Ho Chi Minh

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Image:Hochiminh.jpg Hồ Chí Minh Template:Audio (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969) was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became Prime Minister (1946-1955) and President (1955-1969) of North Vietnam.

He was originally named Nguyễn Sinh Cung, is also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành, Nguyễn Ái Quốc (a name which means "Nguyễn the patriot"), Lý Thụy, Hồ Quang (among others) and is popularly called Bác Hồ (Uncle Hồ) in Vietnam. He is most famous for establishing communist control in part of Vietnam.

1 Biography
2 Quotes
3 Further reading
4 External links

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Biography

Hồ Chí Minh was born in Hoàng Trù Village (maternal homeland) and lived there in the earliest period of his life (1890 - 1895) and grew up in Kim Liên Village (paternal homeland), Nam Đàn District, Nghệ An Province, Vietnam. Following Confucian traditions, he received the name Nguyễn Tất Thành at age 10. He had two siblings, his brother Nguyễn Tất Đạt (or Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm), a geomancer and traditional herbalist and his sister Bạch Liên (or Nguyễn Thị Thanh) who worked as a clerk in the French Army.

His father, Nguyễn Sinh Sắc, was a Confucian scholar, and he himself received a strong Confucian upbringing. He also received a modern secondary education at a French-style lycée in Huế, the alma mater of his later disciples, Phạm Văn Ðồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp. Hồ Chí Minh applied for a course at the French "Colonial Administrative School" immediately after he arrived in Marseille. However, his application was rejected. (This document is still preserved at the National Archives of France. Historian Nguyen The Anh has photocopied and published it in his books.)

In 1911, Hồ Chí Minh went to the South to Gia Dinh (Saigon) and joined a ship en route to Marseille, France as a cabin-boy. Hồ Chí Minh’s first time abroad was not easy, he worked hard, such as being a cleaner, waiter, cook helper, film developer. On the other hand, he was very excited with what he learned from a totally different world each day. He often went to the public library, read newspapers and paid close attention to the current affairs and political issues.

He lived in England in the period 1913 - 1917 where he trained as a pastry chef under the legendary French master, Escoffier, at the Carlton Hotel in the Haymarket, Westminster. There is a commemorative [Blue Plaque] on the building, which is now the New Zealand House.

Hồ Chí Minh embraced Communism while living abroad in France from 1917 - 1923. Following World War I, as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, on behalf of the "Group of Vietnamese Patriots" he petitioned the great powers at the Versailles peace talks for equal rights in French Indochina but was ignored. He asked sitting U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to overthrow the French in Vietnam and to have a free democratic government, but was ignored. He soon helped form the French Communist Party and spent much time in Moscow. He later moved to Guangzhou, China, where he founded the Communist Party of Indochina. Image:Ho-Chi-Minh.jpg He returned to Vietnam in 1941 to lead the Việt Minh independence movement, conducting successful military actions against the Japanese occupation forces and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946-1954). He adopted the name Hồ Chí Minh, a Sino-Vietnamese name with a common surname (Hồ ) and a given name meaning aspiring (Chí) to light (Minh) in August 1942 while sojourning in China. He was jailed for many months by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities. After his release he returned to Vietnam. After the August Revolution (1945) organized by Việt Minh, he became Chairman of Provisional Government (Premier) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam), when he forced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, but this government was not recognised internationally.

He signed an agreement with France which recognized Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union on March 6, 1946, but that compromise did not prevent war. That December the French tried to re-establish their colonial rule in the country following the Chinese withdrawal from the North in exchange for French-occupied territories in China. Hồ Chí Minh was almost captured by a group of French soldiers led by Jean-Etienne Valluy at Việt Bắc, but he was able to escape.

Hồ Chí Minh became President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) in 1955.

During the period from 1953 to 1956, elements within the government of Hồ Chí Minh conducted the Land Reform Campaign, possibly inspired by the Land Reform of Mao Zedong. During this campaign, landlords (who hired peasants working for them) of provinces in the North of Vietnam down to Thanh Hoa province were brought to the so-called People's Courts to be humiliated and, often, executed. While Ho was to later publicly denounce those responsible for the more extreme violence that took place at this time, many of his detractors hold him responsible for the event in question.

During his presidency, Hồ Chí Minh was the center of what his detractors see as a large personality cult in North Vietnam. Former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon (Sàigòn), was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City on 2 July, 1976.

To his supporters Hồ Chí Minh is viewed positively as a committed Nationalist who fought for a united Vietnamese state. To his detractors he was an opportunistic Communist who seized power and created an authoritarian government. They claimed that he mandated the invasion of South Vietnam that resulted in the deaths of over a million of its citizens. Many more, as many as two million, fled South Vietnam after the reunification of Vietnam. Many criticize the Việt Cộng, who were subordinate to him, for terrorism in the South.

Image:Hochiminh mausoleum.jpg Hồ died on the late evening of September 2, 1969 at his home in Hanoi at age 79 from multiple health problems, including diabetes. His embalmed body was put on display in a granite mausoleum modeled after Lenin's Tomb in Moscow. This was consistent with other Communist leaders who have been similarly displayed before and since, including Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il-Sung, and for a time, Josef Stalin, but the "honor" violated Hồ's last wishes. He wished to be cremated and his ashes buried in urns on three Vietnamese hilltops, each in one of the three main regions of Vietnam (North, Central and South). He wrote, "Not only is cremation good from the point of view of hygiene, but it also saves farmland."

In Vietnam today, he is elevated by the Communist government to an almost cult-like status. He is invariably referred to as "Uncle Hồ" at schools and universities. Hồ Chí Minh appears on the Vietnamese currency, and his image is featured prominently in many of Vietnam's public spaces.

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Quotes

"Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty."
"I only follow one party: the Vietnamese party."
"You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win." (referring to France and America in their wars in Vietnam)
"It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery"
"If the Grasshopper does not stop fighting the Elephant, the Elephant will die of exhaustion." (referring to Vietnam War)
“The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man."
"In (Lenin's Theses on the National and Colonial Questions) there were political terms that were difficult to understand. But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. Sitting by myself in my room, I would shout as if I were addressing large crowds: "Dear martyr compatriots! This is what we need, this is our path to liberation!" Since then (the 1920s) I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International!"
"When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."
"It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me."
"Remember the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability."

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