HO CHI MINH
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
1. August 29 1945 the new revolutionary government, the Vietminh, officially addressed the public and revealed their leader.
a. Ho presented 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 not 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’.” Fenn
2. First matter in power: addressed famine.
a. Plans made for intensive cultivation; quick-growing crops sown; fast-days and rationing introduced; hoarding subject to severe penalties.
3. Ho established the Workers’ Party in February 1951.
a. USSR gave no form of support (possibly due to preoccupation with other matters) at this time. Ho was isolated from both Left and Right.
b. The ICP was disbanded in 1945 and replaced by ‘Marxist study groups’.
4. March 1946, France and Vietnam made an agreement: France recognized the Republic of Vietnam as a free state, but would remain inside the French Union and form 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) and Vietnam had to recognize the independence of Cochin China (S. Vietnam) as a separate area.
a. The French wanted Cochin China because it was the richest part of Indo-China.
i. Three-fifths of all French investments in Indo-China were in Saigon.
ii. Cochin China had the largest rice fields and rubber plantations (pg 99).
iii. French control over Cochin China would keep Laos and Cambodia in the French sphere of influence.
b. Agreement was made in an atmosphere of hate and distrust.
c. Giap compared the treaty with Brest-Litovsk.
d. Confidence in ‘Uncle Ho’ was badly shaken.
5. In April 1946, Ho travelled to Paris to negotiate the terms of the March 1946 agreement. This was the Fontainebleau Conference.
a. No significant gains were made, however Ho made a positive impression on the French people. “Ho enjoyed a huge success, he charmed everyone.” (Robert Shaplen).
6. On December 21 1946, Ho presented his famous proclamation. It summarized the events of the last two months and placed blame on the French colonials for defying the March 1946 agreement.
a. Ho appealed to French soldiers by calling it an unjust war; he appealed to the Allies peoples to strive for peace; he appealed to the Vietnamese people to prepare to fight.
b. “Our resistance war will be long and painful, but whatever the sacrifices… we shall fight to the end, until Vietnam is fully independent and reunited.”
c. “Determination, determination. With that one can do everything successfully.”
7. Following the communist victory in China, Cochin China was ‘attached to the associated State of Vietnam’. Communist victory in China gave Ho a valuable ally, and Mao recognized Ho’s government.
a. USSR followed realizing it missed an important diplomatic opportunity, and satellite states followed after.
b. “Ho found himself transformed from a mere rebel with scarcely a friend to President with 800 million friends.”
8. Ho directed overall operations from a hut in the scrub jungle at Tuyen Quang, 60 miles north of Hanoi.
a. “Just as at a time of national peril, Britain responded to Churchill and America to Roosevelt, so now Vietnam responded to Ho.” He was able to make the people feel like he was one of them and among the same class.
b. By 1949, the Vietminh still controlled the greater part of Vietnam.
9. Ho continued to write directions to his people from Tuyen Quang.
a. An appeal from June 11 1948: “With patriotic zeal, we shall reconstruct our country even while fighting the resistance war.”
10. In 1951 during the 2nd Congress of the Vietnam Workers’ Party (Lao Dong), the Vietminh was merged with the Patriotic Front (Lien Viet).
a. Ho wanted to emphasize the unity of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Nationalism
1. Ho Chi Minh was always said to be a professional revolutionary. He also always had a dream of seeing a free Vietnam
a. Ho had wanted to be a part of the Communist International (Comintern)
b. Ho knew that the French had conquered Vietnam and despite being attacked by several uprisings, all have been unsuccessful in limiting French supremacy
i. Ho believed that it was necessary to apply different methods to gain independence
ii. After failing to find any solutions with American (especially after the failed promise of self-determination with the 14 points) or British policies, Ho became more interested in socialism to gain equality
c. “What he represents is less a political cult that a philosophical concept. For want of a better word let us call his contribution Hochiminity”
2. At the onset of WWII, Japan was increasing its military role throughout Asia, taking over Manchuria in 1931. Asia, for the most part was ruled by European powers (Britain, France, Germany)
a. After French interests in Asia were taken over by Germany, Indochina faced two threats: Germany and Japan
b. The Vietnamese Nationalist movement faced both threats. Ho strived for independence for Vietnam
i. “International communism had been for Ho a means not an end” and “he believed that only within the framework of Marxism-Leninism could nationalist freedom be achieved”
3. Ho had to begin his revolution in China. He had organized compatriots in Shanghai, Canton, Hong Kong and Siam.
a. In early 1941 he had to sneak back to Vietnam through a base called Ching-hsi (Chinese border town, gave quickest route to Vietnam)
ii. Usually had bases in caves
b. May 1941 the Vietminh League (VML) was created, full name was the League for Vietnamese Independence
iii. This was a way for him to detach from Soviet domination
iv. June 6 Ho gave a speech regarding the current political situation of the country to peasants, soldiers and workers: “national salvation must be the common goal”
c. Ho appealed for the support of all either through economic or military means
4. March 24, 1945 France declared some independence for Vietnam, included allowing them to have own President
a. At the Potsdam conference it was decided that after the defeat of Japan, Indochina would be divided into two zones where some other Allied power (not France or Japan) had to establish law and order
b. August 29, 1945 the new government was officially established and the name Ho chi Minh was to be the identity of the new leader
i. He was a “national patriot who had devoted his whole life to achieving his country’s independence”
ii. In his own Declaration of Independence Ho lists the crimes of the French against the Vietnamese
c. The French recognized the Republic of Vietnam as a free state but under the French Union and a part of the Indo-Chinese federation
i. Also offered to allow South Vietnam to make a choice as to whether they would reunite with the North
Military Success
1. When the French decided to create a customs house at Haiphong
a. The Vietnamese protested but the French counterclaim suggested that the Vietminh were using Haiphong to import military hardware
b. Ho made immediate efforts to quell the resulting clash. Fortunately the local French co-operated and a cease-fire was agreed on.
c. This did not please the French high command in Saigon, who promptly ordered the French commander in Haiphong to occupy the city in order to teach the Vietminh a lesson, however, without the essential backing of the navy, the Commander was unable to and he called for support from the naval vessel lying at anchor in the harbour, which happened to be the very Suffren that two months earlier had been the agapemone of Franco-Vietnamese embraces.
d. The Suffren shelled the city, slaughtering 6,000 harmless Vietnamese civilians.
2. In December, when the fighting broke out and the first shots were fired, Ho and Giap escaped narrowly.
a. Already the next morning Ho was writing his famous proclamation of 21 December.
i. Addressed to the Vietnamese, to the French and to 'peoples of the Allied Powers', it stated the events of the past two months, blaming the French colonials, not Metropolitan France,
ii. Appealed to French soldiers not to allow themselves to be dragged into an ignoble war.
iii. It appealed to Allied peoples to strive towards a peaceful solution.
iv. It appealed to the Vietnamese to be ready to fight and that everyone must be ready to defend his country. Those who helped the enemy must be dealt with. But rights of foreigners must be respected and prisoners of war properly treated.
v. 'Our resistance war will be long and painful,' Ho warned, 'but whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle, we shall fight to the end, until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified.' Determination, determination. With that one can do everything successfully.1* But Ho could scarcely know how far off victory was.
3. The war began with a few French successes.
a. They had better weapons, both in small arms and artillery.
b. The Vietminh army, despite all Giap's endeavours, were still fighting with a paucity of armaments, mostly obsolete, they had either captured from the Japanese or bought expensively from China.
c. The French also had vehicle mobility where as the Vietminh had neither planes nor transport.
d. Giap operated tactically and Ho directed overall operations from a hut in the scrub jungle at Tuyen Quang some 60 miles northwest from Hanoi.
e. Unshaken, he continued to direct his country's affairs with even greater prestige.
4. During the guerrilla war, Ho also sent out a continuing stream of peace proposals via radio.
a. But during all this period the stars were continually unfavourable.
b. Blum was replaced by Ramadier, who had none of his predecessor's liberal leanings and discounted the peace overtures coming from Vietminh headquarters.
c. On 24 January 1947 Ho made another attempt at reconciliation with France by writing to Sainteny.
5. The French successes dwindled and the tides reversed.
a. The French held the towns but not the countryside.
b. The Communist victory in China brought Ho a valuable ally.
i. The Chinese offered military aid and recognized Ho's government.
ii. The USSR, having so far offered nothing but sympathy, suddenly realized they had been preceded of an important diplomatic move, and were quick to accord their own recognition.
iii. When the satellites followed suit Ho found himself transformed from a mere rebel with scarcely a friend to a President with 800 million friends.
iv. The American Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, coldly observed that 'this should remove any illusions as to the "nationalist" character of Ho Chi Minh and the French immediately saw that by turning the war into an anti-communist crusade they get American aid.
6. The Vietnamese had the greatest weapon: a leader with the fixed belief that he would win.
a. This confidence (plus no doubt the addition of some useful Chinese equipment) enabled Ho in late 1950 to stage a victorious offensive in northern Tonkin.
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
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