Events of the First Indochina War in the mirror of new documents of Russian and Vietnamese archives

This is a review of a collection of documents published in Russia in the framework of a joint project of Russian and Vietnamese historians. It presents the characteristic of the structure of the collection, published historical sources and the scientific references. Most published documents are first introduced into scientific circulation. Compilers have done a great job, which should arouse the interest not only of historians, but also of a wider readership. Russian-language materials have been compiled from the collections of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation (AVI), the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and the Russian State Archive of Modern History (RGANI). Vietnamese documents are presented from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The book is illustrated with unique photographs from the funds of RGASPI and the AVI of the Russian Federation, executed at a high polygraphic level. The publication of the texts of documents is preceded by an introductory article, from which the reader can get a fairly complete idea of the current state of the source-study and historiographic bases of the problems of Soviet-Vietnamese relations during the First Indochina War. The main section of the collection consists of 6 parts and an appendix. The first - "War and Peace of the Fighting Vietnam in the Mirror of Politics and Diplomacy" contains 53 materials on the period of January 1950-May 1953, the second - "Difficult Way to Geneva", covers June 1953-April 1954 and consists of 26 documents. The third, fourth and fifth parts of the collection (88 documents and materials) are devoted directly to the work of the Geneva Conference in the context of discussing the problems of Indochina (April 26-May 19, May 21-June 10, June 11-July 23, 1954). The final part of the main section - "Prospects for a New Geneva", covers the period from July 24, 1954 to December 1956, and contains 8 documents on the fulfillment by the participants of the Geneva Conference of their decisions. The appendix contains 13 documents that do not directly relate to the stated theme of the collection but give a more complete picture of the events that took place at that time, as well as mechanisms for making foreign policy decisions on the Indochinese problem.

sources on the history of international relations, the history of Soviet-Vietnamese relations, the First Indochina War, the Geneva Conference of 1954, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, the foreign policy of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam