Jade Emporer and the Zodiac - Hồ and Tạ

Animal Farm is a story about the Stalinist authoritarian counter-revolution against the Leninist Bolshevik October Revolution led by the Petrograd Soviet which led an insurrection against the Bourgeois Democratic coalition government of the February revolution which had overthrown the Tsarist regime that had ruled since the sixteenth century. Orwell's recurring punchline is that Napoleon the Pig becomes more like the farmers he revolted against untill he is walking on his hind legs. This becomes the style for people of his class.

A Marxist might see this as a story about power corrupting. Orwell's take in 1984 is somewhere between iconoclastic and nihilist. Orwell darkly satirizes thought crimes and double speak. There is also a relief that comes from accepting the party line. Orwell's "How many fingers am I holding up Winston" reemerges in popular culture in interesting ways. [ST:TNG s06e10 Chain of Command II, "How many lights?", Radiohead's "2+2=5"] Orwell's stories are about the intersection of politics and language in a fictionalized world.

The Orwellian aspect of Russia's revolutionary history is the appropriation of historical narrative by the victors. Tsarist history of the period is a barbarous overthrow of tradition. Leninist history of the revolution is a Soviet revolution. The Stalinist history is of a nationalist revolution. All sides would agree on a few things: Trotsky and the internationalists should be written out of any history. Stalin ordered Trotsky's assassination in Mexico City to maintain a Comintern narrative that couldn't include Trotsky. Another narrative exclusion is the statelessness anarchist Makhnovshchina from the Ukraine. They were conquered by the Red Army which imposed nationalist ideology on the region. This dispute is one of many that continues in Ukraine in the twenty first century.

Vietnamese revolutionary history has a period similar to the post Tsarist Red-White-Black Civil War. The Trotskyist was named Tạ Thu Thâu. When his critique of revolutionary Vietnam was became too sharp, he was ordered assassinated by the countries leader: Hồ Chí Minh. As Minh consolidated control--just like in Stalinist Russia--he ended dissent from the left. This is Orwellian because he was a leftist revolutionary. But so was Stalin. Socialism in one State (Stalinism) or socialism with national characteristics (Den Xiaoping theory) are not equipped for international socialism (Trotskyism). National socialists reveal themselves as Authoritarians when they encounter internationalists and assassinate them. This is what Stalin did to Trotsky and also what Hồ Chí Minh did to Tạ Thu Thâu.

The twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac were chosen by the Jade Emperor. There are lots of stories about how he chose them. Many of these stories involve some kind of race to the Emperor. The twelve winners will become the signs. This race is a morality tale. Each of the animals has some human characteristics. The snake is sneaky. The rabbit is fast but foolish. The sheep, monkey and rooster work together.

The moral of this fable is that it doesn't matter who gets to the Emperor first. There is room for all twelve animals in the pantheon. The last animal to arrive is the boar who along the way has gathered a feast for the rest of the animals to share with the Jade Emperor. The Chinese Zodiac is a story about social order (royal at the top) and civil society (everybody gets rice).

The Vietnamese Zodiac replaces the Chinese rabbit with a cat and the ox with water buffalo. Explanations for the former include domestic cats migrating with Indian Buddhist monks after the Zodiac was formed. It could be because the word for the month and the animal sound similar. The folklore explains that the beautiful cat is absent because the self-conscious rat didn't wake him up for the race [ala Tortoise v. Hare, 564 BCE]. The Chinese rabbit has a backstory too. He is saved--a coincidence--by the dragon during the race to the Jade Emperor. The ox-water buffalo swap likely seems due to environment.

The Vietnamese zodiac might have picked up cat as a sign from the same Buddhists that brought cats to China. Maybe the cat was already part of the folklore. The personality of the Chinese rabbits and Vietnamese cats represents different cultural concepts.

The Vietnamese zodiac gives the cat a personality: smart, pragmatic, artsy and calm. The Chinese zodiac gives the rabbit a personality: loving, kind and merciful. In a political context the Vietnamese cat is suited for multiple shifting alliances, novel ideas and quick decisive action. The Chinese rabbit is suited for a benevolent oligarchy supported by a well structured civil service.

Hồ Chí Minh (born Nguyễn Sinh Cung) was born in 1890. That makes him a tiger. Tigers are leaders, rebels, brave and fearsome when cornered. Tạ Thu Thâu was born in 1906. That makes him a horse. Horses are confident, libertarian thrill-seekers.

Like every vaguely worded horoscope--these traits fit their members very well. Hồ the tiger was a well organized and ruthless leader. Tạ, on the other hand, was a self-assured idealist. The former was a nationalist rebel and the later was a internationalist revolutionary.

A cult of Hồ Chí Minh has reinterpreted this idea. Instead of the tiger he became the Emperor. "Uncle" Hồ was a reincarnation of the Jade (Buddha) Emperor. After his death he continued to guide his followers through mediums. Mesdames Lang and Xoan started the movement in the 1990s. The Peace Society of Heavenly Mediums had more than 20,000 followers by the 2010s.

Tạ was born in southern French occupied Cochinchina. The Trotskyist studied and taught at the University of Paris. He became a left critic of the Third International and Communist organizations. He was deported to Vietnam in 1930. There, he organized the Struggle Group: a Stalinist-Trotskyist alliance of political dissenters to French Imperialism and Chinese Communism. WWII brought suppression of all Communists by the Nazi-Vichy government of the region. Tạ was imprisoned at Côn Sơn from 1939 until 1945.

Hồ was born in north-central French occupied Indochina. The Communist was born in educated as a kitchen worker then by and Marxists, Bolsheviks and Stalinists all around Eurasia. In the 1920s he was part of the French Communist party and the Third International. He By 1938 Hồ was representing Comintern in broader Asia. He came back to Vietnam in 1941 as a Vietnam nationalist where he fought against the Vichy, Japanese and White Chinese. He was being aided by the WWII allies during the war.

Hồ's Việt Minh launched the August Revolution (19 August 1945) against the splintered occupying forces. They published a declaration of independence which was presented on September 2 when The independent Provisional Democratic Republic was formed.

Vietnam Declaration of Independence:

Hồ Chí Minh "Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam" Selected Works Vol. 3 Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960–62, 17–21 [historymatters.gmu.edu]

Hồ and the Viet Minh were appealing to post WWII nationalism in Europe and America. They used both Enlightenment and Marxist rhetoric because they were also addressing the USSR, Red Chinese and other Asian Marxists. Their appeals to join the world community were ignored. In 1946 Hồ went back to Europe on a diplomatic mission.

Tạ got out of prison in March 1945. They started organizing in the north around Tonkin during the summer. The Viet Minh found this impermissible. Tạ and the Trotskyists were chased south in August. The Viet Minh caught them on September 14 at Quang Ngai. Tạ was tried by a peoples tribunal. The tribunal did not convict Tạ. The Viet Minh killed him anyway. The French and Viet Minh killed remaining Trotskyists on October 3 at the Thi Nghe bridge massacre.

Tạ and Hồ were allies against imperialism. They were enemies in post-colonial thought. Tạ believed in internationalist Trotskyism. Hồ believed in nationalist Stalinism. Neither of these ideologies would have been available under the French colonial regime. The two Marxist-Leninist factions had to be allies before they could work out their differences.

The reason Hồ was victorious in the post-colonial era is because he spent the WWII years courting western powers while building national Communist front (the Viet Minh). He was able to put these two forces together in the post WWII chaos that ended French, Japanese (and the lesser Chinese and Russian) hegemony of the region.

The reason Tạ failed in the post-colonial era is because he spent the Vichy regime in prison. This is a recurring problem with Trotskyists. They are not pragmatic. They are iconoclastic and outspoken. They make enemies before they have allies.

Hồ was making allies overseas when his followers captured and executed Tạ. A year after it happened Hồ was asked about it. His epitaph of Tạ could describe many precarious alliances on the revolutionary left, "Thâu was a great patriot and we mourn him. All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken."

This final quote is widely attributed to one of Hồ's French socialist mentors: Daniel Guerin. Aux services des colonises, 1930-1953, Editions Minuit, Paris, 1954. p. 22.

Image credit:

"Tạ Thu Thâu arrested following 1930 Paris protest against suppression of the VNQDĐ." Paris: Préfecture de Police, 25 May 1930. [wikimedia.org]

"Nguyen Aïn Nuä'C (Ho-Chi-Minh), délégué indochinois, Congrès communiste de Marseille." Marseille: agence Meurisse BNF Gallica, 1921. [wikimedia.org]