Boudarel’s Biography

GEORGES BOUDAREL - (21-12-1926 - 29-12-2003)

Born on 21-12-1926 in Saint-Etienne (Loire) in a Catholic family, Geoges Boudarel do good studies in the Marist Fathers, and then received his Licentiate of Philosophy.

Takes the card of the French Communist Party in 1946. Appointed teacher in Indochina, although it has not done his military service and is subject to a "safe" on board the SS "PASTEUR" in early April 1948. Landed in Cochin, he was assigned to Lycée Yersin Dalat as professor of philosophy.

Meanwhile, in Saigon, he established contacts with the cell Kominform called "cultural Marxist group number 106."

It then performs various tasks for the National Education: Bachelor of correction in Hanoi (June 1949), stage at the College of Vientiane in Laos (Fall 1949), assignment to Marie Curie High School in Saigon (end 1949).

In 1950, he decided to take the plunge, he writes, and joined the maquis viet-minh. He served for two years. Later, it will be called up for military service on the Indo-Chinese territory and does not the French military authorities, it will be considered "rebellious", and not as a deserter.

During this period, he joined the Indochinese Communist Party which becomes little later, on 3 March 1951, in Workers' Party (Dang Lao Dong). It is assigned to the radio "Saigon-Cholon free" where he is in charge of issuing French. It is named Vietnamese Dong Dai, ie: Universal Brotherhood.

Late 1951 he was appointed to serve in the North to make propaganda for peace and repatriation of the French Expeditionary Corps (Cefeo) with prisoners that Viet Minh plans to release to facilitate the cessation of hostilities.

It was launched early 1952 and will be a year to join the Tonkin, from the mountain slopes of the Cordillera Annamite, and carefully avoiding the French forces.

On 22 December 1952, he arrived in Viet-Bac (Zone "liberated" by the Viet Minh in Tonkin) and was appointed Assistant Instructor Politics political commissar of Camp 113. It is likened to the head of a company (Dai Truong Doï) with earnings triple, three kilos of paddy per day. Per kilo of paddy, husked rice, is the monetary unit in the areas occupied by the Viet Minh.

He arrived on 7 February 1953 at Camp 113, located in Lang-Kieu near the border of China, south of Ha Giang, in the basin of the River Claire (Song Lô), twenty kilometers from Vinh Thuy.

There conscientiously applied program of brainwashing designed by Van Dich, an agency of central government responsible for the political rehabilitation of prisoners of war.

He is well aware of the absurdities and sometimes even his disgrace, especially when he finds the very high rate of mortality among captive: 50%, on which he alert his superiors without success. He wrote the following: "As prisoners, I was a prisoner of the system" (See his autobiography).

He left the camp, 113 in February 1954 and was assigned to the radio Voice of Vietnam, located in a secret place of Tonkin.

In October 1954, following the Geneva accords, he joined Hanoi where he remained ten years.

Disappointed by the evolution of the communist regime and the purges of 1955-1956 he later described in a book testimony hundred flowers bloom at night in Vietnam (Jacques Bertoin-1991), he left Vietnam and took refuge in Prague 1964. He got a job at the Institute of Oriental Studies, then as editor of the World Federation of Trade Unions. He then discovers the sclerosis of the communist system Kafkaesque denounced by Khrushchev.

Meanwhile, in France, he was sentenced to death for disobedience and desertion.
On 17 June 1966 in Paris, the National Assembly adopts the law on amnesty for crimes committed in connection with the events in Algeria. Communist is an amendment to Article 30 of the Act. It states that "amnesty shall automatically every crime committed in connection with the events related to the insurgency in Vietnam, and before 1 October 1957.

Georges Boudarel advantage of these provisions to return to France after eighteen years of absence that qualify prudishly, thereafter, to "study tour in the Far East." He resumed a normal life without being annoyed, including with regard to his military service he had not yet made. Thanks to the amnesty, it has become simply deferred. The prevailing political realism, it is exempted for medical reasons. "

He joined the University Paris-Jussieu-7 since its inception in 1970, and became a lecturer of history. He is campaigning for a time within the "Solidarity Front Indochine" Trotskyist, then made two short visits to Vietnam in 1978 and 1989.

It takes a stand against the regime in Hanoi where he denounced the methods of indoctrination and publishing system: Bureaucracy in Vietnam (L'Harmattan 1983).

He will live quiet until 13 February 1991. That day, during a symposium held in the Senate by the Center for Studies on Africa and Asia Modernes, he must speak. It is then taken to task by Jean-Jacques Beucler, former Minister and former MP, who was himself a captive in Indochina during four years and speaks on behalf of many former prisoners of the Viet Minh that surround it.

So begins the "case Boudarel.
It will be supported by many on the left, including Pierre Vidal Naquet, who, without the exemption, "refuses to condone, even by mere silence, the manhunt is being place "(Le Monde, 23 March 1991).
Later he quit the Communist Party, told the World in 1991: "I was Stalinist, I regret to 100%" ... It was late, the damage was done.

It ceases to hold at Jussieu in 1992, the date of his retirement.