ABSTRACT
The power vacuum created by the Japanese defeat in 1945 gave Ho Chi Minh the chance to take power in Hanoi, hoping that Vietnamese independence might be secured with American approval by means of some sort of deal with France. The former Emperor asked for the National Liberation Committee to send a delegation to Hue to formalize the transfer of power, and on 28 August, the delegation arrived. The peculiar divisions in Southern society need a special examination. An extraordinary feature of the August Revolution was the way in which Catholics, even Catholic bishops, identified with Ho Chi Minh and his government. In the 1930s, Cao Daism fragmented into separate groupings, and between 1931 and 1934 it had secret contacts with Japanese agents in Vietnam and the pro-Japanese Vietnamese royal Prince Cuong De in Tokyo. Even in the higher echelons of Vietnamese society at the court at Hue, leading Catholics were also strong Nationalists, who wanted independence from France.
