ABSTRACT
Non-communist and anticolonialist, these parties were in many ways the most logical partners for Japanese interests in Indochina. And yet, in spite of the Indochinese Communist Party's wartime propaganda, they received little assistance from the Japanese. Understanding why that was the case can cast new light on the failure of noncommunist nationalist parties to come to power in Vietnam in August 1945 as opposed to their communist competitors. Dai Viet nationalism was of another kind. Its leaders aspired to the creation of a 'Greater Vietnam', either Republican or Monarchist, but modern and non-communist. From a geographical point of view, the space making up the Vietnamese nation in the minds of young revolutionary students remained rather unclear. The Japanese expansion into northern Indochina in 1940 had the potential to catapult non-communist nationalist parties into the revolutionary limelight.
