Ho Chi Minh, commonly known as Bac Ho, also known as Ho Chu tich, Nguoi cha gia cua dan toc and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime Minister of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and as President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he served as Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam.
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Ho Chi Minh was born in Ngha An province in the French protectorate of Annam. He led the Viat Minh independence movement from 1941 onward. Initially, it was an umbrella group for all parties fighting for Vietnam's independence, but the Communist Party gained majority support after 1945. Ho Chi Minh led the Communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, defeating the French Union in 1954 at the Battle of Dian Bien Phu, ending the First Indochina War, and resulting in the division of Vietnam, with the Communists in control of North Vietnam. He was a key figure in the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viat Cong during the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. Ho officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems and died in 1969. North Vietnam was ultimately victorious against South Vietnam and its allies, and Vietnam was officially unified in 1976. Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor.
The details of Ho Chi Minh's life before he came to power in Vietnam are uncertain. He is known to have used between 50:?582? and 200 pseudonyms. Information on his birth and early life is ambiguous and subject to academic debate. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely.
Aside from being a politician, Ho was also a writer, a poet, and a journalist. He wrote several books, articles and poems in Chinese, Vietnamese and French.
Contents 1 Early life 2 Overseas sojourn 2.1 In France 2.2 In the United States 2.3 In Britain 3 Political education in France 4 In the Soviet Union and China 5 Independence movement 5.1 Birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 6 Becoming president 7 Vietnam War 8 Personal life 9 Death 10 Legacy 10.1 Depictions of Ho Chi Minh 11 International influence 12 See also 13 Explanatory notes 14 References 14.1 Bibliography 15 Further reading 15.1 Essays 15.2 Biography 15.3 Viat Minh, NLF and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 15.4 War in Vietnam 15.5 American foreign policy 16 External links Early life Ho Chi Minh was born as Nguyen Sinh Cung in 1890 in the village of Lang Chua or Hoang Tru in Kim Lien commune, Ngha An province, in Central Vietnam which was then a French protectorate. Although 1890 is generally accepted as his birth year, at various times he used four other birth years: 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895. He lived in his father Nguyen Sinh Sac's village of Lang Sen in Kim Lien until 1895 when his father sent him to Hue for study. He had three siblings: his sister Bach Lien, a clerk in the French Army; his brother Nguyen Sinh Khiem, a geomancer and traditional herbalist; and another brother, who died in infancy. As a young child, Cung studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vuong Thuc Do. He quickly mastered Ch? Han, a prerequisite for any serious study of Confucianism while honing his colloquial Vietnamese writing.:?21? In addition to his studies, he was fond of adventure and loved to fly kites and go fishing.:?21? Following Confucian tradition, his father gave him a new name at the age of 10: Nguyen T?t Thanh.
His father was a Confucian scholar and teacher and later an imperial magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe. He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died several days after having received 102 strokes of the cane as punishment for an infraction.:?21? His father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy, but he refused because it meant serving the French. This exposed Thanh to rebellion at a young age and seemed to be the norm for the province. Nevertheless, he received a French education, attending College Quoc h?c in Hue in Central Vietnam. His disciples, Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap, also attended the school, as did Ngo Dinh Diam, the future President of South Vietnam and political rival.
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His early life is uncertain but there are some documents indicating activities regarding an early revolutionary spirit during French-occupied Vietnam, but conflicting sources remain. Previously, it was believed that Thanh was involved in an anti-slavery demonstration of poor peasants in Hue in May 1908, which endangered his student status at College Quoc h?c. However, a document from the Centre des archives d'Outre-mer in France shows that he was admitted to College Quoc h?c on 8 August 1908, which was several months after the anti-corvee demonstration.
Later in life, he claimed the 1908 revolt had been the moment when his revolutionary outlook emerged, but his application to the French Colonial Administrative School in 1911 undermines this version of events, in which he stated that he left school to go abroad. Because his father had been dismissed, he no longer had any hope for a governmental scholarship and went southward, taking a position at D?c Thanh school in Phan Thiet for about six months, then traveled to Saigon.
Overseas sojourn In France
Commemorative plaque in Haymarket in London In Saigon, he applied to work as a kitchen helper on a French merchant steamer, the Amiral de Latouche-Treville, using the alias Van Ba. The ship departed on 5 June 1911 and arrived in Marseille, France on 5 July 1911. The ship then left for Le Havre and Dunkirk, returning to Marseille in mid-September. There, he applied for the French Colonial Administrative School, but his application was rejected. He instead decided to begin traveling the world by working on ships and visiting many countries from 1911 to 1917.
In the United States While working as the cook's helper on a ship in 1912, Thanh traveled to the United States. From 1912 to 1913, he may have lived in New York City and Boston, where he claimed to have worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. The only evidence that he was in the United States is a letter to French colonial administrators dated 15 December 1912 and postmarked New York City and a postcard to Phan Chu Trinh in Paris where he mentioned working at the Parker House Hotel. Inquiries to the Parker House management revealed no records of his ever having worked there.:?51? It is believed that while in the US he made contact with Korean nationalists, an experience that developed his political outlook. Sophie Quinn-Judge states that this is 'in the realm of conjecture'. He was also influenced by Pan-Africanist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey during his stay, and said he attended meetings of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
In Britain At various points between 1913 and 1919, Thanh claimed to have lived in West Ealing and later in Crouch End, Hornsey. He reportedly worked as either a chef or dishwasher at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. Claims that he was trained as a pastry chef under Auguste Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in Haymarket, Westminster are not supported by documentary evidence. 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. During 1913, Thanh was also employed as a pastry chef on the Newhaven–Dieppe ferry route.
Political education in France
Ho Chi Minh, 1921, going by the pseudonym Nguyen ai Quoc, attending a Communist congress in Marseille, France. From 1919 to 1923, Thanh began to show an interest in politics while living in France, being influenced by his friend and Socialist Party of France comrade Marcel Cachin. Thanh claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police had only documents recording his arrival in June 1919. In Paris he joined the Groupe des Patriotes Annamites that included Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Van Truong, Nguyen The Truy?n and Nguyen An Ninh. They had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence under the pseudonym Nguyen ai Quoc prior to Thanh's arrival in Paris. The group petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but they were ignored. Citing the principle of self-determination outlined before the peace accords, they requested the allied powers to end French colonial rule of Vietnam and ensure the formation of an independent government.
Before the conference, the group sent their letter to allied leaders, including French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and United States President Woodrow Wilson. They were unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, but the episode would later help establish the future Ho Chi Minh as the symbolic leader of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam. Since Thanh was the public face behind the publication of the document, he soon became known as Nguyen ai Quoc, and first used the name in September during an interview with a Chinese newspaper correspondent. Many authors have stated that 1919 was a lost 'Wilsonian moment', where the future Ho Chi Minh could have adopted a pro-American and less radical position if only President Wilson had received him. However, at the time of the Versailles Conference, Ho Chi Minh was committed to a socialist program. While the conference was ongoing, Nguyen ai Quoc was already delivering speeches on the prospects of Bolshevism in Asia and was attempting to persuade French socialists to join Lenin's Communist International.
A 1920 security report by the French Indochinese government on Nguyen T?t Thanh listing his aliases, places of residence, his father's occupation, as well as other information. In December 1920, Quoc became a representative to the Congress of Tours of the Socialist Party of France, voted for the Third International and was a founding member of the French Communist Party. Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of the party, he tried to draw his comrades' attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. While living in Paris, he reportedly had a relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Briere. As discovered in 2018, Quoc also had relations with the members of Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea like Kim Kyu-sik, Jo So-ang while in Paris.
During this period, he began to write journal articles and short stories as well as run his Vietnamese nationalist group. In May 1922, he wrote an article for a French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters. The article implored Prime Minister Raymond Poincare to outlaw such Franglais as le manager, le round and le knock-out. His articles and speeches caught the attention of Dmitry Manuilsky, who would soon sponsor his trip to the Soviet Union and under whose tutelage he would become a high-ranking member of the Soviet Comintern.In China and the USSR In this installment of our Marxist-Leninist series Oval Marx Lenin.svg The ideas Distinct varieties Individuals' theoretical writings Organisational History by Nation Associated subjects Look up Communism portal icon as well. Political hub symbol Portal for socialism at VTE Link to external video player Ho Chi Minh: A Life, William Duiker's interview with booknotes, aired on C-SPAN on November 12, 2000.
From 1921 until 1923, Ho Chi Minh stayed at 17 Compoint Lane in Paris's District 17. A plaque in honor of his residence Before traveling to Canton, China in November 1924 under the identity of Ly Thuy, Quoc left Paris for Moscow in 1923 with a passport bearing the name of Chen Vang, a Chinese merchant. While in Moscow, he worked for the Comintern, attended the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, and took part in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924.
The young Vietnamese revolutionaries residing in Canton at the Whampoa Military Academy were periodically the recipients of his communist lectures and 'Youth Education Classes' that he co-ordinated from 1925 to 1926. Years down the road, these youths would plant the revolutionary, pro-communist seeds that would sprout into a new movement in Vietnam. William Duiker states that he was married to Zeng Xueming, a Chinese lady, on October 18, 1926. His other soldiers were opposed to the marriage, but he insisted on getting married nevertheless, explaining that he needed a wife to help him learn the language and take care of the home. At the age of 21, she was younger than he was at 36. They resided at the mansion of Mikhail Borodin, a Comintern agent, after their marriage and the location of Zhou Enlai's previous marriage.
Claiming to have betrayed his father's old acquaintance and prominent rival revolutionary leader Phan Boi Chau in June 1925 for 100,000 piastres, Hoang Van Chi was apprehended in Shanghai by operatives of the French Secret Service. He allegedly subsequently said he committed it to get the funds he needed to start a communist group and because he thought Chau's trial would incite anti-French feeling. William Duiker explored and eventually dismissed this theory in Ho Chi Minh: A Life.:?126-128? Nguyen Thuong Huyan was allegedly the one who captured Chau, according to some reports. Despite serving a life sentence under house arrest, Chau never publicly condemned Quoc.
Returning to Moscow in April 1927, Quoc spent part of the summer of 1927 recovering from TB in Crimea. In November, he went to Paris, after Chiang Kai-shek's anti-communist coup in 1927. Arriving in Bangkok, Thailand in July 1928, he sailed back to Asia via Brussels, Berlin, Switzerland, and Italy. He assured Minh in an intercepted letter, 'Our feelings for each other do not have to be said to be felt,' despite their nearly year-long separation. He was a top agent at this time, involved in Comintern operations throughout Southeast Asia.
Among Ho Chi Minh's several culinary jobs from 1911 to 1928 was one in Milano. Near 'Antica Trattoria Della Pesa' on Via Pasubio to the left, you'll see a plaque that pays tribute to a site where he formerly worked.
Located in Ban Nachok, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, this house is dedicated to Ho Chi Minh. Before traveling to India and Shanghai, Quoc stayed in the Thai town of Nachok until late 1929. At the beginning of 1930, he presided over a conference in Hong Kong when delegates from two separate Vietnamese communist groups were brought together to form what would later be known as the Communist Party of Vietnam. Additionally, he established the Communist Party of Indochina. Ho was abducted in Hong Kong in June 1931 by the Hong Kong Police Force and the French colonial authorities in Indochina. He was meant to be deported back to French Indochina, but British counsel Frank Loseby successfully defended him. Although Ho would be deported from Hong Kong as an undesirable, it would not be to a territory controlled by France. In 1932, following appeals to the Privy Council in London, he was finally declared dead to evade a French extradition deal. Ho was finally granted freedom and, posing as a scholar from China, he boarded a ship bound for Shanghai. He went back to the USSR after that and spent time in Moscow at the Lenin Institute, where he was both a student and a teacher. The rumors that Ho had betrayed the Comintern led to his dismissal from his posts at this time. Nonetheless, as Ton That Thien's study shows, he was an integral part of the Comintern's inner circle, a Dmitry Manuilsky protégé, and a functioning member of the Comintern even throughout the Great Purge. After founding the party, Ho was stripped from power. His successors accused him of harboring nationalist sentiments.
After his return to China in 1938, Quoc advised the Communist military forces of China. Additionally, he oversaw Asian issues as the senior Comintern agent. He went to Guiyang, Kunming, and Guilin in addition to working a lot in Chongqing. During this time, he went under the name Ho Quang.
Freedom struggle The Viat Minh independence movement was headed by Ho Chi Minh, who returned to Vietnam in 1941. An opportunity presented itself to the patriotic Vietnamese that year when Japan occupied Indochina, paving the way for an invasion of the remainder of Southeast Asia. The guerrilla group known as the 'men in black' consisted of 10,000 individuals who collaborated with the Viet Minh. With the close but covert cooperation of the US Office of Strategic Services, he presided over several successful military operations against Vichy France and the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during WWII, and subsequently against the French attempt to reoccupy the nation. The local authorities in China who were loyal to Chiang Kai-shek imprisoned him until the Chinese Communists came to his rescue. In 1943, after being released, he went back to Vietnam. Around this period, he started going by the Vietnamese name Ho Chi Minh, which means 'Bright spirit' or 'Clear will' and is a combination of a popular Vietnamese surname and a given name.:?248-49? General Hou Zhiming, Chief Commissar of the 4th Military Region of the National Revolutionary Army, is commemorated by his new name. Zhiming played a key role in his 1943 escape from a KMT jail.
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