Ho Chi Minh

Oppression Hits All Races


First Published: Le Paria, August 17, 1923
Source: Selected Works of Ho Chi Minh Vol. 1
Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House
Transcription/Markup: Christian Liebl
Online Version: Ho Chi Minh Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003


Vorovsky, delegate of the workers' and peasants' Russia, was murdered in Switzerland by fascism. There was not one of the delegates of the very civilized and very Christian powers gathered at Lausanne who deigned to attend his funeral. Only the Turkish delegation, headed by Ismet Pasha, came to pay tribute to the mortal remains of the murdered man.

Ben Radia, a worker of Tunisian origin, was murdered on May Day by the police. The Parisian workers' organizations gave him a big funeral. Thousands of workers stopped work on that day to follow their native comrade to his last resting place.

All the martyrs of the working class, those in Lausanne like those in Paris, those in Le Havre like those in Martinique, are victims of the same murderer: international capitalism. And it is always in belief in the liberation of their oppressed brothers, without discrimination as to race or country, that the souls of these martyrs will find supreme consolation.

After experiencing these painful lessons, the oppressed people of all countries ought to know on which side their true brothers are, and on which side their enemy.