(born ;
19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('
Uncle
An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an uncle is an aunt, and the reciprocal relat ...
Hồ'), ('President Hồ') and by other
aliases
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...
and
sobriquets
A sobriquet ( ), or soubriquet, is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another, that is descriptive. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym, as it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name, without the need of expla ...
, was a
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
revolutionary and statesman. He served as
Prime Minister of Vietnam
The prime minister of Vietnam ( vi, Thủ tướng Việt Nam), officially styled as the Prime Minister of the Government of the Socialist Republic ( vi, Thủ tướng Chính phủ nước Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa), is the head of g ...
from 1945 to 1955, and as
President of Vietnam
The president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Chủ tịch nước Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam, lit=Chairman of the nation of Socialist Republic of Vietnam) is the head of state of Vietnam, elected by the Vietnam Nat ...
from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a
Marxist–Leninist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
, he was the
Chairman and First Secretary of the
Workers' Party of Vietnam.
was born in
Nghệ An province in the
French protectorate of Annam. He led the
independence movement
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
from 1941 onward. Initially, it was an umbrella group for all parties fighting for Vietnam's independence, but the Communist Party gained majority support after 1945. led the
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, defeating the
French Union
The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was the formal end of the "indigenous" () status of French subje ...
in 1954 at the
Battle of , ending the
First Indochina War
The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...
, and resulting in the division of Vietnam, with the Communists in control of
North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
. He was a key figure in the
People's Army of Vietnam
The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...
and the during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. Hồ officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems and died in 1969. North Vietnam was ultimately
victorious
''Victorious'' (stylized as ''VICTORiOUS'') is an American sitcom created by Dan Schneider (TV producer), Dan Schneider that originally aired on Nickelodeon, debuting on March 27, 2010, and concluding on February 2, 2013 after four seasons. Th ...
against
South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
and its
allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
, and
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
was officially
unified in 1976. Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed
Ho Chi Minh City
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
in his honor.
The details of 's life before he came to power in Vietnam are uncertain. He is known to have used between 50
[Duiker, William J. ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life''. New York: Hyperion, 2000. ] and 200 pseudonyms. Information on his birth and early life is ambiguous and subject to academic debate. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely.
Aside from being a politician, Hồ was also a writer, a poet, and a journalist. He wrote several books, articles and poems in Chinese,
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
and French.
Early life
Hồ Chí Minh was born as Nguyễn Sinh Cung
in 1890 in the village of Làng Chùa or
Hoàng Trù in
Kim Liên commune,
Nghệ An province, in
Central Vietnam
Central Vietnam ( vi, Trung Bộ or ), also known as Middle Vietnam or The Middle, formerly known as by South Vietnam, and Annam under French Indochina, is one of the three geographical regions within Vietnam.
The name Trung Bộ was used by ...
which was then a
French protectorate. Although 1890 is generally accepted as his birth year, at various times he used four other birth years: 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895. He lived in his father
Nguyễn Sinh Sắc's village of Làng Sen in
Kim Liên until 1895 when his father sent him to
Huế
Huế () is the capital of Thừa Thiên Huế province in central Vietnam and was the capital of Đàng Trong from 1738 to 1775 and of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945. The city served as the old Imperial City and admi ...
for study. He had three siblings: his sister Bạch Liên (Nguyễn Thị Thanh), a clerk in the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...
; his brother
Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm
Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (1888–1950), renamed Nguyễn Tất Đạt in accordance with Confucian tradition, was the brother of President Hồ Chí Minh of Việt Nam and also the brother of Nguyễn Thị Thanh. Khiêm was a geomancer
Geomancy ...
(Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a
geomancer
Geomancy (Greek: γεωμαντεία, "earth divination") is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand. The most prevalent form of divinatory geomancy inv ...
and
traditional herbalist; and another brother (Nguyễn Sinh Nhuận), who died in infancy. As a young child, Cung (Hồ) studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vuong Thuc Do. He quickly mastered
Chữ Hán
Chữ Hán (𡨸漢, literally "Chinese characters", ), Chữ Nho (𡨸儒, literally "Confucian characters", ) or Hán tự (漢字, ), is the Vietnamese term for Chinese characters, used to write Văn ngôn (which is a form of Classical Chinese ...
, a prerequisite for any serious study of
Confucianism
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
while honing his colloquial Vietnamese writing.
In addition to his studies, he was fond of adventure and loved to fly
kite
A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. ...
s and go fishing.
Following Confucian tradition, his father gave him a new name at the age of 10: ''Nguyễn Tất Thành.''
His father was a Confucian scholar and teacher and later an imperial magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe (
Qui Nhơn
Quy Nhon ( vi, Quy Nhơn ) is a coastal city in Bình Định province in central Vietnam. It is composed of 16 wards and five communes with a total of . Quy Nhon is the capital of Bình Định province. As of 2019 its population was 457,400. Hi ...
). He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died several days after having received 102 strokes of the
cane
Cane or caning may refer to:
*Walking stick or walking cane, a device used primarily to aid walking
*Assistive cane, a walking stick used as a mobility aid for better balance
*White cane, a mobility or safety device used by many people who are b ...
as punishment for an infraction.
His father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy, but he refused because it meant serving the French. This exposed Thành (Hồ) to rebellion at a young age and seemed to be the norm for the province. Nevertheless, he received a French education, attending ''
Collège Quốc học'' (''
lycée
In France, secondary education is in two stages:
* ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15.
* ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
'' or secondary education) in
Huế
Huế () is the capital of Thừa Thiên Huế province in central Vietnam and was the capital of Đàng Trong from 1738 to 1775 and of Vietnam during the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945. The city served as the old Imperial City and admi ...
in Central Vietnam. His disciples,
Phạm Văn Đồng
Phạm Văn Đồng (; 1 March 1906 – 29 April 2000) was a Vietnamese politician who served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1955 to 1976. He later served as Prime Minister of Vietnam following reunification of North and South Vietnam ...
and
Võ Nguyên Giáp
Võ Nguyên Giáp (; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general and communist politician who is regarded as having been one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He served as interior minister in President H ...
, also attended the school, as did
Ngô Đình Diệm
Ngô Đình Diệm ( or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician. He was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955), and then served as the first president of South Vietnam (Republic of ...
, the future President of South Vietnam and political rival.
His early life is uncertain but there are some documents indicating activities regarding an early revolutionary spirit during French-occupied Vietnam, but conflicting sources remain. Previously, it was believed that Thành (Hồ) was involved in an anti-slavery (anti-''
corvée
Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year.
Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of ...
'') demonstration of poor peasants in Huế in May 1908, which endangered his student status at ''Collège Quốc học''. However, a document from the
Centre des archives d'Outre-mer in France shows that he was admitted to ''Collège Quốc học'' on 8 August 1908, which was several months after the anti-''corvée'' demonstration (9–13 April 1908).
Later in life, he claimed the 1908 revolt had been the moment when his revolutionary outlook emerged, but his application to the French Colonial Administrative School in 1911 undermines this version of events, in which he stated that he left school to go abroad. Because his father had been dismissed, he no longer had any hope for a governmental scholarship and went southward, taking a position at Dục Thanh school in
Phan Thiết
Phan Thiết () is the capital of Bình Thuận Province on the southeast coast in Vietnam. While most of the inhabitants live in the city center, others reside in the four urban coastal wards, extending from Suối Nước beach in the northe ...
for about six months, then traveled to
Saigon
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
.
Overseas sojourn
In France
![Ho Chi Minh Plaque (6887120535)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Ho_Chi_Minh_Plaque_%286887120535%29.jpg)
In Saigon, he applied to work as a kitchen helper on a French merchant steamer, the ''Amiral de Latouche-Tréville'', using the alias Văn Ba. The ship departed on 5 June 1911 and arrived in
Marseille
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
on 5 July 1911. The ship then left for
Le Havre
Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...
and
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.[Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...]
) and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, where he claimed to have worked as a baker at the
Parker House Hotel Parker may refer to:
Persons
* Parker (given name)
* Parker (surname)
Places Place names in the United States
*Parker, Arizona
*Parker, Colorado
* Parker, Florida
* Parker, Idaho
* Parker, Kansas
* Parker, Missouri
* Parker, North Carolina
*Park ...
. The only evidence that he was in the United States is a letter to French colonial administrators dated 15 December 1912 and postmarked New York City (he gave his address as the
poste restante
''Poste restante'' (, "remainder post"), also known as general delivery in North American English, is a service where the post office holds the mail until the recipient calls for it. It is a common destination for mail for people who are visiting ...
in Le Havre and his occupation as a sailor) and a postcard to
Phan Chu Trinh
Phan Châu Trinh (Chữ Hán: 潘周楨, 9 September 1872 – 24 March 1926), courtesy name Tử Cán (梓幹), pen name Tây Hồ (西湖) or Hi Mã (希馬), was an early 20th-century Vietnamese nationalist. He sought to end France's colonial oc ...
in Paris where he mentioned working at the Parker House Hotel. Inquiries to the Parker House management revealed no records of his ever having worked there.
It is believed that while in the US he made contact with
Korean nationalist
Korean nationalism can be viewed in two different contexts. One encompasses various movements throughout history to maintain a Korean cultural identity, history, and ethnicity (or "race"). This ethnic nationalism was mainly forged in oppositio ...
s, an experience that developed his political outlook. Sophie Quinn-Judge states that this is "in the realm of conjecture". He was also influenced by
Pan-Africanist
Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...
and
black nationalist
Black nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that black people are a race (human categorization), race, and which seeks to develop and maintain a black racial and national identity. Black natio ...
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...
during his stay, and said he attended meetings of the
Universal Negro Improvement Association
The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) is a black nationalist fraternal organization founded by Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican immigrant to the United States, and Amy Ashwood Garvey. The Pan-Africa ...
.
In Britain
At various points between 1913 and 1919, Thành (Hồ) claimed to have lived in
West Ealing
West Ealing is a district in the London Borough of Ealing, in West London. The district is about west of Ealing Broadway. Although there is a long history of settlement in the area, West Ealing in its present form is less than one hundred years ...
and later in
Crouch End
Crouch End is an area of North London, approximately from the City of London in the western half of the borough of Haringey. It is within the Hornsey postal district (N8). It has been described by the BBC as one of "a new breed of urban villag ...
,
Hornsey
Hornsey is a district of north London, England in the London Borough of Haringey
The London Borough of Haringey (pronounced , same as Harringay) is a London borough in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner Lo ...
. He reportedly worked as either a chef or dishwasher (reports vary) at the
Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. Claims that he was trained as a
pastry chef
A pastry chef or pâtissier (; the French female version of the word is pâtissière ), is a station chef in a professional kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, desserts, breads and other baked goods. They are employed in large hotels, bi ...
under
Auguste Escoffier
Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...
at the
Carlton Hotel in
Haymarket, Westminster are not supported by documentary evidence. However, the wall of
New Zealand House
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, home of the New Zealand
High Commission which now stands on the site of the Carlton Hotel, displays a
blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
. During 1913, Thành was also employed as a pastry chef on the Newhaven–Dieppe ferry route.
Political education in France
From 1919 to 1923, Thành (Hồ) began to show an interest in politics while living in France, being influenced by his friend and
Socialist Party of France
The Socialist Party (french: Parti socialiste , PS) is a French centre-left and social-democratic political party. It holds pro-European views.
The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major p ...
comrade
Marcel Cachin
Marcel Cachin (20 September 1869 – 12 February 1958) was a French Communist politician and editor of the daily newspaper ''L'Humanite''.
In 1891, Cachin joined Jules Guesde's French Workers' Party (POF). In 1905, he joined the new French ...
. Thành claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police had only documents recording his arrival in June 1919. In Paris he joined the ''Groupe des Patriotes Annamites'' (The Group of Vietnamese Patriots) that included
Phan Chu Trinh
Phan Châu Trinh (Chữ Hán: 潘周楨, 9 September 1872 – 24 March 1926), courtesy name Tử Cán (梓幹), pen name Tây Hồ (西湖) or Hi Mã (希馬), was an early 20th-century Vietnamese nationalist. He sought to end France's colonial oc ...
,
Phan Văn Trường, Nguyễn Thế Truyền and
Nguyễn An Ninh. They had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence under the pseudonym Nguyễn Ái Quốc ("Nguyễn the Patriot") prior to Thành's arrival in Paris. The group petitioned for recognition of the
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
of the
Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people ( vi, người Việt, lit=Viet people) or Kinh people ( vi, người Kinh) are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day Northern Vietnam and Dongxing, Guangxi, Southern China (Jing Islands, Dongxing, Guangxi ...
in
French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
to the Western powers at the
Versailles peace talks
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, but they were ignored. Citing the principle of
self-determination
The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...
outlined before the peace accords, they requested the allied powers to end French colonial rule of
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
and ensure the formation of an independent government.
Before the conference, the group sent their letter to allied leaders, including French Prime Minister
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a ...
and
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
. They were unable to obtain consideration at
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, but the episode would later help establish the future Hồ Chí Minh as the symbolic leader of the
anti-colonial
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence m ...
movement at home in Vietnam. Since Thành was the public face behind the publication of the document (although it was written by Phan Văn Trường), he soon became known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, and first used the name in September during an interview with a Chinese newspaper correspondent.
[ Many authors have stated that 1919 was a lost "Wilsonian moment", where the future Hồ Chí Minh could have adopted a pro-American and less radical position if only President Wilson had received him. However, at the time of the Versailles Conference, Hồ Chí Minh was committed to a socialist program. While the conference was ongoing, Nguyễn Ái Quốc was already delivering speeches on the prospects of ]Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
in Asia and was attempting to persuade French socialists to join Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
's Communist International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
.
In December 1920, Quốc (Hồ) became a representative to the Congress of Tours of the Socialist Party of France, voted for the Third International
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...
and was a founding member of the French Communist Party
The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...
. Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of the party, he tried to draw his comrades' attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. While living in Paris, he reportedly had a relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Brière. As discovered in 2018, Quốc also had relations with the members of Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
The Korean Provisional Government (KPG), formally the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, was a partially recognized Korean government-in-exile based in Shanghai, China, and later in Chongqing, during the period of Japanese c ...
like Kim Kyu-sik
Kim Kyu-sik, also spelled Kimm Kiusic (Korean language, Korean:김규식, Hanja:金奎植, January 29, 1881 – December 10, 1950), was a Korean politician and academic during the Korean independence movement and a leader of the Provisional Go ...
, Jo So-ang
Jo So-ang (조소앙, 30 April 1887 – 10 September 1958) was a politician and an educator in Korea under Japanese rule. He participated in the Korean independence movement.
He participated in drawing up a draft of the proclamation of the i ...
while in Paris.
During this period, he began to write journal articles and short stories as well as run his Vietnamese nationalist group. In May 1922, he wrote an article for a French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters. The article implored Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (, ; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1913 to 1920, and three times as Prime Minister of France.
Trained in law, Poincaré was elected deputy in 1 ...
to outlaw such Franglais
Franglais (; also Frenglish ) is a French blend that referred first to the overuse of English words by French speakers and later to diglossia or the macaronic mixture of French () and English ().
Etymology
The word ''Franglais'' was first at ...
as ''le manager'', ''le round'' and ''le knock-out''. His articles and speeches caught the attention of Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky ( Russian: Дми́трий Заха́рович Мануи́льский; Ukrainian: Дмитро Захарович Мануїльський; October 1883 in Sviatets near Kremenets – 22 ...
, who would soon sponsor his trip to the Soviet Union and under whose tutelage he would become a high-ranking member of the Soviet Comintern.
In the Soviet Union and China
In 1923, Quốc (Hồ) left Paris for Moscow carrying a passport with the name Chen Vang, a Chinese merchant, where he was employed by the Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
, studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) (russian: link=no, Коммунистический университет трудящихся Востока; also known as the Far East University) was a revolutionary training scho ...
and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924 before arriving in Canton (present-day Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
), China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in November 1924 using the name Ly Thuy.
In 1925–1926, he organized "Youth Education Classes" and occasionally gave socialist lectures to Vietnamese revolutionary young people living in Canton at the Whampoa Military Academy
The Republic of China Military Academy () is the service academy for the army of the Republic of China, located in Fengshan District, Kaohsiung. Previously known as the the military academy produced commanders who fought in many of China ...
. These young people would become the seeds of a new revolutionary, pro-communist movement in Vietnam several years later. According to William Duiker
William J. Duiker is a former United States Foreign Service officer and is currently Liberal Arts Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at Penn State University. His area of expertise is East Asia; while in the Foreign Service, he was statione ...
, he lived with a Chinese woman, Zeng Xueming
Zeng Xueming (;Kong Keli (孔可立),(Ho Chi Minh and his Chinese Wife Zeng Xueming)武汉文史资料 (Wuhan Wenshi Ziliao) (Wuhan Cultural and Historical Data), January 2001. Wuhan, China. October 1905 – 14 November 1991), known in Vietnam ...
(Tăng Tuyết Minh), whom he married on 18 October 1926. When his comrades objected to the match, he told them: "I will get married despite your disapproval because I need a woman to teach me the language and keep house". She was 21 and he was 36. They married in the same place where Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...
had married earlier and then lived in the residence of a Comintern agent, Mikhail Borodin
Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg, known by the alias Borodin, zh, 鮑羅廷 (9 July 1884 – 29 May 1951), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist International (Comintern) agent. He was an advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT) i ...
.
Hoàng Văn Chí argued that in June 1925 he betrayed Phan Bội Châu
Phan Bội Châu (; 26 December 1867 – 29 October 1940), born Phan Văn San, courtesy name Hải Thụ (later changed to Sào Nam), was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called ' ...
, the famous leader of a rival revolutionary faction and his father's old friend, to French Secret Service agents in Shanghai for 100,000 piastres
The piastre or piaster () is any of a number of units of currency. The term originates from the Italian for "thin metal plate". The name was applied to Spanish and Hispanic American pieces of eight, or pesos, by Venetian traders in the Levant ...
.[Davidson, Phillip B.]
''Vietnam at War: The History: 1946–1975''
(1991), p. 4.
Hoàng Văn Chí. ''From Colonialism to Communism'' (1964), p. 18. A source states that he later claimed he did it because he expected Châu's trial to stir up anti-French sentiment and because he needed the money to establish a communist organization. In ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life'', William Duiker considered this hypothesis, but ultimately rejected it.[ Other sources claim that Nguyễn Thượng Huyện was responsible for Chau's capture. Chau, sentenced to lifetime ]house arrest
In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if all ...
, never denounced Quốc.
After Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
's 1927 anti-Communist coup, Quốc (Hồ) left Canton again in April 1927 and returned to Moscow, spending part of the summer of 1927 recuperating from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
before returning to Paris once more in November. He then returned to Asia by way of Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, Berlin, Switzerland, and Italy, where he sailed to Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
, Thailand, arriving in July 1928. "Although we have been separated for almost a year, our feelings for each other do not have to be said to be felt", he reassured Minh
{{Orphan, date=December 2021
Minh (Chữ Nôm: 明) is a popular unisex given name of Vietnamese origin, written using the Chinese character (明) meaning "bright", and is also popular among other East Asian names. The Chinese name Ming has the sa ...
in an intercepted letter. In this period, he served as a senior agent undertaking Comintern activities in Southeast Asia.
Quốc (Hồ) remained in Thailand, staying in the Thai village of Nachokuntil late 1929, when he moved on to India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and then Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
. In Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in early 1930, he chaired a meeting with representatives from two Vietnamese Communist parties to merge them into a unified organization, the Communist Party of Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), also known as the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of North ...
. He also founded the Indochinese Communist Party. In June 1931, Hồ was arrested in Hong Kong as part of a collaboration between the French colonial authorities in Indochina and the Hong Kong Police Force
The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest Hong Kong Disciplined Services, disciplined service under the Security Bureau (Hong Kong), Security Bureau of Hong Kong. The Royal Hong Kong Po ...
; scheduled to be deported back to French Indochina, Hồ was successfully defended by British solicitor Frank Loseby. Eventually, after appeals to the Privy Council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...
in London, Hồ was reported as dead in 1932 to avoid a French extradition agreement; it was ruled that, though he would be deported from Hong Kong as an undesirable, it would not be to a destination controlled by France. Hồ was eventually released and, disguised as a Chinese scholar, boarded a ship to Shanghai. He subsequently returned to the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and in Moscow studied and taught at the Lenin Institute
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of t ...
. In this period Hồ reportedly lost his positions in the Comintern because of a concern that he had betrayed the organization. However, according to Ton That Thien's research, he was a member of the inner circle of the Comintern, a protégé of Dmitry Manuilsky
Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky ( Russian: Дми́трий Заха́рович Мануи́льский; Ukrainian: Дмитро Захарович Мануїльський; October 1883 in Sviatets near Kremenets – 22 ...
and a member in good standing of the Comintern throughout the Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
. Hồ was removed from control of the Party he had founded. Those who replaced him charged him with nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
tendencies.
In 1938, Quốc (Hồ) returned to China and served as an advisor to the Chinese Communist
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
armed forces. He was also the senior Comintern agent in charge of Asian affairs. He worked extensively in Chungking
Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Counc ...
and traveled to Guiyang
Guiyang (; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), historically rendered as Kweiyang, is the capital of Guizhou province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in the center of the province, situated on the east of the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, ...
, Kunming
Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...
and Guilin
Guilin ( Standard Zhuang: ''Gveilinz''; alternatively romanized as Kweilin) is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the nort ...
. He was using the name Hồ Quang during this period.
Independence movement
In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh
The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
independence movement. The Japanese occupation of Indochina that year, the first step toward an invasion of the rest of Southeast Asia, created an opportunity for patriotic Vietnamese. The so-called "men in black" were a 10,000 member guerrilla force that operated with the Việt Minh. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy France
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...
and the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, supported closely yet clandestinely by the United States Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–1954). He was jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
's local authorities before being rescued by Chinese Communists. Following his release in 1943, he returned to Vietnam. It was during this time that he began regularly using the name Hồ Chí Minh, a Vietnamese name combining a common Vietnamese surname (Hồ, 胡) with a given name meaning "Bright spirit" or "Clear will" (from Sino-Vietnamese 志 明: Chí meaning "will" or "spirit" and Minh meaning "bright").[ His new name was a tribute to General Hou Zhiming (侯志明), Chief Commissar of the 4th Military Region of the ]National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
, who helped release him from a KMT prison in 1943.
In April 1945, he met with the OSS agent Archimedes Patti
Archimedes Leonidas Attilio Patti (July 21, 1913 – April 23, 1998) was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and an Office of Strategic Services officer who headed operations in Kunming and Hanoi in 1945. Patti is known for having ...
and offered to provide intelligence, asking only for "a line of communication" between his Viet Minh and the Allies. The OSS agreed to this and later sent a military team of OSS members to train his men and Hồ Chí Minh himself was treated for malaria and dysentery by an OSS doctor.
Following the August Revolution
The August Revolution ( vi, Cách-mạng tháng Tám), also known as the August General Uprising (), was a revolution launched by the Việt Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) against the Empire of Vietnam and the Empire of Japan in ...
(1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ Chí Minh became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a . Although he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại
Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...
to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned President Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
for support for Vietnamese independence, citing the Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a statement issued on 14 August 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II. The joint statement, later dubbed the Atlantic Charter, outlined the aims of the United States and ...
, but Truman never responded.
In 1946, future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
and Hồ Chí Minh became acquainted when they stayed at the same hotel in Paris. He offered Ben-Gurion a Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam. Ben-Gurion declined, telling him: "I am certain we shall be able to establish a Jewish Government in Palestine".
In 1946, when he traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 2,500 non-Communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee. Hundreds of political opponents were jailed or exiled in July 1946, notably, members of the Nationalist Party of Vietnam and the Dai Viet National Party after a failed attempt to raise a coup against the Viet Minh
The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...
government. All rival political parties were hereafter banned and local governments were purged to minimize opposition later on. However, it was noted that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
's first Congress had over two-thirds of its members come from non-Việt Minh political factions, some without an election. Nationalist Party of Vietnam leader Nguyễn Hải Thần
Nguyễn Hải Thần (; born Nguyễn Văn Thắng in Dai Tu village, Thường Tín District, Hà Đông Province, circa 1869; died 1959; also known as Vũ Hải Thu) was a leader of the Việt Nam Cách Mạng Đồng Minh Hội (Vietnamese ...
was named vice president. They also held four out of ten ministerial positions ().
Birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Following Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication in August, Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam on 2 September 1945 under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In Saigon
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
, with violence between rival Vietnamese factions and French forces increasing, the British commander, General Sir Douglas Gracey
General Sir Douglas David Gracey & Bar (3 September 1894 – 5 June 1964) was a British Indian Army officer who fought in both the First and Second World Wars. He also fought in French Indochina and was the second Commander-in-Chief of the P ...
, declared martial law. On 24 September, the Việt Minh leaders responded with a call for a general strike.
In the same month, a force of 200,000 National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in China ...
troops arrived in Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
to accept the surrender of the Japanese occupiers in northern Indochina. Hồ Chí Minh made a compromise with their general, Lu Han
Lu Han (Chinese: 鹿晗, born April 20, 1990), also known mononymously as Luhan, is a Chinese singer and actor. He was a member of the South Korean-Chinese boy group Exo and its sub-group Exo-M, before leaving the group in October 2014. That ...
, to dissolve the Communist Party and to hold an election that would yield a coalition government. When Chiang forced the French to give the French concessions in Shanghai back to China in exchange for withdrawing from northern Indochina, he had no choice but to sign an agreement with France on 6 March 1946 in which Vietnam would be recognized as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union
The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was the formal end of the "indigenous" () status of French subje ...
. The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement, for both the French and Vietminh, was for Chiang's army to leave North Vietnam. Fighting broke out in the North soon after the Chinese left.
Historian Professor Liam Kelley of the University of Hawaii at Manoa on his ''Le Minh Khai's Asian History Blog'' challenged the authenticity of the alleged quote where Hồ Chí Minh said he "would rather smell French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for a thousand," noting that Stanley Karnow provided no source for the extended quote attributed to him in his 1983 ''Vietnam: A History'' and that the original quote was most likely forged by the Frenchman Paul Mus in his 1952 book ''Vietnam: Sociologie d'une Guerre''. Mus was a supporter of French colonialism in Vietnam and Hồ Chí Minh believed there was no danger of Chinese troops staying in Vietnam. The Vietnamese at the time were busy spreading anti-French propaganda as evidence of French atrocities in Vietnam emerged while Hồ Chí Minh showed no qualms about accepting Chinese aid after 1949.
The Việt Minh then collaborated with French colonial forces to massacre supporters of the Vietnamese nationalist movements in 1945–1946, and of the Trotskyists. Trotskyism in Vietnam
Trotskyism in Vietnam ( vi, Trăng-câu Đệ-tứ Đảng) was represented by those who, in left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh), identified with the call by Leon Trotsky to re-found "vanguard ...
did not rival the Party outside of the major cities, but particularly in the South, in Saigon-Cochinchina, they had been a challenge. From the outset, they had called for armed resistance to a French restoration and an immediate transfer of industry to workers and land to peasants. The French Socialist leader Daniel Guérin
Daniel Guérin (; 19 May 1904, in Paris – 14 April 1988, in Suresnes) was a French libertarian-communist author, best known for his work '' Anarchism: From Theory to Practice'', as well as his collection ''No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of ...
recalls that when in Paris in 1946 he asked Hồ Chí Minh about the fate of the Trotskyist leader Tạ Thu Thâu
Tạ Thu Thâu (1906–1945) in the 1930s was the principal representative of Trotskyism in Vietnam and, in colonial Cochinchina, of left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh). He joined to Left Oppo ...
, Hồ Chí Minh had replied, "with unfeigned emotion," that "Thâu was a great patriot and we mourn him, but then a moment later added in a steady voice 'All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.'"
The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties, but they failed to secure a peace deal with France. In the final days of 1946, after a year of diplomatic failure and many concessions in agreements, such as the Dalat and Fontainebleau conferences, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
government found that war was inevitable. The bombardment of Haiphong by French forces at Hanoi only strengthened the belief that France had no intention of allowing an autonomous, independent state in Vietnam. The bombardment of Haiphong reportedly killed more than 6000 Vietnamese civilians. French forces marched into Hanoi, now the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 19 December 1946, after the Haiphong incident, Hồ Chí Minh declared war against the French Union
The French Union () was a political entity created by the French Fourth Republic to replace the old French colonial empire system, colloquially known as the " French Empire" (). It was the formal end of the "indigenous" () status of French subje ...
, marking the beginning of the Indochina War
The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...
. The Vietnam National Army, mostly armed with machete
Older machete from Latin America
Gerber machete/saw combo
Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas, Oaxaca">San_Agustín_de_las_Juntas.html" ;"title="Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San Agustín de las Juntas">Agustín Cruz Tinoco of San ...
s and musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...
s immediately attacked. They assaulted the French positions, smoking them out with straw bundled with chili pepper, destroying armored vehicles with "lunge mines" (a hollow-charge warhead on the end of a pole, detonated by thrusting the charge against the side of a tank; typically a suicide weapon
A suicide weapon is a weapon designed to be used in a suicide attack, typically based on explosives.
History
Suicide weapons have been used both in conventional warfare, as well as in terrorism.
In the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese used ...
) and Molotov cocktail
A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...
s, holding off attackers by using roadblock
A roadblock is a temporary installation set up to control or block traffic along a road. The reasons for one could be:
*Roadworks
*Temporary road closure during special events
* Police chase
*Robbery
*Sobriety checkpoint
In peaceful circumstances ...
s, landmines
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
and gravel. After two months of fighting, the exhausted Việt Minh forces withdrew after systematically destroying any valuable infrastructure. Hồ was reported to be captured by a group of French soldiers led by Jean Étienne Valluy
Jean Etienne Valluy (15 May 1899 – 4 January 1970) was a French general.
Early life
He was born in Rive-de-Gier, Loire, on 15 May 1899 to Claude (Claudius) Valluy and Jeanne, Adrienne Cossanges.
Military career
World War I
In 1917 he en ...
at Việt Bắc Việt Bắc (''Northern Vietnam'') is a region of Vietnam north of Hanoi that served as the Việt Minh's base of support during the First Indochina War (1946–1954).
Việt Bắc is also called the capital of northernmost Vietnam because this a ...
in Operation Léa
Operation Léa was a French Union military operation between 7 October and 8 November 1947 during the First Indochina War. It is also known as the Việt Bắc Campaign (''Chiến Dịch Việt Bắc'') by the Viet Minh. It was an attempt by the ...
. The person in question turned out to be a Việt Minh advisor who was killed trying to escape.
According to journalist Bernard Fall
Bernard B. Fall (November 19, 1926 – February 21, 1967) was a prominent war correspondent, historian, political scientist, and expert on Indochina during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Austria, he moved with his family to France as a child after ...
, Hồ decided to negotiate a truce after fighting the French for several years. When the French negotiators arrived at the meeting site, they found a mud hut with a thatched roof. Inside they found a long table with chairs. In one corner of the room, a silver ice bucket contained ice and a bottle of good champagne, indicating that Hồ expected the negotiations to succeed. One demand by the French was the return to French custody of several Japanese military officers (who had been helping the Vietnamese armed forces by training them in the use of weapons of Japanese origin) for them to stand trial for war crimes committed during World War II. Hồ Chí Minh replied that the Japanese officers were allies and friends whom he could not betray, therefore he walked out to seven more years of war.
In February 1950, after the successful removal of the French border blockade, (Battle of Route Coloniale 4
The Battle of Route Coloniale 4, also called the Autumn-Winter Border Campaign (''Chiến Dịch Biên Giới Thu Đông'') by the Viet Minh, was a battle of the First Indochina War. It took place along Route Coloniale 4 (RC4, also known as High ...
) he met with Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
and Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing the Việt Minh. Mao Zedong's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60,000–70,000 Viet Minh shortly. The road to the outside world was open for Việt Minh forces to receive additional supplies which would allow them to escalate the fight against the French regime throughout Indochina. At the outset of the conflict, Hồ reportedly told a French visitor: "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win". In 1954, the First Indochina War came to an end after the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the Fr ...
, where more than 10,000 French soldiers surrendered to the Viet Minh. The subsequent Geneva Accords peace process partitioned North Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
Arthur Dommen estimates that the Việt Minh assassinated between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians during the war. By comparison to Dommen's calculation, Benjamin Valentino estimates that the French were responsible for 60,000–250,000 civilian deaths.
Becoming president
The 1954 Geneva Accords concluded between France and the Việt Minh, allowing the latter's forces to regroup in the North whilst anti-Communist groups settled in the South. His Democratic Republic of Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
relocated to Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
-led one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
. Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be a 300-day period in which people could freely move between the two regions of Vietnam, later known as South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
and North Vietnam
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...
. During the 300 days, Diệm and CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
adviser Colonel Edward Lansdale
Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908 – February 23, 1987) was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in cl ...
staged a campaign to convince people to move to South Vietnam. The campaign was particularly focused on Vietnam's Catholics, who were to provide Diệm's power base in his later years, with the use of the slogan "God has gone south". Between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people migrated to the South, mostly Catholics. At the start of 1955, French Indochina
French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the South.
All the parties at Geneva called for reunification elections, but they could not agree on the details. Recently appointed Việt Minh acting foreign minister Pham Van Dong proposed elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States, with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, suggested United Nations supervision. This plan was rejected by Soviet representative Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
, who argued for a commission composed of an equal number of communist and non-communist members, which could determine "important" issues only by unanimous agreement. The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification. North Vietnam argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire while the Western allies sought to have no deadline. Molotov proposed June 1955, then later softened this to any time in 1955 and finally July 1956. The Diem government supported reunification elections, but only with effective international supervision, arguing that genuinely free elections were otherwise impossible in the totalitarian North. By the afternoon of 20 July 1954, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and the elections for a reunified government should be held in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was only signed by the French and Việt Minh military commands, with no participation or consultation of the State of Vietnam. Based on a proposal by Chinese delegation head Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...
, an International Control Commission
The International Control Commission (ICC), or in French la Commission Internationale de Contrôle (CIC), was an international force established in 1954. More formally called the International Commission for Supervision and Control, the organisati ...
(ICC) chaired by India, with Canada and Poland as members, was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire. Because issues were to be decided unanimously, Poland's presence in the ICC provided the Communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty. The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Việt Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections, insisting that the ICC's "competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties". Of the nine nations represented, only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration. Undersecretary of state Walter Bedell Smith
General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith (5 October 1895 – 9 August 1961) was a senior officer of the United States Army who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) during the Tunisia Campai ...
delivered a "unilateral declaration" of the United States position, reiterating: "We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly".
Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including "rent reduction" and "land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
", which were accompanied by political repression. During the land reform, testimonies by North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution per 160 village residents, which if extrapolated would indicate a nationwide total of nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions was widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although it was likely greater than 13,500.
Vietnam War
As early as June 1956 the idea of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government was presented at a politburo meeting. In 1959, Hồ Chí Minh began urging the Politburo to send aid to the Việt Cộng
The Viet Cong, ; contraction of (Vietnamese communist) was an armed Communism, communist organization in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments ...
in South Vietnam; a "people's war" on the South was approved at a session in January 1959, and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March. North Vietnam invaded
An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
Laos in July 1959 aided by the Pathet Lao
The Pathet Lao ( lo, ປະເທດລາວ, translit=Pa thēt Lāo, translation=Lao Nation), officially the Lao People's Liberation Army, was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The gro ...
and used 30,000 men to build a network of supply and reinforcement routes running through Laos and Cambodia that became known as the Hồ Chí Minh trail. It allowed the North to send manpower and material to the Việt Cộng with much less exposure to South Vietnamese forces, achieving a considerable advantage. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Việt Cộng was stressed in communist propaganda. North Vietnam created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 as a "united front
A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political a ...
", or political branch of the Viet Cong intended to encourage the participation of non-Communists.
At the end of 1959, conscious that the national election would never be held and that Diem intended to purge opposing forces (mostly ex Việt Minh) from the South Vietnamese society, Hồ Chí Minh informally chose Lê Duẩn
Lê Duẩn (; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd Nat ...
to become the next party leader. This was interpreted by Western analysts as a loss of influence for Hồ, who was said to have preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp for the position. From 1959 onward, the elderly Hồ became increasingly worried about the prospect of his death, and that year he wrote down his will. Lê Duẩn was officially named party leader in 1960, leaving Hồ to function in a secondary role as head of state and member of the Politburo
A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states.
Names
The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
. He nevertheless maintained considerable influence in the government. Lê Duẩn, Tố Hữu
Tố Hữu (4 October 1920 – 9 December 2002) was a Vietnamese revolutionary poet and politician. He published seven collections of poems, the first of which was the 1946 collection entitled ''Từ ấy'' (Thenceforth), which included many of his ...
, Trường Chinh
Trường Chinh (, born Đặng Xuân Khu; 9 February 1907, Xuân Trường District, Nam Định Province – 30 September 1988, Hanoi) was a Vietnamese communist political leader and theoretician. He was one of the key figures of Vietnamese poli ...
and Phạm Văn Đồng
Phạm Văn Đồng (; 1 March 1906 – 29 April 2000) was a Vietnamese politician who served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1955 to 1976. He later served as Prime Minister of Vietnam following reunification of North and South Vietnam ...
often shared dinner with Hồ, and all of them remained key figures throughout and after the war. In the early 1960s, the North Vietnamese Politburo was divided into the "North first" faction who favored focusing on the economic development of North Vietnam, and the "South first" faction, who favored a guerrilla war in South Vietnam to reunite Vietnam shortly. Between 1961 and 1963, 40,000 Communist soldiers infiltrated into South Vietnam from the North.
In 1963, Hồ purportedly corresponded with South Vietnamese President Diem in hopes of achieving a negotiated peace. During the so-called "Maneli Affair" of 1963, a French diplomatic initiative was launched to achieve a federation of the two Vietnams, which would be neutral in the Cold War. The four principal diplomats involved in the "Maneli affair" were Ramchundur Goburdhun
Ramchundur Goburdhun (15 August 1911 – 29 November 1992) was an Indo-Mauritian diplomat best known for his role in the " Maneli Affair" of 1963, an attempt to end the Vietnam war.
Early life and family
Goburdhun was born in a middle class Indo ...
, the Indian Chief Commissioner of the ICC; Mieczysław Maneli, the Polish Commissioner to the ICC; Roger Lalouette, the French ambassador to South Vietnam; and Giovanni d'Orlandi, the Italian ambassador to South Vietnam. Maneli reported that Hồ was very interested in the signs of a split between President Diem and President Kennedy and that his attitude was: "Our real enemies are the Americans. Get rid of them, and we can cope with Diem and Nhu afterward". Hồ also told Maneli about the Ho Minh Chi Trail, which passed through officially neutral Cambodia and Laos, saying "Indochina is just one single entity".
At a meeting in Hanoi held in French, Hồ told Goburdhun that Diem was "in his way a patriot", noting that Diem had opposed French rule over Vietnam, and ended the meeting saying that the next time Goburdhun met Diem "shake hands with him for me". The North Vietnamese Premier Phạm Văn Đồng
Phạm Văn Đồng (; 1 March 1906 – 29 April 2000) was a Vietnamese politician who served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1955 to 1976. He later served as Prime Minister of Vietnam following reunification of North and South Vietnam ...
, speaking on behalf of Hồ, told Maneli he was interested in the peace plan, saying that just as long as the American advisers left South Vietnam "we can agree with any Vietnamese". On 2 September 1963, Maneli met with Ngô Đình Nhu
Ngô Đình Nhu (; 7 October 19102 November 1963; baptismal name Jacob) was a Vietnamese archivist and politician. He was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm. Although he held ...
, the younger brother and right-hand man to Diem to discuss the French peace plan. It remains unclear if the Ngo brothers were serious about the French peace plan or were merely using the possibility of accepting it to blackmail the United States into supporting them at a time when the Buddhist crisis had seriously strained relations between Saigon and Washington. Supporting the latter theory is the fact that Nhu promptly leaked his meeting with Maneli to the American columnist Joseph Alsop
Joseph Wright Alsop V (October 10, 1910 – August 28, 1989) was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s. He was an influential journalist and top insider in Washington from 1945 to the late 196 ...
, who publicized it in a column entitled "Very Ugly Stuff". The possibility that the Ngo brothers might accept the peace plan contributed to the Kennedy administration's plan to support a coup against them. On 1 November 1963, a coup overthrew Diem, who was killed the next day together with his brother.
Diem had followed a policy of "deconstructing the state" by creating several overlapping agencies and departments who were encouraged to feud with one another to disorganize the South Vietnamese state to such an extent that he hoped that it would make a coup against him impossible. When Diem was overthrown and killed, without any kind of arbiter between the rival arms of the South Vietnamese state, South Vietnam promptly disintegrated. The American Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the Lis ...
reported after visiting South Vietnam in December 1963 that "there is no organized government worthy of the name" in Saigon. At a meeting of the plenum of the Politburo in December 1963, Lê Duẩn's "South first" faction triumphed with the Politburo passing a resolution calling for North Vietnam to complete the overthrow of the regime in Saigon as soon as possible while the members of the "North first" faction were dismissed. As South Vietnam descended into chaos, whatever interest Hồ might have had in the French peace plan ended, as it become clear the Viet Cong could overthrow the government in Saigon. A CIA report from 1964 stated the factionalism in South Vietnam had reached "almost the point of anarchy" as various South Vietnamese leaders fought one another, making any sort of effort against the Viet Cong impossible, which was rapidly taking over much of the South Vietnamese countryside.
As South Vietnam collapsed into factionalism and in-fighting while the Viet Cong continued to win the war, it became increasingly apparent to President Lyndon Johnson that only American military intervention could save South Vietnam. Though Johnson did not wish to commit American forces until he had won the 1964 election, he decided to make his intentions clear to Hanoi. In June 1964, the "Seaborn Mission" began as J. Blair Seaborn
James Blair Seaborn CM (March 18, 1924 – November 11, 2019) was a Canadian diplomat and civil servant best remembered for the Seaborn Mission of 1964–1965 in connection with the Vietnam War and for heading the "Seaborn Panel" of the 1990s ...
, the Canadian commissioner to the ICC, arrived in Hanoi with a message from Johnson offering billions of American economic aid and diplomatic recognition in exchange for which North Vietnam would cease trying to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. Seaborn also warned that North Vietnam would suffer the "greatest devastation" from American bombing, saying that Johnson was seriously considering a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. Little came of the backchannel of the "Seaborn Mission" as the North Vietnamese distrusted Seaborn, who pointedly was never allowed to meet Hồ.
In late 1964, People's Army of Vietnam
The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...
(PAVN) combat troops were sent southwest into officially neutral Laos
Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...
and Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
. By March 1965, American combat troops began arriving in South Vietnam, first to protect the airbases around Chu Lai
Chu Lai is a seaport, urban and industrial area in Núi Thành District, Quảng Nam Province, Vietnam. The city is served by Chu Lai International Airport. It is also the site of the Chu Lai Open Economic Zone (Vietnamese: ''Với Khu Kinh T ...
and Da Nang
Nang or DanangSee also Danang Dragons ( ; vi, Đà Nẵng, ) is a class-1 municipality and the fifth-largest city in Vietnam by municipal population. It lies on the coast of the East Sea of Vietnam at the mouth of the Hàn River, and is one ...
, later to take on most of the fight as " re and more American troops were put in to replace Saigon troops who could not, or would not, get involved in the fighting". As fighting escalated, widespread aerial and artillery bombardment all over North Vietnam by the United States Air Force and Navy began with Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the United States (U.S.) 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) against the Democratic Repub ...
. On 8–9 April 1965, Hồ made a secret visit to Beijing to meet Mao Zedong. It was agreed that no Chinese combat troops would enter North Vietnam unless the United States invaded North Vietnam, but that China would send support troops to North Vietnam to help maintain the infrastructure damaged by American bombing. There was a deep distrust and fear of China within the North Vietnamese Politburo, and the suggestion that Chinese troops, even support troops, be allowed into North Vietnam, caused outrage in the Politburo. Hồ had to use all his moral authority to obtain Politburo's approval.
According to Chen Jian, during the mid-to-late 1960s, Lê Duẩn permitted 320,000 Chinese volunteers into North Vietnam to help build infrastructure for the country, thereby freeing a similar number of PAVN personnel to go south. There are no sources from Vietnam, the United States, or the Soviet Union that confirm the number of Chinese troops stationed in North Vietnam. However, the Chinese government later admitted to sending 320,000 Chinese soldiers to Vietnam during the 1960s and spent over $20 billion to support Hanoi's regular North Vietnamese Army and Việt Cộng guerrilla units.
To counter the American bombing, the entire population of North Vietnam was mobilized for the war effort with vast teams of women being used to repair the damage done by the bombers, often at a speed that astonished the Americans. The bombing of North Vietnam proved to be the principal obstacle to opening peace talks as Hồ repeatedly stated that no peace talks would be possible unless the United States unconditionally cease bombing North Vietnam. Like many of the other leaders of the newly independent states of Asia and Africa, Hồ was extremely sensitive about threats, whether perceived or real, to his nation's independence and sovereignty. Hồ regarded the American bombing as a violation of North Vietnam's sovereignty, and he felt that to negotiate with the Americans reserving the right to bomb North Vietnam should he not behave as they wanted him to do, would diminish North Vietnam's independence.
In March 1966, a Canadian diplomat, Chester Ronning
Chester Alvin Ronning (December 13, 1894 – December 31, 1984) was a Canadian educator, politician, and diplomat.
Ronning was born in Fancheng, China, now in Xiangyang, Hubei province, the son of Norwegian American Lutheran missionaries, a ...
, arrived in Hanoi with an offer to use his "good offices" to begin peace talks. However, the Ronning mission foundered upon the bombing issue, as the North Vietnamese demanded an unconditional halt to the bombing, an undertaking that Johnson refused to give. In June 1966, Janusz Lewandowski
Janusz Antoni Lewandowski (; born 13 June 1951) is a Polish politician and economist belonging to the Gdańsk liberals group, and a former member of the European Parliament (elected on 13 June 2004), Chairman of the Committee on Budgets. On 27 ...
, the Polish Commissioner to the ICC, was able via d'Orlandi to see Henry Cabot Lodge Jr
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (July 5, 1902 – February 27, 1985) was an American diplomat and Republican United States senator from Massachusetts in both Senate seats in non-consecutive terms of service and a United States ambassador. He was considered ...
, the American ambassador to South Vietnam, with an offer from Hồ. Hồ's offer for a "political compromise" as transmitted by Lewandowski included allowing South Vietnam to maintain its alliance with the U.S, instead of becoming neutral; having the Viet Cong "take part" in negotiations for a coalition government, instead of being allowed to automatically enter a coalition government; and allowing a "reasonable calendar" for the withdrawal of American troops instead of an immediate withdrawal. Operation Marigold as the Lewandowski channel came to be code-named almost led to American-North Vietnamese talks in Warsaw in December 1966 but collapsed over the bombing issue.
In January 1967, General Nguyễn Chí Thanh
Nguyễn Chí Thanh (1 January 1914 – 7 July 1967) was a General in the North Vietnamese Vietnam People's Army and former North Vietnamese politician. Nguyễn Chí Thanh was born in Thừa Thiên Province in Central Vietnam to a peasant famil ...
, the commander of the forces in South Vietnam, returned to Hanoi, to present a plan that became the genesis of the Tet Offensive a year later. Thanh expressed much concern about the Americans invading Laos to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and to preempt this possibility, urged an all-out offensive to win the war with a sudden blow. Lê' Duẩn supported Thanh's plans, which were stoutly opposed by the Defense Minister, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, who preferred to continue with guerrilla war, arguing that the superior American firepower would ensure the failure of Thanh's proposed offensive. With the Politburo divided, it was agreed to study and debate the issue more.
In July 1967, Hồ Chí Minh and most of the Politburo of the Communist Party met in a high-profile conference where they concluded the war had fallen into a stalemate. The American military presence forced the PAVN to expend the majority of their resources on maintaining the Hồ Chí Minh trail rather than reinforcing their comrades' ranks in the South. Hồ seems to have agreed to Thanh's offensive because he wanted to see Vietnam reunified within his lifetime, and the increasingly ailing Hồ was painfully aware that he did not have much time left. With Hồ's permission, the Việt Cộng planned a massive Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the forces o ...
that would commence on 31 January 1968, to take much of the South by force and deal a heavy blow to the American military. The offensive was executed at great cost and with heavy casualties on Việt Cộng's political branches and armed forces. The scope of the action shocked the world, which until then had been assured that the Communists were "on the ropes". The optimistic spin that the American military command had sustained for years was no longer credible. The bombing of North Vietnam and the Hồ Chí Minh trail was halted, and American and Vietnamese negotiators held discussions on how the war might be ended. From then on, Hồ Chí Minh and his government's strategy, based on the idea of not using conventional warfare and facing the might of the United States Army, which would wear them down eventually while merely prolonging the conflict, would lead to the eventual acceptance of Hanoi's terms, materialized.
In early 1969, Hồ suffered a heart attack and was in increasingly bad health for the rest of the year. In July 1969, Jean Sainteny
Jean Sainteny or Jean Roger (29 May 1907, in Vésinet – 25 February 1978) was a French politician who was sent to Vietnam after the end of the Second World War in order to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and to attempt to re-annex V ...
, a former French official in Vietnam who knew Hồ secretly relayed a letter written to him from President Richard Nixon. Nixon's letter proposed working together to end this "tragic war", but also warned that if North Vietnam made no concessions at the peace talks in Paris by 1 November, Nixon would resort to "measures of great consequence and force". Hồ's reply letter, which Nixon received on 30 August 1969, welcomed peace talks with the U.S. to look for a way to end the war but made no concessions, as Nixon's threats made no impression on him.
Personal life
In addition to being a politician, Hồ Chí Minh was also a writer, journalist, poet and polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingualism, monolingual speakers in the World population, world's pop ...
. His father was a scholar and teacher who received a high degree in the Nguyễn dynasty
The Nguyễn dynasty (chữ Nôm: 茹阮, vi, Nhà Nguyễn; chữ Hán: 阮朝, vi, Nguyễn triều) was the last Vietnamese dynasty, which ruled the unified Vietnamese state largely independently from 1802 to 1883. During its existence, ...
Imperial examination
The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...
. Hồ was taught to master Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
at a young age. Before the August Revolution
The August Revolution ( vi, Cách-mạng tháng Tám), also known as the August General Uprising (), was a revolution launched by the Việt Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) against the Empire of Vietnam and the Empire of Japan in ...
, he often wrote poetry in Chữ Hán
Chữ Hán (𡨸漢, literally "Chinese characters", ), Chữ Nho (𡨸儒, literally "Confucian characters", ) or Hán tự (漢字, ), is the Vietnamese term for Chinese characters, used to write Văn ngôn (which is a form of Classical Chinese ...
(the Vietnamese name for the Chinese writing system). One of those is ''Poems from the Prison Diary'', written when he was imprisoned by the police of the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. This poetry chronicle is Vietnam National Treasure No. 10 and was translated into many languages. It is used in Vietnamese high schools. After Vietnam gained independence from France, the new government exclusively promoted Chữ Quốc Ngữ
The Vietnamese alphabet ( vi, chữ Quốc ngữ, lit=script of the National language) is the modern Latin writing script or writing system for Vietnamese. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages originally developed by Portuguese m ...
(Vietnamese writing system in Latin characters) to eliminate illiteracy. Hồ started to create more poems in the modern Vietnamese language for dissemination to a wider range of readers. From when he became president until the appearance of serious health problems, a short poem of his was regularly published in the newspaper ''Nhân Dân
''Nhân Dân'' (Vietnamese: ''The People'') is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam. According to the newspaper, it is “the voice of the Party, the State and the people of Vietnam.”
It has a daily circulation of 180,000 ...
'' Tết
Tết (), short for Tết Nguyên Đán ( Chữ Hán: 節元旦), Spring Festival, Lunar New Year, or Vietnamese Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations in Vietnamese culture. The colloquial term "Tết" is a shortened form of ...
(Lunar new year) edition to encourage his people in working, studying or fighting Americans in the new year.
Because he was in exile for nearly 30 years, Hồ could speak fluently as well as read and write professionally in French, English, Russian, Cantonese and Mandarin as well as his mother tongue Vietnamese. In addition, he was reported to speak conversational Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
. In the 1920s, he was bureau chief/editor of many newspapers which he established to criticize French Colonial Government of Indochina and serving communism propaganda purposes. Examples are ''Le Paria'' (The Pariah) first published in Paris 1922 or '' Thanh Nien'' (Youth) first published on 21 June 1925 (21 June was named by The Socialist Republic of Vietnam Government as ''Vietnam Revolutionary Journalism Day''). In many state official visits to the Soviet Union and China, he often talked directly to their communist leaders without interpreters, especially about top-secret information. While being interviewed by Western journalists, he used French. His Vietnamese had a strong accent from his birthplace in the central province of Nghệ An, but could be widely understood throughout the country.
As President, he held formal receptions for foreign heads of state and ambassadors at the Presidential Palace, but he did not live there. He ordered the building of a stilt house at the back of the palace, which is today known as the Presidential Palace Historical Site. His hobbies (according to his secretary Vũ Kỳ) included reading, gardening, feeding fish (many of which are still living), and visiting schools, and children's homes.
Hồ Chí Minh remained in Hanoi during his final years, demanding the unconditional withdrawal of all non-Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
. By 1969, with negotiations still dragging on, his health began to deteriorate from multiple health problems, including diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...
which prevented him from participating in further active politics. However, he insisted that his forces in the South continue fighting until all of Vietnam was reunited regardless of the length of time that it might take, believing that time was on his side.
Hồ Chí Minh's marriage has long been swathed in secrecy and mystery. He is believed by several scholars of Vietnamese history, to have married Zeng Xueming
Zeng Xueming (;Kong Keli (孔可立),(Ho Chi Minh and his Chinese Wife Zeng Xueming)武汉文史资料 (Wuhan Wenshi Ziliao) (Wuhan Cultural and Historical Data), January 2001. Wuhan, China. October 1905 – 14 November 1991), known in Vietnam ...
in October 1926, although only being able to live with her for less than a year. Historian Peter Neville claimed that Hồ (at the time known as Ly Thuy) wanted to engage Zeng in the communist movements but she demonstrated a lack of ability and interest in it. In 1927, the mounting repression of Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...
's KMT against the Chinese Communist
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
s compelled Hồ to leave for Hong Kong, and his relationship with Zeng appeared to have ended at that time. In addition to the marriage with Zeng Xueming, there is a number of published studies indicating that Hồ had a romantic relationship with Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai
Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai (1 November 1910 in Vinh, Annam – 28 August 1941 in Hóc Môn, Cochinchina) was a Vietnamese revolutionary and a leader of the Indochinese Communist Party during the 1930s.
Early life and education
Nguyễn Thị Minh ...
. As a young and high-spirited female revolutionary, Minh Khai was delegated to Hong Kong to serve as an assistant to Ho Chi Minh in April 1930 and quickly drew Hồ's attention owing to her physical attractiveness. Hồ even approached the Far Eastern Bureau and requested permission to get married to Minh Khai even though the previous marriage with Zeng remained legally valid. However, the marriage was unable to take place since Minh Khai had been detained by the British authorities in April 1931.
Death
With the outcome of the Vietnam war still in question, Hồ Chí Minh died of heart failure at his home in Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
at 9:47 on the morning of 2 September 1969; he was 79 years old. His embalmed body is currently on display in a mausoleum in Ba Đình Square in Hanoi despite his will which stated that he wanted to be cremated.[
The North Vietnamese government originally announced Hồ's death on 3 September. A week of mourning for his death was decreed nationwide in North Vietnam from 4 to 11 September 1969. His funeral was attended by about 250,000 people and 5,000 official guests, which included many international mourners.
Representatives from 40 countries and regions were also presented. During the mourning period, North Vietnam received more than 22,000 condolences letters from 20 organizations and 110 countries across the world, such as ]France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...
, China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, the USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and many others, mostly Socialist countries.
He was not initially replaced as president; instead, a "collective leadership" composed of several ministers and military leaders took over, known as the Politburo. During North Vietnam's final campaign in 1975, a famous song written by composer was often sung by PAVN soldiers: "" ("You are still marching with us, Uncle Hồ").
During the Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon, also known as the Liberation of Saigon by North Vietnamese or Liberation of the South by the Vietnamese government, and known as Black April by anti-communist overseas Vietnamese was the capture of Saigon, the capital of ...
on 30 April 1975, several PAVN tanks displayed a poster with those same words on it. The day after the battle ended, on 1 May, veteran Australian journalist Denis Warner
Denis Ashton Warner CMG OBE (12 December 1917 – 12 July 2012) was an Australian journalist, war correspondent and historian.
Warner was born in New Norfolk in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. He attended The Hutchins School, where he was school ca ...
reported that "When the North Vietnamese marched into Saigon yesterday, they were led by a man who wasn't there".
Legacy
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam still praises the legacy of Uncle Hồ (''Bác Hồ''), the Bringer of Light (''Chí Minh''). It is comparable to that of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
in China and of Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...
and Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...
in North Korea. Although Hồ Chí Minh wished for his body to be cremated and his ashes spread to North, Central, and South Vietnam, the body instead is embalmed on view in a mausoleum
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...
. The ubiquity of his image is featured in many public buildings and schoolrooms, and other displays of reverence. There is at least one temple dedicated to him, built-in then Việt Cộng
The Viet Cong, ; contraction of (Vietnamese communist) was an armed Communism, communist organization in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments ...
controlled Vĩnh Long
Vĩnh Long () is a city and the capital of Vĩnh Long Province in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Vĩnh Long covers and has a population of 147,039 (as of 2009). The name was spelled 永 隆 ("eternal prosperity") in the former Hán Nôm writing sys ...
shortly after his death in 1970.
In ''The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam'' (1982), Duiker suggests that Hồ Chí Minh's cult of personality is indicative of a larger legacy, one that drew on "elements traditional to the exercise of control and authority in Vietnamese society." Duiker is drawn to an "irresistible and persuasive" comparison with China. As in China, leading party cadres were "most likely to be intellectuals descended ike Hồ Chí Minhfrom rural scholar-gentry families" in the interior (the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin). Conversely, the pioneers of constitutional nationalism tended to be from the more "Westernised" coastal south (Saigon and surrounding French direct-rule Cochinchina
Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exony ...
) and to be from "commercial families without a traditional Confucian background".
In Vietnam, as in China, Communism presented itself as a root and branch rejection of Confucianism
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or ...
, condemned for its ritualism, inherent conservatism, and resistance to change. Once in power, the Vietnamese Communists may not have fought Confucianism "as bitterly as did their Chinese counterparts", but its social prestige was "essentially destroyed." In the political sphere, the puppet son of heaven (which had been weakly represented by the Bảo Đại
Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...
) was replaced by the people's republic. Orthodox materialism accorded no place to heaven, gods, or other supernatural forces. Socialist collectivism undermined the tradition of the Confucian family leader (''Gia Truong''). The socialist conception of social equality destroyed the Confucian views of class.
Duiker argues many were to find the new ideology "congenial" precisely because of its similarities with the teachings of the old Master: "the belief in one truth, embodied in quasi-sacred texts"; in "an anointed elite, trained in an all-embracing doctrine and responsible for leading the broad masses and indoctrinating them in proper thought and behavior"; in "the subordination of the individual to the community"; and in the perfectibility, through corrective action, of human nature. All of this, Duiker suggests, was in some manner present in the aura of the new Master, Chi Minh, "the bringer of light", "Uncle Hồ" to whom "all the desirable qualities of Confucian ethics" are ascribed. Under Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnamese Marxism developed, in effect, as a kind of "reformed Confucianism" revised to meet "the challenges of the modern era" and, not least among these, of "total mobilization in the struggle for national independence and state power."
This "congeniality" with Confucian tradition was remarked on by Nguyen Khac Vien, a leading Hanoi intellectual of the 1960s and 70s. In ''Confucianism and Marxism in Vietnam'' Nguyen Khac Vien, saw definite parallels between Confucian and party discipline, between the traditional scholar gentry and Hồ Chí Minh's party cadres.
A completely different form of the cult of Hồ Chí Minh (and one tolerated by the government with uneasiness) is his identification in Vietnamese folk religion with the Jade Emperor
The Jade Emperor or Yudi ( or , ') in Chinese culture, traditional religions and myth is one of the representations of the first god ( '). In Daoist theology he is the assistant of Yuanshi Tianzun, who is one of the Three Pure Ones, the three ...
, who supposedly incarnated again on earth as Hồ Chí Minh. Today, Hồ Chí Minh as the Jade Emperor is supposed to speak from the spirit world through Spiritualist mediums. The first such medium was one Madam Lang in the 1990s, but the cult acquired a significant number of followers through another medium, Madam Xoan. She established on 1 January 2001 Đạo Ngọc Phật Hồ Chí Minh (the Way of Hồ Chí Minh as the Jade Buddha) also known as Đạo Bác Hồ (the Way of Uncle Hồ) at đền Hòa Bình (the Peace Temple) in Chí Linh-Sao Đỏ district of Hải Dương
Hải Dương () is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Hải Dương, an industrialized province in the Hanoi Capital Region and the Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam. The city is at the midpoint between the capital Hanoi and major port H ...
province. She then founded the Peace Society of Heavenly Mediums (Đoàn đồng thiên Hòa Bình). Reportedly, by 2014 the movement had around 24,000 followers.
The Vietnamese government's attempts to immortalize Hồ Chí Minh was also met with significant controversies and opposition. The regime is sensitive to anything that might question the official hagiography
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...
. This includes references to Hồ Chí Minh's personal life that might detract from the image of the dedicated "the father of the revolution", the "celibate married only to the cause of revolution". William Duiker's ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life'' (2000) was candid on the matter of Hồ Chí Minh's liaisons. The government sought cuts in the Vietnamese translation and banned distribution of an issue of the ''Far Eastern Economic Review
The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a m ...
'', which carried a small item about the controversy.[
Many authors writing on Vietnam argued on the question of whether Hồ Chí Minh was fundamentally a nationalist or a Communist.
]
Depictions of Hồ Chí Minh
Busts, statues, and memorial plaques and exhibitions are displayed in destinations on his extensive world journey in exile from 1911 to 1941 including France, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and Thailand.
Many activists and musicians wrote songs about Hồ Chí Minh and his revolution in different languages during the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
to demonstrate against the United States. Spanish songs were composed by Félix Pita Rodríguez
Félix Pita Rodriguez (1909-1990) was a Cuban journalist, poet and literary critic. He was born in Bejucal. An active communist, Rodriguez helped to found the Ibero-American Anti-Fascist Committee during the Spanish Civil War. His literary acqu ...
, Carlos Puebla
Carlos Manuel Puebla (; 11 September 1917, Manzanillo – 12 July 1989, Havana) was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer. He was a member of the old trova movement who specialized in boleros and patriotic songs.
Biography
Born into a mo ...
and Alí Primera
Alí Rafael Primera Rosell (31 October 1941 – 16 February 1985) was a Venezuelan musician, composer, poet, and political activist. He was born in Santa Ana de Coro, Coro, Falcón State, Venezuela and died in Caracas. He was one of the best know ...
. In addition, the Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (; 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and Communist political activist. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, rang ...
referenced Hồ Chí Minh in his anti-war song
Some anti-war movement, anti-war songs lament aspects of wars, while others satirize war. Most promote peace in some form, while others sing out against specific armed conflicts. Still others depict the physical and psychological destruction that ...
"El derecho de vivir en paz" ("The Right to Live in Peace"). Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
wrote "Teacher Uncle Ho". Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
produced "The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh" in 1954, describing "a man who is the father of the Indo-Chinese people, And his name tis Ho Chi Minh." Russian songs about him were written by Vladimir Fere
Vladimir Georgievich Fere (russian: Владимир Георгиевич Фере; in Kamyshin – 2 September 1971 in Moscow) was a Russian composer. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory in 1925 and later taught there.
He was a member of a Ki ...
, and German songs about him were written by Kurt Demmler
Kurt Demmler (12 September 1943 Posen – 3 February 2009 Berlin) was a German songwriter, who in the earlier part of his life was a dissident East German songwriter. Accused of alleged sexual abuse of underage girls during castings for a fem ...
.
Various places, boulevards, and squares are named after him around the world, especially in Socialist states and former Communist states. In Russia, there is a Hồ Chí Minh square and monument in Moscow, a Hồ Chí Minh boulevard in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, and a Hồ Chí Minh square in Ulyanovsk
Ulyanovsk, known until 1924 as Simbirsk, is a city and the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River east of Moscow. Population:
The city, founded as Simbirsk (), was the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin (born ...
(the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin, a sister city of Vinh
Vinh () is the biggest city and economic and cultural center of north-central Vietnam. Vinh is the capital of Nghệ An Province, and is a key point in the East–West economic corridor linking Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. The city is ...
, the birthplace of Hồ Chí Minh). During the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, the then-West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
government, in the hands of CPI(M)
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the nati ...
, renamed Harrington Street to Ho Chi Minh Sarani, which is also the location of the consulate general of the United States in Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
. According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as many as 20 countries across Asia, Europe, America and Africa have erected monuments or statues in remembrance of Hồ Chí Minh.
International influence
Hồ Chí Minh is considered one of the most influential leaders in the world. ''Time'' magazine listed him in the list of 100 Most Important People of the Twentieth Century (''Time'' 100) in 1998. His thought and revolution inspired many leaders and people on a global scale in Asia, Africa and Latin America during the decolonization movement which occurred after World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. As a communist, he was one of the few international figures who were relatively well regarded in the West, and did not face the same extent of international criticism as much as other Communist factions, going to even win praise for his actions.
In 1987, UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
officially recommended that its member states "join in the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of President Hồ Chí Minh by organizing various events as a tribute to his memory", considering "the important and many-sided contributions of President Hồ Chí Minh to the fields of culture, education and the arts" who "devoted his whole life to the national liberation of the Vietnamese people, contributing to the common struggle of peoples for peace, national independence, democracy, and social progress".
One of Hồ Chí Minh's works, ''The Black Race'', much of it originally written in French, highlights his views on the oppression of peoples from colonialism and imperialism in 20 written articles. Other books such as ''Revolution'' which published selected works and articles of Hồ Chí Minh in English also highlighted Hồ Chí Minh's interpretation and beliefs in socialism and communism, and in fighting against what he perceived to be evils stemming from capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism.HoChiMinhOnRevolution-SelectedWritings.pdf
/ref>
See also
* Communism in Vietnam
Communism in Vietnam is linked to the Politics of Vietnam and the push for independence. Marxism was introduced in Vietnam with the emergence of three communist parties: the Indochinese Communist Party, the Annamese Communist Party, and the Ind ...
Explanatory notes
References
Bibliography
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Further reading
Essays
* Bernard B. Fall
Bernard B. Fall (November 19, 1926 – February 21, 1967) was a prominent war correspondent, historian, political scientist, and expert on Indochina during the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Austria, he moved with his family to France as a child aft ...
, ed., 1967. ''Ho Chi Minh on Revolution and War: Selected Writings 1920–1966''. New American Library.
Biography
* Osborne, Milton. "Ho Chi Minh" ''History Today'' (Nov 1980), Vol. 30 Issue 11, p40-46; popular history; online.
* Morris, Virginia and Hills, Clive. 2018. ''Ho Chi Minh's Blueprint for Revolution: In the Words of Vietnamese Strategists and Operatives'', McFarland & Co Inc.
* Jean Lacouture
Jean Lacouture (9 June 1921 – 16 July 2015) was a journalist, historian and author. He was particularly famous for his biographies.
Career
Jean Lacouture was born in Bordeaux, France. He began his career in journalism in 1950 in ''Combat'' ...
. 1968. ''Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography''. Random House.
* Khắc Huyên. 1971. ''Vision Accomplished? The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh''. The Macmillan Company.
* David Halberstam
David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and later ...
. 1971. ''Ho''. Rowman & Littlefield.
* Hồ chí Minh toàn tập. NXB chính trị quốc gia
* Tôn Thất Thiện, ''Was Ho Chi Minh a Nationalist? Ho Chi Minh and the Comintern''. Information and Resource Centre, Singapore, 1990
* William J. Duiker. ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life''. New York: Hyperion, 2001
Việt Minh, NLF and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
* Hoang Van Chi. 1964. ''From colonialism to communism''. Praeger.
* Trương Như Tảng
Trương Như Tảng (14 November 1923 – 8 November 2005) was a Vietnamese lawyer and politician. He was active in many anti-South Vietnam organizations before joining the newly created North Vietnam-aligned Provisional Revolutionary Governmen ...
. 1986. ''A Viet Cong Memoir''. Vintage.
War in Vietnam
* Frances FitzGerald. 1972. '' Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam''. Little, Brown and Company.
* David Hunt. 1993. ''The American War in Vietnam'', SEAP Publications
* Ilya Gaiduck 2003 ''Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy Toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954–1963'', Stanford University Press
* Nguyen Lien-Hang T. 2012 ''Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam'', University of North Carolina Press
American foreign policy
* Henry A. Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the preside ...
. 1979. ''White House Years''. Little, Brown.
* Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. 1987. ''No More Vietnams''. Arbor House Pub Co.
External links
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The Drayton Court Hotel
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20000531033857/http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hochiminh.html TIME 100: Hồ Chí Minh
Ho Chi Minh Selected Writings
in PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
format
Hồ Chí Minh's biography
Satellite photo of the mausoleum on Google Maps
Final Tribute to Hồ from the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party
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