That violence rather than reform characterized colonial Vietnamese prisons resulted
also from their political nature. As heirs of the prisoner-of-war camps, they
held inmates considered not just, in Zinoman’s words, “antisocial” but also “antistate”
by their French captors. Ultimately this racist and politicized approach on
the part of the French colonial administration backfired, because the appalling conditions
encouraged inmates to organize, to resist, and in some cases to riot. Furthermore,
the circulation of prisoners among different institutions, for reasons of
work or punishment, began to create a sense of national community among individuals
from different regions and classes. This incipient nationalism created fertile
ground for Communist Party members, who, liable to arrest in large numbers, began
in the 1930s to recruit new members and hold classes in prisons. Noting the large
body of prison memoirs and poetry from the colonial era by individuals later hailed
as national heroes, Zinoman argues that French prisons must be recognized as an
important incubator of the communist revolution.