Revolutionary poet To Huu was born on October 4, 1920 in the imperial
capital city of Hue as Nguyen Kim Thanh. Despite being poor, his family
was quite artistic. His father was good at writing poems and his mother
was well-known in the region as a singer of traditional songs.
To Huu was brought up in a creative family environment, and started
writing poetry at the age of six under the supervision of his father.
At the age of 12, his mother died and a year later, To Huu went to
Quoc Hoc – Hue High School. It was there that he started to learn about
the plight of his country and Communist ideology. To Huu soon became a
leader in the Democratic Youth League in Hue and in 1938 he was admitted
to the Indochinese Communist Party.
In April 1939, To Huu was arrested by the French colonial authorities
and detained in several prisons in the central region, including at
prisons in the Tay Nguyen Central Highlands. Despite the harsh
conditions in jail, To Huu maintained his revolutionary spirit and
convictions. Together with other prison inmates, in March 1942 he
escaped and continued his revolutionary activities under the enemy’s hot
pursue before successfully contacting a Party organisation operating in
Thanh Hoa Province.
Three years later, in August 1945, To Huu was elected as the Chairman
of an Insurrection Committee in Hue. A year later, when the anti-French
Resistance War broke out (in late 1946), he was sent back to Thanh Hoa
in the position as the Provincial Party Committee Secretary. In 1947,
once again, To Huu was asked to serve in a new position – this time as
the manager of arts and culture activities of the Ho Chi Minh government
following the victory of the August revolution in 1945.
To Huu’s development as a poet and his revolutionary activities were
intertwined. His poems were first carried in newspapers produced by the
Democratic Front and his work reflected a new voice in the contemporary
poetry scene at that time in Viet Nam.
Political prose
To Huu wrote poems for the people. He wrote about subjects that were
close to the hearts of ordinary people, and much of his work explored
the anguished and hard life of his fellow countrymen who lived under the
yoke of the French colonialists and their henchmen. To Huu was
considered Viet Nam’s first Communist poet, and he also breathed new
life into poetry and the development of arts in the country. People even
considered him a pace setter when it came to political prose. The big
differences between To Huu’s poems and those of others were the
progressive ideology and his understanding of the injustice and
destitute life of Vietnamese people, particularly those living in urban
areas. In his poems, To Huu expressed his sorrow for the poor people’s
plight, while instilling in his readers the will to fight against
injustice and brutality and nurturing a confidence in brighter future
and the success of the revolution. In his poem Hai Dua Tre (Two
Children), To Huu was successful in depicting the two contrasting lives
of a child from a rich landlord’s family and a child servant.
Dua ngay ngat trong phong xanh mat ruoi
Day ngua nga, day linh thoi ken Tay
Dua kia them, giuong mat dung nhin ngay
Khong dam toi, e don roi, tieng chui
(A child lives in a life of plenty
With abundant toys made in the west
While the other child is an onlooker
Watching silently from far away)
During the war for national salvation, To Huu used his pen to condemn
the decadent feudal regime supported by the French, a system that had
driven the majority of the Vietnamese people into poverty and hunger.
One of his most famous poems Tu Ay (Since Then) described his awakening
to Communism as the moment when the “sun of truth shone on my heart”.
Many people have described the poem as a trumpet call urging people to
fight for their rights. On the other hand, the poem has been considered
as words of comfort for unfortunate people:
Toi la con cua van nha
La em cua van kiep phoi pha
La anh cua van dau em nho
Khong ao com cu bat cu bo
(I’m a son of tens of thousands of families
A younger brother of tens of thousands of withered lives
A big brother to tens of thousands of little children
Who are homeless and live in constant hunger)
A highlight in his poem is his praise of the indomitable spirit of Vietnamese freedom fighters:
Song chet co nhau cung
Khong duoc xa hang ngu
Khong the gi quyen ru
Mua ban duoc luong tam
(We live and die together
Our lives bound together
Nothing can divide us apart
Our conscience cannot be bought or sold)
Following the resounding victory of the Dien Bien Phu battle over the
French colonialists in 1954, once again To Huu had the chance to write
about an important moment in his country’s history as it happened. By
reading his poems throughout the years, one can trace the anti-French
resistance movement from its beginning to it’s triumph. To Huu also
voiced the Vietnamese people’s willingness to sacrifice everything for
the homeland’s independence and freedom under the clear sighted
leadership of President Ho Chi Minh.
Though the war of resistance was full of difficulties and hardship
and millions of lives were lost, the people were still optimistic about
the final victory – a driving force for the victory at Dien Bien Phu.
To Huu’s poems have not only depicted the magnanimity of the
revolution, but also become slogans encouraging the fighters to surge
ahead.
Xe doc Truong Son, di cuu nuoc
Ma long phoi phoi day tuong lai
(Crossing the Truong Son mountain range for national salvation
We feel deep pride in our hearts)
It is said to that for a poem to be effective, the poet must have a
sense of affection. For patriotic poems, the first criteria the poets
must have is self abnegation to the revolution, the people and the
nation.
Poetic criteria
In addition, they were required to be upright and resolute against
cruelty and insincerity. All these characteristics have been reflected
in To Huu’s poems.
According to To Huu, a good poem must meet certain criteria,
including its ideological content and purely poetic and artistic
elements. To Huu’s poems praise the Party, the revolution and his
homeland, yet they are not dry or impersonal.
Trai tim anh chia ba phan tuoi do
Anh danh rieng cho Dang phan nhieu
Phan cho tho va phan de em yeu
(My heart is divided into three red parts
I dedicate the larger part to the party
One part for poetry and one part for my love)
According to the Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper, To Huu once publicly
proclaimed: “I’m both a revolutionary and a poet. For me, poems are a
weapon for the revolution.”
After peace returned to North Viet Nam in 1954, To Huu held a number
of senior government posts. He was the first Vietnamese person to have
received the Southeast Asian Writers Award in 1966. He was elected as
the alternate member of the Politburo in 1976 and appointed as a Deputy
Prime Minister in 1980. He passed away on December 19, 2002.
To Huu’s works continue to be taught in schools throughout Viet Nam
today, and it’s thanks to To Huu that politics can have a sense of
poetry. As the famed Vietnamese poet Xuan Dieu once said: “To Huu was
the one who successfully made politics into poetry.”
VNS