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Ho Chi Minh

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For the city named after him, see Ho Chi Minh City.

Hồ Chí Minh (name pronounced as ) (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969) was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1946–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

Ho lead the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. He led the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam War until his death; six years later, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory, and Vietnamese unification followed. The former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor.

Early life

Hồ Chí Minh was born, as Nguyễn Sinh Cung, in 1890 in Hoàng Trù Village, his mother's hometown. From 1895, he grew up in his paternal hometown of Kim Liên Village, Nam Đàn District, Nghệ An Province, Vietnam. He had three siblings, his sister Bạch Liên (or Nguyễn Thị Thanh), a clerk in the French Army, his brother Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (or Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a geomancer and traditional herbalist, and another brother (Nguyễn Sinh Nhuận) who died in his infancy. Following Confucian traditions, at the age of 10 his father named him Nguyễn Tất Thành (Nguyễn the Accomplished).

Ho's father, Nguyễn Sinh Sắc, was a Confucian scholar, teacher and a civil servant in the imperial palace. He was later dismissed from his office for refusing to serve at the court. From his father, Ho received a strong Confucian upbringing.Ho's mother was Hoang Thi Loan and died when he was 11 years old. During his childhood he developed a sense that the Vietnamese were not treated well by the French colonizers and the monarchist government. Ho also received a modern secondary education at a French-style lycée in Huế, the alma mater of his later disciples, Phạm Văn Ðồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp. He later left his studies and chose to teach at Dục Thanh school in Phan Thiết.

First sojourn in France

On 5 June 1911, Hồ Chí Minh left Vietnam on a French steamer, Amiral Latouche-Tréville, working as a kitchen helper. Arriving in Marseille, France, he applied for the French Colonial Administrative School but his application was rejected. During his stay, he worked as a cleaner, waiter, and film retoucher. Hồ spent most of his free time in public libraries reading history books and newspapers to familiarize himself with Western society and politics.

In the USA

In 1912, again working as the cook's helper on a ship, Hồ Chí Minh traveled to the United States. From 1912 to 1913, he lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston, where he worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. He worked in menial jobs and later claimed to have worked for a wealthy family in Brooklyn between 1917 and 1918, and during this time he may have heard Marcus Garvey speak in Harlem. It is believed that while in the United States he made contact with Korean nationalists, an experience that developed his political outlook.

In England

At various points between 1913 and 1919, Hồ lived in West Ealing, west London, and later in Crouch End, Hornsey, north London. He is reported to have worked as a chef at the Drayton Court Hotel, on The Avenue, West Ealing. It is claimed that Ho trained as a pastry chef under the legendary French master, Escoffier, at the Carlton Hotel in the Haymarket, Westminster, but there is no evidence to support this. However, the wall of New Zealand House, home of the New Zealand High Commission, which now stands on the site of the Carlton Hotel, displays a Blue Plaque, stating that Hồ worked there in 1913 as a waiter.

Political education in France

From 1919-1923, while living in France, Hồ Chí Minh embraced communism, through his friend Marcel Cachin (SFIO). Ho claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917 but French police only have documents of his arrival in June 1919. Following World War I, under the name of Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Ho petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to remove the French from Vietnam and replace it with a new, nationalist government. His request was ignored.

In 1921, during the Congress of Tours, France, Nguyen Ai Quoc became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) and spent much of his time in Moscow afterwards, becoming the Comintern's Asia hand and the principal theorist on colonial warfare. It was at this time that Nguyễn Ái Quốc took the name of "Hồ Chí Minh", a Vietnamese name combining a common surname (Hồ) with a given name meaning 'enlightened will' (Chí meaning 'will' (or spirit), and Minh meaning 'light'). During the Indochina War, the PCF would be involved with antiwar propaganda, sabotage and support for the revolutionary effort.

In China and the Soviet Union

In 1923, Hồ moved to Guangzhou, China. During 1925-26 he organized 'Youth Education Classes' and occasionally gave lectures at the Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina. He stayed there in Hong Kong as a representative of the Communist International. In June 1931, he was arrested and incarcerated by British police until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he spent several years recovering from tuberculosis. In 1938, he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces.

In Thailand

In 1928-29, Hồ Chí Minh stayed in the Thai village of Nachok.

Independence movement

In 1941, Hồ returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, supported closely but clandestinely by the United States Office of Strategic Services, and also later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946-1954). He was also jailed in China for many months by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities. After his release in 1943, he again returned to Vietnam. He was treated for malaria and dysentery by American OSS doctors.

After the August Revolution (1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam). Though he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He petitioned American President Harry Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, but was rebuffed due to French pressure on the U.S.

In 1945, in a power struggle, the Viet Minh killed members of rival groups, such as the leader of the Constitutional Party, the head of the Party for Independence, and Ngo Dinh Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Khoi. Purges and killings of Trotskyists, the rival anti-Stalinist communists, have also been documented. In 1946, when Hồ traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 25,000 non-communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee. Hundreds of political opponents were also killed in July that same year. All rival political parties were banned and local governments purged to minimise opposition later on.

Birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

On September 2, 1945, after Emperor Bao Dai's abdication, Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam, under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. With violence between rival Vietnamese factions and French forces spiraling, the British commander, General Sir Douglas Gracey declared martial law. On September 24, the Viet Minh leaders responded with a call for a general strike.

In September 1945, a force of 200,000 Chinese Nationalists arrived in Hanoi. Hồ Chí Minh made arrangement with their general, Lu Han, to dissolve the Communist Party and to hold an election which would yield a coalition government. When Chiang Kai-Shek later traded Chinese influence in Vietnam for French concessions in Shanghai, Hồ Chí Minh had no choice but to sign an agreement with France on March 6, 1946, in which Vietnam would be recognized as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement was to drive out the Chinese army from North Vietnam. Fighting broke out with the French soon after the Chinese left. Hồ Chí Minh was almost captured by a group of French soldiers led by Jean-Etienne Valluy at Việt Bắc, but was able to escape.

In February 1950, Hồ met with Stalin and Mao in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing the Viet Minh. Mao's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60-70,000 Viet Minh in the near future. China's support enabled Ho to escalate the fight against France.

According to a story told by Journalist Bernard Fall, after fighting the French for several years, Hồ decided to negotiate a truce. The French negotiators arrived at the meeting site, a mud hut with a thatched roof. Inside they found a long table with chairs and were surprised to discover in one corner of the room a silver ice bucket containing ice and a bottle of good Champagne which should have indicated that Hồ was ready to negotiate. One demand by the French was the return to French custody of a number of Japanese military officers who had been helping the Vietnamese armed forces, in order for them to stand trial for war crimes committed during World War II. Hồ replied that the Japanese officers were allies and friends whom he could not betray. Then he walked out, to seven more years of war. (From Last Reflections on a War, Fall's last book, published posthumously.)

In 1954, after the important defeat of French paratroopers at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, France was forced to give up its empire in Indochina.

Becoming president

In 1955, Ho Chi Minh became president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), a Communist-led single party state.

The 1954 Geneva Accords required that a national election would be held in 1956 to reunite Vietnam under one government. However, the government of South Vietnam, now under the leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem, refused the proposed election and instead prepared for war. Some contemporary observers consider that if an election had been held in the 1954-55 period, around 80% of the Vietnamese population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh. Even "President Eisenhower is widely quoted to the effect that in 1954 as many as 80% of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, as the popular hero of their liberation, in an election against Bao Dai... However, the United States remained fearful of the prospect of losing its influence in Indochina, which would be valuable as a military base in a future conflict with Communist China.

Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be a 300-day period in which people could freely move between the zones of the two Vietnams. Some 900,000 to 1 million Vietnamese, mostly Roman Catholic, left for South Vietnam, while a much smaller number, mostly communists, went from South to North. This was partly due to propaganda claims by a CIA mission led by Colonel Edward Lansdale that the Virgin Mary had moved South out of distaste for life under communism. Some Canadian observers claimed that some were forced by North Vietnamese authorities to remain against their will. During this era, Hồ, following the communist doctrine initiated by Stalin and Mao, started a land reform in which hundreds of thousands of people accused of being landlords were summarily executed or tortured and starved in prison. This also caused millions of people to flee to South Vietnam.

In 1959, Hồ's government began to provide active support for the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which escalated the fighting that had begun in 1957. In late 1964, North Vietnamese combat troops were sent southwest into neutral Laos.

During the mid to late 1960s, Hồ permitted 320,000 Chinese volunteers into northern North Vietnam to help build infrastructure for the country, thereby freeing a similar number of North Vietnamese forces to go south.

Death

With the outcome of the Vietnam War still in question, Ho Chi Minh died on the morning of September 2, 1969, at his home in Hanoi at age 79 from heart failure. Many in North Vietnam tearfully mourned his death. Santiago Álvarez's 1969 documentary film 'Seventy-Nine Spring Times Of Ho Chi Minh' (much of which was based on found footage) documents some of this, with scenes depicting crying school children and weeping mourners. His death day was initially reported to be September 3 as not to coincide with the National Day. Recently the government changed his official death day to September 2.

The former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City on 1 May, 1975 shortly after its capture which officially ended the war.

His embalmed body is on display in a granite mausoleum modeled after Lenin's Tomb in Moscow. This is similar to other Communist leaders who have been similarly displayed before and since, including Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung, and for a time, Josef Stalin, but the "honor" violated Hồ's last wishes. He wished to be cremated and his ashes buried in urns on hilltops of Vietnam (North, Central and South). He wrote, "Not only is cremation good from the point of view of hygiene but also it saves farmland."

The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi is dedicated to his life and work.

In Vietnam today, he is regarded by the Communist government with almost god-like status in a nationwide personality cult, even though the government has abandoned most of his economic policies since the mid-1980s. He is still referred to as "Uncle Hồ" in Vietnam. Hồ's image appears on the front of every Vietnamese currency note, and Hồ is featured prominently in many of Vietnam's public buildings. In 1987, UNESCO officially recommended to Member States that they "join in the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of President Ho Chi Minh by organizing various events as a tribute to his memory", considering "the important and many-sided contribution of President Ho Chi Minh in the fields of culture, education and the arts" and that Ho Chi Minh "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." To the Vietnamese in the U.S., who fled communist rule after 1975, Hồ is considered a murderer and traitor who ruined Vietnam by starting a war.

Quotes

  • "Nothing is more valuable than independence and freedom."
  • "I follow only one party: the Vietnamese party."
  • "You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." - referring to France and America in their wars in Vietnam.
  • "It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery!"
  • "The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man."
  • "We have to win independence at any cost, even if the Truong Son mountains burn."
  • "In (Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!"
  • "When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."
  • "It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me."
  • "Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability."
  • "My only desire is that all of our Party and people, closely united in struggle, construct a peaceful, unified, independent, democratic and prosperous, and make a valiant contribution to the world Revolution." (Hanoi, May 10 1969.)
  • “Better to eat the French dung for 100 years than the Chinese dung for 1,000.”

Notes

Further reading

Essays

  • Bernard B. Fall, ed., 1967. Ho Chi Minh on Revolution and War, Selected Writings 1920-1966. New American Library.

Biography

  • William J. Duiker. 2000. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. Theia.
  • Jean Lacouture. 1968. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. Random House.
  • N. Khac Huyen. 1971. Vision Accomplished? The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh. The Macmillan Company.
  • David Halberstam. 1971. Ho. Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Hồ chí Minh toàn tập . NXB chính trị quốc gia
  • Sophie Quinn-Judge. 2003. Ho Chi Minh: The missing years. C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 1-85065-658-4

The Viet Minh, NLF & the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

The War in Vietnam

American Foreign Policy

External links



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