SUSAN DUNN
545
For Lenin, the French Revolution was not a failed movement but an
unfinished one, a necessary stage in class history. He was convinced that the
French Revolution, by furthering the rise of the bourgeoisie and the
development of capitalism and by restructuring to a certain extent French
society, had prepared the way for the eventual rise of the working class.
The Russian Revolution would fulfill the promise of the French
Revolution, finally inaugurating the reign of equality.
The Jacobins taught Lenin how to seize control of events, establish a
disciplined ruling party, and steer the revolution ahead, following his ide–
ological map. They also taught him not to concern himself with individual
rights and liberties or with democracy, all of which had been left in the
ditch. The Communist experiment in Russia lasted approximately seven–
ty years. By the end of the twentieth century, Russian citizens and
politicians recognized that Lenin's revolutionary project had failed eco–
nomically, poli tically, and morally. When in 1989 Russians turned to a
market economy, free elections, a multi-party system, political pluralism,
and individual rights, were they not celebrating 1776 after all?
In
September 1945, hundreds of thousands of people jammed the French–
looking boulevards and streets of downtown Hanoi. They had traveled in
oppressive heat from distant villages for the great day. Schools and offices
were closed. Jubilant peasants wearing straw hats, workers, mountain peo–
ple, militia members carrying spears, Catholic priests in their black suits and
Buddhist monks in their saffron robes waited excitedly. All faces turned
toward the platform erected in Ba Dinh Square, a large park near the
French residential quarter.
A frail-looking wisp of a man advanced to the microphone. "All men
are created equal," he declared, as all of Hanoi listened. "They are
endowed by their Creator wi th certain unalienable Rights; among these
are Life, Liberty, and the pursui t of Happiness." He paused and then elab–
orated. "This immortal statement," he explained, "was made in the
Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In
a broader sense, this means: all the peoples on earth are equal from birth,
all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free."
That was not all. Just as Jefferson's immortal vision of unalienable
rights and freedoms was followed by a kind of legal brief that document–
ed at length all the abuses committed by King George III and the English
Parliament against their American subjects, Ho Chi
Minh
similarly out–
lined the grievances of the Vietnamese against France, their colonial
master. As his listeners strained to hear him, he reminded them that France
was still attempting to destroy Vietnamese unity by artificially dividing the
nation into three separate political regions, Tonkin, Annam, and
