What began as a series of small labor strikes in Hanoi in the fall of 1936 had developed into a major movement by the beginning of 1937. According to police investigations, it was members of the small newspaper company Le Travail who incited Hanoi labor to strike. But why was the Le Travail group concerned in this movement? What was the Le Travail group? What was its purpose? We analyze this social movement in the worldwide context of the economic crisis after1930 and the application of the labor law of Indochina in 1936—which was an indirect cause of the labor strike that broke out in Hanoi in 1936-37 and triggered the implementation of social policies on the same level as in metropolitan France—and also in the context of “legal” or “ illegal” policies of the Indochinese Communist Party. In conclusion, this strike had the effect of creating “a new indigenous social network” grouping management and workers into professions in Hanoi. This article examines the social structure of colonial cities in French Indochina. Its focal point is the influence of colonization on society and urban inhabitants in Vietnam, based on the case of Hanoi during the first half of the twentieth century.
