Hồ Chí Minh listen (name pronounced [hò̤ tɕǐmɪ̄ɲ]) (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 led 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. He was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century,[1] while the former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor.
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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, small time teacher and later an imperial magistrate in a small remote district Binh Khe (Qui Nhon). He was later sacked for torturing a peasant to death during his drunkenness. Different to his father, Ho were with french education, attended 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.[2] 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.[3]
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.[4] 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.[3] 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.[5]
Political education in France
From 1919–1923, while living in France, Hồ Chí Minh embraced communism, through his friend Marcel Cachin (SFIO).[citation needed] Ho claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917 but French police only have documents of his arrival in June 1919.[3] 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",[citation needed] 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 the Soviet Union and China
In 1923, Hồ left Paris for Moscow, where he was employed by the Comintern, and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924, before arriving in Canton (Guangzhou), China, in November 1924. During 1925-26 he organized 'Youth Education Classes' and occasionally gave lectures at the Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina. He left Canton again in April 1927 and returned to Moscow, spending some of the summer of 1927 recuperating from tuberculosis in the Crimea, before returning to Paris once more in November. He then returned to Asia by way of Brussels, Berlin, Switzerland, Italy, from where he took a ship to Bangkok in Thailand, where he arrived in July 1928. He remained in Thailand until late 1929 when he moved on to Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In June 1931, he was arrested in Hong Kong and incarcerated by British police until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he spent several more years recovering from tuberculosis. In 1938, he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces.[3]
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) and issued a declaration of independence that borrowed much from the French and American declarations.[6] Though he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned American President Harry Truman for support for Vietnamese independence,[7] citing the Atlantic Charter, but Truman never responded.[8]
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.[9] Purges and killings of Trotskyists, the rival anti-Stalinist communists, have also been documented[10]. In 1946, when Hồ traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 25,000 non-communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee.[11] Hundreds of political opponents were also killed in July that same year.[12] All rival political parties were banned and local governments purged[13] 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,[14] 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.[15]
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.[16] Mao's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60-70,000 Viet Minh in the near future.[17] 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. The agreement was signed by North Vietnam and France, but was rejected and not signed by South Vietnam and the United States. Therefore the government of South Vietnam, now under the leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem, refused the proposed election. 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. However the totalitarian government of North Vietnam could never tolerate the free press and free organization of opposition groups required by a free election. [18] 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... "[19] The U.S. committed itself to oppose Communism beginning in 1950, when it funded 80% of the French effort. When South Vietnam became independent of France in 1954, the U.S. was its chief sponsor and financial backer, but there never was a treaty between the U.S. and South Vietnam.
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.[20][21] 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.[22] 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.[23]
In 1957, Lê Duẩn was appointed acting party boss and began sending aid to the Vietcong insurgency in South Vietnam. This represented a loss of power by Hồ, who is said to have preferred the more moderate Giáp for the position. The so called Hochiminh Trail was built in 1959 to allow aid to be sent to the Vietcong through Laos and Cambodia, thus escalating the war.[24] Duẩn was named permanent party boss in 1960, leaving Hồ a figurehead president and symbol of Vietnamese Communism.
In late 1964, North Vietnamese combat troops were sent southwest into neutral Laos.[25] During the mid to late 1960s, Lê Duẩn 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.[26]
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.
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 Ho Chi Minh 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, Joseph 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."[27]
Criticism
In contrast, some Vietnamese who lived through the war hated Ho Chi Minh for bringing chaos to the country. Vietnamese people living outside of Vietnam, commonly known as Overseas Vietnamese have more hostile opinions of Ho Chi Minh. In particular to the Vietnamese in the U.S.,who fled communist rule after 1975, for them Hồ is considered a murderer and traitor who ruined Vietnam by starting a war.[28]
