Ho Chi Minh: Difference between revisions

[[File:Impasse Compoint.JPG|thumb|A plaque in [[:fr:Villa Compoint{{ill|Compoint Lane]]|fr|Villa Compoint}}, District 17, Paris indicates where Hồ Chí Minh lived from 1921 to 1923]]

In April 1945, he met with the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] agent [[Archimedes Patti]] and offered to provide intelligence, asking only for "a line of communication" between his Viet Minh and the Allies.<ref>Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, [http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981 Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981,]</ref> The OSS agreed to this and later sent a military team of OSS members to train his men and Hồ Chí Minh himself was treated for malaria and dysentery by an OSS doctor.<ref>Interview with OSS officer Carleton Swift, 1981, [http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift Interview with OSS officer Carleton Swift, 1981]</ref>

In 1946, when he traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 2,500 non-Communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee.<ref>Currey, Cecil B. ''Victory At Any Cost'' (Washington: Brassey's, 1997), p. 126 <!-- ISBN ?? --></ref> Hundreds of political opponents were jailed or exiled in July 1946, notably members of the [[Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng|Nationalist Party of Vietnam]] and the [[Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam|Dai Viet National Party]] after a failed attempt to raise a coup against the [[Viet Minh]] government.<ref>Tucker, Spencer. ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a political, social, and military history'' (vol. 2), 1998 <!-- ISBN ?? -->{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</ref> All rival political parties were hereafter banned and local governments were purged<ref>Colvin, John. ''Giap: the Volcano under the Snow'' (New York: Soho Press, 1996), p. 51 <!-- ISBN ?? --></ref> to minimize opposition later on. However, it was noted that the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]]'s first Congress had over two-thirds of its members come from non-Việt Minh political factions, some without an election. Nationalist Party of Vietnam leader [[Nguyễn Hải Thần]] was named vice president.<ref>[[:vi:Nguyễn HảiThey Thần|Vietnamesealso Wikipediaheld profilefour out of Nguyễnten Hảiministerial Thần]]</ref>positions They(ill|Government alsoof heldthe fourUnion outof Resistance of tenthe ministerialDemocratic positions.<ref>[[:Republic of Vietnam|vi:|Chính phủ Liên hiệp Kháng chiến Việt Nam]]</ref>}}).

The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties, but they failed to secure a peace deal with France. In the final days of 1946, after a year of diplomatic failure and many concessions in agreements, such as the [[Da Lat|Dalat]] and [[Fontainebleau Agreements|Fontainebleau conferences]], the [[Democratic Republic of Vietnam]] government found that war was inevitable. The [[Haiphong incident|bombardment of Haiphong]] by French forces at Hanoi only strengthened the belief that France had no intention of allowing an autonomous, independent state in Vietnam. The bombardment of Haiphong reportedly killed more than 6000 Vietnamese civilians. French forces marched into Hanoi, now the capital city of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. On 19 December 1946, after the Haiphong incident, Ho Chi Minh declared war against the [[French Union]], marking the beginning of the [[Indochina War]].<ref>[[:{{ill|A nationwide call for resistance|vi:|Lời kêu gọi toàn quốc kháng chiến]]}}</ref> The [[Viet Minh|Vietnam National Army]], mostly armed with [[machete]]s and [[musket]]s immediately attacked. They assaulted the French positions, smoking them out with straw bundled with chili pepper, destroying armored vehicles with [[Anti-tank grenade|"lunge mines"]] (a [[Shaped charge|hollow-charge warhead]] on the end of a pole, detonated by thrusting the charge against the side of a tank; typically a [[suicide weapon]])<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/jp_tankhunters/|title=Lone Sentry: New Weapons for Jap Tank Hunters (U.S. WWII Intelligence Bulletin, March 1945)|website=lonesentry.com|access-date=27 May 2016}}</ref> and [[Molotov cocktail]]s, holding off attackers by using [[roadblock]]s, [[Land mine|landmines]] and gravel. After two months of fighting, the exhausted Việt Minh forces withdrew after [[Scorched earth|systematically destroying any valuable infrastructure]]. Ho was reported to be captured by a group of French soldiers led by [[Jean Étienne Valluy]] at [[Việt Bắc]] in [[Operation Léa]]. The person in question turned out to be a Việt Minh advisor who was killed trying to escape.

In February 1950, after the successful removal of the French border blockade,<ref> ([[:vi:ChiếnBattle of dịchRoute BiênColoniale giới4]]</ref>) he met with [[Joseph Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong]] in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing the Việt Minh.<ref>Luo, Guibo. pp. 233–36</ref> Mao Zedong's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60,000–70,000 Viet Minh in the near future.<ref>Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Chronology", p. 45.</ref> The road to the outside world was open for Việt Minh forces to receive additional supplies which would allow them to escalate the fight against the French regime throughout Indochina. At the outset of the conflict, Ho reportedly told a French visitor: "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win".<ref>McMaster, H.R. (1997) "Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam", pg. 35.</ref> In 1954, the First Indochina War came to an end after the decisive [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu]], where more than 10,000 French soldiers surrendered to the Viet Minh. The subsequent Geneva Accords peace process partitioned North Vietnam at the 17th parallel.

* [[Czech language|Czech]] – by [[:cs:{{ill|Ivo Vasiljev]]|cs}}.

In ''The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam'' (1982), Duiker suggests that the cult of Ho Chi Minh is indicative of a larger legacy, one that drew on "elements traditional to the exercise of control and authority in Vietnamese society."<ref>[https://newpol.org/review/sky-without-light-vietnamese-tragedy/ Manfred McDowell, "Sky without Light: a Vietnamese Tragedy", ''New Politics'', Vol XIII, No. 3, 2011, pp. 131–136, p. 133. https://newpol.org/review/sky-without-light-vietnamese-tragedy/]</ref> Duiker is drawn to an "irresistible and persuasive" comparison with China. As in China, leading party cadres were "most likely to be intellectuals descended [like Ho Chi Minh] from rural scholar-gentry families" in the interior (the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin). Conversely, the pioneers of constitutional nationalism tended to be from the more "Westernised" coastal south (Saigon and surrounding French direct-rule [[Cochinchina]]) and to be from "commercial families without a traditional Confucian background".{{sfn|Duiker|1982|p=25}}