Dictator of the Month: March, 2002Dictator of the Month: March, 2002
| Hồ
Chí Minh
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: Ho Chi Minh
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Ho Chi Minh (Vietnamese "Hồ Chí Minh") (originally named Nguyễn Sinh Cung, and known as "Bác Hồ" (Uncle Ho) in Vietnam) (May 19, 1890 - September 3, 1969) was a Vietnamese revolutionary, statesman, Prime Minister (1954) and President (1954 - 1969) of North Vietnam. Biography Ho Chi Minh was raised in a poor family; his mother
and youngest sibling died when he was 10 years old; the cause for which is
unknown in official records. Ho Chi Minh grew up with his sister Thanh and
his brother Khien, his communist philosophy is normally traced back to an
uncle of his who was an avid supporter of De Tham, an anti-French
Vietnamese nationalist guerilla. Later in life both his brother and sister
became anti-French militants. His schooling and upbringing were typical for a
Vietnamese child of the time, and he was schooled in both Vietnamese and
French. He was allegedly expelled from school for refusing to speak
French, although official records indicate that his expulsion was due to
poor grades. He did eventually return to school to graduate and in 1911 he
ironically got his first job as a French teacher. Later that year he mysteriously vanished and
resurfaced three months later when he enrolled in a vocational school to
study navigation. This line of study did not last long, and Ho left
Vietnam several months later at the age of 22 as a mess boy on the ship
Latouche-Treville. After his stint as mess boy, Ho eventually landed in
London, England, but he was unsuccessful in finding gainful employment and
found himself unemployed for long periods of time. In England he spent
much time reading revolutionary literature until 1917, when he emigrated
to Paris, France, despite his eligibility for conscription into the First
World War. In Paris, Ho changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc. During his stay in Paris, Ho often lived in abject
penury but was very active with political demonstrations, and he became a
member of the French Communist Party which proved to be very instrumental
in shaping his political dispensations but also in assisting his ability
for public discourse. He ultimately left France in 1923 Ho spent the next few years extremely active in the
international Communist movement, attending numerous conferences in
Moscow, and Canton, China, and writing regularly for the Communist Press
in Moscow. In 1925, Ho traveled to Hong Kong and was promptly
arrested for conspiracy, but feigned his death in prison and escaped. During the Second World War, he traveled to China in
1942 to improve relations with the Chinese government but was jailed,
where he was housed with hardened criminals and treated as such. After
numerous abuses in prison, including a forced march while chained and
yoked, he was released 15 months later, allied himself with the
Chinese government, and with their backing he became a partisan against
the Japanese occupation army in Vietnam, although there was concern at the
time that the Chinese would not leave Vietnam after the Japanese were
expelled. After the war, it became evident that the French
would not withdraw from Indochina, and Ho Chi Minh and General Giap began
to mobilize the population against the French occupation in December 1946
by recruiting many normal civilians into their ranks, including children.
In the next few years, the Viet Minh (or Vietnamese Army) then engaged in
a nationwide terrorist and guerilla war against the French. Critics of the French note that the French’s
largest mistake in their attempt to hold Indochina was that they never
took the Viet Minh seriously and never understood the commitment of the
Vietnamese to become independent, although the French did succeed in
winning almost every battle that they engaged the Viet Minh, the Viet
Minh’s numbers and popular support with the population made it almost
impossible for the French to retain control. The guerilla war dragged on
for years and eventually wore the French down to the point that they
eventually withdrew on March 13, 1954, after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu. On 20 July 1954 the Geneva Accord was signed dividing
the country on the 17th parallel into 2 countries; North
Vietnam would be controlled by Communist Ho Chi Minh, and South Vietnam
would be controlled by US backed Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem proved to be a
ruthless dictator, jailing or killing political opponents and canceling
the elections of 1956 due to his perception that the Communists would win. In 1959, the Communists in the North formed and
backed the Viet Cong, which was basically a continuation of the Viet Minh,
and began engaging a guerilla war on the South Vietnamese and US advisory
troops. As Diem’s popularity continued to falter in the South, he became
more oppressive to the point where popular support in the South no longer
supported the South Vietnamese but rather the Viet Cong by 1963. On 01 November 1963, South Vietnamese generals staged
a coup d’etat, murdered Diem and seized control of the South Vietnamese
government, but the generals that succeeded Diem did not improve the
situation. The war against the Americans much resembled the war against
the French, continuing to drag on as popular support in the South
continued to increase to Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh created a cult of
personality during his reign, and after his death, this became even more
prevalent, as he was considered the saviour of the Vietnamese people Ho died on September 2, 1969 at age 79. His embalmed
body was put on display in a granite mausoleum modeled on Lenin's tomb in
Moscow. This was consistent with other Communist leaders who have been
similarly displayed before and since, including Mao Zedong, Kim Il-Sung,
and for a time, Josef Stalin, but the "honor" violated Ho's last
wishes. He wished to be cremated and his ashes buried in urns on three
Vietnamese hilltops. Commentary Although a massively popular and successful leader,
one should not mistake that Ho was clearly a hard-line Bolshevik, with
Communism dictating his entire life. A true populist, he often dressed in
peasant clothes and was very soft-spoken. It should be noted that although
a darling to pro-Marxists and the left wing, to those who were forced to
flee Vietnam as political refugees, Ho is absolutely despised. Moreover
his “independence at any cost” policy that often used women and
children as suicide bombers is considered by many to be less than laudable. Article written by www.dictatorofthemonth.com using
the following sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh
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