Phu Rieng Do

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Phu Rieng Do (Phú Riềng Đỏ) is the name of a famous labor movement at Phu Rieng Rubber Plantation in Vietnam in 1930.

Phu Rieng was one of about 25 French colonial rubber plantations that stretched in a three-hundred kilometer band from the South China Sea to the Mekong Reiver in Cambodia. After the World War I the French colonial government had allocated huge blocks of forest land to metropolitan corporations; from 1920 on, large amounts of capital became available to construct roads, nurture rubber seedings, clear land and plant saplings. More than 30.000 laborers from Tongkin (Tongking) were recruited to develop those rubber plantations. Phu Rieng was the biggest rubber plantation of the Michelin company in Vietnam at that time. 5555 people died

The French capitalists exploited the workers pitilessly and brutally. The working and living conditions in those rubber plantations were described as "hell on the earth". [1] According to the official records of colonial administration, 17 percent of Phu Rieng workers died in only 1927 but even that figure might be conservative, since the plantation supervisory staff had reason to cover up some losses.[2]

On 3rd February 1930 more than 5,000 rubber workers at the Phu Rieng Rubber Plantation, under the leadership of a communist named Tran Tu Binh, rebelled against the plantation’s owner to protest against the cruel and slave-like working conditions at the plantation. [3]. The “rebellion” workers occupied the local administration and established an autonomic control for 4 days. They arrested the French plantation supervisor and forced him to agree with their requests to improve working condition at the plantation. The workers started a demonstration against the colonial administration in the area.

Fearing the spreading of the movement to other neighboring areas, on 6th February 1930, French colonial government sent 300 legionnaires, 500 local soldiers under the direct command of the Governor of Cocochina Krauheimer; Resident of Bien Hoa, Marty; his assistant, Vilmont; the head of Surete', Arnoux, up to Phu Rieng.[4] The movement was soon repressed. The leader of the movement, Tran Tu Binh, was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment in Con Dao island. The Phu Rieng Do movement became the first labor movement in Vietnam directed by the Vietnamese Communists.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tu Binh, "Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation", Ohio University, 1985. p.23
  2. ^ Pierre Brocheux, "Le Proletariat des plantationd'heveas au Vietnam meridional: aspects sociaux et poltiques (1927-1937)", Les Movement Social No 90, Paris (Jan-March 1975) Paris. p. 65
  3. ^ Supranote 1. p.60
  4. ^ Supranote 1. p.76


[edit] Further reading

Tran Tu Binh, "The Red Earth: A Vietnamese Memoir of Life on a Colonial Rubber Plantation" (Memoir), Ohio University Center for International Studies Center,1985. [[1]]

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