Hồ Chí Minh: Difference between revisions

Inspired by the success of [[Vladimir Lenin]]’s Bolshevik Revolution, he joined the new French Communist Party in 1920 and traveled to Moscow three years later. He soon began recruiting members of a Vietnamese nationalist movement that would form the basis of the Indochinese Communist Party (founded in Hong Kong in 1930) and traveled the world, including Brussels, Paris and Siam (now Thailand), where he worked as a representative of the Communist International organization.

===Founding of North Vietnam===

With the Allied victory in 1945, [[Imperial Japan]]ese forces withdrew from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control of an independent Vietnam. Led by Vo Nguyen Giap, Viet Minh forces seized the northern city of Hanoi and declared a Democratic State of Vietnam (known commonly as North Vietnam) with Ho as president. Bao Dai abdicated in favor of the revolution, but French military troops gained control of southern Vietnam, including Saigon, and Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese forces moved into the north according to the terms of an Allied agreement. Ho began negotiations with the French in efforts to achieve a Chinese withdrawal as well as eventual French recognition of Vietnam’s independence and reunification of North and South Vietnam. He also gained [[Mao Zedong]] and the [[Communist Party of China]] as allies for added assistance against Chiang Kai-shek's forces. But in October 1946, a French cruiser opened fire on the town of Haiphong after a clash between French and Vietnamese soldiers. Despite Ho’s best efforts to maintain peace, his more militant followers called for war, which broke out that December.

===Vietnam War===

During the First Indochina War, the French returned Bao Dai to power and set up the state of Vietnam (South Vietnam) in July 1949, with Saigon as its capital. Armed conflict between the two states continued until a decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu ended in French defeat by Viet Minh forces. The subsequent treaty negotiations at Geneva (at which Ho was represented by his associate Pham Van Dong) partitioned Indochina and called for elections for reunification in 1956.

At this same meeting, Ho ceded his position as party secretary-general to [[Le Duan]]. He would remain nominally as North Vietnam’s head of state during the Vietnam War, but would take a more behind-the-scenes role. To his people, “Uncle Ho” also remained an important symbol of Vietnam’s unification. The U.S. continued to increase its support of South Vietnam, sending economic aid and–beginning in December 1961–military troops. American air strikes against North Vietnam began in 1965, and in July 1966, Ho sent a message to the country’s people that “nothing is as dear to the heart of the Vietnamese as independence and liberation.” This became the motto of the North Vietnamese cause.

==Villainy==

Ho Chi Minh's government spearheaded a campaign of land reform beginning in 1953. Hundreds of thousands of citizens were accused of being landlords and were summarily executed or [[Torture|tortured]] and starved in [[Concentration Camp|concentration camps]]. More than 172,000 people died during the North Vietnam campaign after being classified as landowners and wealthy farmers, official records of the time show. Multiple sources classify the murders as a [[genocide]], with estimates of the number of people killed ranging from 200,000 to 900,000 people.