Kurzlebige Hundert Blumen in Vietnam 1955-1957

Abstract

In February 1955, a group of writers and artists in the cultural section of the North Vietnamese People's Army demanded free artistic expression and civil liberties, questioning the Communist Party's cultural policy and enjoying at least tacit support from high-ranking military leaders. In 1956, together with colleagues from civilian life, they published a collection of writings, Giai Pham (Beautyful Works) and, later that year, a journal programmatically entitled Nhan Van (Humanism), viciously attacked by the official censors. After a few months of widespread creativity in the intellectual and artistic community of North Vietnam, between Chrustchev's speech on Stalin at the XX:th Party Congress in February and the USSR's intervention in Hungary in November 1956, the movement was crushed in the wake of land reform, Party purges and the "Revisionism" affair. The questions posed in those days remain unanswered in contemporary Vietnam.