"Since the beginning or French imperialist rule in Vietnam, the Vietnamese landlord class has relied on the imperialist forces to oppress and exploit the Vietnamese peasants still more harshly. A considerable number of peasants toil all the year round and yet do not ·have enough to eat and to wear. Under the colonialist and semi-feudal regime, when any natural calamity occurred enormous· numbers of labouring peasants would die of starvation. At the end of 1944 and early in 1945, two million of our peasants died of starvation not only due to savage exploitation by the feudal landlord class, but also because the Japanese fascists and the French imperialists brutally robbed them of their resources. This has aroused deep hatred in. the hearts of every peasant in our country."