Dôi Môi

Dôi Môi (often translated as 'Renovation' or 'Renewal'), also known as Dôi Môi Minh, is a revolutionary movement, considered the most radical and active terrorist organization in Hôinôm. It is believed the group was founded at least in late 1568 or early 1569, and most information about the organization is unconfirmed or suspicious. They are believed to be active mostly in Northern and Eastern Hôinôm. Between Marth 1569 and early 1570 they have carried out about 37 assassinations.

History

According to most sources, the group was formed in Southern Hôinôm between late 1568 and early 1569. Its founders are believe to come from small anarchist groups and radical members of the illegal Nationalist Party of Hôinôm.

The group advocates the use of revolutionary violence and terror in order to achieve social change in Hôinôm, specially against armed forces and revelant authorities of the Imperial Kingdom of Hôinôm. Such actions, by the own group terminology, are often called and vindicated as "acts of social vengeance". Between the most notable terror acts of the group, it can be mentioned the assassination of Minister of Internal Affairs Lâm Dùc Nhung, along other five people, on Zechyr 11, 1569, the assassination of Governor Nguyên Binh Ngân and his family on Alvan 1570, and the assassination of Prime Minister Thúy Vân Quân in a car bomb attack in 1576.

The group has also carried out many assaults and burglaries. Between their victims there are informants, policemen, directors of factories, and citizens who got in their way. They are believed to have participated in dozens of shops, cars, and banks robbery since their foundation. The group is also known for their use of propaganda, unusual in other past and present terrorist organizations of the country, distributing notes and sending letters to newspapers and the authorities.

By 1581, the group was believed to be either extinct or dissolved, with most of their active members jailed, killed in fighting against Hôinômese police and Armed Forces, or fled to exile.

Organization

Dôi Môi is believed to have little formal structure, and no leader is known. It is rumoured that all members have one vote during meetings, but during combat operations they select a temporary commander whom they all swore to obey without question. Secrecy in the organization seems paramount. According to an internal document found by the police, they have forbidden to carry identifying objects or clothing, and they do not engage in any display of activism in public. Members who are caught often commit suicide, and they are known for executing their own comrades before they are taken prisoners.

Ideology and inspiration

The group is believed to be inspired by the philosophy of Tuân Dinh Tiên (born 1528), a Hôi writer and political activist. A former member of the Nationalist Party, Tân spent 16 years in Hôi prisons, before being released in early 1563. Only a few months later, another arrest warrant was ordered against him, regarding the authorship of anti-monarchist leaflets, but he was able to flee the country. It is believed he lived in Tieguo for some time, and it was claimed he stayed in Tiejungo around 1566-1567. His current whereabouts is unknown, and Hôinôm government has offered a generous economic reward for collaboration in his arrest. However, there are not evidences of a direct relation or contact between Tuân Dinh Tiên and the Dôi Môi group.

Since his exile, Tiên continued writting several leaflets and essays, radicalizing soon his views. He broke with the nationalist and progressive ideology of the Nationalist Party and similar anti-monarchist political parties, denouncing such organizations as "delusional" and "counterrevolutionary". He declared himself an "anti-intelligentsia" advocate refusing political activity and parties, and focusing on economic struggle and union activity. He also justified revolutionary violence in one of this essays.

According to Tuân Dinh Tiên, the class interests of intellectuals, including nationalists, liberals, and communists parties, is opposed to that of manual workers and peasants, since the unproductive labour of intellectuals depends upon preserving a herditary monopoly on education at workers' expense. Rather than put their hopes in political revolution, Tiên claims, manual workers need to concentrate upon pressing their economic demands through a mass general strike, until their wages equalled those of the intellectual worker and there could be a socialization of knowledge. Revolution would consist therefore of a violent revolt of the unemployed, workers and peasants, against both political parties and the state.

Tiên denounces socialist and communist regimes such as Severyane and others as a form of "state capitalism". Once intellectuals deceive the masses and seize the state apparatus, he claims, they strengthen the oppression of the working classes and peasants acting to further capitalism and authoritarian rule. Instead of that, Tiên proposes a kind of socialism which aim to the direct political control of economic institutions by the working classes and peasants themselves.

Unlike Tiên, however, Dôi Môi claims that terror is something more than an occasional strategy, and defends the "extermination of class enemies".