Hungarian historian

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September 2014

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• Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China]], and [[Yasuhiro Nakasone]]) visited South Korea in 1983. In periods of Japanese-ROK cooperation and Japanese-DPRK friction,

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Blue House Raid

Will you stop reverting the Blue House Raid! If you have comments to make do so on the Talk page. I explained why I had made the various revisions to what you previously wrote. If you wish to discuss it further please do so there, but stop reverting the main page. Mztourist (talk) 06:25, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

To make the issue less controversial, I would propose to add alternative source references (e.g., Dae-Sook Suh and Sarantakes) to those parts of the background section that are confirmed by these authors as well, and omit those sentences that are based solely on the "In the Shadow of Vietnam" article.

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Vietnam Land Reform Improvenents

Hi, Are you still contributing? if so perhaps we could discuss some sources relevant to the Vietnam Land Reform. the article has already improved quite a bit recently (unverifiable, fraudulent and/or biased sources have been replaced by better ones). However the article could still use a lot of improvement. let me know if youre interested.Guccisamsclub (talk) 07:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for your kind words! I will have a look. I remember quite well said unverifiable, fraudulent and biased sources, but I would not have dared to tackle them.:))

Can you read Vietnamese?Guccisamsclub (talk) 17:52, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I can read Hungarian, French, German, and Russian but no Vietnamese, alas.:)

Is there any notable scholarship in French, along the lines of Porter, Moise and yourself? Also, the article makes good use of Tongas and Lam Thanh Liem. Are you aware of any critical discussion of their work, or of anything else these two sources have to say on the topic? By the way, Moise now apparently accepts a higher estimate of 15,000 Tuon Vu p.105.

I expect that further research progress pretty slowly. Most of the old sources are hard to access and verify. Meanwhile, the issue remains very murky due to a lack of completely open discussion in Vietnam.Guccisamsclub (talk) 20:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a very good French monograph, based on Vietnamese archival sources: Bertrand de Hartingh, Entre le peuple et la Nation: La Republique democratique du Viet Nam de 1953 a 1957 (Ecole francaise d’Extreme – Orient, Paris, 2003). Not long after its publication, I saw a copy, but I could not buy it at that time, and I haven't seen it since then. Thus I am unfamiliar with his data, but if you can find it, it might be worth citing.

Probably the most extensive history of that period, judging by thickness. It's available on Amazon. If you are not in the US, I'd be happy to provide you with a scanned copy. Unfortunately, I know only English and Russian, and claim zero expertise on Vietnam. So you will have to read it yourself and share your findings on Wikipedia. Let me know how this sounds. Do you know what Boudarel's estimates for the repression are?Guccisamsclub (talk) 00:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

One of the more substantive discussions in English that I've come across is the first chapter of Vo Nhan Tri's Vietnam's Economic Policy Since 1975. If you haven't had a chance to read, you may find it interesting.Guccisamsclub (talk) 00:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

It would be extremely kind of you to scan de Hartingth's book for me. I would greatly appreciate it, as I am now based in South Korea, where French books are not easily accessible. I would be more than ready to mine the book for information that is useful for Wikipedia. Fortunately, I have a copy of Boudarel's book, and while it is now in Hungary, I will be able to check it when I go home for a visit next time. As far as I remember, he did not perform the same kind of independent statistical analysis that Moise did but merely repeated figures mentioned by others. I will have a look. I am also most grateful to you for drawing my attention to Tri's book.

Thanks. I'll get back to you with a copy of Hartingth in about two weeks. Meanwhile, one can find some discussion of Hartingth's volume in The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans by Arthur Dommen. Guccisamsclub (talk) 05:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as the all-important "Number Killed" is concerned, it seems that one could generate yet another estimate from Vo Nhan Tri and Dang Phong's History of the Vietnamese Economy (Vol 2). According to the former, there were 15,000 wrongful executions. The latter text has been abused by various anti-SRV bloggers to push a false "official" figure of 172,000 executions (much like DRV sources were falsified during the war). What Dang Phong does state - to the best of my knowledge - is that a total of 172,000 people were negatively affected by the campaign, through expropriation, accusation, arrest etc. Out of these 172,000 people, 123,000 were treated unjustly (too much land expropriated, false classification and so on). So according to Dang Phong's data, 71.66% were victims of some form of injustice. You cite almost exactly the same percentage in your paper! A combination of Bing and Google translate will give a good idea of what Dang Phong's numbers represent. The report that Vo Nhan Tri uncovered was composed at time of collective outrage and soul-searching in the Party over the excesses of the campaign. It is therefore quite likely that the creators of this secret report were working with a similar ratio of unjust/total executions. This is assumption is corroborated by your research at the Hungarian archives. From here it is trivial to generate a total estimate of 15,000 * 1/0.7166 ≈ 21,000 executions. Of course this is still just a guess, but if several historians can sit down to discuss all available evidence they may find this stuff useful. And their findings can then trickle back down to Wikipedia. Guccisamsclub (talk) 05:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

And Ho Chi Minh himself defended 10,000 executions in an interview with Ernst Utrecht (another valuable citation from Vo Nhan Tri). It is unclear where Ho got this number, but if we assume that he was referring only to "just" executions, then we could get 15,000 + 10,000 = 25,000 total executions. After all of this I cannot help mentioning the fact far that less effort usually goes into counting (never-mind inflating) the number of victims of the South Vietnamese government. The same pattern obtains in the historical accounts of most other state-socialist and non-state-socialist regimes. Of course the state-socialist regimes have mainly themselves to blame for the "negative coverage" they have received. However the impact of Cold War ideology on our understanding of these regimes should not be underestimated. Guccisamsclub (talk) 05:50, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks in advance for scanning de Hartingh's book! I am very glad to hear that the distortions of Dang Phong's data have been corrected. I vividly remember this case, because I felt that the figure was suspiciously high, and I also did not understand how VCP censorship would have allowed such a devastating piece of evidence to be printed. I showed the Wiki entry to an American friend who is fluent in Vietnamese and who had access to Dang Phong's book. She also concluded that the number 172,000 referred to the total number of unjustly persecuted individuals, rather than to the number of executions. At that time, I did not correct the entry, because I saw how biased some of the contributors were, and I had no time for a long tug-of-war, with one side repeatedly deleting the other's edits. I truly congratulate to you for having sorted this issue out.

Thanks. What do you make of my estimate of Dang Phong and Vo Nhan Tri (≈21,0000)? Of course one has to take Vo Nhan Tri's word for, but I see no reason to doubt him.Guccisamsclub (talk) 19:28, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The 21,000/25,000 figure looks possible, but there is one more factor to be taken into consideration. If Vo Nhan Tri and Ho Chi Minh had said that, say, 70 or 80% of the executions were unjustified, this disproportionately high percentage would have damaged the regime's legitimacy to an even greater extent than a high absolute number of unjust executions. Thus I consider it possible that the authorities juggled the figures in one way or another. Either they were unwilling to rehabilitate more than a certain percent of the victims, or they later suggested that the officially acknowledged wrongful executions constituted only a relatively limited percentage of the total (without specifying what the total was).

I would not argue for the 25 thousand figure (I just suggested it as a possibility), only the 21,000 figure. What we have is "second-hand" archival evidence from Vo Nhan Tri of 15,000 wrongful deaths and first-hand archival evidence from [Dang Phong] (take a look at his breakdown of repressed groups) and yourself about the fraction of wrongful convictions. I think it's reasonable to assume that the Ministry of Security operated with a similar ratio, when it prepared the report on "wrongful executions" that Vo Nhan Tri saw. All of this is archival evidence, so I don't see what the issue of "public relations" has to with it. Guccisamsclub (talk) 20:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

What I meant was that the ratio was specified during the "corrections of the errors," i.e., a process that was not simply an impartial investigation but also a kind of political maneuver. Even if the reports were only for restricted use (which implies a higher level of truthfulness), the bureaucratic organs involved (like the Ministry of Public Security) may have been reluctant to create an impression that the errors of the land reforms were far more substantial than its achievements. If the investigation was carried out in the spirit of "acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of the land reform" (as the leadership saw it), it is possible that they wanted to keep the number of rehabilitations within certain limits.

Ok, I sort of see your point. However the 70% figure too comes internal reports created by bureaucratic organs (quite probably with the MinPubSec's cooperation) - none of which wanted to portray land reform as mostly disaster - and were not meant for public consumption. The personnel that created the secret "15,000" report could easily have subscribed to emerging "correction of errors" line. Furthermore, acknowledging that "15,000 people were killed by mistake" to the Central Committee, does not seem like a best way to cover one's tracks.

Whether "correction of errors" percentage is itself accurate or not is not the issue, IMO. It's a politicised number and we'll never know exactly what's behind it. All that matter's, in my view, is whether the creators of the report subscribed to the same percentage.

You assumptions about the motivations behind the Mininstry of Public Security' report seem imply much higher numbers than my estimate, is this correct? Guccisamsclub (talk) 21:16, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

No. At the time, the regime publicly admitted (Nhan Dan, August 15, 1957, as cited by J. Price Gittinger, "Communist Land Policy in North Viet Nam", page 118) that "30 percent of the persons convicted as landlords were erroneously condemned." Combined with the 15,000 figure for wrongful executions (which Nhân Trí Võ says "was certainly underestimated"), that admission would seem to point to upwards of 50,000 executions. But, if I understand him, Szalontai is arguing that the regime may have juggled the percentages on the grounds that the "disproportionately high percentage would have damaged the regime's legitimacy to an even greater extent than a high absolute number of unjust executions." However, I believe the 30% figure is accurate, although it actually refers to the number of communist cadres "accidentally" killed, which may not be the same thing as the number of wrongly classified "landlords".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

As evidence, consider Arthur J. Dommen's estimate of 32,000 killed, including 12,000 party members; Nguyen Van Canh's estimate of 200,000 killed, including 40,000 party members; Lam Than Liem's estimate of 120,000 to 160,000 killed, including 40,000 to 60,000 party members, ect. The high percentage of communist cadre executed during the campaign is a constant refrain in every estimate you can find, such that Turner argues it was part of a calculated purge rather than a "mistake".TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:11, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Hungarian archival evidence and Dang Phong (who actually breaks down the numbers) must take precedence over anything published in Nhan Danh at the time, which would indeed be subject to the criticism that its percentages were too low. This is precisely what the evidence shows. The exact proportion of party cadres executed can only be guessed at and is not the issue here anyhow. In other words I don't even see what you are trying to argue with here, TTAAC.Guccisamsclub (talk) 22:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The 15,000 figure mentioned in Vietnam's Economic Policy Since 1975 is the same as the 12,000 figure mentioned in The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans—an estimate of communist cadre executed, not of the wrongly classified landlords discussed in Dang Phong. In fact, as quoted by Lam Than Liem, that is how Vo Nhan Trí originally put it in Croissance économique de la Répubique démocratique du Vietnam: "He "found and read a top-secret report on the number of communist cadres falsely accused and executed: 15,000."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

TTC: I have Vo Nhan Tri's later book in English right here in front of me, and it says no such thing. If you get direct access to the earlier book, then we can talk. You may truly be on to something, but I am not prepared to take a some truncated and translated third-hand (and reproduced by some hack named Boghnador) account over the author's original words. As for 15,000 "not" being a reference to "mis-classified landlords", who knew? Thanks for knocking down a strawman.Guccisamsclub (talk) 23:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

"You assumptions about the motivations behind the Mininstry of Public Security' report seem imply much higher numbers than my estimate, is this correct?" Not necessarily. If the ratio of unjust executions was higher than the percentage they admitted but the figure 15,000 is accurate, then the total number of executions may have been actually lower than our extrapolation. We must keep in mind that rehabilitation was at least partly a public affair. Since a condemned victim and/or his family suffered public discrimination, the abolition of this discrimination had to be announced in some way. Therefore, these data are probably reliable, because the regime did not merely present a figure but also had to act upon it. If, however, a person was never rehabilitated, the authorities had no obligation toward his family, and they often pressured them to keep quiet about the issue. Thus it is more difficult to estimate the number of those executions that the regime never condemned. I do not really want to argue in favor of critically revising your data and conclusions. They look fairly credible to me, and I see no reason to reject them. I just wanted to record the theoretical possibility of data manipulation by the authorities.

Point taken.Guccisamsclub (talk) 03:55, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

contact for source

Many thanks!!