Ho Chi Minh

By William J Duiker

As a Vietnam War baby this book jumped out of the store window at Kent State University, of all places.  The 68 and 72 elections turned on the decisions made in Vietnam.  Slogans crying unjust war rang through the streets.  This book’s makes no attempt to weigh that question.  It is s granular biography of Ho Chi Minh, the first Leader of what is now Socialist Republic of Vietnam.  As a reader I had to keep my views and bias in check in order to appreciate the message of Ho Chi Minh, conveyed through the author William Duiker.  Duiker took a recursive lawyers brief style in painting a portrait of a man whose place in history is in my mind understated.  The author uses chronology as his ally in evolving the biography of a man into a snapshot biography at high level of the Vietnam War.  In the end the author’s position remains unbiased however there reader cannot come away without a verdict.

In a spider web of intrigue and against a back drop of Ho Chi Minh’s unwavering stated goal for independence from France, it is clear that the eventual alliance with China and the USSR was primarily strategic and not necessarily out of Communist Principal.  Read on.

Ho Chi Minh was born into an agrarian setting to a scholar family that was steeped in Confucian ways and means at a time when French colonization that began in 1858 was in full force.  It was the intellectual scholars of Vietnam that led the way to revolution with the French.  Along the way The Vietnamese embraced the need to evolve from Confucianism to western ways.  It was thought and taught, that in order to rise above them you have to learn them, the French.  There were two venues for the evolution away from traditional Confucianism; a parallel course with the Japanese who     were 50 years ahead of Vietnam.  And then there were opportunities to learn directly from the French.  Those Vietnamese returning from Paris, reported that the French liberties were much more civilized then that exhibited in colonial Vietnam.  The doctrine of French liberty was to be lauded and modeled.  The doctrine of French colonization was to be opposed.  Nguyen Tat Tan operating under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc traveled abroad, aboard as a cook aboard a steamship, to learn the ways of the West.  It is said by the Vietnamese that it was his intent to bring back a revolutionary solution.

Ngyuen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) in 1919, was famously rejected by the leaders of the World Powers, pointedly Woodrow Wilson.  This alone did not send Monsieur Ngyuen to Lenin in Russia in 1920.  However it was a more natural fit for these reasons:  Confucianism conforms more closely to Marx’s socialism than capitalism.  This in conjunction with the brand of capitalism that Asians saw was colonial capitalism otherwise stated as imperialism, where in his case the French were very oppressive to the Vietnamese people. In a sense of timing, Lenin had just published the Third International, doctrine of the socialist movement which advocated violent revolution.   Ho Chi Minh was steeped in the Bolshevik revolution.  To  Asians capitalism was solidly linked to world imperialism.  Ironically when Ho Chi Minh traveling under the pseudo named Ngyuen Ai Quoc  went to Paris he discovered that French socialism was France oriented only.  It paid little credence to the struggles of colonial oppression.  In the USSR, Lenin had different aspirations.  In 1924 as a result of Ngyuen Ai Cuoc’s participation in many socialist meetings in Paris, he was invited to Moscow by Dmitri Manuilsky a senior official of the Comintern of the USSR.    After the meeting Ho, a man bent on liberation not only from France but from out dated Confucianism writes the following:

There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis.  But by

dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of

it.  What emotion, enthusiasm, clear sightedness, and confidence it

instilled in me!  I was overjoyed to tears.  Though sitting alone in my

room, I shouted aloud as if addressing large crowds” Dear martyrs,

compatriots!  This is the path to our liberation.

Bibliography note:  Need to retrieve the Eight Articles of Petition:

In the beginning, USSR’s communist world agenda took on a different flavor than the ‘spread of communism’ agenda that was held up to the American people in the 1960s.  In the 1920’s Lenin’s view was to replace the oppressive colonial capitalist with communistic ideals.  I will put forth that in the intervening forty years, the rhetoric of the leaders and situation changed.  I suspect this biography now becomes not only a history of one man, but a portal to a monumental event on a world stage in the 20^th century.

In the years from 1920 through the late 1930’s, Ho Chi Minh seemed to have drifted from one city to the next in the countries of China, USSR, and France.  He was always on the run from French colonialists rendering himself off the French wanted list by 1930.   With most of his new cities he took on a new pseudo name.  He took on two apparent wives, but the authenticness of marriage is in doubt.  Reading this portion becomes difficult as though the reader must have the patience of a lawyer in order to glean anything of substance.  It seems that, still under the primary mane of Ngyuen Ai Quoc, he struggled to keep a consistent philosophy and policy of the party line.  The party names changed with shifting philosophy and policy.  What the section doe s do is make Ho Chi Minh human.

Ngyuen Ai Qouc’s philosophy primarily set off to follow Lenin’s two step philosphy: nationalism of the masses then internationalism of communistic principle.  Quoc’s gave ‘lip service’ to the communistic principle as an end but saw it as a means to independence from colonial France.  That means mean meant careful organization of party policy of revolution in building a critical mass as a prerequisite to any sort of violence.  Quoc experienced a lot of party conflict that made progress seem morbid in many phases.  To exacerbate Quac’s efforts, USSR policy was also experiencing conflict in the post Lenin period with Stalin forcing a need for violent nationalism first.  Quoc was blessed with nationalism but also cursed with any policy of violence.  The random and scattered violent uprisings in the 20’s and 30’s were swiftly dealt with by the French, leaving many setbacks to Ho Chi Minh’s vision of revolution that would bring about an independent Vietnam.  The Japanese invasion of China and WWII would set the stage for a break through.

If one were to look for a date of the start of the Vietnam War; December 22, 1944 would be a candidate for sure.  Allbeit in 1919 the seeds were officially sown in an international light in a request from Ho Chi Minh to President Wilson in the Paris Peace conference of 1919.  It was on that date in 44  that the newly formed VLA units won their first military victories over the French in the villages of Phai Kat and Na Ngan.  Coincidently on a note of trivia, the first downed American plane was on November 11, 1944.  The pilot, Randolph Shaw was taken in by the VLA, Ho Chi Minh, as a friend.  General Ho escorted Shaw to a USA military base in an effort to meet with the US General to form an alliance.  The Americans had to be careful to balance the commitment.  On the scales were the fact that the USA was an ally of the French in liberating them from Germany and military assistance against the French Empire in Indochina would chaff with the political agenda in Washington, with Roosevelt as the exception.  Roosevelt had no liking for European colonialism but it  was Truman who was seeking a means of restoring the colonies to Southeast Asia.  Ho Chi Minh read these words in reports made available to him in the OSS office in China.  If history does repeat itself, one can clearly see the seeds of the same melees of international politics in the Middle East today.  

By 1944 Ho Chi Minh’s effort to foment a revolution was already thirty-two years in the making.  He assumed many aliases in maintaining a cover of his activities over that span of time.  It was only in 1944 that this bibliography writes of the character as Ho Chi MInh, a General of the VLA.  We are twenty-six years since the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war, a fight of Suni-Shia. We are twenty-three years since the Desert Storm.  Two years since President Obama took down Desert Shield.  ISIS is now terrorizing every agency of governments across the Middle East and around the world.  Will there one day be an autobiography written on Ibrahim ibn Awwad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarra, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with alias name of Amir al-Mu'minin Caliph Ibrahim, who claims to be a descendant of Muhammad?  Will we learn that he was simply looking out for self determination? That may be a stretch.  But what is clear is the deals made in 1919 appear to be a peace to end all peace.  What is also clear, is America’s attempt to broker legitimate democracies cannot continue through a means of standing up and standing behind crony leaders.   

August 19, 1945 could be considered, by accounts in this book, as the day Vietnam declared independence…their version of the USA Fourth of July.  Albeit they celebrate it in Sept 2.  As Ho Chi Minh’s VLA government was seizing power Ho Chi Minh set a  meeting with the US General now in Hanoi.  The General commented that in settling matters one must be careful that Vietnam would need the French to counteract the aspirations of China’s appetite for dominance of Indo China.  The reader of history must be mindful that indeed the VietMinh were being oppressed both by the imperialist French and the Chinese.  The French were blatant.  The Chinese were coy.  This comment by the General was in response with Ho Chi Minh’s statement that The VietMinh were merely looking for their own nationalism and only turned to the USSR because they were the only ones that would offer help.  At this point in the book it becomes obliquely apparent to the reader steeped in the rhetoric of USA War with Vietnam that the effort was to help them obtain Ho Chi Minh’s goals stated in 1919 to President Wilson.  Two countries were slaughtering each other in the pursuit of a mutual goal, National Independence from imperialists.

In a spider web of intrigue and against a back drop of Ho Chi Minh’s unwavering stated goal for independence from France, it is clear that the eventual alliance with China and the USSR was primarily strategic and not necessarily out of Communist Principal.  As events unfolded from the 1930’s through the second World War, Ho drifted away from both USSR and China;  the former because the USSR was preoccupied with WWII and the latter because of his fear that if China were to help they would “stay for a thousand years.”    Ho reached out indirectly through one envoy or another and directly to Truman in the post WWI years.  That effort failed for two reasons, first is Truman’s paradigm was one that allied with French out of convenience as not to disrupt a fragile agenda in Europe.  The second reason was Truman although contrary to Ho’s letters felt that Ho was a Red Communist.  US aid was not to come from Truman and the French succeeded in drawing the USA into their scheme under the fear of Red Communism.  Parallel to this China was involved in its own civil war between Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek and Mio Zedong.  When the communists prevailed the dominoes of the Infamous Dominoes Theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory ) began to fall that eventually led to the actual war between Vietnam and the USA.  In the beginning both China and the USSR committed to only supplying arms to the VietMinh.  Hence the poetic draw for this reader to read this autobiography on Ho Chi Minh.  I knew of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  It was a route of supplies through Laos and Cambodia, about twelve miles inside those prospective boarders with Vietnam, according to Henry Kissenger’s Memoires. Ironically, both China’s and Vietnam’s primary reason towards communism was NOT in league with the USSR’s but a principle they were contrary to the Imperialism of the French and the British.  While Americans were working vigorously to stabilize Europe through the Marshall Plan, they became preoccupied with shoring up “firewalls” against USSR’s brand of communism on either boarder with the new Peoples Republic of China.  Hence the USA experienced the Korean War and then the Vietnam War.   Keep in mind there has yet to been a war with China, but only with her vassal States.

In retrospect all the world leaders and not foreseen the failure of the communist model in USSR.  They had not foreseen the failure of Chairman Mao’s model.  Had anyone paid attention to Ho Chi Minh’s pleas the Vietnam War would have been avoided.  Both China and Vietnam would have been viewed as democracies that may have contained a blend of parties including communist parties.  This arrangement exists all over Europe.  It is actually a tenement of Lenin’s view of the three phases of communism, whereby national identity is achieved first and then social change within each nation.  This view is one of evolutionary revolution not revolution by arms.  Just imagine what would have happened if President Wilson in 1919 had NOT rejected Ho Chi Minh’s request for self determination.   Just imagine if President Wilson had actually invited Ho Chi Minh to the White House for a sincere dialogue.  That dialogue was granted by both Stalin and Chairman Mao.  Ho Chi Minh took the path of most support for one reason.  It was the only path offered to liberate is country from the oppression of French Imperialism.

By 1951 the spider web of international involvement became coated with irony.  The French were defending their colonial interests.  The Chinese who are by now Chairman Mao communist, are not only helping the VienMinh liberate themselves from France, they are forcing the ideology of Lennist  (not Stalin’s) communism on the VietMinh who are merely looking for military support to liberate themselves.  The Vietnamese people despise their allies;  Chinese for their imperialism and hate the French for their colonialism.  The Americans are being lured into the fray by the French who are looking for air support and supplies.  The first installation came in the form of aircraft loaded with naphalm.  In the meantime the VietMinh just want to be left to their own self-determination, a request made by Ho Chi Minh in 1919 in Paris after WWI to Woodrow Wilson.  I read elsewhere that in Wilson’s denial to Ho Chi Minh, he made this racial slur: “no slope heads are capable of managing their own self determination, so Vietnam will remain a French colony.”  Franklin Roosevelt told Ho Chi Minh he would honor that request after WWII was settled.  During WWII Vietnam was under Japanese rule.  And finally it was a promise that Harry Truman reneged on in 1950.  Eventually, as we know; the French left, the Chinese provided supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, in the dense un populated jungle of Laos and Cambodia; leaving the USA to help Vietmigh to avoid communism while they achieved self determination.  Read the last part carefully for its irony.

With the first Geneva resolution after the French defeat Dein Bein Phu, the battle that forced the French out  in 1954 Ho Chi Minh’s group experienced a wholesale betrayal by all the world’s superpowers.  With the exit of the French from Vietnam the country was divided in the Geneva Peace acords.  A referendum vote in two years would decide if North Vietnam and South Vietnam should unite.  In subsequent years, Moscow and China shunned active support of the North Vietnam’s pursuit for an agreed upon election for unification in two years.  Under the flag of ‘world peace’ they looked to avoid a confrontation with the United States.  France left the North, but maintained a presence in the South of which they lured the United States in to protect.  Great Britain who co-sponsored the First Geneva Peace Accord, simply refused to promulgate the two year political solution of an election.  It was obvious that there was a Communist –v- Imperialist showdown.  Somehow the USA is hooked into defending capitalist democracy and is labeled by North Vietnam as Imperialist.  Somehow, the United States sees Ho Chi Minh as communist of the Stalin/Mao brand when they were first Nationalists.  More irony.

In his final testament, as in his life Ho Chi Minh had sought to balance the commitment to Vietnamese national independence with a similar dedication to the world revolution.  In the document, which he first drafted in 1965 and then amended by hand in 1968 and 1969, Ho reaffirmed the dual importance of nationalism and socialism, although he emphasized the  immediate priority was to heal the wounds of war and improve the living standards of the Vietnamese people.  He paid particular attention to the importance of realizing equality of the sexes.  He praised the Party for having played the leading role in the Vietnamese revolution, but called for a campaign of rectification and self-criticism to democratize the organization and raise the level of morality among Party cadres after the end of the war.  Finally, he included a fervent plea to restore unity of the world Communist movement on the basis of the principle of proletarian internationalism.

My comment:  Against this enemy 55,000 American soldiers gave their last full measure.  In the end America violated United Nations policy and intervened in a civil war that was raging in South Viet Nam.  We killed over 1,000,000 Vietnamese people in the process.  All because our leaders feared a Red Chinese brand of Communism of which was never stated by Ho Chi Minh, or Vietnamese leadership, as they too feared Chinese imperialism.  In the end, Ho Chi Minh and his country got exactly what they asked for of President Wilson in 1919.  They gained their self determination as a people against imperialist French, Communist China, and Capitalist United States.  Today the two governments are doing capitalist business together.