The Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Tuyên ngôn độc lập Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa) was written by

Hồ Chí Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), ('Father of the Nation, Old father of the people') and by other Pseudonym, aliases, was a Vietnamese people, Vietnam ...

, and announced in public at the Ba Đình flower garden (now the Ba Đình Square) 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 ...

on September 2, 1945. It led to the foundation of 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 ...

, replacing the

Nguyen dynasty Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this su ...

History

Vietnam, under the

, became a protectorate of

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 ...

in the late 19th century, but 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 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

occupied the country from 1940. During this period 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 ...

fought a

guerrilla war Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactic ...

against the Japanese and were to a degree supported by the Americans in 1945 via the

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 ...

. On August 22, 1945, 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 ...

, who had met

Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime ...

in southern China, arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and was accompanied by

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 French government official. The Japanese forces informally surrendered (the official surrender took place on September 2, 1945 in Tokyo Bay) but were the only force capable of maintaining law and order the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

and so remained in power and kept French colonial troops detained. Japanese forces allowed the Việt Minh and other nationalist groups to take over public buildings and weapons without resistance, which began 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 ...

. On the morning of August 26, 1945, at No. 48 Hàng Ngang,

Hà Nội 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 ...

, Chairman Hồ Chí Minh presided over the meeting of the Central Standing

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 ...

, which he had called. The meeting unanimously decided to prepare to proclaim independence and to organize a large meeting in Hà Nội for the

Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...

to present itself to the people. That was also the day that Vietnam officially promulgated the right of freedom and established a democratic republic system. On August 30, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh invited several people to contribute their ideas toward his Proclamation of Independence, including a number of American OSS officers. OSS officers met repeatedly with him and other

officers during late August, and

claimed to have listened to Ho read to him a draft of the Proclamation, which he believed sounded very similar to the

American Declaration of Independence The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ...

.Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981 On September 2, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh read the Proclamation during a public meeting in front of thousands of people at what is now Ba Đình Square and announced the birth of the

and the country's independence and becoming a republic.

Original

References

External links

Recording of original proclamation (Vietnamese) and full text (English)
– Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam {{DEFAULTSORT:Proclamation Of Independence Of The Democratic Republic Of Vietnam Declarations of independence of Vietnam Vietnamese independence movement 1945 in Vietnam 1945 in French Indochina 1945 in international relations 1945 in law Aftermath of World War II in Vietnam Ho Chi Minh Proclamations 1945 in the French colonial empire September 1945 events in Asia 1945 documents