Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969)

Ho Chi Minh, statesman of the Vietnamese Revolution and the most influential political leader of modern Vietnam, was born Nguyen Sinh Cung in a village of Nghe An province in central Vietnam, in 1890. Influenced by his father, who was a Confucian scholar and a nationalist resisting the French occupation, Ho grew up a patriot and a revolutionary and devoted his life for a single goal: to free the Vietnamese from the yoke of imperialism. In pursuit of his goal, Ho roamed the globe using many pseudonyms, exploring various political principles and mastering major world languages like English, French, Russian, and Chinese. His nationalism inspired the Vietnamese people to sacrifice their lives fighting first the French and later the Americans, for the liberation and the unification of Vietnam.

Ho rejected French domination but attending a French-established school, the prestigious National Academy (Quoc Hoc), in Hue, on the benches of which Ho learned about the French ideological principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, which would mold his life. Curious of the application of these political [Page 690]theories in France, Ho left Vietnam for France in 1911, joining an ocean liner as a kitchen helper. By then, Ho had earned the reputation as a troublemaker and was listed in the French police dossiers because of his involvement in a series of tax revolts. Until 1917, Ho moved from one country to another, admiring the legal rights enjoyed by American citizens while living in America. He also mingled with the Irish nationalists, Fabian socialists, and Chinese and Indian workers while working as a pastry cook at the Carlton Hotel in London.

It was during his stay in Paris from 1917 to 1923 that Ho discovered his path to revolution. Using a new name, Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), Ho became associated with socialist groups. Months of extensive reading and serious discussions with people like Jules Raveau, a veteran Marxist who had ties with V. I. Lenin before the Russian Revolution, broadened Ho's thought. In 1919, when President Woodrow Wilson came to Versailles to sign the treaty ending World War I, Ho submitted a letter appealing Wilson's support for democratic and other reforms for Vietnam, assuming that the president's doctrine of self-determination applied also to Asia. His appeal was ignored but his action attracted the French socialists like Jean Longuet and Leon Blum, later prime minister of French, who were critics of colonialism. In December 1920, they invited Ho to attend their congress held in Tours as representative from Indochina. During the congress, a majority of socialists, influenced by the Russian Revolution, had broken away to form the French Communist Party. Believing that their Soviet patrons had the power to instigate the global revolution that would liberate Vietnam, Ho joined the group and became one of its founding members. However, he often criticized the party for its lack of interest in the affairs of the people under colonial rule. During this period, Ho wrote for a French communist daily and edited the monthly anticolonialist journal called Le Paria (The Outcast). As his writings were smuggled back into Vietnam, many Vietnamese for the first time became familiar with Lenin's thesis that revolution and anti-colonial resistance were inseparable.

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