Ho chi minh was the communist leader of north vietnam from the end of world war II until his death in 1969

Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of North Vietnam from the end of World War II
until his death in 1969. Born in a village in central Vietnam, his original name was either
Nguyen Sinh Cung or Nguyen Tat Thanh (sources vary) and he was educated in Hue and
apprenticed to a technical institute in Saigon. He left for Europe in 1911 and was in
England when World War I began. After the war he moved to Paris and was active in
socialist organizations into the 1920s. He visited the Soviet Union to study revolutionary
tactics and was sent to China to spread communism throughout Asia; he founded the
Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and spent the rest of the decade living in China
and the Soviet Union. During World War II he was in Vietnam, where he organized the
League for the Independence of Vietnam, called the Viet Minh. He was jailed briefly
(1942-43) by the anti-communist Nationalist Chinese, during which time he took the
name Ho Chi Minh ("He Who Enlightens"). After World War II Ho Chi Minh
proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with himself as
president. He led the Viet Minh through eight years of underground resistance against
French colonial forces (1946-54), then turned to guerilla warfare against the anticommunist government in South Vietnam. By the time the United States became
involved in the fight against the Viet Minh (and its successor, the Viet Cong), Ho Chi
Minh was in failing health and not as active in directing his forces. He was, however,
"Uncle Ho," the symbol of the communists' willingness to sacrifice and to endure a war
of attrition. He died in 1969, six years before the U.S. withdrew from South Vietnam.
After the fall of South Vietnam, the city of Saigon was renamed Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh,
or Ho Chi Minh City... He was also called Nguyen Ai Quoc ("Nguyen the Patriot").

nguyen ai quoc

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Military History Companion: Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), leader of the Vietnamese communists and of the
independence movement in that country in the decades following WW II. Ho was born
Nguyen Tat Thanh in the Annam province, and was educated in Hué. In the 1920s and
1930s Ho operated in the murky underworld of the Vietnamese independence movement,
and was a founding member of the Communist Party in Vietnam. During WW II, Ho and
his communist group, which included the military leader Vo Nguyen Giap, formed a base
near the Chinese border and acted, with American support, against the Japanese
occupation force. Ho also took the opportunity to solidify the position of the communists

as the leaders and dominant force of the independence movement, which became widely


known as the Vietminh.
The Vietminh was able to exploit the chaos which descended upon Vietnam at the end of
WW II to seize power, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed by Ho
on 2 September 1945. However, the situation was far from stable. Kuomintang troops had
flooded the city less than two weeks before, and the French government, recently restored
to Paris, was already making plans to reassert control. The fragility of Vietminh control
was quickly exposed in 1945-6, and Ho was forced to return to the communist stronghold
near the Chinese border. The following eight years witnessed a monumental struggle on
the part of the Vietnamese, to create an army and a logistical network capable of
defeating the French, and to use that force effectively against the French forces in
Indochina. Giap's victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 delivered such a victory, but Ho was
disappointed by the peace conference which followed, and which granted the Vietminh
control over only North Vietnam.
In spite of this setback, Ho was prepared to be patient. ‘If we have the people, ’ Ho had
once remarked, ‘we will have everything.’ In the years following Dien Bien Phu he set up
a communist state apparatus in the north, and allowed communists in the south to agitate
for reunification of the country. When war broke out again in the early 1960s Ho was
already too ill to perform an active role, but remained an inspiration to those fighting the
South Vietnamese and American forces. He died in Hanoi six years before the unification
of Vietnam under the regime he had created.
Bibliography
•
•

Fenn, Charles, Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction (New York, 1973).
Matthews, Lloyd J., and Brown, Dale E. (eds.), Assessing the Vietnam War
(McLean, 1987)

— Andrew Haughton

US Military History Companion: Ho Chi Minh
(1890?–1969), international Communist and president of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (DRV)
The son of a scholar‐official, Ho was born in Nghe An, central Vietnam, and went to a
Franco‐Vietnamese school. He moved to France in 1911 and thereafter used over 100
aliases.
A sailor for two years, Ho worked between Le Havre, London, and New York. During
World War I, he lived in London, working as a domestic. Back in France, he became a
founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920, and, in Moscow from 1923, a
Comintern (Communist International) expert on colonial and Asian questions. During
long periods in China Ho was instrumental in forming the proto‐Communist Vietnamese


Youth League in Canton (1925) and the Indochinese Communist Party in Hong Kong
(1930).
Ho returned to Vietnam in 1941 and emerged at the head of the Vietnamese
Independence League (Viet Minh). Using the code name “Lucius,” he supplied anti‐
Japanese intelligence to American authorities in Kunming, China, in 1944–45. As he led
the Viet Minh to power in Vietnam in the August 1945 revolution, Ho's attempts to gain
American support against a resumption of French rule continued, but failed. During the
thirty‐year war for independence against French rule and American intervention, he
remained president of the DRV until his death. Although he wanted to be cremated, the
myth of the “Uncle‐President” became so central to Vietnamese political culture that Ho's
body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum.
[See also Vietnam War: Causes; Vietnam War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]
Bibliography
•
•

Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh, A Political Biography, 1968.
Charles Fenn, Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction, 1973

US Military Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh
(1890?-1969) international Communist and president of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam until his death. Ho spent many years in Europe and Russia where he was active
in communist circles. He returned to Vietnam in 1941 and led the Vietminh (Vietnamese
Independence League) to power in the 1945 revolution, remaining at the helm during the
ensuing decades of fighting for independence against French rule and American
intervention. Despite the more repressive and totalitarian quality of his rule in the North
following the partition established by the Geneva Agreement on Indochina (1954), Ho
remained immensely popular with the Vietnamese people.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Biography: Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) was the most famous Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman
of his time. He was one of the shrewdest, most callous, dedicated, and self-abnegating
leaders, a man apart in the international Communist movement.
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, the little Asian country that
held two leading Western powers - France and the United States - at bay after the end of
World War II, was founded and proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in 1945. In spite of his
shrewdness, the frail, little Ho looked like an old peasant with a gaunt face, an expression
of simplicity and gentleness, and nothing surprising except his amazingly lively eyes. His
familiar garb consisted of a linen work suit and rubber sandals made of discarded tires.


Ho was born Nguyen That Thanh on May 19, 1890, in the village of Kim Lien, province
of Nghe An, central Vietnam, into a family of scholar-revolutionaries, who had been
successively dismissed from government service for anti-French activities. At the age of

9 Ho and his mother, who had been charged with stealing French weapons for the rebels,
fled to Hue, the imperial city. His father, constantly persecuted by the French police, had
left for Saigon. After a year in Hue, his mother died. Young Ho returned to Kim Lien to
finish his schooling. At 17, upon receiving a minor degree, Ho journeyed to the South,
where he spent a brief spell as an elementary school teacher.
At the news of the first Chinese revolution, which broke out in Wuchang, the fiercely
patriotic Ho left for Saigon to discuss the situation with his father. It was then decided
that Ho should go to Europe to study Western science and survey the conditions in
France before embarking upon a revolutionary career. Unable to finance such a trip, Ho
nevertheless managed to obtain a job as a messboy on a French liner.
Years in Europe
By the end of 1911 Ho began his seaman's life, which took him to the major ports of
Africa, Europe, and America. As World War I broke out, Ho bade farewell to the sea and
landed in London, where he lived until 1917, taking on odd jobs to support himself. It
was here that Ho cultivated contact with the Overseas Workers' Association, an
anticolonialist and anti-imperialist organization of Chinese and Indian seamen.
In 1917 Ho departed for France. He settled in Paris, working successively as a cook, a
gardener, and a photo retoucher. Ho spent half his time reading, writing, trying to gain
French sympathy for Vietnam, and organizing the thousands of Vietnamese, who were
either serving in the French army or working in factories. He also joined the French
Socialist party and attended various political clubs.
Distressed by the Western powers' indifference toward the colonies both during and after
the Versailles Conference in spite of the Fourteen Points of U.S. president Woodrow
Wilson, Ho, whose only interest up to that time had been Vietnam's independence, began
to drift toward Soviet Russia, the champion of the oppressed peoples. At its Tours
Congress in 1920, the French Socialist party split on the colonial issue: one wing
remaining indifferent to the problems of the colonies and another advocating their
immediate emancipation in accordance with Lenin's program. Ho sided with the latter
faction, which seceded from the parent organization and formed the French Communist
party.

In 1921 Ho organized the Intercolonial Union, a group of exiles from the French colonies
which was dedicated to the propagation of communism, and published two papers, one in
French, Le Paria, and one in Vietnamese, the Soul of Vietnam, which carried emotional
articles denouncing the abuses of colonialism. His most important work, French
Colonialization on Trial, was also written during this period.


In November-December 1922 Ho attended the Fourth Comintern Congress in Moscow.
In October 1923 he was elected to the 10-man Executive Committee of the Peasants'
International Congress. Late in 1923 Ho went to Moscow, where he absorbed the
teachings of Marx and Lenin. Two years later he arrived in Canton as adviser to Soviet
agent Mikhail Borodin, who was then adviser to the Chinese Nationalists.
Early Organizing Efforts
Passing for a nationalist, Ho brought the Vietnamese émigrés in Canton into a
revolutionary society called Youth and organized Marxist training courses for his young
fellow countrymen. The Youth members were the nucleus of what was to be the
Indochinese Communist party. Those who refused to obey Ho's orders were severely
punished; Ho would forward their names to the French police force, which was always
eager to put them behind bars. Ho also set up the League of Oppressed Peoples of Asia,
which was to become the South Seas Communist party.
In April 1927, as the Chinese Nationalists broke with their Soviet advisers, Ho had to flee
to Moscow. Subsequently, he received a brief assignment to the Anti-Imperialist League
in Berlin. In 1928, after attending the Congress against Imperialism in Brussels, Ho
journeyed to Switzerland and Italy, then turned up in Siam to organize the Vietnamese
settlers and direct the Communist activities in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. Early in
1930 Ho went to Hong Kong, where on February 3 he founded the Indochinese
Communist party.
A year later Ho was arrested by the Hong Kong authorities and found guilty of
subversion. Thanks to a successful appeal financed by the Red Relief Association, Ho
regained his freedom. He immediately left for Singapore, where he was again arrested

and returned to Hong Kong. Ho obtained his release by agreeing to work for the British
Intelligence Service. Back in Moscow in 1932, Ho underwent further indoctrination at the
Lenin School, which trained high-ranking cadres for the Soviet Communist party. In
1936 Ho returned to China to take control of the Indochinese Communist party.
Return Home
In February 1941 Ho finally crossed the border into Vietnam and settled down in a secure
hideout in a remote frontier jungle. With a view to bringing all resistance elements under
his control, winning power, then eliminating all competitors and creating a Communist
state, Ho founded an independence league called the Viet Minh, whose alleged program
was to coordinate all nationalist activities in the struggle for independence. (At this time
Ho adopted the name Ho Chih Minh - "Enlightened One.") While the Viet Minh included
many nationalists, most of its leaders were seasoned Communists.
In August 1942 Ho went back to China to ask for Chinese military assistance in return for
intelligence about the Japanese forces in Indochina. The Chinese Nationalists, who had
broken with the Communists and been disturbed by the Viet Minh activities in both
Vietnam and China, however, arrested and imprisoned Ho on the charge that he was a


French spy. After 13 months in jail Ho offered to put his organization at the Chinese
service in return for his freedom. The Chinese, who were in desperate need of
intelligence reports on the Japanese, accepted the offer. Upon his release Ho was
admitted to the Dong Minh Hoi, an organization of Vietnamese nationalists in China
which the Chinese had set up with the hope of controlling the independence movement.
Ho repeatedly offered to collaborate with the United States intelligence mission in China,
hoping to be rewarded with American assistance.
The Statesman
As the war approached its end, Ho made preparations for a general armed uprising.
Following Japan's surrender, the Viet Minh took over the country, ruthlessly eliminating
their nationalist opponents. On Sept. 2, 1945, Ho proclaimed Vietnam's independence. In
vain he sought Allied recognition. Faced with a French resolve to reoccupy Indochina

and determined to stay in power at any cost, Ho acquiesced in France's demands in return
for French recognition of his regime. The French, however, disregarded all their
agreements with Ho. War broke out in December 1946.
Many nationalists, while aware of the Communist nature of Ho's government,
nevertheless supported it against France. The war ended in July 1954 with a humiliating
French defeat. An agreement, signed in Geneva in July 1954, partitioned Vietnam along
the 17th parallel and provided for a general election to be held within 2 years to reunify
the country. Because of mutual distrust, absence of neutral machinery to guarantee
freedom of choice, and opposition of South Vietnam and the United States, the scheduled
election never took place.
Ho, who had hoped that a larger population under his control, a Communist-supervised
election in the North, and a more or less free election in the South would produce an
outcome favorable to his regime, became greatly frustrated. He ordered guerrilla
activities to be resumed in the South. Regular troops from the North infiltrated the South
in increasing numbers. The United States, correspondingly, increased military assistance,
sent combat troops into South Vietnam, and began a systematic bombing of North
Vietnam.
Ho refused to negotiate a settlement, hoping that American public opinion, as French
public opinion had done in 1954, would force the United States government to sue for
peace. Apprehensive that his lifework might be destroyed and anxious to spare North
Vietnam from further devastating air attacks, Ho finally agreed to send his
representatives to peace talks in Paris. As the antiwar feeling mounted in the United
States and other countries, Ho stalled, intent on obtaining from the conference table what
he had failed to get on the battlefield. While the talks were dragging on, Ho died on Sept.
3, 1969, without realizing his dream of bringing all Vietnam under communism.
Further Reading


Of the several biographies of Ho Chi Minh, the most comprehensive, and critical is N.
Khac Huyen, Vision Accomplished?: The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh (1971). A short and

sympathetic biography is David Halberstam, Ho (1971). A short, quasi-official, and
highly propagandistic biography was published by the government of North Vietnam:
Tru'o'ng-Chinh, President Ho-chi-Minh: Beloved Leader of the Vietnamese People
(1966). The following books contain enlightening chapters on Ho: Harold R. Isaacs, No
Peace for Asia (1947); Frank N. Trager, ed., Marxism in Southeast Asia: A Study of Four
Countries (1959); Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis
(1963; rev. ed. 1964); Hoangvan-Chi, From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History
of North Vietnam (1964); and Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (2 vols.,
1967). Recommended for general historical background are Ellen J. Hammer, The
Struggle for Indo-China (1954); Donald Lancaster, The Emancipation of French
Indochina (1961); Patrick J. Honey, ed., North Vietnam Today: Profile of a Communist
Satellite (1962); Robert A. Scalapino, ed., The Communist Revolution in Asia: Tactics,
Goals, and Achievements (1965; 2d ed. 1969); and Frank N. Trager, Why Vietnam?
(1966).
Political Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh
(1890-1969) Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. Leader of the Indo-Chinese
Communist Party, and the League for the Independence of Vietnam. Gains a place in this
dictionary more for the idealized vision of him held by many followers of the new left in
the West in the 1960s than for his actual contribution to political institutions or theory. As
his regime was successfully opposing the United States, and as the United States was the
fount of all that was evil, Ho became the symbol of all that was good.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Ho Chi Minh

(click to enlarge)
Ho Chi Minh, 1968. (credit: Marc Riboud/Magnum)

(born May 19, 1890, Hoang Tru, Viet. — died Sept. 2, 1969, Hanoi) President (1945 –
69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). Son of a poor scholar, he
was brought up in a rural village. In 1911 he found work on a French steamer and
traveled the world, then spent six years in France, where he became a socialist. In 1923

he went to the Soviet Union; the next year he went to China, where he started organizing
exiled Vietnamese. He founded the Indochina Communist Party in 1930 and its
successor, the Viet Minh, in 1941. In 1945 Japan overran Indochina, overthrowing its


French colonial rulers; when the Japanese surrendered to the Allies six months later, Ho
and his Viet Minh forces seized the opportunity, occupied Hanoi, and proclaimed
Vietnamese independence. France refused to relinquish its former colony, and the First
Indochina War broke out in 1946. Ho's forces defeated the French in 1954 at Dien Bien
Phu, after which the country was partitioned into North and South Vietnam. Ho, who
ruled in the north, was soon embroiled with the U.S.-backed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in
the south in what became known as the Vietnam War; North Vietnamese forces prevailed
over the south six years after Ho's death.
For more information on Ho Chi Minh, visit Britannica.com.
Columbia Encyclopedia: Ho Chi Minh
(hô chē mĭn) , 1890–1969, Vietnamese nationalist leader, president of North Vietnam
(1954–69), and one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th cent. His given
name was Nguyen That Thanh. In 1911 he left Vietnam, working aboard a French liner.
He later lived in London and in the United States during World War I before going to
France near the end of the war. There he became involved in the French socialist
movement and was (1920) a founding member of the French Communist party. He
studied revolutionary tactics in Moscow, and, as a Comintern member, was sent (1925–
27) to Guangzhou, China. While in East Asia, he organized Vietnamese revolutionaries
and founded the Communist party of Indochina (later the Vietnamese Communist party).
He also established a training institute that attracted many Vietnamese students, where he
taught a unique blend of Marxism-Leninism and Confucian-inspired virtues. In the
1930s, Ho lived mainly in Moscow and China. He finally returned to Vietnam after the
outbreak of World War II, organized a Vietnamese independence movement (the Viet
Minh), and raised a guerrilla army to fight the Japanese.
Ho proclaimed the republic of Vietnam in Sept., 1945, and later agreed that it would

remain an autonomous state within the French Union. Differences with the French,
however, soon led (1946) to an open break. Warfare lasted until 1954, culminating in the
French defeat at Dienbienphu. After the Geneva Conference (1954), which divided
Vietnam at the 17th parallel, Ho became the first president of the independent republic of
North Vietnam. The accord also provided for elections to be held in 1956, aimed at
reuniting North and South Vietnam; however, South Vietnam, backed by the United
States, refused to hold the elections. The reason was generally held to be that Ho's
popularity would have led to reunification under Communist rule. In succeeding years,
Ho consolidated his government in the North. He organized a guerrilla movement in the
South, the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, which was technically independent of
North Vietnam, to win South Vietnam from the successive U.S.-supported governments
there (see Vietnam War).
Bibliography
See biographies by J. Lacouture (1968), D. Halberstam (1971), J. Sainteny (1972), C.
Fenn (1974), D. O. Lloyd (1986), and W. J. Duiker (2000).


History Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh
(HOH CHEE MIN)
A Vietnamese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century. Ho Chi Minh led the
communists of Vietnam in their efforts to drive out the forces of Japan in the 1940s (see
World War II), France in the 1950s (see Dienbienphu), and the United States in the 1960s
(see Vietnam War). He died in 1969.
 Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the
communist victory there.
Wikipedia: Ho Chi Minh
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For the city named after him, see Ho Chi Minh City.

Hồ Chí Minh

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam
In office
1945 – 1955

President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In office
1946 – 1969
Born
Died
Nationality
Political party

May 19 1890
Nghệ An Province, Vietnam
September 2 1969 (aged 79)
Hanoi, Vietnam
Vietnamese
Vietnam Workers' Party

Hồ Chí Minh
listen?(name pronounced as [hò cí mɪɲ]) (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 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).

Poster art of Hồ Chí Minh in Hanoi.
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 Frenchstyle 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 LatoucheTréville, 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 Chí Minh traveled to the United States. From
1912 to 1913, he lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston. 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.[2] This part of his life is contested by some historians,
who argue that he spent little time in the US.[citation needed]

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.[2]. 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.[3].

Political education in France
Leaving the French Indochina where he had a French education, Nguyễn Ái 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 Chí 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.[2] Following World War I, under the name of
Nguyễn Ái 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 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', 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 Chí 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 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. 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 [4] . Purges and killings of Trotskyists, the rival anti-


Stalinist communists, have also been documented [5]. In 1946 when Ho traveled outside of
the country, his subordinates imprisoned 25,000 non-communist nationalists and forced
6,000 others to flee [6]. Hundreds of political opponents were also killed in July that same
year. [7] All rival political parties were banned and local governments purged [8] 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 [9], 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[10].
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 [11]. Mao's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train
60-70,000 Viet Minh in the near future. [12] 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 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.

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 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.[13] 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... "[14] 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.

Main article: Operation Passage to Freedom
Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be 300 days in which people could freely
move between the zones of the two Vietnams. Some 900,000 to 1 million Vietnamese,
mostly Catholic, left for South Vietnam, while a much smaller number, mostly
communists, went from South to North. [15] [16] 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. [17].
During this era, Ho, 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 [2].
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. [18] In late 1964 North Vietnamese combat troops were sent southwest into
neutral Laos. [19]
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. [20]

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 mausoleum, Hanoi


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 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 powerful scenes depicting crying school children
and weeping mourners. His death day was initially reported to be September 3[21] as not to
coincide with the National Day. Recently the government changed his official death day
to September 2[22][23].
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, 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"[24]. To the Vietnamese overseas, who fled communist rule after 1975, Ho is
considered a murderer and traitor who ruined Vietnam by starting a war. The mere
mention of his name or placing his picture publicly has caused protests.[3]

Quotes
This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki
process.
If the content can be changed to be more encyclopedic rather than just a list of quotes, please do so
and remove this message. Otherwise, you can help by formatting it per the Wikiquote guidelines in
preparation for the duplication.
•
•

"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.” [25]

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.

^ Hồ applied for the French Colonial Administrative School
^ a b c Sophie Quinn-Judge, Hồ Chí Minh: The Missing Years pp. 20-21, 25
^ />^ Joseph Buttinnger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled, vol. 1. (New York: Praeger,
1967)
5. ^ See: The Black Book of Communism
6. ^ Cecil B. Currey, Victory At Any Cost (Washington: Brassey's, 1997), p. 126
7. ^ Spencer Tucker, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a political, social, and
military history (vol. 2), 1998
8. ^ John Colvin, Giap: the Volcano under the Snow (New York: Soho Press, 1996),
p.51
9. ^ />10. ^ Stanley Karnow, Vietnam a History

11. ^ Luo Guibo, pp. 233-6
12. ^ Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Chronology," p. 45.
13. ^ Brigham, Guerrilla Diplomacy, p. 6; Marcus Raskin & Bernard Fall, The VietNam Reader, p. 89; William Duiker, U. S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in
Indochina, p. 212
14. ^ />15. ^ Pentagon Papers: />

16. ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, State of the World's
Refugees, Chapter 4, "Flight from Indochina".
17. ^ Thakur, p. 204
18. ^ Lind, 1999
19. ^ Davidson, Vietnam at War: the history, 1946–1975, 1988
20. ^ Chen Jian, "China's Involvement in the Vietnam Conflict, 1964-69," China
Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995), pp. 366–69.
21. ^ />topic=14&subtopic=99&leader_topic=39
22. ^ />23. ^ />_pageid=33,173168&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
24. ^ />25. ^
/>w.html

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, Viet Cong & the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
•
•
•

William J. Duiker. 1981. The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam. Westview
Press.
Hoang Van Chi. 1964. From colonialism to communism. Praeger.
Truong Nhu Tang. 1986. A Viet Cong Memoir. Vintage.

The War in Vietnam


•

Francis Fitzgerald. 1972. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and Americans in
Vietnam. Little, Brown and Company.

American Foreign Policy
•
•
•

Christopher Hitchens. 2001. The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Verso.
Henry A. Kissinger. 1979. White House Years. Little, Brown.
Richard Nixon. 1987. No More Vietnams. Arbor House Pub Co.

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Ho Chi Minh

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Ho Chi Minh

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Ho Chi Minh
• [4]
• Obituary in The New York Times, September 4 1969
• TIME 100: Hồ Chí Minh
• Hồ Chí Minh's biography
• Hồ Chí Minh Biography from Spartacus Educational
• Hồ Chí Minh Archive at Marxists.org.
• Hồ Chí Minh pictures as slides
• Satellite photo of the mausoleum