Open lecture: Race, psychological warfare, and the fight for France’s African soldiers during the First Indochina War

Welcome to an open lecture with Dr Andrew Bellisari, Assistant Professor vid historiska fakulteten, Purdue University, USA.

The lecture is titled "Our Struggle Is Yours”: Race, Psychological Warfare, and the Fight for France’s African Soldiers during the First Indochina War.

During the Indochina War, the French military assembled one of the world’s largest multi-ethnic, multi-confessional armed forces in order to preserve its empire in Southeast Asia.

Between 1945 and 1954, servicemen from France’s colonies in North and Sub-Saharan Africa comprised a quarter of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps. Throughout the conflict, Vietnamese Communists employed psychological warfare and appeals to anticolonial solidarity to persuade these soldiers to defect.

This talk examines these efforts as well as the fate of those African soldiers who abandoned their posts to join the Việt Minh — many of whom decided to stay in the newly formed Democratic Republic of Vietnam after the war ended. Initially welcomed as “người Việt Nam mới” (“new Vietnamese people”), these African migrants to North Vietnam represented a postcolonial future marked by the promise of global revolutionary collaboration. Yet tensions soon emerged along racial and cultural lines as Communist cadres struggled to govern their newest residents and African defectors advocated for better assimilation.

Using archival records from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam itself paired with oral history interviews, this talk critically evaluates issues of race and identity between colonized subjects from very different parts of the French empire and examines both the promises—and the limitations—of anticolonial networks during the Vietnamese revolution.

Register to attend on site

If you are not student or staff at the Swedish Defence University you must be at the reception desk to register with Security by 14.30 (and let us know well in advance). You must also have appropriate photo ID with you.

Students assemble at reception at 14.45 and you will be taken to the seminar room.

Attend online

You can also attend on Zoom: https://fhs-se.zoom.us/j/61022129051?pwd=bGN3RmkwL0U5bTRDNnNkVVlXdGJSdz09

Meeting ID: 610 2212 9051
Passcode: 974584

We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, online or in person!