Ho Chi Minh
Portrait c. 1946
Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
In office 19 February 1951 – 2 September 1969
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Post abolished
First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam
In office 1 November 1956 – 10 September 1960
Preceded by	Trường Chinh
Succeeded by	Lê Duẩn
President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In office 2 September 1945 – 2 September 1969
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Tôn Đức Thắng
Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
In office 2 September 1945 – 20 September 1955
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Phạm Văn Đồng
Personal details
Born	Nguyễn Sinh Cung (1890-05-19)19 May 1890 Nghệ An Province, French Indochina
Died	2 September 1969(1969-09-02) (aged 79) Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Nationality	Vietnamese
Political party	Workers’ Party of Vietnam
Signature

This article contains Vietnamese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of chữ Nôm, chữ Hán and chữ Quốc Ngữ.

Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô cǐ miɲ] (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô̤ tɕǐmɪŋ] ( listen)); 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Stalinist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.

He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, independent Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.

Early life[link]

Nguyễn Sinh Cung was born in 1890 in the village of Hoàng Trù, his mother's hometown. From 1895, he grew up in his father's hometown of Kim Liên, Nam Đàn, Nghệ An Province. He had three siblings: his sister Bạch Liên (or Nguyễn Thị Thanh), a clerk in the French Army; his brother Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (or Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a geomancer and traditional herbalist; and another brother (Nguyễn Sinh Nhuận) who died in his infancy. As a young child, Nguyễn studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vuong Thuc Do. Nguyễn quickly mastered Chinese writing, a requisite for any serious study of Confucianism, while honing his colloquial Vietnamese writing.^[1] In addition to his studious endeavors, he was fond of adventure, and loved to fly kites and go fishing.^[1] Following Confucian tradition, at the age of 10, his father gave him a new name: Nguyễn Tất Thành (“Nguyễn the Accomplished”).

Nguyễn’s father, Nguyễn Sinh Sắc, was a Confucian scholar and teacher, and later an imperial magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe (Qui Nhơn). He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died several days after receiving 100 strokes of the cane as punishment for an infraction.^[2] In deference to his father, Nguyễn received a French education, attended lycée in Huế, the alma mater of his later disciples, Phạm Văn Đồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp. He later left his studies and chose to teach at Dục Thanh school in Phan Thiết.

In the USA[link]

In 1911, working as the cook's helper on a ship, Nguyễn traveled to the United States. From 1912-13, he lived in New York (Harlem) and Boston, where he worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. Among a series of menial jobs, he claimed to have worked for a wealthy family in Brooklyn between 1917–18, and for General Motors as a line manager. It is believed that, while in the United States, he made contact with Korean nationalists, an experience that developed his political outlook.^[3]

In England[link]

At various points between 1913 and 1919, Nguyễn lived in West Ealing, and later in Crouch End, Hornsey. He reportedly worked as a chef at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing.^[4] It is claimed that Nguyễn trained as a pastry chef under Auguste Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in the Haymarket, Westminster, but there is no evidence to support this.^[3] However, the wall of New Zealand House, home of the New Zealand High Commission, which now stands on the site of the Carlton Hotel, displays a blue plaque, stating that Nguyễn worked there in 1913 as a waiter.

Political education in France[link]

From 1919–23, while living in France, Nguyễn Sinh Cung began to approach the idea of communism, through his friend and Socialist Party of France comrade Marcel Cachin. Cung claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police only had documents of his arrival in June 1919.^[3] Following World War I, under the name Nguyễn Ái Quốc ("Nguyễn the Patriot"), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored.^[5] Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Quốc petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to help remove the French from Vietnam and replace them with a new, nationalist government. Although he was unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, the failure further radicalized Nguyễn, while also making him a national hero of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam.^[6]

In 1920, during the Congress of Tours, in France, Quốc became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (FCP) and spent much of his time in Moscow afterward, becoming the Comintern's Asia hand and the principal theorist on colonial warfare. During the Indochina War, the PCF would be involved with anti-war propaganda, sabotage and support for the revolutionary effort. In May 1922, Nguyễn wrote an article for a French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters.^[7] The article implores Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré to outlaw such Franglais as le manager, le round and le knock-out. While living in Paris, he reportedly had a relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Brière.^[7]

In the Soviet Union and China[link]

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In 1923, Nguyễn (Hồ) left Paris for Moscow, where he was employed by the Comintern, studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East,^[8][9] and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924, before arriving in Canton (present-day Guangzhou), China, in November 1924. In June 1925, Hoàng Văn Chí claimed Nguyễn (Hồ) had betrayed Phan Bội Châu, the head of a rival revolutionary faction, to French police in Shanghai for 100,000 piastres.^[10] Nguyễn (Hồ) later claimed he did it because he expected Châu's trial to stir up anti-French resentment, and because he needed the money to establish a communist organization.^[10] In Ho Chi Minh: A Life, William Duiker repudiated this hypothesis. Other sources claim that Nguyễn Thượng Hiền was responsible for Châu's capture. Châu never denounced Nguyễn.

In 1925-26 he organized "Youth Education Classes" and occasionally gave lectures at the Whampoa Military Academy on the revolutionary movement in Indochina. According to Duiker, he lived with and married a Chinese woman, Tăng Tuyết Minh (née Zeng Xueming), on 18 October 1926.^[11] When his comrades objected to the match, he told them, “I will get married despite your disapproval because I need a woman to teach me the language and keep house.”^[11] She was 21 and he was 36.^[11] They married in the same place where Zhou Enlai had married earlier and then lived together at the residence of a Comintern agent, Mikhail Borodin.^[11]

Chiang Kai-shek's anti-communist 1927 coup triggered a new round of exile for Nguyễn. He left Canton again in April 1927 and returned to Moscow, spending some of the summer of 1927 recuperating from tuberculosis in the Crimea, before returning to Paris once more in November. He then returned to Asia by way of Brussels, Berlin, Switzerland, and Italy, from where he sailed to Bangkok, Thailand, where he arrived in July 1928. “Although we have been separated for almost a year, our feelings for each other do not have to be said in order to be felt”, he reassured Minh in an intercepted letter.^[11]

He remained in Thailand, staying in the Thai village of Nachok,^[12] until late 1929 when he moved on to India, and Shanghai. In June 1931, he was arrested in Hong Kong. To reduce French pressure for extradition, it was (falsely) announced in 1932 that Nguyễn Ái Quốc had died.^[13] The British quietly released him in January 1933. He made his way back to Milan, Italy, where he served in a restaurant. The restaurant is now a traditional Lombard-cuisine temple and harbors a portrait of Hồ Chí Minh on the wall of its main dining hall.^[14][15] He moved to the Soviet Union, where he spent several more years recovering from tuberculosis.

In 1938, he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces, which later forced China's government to the island of Taiwan.^[3] Around 1940, Quốc began regularly using the name "Hồ Chí Minh",^[3] a Vietnamese name combining a common Vietnamese surname (Hồ, 胡) with a given name meaning "He Who enlightens" (from Sino-Vietnamese 志 明; Chí meaning 'will' (or spirit), and Minh meaning "light").^[16]

Independence movement[link]

In 1941, Hồ returned to Vietnam to lead the Việt Minh independence movement. The “men in black” were a 10,000 member guerrilla force that operated with the Việt Minh.^[17] He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy French and Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II, supported closely but clandestinely by the United States Office of Strategic Services, and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–54). He was jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities before being rescued by Chinese Communists.^[18] Following his release in 1943, he returned to Vietnam. He was treated for malaria and dysentery by American OSS doctors.

Following the August Revolution (1945) organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.^[19] Although he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned American President Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence,^[20] citing the Atlantic Charter, but Truman never responded.^[21]

According to some unverified sources,^[22] 1945, in a power struggle, the Việt Minh killed members of rival groups, such as the leader of the Constitutional Party, the head of the Party for Independence, and Ngô Đình Diệm's brother, Ngô Ðình Khôi.^[23] Purges and killings of Trotskyists were also documented in The Black Book of Communism.

In 1946, when Hồ traveled outside of the country, his subordinates imprisoned 2,500 non-communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee.^[24] Hundreds of political opponents were jailed or exiled in July 1946, notably members of the National Party of Vietnam and the Dai Viet National Party, after a failed attempt to raise a coup against the Vietminh government.^[25][26] All rival political parties therefore banned and local governments purged^[27] to minimize opposition later on.

However, it was noted that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's first Congress had over two-third of its members come from non-Vietminh political factions, some without election. NPV party leader Nguyễn Hải Thần was named Vice President.^[28] They also held four out of ten ministerial positions.^[29]

Birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam[link]

On 2 September 1945, following Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication, Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam,^[30] under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In Saigon, with violence between rival Vietnamese factions and French forces increasing, the British commander, General Sir Douglas Gracey, declared martial law. On 24 September, the Việt Minh leaders responded with a call for a general strike.^[31]

In September 1945, a force of 200,000 Republic of China Army troops arrived in Hanoi. Hồ made a compromise with their general, Lu Han, to dissolve the Communist Party and to hold an election which would yield a coalition government. When Chiang later traded Chinese influence in Vietnam for French concessions in Shanghai, Hồ Chí Minh had no choice but to sign an agreement with France on 6 March 1946, in which Vietnam would be recognized as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement, for both the French and Vietminh was to drive out Chiang's army from North Vietnam. Fighting broke out in the North soon after the Chinese left.

“The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.” — Hồ Chí Minh, 1946^[32]

The Viet Minh then collaborated with French colonial forces to massacre supporters of the Vietnamese nationalist movements in 1945-6.^[33] The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties but 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 Dalat and Fontainebleau conferences, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam government found that war was inevitable. The 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. On 19 December 1946, Hồ, representing his government, declared war against the French Union, marked the beginning of the Indochina War.^[34] The Vietnam National Army, by then mostly armed with machetes and muskets immediately attacked, waging assault against French positions, smoking them out with straw bundled with chili pepper, destroying armored vehicles by Lunge Mines and Molotov cocktails, holding off attackers by using roadblocks, mines and gravel. After two month of fighting, the exhausted Việt Minh forces withdrew after systematically destroying any valuable infrastructure. Hồ was reported to be captured by a group of French soldiers led by Jean-Etienne Valluy at Việt Bắc in Operation Lea which turned out to be a Việt Minh advisor, who was later killed trying to escape. According to journalist Bernard Fall, after fighting the French for several years, Hồ decided to negotiate a truce. The French negotiators arrived at the meeting site: a mud hut with a thatched roof. Inside they found a long table with chairs and were surprised to discover in one corner of the room a silver ice bucket containing ice and a bottle of good Champagne which should have indicated that Hồ expected the negotiations to succeed. One demand by the French was the return to French custody of a number of Japanese military officers (who had been helping the Vietnamese armed forces by training them in the use of weapons of Japanese origin), in order for them to stand trial for war crimes committed during World War II. Hồ replied that the Japanese officers were allies and friends whom he could not betray. Then he walked out, to seven more years of war.^[35]