Tran Thi Minh Chau first came into contact with revolutionary ideas while working in a bookstore selling revolutionary literature in Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi during the popular front period (1936-1939). She talks at length about the different kinds of books sold there, as well as the importance of the store for intellectuals and Party members. With the return of repression in 1939, many of the books had to be sent away to hiding places or burned. While still quite young (her year of birth is unspecified), she was arrested and imprisoned for some time before being released for lack of evidence. Having joined the Party in 1939, she was first sent to Tuyen Quang for mass mobilization work and building Party bases, then to Phu Tho, and finally Ha Dong where she was the Provincial Committee Secretary. Here, among other things, she organized the printing of news and documents from the Central Committee. She gives many details about the clandestine Party organization in Ha Dong (especially Van Phuc) in 1942. She was then sent to Hung Yen, though she doesn’t say many things about this later period.