Phu Rieng Do Rubber Strike Site

Thousands of workers walked together to the plantation owner to wish him a happy new year. They brought their greetings, but they also carried a list of demands. It was the morning of the first day of Tết, the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam. The lunar year was Canh Ngọ, and the date was January 30, 1930.

The place was the Phú Riềng rubber plantation, owned by the French company Michelin. Today the land lies among endless rubber forests in the north of Đồng Nai province. It carries an unusual name: Phú Riềng Đỏ, or Red Phú Riềng. That is the name of a movement and a struggle, tied to the first communist cell of rubber plantation workers, born inside a colonial plantation.

The story began a few years earlier. Early in 1927, the first group of workers reached Phú Riềng. There were 150 of them, all from Hà Nam, a land that is now part of Ninh Binh province. Many more followed from the north and the center of the country, joined by people of the area's ethnic minority groups. Each worker signed a three-year contract. Even with a good reason, they were not allowed to leave and go home.

The working day lasted 13 or 14 hours. Food was short and wages were low. Beatings and fines came often. Alone, a worker had almost no way to resist. The spontaneous revolts that broke out mostly failed.

In 1928, Nguyễn Xuân Cừ was assigned to build a movement among the workers here. On October 20, 1929, more than 2,000 workers went on strike. They demanded higher pay and an end to the beatings, and the plantation owner had to agree to settle the matter.

Eight days later, on the night of October 28 into the early morning of October 29, six people met in secret. They gathered in the forest beside a rocky stream in Village 3. There the Phú Riềng cell of the Indochinese Communist Party was born. Its first secretary was Nguyễn Xuân Cừ. One of the six was Phạm Văn Phu, who later took the name Trần Tử Bình. He led the Red Guard team, the armed force of the cell, made up of young workers.

Then Tết came. On that first morning, the list of demands asked the owner to honor the labor contracts, to ban beatings and to stop unfair cuts and fines on wages. It asked for exemption from the head tax and forced-labor duty. The workers also wanted pay for women workers on leave to give birth, a working day of eight hours, and compensation for people injured at work. They gave a warning. If nothing was settled by the end of the three days of Tết, the whole plantation would go on strike.

The fifth day of Tết, February 3, was the day they were due back at work. That morning, more than 5,000 workers and laborers from ten villages did not go out to the rubber plots. They held a general strike and surrounded the plantation owner's compound. In those same days, a worker named Cảo from Village 9 was beaten to death by men working for the owner. His death drew everyone closer together.

The plantation owner called for soldiers. The district chief of Bà Rá came with 25 colonial soldiers to put down the strike. About 800 workers, together with the Red Guard team, overwhelmed them, and the frightened soldiers ran. The workers took five of the soldiers prisoner and seized seven guns. Soon after, the Governor of Nam Kỳ and the head of the secret police for Indochina marched on Phú Riềng in person. Nam Kỳ was the name then used for southern Vietnam. The two men led 300 French soldiers. Another 500 colonial soldiers came with them.

The struggle lasted eight days, from January 30 to February 6, 1930. The workers were not only asking for food, wages or working hours. They were asking to be treated as human beings. In the end, the plantation owner had to sign a written pledge to meet the demands. The news shook all of Nam Kỳ and reached as far as Paris. It gave strength to the plantation workers at Dầu Tiếng and Quản Lợi. The workers at Lộc Ninh took heart from it too.

The price was high. Hundreds of workers were arrested. Trần Tử Bình was convicted and held in the prison on Côn Đảo from 1931 to 1936. But the name Phú Riềng Đỏ stayed. It marked a turning point. The rubber workers no longer rose up alone and scattered. They had learned to struggle together, in an organized way.

Today the historic site lies within the Tân Thành rubber farm. The farm belongs to the Đồng Phú Rubber Joint Stock Company. The farm lies in Thuận Lợi commune, in Đồng Nai province. At its heart stands the Phú Riềng Đỏ Monument, 10 meters tall, carved with the oath the cell swore long ago. The Đồng Phú rubber company built the monument in 1985. On February 12, 1999, the site was designated a national historic monument.

About 700 meters from the monument stands a marker stele. It marks the place where the cell held the ceremony to admit its first Party members. Nearby lies a cemetery of plantation laborers. It recalls the workers who gave their whole lives to the colonial plantation.

Rows of rubber trees line both sides of the road in. Some of the large ones may date from the days of the old plantation. Standing here, it is easy to see why the rubber forest once served for secret meetings, for admitting Party members and for preparing a struggle. The forest was a workplace and a screen at the same time.

Every year, many groups of students, rubber industry trade unions and visitors tracing the nation's roots come here to offer incense. The site is not grand. But once you know that more than 5,000 people stood up here for their dignity, the quiet of the rubber forest seems to carry many voices.

Evening falls, and the wind slips through the rubber canopy. Dry leaves drop here and there on the path. Somewhere beside the rocky stream, six people once sat together deep in the night. Then, one morning on the first day of Tết, thousands of people went to greet the owner for the new year, with a list of demands in their hands.