HO CHI MINH
Ho “I am a professional revolutionary.”
Robert Shaplen, Ho had “the dynamic dream that has always been a passion in his life: a free Vietnam.” (The Lost Revolution, Andrew Deutsch, 1996)
Tran Ngoc Danh, “For [Ho], nationalism and communism, the end and the means, complement one another; or rather, they merge inextricably.” Histoire do President Ho, Foreign Languages Press, Hanoi, 1949
“violence wins the revolution. Dictatorship consolidates it” Charles Fenn
1. Rise to Power
2. Consolodation from power
3. Role of Nationalism
4. Military success (vs Japan, FR and US)
5. Leadership
Rise to Power
1. Ho made contacts internationally.
a. In Moscow in 1923-4, Ho made an impression on many top revolutionaries: Trotsky, Dimitrov, Radek, Bukharin, and particularly Stalin.
b. What Ho took away from the trip: “violence wins the revolution. Dictatorship consolidates it” Charles Fenn
2. In January 1925, the Comintern felt that Ho was skilled enough in communist technique to be sent out into the field—he was sent to aid Mikhail Borodin and the pro-rebel military in Canton, China.
a. Ho was recognised as an expert in Far-eastern affairs, spoke Cantonese, and could mobilize the Vietnamese population in South China.
b. During this time he trained students in the art of revolution. For example he trailed Pham Van Dong, who became Ho’s Prime Minister twenty years later.
3. Ho formed the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth League.
a. “I felt that not only was he a true patriot but like an elder brother who wanted to take care of me.” Nguyen Luong Bang, a sailor on a French warship who joined the Revolutionary Youth to receive teachings from Ho.
4. Ho improved relations with bankers and married a daughter of the powerful Soong family.
5. Ho escaped persecution by Chiang Kai-shek, who targeted the Revolutionary Youth League. Ho escaped to Vladivostok and eventually to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian railway, arriving in 1928.
a. Having returned from a difficult and dangerous assignment, he was now accepted as one of the elite amongst the non-Russian communists.
6. Ho was sent to conferences in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy by the Comintern in order to promote international communism.
7. The South Asiatic Beureau of the Comintern set up in Bangkok after Chiang’s coup in Canton.
8. Ho sent on a mission to recruit revolutionaries in Laos. In Udon, he opened a school, published news-sheets and founded a peasant co-operative.
a. Similar activities in Bangkok
9. Ho combined communism and Buddhism to indoctrinate Buddhists and set up cells in monasteries.
10. Comintern sent Ho to Hong Kong to create unity between the disputing sections of the Revolutionary Youth. He united them to form the Indo-Chinese Communist Party (ICP) February 1930
11. “in these ten years he became the most significant agent of the Comintern in South East Asia” 53
12. The only other revolutionary party was the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDD) and it lost significant ground after a failed revolt in February 1930. The failure of the only rival strengthened Ho’s ICP.
a. Within a year, 200 members to over a thousand.
13. Six thousand peasants in Nghe An province (Ho’s birthplace) assembled and formed a vast hunger march to Vinh.
a. Largest revolt in Vietnamese history. Big estates seized and redistributed to the starving populace.
b. Organized under ‘Xo-Viets’, disregarding both their nature and their nationality.
c. It did not follow Lenin’s five precepts, especially the first: Revolution must never be started until you are ready to fight to victory.
d. Following revolt, ICP “came out of this affair with increased psychological strength” but weakened in “organizational capacity, having lost by execution or imprisonment many of their top men”, e.g. Pham Van Dong.
14. Ho returned to Honk Kong in 1931 (as Tong Van So)
15. Ho retuned to Moscow in 1933 after his fake death was established. At the Seventh Congress of the International, Ho pushed for a ‘Popular Front’.
a. This would consist of any remaining elements of anti-fascists in Europe in order to resist the rise of Fascism.
b. In 1936, the Popular Front government in France (supported only by the French Communist Party) granted legality to the ICP , amnesty was granted to political prisoners in Indo-China and revolutionary papers were allowed to circulate within Indo-China.
16. January 1940, Ho meets with Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap and sent them to train in Yenan. They would become key allies in the future in the struggle against the French Army.
17. May 1941, Vietminh League (VML) established.
a. Ho’s first step towards detachment from Soviet domination.
18. Chang Fa-kwei re-established the VNQDD (pro-Kuomintang Vietnamese group) behind Chiang Kai-shek. Persecution of leftist Vietnamese became heavy again.
a. During his arrest by Chiang Fa-kwei, Ho wrote numerous poems which were compiled in as the Prison Diary. They included 120 poems in all.
b. Ultimately Chang realized the VNQDD was ineffective and could not get the Vietminh under his control. He then set up a new group, the Dong Minh Hoi (1944), under a new unqualified leader and was again unsuccessful.
19. Ho was released (unclear how) and the Vietminh and Dong Minh Hoi were united under his leadership.
a. The Vietminh could sway large portions of the population, who were against Chiang because he imprisoned their leader.
20. Conditions in Vietnam after Ho’s release:
a. One: within the Dong Minh Hoi, there were strong anti-communist elements and other pro-Jap.
b. Two: in Indo-China there was a pro-Vichy French ‘government’ under Admiral Decoux, strong anti-nationalist.
c. Three: in China, the Free-French Military Mission (FMM) sent by de Gaulle, which were anti-Vietminh.
d. To address these problems, Ho resigned as leader and a safer Vietnamese nationalist substituted him.
21. In late 1943, US began to send forces in the Asiatic mainland. This included the General Claire Chennault, the Services of Supply, and the Office of Strategic Services. They aided Chinese forces.
22. In December 1944 Ho launched the Vietnam Propoganda and Liberation Unit.
a. Its object was to arouse the population and enlist its support for an uprising.
b. Giap wanted insurrection now, but Ho stressed: “Full scale military action.. could only be effective against superior forces if the local population were on your side.”
23. In 1945, the American pilot Lieutenant Shaw was rescued by the VML after his parachute was shot down by Jap forces. Ho ordered his safe return to American hands.
a. Ho would later use the rescue as a premise to meet Chennault.
24. In March 1945 the Japanese in Vietnam arrested every Frenchman of importance due to plots against them by the pro-Vichy Frenchmen.
a. Ho’s two enemies were combating.
b. Vietminh units directed to help any Frenchmen wanting to oppose ‘the common enemy’.
25. March 1945 Ho met with Charles Fenn (author of this book), representing the GBT (gathered intelligence about Vietnam as an independent group).
a. GBT wanted Ho as a network to gather intelligence about happenings in Vietnam; in return he wanted medicine, arms, and a meeting with the American officer Chennault.
i. Ho received an autographed photograph from Chennault and then requested six Colt pistols.
ii. Ho used the photo to prove that he’d met with Chennault and gave them each a pistol to gain the respect of leaders in the VML. “After this conference there was never any more talk about who was the top leader.” Fenn
26. OSS supplied Ho with radio sets, medicines, gadgets, weapons.
27. An officer from the AGAS, Phalen, who initially thought Ho was a communist was dropped in to Ho’s camp. He sent back wires, e.g.: RE DEAL WITH FRENCH YOU ARE MISUNDERSTANDING VIETMINH ATTITUDE THEY ARE NOT ANTI FRENCH MERELY PATRIOTS DESERVE FULL TRUST AND SUPPORT.
28. By the end of June, Ho was the unquestioned leader of the VML, largely thanks to the GBT.
29. Vietminh network eventually rescued total of seventeen downed airmen.
30. At Vietminh headquarters in Tuyen Quang, Ho signed for general uprising on Aug. 10. He signed as Nguyen Ai Quoc, who was believed to be long dead.
a. This was an appeal to supporters from the past and was effective, as it was associated with rebellion. It shocked the French Surete.
Consolidation of Power
31. August 29 1945 the new revolutionary government, the Vietminh, officially address the public and reveal their leader.
a. Ho presents his name as “Ho Chi Minh” rather than the more famous “Nguyen Ai Quoc” because with the former, he was tolerated by the Chinese, accepted by US, and no targeted by French. The latter was too associated with rebellion.
b. “In less than a week nearly the whole population was referring to him affectionately as ‘Uncle’.”
32. First matter in power: addressed famine.
c. Plans made for intensive cultivation; quick-growing crops sown; fast-days and rationing introduced; hoarding subject to severe penalties.
33. Ho needed aid of French to get rid of the Chinese in the north, who were more vicious exploiters.
d. Chinese in Hanoi held 3 500 French troops semi-prisoner, embarrassing France.
34. Ho established the Workers’ Party in February 1951.
e. USSR gave no form of support (possibly due to preoccupation with other matters) at this time. Ho was isolated from both Left and Right.
35. March 1946, France and Vietnam made an agreement: France recognized the Republic of Vietnam as a free state, but remaining inside the French Union and forming part of the Indo-Chinese Federation. Also, the French army must be allowed to entry (in order to ensure that the Chinese army went out).
f. This offended Ho and equal to recognizing Cochin China, i.e. South Vietnam, as a separate area.
g. Agreement was made in an atmosphere of hate and distrust.
h. Giap compared the treaty with Brest-Litovsk.
i. Confidence in ‘Uncle Ho’ was badly shaken.
36. Referendum in South Vietnam was subject to ratification by the French Parliament. Ho went to Paris in April 1946 to negotiate.
a. One week after Ho left Vietnam, d’Argenlieu proclaimed the ‘Republic of Cochin China’ as a completely free state.
b. Ho’s plane was then stopped at Biarritz rather than Paris. During his stay, Ho created positive publicity amongst the French people. “Ho enjoyed a huge success, he charmed everyone.” (Robert Shaplen).
37.
Military
38. At the Cairo Summit Conference in 1943, Roosevelt supported reoccupation of Indo-China by the French. He secretly agreed that Chiang Kai-shek take Tonkin as his own sphere of influence.
39. Following the start of WWII, the Japanese saw an immediate opportunity to penetrate Indo-China. The began by demanding control of the Tonkin border with China and the French were unable to resist.
a. Therefore the Vietnamese nationalist movement found enemies in both the Japanese and the French.
b. Because of the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Japanese were not yet considered ‘imperialist enemies’ by the Comintern and this made matters difficult for Ho.
c. “France having been defeated by the Germans, the French colonials had surrendered to the Japanese and were giving them full support in continuing a policy of Vietnamese exploitation. The hour had now almost struck for raising the standard of insurrection.” Fenn 68
d. “After the Japs came in, 60 000 French colonials went on living much as before …In all Asia, French Indo-China was the one efficient Japanese success. The French did their work for the,” William Lederer, The Anguished American 1969
40. At this time, all the allies that Ho had spent training for the past twenty years in the techniques of revolution were now within Vietnam or in China bordering Vietnam (Kwangsi or Yunnan).
e. Ho found allies in Chiang Kai-shek’s men in the area in 1941 as an anti-Japanese collaboration. He began by setting up a base in Ching-hsi.
i. This was a Chinese border town offering a convenient route to Vietnam.
41. March 9 coup by Japanese abolished French administration. To fill the void, the Japanese set up a regime under Bao Dai, however it had no real following.
42. Japanese army ran Indo-China.
f. They exported rice, keeping supplies in Indo-China low.
g. Replaced rice with castor oil beans, which seriously cut production.
h. Neglected the irrigation system, and overflowing of rivers flooded land under cultivation. Over a million Vietnamese died during 1945-6 flooding.
43. Potsdam, July 1945: Indo-China to be split into two zones, China taking the north and British taking south. It would ultimately be returned to the French.
44. Japanese surrendered in WWI on Aug. 15, by the 20th Giap had control of Hanoi. On the 25th Vietminh flags were rising across North Vietnam.
45. Conditions in Vietnam in 1946: Leclerc had 50 000 troops in the South ready to invade the North; Chinese occupation; rivalry between political enemies who were eager to undermine Ho.
46. The March 1946 referendum between the French and Vietnamese saw the promotion of an ‘Indo-Chinese Federation’ and establishment of Cochin China by the French.
Nationalism
47. Following March 1946 agreement with French, Ho pleaded to the Vietnamese: “Fellow countrymen who have followed me up to now, follow me once more. I would prefer death a hundred times to betraying my country.”
Leadership
“In international law, when large countries sign they get ready for the worst: when small countries sign they must hope for the best.”
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