Ho Chi Minh as a Hero

Despite popular opinion, he is listed as a hero of the 20th century.

called Nguyen Tat Thanh, Nguyen Ai Quoc, and Ly Thuy. Ho Chi Minh translates to 'He Who Enlightens'.

Country: Vietnam.

Cause: Liberation of Vietnam from French colonial rule and unification of North and South Vietnam.

Background: The French begin to take control of Vietnam in the 1860s. The entire country is made a French protectorate in 1883. Under French colonial rule Vietnamese are prohibited from travelling outside their districts without identity papers. Freedom of expression and organisation are restricted. As land is progressively alienated by large landholders, the number of landless peasants grows. Neglect of the education system causes the literacy rate to fall. Vietnamese anticolonial movements being to coalesce early in the 20th Century but are actively suppressed by the French. More background.

Mini biography: Born 19 May 1890 in the village of Kim Lien in Annam, in central Vietnam. His father is a public servant attached to the imperial court.

Ho attends the prestigious National Academy school in Hue but leaves before graduation. He works for a short time as a teacher before travelling to Saigon, where he takes a course in navigation.

1911 - He finds work as a kitchen hand on a French steamer travelling from Saigon to Marseilles.

1919 - After living in London for two years during the First World War Ho moves to France, taking the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot). He stays in Paris until 1923, working in menial jobs while becoming active in the socialist movement.

During the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference he attempts to present United States President Woodrow Wilson with a proposal for Vietnam's independence, but is turned away. The proposal is never officially acknowledged.

1920 - Ho is a founding member of the French Communist Party when it splits from the Socialist Party in December. He works with other groups of radical expatriates and publishes an anticolonial journal, 'Le Paria' ('The Pariah').

1923 - He travels to Moscow for training at the headquarters of the Communist International (Comintern) and takes an active role in the fifth congress of the Comintern, criticising the French Communist Party for not opposing colonialism more vigorously. He also urges the Comintern to actively promote revolution in Asia.

1924 - Ho travels to Guangzhou (Canton) in southern China, a stronghold of the Chinese communists, where he trains Vietnamese exiles in revolutionary techniques.

In 1925 he organises the exiles into the Viet Nam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Revolutionary Youth League). Going by the name Ly Thuy, he forms an inner group within the Revolutionary League, the Thanh Nien Cong San Doan (Communist Youth League - CYL).

The CYL concentrates on the production of an independence journal that is distributed clandestinely inside Vietnam. In 1926 Ho writes 'Duong Cach Menh' ('The Revolutionary Path'), which he uses as a training manual.

1927 - The communists are expelled from Guangzhou in April following a coup by Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Ho finds refuge in the Soviet Union.

1928 - He travels to Brussels and Paris and then Siam (now Thailand), where he spends two years as a representative of the Comintern in Southeast Asia. His followers remain in South China.

1930 - Ho presides over the founding of a unified Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) at a conference of the Thanh Nein in Hong Kong on 3 February. A program of party objectives drafted by Ho is approved by the conference. The objectives include the overthrow of the French; establishment of an independent Vietnam ruled by a peoples' government; nationalisation of the economy and cancellation of public debts; land reform; the introduction of an eight-hour work day; and education for all.

Meanwhile, the worldwide economic depression sparked by the collapse of New York stock exchange in October 1929 begins to bite in Vietnam. Salaries fall by up to 50%, unemployment rises to about 33%, and strikes increase. The ICP starts organising party cells, trade unions and peasant associations throughout the neighbouring provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh in central Vietnam. Peasant demonstrators in the provinces begin to demand reform. When their demands are ignored riots break out. Peasants seize control of some districts and, with the aid of ICP organisers, form local village associations called "soviets".

In September 1930 the French respond, sending in Foreign Legion troops to suppress the rebellion. More than 1,000 suspected communists and rebels are arrested. Four hundred are given long prison sentences. Eighty, including some party leaders, are executed. Ho is condemned in absentia to death. He seeks refuge in Hong Kong and again operates as a representative of the Comintern in Southeast Asia.

By 1932 there are more than 10,000 political prisoners held in Vietnam's jails.

1931 - Ho is arrested in Hong Kong by the British police during a crackdown on political revolutionaries. He remains in prison until 1932. On his release he travels to Moscow, where he will spend much of the next seven years studying and teaching at the Lenin Institute.

1938 - Ho returns to China and serves as an adviser to the Chinese communist armed forces during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1939 - In August, on the eve of the Second World War, Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression pact. The French Government immediately bans the French Communist Party then outlaws all Vietnamese political parties, including the ICP, and cracks down on political activities. The ICP responds by focusing its operations on rural areas, where the French hold less sway.

The Second World War breaks out on 1 September when Germany invades Poland. The fall of France to German forces comes soon after.

1940 - Early in the year, Ho returns to southern China, where he reestablishes contact with the ICP and begins to plan. Ho and his lieutenants Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong see the defeat of the French by the Germans as an opportunity to free Vietnam from the French regime. He begins to use the name Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens).

On 22 September Japanese troops invade Vietnam, heading south from territory they occupy in China. The French quickly negotiate a cease-fire that allows their colonial administration to remain during the Japanese rule.

1941 - In January Ho enters Vietnam for the first time in 30 years and organises the Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam), or Viet Minh. A liberation zone is established near the border with China from which the Viet Min work to muster the discontent of urban nationalists and the rural poor into a unified movement for the liberation of Vietnam.

1942 - In August, while in southern China to meet with Chinese Communist Party officials, Ho is arrested by the Chinese nationalist government and imprisoned for two years.

1944 - In September Ho is allowed to return to Vietnam with a guerilla force of 18 men trained and armed by the Chinese. He vetoes an ICP plan for a general uprising but approves a propaganda campaign.

1945 - In January, with the Second World War drawing to a close, Ho travels to southern China to meet with US and Free French forces stationed there. However, his attempts to negotiate official recognition of the Vietnamese independence movement meet with little success.

The power balance in Vietnam takes a dramatic turn on 9 March when the Japanese disarm the French forces and seize full administrative control of the country. The 1883 treaty establishing Indochina as a French protectorate is revoked and Vietnam is declared independent under Japanese tutelage. The ICP sees its opportunity and begins to plan for a general uprising.

Spreading gradually south from the existing liberated zone, an ICP-led United Front has by June established a provisional government, headed by Ho, over an area occupied by about one million people. Inside the liberated zone, French-owned and communal land is redistributed to the poor. Universal suffrage is declared and democratic freedoms are introduced.

Meanwhile, the ICP steps up its activities in the country's south. 'Salvation associations' attract thousands. In Saigon, membership of a communist youth organisation reaches 200,000, while the Vietnam Trade Union Federation numbers 100,000 members in 300 unions.

On 6 August the US drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan. Nagasaki is bombed on 8 August. On 13 August the ICP issues its order for a general uprising. Ho is elected head of a National Liberation Committee created to serve as a provisional government. On 17 August he appeals to the Vietnamese people to rise in revolution. The Viet Minh take control of Hanoi the same day. Saigon falls on 25 August.

On 28 August the Viet Minh announce the formation of the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV - North Vietnam) with Ho as president and minister of foreign affairs. Ho will remain as president of the DRV until his death in 1969.

Japan formally surrenders on 2 September 1945. The same day, half a million people gather in Hanoi to hear Ho read the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, based on the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. However, the situation remains volatile.

In the north Chinese nationalist forces begin to encroach. Meanwhile nationalist Vietnamese groups begin to object to the ICP domination of the provisional government. Ho compromises, agreeing to a coalition with the nationalists and the holding of a general election in January 1946.

In the south the French begin to reassert control, taking Saigon in October. Within three months they have reoccupied of all of southern Vietnam.

1946 - When the French threaten to extent the reoccupation to northern Vietnam, Ho is forced to compromise. The French agree to recognise the DRV as a free state and permit an election in southern Vietnam if they are allowed a small military presence in the north and if the DRV agrees to join a French Union.

However, the "small military presence" quickly swells to 15,000 troops and the French begin to stonewall during further negotiations held near Paris in France.

On 20 November, following a clashes between French and Vietnamese soldiers, a French cruiser opens fire on the port of Haiphong, on the Red River Delta 90 km east of Hanoi. Almost 6,000 Vietnamese are killed.

On 19 December the French order Viet Minh forces in the Hanoi area to lay down their arms and relinquish their authority. The Viet Minh respond with a counterattack, beginning the First Indochina War. The French soon have control of Hanoi and most provincial capitals in northern and central Vietnam. In 1947 they retake much of the DRV and consolidate their position in the south.

1948 - The Viet Minh regroup, using their estimated 250,000 troops to force the French from some captured territory and to the negotiating table. The entire country is granted nominal independence as an "associated state" within the French Union but the underlying conflict remains.

1949 - On 1 July a French-sponsored Vietnamese Government is established in Saigon. The territory administered by the new government incorporates Kampuchea-Krom (Cochin-China), which is largely inhabited by culturally distinct Khmers (Cambodians). The Khmer-Krom had been hoping for independence, and the inclusion of their ancestral lands into Vietnam will create ongoing tensions that to this day remain unresolved.

1950 - The US recognises the Associated State of Vietnam (ASV - South Vietnam) and sends a group of military advisers to train the South Vietnamese in the use of US weapons. China responds by recognising the DRV and agreeing to provide it with limited assistance. Official recognition of the DRV by the Soviet Union soon follows.

By the end of the year the Viet Minh have taken complete control of the border region with China and re-established a northern liberated zone, from which they launch offensives into the Red River Delta. As disenchantment with the situation grows in France, the Viet Minh wage a guerrilla campaign to wear down the resolve of the French forces inside Vietnam.

1951 - In February the ICP, which had been dissolved in 1945 to obscure its communist affiliation, is reestablished and renamed the Vietnam Workers' Party (VWP). Ho is elected party chairman.

1953 - Most of the North Vietnamese countryside is now under Viet Minh control. In November the French launch a counteroffensive, capturing the strategic town of Dien Bien Phu, close to the border with Laos, in the northwest of the country. Ho indicates a willingness to consider a French peace plan.

1954 - A peace conference is scheduled for 8 May, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, the European centre for the United Nations (UN). In order to maximise their leverage at the bargaining table, the Viet Minh decide to attempt to take a significant French military post just before the conference begins. The target is to be Dien Bien Phu. Over 100,000 Viet Minh troops and almost 100,000 transport workers descend on the area.

The siege of the town begins on 13 March. By 27 March the 15,000 French troops inside have been cut off from all support and supplies. The French surrender on 7 May, the day before the Geneva negotiations are set to begin. About 25,000 Vietnamese and more than 1,500 French troops have died during the siege.

The Geneva peace conference begins on 8 May as planned, continuing until 29 July when a compromise agreement is signed. Vietnam will be divided at the 17th parallel. All French and South Vietnamese forces are to move south of the demarcation line. All Viet Minh forces are to move to its north. France will quit the country completely. National elections to reunify the country under a single government are to be held in July 1956.

The agreement is endorsed by the DRV, France, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. The US and the ASV withhold approval. The country has been effectively divided into a communist North (governed by the DRV) and a noncommunist South (administered by the Vietnamese Government in Saigon). The French are gone. On 24 October US President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers South Vietnam direct economic aid.

1955 - Direct US aid to South Vietnam begins in January. US military advisers begin to arrive the following month. The South Vietnamese Government launches a campaign against communist groups inside its territory. In August it announces that it will not participate in negotiations with the DRV over the national elections scheduled for the following year. On 26 October South Vietnam declares itself the Republic of Vietnam.

1957 - As the communists begin to step up their organised activities in the South, armed "self-defence" groups start to repel independently.

1959 - The country begins to slide into the Second Indochina War, or Vietnam War. Viet Minh troops that moved north following the Geneva agreement filter back into the South to help local communist guerrilla cells, known as the Viet Cong, establish liberated zones.

1960 - On 10 November, the South Vietnamese Government accuses the North of directly aiding the Viet Cong. The following month, on 20 December, the opposition movement in the South, including the Viet Cong, is united into the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front - NLF). Led by noncommunist members, the NLF is a broad coalition of communists, other political parties, and interest groups.

1961 - US President John F. Kennedy decides to increase support for the embattled government of South Vietnam, providing $US65 million worth of military equipment and $US136 million in economic aid. By December 3,200 US military personnel are stationed in Vietnam. Within 12 months the number has increased to 11,200.

The communists respond by unifying all communist armed units in the South into a single People's Liberation Armed Force (PLAF), numbering about 15,000. The NLF is also expanded to include 300,000 members. Land reform programs are begun in liberated areas. The Workers' Liberation Association of Vietnam is established in the cities.

President Kennedy will later reverse his decision and resolve instead to disentangle the US from Vietnam. However he is assassinated before his new program can be implemented. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson will further escalate the US involvement.

1963 - In Saigon on 8 May troops from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) fire into a crowd of Buddhists demonstrating against the South Vietnamese Government, killing nine. The following month a Buddhist monk self-immolates in protest. By the end of the year he has been joined by six others. Student protest erupts at the Saigon University on 24 August. On 1 November the government is overthrown in a US-sanctioned military coup in which the ousted president and his chief adviser are assassinated. The communist party responds by calling for an escalation of the war.

1964 - The communist forces control about half the total land area and about half the population of the South. The PLAF now numbers about 115,000 troops and is supported by troops from the People's Army of Vietnam (North Vietnam) moving down the recently completed 'Ho Chi Minh Trail'.

By July the number of US military personnel in Vietnam has reached 16,000. In August US President Johnson approves air strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases in retaliation for an alleged attack on two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the north coast of Vietnam. In October the Soviet Union promises increased military support for North Vietnam. Meanwhile, the government of the South becomes increasingly destabilised by a series of military and civilian coups, with power changing hands 10 times in 18 months.

1965 - In February the US begins a series of air strikes known as 'Operation Rolling Thunder' against military targets in the North. The following month 3,500 US combat troops arrive in Vietnam. By the end of the year the US force numbers 180,000, the figure growing to 350,000 in the mid-1966. Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines also send combat troops. Opposed against them are an estimated 220,000 PLAF troops.

1966 - The enormous influx of US troops and the heavy US bombing of the North places the communists on the defensive. Digging in for a protracted struggle, they turn to their tried and true tactic of waging a guerrilla war in the countryside while fostering underground resistance in the cities and among the common people.

1967 - US forces in Vietnam now number close to 500,000 and the US bombing raids have extended to within 16 km of the northern border with China. US President Johnson offers to stop the bombing if North Vietnam agrees to peace talks. Ho announces, "We will never agree to negotiate under the threat of bombing." Towards the end of the year the communists begin preparations for a general offensive in the countryside and cities of the South.

1968 - The 'Tet Offensive' begins on 31 January with simultaneous attacks by the communists on five major cities, 100 provincial and district capitals, and many villages. South Vietnamese and US forces are shaken when suicide squads penetrate the heart of Saigon, attacking the presidential palace, radio station, the ARVN's joint general staff compound, Tan Son Nhut airfield, and the US embassy.

While the offensive is contained in a matter of days, the balance has swung in Vietnam. Mounting disaffection with the US involvement in the war, particularly from the peace movement in the West, and a mounting death toll will eventually force the US into a humiliating withdrawal.

On 31 March US President Johnson declares a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and calls for peace talks. A request by the military for an additional 200,000 troops over the 525,000 already stationed in Vietnam is refused.

Meanwhile, the communists press their initiative, launching a series of attacks, including a three-month offensive against the US base at Khe Sanh.

1969 - Peace negotiations between North and South Vietnam, the US and the NLF begin in Paris in January but are destined to draw on for years. In June the NLF forms the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which is immediately recognised by the DRV as the legitimate government of the South.

Ho dies of heart failure on 2 September in Hanoi, six years before the country is reunified. The toll of Vietnamese dead from war will exceed three million, including two million civilians. The conflict will also spread into neighbouring Cambodia where carpet bombing and surface offensives will result in the loss of another 600,000 lives and lead to the rise of the genocidal dictator Pol Pot and the deaths of a further one to three million. US deaths from the Vietnam War will total 58,000.

The Vietnam peace talks draw on as the war becomes more and more unpopular in the West and more and more costly for the Vietnamese. In 1970 the US resumes air attacks on North Vietnam. The communists attempt to maintain the pressure and again shake the South Vietnamese Government and the US when they launch the 'Easter Offensive' on 30 March 1972. The US responds by escalating the air raids.

An agreement on the terms for peace is reached between North Vietnam and the US in October 1972. However, when South Vietnam refuses to believe that the North is sincere the peace negotiations falter. Acting on advice from his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, US President Richard M. Nixon orders massive night-time bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong to demonstrate the resolve of the US and appease the doubters in the South.

During 11 days in December 1972 the 'Christmas Bombing' campaign sees 129 B52 drop 40,000 tons of ordinance in what is said to be the largest raids of their type in history. The North Vietnamese return to the negotiating table and the bombing is stopped.

On 27 January 1973 all parties sign the 'Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam', the so-called 'Paris Accords'. The agreement provides for a ceasefire and the full withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam. By the end of March 1973 all the US combat troops have been withdrawn.

Once they are convinced the US withdrawal will be permanent, the communists again start to move south, easily sweeping aside the now demoralised and ineffective South Vietnamese troops. The communists take Saigon on 30 April 1975, bringing the war finally to an end.

Vietnam is officially reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976. Saigon is renamed Ho Chi Minh City. The VWP changes its name to the Vietnam Communist Party.

The US refuses to recognise the new republic and severs diplomatic relations with Vietnam.

Comment: Ho was a central figure in the movement to free Asia from the shackles of colonialism. He is considered by his supporters to be a patriot who fought selflessly to free his people. Detractors see him as an insincere schemer set on introducing a totalitarian regime. What is true is that under Ho's leadership a poor third world country was able to withstand and defeat the might of the US and finally win its independence. The pragmatism, determination and self-sacrifice that enabled this feat is perhaps the true legacy against which his character should be judged.

Naturally many in the US will never forgive Ho and the Vietnamese for their victory. Even now, 30 years on, much US reportage and political rhetoric concerning Vietnam and the war is begrudging with praise for Vietnam's achievements and too ready to point out faults. Some people just don't get it. The US and its allies never had any business being there.

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http://www.moreorless.au.com/

:thumbsdown:

i noticed quite a few people have a problem with ethnic liberators. Is it the embarassment that america couldn't defeat the country?
I noticed you have pro Lincoln and founding fathers propaganda but an asian liberator drives out an imperial army and all of a sudden something is wrong with that.

He is definitely your hero not mine.

:bounce:

It is nonsense.

Try foreign affairs.

it was wrong for the USA to get involved in Vietnam. But I dont think he was any great hero..he admired Mao and Stalin....what lovely people to look up to.

remember for awhile the atrocities wenrn't known. Allen ginsberg and his wife were vocal stalinists. me i never found anything to suit me in communism. Why is the You denigrate him, but the founding fathers of america were slave owners who wanted to be free. How is it the usa makes him out to be evil when we had a civil war to stop our south from seceding. How many died in the civil war? what 600,000? yet lincoln is viewed as a hero even though he was a rascist.

A lot of people like Bush*, but I doubt you'll use that fact to argue that Bush* is a hero.

Why is the You denigrate him, but the founding fathers of america were slave owners who wanted to be free. How is it the usa makes him out to be evil when we had a civil war to stop our south from seceding. How many died in the civil war? what 600,000? yet lincoln is viewed as a hero even though he was a rascist.

Umm, the crimes of others does nothing to justify Ho's action. I find it revealing that instead of defending Ho, you attack other historical figures that no one mentioned.

And Ho's followers were responsible for the murders of a million plus Innocent people.

It was, what? Two or three million innocent people we killed to get a sitting president reelected?

and anzi germany. Remember only one country incenerated people in an instant, even though the country was about to surrender.

Allen Ginsberg was GAY...he was NEVER MARRIED...do you have any idea what the hell you're talking about? Are you thinking of his father, Louis?

Like Castro, he even reached out to the US (and elsewhere) and sought peaceful resolutions, to no avail. I don't know a ton about him, but what I do suggests that he was not the kind of tyrant that we've accused people like Noreiga and Saddam of being...not even.

On the other hand, I'd find him hard to elevate to 'hero' status because of the historical baggage included, not least because the whole communist thing was A Bad Thing and because he was the enemy in a war that cost a lot of American lives. Vietnamese lives, too, of course, but it's only natural that we'd take sides here even if we recognize his effectiveness as a leader and perhaps even the justness of his cause.

Castro did come out to us, and we supported him against Batista. However, once he took power, his true colors started to show. He soon sided with the Soviets, leading to a big "OOPS" with the CIA. Someone didn't do their homework.

Some felt this betrayal by Castro was what led to our abandoning Ho Chi Minh for the less liked Ngo Diem Ziem (although I've also heard arguments that Degaulle would have made France a Soviet state if we didn't protect their Indochine interests.)

He's still alive and just turned 90 somethign, and was interviewed all around on the 50th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu (hell, I can't remember how to spell it. So shoot me).

Ho Chi Mihn will probably be remembered in much of the developing world as a hero, regardless of what Americans think of him.

Hell, what did most British think of George Washington 30 years after Independence. Oh, wait, we were at war with GB 30 years after Independence.

Never mind.

Let's face it: all of the nationalist, anti-colonial movements of the mid- and late-20th century were driven into the Communist Camp by the West. If the United States had waited until 1936 or 46 or even 56 to case off it's times to GB, we would have been a Communist country.

It's bad enough that Bush* has decided to re-fight the anti-war movement of the 60s and 70s. Let's night fight the entire war over again.

...communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. And I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts.

I think your post is a bit of an overreaction.

I don't think Ho Chi Minh was a hero. A politician and a soldier perhaps, with both very good and very bad qualities.

He did liberate his people from imperialism, but committed horrors on those who didn't want to live under Stalinism.

As an aside, NVA tactics during the war showed a contempt for the lives of their own soldiers, and appointing loyal party men to command the army bolsered Communism at the cost of incompetent commanders. The failed attack on Firebase Coral (where my dad served) is a perfect example of why civilian ideologues shouldn't command troops. Not that I'm complaining, I wouldn't have been born if the NVA had been well led...

"He may come individually, or he may come in strength. He may come in the uniform of our own troops."

"I don't think it's quite fair to condemn the whole program because of a single slip up."

Ahh, good stuff!

shrub in his academic, business, and political career, dontcha think?;)

why?

as well as arts and sciences. Do you have a problem with unbiased facts? I presented the timeline and people are so biased, and jingoistic the best reason i heard was, he was involved in a war that killed many americans. So what? We had no business there. Remember we killed millions of civillians during vietnam. yet ho chi minh is somehow bad? We dropped atmoic weapons (the only i might add) Yet ho the liberator and the communists are evil. not to mention the people whom you are most likely to see as communists were about as communist as bush is christ like.

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for them to be free from the french. Versus Ho who did it. I want you to denounce the founding fathers and every amerian president since they were liberated by force, and most have been responsible for innocent deaths.

If it sounds familiar, there is a reason for that.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5139 /

All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French colony and had become a Japanese possession.

After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not from the French.

The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Vietnam and we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland.

The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.

We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.

I have noticed that a lot of people here have an intense dislike of Ho Chi Minh. What I have not noticed however, is any specific reasons given for that. I have heard him called a Communist, which he was, but that in itself only serves to explain why Senator McCarthy didn't like him.

I have heard others denounce him merely because he was "the enemy". Are you serious? Just because the American government declares someone the enemy, this makes them the bad guy? It seems strange to have to point this out at DU, but the American government is often completely full of Horseshit. Yes, a lot of people died because of that but Ho Chi Minh didn't make that call, WE did.

So what is it? I have an open mind and am no expert on Ho, if there is good reason to despise the man I would like to know. I am asking because the arguments agains him so far in this thread lack substance. Enlighten me.

why he would be considered a hero (after all he did help drive the French and the US out of Vietnam), the communists really were not "good guys" in any sense either.

After all, the communists invaded Cambodia just a few years after they defeated the US. They also treated the South Vietnamese very poorly in the aftermath, accusing many of being American collaborators, etc.

Also we supported the khmer rouge while downplaying the atrocities they commited.







The United States slaughtered somewhere north of half a million Cambodians from 1969-75 and utterly devastated the country.

Roughly half-a-million to one million more people died from starvation and disease in the following period, due to this devastation.

about the Us downplaying the Khmer Rouge's atrocities.

I just think that "hero" is too simplistic a term. Ho was a complex person, who accomplished some good, but I don't really think that communism sweeping through the country was necessarilly a good thing.

as a liberator hero is a definate label. Of course it will be hard to see that as an american. But if you go around the world he is on the list with mlk and fdr and the rest.

dedicated his life to freeing his country from imperalists that stealing his countrys resources and subverting their culture.

While everyone is busy assaulting this individual for his ties to communism, I'd like to point to a portion of his biography that is almost always overlooked, or at the very least not examined for its true meaning.

As the original poster put it, "During the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference he attempts to present United States President Woodrow Wilson with a proposal for Vietnam's independence, but is turned away. The proposal is never officially acknowledged."

For those not familiar with the post-WWI peace process, it was a sham. And that's a kind word. Armenians and Vietnamese, among many other groups who were mostly what out current resident would call "brown skinned," that is anyone not of the anglo-European mold, were completely ignored at Versailles, and some of those groups took it very personally. The person known to history as Ho Chi Minh was a strong supporter of the United States until Wilson snubbed him, that is, until proved what a hypocrite his war to make the world "safe for democracy" truly was. Wilson's pronouncement had resonated strongly with people like Ho Chi Minh, but Wilson, and the rest of the supposed democratic world turned their backs on him and those like him.

In consequence, many third world nations looked for an alternative because they truly were a people longing to be free, yet the freest nation on Earth had turned them away. In the early part of the 20th century, socialism itself was not discredited, that is, not associated naturally with Leninism or Stalinism. People like Minh turned to Marx for his ideas on how a "backward" nation could succeed and advance in the modern world.

They made a deal with the devil to pursue their independence, but the lesser devil had already denied them.

Ho Chi Minh may not be a hero, per se, to us, but the United States, England, and France had a chance to help him be a friend, and they blew it.

One of the great surprises for Marxists everywhere in the 20s was how the revolution had succeeded in a non-industrialized country like Russia. It even led people like Adorno to question the theoretical basis of Marxism! Marx anticipated a revolution in the industrialized nations of Western Europe, not in the 'backwards' nations of the third world.

Certainly Marx did not anticipate what happened, but those nations saw in a certain interpretation of Marxist philosophy a method whereby they could remove themselves from the heal of Western influence.

Is that you, or is it her buddy John Kerry? :-)

if only german citizens would have had as much courage. It was a pointless war in which we were the villans.

At best it was an act of incredibly bad taste and at worst it was out-and-out treachery. She deserves the condemnation for that one, I think, even after her half-hearted 'apology.'



Of course, now shes a wealthy friend of Jesus and has outgrown her radical phase...pity that some of the young men sacrificed in that ultimately pointless conflict -- and the many more Vietnamese men, women, and children who died -- didn't get to outgrow their youth.



Janey's Excellent Hanoi Adventure:

"The men who are ordering you to use these weapons are war criminals according to international law, and in the past, in Germany and Japan, men who committed these kinds of crimes were tried and executed.''

"...one of the only ways that we are going to redeem ourselves as a country for what we have done there is not to hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars. History will judge them severely."

Pfffttthhhhh....

It is outrageous to call Ho a hero. He is nothing more than a brutal opportunist capitalizing on the instability of a nation. He used the rhetoric of freeing vietnam from foreign imperial powers and uniting a country.

What he succeeded in doing is shift Vietnam from one tyranny to another tyranny. Ultimately, the people are STILL the ones to pay for it. And they are still paying for it to this day.

He set up a government that is ruthless and inhumane. You may be interested in political theories and studying about politics. And that is great to do. But please do not glamorize communism while sitting in a democratic country. It is no better than the warmongers who sit at home while soldiers are dying everyday in Iraq.

But the reality is that communism is an assault to civil rights and basic humanity. The communist government in VN are ruthless. They kill and torture innocent people every day. Reeducation camps are still going strong. People live in fear. The government can come into your home at any time, do searches, take whatever they want. You included. They have carte blanche on your lives. "Community Property" means the top 2% owns the property. It does not mean that the people own property. There is no such thing as wealth to the masses. They are desperately poor and the system will make sure they remain so.

Just go to any Vietnamese community outside of VN and ask them what they think of Ho Chi Minh. You can ask the Vietnamese citizens but you'll get carefully structured answers as they do not want to "disappear". There is no love for this brutal opportunist.

So, to compare Ho to that of a hero is not just a stretch, but is offensive and ignorant to the thousands of lives that he and his minions have antagonized, tortured, raped, and killed throughout the years.

Why is it you value american life so much but not non-whites?

Who is sticking up for communism?

Bush is a christian therefore christianity is evil and you should try to eradicate it.

Get the propaganda out of your head. American troops were nothin but war criminals too cowardly to go against there government. Many refused to fight, and bob woodward admitted many who were in the millitary were cowards too afraid to disobey orders.

You're unhinged.

Not just because that'd be inflammatory and unwarranted even if true, but because it most definitely is untrue. Looks like you and Rumsfeld share at least a common contempt for the servicemen who were sent to Vietnam.

Go do something useful, like volunteering for minesweeping duty sans equipment, starting 'Communist Underground,' or dropping the whole agent provocateur bit.

I've talked to many veets, most pissed at teh government, most didn't believe in the war. Shit i come from a millitary family. I just never buy into that oh the poor troops. Bottom line they went along with it, so they are responsible. e could declare war on france tomorrow and still have dumbasses go because they don't want to rock the boat. SAme thing in iraq, killing iraqiis in ok, considering most of it is impersonal, but our 700 troops is devestating.

Are you accusing us of being racist and zenophobic? That's a load of bull crap.

You were the one to start this flame-bait bullshit thread. How did you expect people to respond? Oh yeah, Uncle Ho was a wunnerful wunnerful chap. He was Christ-like in his actions. Blah blah blah.

and also how is ho bad?

I don't care who you admire. Just don't expect us to congratulate you for it. And don't paint us veterans with a broad friggin' brush either. We are not all mindless goons. I left the Army precisely because I didn't want to fight and possibly die in some shit hole for Big Oil.

Peace.

as i tell the them, the point still remains the same:the job is to kill. And for the state at that. America was on the wrong side of the war. Malcolm X even said if one attacks you attack him back, so did confuscious, and thats what vietna, did. 58,000 american soldiers is nothing compared to the millions of asian civillians that were executed. AND america lost at that, to bad ho died before the end to see it defeat imperialists. the same happened to the soviets in afghanistan.

i said i was a communist or even remotely pro communist.

Well done.

Try FR, they need it. Noone in this thread has suggested whitewashing the US intervention in Vietnam.

USA and allies committed atrocities. Viet Cong and NVA commited atrocities. USA and allies believed they were saving S.E. Asia from Communism. NVA and Viet Cong were liberating their country.

Just because one side is bad it doesn't follow the other is good. I am yet to hear of a war from which any side came out looking 100% moral and righteous.

Ho Chi Minh did a great thing in liberating Vietnam from French colonial oppression. That is about where it stops. Every political leader involved in the Vietnam war was wrong. The only moral side was the side of the people. I cannot say that I would have supported the US government whatsoever in the war, but I wouldn't have supported the Vietnamese government either. Both sides put power above human life, and freedom. It is because of the leaders of all countries involved that millions of people died. Governments cause all wars, and I can't support anybody involved in the beaurocracy that plays with people's lives.

its the american war. they wanted peace for the longest time. America was the aggressor. What did you expect them to do?

and Che Guevara), but I'm a big fan of guerrilla warfare (despite the varying ideologies and goals)

had the elections been held in 1956, "possibly 80% of the population would have voted for communist Ho Chi Minh, rather than Chief of State, Bao Dai."

The entire war could have been prevented had the US not blocked the elections that year as provided under the Geneva Accords.

Ho Chi Minh was most definitely the one and only LEGITIMATE leader of Vietnam.

Like Nathaniel Bedford Forrest is a hero.

Forrest, btw, was a badass. During the Civil War he personally killed 29 men and had 30 horses shot out from under him during battle. He was particularly badass at Fallen Timbers protecting the Confederate retreat from Shiloh. He was never defeated in the field by Union forces (or at all I reckon). He is by most accounts a fearsome dude, respected (in terms of his military ability) by Sherman and Grant. He also was probably responsible for the massacre at Fort Pillow and resold into slavery any black troops he captured fighting for the North. Before the war he made his fortunate as a slave-trader and afterwards was the first head of the KKK. So basically he was a big badass, but a huge asshole.

Same with Ho Chi Minh. He may have been a good leader, but he was a dick.

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.... My paramount object in the struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery"





"i have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.... I have no purpose, either directly of indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Good god, you move from one flame-bait topic to another without missing a beat.

ones? Just curious as to what your game is.

and non-white leaders are somehow criminal, and evil?

Look at the facts. Wow america is the only country to nuke another nation. Since i say it i must enjoy tearing down american illusions. If a racist is you icon, i think that speaks for itself.

I never indicated, in any post, that we Americans are god's chosen or that we are better than others.

No people with any ethnic pride want to be colonials ruled by a
foreign power - he did the right thing for his people, and if the
U.S. and its allies (which included my country) had butted out,
there could have been a relatively smooth transition to self-rule
for the Vietnamese people.

I do agree, with perfect hindsight, that we should have left them to sort out their own problems.

As for hindsight - remember, there were many, many people all over
the world who were against interfering in Vietnam at least from 1964. Prior to that, to be honest, most westerners were
hardly aware of its existence.