IndependenceandCommunism:TheHoChiMinhStory

DannyDolan

History4955102:UndergradSeminarinHistory

Dr.Naylor

April20th2017
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The French controlled a large portion of the world through their colonial holdings. These

colonies provided a revenue for France. However, this was done at the expense of the native

people in the region. Resisting colonizing attempts by the British and the Dutch, the Annam

people of Southeast Asia were eventually controlled and colonized by a religious influence of

French Catholicism.1 This region attracted missionaries to convert the native people to

Christianity. The missionaries succeeded and eventually began to influence the region which

attracted the French politically. This led to French control through force for the next 70 years.

French Indochina provided France with agricultural commodities and raw materials.2 The natives

resisted but were not unified. There was no effective leadership to create a revolution. Eventually

Ho Chi Minh filled this role.3 Ho Chi Minh took control and became the leader in charge of the

independence movement. This made Ho was a truly unique figure in the 20th century. Ho Chi

Minh succeeded in creating an independent Vietnam because he took the ideas of anti-

colonialism and combined them along with communism to unite his people. Through

accomplishing this task he established himself as one of the most successful nationalist

revolutionary leaders of the 20th century.

Ho Chi Minh was born as Nguyn Sinh Cung in 1890. He was raised in the city of Kim Lien in

central Indochina. In his early life, he was taught by his father, who was a Confucian scholar, but

received no formal education until he was fourteen. His father was a government official in the

region but was a radical who did not appreciate the French control of his country. This was the

first experience of nationalism that the young Ho would come across. This early paternal

1David Halberstam, Ho (New York: Random House, 1971), 6-7.

2Ibid., 6.

3 Even though he went by many different names in his lifetime, for simplicity he will be referred to as Ho
Chi Minh in this paper.
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influence on his ideology had a profound influence on his life.4 His father disagreed with the

policies of France but wanted his son to do well in life so he enrolled the future Ho in a formal

education. Through his early education Ho was taught Mandarin and later he was educated in

French. It became apparent that Ho was gifted intellectually and had an ability to learn languages

quickly. In the Confucian tradition his name was changed by his father in his teenage years to

Nguyn Tt Thnh. This would be the first of many name changes for him. Ho then left Vietnam

in 1911 to gain a greater insight of the world. To leave the country Ho changed his name to Ba,

and was able to find work as a cook on a French steamer. During this time, he was a seaman for

more than three years. Ho was able to visit various African ports and the American cities of

Boston and New York.5 During his time as a sailor he lived in the United States and Great

Britain. He also stopped in Africa at a couple of ports while working on ships. These experiences

allowed Ho to view the outside world and see how people lived when they were not a part of a

colony. This experience continued to press on him reinforcing his beliefs that his homeland

should be free. These beliefs would be expanded on when Ho moved once again, this time to

France.

Ho Chi Minh arrived in France in 1917. He would live there for the next six years. France would

have a great influence on his life. Once becoming accustomed to France, Ho became an active

published socialist under the pseudonym of Nguyen Ai Quoc which stands for Nguyen the

Patriot.6 Between his various jobs Ho continued to go out and speak about the contemporary

crimes of colonialism in French Indochina. Through his time in France, Ho became a member of

4 Ibid., 20.

5 Jean Lacouture. Ho Chi Minh. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Accessed March 5 th, 2017
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ho-Chi-Minh

6 Ibid.
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the French Socialist Party. He joined this group because he viewed the other socialists as people

who wanted to change the way the colonial powers controlled their territories. However, during

this time period World War One was rampant in Europe and people were concerned about the

consequences of this conflict. When the war ended, the victors met in France to discuss how the

postwar world would be structured. After reading President Woodrow Wilsons Fourteen Points,

Ho and his companions saw this event as an opportunity for change. They believed that there was

a chance for the victorious countries to grant independence or at least grant a path to freedom to

the colonies across the world. With this goal in mind, Ho wrote a petition to Wilson to try to

convince the President to decolonize colonial holdings. Ho wanted the victors to take

responsibility and give colonial peoples more equal rights. These rights included the idea that

there would be basic freedoms presented to the Annamite people. The document describes such a

stance that they could take by presenting the issue as something the French could be proud of

fixing. After presenting his points, Ho requested similar treatment and an equal chance to find

independence. He presented such a change to the current system of control under the idea that

the Annamite people would associate these positive changes as a creation of a brotherhood

between the two groups of people who would now both as French and Indochinese have the

same rights as each other.7 Unfortunately, by having his words ignored Ho moved on to look for

another way to get his country free. The lack of response by the victorious nations did not sway

his ambition for an independent Indochina. Hos attempted petition actually led to a positive

response from the Annamite people across the world.8 This published argument was the first time

Ho became a well known figure in the Annamite independent movement. A year after the Treaty

7 Nguyen Ai Quoc. "Petition to Woodrow Wilson." Oxford First Source. Nov 29 2016.
http://www.oxfordfirstsource.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199794188.013.0231/acref-
9780199794188-e-231.

8 Lacouture., Ho Chi Minh.

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of Versailles another type of political ideology influenced Ho in such a way that he believed it

would be the casual factor to help decolonize his country. This political ideology was

communism, specifically Leninism.

Until Ho Chi Minh was influenced by Lenins work, French Indochina had no experience with

communism. This was important because Ho Chi Minh was the first man to bring the ideas of

Marxism-Leninism onto the Vietnamese soil. This introduction caused the Vietnamese revolution

to blossom into a uniting movement.9 Ho was first influenced by Lenins work when he first

heard about the success of the Bolshevik Revolution. He was drawn to Lenins ideas because he

saw the ideas as a solution to colonialism in his homeland. Instead of just talking and debating on

a revolution like the French Socialists did, the Bolsheviks just seized the opportunity in front of

them.10 This was something that was not found among his socialist friends. This breakdown

between Ho and the other socialists was brought together during the meeting of Tours in 1920.

During this meeting, Ho Chi Minh placed his full support behind the other socialists that were

not happy with the ideology of the party. In the midst of the debate, Ho was able to give a speech

on his point of view on this issue. He brought up the atrocities placed on the people of Annam by

the French. Ho argued to those gathered by stating Comrades, such is the treatment inflicted

upon more than twenty million Annamese, that is more than half the population of France. And

yet they are said to be under French protection! The Socialist Party must act accordingly in

favour of the oppressed natives.11 Ho spoke this way because he envisioned the French

Socialists as not having the same desire nor ability to perceive the problems with colonialism

9 Le Duan, The Vietnamese Revolution: Fundamental Problems and Essential Tasks. (New York, New
York: International Publishers, 1971), 16.

10 Halberstam, 37.

11 Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh: selected writings 1920 - 1969. (Honolulu, HI: University Press
of the Pacific, 2001), 16.
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that he had been fighting to change. This idea along with Lenins speeches influenced Ho

immensely and caused him to leave the French Socialist Party and become one of the founding

members of the French Communist Party.12 Once becoming a member of the new party, Ho

received support from abroad in ways that he never experienced before. He managed to stay in

France for the next couple of years writing for his newspaper and talking to people about the

ideas of communism.13 France was not the final destination for Ho in his journey to create an

independent Vietnam. He needed more support in order to accomplish his goal. He finally found

a place he could obtain it. This place was the Soviet Union.

Ho Chi Minh began his first journey to the Soviet Union by traveling to Moscow in 1923.

Unfortunately for Ho, his hero Lenin had passed away before he got there. Once arriving in

Moscow he was able to expand on his communist role in the world. Ho had an active

participation in the Fifth Congress of the Communist International. This was a meeting of the

most influential communist leaders around the world. During the meeting, Ho complained that

the French Communists were not doing enough to help unravel colonialism globally. He argued

that the French and British Communist parties do not apply a really active policy with regard to

the colonial peoples, their vast programs remain ineffective, and this, because they go counter to

Leninism.14 Even at a conference on Communism, Ho continued to stress the dire need of

independence in the colonies. He used Lenins idea of arguing against viewing colonialists as

lesser individuals. Lenin along with Ho saw that there was an important group to target for the

Communist revolution which was the role of oppressed colonials. Ho took this a step farther than

Lenin though and also placed this important rhetoric onto the peasant class. He saw the colonists

12 Lacouture. Ho Chi Minh.

13Halberstam, 39.

14 Ho Chi Minh, 25.

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as the oppressed and exploited people Marx wrote about in his original Communist Manifesto.

This was different from the way other communist countries viewed the revolutionary idea

because it did not focus on the industrial workers being the most important factor of causing the

global revolutionary movement of communism. After this meeting, Ho then traveled to Canton in

China to recruit the first members of the Vietnamese Communist movement.

In the Chinese city of Canton there was a small group of Annamese people. This

community had a large number of young individuals who had revolutionary ideas about the

future of French Indochina. These Annamese did not have a leader to rally around and Ho Chi

Minh rose to the occasion. He outmaneuvered his political rivals and ended up becoming the

leader and teacher of this group of revolutionaries. Ho was able to teach these young men in the

ideas of Leninism and molded them to create a revolutionary force. He was fortunate enough to

stay and teach his ideology in China for the next two years. Such fortune changed when he was

no longer welcome there by early 1927. This was because the leader of the Nationalist army of

China, Chiang Kai-shek, had an anti-Communist coup in 1926 in which he successfully seized

power. This coup solidified Chiang Kai-shek as the main leader of China before World War II. In

so doing, Chiang effectively and violently exiled Ho and his fellow Vietnamese Communists.15

Since the Chinese Communists were the first group that were targeted by Chiang Kai-shek the

Vietnamese Communists were able to flee the country with greater ease. This violence against

his ideology did not stop Ho, instead it motivated him to continue to pursue Communism as the

tool to unite his people for decolonization.

Throughout the rest of the 1930s Ho Chi Minh began to build up the Indochina

Communist Party. He also continued to advocate Communism throughout Southeast Asia for the

rest of the 1930s. The main ideas that dealt with the formation of the party were primarily

15 Halberstam, 49-50.
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independence for Indochina. Following this procedure to gain independence the party would

create a system of equality for the people. Such a system would create opportunities for the

colonized who had no rights under imperialism.16 This was the idealistic view presented by Hos

the finest scenario for the future Vietnam. This vision was presented to others as the means for

uniting the country. He urged his followers to embrace Communism as the only ideology that

would create a system of equality and liberation from the colonialists. Ho was able to incite some

minor revolts in Indochina, but they were brutally suppressed by the French.17 Spreading this

idea of independence in Indochina was not an easy task to do, since most of the world had a

negative view of Communism. His effort to spread Communism proved to be difficult. Ho could

not have accomplished this task by himself. He sent his best students to regions of China under

communist control, as well as the Soviet Union to make sure that the Vietnamese Communists

would continue to have backing and voice.18 During one of his journeys to spread the word of

Communism, The British arrested Ho in Hong Kong while trying to reach the Chinese

Communists. His time in prison nearly killed him due to his frailness and susceptibility to

illnesses. At this time in prison, the French requested that he be sent to them to be executed for

his revolutionary diction against their regime. Ironically, he was quietly released by the British

after a few months of imprisonment. Once released, Ho then traveled back to the Soviet Union to

recover from the tuberculosis that was weakening him in prison. This illness affected his status

with the Communist Party because they were displeased with his recent imprisonment. They saw

16 Thomas E Hachey., and Ralph E. Weber, The Awakening of a Sleeping Giant: Third World
Leaders and National Liberation. (Huntington, NY: R.E. Krieger Pub., 1981), 53.

17 George C. Herring. Americas Longest War the United States and Vietnam 1950-1975. (New York:
Wiley, 1979), 3.

18 Halberstam, 49.
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his arrest and illness as a sign of weakness and many in the party viewed his ideas as a faulty

endeavor.

The forties rolled in with the expansion of World War II and this conflict reignited Ho's

resolve for an independent Indochina. At this time, he changed his name to the iconic Ho Chi

Minh. Ho Chi Minh is an important change because it stands for He Who Enlightens.19 When

the Germans defeated the French, and the Japanese invaded French Indochina, Ho believed that

this was now the time to create an independent Indochina. He returned to Vietnam in January

1941 with the purpose of organizing separate groups within the country to create a league of

individuals to fight for independence. At this point in time Ho was a frail and gentle man who

radiated warmth and serenity, he was also a master organizer and determined revolutionary who

was willing to employ the most cold blooded methods in the cause to which he dedicated his

life.20 Ho was determined to make sure that his people would become free. To create an

independent Indochina, he needed to build and establish a political organization that would drive

the imperial regimes from his homeland. This group would need to be created as a nationalist

group to bring people together in order to form an independent nation. In doing so, Ho was able

to organize the Viet Minh. This groups primary goal was creating a new independent Indochina.

However, during the Second World War, the Viet Minh were increasingly used against the

Japanese military forces in Indochina. Ho and his followers planned out attacks for his guerilla

forces in Indochina. Many of these were successful against the military personal of the Vichy

French and the Japanese forces.21 Nevertheless, this organization needed monetary help as well

as an idea of what to do to keep the Japanese at bay. So Ho Chi Minh traveled to China to get the

19 Lacouture., Encyclopedia Britannica

20 Herring, 3.

21 William J. Duiker, Ho Chi Minh: A Life. (New York: Hyperion, 2000), 281.
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help they needed from the Chinese resistance forces. Ho figured that with both countries fighting

against Japan they would be able to gather the funding and the information that the Vietnamese

needed in this war. He was mistaken. Chang Kai-Shek still distrusted Ho after all this time and

then imprisoned him in China for 18 months. Eventually, through his own determination to

survive and his own charisma, the Chinese freed Ho.22The sickly Ho then traveled back to his

country to prepare for another attempt at independence.

Ho Chi Minhs release came at the perfect time because the war was close to ending and

the Japanese were doing all that they could to remain in power. While Ho was in prison, many

young Viet Minh were placed in charge of leading the forces into conflict against the Japanese

power. One of these commanders was named Vo Nguyen Giap. He would eventually rise though

the ranks of military leaders and become the principle commander of the Viet Minh forces while

working along with Ho. The Japanese were frantically trying to keep control of the situation in

Indochina. In a move of desperation, the Japanese took complete control of the country from the

Vichy French forces and administered the country through the Annam Emperor Bao Dai. Under

Emperor Bao Dai, the Japanese had the country declared independent from the French Empire

and proclaimed Indochina was a part of the greater Japanese Empire. At this time the countrys

name of Indochina was changed to Vietnam. The Japanese takeover limited the amount of

information that the Americans could get on the Japanese positons in the region. The Americans

became willing to barter for information from any outside source. Ho and the Viet Minh took up

this cause for gathering information about the Japanese in Vietnam for the Americans and began

providing it to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Air Ground Aid Services

22 Pierre Brocheux, Ho Chi Minh: A Biography, trans. Claire Duiker (New New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), 81.
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(AGAS).23 Working together, the forces of Viet Minh and the AGAS were able push back the

Japanese forces. This relationship between the Viet Minh and the American intelligence groups

was beneficial to both. The Viet Minh provided intelligence to the Allies in order to receive a

communication line to the Americans and military aid to Hos forces. The OSS even helped train

some of Hos guerilla forces for continued military conflict. This was a major benefit for Ho

because he saw this relationship as the first step for recognition of his country by America.24 This

relationship continued until World War II ended with the Japanese surrender to the Allied forces

on September 2nd 1945. Ho Chi Minh and his forces had been preparing for this day for years and

saw the occasion as the right time to officially declare independence from all powers. The Viet

Minh began planning their movement against the remaining forces in Vietnam in August 1945.

The Vietnamese Communists met on the 12th of August to decide when to move to launch a

direct insurrection across the country. Ho argued that as soon as there was word of Japans

surrender they should strike.25 After deciding on when to strike, the Viet Minh came up with a list

of ten great policies on the basis of an independent country that has liberty and social justice for

everyone. They also came up with a five-man National Liberation Committee which placed Ho

Chi Minh as the chairman.26 This position gave Ho the legal power and right needed to lead the

revolution and be in charge of the future provisional government. This August Revolution only

lasted two weeks. The two weeks was more then enough time for the Viet Minh gain control in

the country. Within this time, the Viet Minh seized control of almost all the towns and cities that

were under control of the remaining Japanese forces. This takeover included the capitol of

23 Ibid., 88.

24 Ibid., 89.

25 Duiker., 304.

26 Ibid., 306.
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Vietnam, Saigon. The Viet Minh systematically and swiftly took control of local governments in

these locations and began running them under his partys ideology.27 In the days following the

takeover of the country, Ho met with Emperor Bao Dai to discuss the future of Vietnam. During

this meeting Ho persuaded Dai to abdicate the throne. Such an event caused more Vietnamese

people to respect him and gave Hos movement more of a legitimate claim to ruling the country.

On September 2nd, after the Japanese surrender, Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independent in a

speech he gave to the people of Vietnam. His speech became know as the Proclamation of

Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. This Speech delivered the groundwork

and foundation for the law of the land. In this speech there are instances in which he points out a

parallel between the American Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of

Man and of the Citizen including the beginning which states that the ability to be happy, free and

equal are undeniable truths.28 This was brought up because the documents which are the

backbone of the French government and that represented the rights of man were not equally

distributed to the Vietnamese people. He argued that his people should not be under the control

of hypocrites especially after all of the pain France had brought to his people. Ho describes the

route that he believes the country is heading to as one with a people who have courageously

opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side

with the Allies against the fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and

independent! He continues this idea by stating Vietnam has the right to be a free and

independent countryand in fact it is so already. And thus the entire Vietnamese people are

determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property

27 Ibid., 312.

28 3. Ho Chi Minh, "Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam," in Voices of

Decolonization: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Todd Shepard (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015.),
50.
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in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.29 This Proclamation that Ho wrote

established Vietnam as a free and independent country globally. The Vietnamese nationalists in

the North celebrated the liberation of the country with great elation and festivities over the

independence movement working. This was not the same situation in the South however. The

southern section of Vietnam did not offer the same level of strength politically that the North had

to the Viet Minh. The South was more diverse in the political process and many of these political

ideas did not mesh well with the Viet Minh. The Vietnamese in the South were not unhappy

about becoming independent, they were unhappy about the type of government that would

control the country. The August revolution and Ho Chi Minhs Proclamation of Independence of

the Democratic Republic of Vietnam would become causal factors in the upcoming Vietnam war.

However, the more pressing issue at the time in Vietnam was Frances reaction to the

independence.

The French under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle did not accept such a statement of

independence. In the postwar world no country had officially recognized Vietnam as

independent. This allowed France to still have a claim to Vietnam as one of its own. The French

even had a leader in mind to place back in control of the country. This leader was Bao Dai. Even

though Ho had control of the country there were still supporters of the French staying in power.

The Vietnamese who were not in favor of Ho were in favor of Bao Dai and the comfortable with

the way things used to be under his ruling. The Viet Minh was fiercely against this idea because

they considered Bao Dai as nothing more then a puppet of the foreign regimes. The two sides

met to discuss the political situation of the country diplomatically. Ho did not want a full out war

for independence. He believed that it was possible to come to a peaceful decision on the subject.

Ho personally arrived to discuss the issue leaving his new defense minster Vo Nguyen Giap in

29 Ibid., 52.
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charge of the country. By traveling to the meeting in France, Ho felt that he would be able to get

the best diplomatic solution for Vietnam by representing his people. The French were willing to

allow Vietnam to become independent but the country would still be considered apart of the

French Union.30 The French and the Vietnamese disagreed diplomatically with each other and

could not come to a consensus. The French realizing that they would not get the country back

decided to overthrow Hos government. With British help, the French ousted Ho Chi Minhs

provisional Committee of the South of Saigon in September of 1945.31 Almost immediately after,

preparation for the fighting started. Both sides of the conflict disagreed over the official

beginning of the conflict. Both sides believe the war was started from the other sides aggressive

attacks. The Vietnamese believed that the war started when the French moved back into Saigon

while the French believed the war was started by the Viet Minh attacking the French in Hanoi in

December 1946.32 However there was fighting present in southern Vietnam since the overthrow

and after the attack in December, the conflict spread to the rest of the entire country. Ho

addressed his people on December 20th 1946 with his Appeal for Nation Wide Resistance. In this

short speech Ho addressed the population to resist and unite against the French forces to protect

Vietnam.33 In a separate speech to an interviewer, Ho stated that the upcoming war would be like

a battle between a tiger (Vietnam) and an elephant (France). In such a battle Ho predicted that if

ever the tiger pauses, the elephant will impale him on his mighty tusks. But the tiger will not

pause, and the elephant will die of exhaustion and a loss of blood.34 Such a quote became the

30 Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. (New York: Praeger, 1967), 688.

31 Ibid., 667.

32 Ibid., 667.

33 Ho Chi Minh. Selected Writings, 58.

34 Jean Lacouture, Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography, 171.

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backbone of the Viet Minh fighting strategy. War continued for the next seven years, with Ho Chi

Minh and the now General Vo Nguyen Giap leading the forces. Together they planned and

maneuvered the Viet Minh in battle. The Viet Minh kept the French at bay through guerrilla

warfare and acts of terrorism across the country. Ho realized that without outside support his

forces would fail in the conflict. To achieve success Ho played the Communist Chinese and the

Soviets against each other to receive numerous supplies from both countries.35 The Viet Minh

fighting forces were able to outlast the French because of this outside support. The French

understood the necessity of the outside munitions on the war and decided to cut the Viet Minh

forces off from these supplies. The French planned to draw the Viet Minh out and isolate them

from supplies effetely destroying them. The French believed that they would be able to

constantly resupply from air and that the Viet Minh forces did not have the equipment to knock

their planes out of the sky. Because of this belief, the battle of Dien Bien Phu started.

Unbeknownst to the French, the Vietnamese had effectively trapped the French under General Vo

Nguyen Giaps planning. The Viet Minh had artillery pieces which was unknown to the French

before the battle. These guns decimated French forces on the ground and in the sky. After

fighting for months, the French had ran out of supplies and surrendered.36 This failure of a battle

led to the French government resigning. The new government put in place wanted to come to

peace talks with the Viet Minh forces. With his goal of independence for a united Vietnam finally

within his reach, Ho Chi Minh sent his delegation to meet with the French and the supporters of

Bao Dai to discuss how to avoid future conflict at the Geneva Conference of 1954. Bao Dai

appointed and sent Ngo Dinh Diem as his new prime minster of the southern state of Vietnam.37

35 Herring, 149-150.

36 Halberstam, 102-103.

37 Herring., 48-49.
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Diem was very much against the partition of the country and did what he could to make the

country whole again. The issues on Vietnam produced the Geneva Accords. Through the Geneva

Accords, Vietnam was divided along the 17th parallel until free elections could be held to unite

the country. The time these elections would be held would come in 1956. The northern section

was given to the Ho Chi Minh and his followers. The southern section remained with the

followers of Bao Dai and had the support of the Western countries. 38 Those outside of the

country might have seen such a division as a fair settlement but that was not the case. Compared

to the southern section of Vietnam, the North was a poor country which meant Ho still needed to

go and ask for assistance from his communist allies. Another problem with this document was

the fact that Ho was still unable to have his country united and independent like he had set out to

do. This document was agreed upon by all parties present except the United States and the State

of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The South Vietnam under Diem rejected the document entirely

while the United States simply made a verbal agreement stating that they would not disrupt the

cease fire.39 A year after the conference, the Americans supported Diem as the leader of South

Vietnam. Diem then forced Bao Dai from power and took control of the new Republic of

Vietnam as the countries first president. Diem refused to accept the Geneva Accords idea of

country wide elections because he felt that it would be impossible to have free elections in the

communist controlled North. Diem won the voting in the South and declared this section of the

country to be a free and independent state.40 Ho and his followers felt betrayed that the Geneva

Accords were broken and decided that they needed to do something to bring the country together

again. The United States supported Diem because they saw a spread of communism as the

38 The Pentagon Papers, Section 2, 270-82.

39 Duiker., 459.

40 Brocheux, 164-165.
Dolan 17

beginning of a domino effect in the region. The United States feared that if Vietnam became a

communist state, the rest of the states in the region would follow suite.

The fear of the Americans and the discontent about the Geneva Accords led to a renewed

fighting across Vietnam in 1959. The fighting was for the most part situated in the southern

region of the country with guerilla forces from the North attacking South Vietnamese fighters.

These guerilla forces in the South known as the Viet Cong fought with support from Hanoi with

the goal of uniting the country.41. It was during this time that Ho ceded his position as head of the

Vietnamese Communist Party and began to shift his political activity to behind the scenes. At the

age of 70, Ho had been the leader of the Vietnamese liberation struggle for over 30 years. He

placed one of his most trusted followers, Le Duan, as the head of the Vietnamese Communist

Party.42 However even with less political power from the party he was still the President of the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The war continued with The North Vietnamese building a

supply trail through neighboring Laos and Cambodia designed to bring supplies to the guerilla

fighters in the South. These supplies included everything from troops to military equipment. The

trail was known to the American forces the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Americans targeted this

trail numerous times with bombs and were very successful.43 The Americans and the South

Vietnamese forces continued to decimate the Viet Cong for years. Many American politicians

and soldiers believed that they were winning the war and that it was only a matter of time before

the war would end. Ho and Giap were placed in a situation in which they needed to come up with

a solution to weaken the opposing side. Together they needed to create a situation of which the

Americans and South Vietnamese would lose hope on the outcome of the war. General Giap

41 Halberstam,108.

42 Duiker, 503.

43 Duiker, 517.
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would come up with one of the boldest plans of the war though in which would become the Tet

Offensive in 1968.44 Ho signed off on this idea and the plan was set in motion. The attacks were

selected to take place on the Vietnamese New Year. The strategy of this plan was targeted to go

off with a majority of 80,000 Viet Cong forces attacking many hundred separate locations across

South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive targeted focused on urban locations to limit the amount of air

support that could be used by the Americans. This change caused the American and South

Vietnamese forces to be caught off-guard and they were blindsided by the attack. Overtime, the

American and South Vietnamese forces rebounded and took back the territory that was taken by

the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army. The American people back home were shocked by

the destruction and no longer had faith that the war would end soon.45 The American forces

might have been winning the war militarily but back home they were beginning to lose

politically. Ho only lived long enough into the conflict to see the beginning of peace

negotiations. He died early in the morning of September 2nd 1969 at the age of 79. His goal of

unification of Vietnam was in reach but would come about without him.

Had Ho Chi Minh lived, the conflict could have easily settled before the war continued

on. With his death the war was waged until 1975. Eventually the North managed to win the war

but it took a major cost to do so. In his lifetime, Ho waged one of the longest battles against

imperialists in modern history and was loved by his people because of it. Under Ho the

Vietnamese were brought into a world arena as one of the first among the colonial and

dependent nations to have successfully carried out a national liberation revolution and won

power throughout the land. 46 Throughout his life he was affectionately called Uncle Ho by his

44 Halberstam, 115.

45 Ibid., 115

46 Duan, 14.
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people and he has remained a symbol of Vietnamese unification. Ho was also referred to as a

tough S.O.B by Robert McNamara who could easily able to define his tenacity for fighting for

liberation of his state.47 After the war the former capitol city of South Vietnam, Saigon was

renamed Ho Chi Minh city in his honor. He was one of the few communists who was able to

combine nationalism with communism to bring his country together. To many he is seen as an

innovator who was primarily concerned with the liberation of his country. Ho will always be

seen in a different light because he used the different tool of communism to accomplish his goal.

To this day, Ho Chi Minhs image appears throughout Vietnam as a lasting memory of him and

an enduring symbol of his dedication to the freedom of his homeland.

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47 Henry Trewhitt, McNamara. (New York, 1971), 235.

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