Ho Chi Minh, father of independent Vietnam,
was a man of contrasts. Standing at just four foot, eleven inches
and weighing less than a hundred pounds, he appeared to pose no threat to anyone. Yet, through the force of his personality
and the steely determination of his will he defeated two of the world’s mightiest nations. He portrayed himself as a simple man of the
people yet he ruled over a repressive regime that committed terrible atrocities. While many viewed him as the bringer of light
to a repressed people, to others he was simply a Communist spy planted by the Soviets. In today’s Biographics, we discover the
truth about the real Ho Chi Minh. Beginnings
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19th, 1890 in the village of Hoang Tru in what was French
Indochina. He was given the birth name Nguyễn Sinh
Cung. From the age of five, he lived in the village
of Lang Sen in the Nghe An province. This was the hometown of his father, Nguyen
Sinh Sac. Sac was a man of learning, being a Confucian
scholar and a teacher. Cung was the third child, and the second son,
to Sac and his wife. Another child would follow, but this son died
in infancy. By the end of the 19th Century, French Indochina
was France’s most prosperous colony, with huge profits being made from rubber and rice
exports. The jewel in the crown was the area known
today as Vietnam. The native people there mostly worked on the
large French owned rubber plantations. They were pressed onto work gangs to toil
for long hours and very little reward. Any rebellions were violently stamped out
by the French authorities. The Nguyen family were of the upper class
of Vietnamese society. Cung was instructed by his father until around
the age of seven years when formal instruction began under a scholar by the name of Voung
Thuc Do. The boy was a quick study, mastering the art
of Chinese calligraphy. Instruction in Confucianism lay at the core
of his studies and he rapidly came to embrace its tenets. Outside of the classroom, Cung displayed an
inquisitive mind and an adventurous spirit. His passions were kite flying and fishing. When he was ten years his father, in accordance
with Confucian tradition, gave him a new name - Nguyễn Tất Thành, which means ‘ Nguyen
the Accomplished’. When he was eleven, Thanh’s family were
struck with tragedy. While his father was away on business, his
mother gave birth to a fourth child. However, she did not survive the delivery. Thanh was devastated. But he had no time to mourn. He and his siblings had the responsibility
of looking after a newborn infant until their father returned. By this time, Sac had become a Mandarin, or
local official. The job kept him away from home for long periods
at a time. As a widower he now had to rely on family
and friends to help look after his children. In his pre-teens, Thanh began attending a
French boarding school in the city of Hue along with his older brother. Sac was of the view that, for his boys to
succeed in making their mark on the world, they would need to have the benefit of a French
education. However, Sac was no supporter of the French
regime. Despite being an official of the Indochinese
government, he was an outspoken critic of the manner in which the local authorities
had so willingly ceded all power and control to the French. This criticism did not go unnoticed. Eventually he would be dismissed from his
position after a man died who Sac ordered to be given 102 lashes as punishment for a
minor wrongdoing. Following his dismissal, Sac became greatly
embittered against the French Indochinese bureaucracy. Unable to find work, he spent the rest of
his life travelling from village to village in search of a way to make a living. Thanh saw very little of his father from then
on. He too became angry with the system, and especially
the French rulers who treated the local people so badly. By 1908, Thanh had been studying at the National
Academy in Hue for four years. One day, he saw a large group of peasants
marching past the school. These people were protesting corruption in
the government and high taxation. It has long been related that Thanh joined
the protest and that he translated the demands of the people into French in order for the
colonial rulers to understand what their grievances were. As a result, the story goes, he was dismissed
from the school. However, a recently discovered French document
shows that he was admitted to the prestigious College Quoc Hoc in Hue in August, 1908. An expulsion would have made him ineligible
for entry. In his later life, however, he pointed to
the protest in early 1908 as the point when his revolutionary fervor emerged. Upon completion of his studies in 1911, Thanh
took a position as a teacher at the Duc Thanh school in Phan Tiet on the eastern coast. He stayed there for some six months. He then moved to Saigon, the bustling metropolis
in the southwestern part of the country. To France and Beyond
His four years of study had allowed Thanh to become fluent in the French language. It had also given him a good understanding
of French culture and history. He was aware of the principles of liberty,
equality and fraternity that had underpinned the French revolution. He knew that those principles were not being
adopted in French Indochina but he was very curious to see how they were being put into
action in France itself. In June of 1911, Thanh got his chance to satisfy
his urge to explore France. He managed to gain a position as a kitchen
helper on the French steamship Amirale de Latouche-Tréville. A one-month journey brought the ship into
Marseilles on July 5th. On arrival in France, Thanh applied for entrance
into a school that trained officials to serve in the colonies. The application was denied. Having arrived in France, he still needed
a means to support himself. He decided that his best bet was to continue
working as a kitchen hand on ships, where he knew he could secure work. As a result, he spent the next six years travelling
the world on various steamships. This gave him the opportunity to visit many
colonial countries and compare the life and conditions to what he knew of back in French
Indochina. Thanh’s travels took him to Africa, South
America and the United States. On a 1912 trip, he jumped ship at Boston Harbor
and made his way to New York. He claims to have lived and worked in Boston
and New York for some time, though the only evidence of his being in the U.S. at that
time is a letter he wrote that has a New York postmark on it. While in the US, Thanh was surprised to learn
that immigrants to America had legal rights that the French in Indochina would not even
give to the native people there. Most importantly, they had the right to vote,
something which impressed him greatly. Just prior to the outbreak of World War One,
Thanh sailed for England. He worked as a pastry chef at the Carlton
Hotel in Westminster. During his London years, he began to associate
with people of different nationalities, all with one thing in common. They came from either British or French colonies
that were experiencing oppression and domination by their colonial masters. Over the course of many late-night discussions,
Thanh came to dedicate himself to the liberation of his homeland. Revolutionary
By 1917, Thanh had become an accomplished pastry chef and had a solid career path laid
out before him. However, he decided to forego that opportunity. He moved to Paris in order to learn the craft
of the revolutionary. He moved into the Parisian Vietnamese quarter,
which was quite large. During his first twelve months in the French
capital he immersed himself in the culture and glamor of the city. To support himself, he worked as a cook and
a photo re-toucher. But his primary purpose was to organize ex
pat Vietnamese into a force strong enough to effect some real change back in Indochina. Thanh was surprised to find that quite a number
of Frenchmen were sympathetic to the plight of the Vietnamese people. They encouraged him to publish his ideas about
what needed to be done. He did just that, producing an anti-colonial
newspaper targeted toward the expat-Vietnamese population throughout France. Copies even made their way back to Indochina. He wrote about the terrible conditions for
the native people, not just in France, but in every colony, be it French or British. At this stage his writings did not call for
revolution. He simply demanded fairer treatment and equal
rights. The writings of Thanh made their way to the
Colonial Government in Indochina. He was immediately condemned as a revolutionary
and condemned to death if he ever returned to his homeland. Meanwhile the native people of French Indochina
hailed him as a hero. Thanh was in Paris at the time of the Treaty
of Versailles and became involved with a group of Vietnamese nationalists who tried to take
their message to the international congress. The statesmen were basing their restructuring
of post-war Europe on the principals of self-determination and democracy. The Vietnamese nationalists wanted them to
apply those very principles to Vietnam. However, they were largely ignored by the
international congress. Becoming Communist
With the establishment of Soviet Russia, the worldwide socialist movement was suddenly
split between two ideologies; social democracy and communism. Thanh, living in Paris, made the fateful decision
to firmly throw in with the Communists. In 1920, he became one of the founding members
of the French Communist Party. Thanh began to write pro-Communist articles
for the anti-colonial newspaper La Paria. Then, three years later, he made a trip to
Russia. There he met with Marxist leaders who encouraged
him to view the struggle for Vietnamese independence as a part of the international Communist struggle
to overthrow Capitalism. He became a member of the Comintern, the organization
set up by the Soviets to take Communism to the world. Thanh was convinced that the example set by
the Russian Communist revolution provided the model for the overthrow of the French
in Indochina. In June 1924, the Soviet government sent Thanh
to Canton, China to begin laying the groundwork for the Communist take-over of Asia. From this point on in his life, Thanh would
operate as an underground figure. He travelled under aliases and lived in mountain
hideaways as he worked clandestinely to organize Communist resistance movements. In 1927, the Chinese authorities clamped down
on the Communists. Thanh was nearly arrested, narrowly making
his escape into Siam. In Siam, Thanh took on the persona of a Buddhist
monk. This allowed him to travel freely. In the north of the country there was a large
Vietnamese population. It was there that he headed, preaching his
Communist message as he wandered from village to village. Throughout the majority of the 1930’s, Thanh
disappeared from the record books. There were rumours of him being in various
places, such as with Mao Tse Tung in the Chinese highland or in Soviet Russia with Stalin. There were even reports that he was dead. Ho Chi Minh
His re-emergence on the world stage just after the outbreak of the Second World War proved
that last rumor wrong. For the past fifteen years he had been biding
his time as he waited for the opportune moment to lead his people in rebellion against the
French. When France fell like a house of cards to
the German assault in just six weeks in mid-1940, he felt that that time had come. A new French government that cooperated with
the occupying Nazis was set up in Vichy, France. This Vichy government also took control of
French Indochina, but under the dominion of the Japanese, who were one of the Axis Powers,
along with Germany and Italy. At the beginning of 1941, Thanh re-entered
Indochina for the first time in thirty years. He entered the northern jungle. He had great plans for an overthrow of the
French, but very little else. He carried no weapons with him, had few followers
and little money. He immediately set about recruiting support
among the mountain communities. His revolutionary group was called the Viet
Minh Doc Lap Minh, which was soon shortened to Viet Minh. The goal of this new group was to create a
broad-based nationalist movement for the reclaiming of Vietnamese independence and to gain the
support of other nations, especially the Chinese. The Viet Minh also vowed to oust the ‘Japanese
fascists’, along with their ‘French accomplices.’ It was at this time that Thanh adopted the
name by which he would become famous around the world- Ho Chi Minh, which means ‘Bringer
of Light’. The name change was a calculated move to present
himself as a wise sage in the Confucian tradition. Ho lived the life of a peasant in order to
win the people to his cause. He spoke in simple language and rejected all
materialism in pursuit of the cause of nationalism. He also cultivated the image of a lifelong
celibate who simply didn’t have time for a wife. In 1942 he went to China in order to recruit
extra manpower. However, he was arrested for being a Communist
and spent fourteen months in a Chinese prison. He finally convinced his captors to release
him so that he could spy for them against the Japanese in Indochina. He walked all the way back to his mountain
base. His followers had given him up for dead but
enthusiastically welcomed him back as their leader. There were other revolutionary groups at the
time, but only the Viet Minh managed to establish a number of clandestine cells around the country. Small scale guerrilla activities against the
Japanese continued throughout the duration of the war. Then the Japanese did something unexpected. On March 9th, 1945, fearing an allied invasion,
they overthrew the French established government and declared an end to the French colony of
Indochina. The former nations of Laos and Cambodia were
freed from the colonial yolk to once again be independent kingdoms. The Vietnamese provinces of Annam and Tonkin
were given to the rulership of Bao Dai. Still this was not genuine independence. The Viet Minh bided their time. They knew that the Japanese would eventually
be defeated and have to leave their land. At that time, they would step into the vacuum. War with France
With the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945,
the game was up for the Japanese. They swiftly left Indochina, creating the
vacuum that Ho Chi Minh had predicted. Ho promptly declared Vietnam to be independent,
and set up a government, which was based at Hanoi. The President who had been put in place by
the Japanese, Bao Dai, could see what the will of the people was and he quickly abdicated
his position. The French however, had absolutely no intentions
of giving up their hold on the colony. As far as they were concerned, now that the
war was over and the Axis powers had been defeated, things would revert to the way they
were in the 1930’s. But they were to find a greatly strengthened
Viet Minh. The American Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) had seen the Viet Minh as a useful ally in defeating the Japanese and so had given
support to Ho Chi Minh’s guerrilla forces. The new government set about working to bring
relief to the masses who had suffered under Japanese rule and were largely now at the
point of starvation. Ho put together a declaration of independence
which he modelled on the American version of 1776. This was done in an attempt to win American
support. For their part, the Americans were wary. They had a natural inclination to want to
assist native peoples to overthrow their colonial overlords, just as they had done nearly two
hundred years before. But they also wanted to maintain as good a
relationship as possible with the French. The two countries had a long history, dating
back to the very founding of the United States. The French had backed them against the common
enemy, Great Britain, supplying millions of dollars, ships and men. It was decided by the allies that the British
would occupy the area of the country south of the 16th parallel in order to accept the
surrender of the Japanese in Vietnam. The area north of the 16th Parallel would
be occupied by the Chinese. China agreed to allow the Viet Minh, under
Ho, to remain in power. The British, though, saw it differently. They felt obligated to help the French restore
their pre-war position. In October, 1945, French forces, aided by
the British, landed in southern Vietnam and began to quash any and all Viet Minh resistance
that they encountered. The French status quo was established in Saigon
and other key centres. However, the countryside was rife with Viet
Minh guerrilla fighters. Then, under pressure from the allied powers,
the Chinese relented and allowed the French to take power north of the French Parallel
also. The Viet Minh government, under Ho Chi Minh,
was forced to compromise. The French proposed a form of Vietnamese self-government
inside of a French ruled Indochina Federation. Ho and an entourage flew to Fontainebleau
in France to negotiate a peace deal. But there was to be no deal. The French were only willing to concede limited
self-rule, which was a far cry from what the Viet Minh were demanding. The talks broke down and Ho returned to Vietnam
without a solution. In November, 1946, the rising tension between
the Viet Minh and the French sparked into open warfare. The French began an air bombardment of the
coastal city of Haiphong. This led to an evacuation of the port by the
Vietnamese. Then, in December, the Viet Minh launched
a full-scale attack on the French position in Hanoi. When this failed to find success, the native
forces withdrew to the mountains in order to undertake a campaign of full-scale guerrilla
warfare. Over the next eight years, the Viet Minh,
under Ho’s skilful leadership ground down the will of the French military. By 1954, the French were desperate to end
the war. They decided to launch a surprise attack on
the Viet Minh at a place called Dien Bien Phu. The French thought they were luring Ho’s
guerrillas into a trap but their plan backfired terribly and Dien Bien Phu ended up as a disaster
for them. Over two months of fighting, at least fifteen
thousand French soldiers were killed. The final Vietnamese assault was launched
on May 1st. For several days the battle raged on until
the French were finally subjugated. More than 10,000 prisoners were taken. This was the final straw for the French and
they admitted defeat. Dividing Vietnam
In early 1954, the leaders of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union agreed
to convene an international convention in Geneva in order to work out peace settlements
regarding the two major Asian conflicts – Korea and Indochina. The Conference began in April. The first issue was Korea. Discussions led nowhere and, in the end, the
terms of the ceasefire of the previous year continued to rule the situation. Then the focus switched to Indochina. After heated discussions, an agreement was
finally ironed out between the French and the Viet Minh. Cambodia and Laos were to be guaranteed their
independence, without the intervention or threat of Communist take-over. In Vietnam itself, all Viet Minh forces were
to regroup north of th 17th Parallel. The French would withdraw to the south of
this arbitrary line. And so, the country was divided into North
and South. But only temporarily. The Geneva accord stipulated that elections
were to be held in two years to unify Vietnam under a single democratic government. A communist government under Ho Ci Minh was
now officially established north of the 17th Parallel. South of that line, the Republic of Vietnam
was installed with Ngo Dinh Diem as its first president. For 300 days after the signing of the Geneva
accords, the borders were open, allowing for people to move between north and south. Approximately one million people took advantage
of this opportunity to escape Communism and move south. Ho now concentrated on building the Communist
state of North Vietnam. A land reform program was started based on
the model created by Mao Tse Tung in China. Many landowners were executed and corruption
was widespread. Another War
In the south, the US backed government of President Ngo Dinh Diem was anti-communist
and more corrupt that that in the north. Diem was unpopular with the people in the
south. He, along with his American backers did not
allow the Geneva accord stipulated unifying elections to take place. If they had, Ho Chi Minh would undoubtedly
have won. By the end of the 1950’s anti-Diem sentiment
in the south had given rise to a civil war. The southern guerrillas were called Viet Cong. Ho sent Viet Minh fighters in to support them. In return, the US sent advisors in to help
the government forces of Diem. The real goal of the US, however, was to stop
the spread of Communism. The Bright Star Dims
By the mid 1960’s the Vietnam War was raging, with thousands of Americans fighting against
the Viet Minh. Ho Chi Minh was now a frail old man of 76
years. It is unlikely that he was involved any longer
in the day to day military operations. However, he was, as he had always been, the
major source of inspiration for the Vietnamese people to fight to win their independence
no matter the cost. Ho Chi Minh died on September 2, 1969. It would be six more years until the Americans
would be defeated and Vietnamese independence finally achieved. But the Vietnamese people owed that independence
to the tenacity, vision and determination of their visionary leader - Ho Chi Minh. Sources: Pierre Brocheux: Ho Chi Minh: A Biography
William J. Duiker: Ho Chi Minh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvX_s732ZBM&t=308s Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh, father of independent Vietnam, was a man of contrasts. Standing at just four foot, eleven inches
and weighing less than a hundred pounds, he appeared to pose no threat to anyone. Yet, through the force of his personality
and the steely determination of his will he defeated two of the wrold’s mightiest nations. He portrayed himself as a simple man of the
people yet he ruled over a repressive regime that committed terrible atrocities. While many viewed him as the bringer of light
to a repressed people, to others he was simply a Communist spy planted by the Soviets. In today’s Biographics, we discover the
truth about the real Ho Chi Minh. Beginnings
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19th, 1890 in the village of Hoang Tru in what was French
Indochina. He was given the birth name Nguyễn Sinh
Cung. From the age of five, he lived in the village
of Lang Sen in the Nghe An province. This was the hometown of his father, Nguyen
Sinh Sac. Sac was a man of learning, being a Confucian
scholar and a teacher. Cung was the third child, and the second son,
to Sac and his wife. Another child would follow, but this son died
in infancy. By the end of the 19th Century, French Indochina
was France’s most prosperous colony, with huge profits being made from rubber and rice
exports. The jewel in the crown was the area known
today as Vietnam. The native people there mostly worked on the
large French owned rubber plantations. They were pressed onto work gangs to toil
for long hours and very little reward. Any rebellions were violently stamped out
by the French authorities. The Nguyen family were of the upper class
of Vietnamese society. Cung was instructed by his father until around
the age of seven years when formal instruction began under a scholar by the name of Voung
Thuc Do. The boy was a quick study, mastering the art
of Chinese calligraphy. Instruction in Confucianism lay at the core
of his studies and he rapidly came to embrace its tenets. Outside of the classroom, Cung displayed an
inquisitive mind and an adventurous spirit. His passions were kite flying and fishing. When he was ten years his father, in accordance
with Confucian tradition, gave him a new name - Nguyễn Tất Thành, which means ‘ Nguyen
the Accomplished’. When he was eleven, Thanh’s family were
struck with tragedy. While his father was away on business, his
mother gave birth to a fourth child. However, she did not survive the delivery. Thanh was devastated. But he had no time to mourn. He and his siblings had the responsibility
of looking after a newborn infant until their father returned. By this time, Sac had become a Mandarin, or
local official. The job kept him away from home for long periods
at a time. As a widower he now had to rely on family
and friends to help look after his children. In his pre-teens, Thanh began attending a
French boarding school in the city of Hue along with his older brother. Sac was of the view that, for his boys to
succeed in making their mark on the world, they would need to have the benefit of a French
education. However, Sac was no supporter of the French
regime. Despite being an official of the Indochinese
government, he was an outspoken critic of the manner in which the local authorities
had so willingly ceded all power and control to the French. This criticism did not go unnoticed. Eventually he would be dismissed from his
position after a man died who Sac ordered to be given 102 lashes as punishment for a
minor wrongdoing. Following his dismissal, Sac became greatly
embittered against the French Indochinese bureaucracy. Unable to find work, he spent the rest of
his life travelling from village to village in search of a way to make a living. Thanh saw very little of his father from then
on. He too became angry with the system, and especially
the French rulers who treated the local people so badly. By 1908, Thanh had been studying at the National
Academy in Hue for four years. One day, he saw a large group of peasants
marching past the school. These people were protesting corruption in
the government and high taxation. It has long been related that Thanh joined
the protest and that he translated the demands of the people into French in order for the
colonial rulers to understand what their grievances were. As a result, the story goes, he was dismissed
from the school. However, a recently discovered French document
shows that he was admitted to the prestigious College Quoc Hoc in Hue in August, 1908. An expulsion would have made him ineligible
for entry. In his later life, however, he pointed to
the protest in early 1908 as the point when his revolutionary fervor emerged. Upon completion of his studies in 1911, Thanh
took a position as a teacher at the Duc Thanh school in Phan Tiet on the eastern coast. He stayed there for some six months. He then moved to Saigon, the bustling metropolis
in the southwestern part of the country. To France and Beyond
His four years of study had allowed Thanh to become fluent in the French language. It had also given him a good understanding
of French culture and history. He was aware of the principles of liberty,
equality and fraternity that had underpinned the French revolution. He knew that those principles were not being
adopted in French Indochina but he was very curious to see how they were being put into
action in France itself. In June of 1911, Thanh got his chance to satisfy
his urge to explore France. He managed to gain a position as a kitchen
helper on the French steamship Amirale de Latouche-Tréville. A one-month journey brought the ship into
Marseilles on July 5th. On arrival in France, Thanh applied for entrance
into a school that trained officials to serve in the colonies. The application was denied. Having arrived in France, he still needed
a means to support himself. He decided that his best bet was to continue
working as a kitchen hand on ships, where he knew he could secure work. As a result, he spent the next six years travelling
the world on various steamships. This gave him the opportunity to visit many
colonial countries and compare the life and conditions to what he knew of back in French
Indochina. Thanh’s travels took him to Africa, South
America and the United States. On a 1912 trip, he jumped ship at Boston Harbor
and made his way to New York. He claims to have lived and worked in Boston
and New York for some time, though the only evidence of his being in the U.S. at that
time is a letter he wrote that has a New York postmark on it. While in the US, Thanh was surprised to learn
that immigrants to America had legal rights that the French in Indochina would not even
give to the native people there. Most importantly, they had the right to vote,
something which impressed him greatly. Just prior to the outbreak of World War One,
Thanh sailed for England. He worked as a pastry chef at the Carlton
Hotel in Westminster. During his London years, he began to associate
with people of different nationalities, all with one thing in common. They came from either British or French colonies
that were experiencing oppression and domination by their colonial masters. Over the course of many late-night discussions,
Thanh came to dedicate himself to the liberation of his homeland. Revolutionary
By 1917, Thanh had become an accomplished pastry chef and had a solid carer path laid
out before him. However, he decided to forego that opportunity. He moved to Paris in order to learn the craft
of the revolutionary. He moved into the Parisian Vietnamese quarter,
which was quite large. During his first twelve months in the French
capital he immersed himself in the culture and glamor of the city. To support himself, he worked as a cook and
a photo re-toucher. But his primary purpose was to organize ex
pat Vietnamese into a force strong enough to effect some real change back in Indochina. Thanh was surprised to find that quite a number
of Frenchmen were sympathetic to the plight of the Vietnamese people. They encouraged him to publish his ideas about
what needed to be done. He did just that, producing an anti-colonial
newspaper targeted toward the expat-Vietnamese population throughout France. Copies even made their way back to Indochina. He wrote about the terrible conditions for
the native people, not just in France, but in every colony, be it French or British. At this stage his writings did not call for
revolution. He simply demanded fairer treatment and equal
rights. The writings of Thanh made their way to the
Colonial Government in Indochina. He was immediately condemned as a revolutionary
and condemned to death if he ever returned to his homeland. Meanwhile the native people of French Indochina
hailed him as a hero. Thanh was in Paris at the time of the Treaty
of Versailles and became involved with a group of Vietnamese nationalists who tried to take
their message to the international congress. The statesmen were basing their restructuring
of post-war Europe on the principals of self-determination and democracy. The Vietnamese nationalists wanted them to
apply those very principles to Vietnam. However, they were largely ignored by the
international congress. Becoming Communist
With the establishment of Soviet Russia, the worldwide socialist movement was suddenly
split between two ideologies; social democracy and communism. Thanh, living in Paris, made the fateful decision
to firmly throw in with the Communists. In 1920, he became one of the founding members
of the French Communist Party. Thanh began to write pro-Communist articles
for the anti-colonial newspaper La Paria. Then, three years later, he made a trip to
Russia. There he met with Marxist leaders who encouraged
him to view the struggle for Vietnamese independence as a part of the international Communist struggle
to overthrow Capitalism. He became a member of the Comintern, the organization
set up by the Soviets to take Communism to the world. Thanh was convinced that the example set by
the Russian Communist revolution provided the model for the overthrow of the French
in Indochina. In June 1924, the Soviet government sent Thanh
to Canton, China to begin laying the groundwork for the Communist take-over of Asia. From this point on in his life, Thanh would
operate as an underground figure. He travelled under aliases and lived in mountain
hideaways as he worked clandestinely to organize Communist resistance movements. In 1927, the Chinese authorities clamped down
on the Communists. Thanh was nearly arrested, narrowly making
his escape into Siam. In Siam, Thanh took on the persona of a Buddhist
monk. This allowed him to travel freely. In the north of the country there was a large
Vietnamese population. It was there that he headed, preaching his
Communist message as he wandered from village to village. Throughout the majority of the 1930’s, Thanh
disappeared from the record books. There were rumours of him being in various
places, such as with Mao Tse Tung in the Chinese highland or in Soviet Russia with Stalin. There were even reports that he was dead. Ho Chi Minh
His re-emergence on the world stage just after the outbreak of the Second World War proved
that last rumor wrong. For the past fifteen years he had been biding
his time as he waited for the opportune moment to lead his people in rebellion against the
French. When France fell like a house of cards to
the German assault in just six weeks in mid-1940, he felt that that time had come. A new French government that cooperated with
the occupying Nazis was set up in Vichy, France. This Vichy government also took control of
French Indochina, but under the dominion of the Japanese, who were one of the Axis Powers,
along with Germany and Italy. At the beginning of 1941, Thanh re-entered
Indochina for the first time in thirty years. He entered the northern jungle. He had great plans for an overthrow of the
French, but very little else. He carried no weapons with him, had few followers
and little money. He immediately set about recruiting support
among the mountain communities. His revolutionary group was called the Viet
Minh Doc Lap Minh, which was soon shortened to Viet Minh. The goal of this new group was to create a
broad-based nationalist movement for the reclaiming of Vietnamese independence and to gain the
support of other nations, especially the Chinese. The Viet Minh also vowed to oust the ‘Japanese
fascists’, along with their ‘French accomplices.’ It was at this time that Thanh adopted the
name by which he would become famous around the world- Ho Chi Minh, which means ‘Bring
of Light’. The name change was a calculated move to present
himself as a wise sage in the Confucian tradition. Ho lived the life of a peasant in order to
win the people to his cause. He spoke in simple language and rejected all
materialism in pursuit of the cause of nationalism. He also cultivated the image of a life-long
celibate who simply didn’t have time for a wife. In 1942 he went to China in order to recruit
extra manpower. However, he was arrested for being a Communist
and spent fourteen months in a Chinese prison. He finally convinced his captors to release
him so that he could spy for them against the Japanese in Indochina. He walked all the way back to his mountain
base. His followers had given him up for dead but
enthusiastically welcomed him back as their leader. There were other revolutionary groups at the
time, but only the Viet Minh managed to establish a number of clandestine cells around the country. Small scale guerrilla activities against the
Japanese continued throughout the duration of the war. Then the Japanese did something unexpected. On March 9th, 1945, fearing an allied invasion,
they overthrew the French established government and declared an end to the French colony of
Indochina. The former natiions of Laos and Cambodia were
freed from the colonial yolk to once again be independent kingdoms. The Vietnamese provinces of Annam and Tonkin
were given to the rulership of Bao Dai. Still this was not genuine independence. The Viet Minh bided their time. They knew that the Japanese would eventually
be defeated and have to leave their land. At that time, they would step into the vacuum. War with France
With the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945,
the game was up for the Japanese. They swiftly left Indochina, creating the
vacuum that Ho Chi Minh had predicted. Ho promptly declared Vietnam to be independent,
and set up a government, which was based at Hanoi. The President who had been put in place by
the Japanese, Bao Dai, could see what the will of the people was and he quickly abdicated
his position. The French however, had absolutely no intentions
of giving up their hold on the colony. As far as they were concerned, now that the
war was over and the Axis powers had been defeated, things would revert to the way they
were in the 1930’s. But they were to find a greatly strengthened
Viet Minh. The American Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) had seen the Viet Minh as a useful ally in defeating the Japanese and so had given
support to Ho Chi Minh’s guerrilla forces. The new government set about working to bring
relief to the masses who had suffered under Japanese rule and were largely now at the
point of starvation. Ho put together a declaration of independence
which he modelled on the American version of 1776. This was done in an attempt to win American
support. For their part, the Americans were wary. They had a natural inclination to want to
assist native peoples to overthrow their colonial overlords, just as they had done nearly two
hundred years before. But they also wanted to maintain as good a
relationship as possible with the French. The two countries had a long history, dating
back to the very founding of the United States. The French had backed them against the common
enemy, Great Britain, supplying millions of dollars, ships and men. It was decided by the allies that the British
would occupy the area of the country south of the 16th parallel in order to accept the
surrender of the Japanese in Vietnam. The area north of the 16th Parallel would
be occupied by the Chinese. China agreed to allow the Viet Minh, under
Ho, to remain in power. The British, though, saw it differently. They felt obligated to help the French restore
their pre-war position. In October, 1945, French forces, aided by
the British, landed in southern Vietnam and began to quash any and all Viet Minh resistance
that they encountered. The French status quo was established in Saigon
and other key centres. However, the countryside was rife with Viet
Minh guerrilla fighters. Then, under pressure from the allied powers,
the Chinese relented and allowed the French to take power north of the French Parallel
also. The Viet Minh government, under Ho Chi Minh,
was forced to compromise. The French proposed a form of Vietnamese self-government
inside of a French ruled Indochina Federation. Ho and an entourage flew to Fontainebleau
in France to negotiate a peace deal. But there was to be no deal. The French were only willing to concede limited
self-rule, which was a far cry from what the Viet Minh were demanding. The talks broke down and Ho returned to Vietnam
without a solution. In November, 1946, the rising tension between
the Viet Minh and the French sparked into open warfare. The French began an air bombardment of the
coastal city of Haiphong. This led to an evacuation of the port by the
Vietnamese. Then, in December, the Viet Minh launched
a full-scale attack on the French position in Hanoi. When this failed to find success, the native
forces withdrew to the mountains in order to undertake a campaign of full-scale guerrilla
warfare. Over the next eight years, the Viet Minh,
under Ho’s skilful leadership ground down the will of the French military. By 1954, the French were desperate to end
the war. They decided to launch a surprise attack on
the Viet Minh at a place called Dien Bien Phu. The French thought they were luring Ho’s
guerrillas into a trap but their plan backfired terribly and Dien Bien Phu ended up as a disaster
for them. Over two months of fighting, at least fifteen
thousand French soldiers were killed. The final Vietnamese assault was launched
on May 1st. For several days the battle raged on until
the French were finally subjugated. More than 10,000 prisoners were taken. This was the final straw for the French and
they admitted defeat. Dividing Vietnam
In early 1954, the leaders of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union agreed
to convene an international convention in Geneva in order to work out peace settlements
regarding the two major Asian conflicts – Korea and Indochina. The Conference began in April. The first issue was Korea. Discussions led nowhere and, in the end, the
terms of the ceasefire of the previous year continued to rule the situation. Then the focus switched to Indochina. After heated discussions, an agreement was
finally ironed out between the French and the Viet Minh. Cambodia and Laos were to be guaranteed their
independence, without the intervention or threat of Communist take-over. In Vietnam itself, all Viet Minh forces were
to regroup north of th 17th Parallel. The French would withdraw to the south of
this arbitrary line. And so, the country was divided into North
and South. But only temporarily. The Geneva accord stipulated that elections
were to be held in two years to unify Vietnam under a single democratic government. A communist government under Ho Ci Minh was
now officially established north of the 17th Parallel. South of that line, the Republic of Vietnam
was installed with Ngo Dinh Diem as its first president. For 300 days after the signing of the Geneva
accords, the borders were open, allowing for people to move between north and south. Approximately one million people took advantage
of this opportunity to escape Communism and move south. Ho now concentrated on building the Communist
state of North Vietnam. A land reform program was started based on
the model created by Mao Tse Tung in China. Many landowners were executed and corruption
was widespread. Another War
In the south, the US backed government of President Ngo Dinh Diem was anti-communist
and more corrupt that that in the north. Diem was unpopular with the people in the
south. He, along with his American backers did not
allow the Geneva accord stipulated unifying elections to take place. If they had, Ho Chi Minh would undoubtedly
have won. By the end of the 1950’s anti-Diem sentiment
in the south had given rise to a civil war. The southern guerrillas were called Viet Cong. Ho sent Viet Minh fighters in to support them. In return, the US sent advisors in to help
the government forces of Diem. The real goal of the US, however, was to stop
the spread of Communism. The Bright Star Dims
By the mid 1960’s the Vietnam War was raging, with thousands of Americans fighting against
the Viet Minh. Ho Chi Minh was now a frail old man of 76
years. It is unlikely that he was involved any longer
in the day to day military operations. However, he was, as he had always been, the
major source of inspiration for the Vietnamese people to fight to win their independence
no matter the cost. Ho Chi Minh died on September 2, 1969. It would be six more years until the Americans
would be defeated and Vietnamese independence finally achieved. But the Vietnamese people owed that independence
to the tenacity, vision and determination of their visionary leader - Ho Chi Minh.
