Consequences
The exact number of deaths due to the 1944-1945 famine is unknown and is a matter of controversy.Various sources estimate between 400,000 to 2 million peopled starved in northern Vietnam during this time. In May 1945, the envoy at Hanoi asked the northern provinces to report their casualties. Twenty provinces reported that a total of 380,000 people starved to death, and 20,000 more died because of disease. In October, a report from a French military official estimated half a million deaths. The French Governor General Jean Decoux wrote in his memoirs A la barre de l'Indochine that about 1 million northerners starved to death. Modern Vietnamese historians estimate between 1 and 2 million deaths. Ho Chi Minh in his Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945 used a 2 million figure.
The famine played a part in the coming war between the French and Viet Minh. In March 1945 the Viet Minh (a communist controlled common front fighting for the independence of Vietnam) urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes. Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided. This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were seen as responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh's popularity and they recruited many members during this period.
Read more about this topic: Vietnamese Famine Of 1945
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