Ho Chi Minh

Did You Know?

• At various times he used four other birth years besides 1890: 1891, 1892, 1894, and 1895.
• He worked as a kitchen helper on a French merchant steamer, the Amiral de Latouche-Tréville, departing on 5 June 1911.
• In Rio de Janeiro in 1912, he met black union leader José Leandro 'Pernambuco' da Silva, whose struggle he later recounted in an article.
• He claimed to have attended meetings of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and was influenced by Marcus Garvey.

In the Soviet Union and China

In 1923, Hồ left Paris for Moscow using the passport name Chen Vang, a Chinese merchant. There he worked for the Comintern, studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, and attended Lenin's funeral in January 1924. He participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924. Later that year or early 1925, he was dispatched to Canton, China, to assist and interpret for Mikhail Borodin, the Comintern envoy to the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee. In Canton, Hồ organized the Association of Vietnamese Youth and opened a political training school. From 1925 to 1926, he held Youth Education Classes and gave socialist lectures at the Whampoa Military Academy. He married a Chinese woman, Zeng Xueming, on 18 October 1926, despite objections from his comrades.

Viet Minh movement

In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement, a communist-led united front opposing the Japanese occupation. The Japanese occupation of Indochina that year created an opportunity for patriotic Vietnamese. The Việt Minh operated with a 10,000-member guerrilla force known as the men in black. Hồ oversaw successful military actions against Vichy France and Japanese forces, supported clandestinely by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. He was jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities but rescued by Chinese Communists. After his release in 1943, he returned to Vietnam and began regularly using the name Hồ Chí Minh, meaning Bright spirit or Clear will, a tribute to General Hou Zhiming who helped free him. In April 1945, he met OSS agent Archimedes Patti, offering intelligence in exchange for a line of communication. The OSS later sent a team to train his men, and an OSS doctor treated Hồ for malaria and dysentery. Following the August Revolution, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government and issued a Proclamation of Independence, though no country recognized his government. He petitioned President Harry S. Truman for support, citing the Atlantic Charter, but received no response. In 1946, he met future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in Paris and suggested Ben-Gurion establish his Jewish state in Vietnam, which Ben-Gurion declined.

Leadership of North Vietnam

The 1954 Geneva Accords ended the French-Việt Minh conflict, allowing Việt Minh troops to gather in the north while anti-communist factions took the south. Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam moved its capital to Hanoi, becoming North Vietnam's one-party communist state. A 300-day window permitted free movement between the two zones. During this time, Ngô Đình Diệm and CIA adviser Edward Lansdale urged northerners, especially Catholics, to relocate southward. Ultimately, between 800,000 and one million people made the move, driven largely by personal conviction rather than CIA operations. The Geneva participants all wanted reunification elections but could not settle on terms. Phạm Văn Đồng proposed local commissions to oversee voting; the U.S., backed by Britain and the Associated States, pushed for UN supervision. Soviet delegate Vyacheslav Molotov rejected that, insisting on a commission with equal communist and non-communist members, where unanimous agreement was needed for major decisions. No election date was agreed upon. North Vietnam demanded elections within six months of the ceasefire; the West refused a deadline. Molotov first suggested June 1955, then any time in 1955, and finally July 1956. Diệm backed elections only with robust international oversight, arguing fair votes were impossible under North Vietnam's totalitarian system.

Vietnam War

As early as June 1956, the North Vietnamese Politburo discussed overthrowing the Republic of Vietnam government. In 1959, Hồ Chí Minh urged the Politburo to send aid to the Việt Cộng in South Vietnam; a people's war on the South was approved in January 1959 and confirmed in March. North Vietnam invaded Laos in July 1959 with the Pathet Lao, using 30,000 men to build supply and reinforcement routes through Laos and Cambodia, known as the Hồ Chí Minh trail. To counter accusations of violating the Geneva Accord, communist propaganda stressed the Việt Cộng's independence. North Vietnam created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 as a united front. At the end of 1959, aware that planned elections would never be held, Hồ informally chose Lê Duẩn as next party leader, interpreted as a loss of influence for Hồ, who was said to prefer Võ Nguyên Giáp. Hồ stepped down as General Secretary in September 1960; Lê Duẩn became party leader, leaving Hồ as head of state and Politburo member, though he retained considerable influence. The Politburo was divided between North First and South First factions. Between 1961 and 1963, 40,000 Communist soldiers infiltrated South Vietnam from the North.