Ho chi minh was the communist leader of north vietnam from the end of world war II until his death in 1969

Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of North Vietnam from the end of World War II until his death in 1969.. After World War II Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of the Democratic

Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of North Vietnam from the end of World War II until his death in 1969 Born in a village in central Vietnam, his original name was either Nguyen Sinh Cung or Nguyen Tat Thanh (sources vary) and he was educated in Hue and apprenticed to a technical institute in Saigon He left for Europe in 1911 and was in England when World War I began After the war he moved to Paris and was active in socialist organizations into the 1920s He visited the Soviet Union to study revolutionary tactics and was sent to China to spread communism throughout Asia; he founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and spent the rest of the decade living in China and the Soviet Union During World War II he was in Vietnam, where he organized the League for the Independence of Vietnam, called the Viet Minh He was jailed briefly (1942-43) by the anti-communist Nationalist Chinese, during which time he took the name Ho Chi Minh ("He Who Enlightens") After World War II Ho Chi Minh

proclaimed the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam with himself as president He led the Viet Minh through eight years of underground resistance against French colonial forces (1946-54), then turned to guerilla warfare against the

anti-communist government in South Vietnam By the time the United States became

involved in the fight against the Viet Minh (and its successor, the Viet Cong), Ho Chi Minh was in failing health and not as active in directing his forces He was, however,

"Uncle Ho," the symbol of the communists' willingness to sacrifice and to endure a war

of attrition He died in 1969, six years before the U.S withdrew from South Vietnam

After the fall of South Vietnam, the city of Saigon was renamed Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh,

or Ho Chi Minh City He was also called Nguyen Ai Quoc ("Nguyen the Patriot")

nguyen ai quoc

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Military History Companion: Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), leader of the Vietnamese communists and of the

independence movement in that country in the decades following WW II Ho was born Nguyen Tat Thanh in the Annam province, and was educated in Hué In the 1920s and 1930s Ho operated in the murky underworld of the Vietnamese independence movement, and was a founding member of the Communist Party in Vietnam During WW II, Ho and his communist group, which included the military leader Vo Nguyen Giap, formed a base near the Chinese border and acted, with American support, against the Japanese

occupation force Ho also took the opportunity to solidify the position of the communists

as the leaders and dominant force of the independence movement, which became widely

known as the Vietminh.

The Vietminh was able to exploit the chaos which descended upon Vietnam at the end of

WW II to seize power, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed by Ho

on 2 September 1945 However, the situation was far from stable Kuomintang troops had flooded the city less than two weeks before, and the French government, recently restored

to Paris, was already making plans to reassert control The fragility of Vietminh control was quickly exposed in 1945-6, and Ho was forced to return to the communist stronghold near the Chinese border The following eight years witnessed a monumental struggle on the part of the Vietnamese, to create an army and a logistical network capable of

defeating the French, and to use that force effectively against the French forces in

Indochina Giap's victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 delivered such a victory, but Ho was disappointed by the peace conference which followed, and which granted the Vietminh control over only North Vietnam

In spite of this setback, Ho was prepared to be patient ‘If we have the people, ’ Ho had once remarked, ‘we will have everything.’ In the years following Dien Bien Phu he set up

a communist state apparatus in the north, and allowed communists in the south to agitate for reunification of the country When war broke out again in the early 1960s Ho was already too ill to perform an active role, but remained an inspiration to those fighting the South Vietnamese and American forces He died in Hanoi six years before the unification

of Vietnam under the regime he had created

Bibliography

 Fenn, Charles, Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction (New York, 1973)

 Matthews, Lloyd J., and Brown, Dale E (eds.), Assessing the Vietnam War

(McLean, 1987)

— Andrew Haughton

US Military History Companion: Ho Chi Minh

(1890?–1969), international Communist and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV)

The son of a scholar‐official, Ho was born in Nghe An, central Vietnam, and went to a Franco‐Vietnamese school He moved to France in 1911 and thereafter used over 100 aliases

A sailor for two years, Ho worked between Le Havre, London, and New York During World War I, he lived in London, working as a domestic Back in France, he became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920, and, in Moscow from 1923, a

Comintern (Communist International) expert on colonial and Asian questions During long periods in China Ho was instrumental in forming the proto‐Communist Vietnamese

Youth League in Canton (1925) and the Indochinese Communist Party in Hong Kong

(1930)

Ho returned to Vietnam in 1941 and emerged at the head of the Vietnamese

Independence League (Viet Minh) Using the code name “Lucius,” he supplied anti‐ Japanese intelligence to American authorities in Kunming, China, in 1944–45 As he led the Viet Minh to power in Vietnam in the August 1945 revolution, Ho's attempts to gain American support against a resumption of French rule continued, but failed During the thirty‐year war for independence against French rule and American intervention, he remained president of the DRV until his death Although he wanted to be cremated, the myth of the “Uncle‐President” became so central to Vietnamese political culture that Ho's body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum

[See also Vietnam War: Causes; Vietnam War: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

 Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh, A Political Biography, 1968

 Charles Fenn, Ho Chi Minh: A Biographical Introduction, 1973

US Military Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh

(1890?-1969) international Communist and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam until his death Ho spent many years in Europe and Russia where he was active

in communist circles He returned to Vietnam in 1941 and led the Vietminh (Vietnamese Independence League) to power in the 1945 revolution, remaining at the helm during the ensuing decades of fighting for independence against French rule and American

intervention Despite the more repressive and totalitarian quality of his rule in the North following the partition established by the Geneva Agreement on Indochina (1954), Ho remained immensely popular with the Vietnamese people

See the Introduction , Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Biography: Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) was the most famous Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman

of his time He was one of the shrewdest, most callous, dedicated, and self-abnegating leaders, a man apart in the international Communist movement.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, the little Asian country that held two leading Western powers - France and the United States - at bay after the end of World War II, was founded and proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in 1945 In spite of his shrewdness, the frail, little Ho looked like an old peasant with a gaunt face, an expression

of simplicity and gentleness, and nothing surprising except his amazingly lively eyes His familiar garb consisted of a linen work suit and rubber sandals made of discarded tires

Ho was born Nguyen That Thanh on May 19, 1890, in the village of Kim Lien, province

of Nghe An, central Vietnam, into a family of scholar-revolutionaries, who had been successively dismissed from government service for anti-French activities At the age of

9 Ho and his mother, who had been charged with stealing French weapons for the rebels, fled to Hue, the imperial city His father, constantly persecuted by the French police, had left for Saigon After a year in Hue, his mother died Young Ho returned to Kim Lien to finish his schooling At 17, upon receiving a minor degree, Ho journeyed to the South, where he spent a brief spell as an elementary school teacher

At the news of the first Chinese revolution, which broke out in Wuchang, the fiercely patriotic Ho left for Saigon to discuss the situation with his father It was then decided that Ho should go to Europe to study Western science and survey the conditions in France before embarking upon a revolutionary career Unable to finance such a trip, Ho nevertheless managed to obtain a job as a messboy on a French liner

Years in Europe

By the end of 1911 Ho began his seaman's life, which took him to the major ports of Africa, Europe, and America As World War I broke out, Ho bade farewell to the sea and landed in London, where he lived until 1917, taking on odd jobs to support himself It was here that Ho cultivated contact with the Overseas Workers' Association, an

anticolonialist and anti-imperialist organization of Chinese and Indian seamen

In 1917 Ho departed for France He settled in Paris, working successively as a cook, a gardener, and a photo retoucher Ho spent half his time reading, writing, trying to gain French sympathy for Vietnam, and organizing the thousands of Vietnamese, who were either serving in the French army or working in factories He also joined the French Socialist party and attended various political clubs

Distressed by the Western powers' indifference toward the colonies both during and after the Versailles Conference in spite of the Fourteen Points of U.S president Woodrow Wilson, Ho, whose only interest up to that time had been Vietnam's independence, began

to drift toward Soviet Russia, the champion of the oppressed peoples At its Tours

Congress in 1920, the French Socialist party split on the colonial issue: one wing

remaining indifferent to the problems of the colonies and another advocating their

immediate emancipation in accordance with Lenin's program Ho sided with the latter faction, which seceded from the parent organization and formed the French Communist party

In 1921 Ho organized the Intercolonial Union, a group of exiles from the French colonies which was dedicated to the propagation of communism, and published two papers, one in

French, Le Paria, and one in Vietnamese, the Soul of Vietnam, which carried emotional articles denouncing the abuses of colonialism His most important work, French

Colonialization on Trial, was also written during this period.

In November-December 1922 Ho attended the Fourth Comintern Congress in Moscow

In October 1923 he was elected to the 10-man Executive Committee of the Peasants' International Congress Late in 1923 Ho went to Moscow, where he absorbed the

teachings of Marx and Lenin Two years later he arrived in Canton as adviser to Soviet agent Mikhail Borodin, who was then adviser to the Chinese Nationalists

Early Organizing Efforts

Passing for a nationalist, Ho brought the Vietnamese émigrés in Canton into a

revolutionary society called Youth and organized Marxist training courses for his young fellow countrymen The Youth members were the nucleus of what was to be the

Indochinese Communist party Those who refused to obey Ho's orders were severely punished; Ho would forward their names to the French police force, which was always eager to put them behind bars Ho also set up the League of Oppressed Peoples of Asia, which was to become the South Seas Communist party

In April 1927, as the Chinese Nationalists broke with their Soviet advisers, Ho had to flee

to Moscow Subsequently, he received a brief assignment to the Anti-Imperialist League

in Berlin In 1928, after attending the Congress against Imperialism in Brussels, Ho journeyed to Switzerland and Italy, then turned up in Siam to organize the Vietnamese settlers and direct the Communist activities in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies Early in

1930 Ho went to Hong Kong, where on February 3 he founded the Indochinese

Communist party

A year later Ho was arrested by the Hong Kong authorities and found guilty of

subversion Thanks to a successful appeal financed by the Red Relief Association, Ho regained his freedom He immediately left for Singapore, where he was again arrested and returned to Hong Kong Ho obtained his release by agreeing to work for the British Intelligence Service Back in Moscow in 1932, Ho underwent further indoctrination at the Lenin School, which trained high-ranking cadres for the Soviet Communist party In

1936 Ho returned to China to take control of the Indochinese Communist party

Return Home

In February 1941 Ho finally crossed the border into Vietnam and settled down in a secure

hideout in a remote frontier jungle With a view to bringing all resistance elements under his control, winning power, then eliminating all competitors and creating a Communist state, Ho founded an independence league called the Viet Minh, whose alleged program was to coordinate all nationalist activities in the struggle for independence (At this time

Ho adopted the name Ho Chih Minh - "Enlightened One.") While the Viet Minh included many nationalists, most of its leaders were seasoned Communists

In August 1942 Ho went back to China to ask for Chinese military assistance in return for intelligence about the Japanese forces in Indochina The Chinese Nationalists, who had broken with the Communists and been disturbed by the Viet Minh activities in both Vietnam and China, however, arrested and imprisoned Ho on the charge that he was a

French spy After 13 months in jail Ho offered to put his organization at the Chinese service in return for his freedom The Chinese, who were in desperate need of

intelligence reports on the Japanese, accepted the offer Upon his release Ho was

admitted to the Dong Minh Hoi, an organization of Vietnamese nationalists in China which the Chinese had set up with the hope of controlling the independence movement

Ho repeatedly offered to collaborate with the United States intelligence mission in China, hoping to be rewarded with American assistance

The Statesman

As the war approached its end, Ho made preparations for a general armed uprising Following Japan's surrender, the Viet Minh took over the country, ruthlessly eliminating their nationalist opponents On Sept 2, 1945, Ho proclaimed Vietnam's independence In vain he sought Allied recognition Faced with a French resolve to reoccupy Indochina and determined to stay in power at any cost, Ho acquiesced in France's demands in return for French recognition of his regime The French, however, disregarded all their

agreements with Ho War broke out in December 1946

Many nationalists, while aware of the Communist nature of Ho's government,

nevertheless supported it against France The war ended in July 1954 with a humiliating French defeat An agreement, signed in Geneva in July 1954, partitioned Vietnam along the 17th parallel and provided for a general election to be held within 2 years to reunify

the country Because of mutual distrust, absence of neutral machinery to guarantee freedom of choice, and opposition of South Vietnam and the United States, the scheduled election never took place

Ho, who had hoped that a larger population under his control, a Communist-supervised election in the North, and a more or less free election in the South would produce an outcome favorable to his regime, became greatly frustrated He ordered guerrilla

activities to be resumed in the South Regular troops from the North infiltrated the South

in increasing numbers The United States, correspondingly, increased military assistance, sent combat troops into South Vietnam, and began a systematic bombing of North

Vietnam

Ho refused to negotiate a settlement, hoping that American public opinion, as French public opinion had done in 1954, would force the United States government to sue for peace Apprehensive that his lifework might be destroyed and anxious to spare North Vietnam from further devastating air attacks, Ho finally agreed to send his

representatives to peace talks in Paris As the antiwar feeling mounted in the United States and other countries, Ho stalled, intent on obtaining from the conference table what

he had failed to get on the battlefield While the talks were dragging on, Ho died on Sept

3, 1969, without realizing his dream of bringing all Vietnam under communism

Further Reading

Of the several biographies of Ho Chi Minh, the most comprehensive, and critical is N

Khac Huyen, Vision Accomplished?: The Enigma of Ho Chi Minh (1971) A short and sympathetic biography is David Halberstam, Ho (1971) A short, quasi-official, and

highly propagandistic biography was published by the government of North Vietnam:

Tru'o'ng-Chinh, President Ho-chi-Minh: Beloved Leader of the Vietnamese People (1966) The following books contain enlightening chapters on Ho: Harold R Isaacs, No Peace for Asia (1947); Frank N Trager, ed., Marxism in Southeast Asia: A Study of Four Countries (1959); Bernard B Fall, The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis (1963; rev ed 1964); Hoangvan-Chi, From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History

of North Vietnam (1964); and Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (2 vols., 1967) Recommended for general historical background are Ellen J Hammer, The

Struggle for Indo-China (1954); Donald Lancaster, The Emancipation of French

Indochina (1961); Patrick J Honey, ed., North Vietnam Today: Profile of a Communist Satellite (1962); Robert A Scalapino, ed., The Communist Revolution in Asia: Tactics, Goals, and Achievements (1965; 2d ed 1969); and Frank N Trager, Why Vietnam?

(1966)

Political Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh

(1890-1969) Vietnamese revolutionary and politician Leader of the Indo-Chinese

Communist Party, and the League for the Independence of Vietnam Gains a place in this dictionary more for the idealized vision of him held by many followers of the new left in the West in the 1960s than for his actual contribution to political institutions or theory As his regime was successfully opposing the United States, and as the United States was the fount of all that was evil, Ho became the symbol of all that was good

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Ho Chi Minh

(click to enlarge)

Ho Chi Minh, 1968 (credit: Marc Riboud/Magnum)

(born May 19, 1890, Hoang Tru, Viet — died Sept 2, 1969, Hanoi) President (1945 – 69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) Son of a poor scholar, he was brought up in a rural village In 1911 he found work on a French steamer and

traveled the world, then spent six years in France, where he became a socialist In 1923

he went to the Soviet Union; the next year he went to China, where he started organizing exiled Vietnamese He founded the Indochina Communist Party in 1930 and its

successor, the Viet Minh, in 1941 In 1945 Japan overran Indochina, overthrowing its

French colonial rulers; when the Japanese surrendered to the Allies six months later, Ho and his Viet Minh forces seized the opportunity, occupied Hanoi, and proclaimed

Vietnamese independence France refused to relinquish its former colony, and the First

Indochina War broke out in 1946 Ho's forces defeated the French in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, after which the country was partitioned into North and South Vietnam Ho, who ruled in the north, was soon embroiled with the U.S.-backed regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in the south in what became known as the Vietnam War; North Vietnamese forces prevailed over the south six years after Ho's death

For more information on Ho Chi Minh , visit Britannica.com

Columbia Encyclopedia: Ho Chi Minh

(hô chē mĭn) , 1890–1969, Vietnamese nationalist leader, president of North Vietnam (1954–69), and one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th cent His given name was Nguyen That Thanh In 1911 he left Vietnam, working aboard a French liner

He later lived in London and in the United States during World War I before going to France near the end of the war There he became involved in the French socialist

movement and was (1920) a founding member of the French Communist party He studied revolutionary tactics in Moscow, and, as a Comintern member, was sent (1925– 27) to Guangzhou, China While in East Asia, he organized Vietnamese revolutionaries and founded the Communist party of Indochina (later the Vietnamese Communist party)

He also established a training institute that attracted many Vietnamese students, where he taught a unique blend of Marxism-Leninism and Confucian-inspired virtues In the 1930s, Ho lived mainly in Moscow and China He finally returned to Vietnam after the outbreak of World War II, organized a Vietnamese independence movement (the Viet Minh), and raised a guerrilla army to fight the Japanese

Ho proclaimed the republic of Vietnam in Sept., 1945, and later agreed that it would remain an autonomous state within the French Union Differences with the French, however, soon led (1946) to an open break Warfare lasted until 1954, culminating in the French defeat at Dienbienphu After the Geneva Conference (1954), which divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, Ho became the first president of the independent republic of North Vietnam The accord also provided for elections to be held in 1956, aimed at reuniting North and South Vietnam; however, South Vietnam, backed by the United States, refused to hold the elections The reason was generally held to be that Ho's

popularity would have led to reunification under Communist rule In succeeding years,

Ho consolidated his government in the North He organized a guerrilla movement in the South, the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, which was technically independent of North Vietnam, to win South Vietnam from the successive U.S.-supported governments there (see Vietnam War)

Bibliography

See biographies by J Lacouture (1968), D Halberstam (1971), J Sainteny (1972), C Fenn (1974), D O Lloyd (1986), and W J Duiker (2000)

History Dictionary: Ho Chi Minh

(HOH CHEE MIN)

A Vietnamese revolutionary leader of the twentieth century Ho Chi Minh led the

communists of Vietnam in their efforts to drive out the forces of Japan in the 1940s (see

World War II), France in the 1950s (see Dienbienphu), and the United States in the 1960s

(see Vietnam War) He died in 1969

 Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City after the communist victory there

Wikipedia: Ho Chi Minh

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For the city named after him, see Ho Chi Minh City

Hồ Chí Minh

Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of

Vietnam

In office

1945 – 1955

President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

In office

1946 – 1969

Born May 19 1890Nghệ An Province, Vietnam

Died September 2 1969 (aged 79)

Hanoi, Vietnam

Nationality Vietnamese

Political party Vietnam Workers' Party

Hồ Chí Minh listen?(name pronounced as [hò cí mɪɲ]) (May 19, 1890 – September

2 1969) was a Vietnameserevolutionary, who later became Prime Minister (1946–1955) and President (1946–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam)