He was known publicly as Ba, or "Second Son.". Hos father was a minor official in the French regime and an ardent critic of French colonialism in Vietnam. But the French were not listening. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence for the Fatherland.. It Went Badly. Hos leadership, calm nature, intellect and frugal way of life made him enormously popular with his people. Ho Chi Minh put to sea from French-occupied Vietnam at the age of 21, in 1911, to work as a cook on a steamship. Around this time, he began to use the name Ho Chi Minh (roughly translated as Bringer of Light). Did you know? Lacouture, Jean. He founded the Indochina Communist Party in 1930 and its successor, the Viet Minh, in 1941. Halberstam, David. 'H Ch Minh', meaning 'H with the will of light', was not his real name. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981. Ho had embraced communism while living abroad in England and France from 1915-23; in 1919, he petitioned the powers at the Versailles peace talks for equal rights in Indochina. Born: May 19, 1890 But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Hanoi: The Gioi Publishers, 2000. When Vietnam was still a French colony, he played an important role in organizing revolutionaries to help end colonization. Digital History This website is created and maintained by Alpha History. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Vo Nguyen Giap He took that name around the time of the August Revolution in 1945. Ho initiated a land reform campaign in 1954. Vietnamese and French forces. After their victory, the Communists put Ho's embalmed body on display, yet the act defied his final wishes. He was brought into the struggle for independence almost from birth. After World War II Ho sought to exploit the power vacuum in Vietnam, declaring independence in September 1945. Ho went on to attend the National After several years as a seaman, he lived in London and then moved to France, where he became a founding member of the . In their book,In Love and War,Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale and his wife Sybil wrote about their lives during the eight years Jim was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Who's Who: North Vietnam | American Experience | PBS Nghe An had been the center of resistance The official date is May 19, 1890, but archives in Paris and Moscow show six different dates from 1890 to 1904 Ho himself aided in the creation of his myth. In Paris, Ho adopted the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Hunter Biden and Other Presidential Problem Kids, These Are the Major 2024 Presidential Candidates, Controversial Judge Aileen Cannon Not Out Just Yet, Russia Wants to Arrest Senator Lindsey Graham, Inside Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters 76-Year Love, 10 Wild Things George Santos Has Said and Done. At this time, the United States subscribed to "domino theory," the idea that the fall of one country in a region to communism would cause the neighboring states to topple like dominoes as well. Quoc became a foundation member of the French Communist Party; shortly after he was sent to Moscow to study Marxist-Leninism and became an Asian agent for Comintern (the Soviet-led Communist International). Americas alliance with the Soviet Union had collapsed and Premier Joseph Stalins forces occupied Eastern Europe. Ho Chi Minh - Vietnamese Nationalism, Viet Minh, First Indochina War Ho Chi Minh was born Nguyen Sinh Cung on May 19, 1890, in a village in central Vietnam (then part of French Indochina) in Nghe province to Hoang Thi Loan, his mother, and Nguyen Sinh Sac. In North Vietnam he was widely viewed as the father of the nation and often referred to as Uncle Ho. On September 2, 1969, Ho Chi-Minh died of heart failure at his home in Hanoi. As the father of Vietnamese nationalism, Hos views were heard and considered with esteemed reverence. Ho Chi Minh - Alpha History In 1935 the Seventh Congress of the International, meeting in Moscow, which he attended as chief delegate for the PCI, officially sanctioned the idea of the Popular Front (an alliance with the noncommunist left against fascism)a policy Ho had advocated for some time. 4. In 1960 Ho Chi-Minh formed the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong to resist the American supported non-communist government in South Vietnam. In November 1924, Ho Chi Minh made his way to Canton, China (now Guangzhou). Many prisons used to hold American POWs were in close proximity to Hanoi, with a few of the more well known jails located directly in Hanoi. To his people, Uncle Ho also remained an important symbol of Vietnams unification. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War, First Indochina War: Battle of Dien Bien Phu, J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. Ho Chi Minh, horoscope for birth date 19 May 1890, born in Hoang Tru Ho Chi Minh. intelligence officers in South China, helping victims of a famine that to 939 c.e. Ho left Vietnam on a French steamer and traveled to several ports of call: Boston, New York, London and eventually settling in Paris, France. As one historian noted, some of the same qualities of Gandhi and Nelson Mandela could be found in Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh - U-S-History.com He later moved to Hong Kong, where he founded the Indochinese Communist Party. Ho Chi Minh, orig. Below is the article summary. Where was Ho Chi Minh born? | Homework.Study.com of World War II (193945), the French tried to regain control of In December, war broke out between visited ports in Europe, Africa, and the United States and began to document.documentElement.className += 'js'; Follow the gripping story of the race against time to save San Francisco and the nation from an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1900. B.C.E. At this same meeting, Ho ceded his position as party secretary-general to Le Duan. against northern Vietnam in 1965, Ho sought to maintain good relations Ho It is difficult to know because Hos life is shrouded in shadows and ambiguities. After Ho's death, Le assumed leadership of North Vietnam. Youth League), whose members. Ho Chi Minh was born Nguyen Sinh Cung in Nghe An province, northern Vietnam. See the Vietnam War unfold through the gripping firsthand accounts of 13 brave men and women forever changed by their experiences. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). As a result, he became a tutor for village children, and the curious, smart little Cung absorbed many of the older kids' lessons. "Biography of Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam." Ten years of imprisonment by the French did not lessen Le's commitment to the Vietminh, or Vietnamese independence movement. Omissions? His political struggles with the West were nearly over. New York: Hyperion, 2000. Emergency Contact - All Locations; International Parental Child Abduction; Arrest or Detention of a U.S. Citizen in Vietnam; . Six months later, from June 17 to July 8, he took an active part in the Fifth Congress of the Communist International, during which he criticized the French Communist Party for not opposing colonialism more vigorously. city of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. Academy in Hu, Vietnam. During World War I (191418), Ho worked in London, England, and and the Ming Dynasty in the fifteenth century. He went on to become the first president of the country. After 1954 Ho Chi Minh remained president of the Democratic Republic of Nghe An had been the center of resistance to the thousand-year Chinese control of Vietnam from 111 b.c.e. Tran Van Tra In this phase of his career, Ho acted more as an arbiter of conflicts among the various factions, allowing the organization of revolutionary action, rather than as an initiator. Szczepanski, Kallie. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. New York: Scribner, 1973. day-to-day responsibilities to others. PDF Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) - Columbia University Adviser, ditions du Seuil, Paris. It remains there today, still open to public view. In 1925 he was sent to China to organize Even into his 70s, Ho walked several kilometres each day. Party strategists defied his wishes by creating a Ho Chi Minh personality cult. Biography of Ho Chi Minh - Marxists Internet Archive He also helped organize the peasants of Guangdong Province, teaching them the basic principles of communism. A contemporary view: At the Geneva peace talks, Vietnam was divided into communist North and non-communist South. The Communist Road to Power. URL: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/ho-chi-minh/ In 1945 Japan overran Indochina, overthrowing its French colonial rulers; when the Japanese surrendered to the Allies six months later, Ho and his Viet Minh forces seized the opportunity, occupied Hanoi, and proclaimed Vietnamese independence. There he joined the Communist party and discovered the writings of .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Vladimir Lenin. On September 2, 1969, the 79-year-old leader of North Vietnam died in Hanoi of heart failure, and he did not get to see his prediction about American war fatigue play out. Clashes between that government and the NLF led the He formed the Thanh Nien (Vietnamese Revolutionary He seized upon Lenin as a practical means of fighting colonialism but his communist internationalism was always qualified by Vietnamese nationalism. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! In her spare time, Loan regaled the children with stories from traditional Vietnamese literature and folk tales. Although Ho reached a settlement agreement with the French in Along the way, he worked as a kitchen hand or waiter, despite being a qualified teacher. Ho was active internationally, As a young man, he traveled around the world working on a French ocean liner. the opposition to French control in the late nineteenth and early He was well-educated and came from a relatively prosperous middle-class family. New York: Knopf, 1986. Photos of the chaos in the streets as men, women and children jostled for space on the last helicopters was broadcast across the world. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. sponsorship and publishing two anticolonial journals. 5. struggles with France and the United States. Ho Chi Minh: Ho Chi Minh was an important figure in the history of Vietnam. Ho began negotiations with the French in efforts to achieve a Chinese withdrawal as well as eventual French recognition of Vietnams independence and reunification of North and South Vietnam. He is next known to have been a schoolmaster in Phan Thiet and then was apprenticed at a technical institute in Saigon. Vietnam and chairman of the Communist Party but slowly turned over Hanoi, Vietnam Kim Lien - the home village of President Ho Chi Minh Inspired by the success of Vladimir Lenins Bolshevik Revolution, he joined the new French Communist Party in 1920 and traveled to Moscow three years later. Some historians have questioned the basis of this personality cult. In April 1927, however, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek began a bloody purge of communists. As a teenager, the intrepid Nguyen Sinh Cung left Vietnam on a world trip that took him to more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Britain and France. As a Politburo member, he participated in discussion and debate. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. In 1924 Quoc travelled to China and worked with the fledgeling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), lecturing on revolutionary tactics at the Huangpo Military Academy. In the United States, the young Vietnamese man observed that Asian immigrants had a chance to make a better life in a much freer atmosphere than those living under colonial rule in Asia. For more information, please visit our FAQ or Terms of Use. At some point, Nguyen stopped in the United States for a few years. Agents from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor of the CIA) supplied Hos inexperienced forces with arms and some training to raid Japanese food storage to feed the starving Vietnamese people. . to 939 The little-known story of Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh's that such a system can be achieved only by revolution and government by This is when his lifelong commitment to communism and American presidents like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon often addressed their tirades and peace proposals to Old Ho and Ho sometimes personally responded but in reality his political authority was limited. Publisher: Alpha History As World War I drew to a close in 1918, leaders of the European powers decided to meet and hash out an armistice in Paris. Ho Chi Minh became the face of the revolution to the people of Vietnam. Independence), an organization demanding independence from French rule Party. September 2, 1969 (aged 79) Hanoi Vietnam Founder: Viet Minh Political Affiliation: French Communist Party Indochinese Communist Party Vietnamese Workers' Party . Vietnam was then a French colony, known as French Indo-China, but under the nominal rule. An associate of Ho Chi Minh, Pham helped establish the Indochinese Communist Party. New York, Random House, 1971. For a time, he lived in the United States . French President Charles De Gaulle warned President Harry Truman that if France couldnt regain its colonies, it may fall to the communists. Despite suffering frostbite to his fingers and nose, Ho Chi Minh quickly learned the basics of organizing a revolution, while carefully steering clear of the developing dispute between Trotsky and Stalin. Overview. Repression returned to Indochina with the fall of the Blum government in 1937, and by 1938 the Popular Front was dead. Ho Chi Minh (originally Nguyen That Thanh) was born on 19 May 1890 in Hoang Tru in central Vietnam. Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. Ho's father, As he grew older, the child had the opportunity to go to school in Hue and learn the Confucian classics and the Chinese language. Ho Chi Minh was born as Nguyen Sinh Cung to Nguyen Sinh Sac. The nation's freedom was short-lived, however, as the French tried to reassert their colonial rule over Vietnam after World War II. The infamous Route 559 that ran along the western border of Vietnam and Laos was nicked named the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By this time, Ho Chi Minh had turned over much of the war effort to his political and military advisors Le Zuan and Vo Nguyen Giap. He became the most significant figurehead of Vietnamese nationalism and leader of North Vietnam. American ground troops and the beginning of a heavy bombing campaign An original founder of the Indochina Communist Party, Le served on North Vietnam's Central Committee under Ho, and directed the formation of an underground Communist organization in South Vietnam. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! Although Nguyen Sinh Sac did not pass the exam on his first attempt, he did relatively well. He made few public appearances but his legacy was kept alive in North Vietnamese for propaganda purposes. Ho Chi Minh. Who Were the Viet Cong and How Did They Affect the War? cook with a French steamship company in 1911. Trans. An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking writings revolutionized our relationship to the natural world andlaunched the modern environmental movement. The victory came at a staggering price: an estimated three million North and South Vietnamese were killed in the struggle. His prudence, his awareness of what it was possible to accomplish, his care not to alienate Moscow, and the influence that he already had achieved among the Vietnamese Communists can be seen in these actions. Biography of Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam - ThoughtCo On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with himself as president. Nationalist revolutionary Ho Chi-Minh was president of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1969. In 1911, Nguyen Tat Thanh took a job as a cook's helper aboard a ship. Modeled on land Many of the leaders of In 1911 he found work on a French steamer and traveled the world, then spent six years in France, where he became a socialist. He ranks among the most famous and influential politicians of the 20th century. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Oppenheimer and Truman Met Once. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was named after Ho Chi Minh and was a military supply route used by the Viet Minh to send supplies from North Vietnam (via Laos and Cambodia) to supporters in South Vietnam. and supplies from both Communist powers. After all, Karl Marx had identified imperialism as the last stage of capitalism. Under these adverse conditions, Ho's regime in the North became rigidly totalitarian. In July an agreement was a single party. In January 1924, following the death of Lenin, he published a moving farewell to the founder of the Soviet Union in Pravda. They received support from the Soviets and from the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong after the Chinese Communists' victory over the Nationalists in 1949. Ho Chi Minh Born Nguyen Sinh Cung, and known as "Uncle Ho," Ho Chi Minh led the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945-69. Ho was born Nguyen That Thanh on May 19, 1890, in the village of Kim Lien, province of Nghe An, central Vietnam, into a . if ( 'querySelector' in document && 'addEventListener' in window ) { Jump to: navigation . Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the North Vietnamese when war with America broke out. Ho backed the decisions of the Politburo, whether or not he personally agreed with them. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, accepting the surrender of South Vietnam later in the day, remarked, You have nothing to fear; between Vietnamese there are no victors and no vanquished. Ho Chi Minh Biography - Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline He was moving toward the image of national hero. But in October 1946, a French cruiser opened fire on the town of Haiphong after a clash between French and Vietnamese soldiers. Ho Chi Minh was born Nguyen Sinh Cung on May 19, 1890, in a village in central Vietnam (then part of French Indochina) in Nghe province to Hoang Thi Loan, his mother, and Nguyen Sinh Sac. A booklet written in 1948 under the name of Tran Dan Tien describes President Ho as a modest man of the people who was nonetheless the father of the nation and a hero greater than Le Loi and other luminaries of Vietnamese history.