Ho Chi Minh, born Nguyen Sinh Chung, was a Vietnamese nationalist that took control of North Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Minh was born and raised in Vietnam to a poor family of scholars but as a young boy he took a job as a cook on a French boat where he got to see many parts of the world but eventually settled down in France. While in France he became an active socialist and he demand that France give it’s colonies in Indochina equal rights, he got no response from France but the act made him a hero to many Vietnamese. Minh came to represent the working class in France which led him to Moscow to mourn the loss of the founder of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin. While in Moscow he first stated his belief that oppressed peasants should revolt against their oppressors and he took part in the congress of the Communist International. Eventually Minh would form the Indochinese Communist Party which started a movement in Vietnam against the repressive French. Soon World War Two broke out and Minh came up with a strategy to earn his people their independence, he would help the allied forces in hopes that the French would see this and give them their independence as a reward The plan unfortunately did not work and the Vietnamese were forced to kick France off their soil with force which was successful.
After the war with France Minh agreed to hold an election that would decided the country’s government, communist or democratic, with Minh representing the communist side. The election was eventually postponed indefinitely by the United States which would lead to a split between the democratic south and the communist north. The North was poor and didn’t contain much farm land so they had to depend on help from the Soviet Union and China. Minh would step down as the leader of the North before the war was over but his party eventually arose successful in driving out the US using many of the same tactics they used against the French. In the end Minh was a man who loved his country and wanted to free his people from anyone other then their own government ruling them.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ho-Chi-Minh
Ho Chi Minh:A symbol of Independence to his people
It's interesting to read about how Minh has been an avid follower of socialism since he was little, even when he wasn't in his own country. Especially, when he went to Moscow to mourn over the death of Vladmir Lenin, it displays his interest in a communist government. I also thought that Ho Chi Minh's perspective was eye opening because I never looked at the situation of Vietnam from his point of view.
ReplyDeleteIt’s cool to see a more objective view was on who Ho Chi Minh was. It is clear from this that he was simply trying to do what he felt was best for his people, and did not want to resort to violence. We typically paint the people we fought against in a negative light, but it is important to remember that they too are human with good intentions of their own. They are like us in many ways, but simply with different views.
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