:''For the city named after him, see
Ho Chi Minh City.''
'Hồ Chà Minh' (name pronounced as (with tones) as per his own dialect) (
Han Chinese: 胡志明;
May 19,
1890 –
September 2,
1969) was a
Vietnamese
revolutionary, who later became
Prime Minister (1946–1955) and
President (1946–1969) of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).
Ho is most famous for leading 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 Chà Minh was born, as Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung, in 1890 in Hoà ng Trù Village, his mother's hometown. From 1895, he grew up in his paternal hometown of Kim Liên Village, Nam Äà n 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
Nguyá»…n Sinh Khiêm (or Nguyá»…n Tất Äạt), a
geomancer and traditional herbalist, and another brother (Nguyá»…n Sinh Nhuáºn) who died in his infancy. Following
Confucian traditions, at the age of 10 his father named him Nguyễn Tất Thà nh (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. 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 Ãồng 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 Chà Minh left Vietnam on a French steamer, ''Amiral Latouche-Tréville'', working as a kitchen help. Arriving in
Marseille,
France, he applied for the
French Colonial Administrative School [1] 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, as the cook's helper on a ship, Hồ Chà Minh traveled to the
United States. From 1912 to 1913, he lived in
New York (
Harlem) and
Boston. He worked in menial jobs, including as a baker at the
Parker House Hotel in Boston
[2]. Hồ 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.
[3] This part of his life is contested by some historians, who argue that he spent little or no time in the US.
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
[1], 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.
[4].
Political education in France
Leaving the French Indochina where he had a French education, Nguyá»…n Ãi Quốc (later called Ho Chi Minh) followed his studies in London and Paris during the 1910s. He came to communism in France through his friend Marcel Cachin (
SFIO) who was sent to Russia in 1917 during
World War I. Cachin was a pro-
bolshevism politician, a fierce supporter of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and became the director of the popular communist newspaper ''
L'Humanité'' ("The Humanity").
From 1919-1923, while living in
France, Hồ Chà Minh embraced
communism. 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 Nguyá»…n Ãi Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot), he petitioned for equal rights in
French Indochina on behalf of the
Group of Vietnamese Patriots 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 Nguyá»…n Ãi Quốc took the name of "Hồ Chà Minh", a Vietnamese name combining a common surname (Hồ) with a given name meaning 'enlightened will' (Chà meaning 'will', 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 the '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
Nachok is the village where Hồ Chà Minh stayed in 1928-29 during the early days of revolutionary struggle for national independence and freedom.
Nachok has 127 farming and trading households and today is much as it was then: A home for Thai people of Vietnamese origin who speak both languages.
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 Äại 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. and his known communist activities.
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 [5] . Purges and killings of
Trotskyists, the rival anti-Stalinist communists, have also been documented
[6]. In 1946 when Ho traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 25,000 non-communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee
[7]. Hundreds of political opponents were also killed in July that same year.
[8] All rival political parties were banned and local governments purged
[9] to minimise opposition later on.
Birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
On
September 2,
1945, after Emperor
Bao Dai's abdication, Hồ Chà Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam
[10], 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
[11].
On September 1945, a force of 200,000 Chinese Nationalists arrived in Hanoi. Ho Chi 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, Ho Chi 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. Ho Chi 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 Ho 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 [12]. Mao's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60-70,000 Viet Minh in the near future.
[13] 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, Ho 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 Ho 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. Ho 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 France at the
Battle of Äiện 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.
Ho Chi Minh's House behind the Presidential Palace in
Hanoi.
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 nominal leadership of
Ngo Dinh Diem and ruled de facto by the United States, refused an election and instead prepared for war. Most 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.
[14] 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... "
[15] 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.
From 1953 to 1956, following the footsteps of the successful Chinese social reforms, the government of Ho Chi Minh conducted
land reforms. These reforms distributed the huge amounts of land owned by corrupt landowners to poor, landless peasnts, effectively ending the starvation and financial crises plaguing the country due to the past decades of wars and turmoil. On the contrary, South Vietnam, under pressure by the United States, spent much money on building up for war, increasing the stress on its already starved peasants.
It has long been claimed that during the early years of Ho's government, 900,000 to 1 million Vietnamese, mostly wealthy
Catholic, left for
South Vietnam in fear of losing their upper class wealth, while 130,000, mostly communists, went from South to North.
[16] [17] However, more recent research has indicated that the number of civilian refugees involved was much smaller than originally claimed - with some 450,000 moving from North to South, and 52,000 moving in the opposite direction.
[18] This was partly due to claims by church officials that the
Virgin Mary had moved South out of distaste for life under
communism. Although this migration was allowed under the Geneva Agreement for 300 days, some Canadian observers claimed that some were forced by North Vietnamese authorities to remain against their will.
[19]
In 1959 Ho'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.
[20] In late 1964 North Vietnamese combat troops were sent southwest into neutral
Laos.
[21]
During the mid to late 1960s, Ho 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.
[22]
Death
A historical photo of Ho Chi Minh lying in state in his
mausoleum. His body is now displayed in a larger display case.
Ho Chi Minh statue
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 Ãlvarez'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 powerful scenes depicting crying school children and weeping mourners.
His death day was initially reported to be
September 3[http://www.cpv.org.vn/english/archives/?topic=14&subtopic=99&leader_topic=39] as not to coincide with the National Day. Recently the government changed his official death day to September 2
[http://www.cpv.org.vn/leader.asp?topic=3&subtopic=91][http://www.vietnam.gov.vn/portal/page?_pageid=33,173168&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL].
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 was put on display in a granite
mausoleum modeled after
Lenin's Tomb in Moscow. This was consistent with 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 Ho'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."
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 Ho" in Vietnam. Ho's image appears on the front of every
Vietnamese currency note, and Ho is featured prominently in many of Vietnam's public buildings. In 1987, the
UNESCO officially recommended the 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"
[http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000769/076995E.pdf].
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.â€
[23]
Notes
1. Hồ applied for the French Colonial Administrative School
2.
3. Sophie Quinn-Judge, ''Hồ Chà Minh: The Missing Years'' pp. 20-21, 25
4. http://www.londontourist.org/attractions.html
5. Joseph Buttinnger, ''Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled'', vol. 1. (New York: Praeger, 1967)
6. See: ''The Black Book of Communism''
7. Cecil B. Currey, ''Victory At Any Cost'' (Washington: Brassey's, 1997), p. 126
8. Spencer Tucker, ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a political, social, and military history'' (vol. 2), 1998
9. John Colvin, ''Giap: the Volcano under the Snow'' (New York: Soho Press, 1996), p.51
10. http://coombs.anu.edu.au/%7Evern/van_kien/declar.html
11. Stanley Karnow, ''Vietnam a History''
12. Luo Guibo, pp. 233-6
13. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Chronology," p. 45.
14. Brigham, ''Guerrilla Diplomacy'', p. 6; Marcus Raskin & Bernard Fall, ''The Viet-Nam Reader'', p. 89; William Duiker, ''U. S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina'', p. 212
15. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent11.htm
16. Pentagon Papers: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent11.htm
17. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ''State of the World's Refugees'', Chapter 4, "Flight from Indochina".
18. John Prados, 'The Numbers Game: How Many Vietnamese Fled South In 1954?', ''The VVA Veteran'', January/February 2005; accessed 2007-01-21[2]
19. Thakur, p. 204
20. Lind, 1999
21. Davidson, ''Vietnam at War: the history, 1946–1975'', 1988
22. Chen Jian, "China's Involvement in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964-69," ''China Quarterly'', No. 142 (June 1995), pp. 366–69.
23. http://www.mfh.org/newsandevents/newsletter/MassHumanities/Fall2004/interview.html
Further reading
★
Richard Nixon. 1987. ''No More Vietnams''. Arbor House Pub Co.
★
Bernard B. Fall, ed., 1967. ''Ho Chi Minh on Revolution and War, Selected Writings 1920-1966''. New American Library.
★ Francis Fitzgerald. 1972. ''Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and Americans in Vietnam''. Little, Brown and Company.
★
William J. Duiker. 2000. ''Ho Chi Minh: A Life''. Theia.
★
William J. Duiker. 1981. ''The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam''. Westview Press.
★ N. Khac Huyen. 1971. ''Vision Accomplished? The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh''. The Macmillan Company.
★ Hồ chà Minh toà n táºp . NXB chÃnh trị quốc gia
★ Hoang Van Chi. 1964. ''From colonialism to communism''. Praeger.
★
Jean Lacouture. 1968. ''Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography''. Random House.
★ Sophie Quinn-Judge. 2003. ''Ho Chi Minh: The missing years''. C. Hurst & Co. ISBN 1-85065-658-4
★
Henry A. Kissinger. 1979. ''White House Years''. Little, Brown.
External links
★
[3]
★
Obituary in ''The New York Times'', September 4 1969
★
TIME 100: Hồ Chà Minh
★
Hồ Chà Minh's biography
★
Hồ Chà Minh Biography from Spartacus Educational
★
Hồ Chà Minh Archive at Marxists.org.
★
Hồ Chà Minh pictures as slides
★
Satellite photo of the mausoleum on Google Maps
★ http://acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/decaro.html
★
Ho Chi Minh and the proclamation of the Republic of Vietnam Granma International
★
Final Tribute to Ho Chi Minh from the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party
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