La Lutte (newspaper)

La Lutte ('The Struggle') was a French-language newspaper published in Saigon, Vietnam, during the French colonial period. It was launched ahead of the April-May 1933 Saigon municipal council election as a joint organ of the Indochinese Communist Party and a grouping of Trotskyists (which became known as Nhom Tran Dau, the 'Struggle Group', after La Lutte), who were running a joint slate of candidates for the polls. This kind of cooperation between Trotskyists and Comintern-linked communists was a phenomenon unique to Vietnam. The editorial line of La Lutte fluctuated between Trotskyist and Communist Party positions. The supporters of La Lutte were known as lutteurs.

La Lutte opposed both colonial rule and the Constitutionalist Party. The first issue of La Lutte was published on April 24, 1933. In the election the La Lutte grouping called its slate of candidates the 'Workers' List'. Two of the candidates of the Workers' List, Nguyen Van Tao and Tran Van Thach, were elected (there were six elected seats in total), but their election was invalidated in August 1933. Publication of La Lutte was discontinued after the election.

However, Nguyen An Ninh (an independent Marxist) sought to revive experience of leftist cooperation. An agreement between the Communist Party and the Trotskyists was reached. As a result, La Lutte was revived on October 4, 1934. The editorial board consisted of Nguyen An Ninh, Le Van Thu, Tran Van Thach (left-wing nationalists), Nguyen Van Tao, Duong Bach Mai, Nguyen Van Nguyen, Nguyen Thi Luu (Communist Party), Ta Thu Thau, Phan Van Huu, Ho Huu Tuong, Phan Van Chang and Huynh Van Phuong (Trotskyists). Edgar Ganofsky was the manager of the newspaper. The united front formed around La Lutte ran various campaigns and participated in elections. In the March 1935 Cochinchina assembly election, albeit with restricted suffrage and government interference, leftist candidates obtained 17% of the votes. There was a joint La Lutte candidate slate for the May 1935 municipal election, and Tran Van Thach, Nguyen Van Tao, Ta Thu Thau and Doung Bach Mai were elected. The election of the latter three was, however, invalidated. Moreover, the election was preceded by a controversy within the La Lutte alliance regarding the candidature of Doung Bach Mai, a Communist Party leader. He was labelled 'reformist' by Trotskyists, but defended by Ta Thu Thau. In late 1936 and 1937 the grouping organized various strikes.

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