave along the Sino-Vietnamese border, where they declared themselves to be the government of Vietnam, with little effect.