Famine in Vietnam in 1945

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In the famine in Vietnam in 1945 (Vietnamese: Nạn đói Ất Dậu , in German “Famine of the Ất Dậu year”), an estimated 1.3 million Vietnamese were killed in northern Vietnam ( Tonkin ) between October 1944 and May 1945 .

The famine was caused by the exploitation of the French colony as part of the Japanese war economy, which collapsed in 1944/45 due to the action of the Allies. The famine itself increased the popularity of the Viet Minh , who filled the rural power vacuum and , years later, brought about the end of French colonial rule in the Indochina War .

prehistory

Vietnam has always been plunged into food shortages and famine by periodic tropical storms , droughts , floods or parasite infestations . Chroniclers from the time of the Nguyễn dynasty (1802–1945) observed famines due to floods every three years. The Vietnamese feudal states tried to counteract these catastrophes by centralizing food supplies. Likewise, the benefits of the diversification of the arable land were touted among the peasantry. The French colonial state in Indochina saw the improvement of traffic routes and means of transport as a way of overcoming food shortages, and used this in times of famine to alleviate the hardship in underserved areas. State incentives have also been created to encourage people to migrate from the overpopulated Tonkins areas to new growing areas in Cochinchina . Like their predecessors, the French colonial authorities tried to promote alternatives to the monoculture cultivation of rice. Since 1886, Tonkin's population had grown from 6.2 million to 10 million in 1943. The total population of Vietnam grew from 1921 to 1943 from 14.7 to 22.6 million.

The Japanese occupation of Vietnam during the Second World War , which until 1945 used the local Vichy administration as a means, forced rice deliveries to the Japanese mainland in 1941-44 and arranged the economy of the colony according to the needs of the Japanese war economy. The Japanese Empire became the sole purchaser of all rice and grain surpluses in the colony and imported around 1 million tons of rice and maize each from Indochina between 1941 and 1943. The economic policy of the colonial authorities aimed not only at fulfilling the Japanese demands but also for the colony to be as self-sufficient as possible . As a result, the colonial state set up a requisitioning regime which obliged every farmer to sell a fixed amount of rice to the state at a fixed price that was well below the market price. In the event of a bad harvest, the taxes were not waived, the farmer had to buy rice in order to then give it to the colonial state. This led to the emergence of a lively black market and discontent among the rural population.

In the course of the occupation, the forced cultivation of raw material crops instead of food was enforced, especially in the north, in order to compensate for the now no longer possible imports, especially from British India , and to meet the needs of the Japanese war economy. The cultivation area for vegetable oils and textiles was expanded from 24,500 ha to 120,000 ha. As a result, the acreage for food fell, particularly in the precariously supplied north. The war-related self-sufficiency economy led to a rise in the cost of living via massive inflation, especially for local wage earners. The cost of living in Hanoi for local workers doubled from 1943 to 1944 alone. Due to the priority of military transports and the disruption of shipping and infrastructure by the Allies, it was not possible to maintain sufficient travel transport from south to north Vietnam. There are French and British reports that 40,000 to 60,000 tons were exported to other countries in the Japanese sphere of influence. The Vietnamese historian Bui Minh Dung refers to the needs of the occupation troops and assumes a large-scale supply by French and Japanese troops in preparation for possible fighting, which is not reflected in the foreign trade statistics. US submarine and air strikes dramatically reduced food deliveries to Japan. At the beginning of 1945 these stopped completely due to a lack of transport capacities.

In the spring of 1945, the scarcity widened dramatically after a drought in the north and the flooding of 230,000 hectares in the south. After a brief improvement in early summer, the second rice harvest was also badly damaged by further floods from August to October.

course

In the spring of 1944, drought and insect infestation in Tonkin resulted in an initial loss of around 10 percent in the fifth month's harvest. The harvest of the tenth month, planned for October of the same year, was affected by tropical storms. The first deaths from starvation occurred in late 1944 in Nghe Anh and Ha Tinh provinces. In February 1945, the famine spread to the coastal Tonkins provinces. Food shortages peaked in March 1945, coinciding with the Japanese coup in Indochina. In the spring of 1945 large parts of Tonkins and northern Annam were affected by the famine. Numerous farmers left their villages in search of food and there was migration to the cities. Many people tried to survive by eating wildlife, tree bark, and foliage. Isolated cases of cannibalism have also been reported. The sight of dead people on the streets became commonplace for months in urban and rural areas.

A Vietnamese doctor described the events in the capital of Tonkin after the Japanese takeover as follows: “But before they arrived in Hanoi, they were on their way for days without food, supporting each other. The adults carried the children in baskets. At that time, according to our estimates, around 40,000 starving farmers came to Hanoi to beg for food and to wait for distributions and alms. We called them alms back then. They were in the streets, except for the one where the French residences were. They were lying on the sidewalk and it was very cold this year of all times. (…) In the early morning, when we opened the door, we saw five to seven bodies of people who had died the night before. ” The Japan-dependent Vietnamese government under President Bao Dai and Prime Minister Tran Trong Kim tried to take action against to seize hunger, however, failed due to one's own powerlessness and the circumstances of the world war. The government tried unsuccessfully to get the Japanese to end their rice recruitment. It also tried, with no tangible success, to facilitate the transport of food north. The government provided camps for refugees from hunger. In addition, private aid organizations were formed in Tonkin and other parts of the country.

Victim

The number of victims is controversial. In his speech on the declaration of independence, Ho Chi Minh named an inflated number of two million dead for political reasons. A French estimate goes from 600,000 to 700,000 fatalities. More recent estimates, including Vietnamese sources, put around one million dead in Tonkin and 300,000 dead in Annam , with many victims not starving, but weakened and susceptible to disease.

The Japanese Vietnam expert Furuta Motoo was able to determine a death rate for the total population of around a quarter and a death rate for the class of landless farmers of a little more than half for two exemplary villages in the province of Thai Binh through family records and surveys. The US historian David G. Marr assumes that in the affected regions in Tonkin and Annam around 10% of the population fell victim to hunger within five months.

Political Consequences

The population who experienced the famine saw the responsibility primarily in the actions of the French colonial authorities and, to a lesser extent, in the Japanese occupying power. The Allied bombing campaign has not been linked to the famine in public opinion.

The famine aggravated tensions between the Viet Minh and the French colonial power, which again claimed the land after the war. For political reasons, beginning with the war crimes trials in Indochina , the victorious powers assigned sole guilt to the Japanese troops in the country. This Allied propaganda also served to divert attention from failure in the face of hunger in Bengal (1943–1944: 3-5 million deaths) and in southern Arabia (1944–1950).

In the eyes of the Vietnamese rural population, the Viet Minh gained significantly in prestige through attacks on grain stores of the occupiers and subsequent distribution.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geoffrey Gunn (2011): The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944–45 Revisited , The Asia-Pacific Journal, 9 (5), No. 4, January 31, 2011. Available online as html , last accessed on December 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ Christopher Goscha : Vietnam - A New History. New York, 2016, p. 155
  3. ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam - The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power , Lanham, 2014, pp. 145-150.
  4. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina - An Ambiguous Colonization 1858-1954, London 2009, pp. 346-248.
  5. ↑ Dung Bùi Minh: Japan's Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944-45. Modern Asian Studies, 1995, vol. 29, No. 03, pp. 573-618.
  6. ↑ a b Takashi Shiraishi, Motoo Furuta (Ed.): Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s (= Cornell University, Southeast Asia Programm. Translation Series. Vol. 2). Southeast Asia Program - Cornell University, Ithaca NY 1992, ISBN 0-87727-401-0 .
  7. ^ A b Geoffrey Gunn The Great Vietnamese Famine of 1944–1945 Revisited. 2011. In: Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. Retrieved December 11, 2014.
  8. ^ Geoffry C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam - The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power. Lanham, 2014, pp. 231-232.
  9. ↑ a b Frederik Logevall: Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. New York 2012, pp. 79-81.
  10. ^ Geoffry C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam - The Great Famine and the Viet Minh Road to Power. Lanham, 2014, p. 256. Original quote in English:

    “But before they managed to arrive in Hanoi they had already spent days on the road, carrying each other along the way, without anything to eat. The grown ups were carrying their children in baskets. By the time at least 40,000 starving poor peasants in our estimate arrived in Hanoi to beg for food and to wait for handouts, for alms. Alms we called it at the time. They were lying about all over the streets, except for the streets where the french residences were. They lay on the pavements. And it was particularly cold that year. (...) Early morning when we opened our door, we saw five to seven corpses of people who had died the night before. "

  11. ↑ Stein Tonneson: The Vietnamese Revolution of 1945. London, 1991, 1993, p 295
  12. ↑ a b Bùi Minh Dũng: Japan's Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944-45. In: Modern Asian Studies. Vol. 29, No. 3, 1995, pp. 573-618, doi: 10.1017 / S0026749X00014001 .
  13. ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam , Lanham, 2014, pp. 273-274
  14. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945–1954) , Copenhagen 2011, p. 169.
  15. ↑ Geoffrey C. Gunn: Rice Wars in Colonial Vietnam , Lanham, 2014, p. 270.