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Viet Quoc

Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng

image by Željko Heimer and Phil Nelson

Viet Quoc
Original flag

See also:

Viet Quoc

The Viet Quoc, or Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, was established on December 25, 1927. Its primary objectives included armed uprising aimed at toppling the French colonialist regime all over Vietnam to gain independence for its Fatherland and democracy as well as happiness for its people.

On February 10, 1930, the Viet Quoc were involved in a general uprising in Ha Noi (Hanoi). The attacks were unsuccessful and the leaders were sentenced to death by the French government.

Along with the communist party, the Viet Quoc was a member of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Allied League (Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi, or VNCMDMH). The communists, led by Ho Chi Minh took control of the government, expelling non-communist parties from the VNCKMDMH and executing members of the political opposition.

Taking refuge in South Vietnam, the Viet Quoc joined the armed forces of South Vietnam from 1954-1975. The party is presently in exile.

The Viet Quoc was strongly patterned after the Chinese Kuomintang. During the 1930s they received funding from the KMT as well as the Vietnam Hotel in Hanoi which the party owned. As the organization was devoted to the independence of Vietnam, the hotel provided a means for French agents to acquire information about the party activities.
Phil Nelson, 2 September 2003

Original flag

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 28 November 2015

Original party flag was adopted in May 1929, at the party convention which was making the plans for armed uprising against French colonial rule. It was a horizontal bicolor, with yellow at the bottom symbolizing the Vietnamese people and red at the top symbolizing their struggle for independence. The flag was raised on 10 February 1930 in Yen Bai city, where Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army, supported by the Viet Quoc, tried to raise the uprising, but were suppressed during the same day by the rest of the garrison. It was also used in several succeeding incidents which took place until 16 February 1930. The party kept the flag in use until June 1945, when the current design was adopted jointly with the Dai Viet Nationalist Party as the flag of the National United Front (Vietnamese: Mat Tran Quoc Gia Lien Hiep), which operated as the single party in the Communist-controlled areas under the name of Nationalist Party Front of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Mat Tran Quoc Dan Dang Viet Nam). Although the Viet Quoc did not return to its original flag after the alliance was dissolved, it is still used on special occasions, as was done in January 2010 in French Guiana, where a memorial was constructed to the insurgents of 1930 who were imprisoned and died there. It shall be noted that a number of websites and other sources depict the flag as a red-yellow diagonal flag, but the party website shows images, including the photos, of a horizontal bicolor only.

Sources:
[1] Wikipedia page about the Viet Quoc party (in English): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_Qu%E1%BB%91c_D%C3%A2n_%C4%90%E1%BA%A3ng
[2] Wikipedia page about the Viet Quoc party (in Vietnamese): https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam_Qu%E1%BB%91c_d%C3%A2n_%C4%90%E1%BA%A3ng
[3] Viet Quoc party website - Party history - Page 7 (in Vietnamese): http://vietquoc.org/lich-su-dau-tranh-can-dai-viet-nam-quoc-dan-dang-7/
[4] Viet Quoc party website - The 2010 commemoration in French Guiana - Page 5 (in Vietnamese): http://vietquoc.org/d%E1%BB%B1ng-bia-t%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Fng-ni%E1%BB%87m-li%E1%BB%87t-si-vnqdd-t%E1%BA%A1i-guyane-nam-m%E1%BB%B9-5/
[5] Van Dao Hoang (author) and Khue Huynh (translator): Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang: A Contemporary History of a National Struggle: 1927-1954 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: RoseDog Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4349-9136-2
(Avaliable at Google Books: https://books.google.com.vn/books?id=ANNaSrzrN64C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)
Tomislav Todorovic, 28 November 2015