Ho Chi Minh
1890-1969
Father of Guerilla Warfare and Free Vietnam
by Rit Nosotro First Published:: 2003( )
Ho Chi Minh was born in the village of Kin Lien of Annem as Nguyen Sinh Cung. His father, a Confucian scholar, brought Ho Chi Minh up in the religion of Confucianism, and taught him how to be a rebel against injustice. Ho Chi Minh participated in tax revolts and other rebellious activities with his father against the French government that held control of Vietnam at the time. After he received an education Ho Chi Minh worked a couple of jobs here and there. He was a teacher for sometime and then worked as a cook's helper in 1911on a streamer that traveled from Saigon, Vietnam to Marseilles, France. Ho Chi Minh abandoned his cooking job for a life of political action against France, Japan, and the USA. Like colonized peoples elsewhere, Minh knew well the French call for liberté, égalité, and fraternité.
When not earning money as a photograph retoucher, Ho Chi Minh advanced his knowledge in the political scene by joining the Socialist Party and reading history books. Ho spent time in the USA from 1912-13, and in part of 1919 he spent time in England.
Another thing that he tried to do in France was convince Woodrow Wilson, who was there to sign a treaty to end World War I in 1919, about the abuses Vietnam was receiving from the French government and influence him to make Vietnam an independent country. Woodrow Wilson declined the invitation to listen to a rebel with socialist and communist ideas.
Shortly after this incident Ho Chi Minh became one of the founders of the French Communist Party. His explanation of this was, "It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me." From France he moved to learn more about communism in the new USSR in order to find a method to gain a working independnce for Vietnam.
From the USSR, Ho Chi Minh worked as a covert agent traveling about the world doing duties for the communist party. Long before Mao and Stalin had a falling out, Ho Chi Minh went to China and in 1929 formed yet another organization to aid communism, called the Indo-Chinese Communist Party. The organization was devoted to make Vietnam an independent nation. On one of his travels, Ho Chi Minh was arrested by British forces and imprisoned for his communist activities. When Ho was released two years later he spent time recovering from tuberculosis but also assisted the Chinese communists from 1938 to 1940 when he went to the Southern Chinese border to make contact with his old party and establish the Viet Minh.
Early in the 1940's, IndoChina soon learned that the Japanese invaders were not the colonial liberators that they pronounced themselves to be. Mihn urged battle against both the French and Japanese. In 1945, the Tonkin region underwent a famine that killed between 1.5 and 2 million people. People looked for a savior.
Ho Chi Minh tried once more to persuade the American government to make Vietnam an independent nation. Once again Ho Chi Minh’s request was refused. Leading up to a Chinese backed war against France in 1946, he threatened, "You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win." Ho Chi Minh perfected guerilla warfare and trained his men in this deadly art against foreign occupation and even assassinating scores of Vietnamese opposed to his party.
In May, 1954, Communist General Ho Chi Minh defeated the French forces at Dien Bien Phu. Two months later, the Geneva Agreements divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, and Ngo Dinh Diem appointed South Vietnam's premier by Emperor Bao Dai. By 1955, USA is supporting the southern resistence agaisnt the communist north. Within ten years, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution leds to USA bombing against North Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh was met by the French that occupied South Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh attacked until the French were forced to withdraw leaving Ho Chi Minh in control of Vietnam.
In 1965, Ho rejected president L.B.Johnson's plan for a particianed Vietnam and war soon escalated. The North's "Tet Offensive" of 1968 increased US domestic pressure to end the war. LBJ responded by troop increses which peaked in 1969 at 543,000.
When Ho Chi Minh recalled Viet Minh forces from South Vietnam who had been there to help train the military and protect, an organization spurred called Viet Cong. The South blamed this on the Viet Minh and said that they trained these rebellious parties. The problem was the Viet Cong wanted to liberate Vietnam not bring communism in. This spurred the Vietnam War. The North and South fought for what government type would be right. The United States supported the South and sent money and resources over to Vietnam to aid in the fight against the North. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 about half way through the war against communism. It is unknown whether Minh was so loved by the people, or by the comunist party, that Vietnam renamed Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.
Commentary:
Ho Chi Minh lived a life of vain intellegence that gave way to violence
in an effort to obtain freedom for Vietnam. Although he plagerised part
of Thomas Jefferson's Independence proclaimations, Minh based his political
ideologies under atheisic communism rather than a theistic democaracy.
As in the USSR, this decision led to millions of deaths as the state became
more important than the people.
Ho replaced what he knew of Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity with the fatalism of Marxist proletarian victory. This was the new "Mandate of Heaven". The uneducated phesants accepted this shift of one form of religious doctrine for the communist dream of breaking away from the fate of servitude. The word for revolution in Vietnam is "cach mang" which literally means "change fate".
It would be interesting if Ho had met the Jesus honored by Wilson when
he went to France. Christianity migth have led to a peaceable independance
for Vietnam. However, it is doubtful that the heirarchy of French catholicism
would not have given up its stranglehold on IndoChina without losing a
war. Certianly, USA foreign policy was drasticly changed by the subsequent
events.
A noteable lost opportunity was in 1945 after Minh had convinced puppet
Emperor Bao Ðai to abdicate, in favor of Vietnamese independance.
The USA President Harry Truman bowed to French pressure and went along
with other countries in the world who would not recognize a known communist
taking over a united Vietnam.
Other key dates to contextualize the world and consequences of Ho Chi
Minh:
1627 - Alexandre de Rhodes, Jesuit missionary, arrives in Hanoi.
1787 - French missionary Pigneau de Behaine persuades French court to
assist in restoration of the Nguyen
1802-1945 - Nguyen Dynasty
1858-61 - French bomb Da Nang, Saigon, and impose a French protectorate
on Cambodia and later all of Cochinchina.
1978 China ends support to Vietnam, USSR increases support.
1979 China unsuccessfully invades Vietnam.
Sources:
“Ho Chi Minh.” More or Less. 29 August. 2003. 5 Dec. 2003.
http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/ho.htm
Bui Tin. “Ho Chi Minh.” Time Asia. 23 August 1999. 11 Dec.
2003.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/ho_chi_minh1.html
“Ho Chi Minh.” Wikipedia. 4 Dec. 2003.
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh
Stanley Karnow. “Ho Chi Minh.” Time. 4 Dec. 2003.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hochiminh.html
Ho Chi Minh's Rhetoric for Revolution. Peter A. DeCaro
http://acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/decaro.html
