These notes were begun in the spring of 1970, some time after Uncle Ho’s death. I was unable to complete them at an earlier date.
With the documentation that could be gathered and the active contribution of many comrades, you, readers, and I have recalled the activities of President Ho during a short but very important period of the history of our revolution.
Early in the twentieth century, this eminent son of the Vietnamese nation, who had set out, with an ardent heart, in the thick night of colonialism to find a way to save his country, his people, saw a radiant light on the horizon. A new era had started for mankind with the great Russian October Revolution. Nguyen Ai Quoc was the citizen of a colonized country who had quickly found the road to national salvation in the new era, that is the road of proletarian revolution, the road of Leninism.
More than forty years of revolutionary struggle by our Party have proved that the “revolutionary road” he chose for our nation was the only correct road to genuine independence, freedom and happiness. It is also the road to liberation for numerous other countries which are writhing under colonialist and imperialist rule.
Uncle Ho was a great patriot. His immense love for his country and his profound solicitude for his people knew no bounds. He devoted his whole life to the cause of national salvation and of liberating his people.
Uncle Ho was the first Vietnamese Communist. His love for his compatriots was linked with his love for the toiling and poor people. For him, the cause of national liberation was inseparable from that of class emancipation, the emancipation of that part of mankind who were suffering from the injustices of a society in which exploitation and oppression existed.
Uncle Ho was the Leader of our Party, of our people. His revolutionary activities during the past sixty years show beyond doubt that he was an exceptionally brilliant strategist, the man of the great turning points. The decisions taken by him and the Party were of historical, political and military significance, bringing the Vietnamese Revolution to ever bigger and more glorious victories.
The tempestuous onslaughts of the Soviet Army, pursuing the German fascists to their last lair had enabled the working class and the labouring people in several East European countries to rise up and seize power. The imperialists were infuriated at the appearance of a great socialist revolution. They even thought of rearming the beaten fascist armies in preparation for a new world war to stamp out communism. The cold war between the West and the East started.
At that time, our Party, fifteen years old and with a membership of five thousand, led the entire people to stage the victorious August Revolution. We seized power from the Japanese fascists and their henchmen and founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, the first people’s democratic state in Southeast Asia.
The red flag of the national liberation thus fluttered over a free Viet Nam, making its proud appearance in imperialism’s immense forbidden realm hitherto inviolate. The Vietnamese revolution signalled to the five continents the collapse of the colonial system, the new growth of the revolutionary torrent of national liberation. This was not only a challenge but also a menace to imperialism.
Armies of all skin-colour, enemies of national independence and freedom, simultaneously swarmed into every corner of our country. One hundred and eighty thousand Chiang soldiers, the basest anti-communist soldiers, thronged our capital city and every other town of the North. They had gathered a dangerous gang of lackeys in an attempt to topple the young revolutionary power. The French Expeditionary Corps, equipped by the US imperialists and given the green light by the British imperialists, started the invasion in the hope of reoccupying South Viet Nam by a lightning offensive. Sixty thousand brutal Japanese fascist soldiers who had smashed the French colonialists’ power over this peninsula within one night, could still be seen all over the country from the North to the South.
Never had Lenin’s words been so significant as at this moment: “It is difficult to seize power but it is even more difficult to hold it.”
The fate of the Fatherland was in constant danger and, at times, seemed to hang on a hair. A bit of confusion, a little moment of indecision would impair the revolution beyond remedy. This was the time when an exceptionally clearsighted and keen leadership was badly needed.
Move with lightning speed either to attack or defend.
Talent and nimble feet will give you the upper hand1.
That we had the Party and Uncle Ho was a great blessing for our people and revolution.
Historical realities have given full evidence of the correctness of the Party’s and Uncle Ho’s political line which was firm in principle and flexible in tactics. Just as Comrade Le Duan remarked:
“We would at one time reach a temporary compromise with Chiang Kai-shek in order to get our hands free to cope with the French colonialists, only to do the same later with the French in order to drive out the Chiang Kai-shek troops and wipe out the reactionaries, their agents. We thus gained time to consolidate our forces and prepare for a nation-wide resistance to French colonialist aggression, which the Party knew was inevitable. Those extremely perspicacious moves will go down in the history of the revolution in our country as magnificent examples of the Leninist tactics of exploiting contradictions within the enemy’s ranks and granting concessions while holding firm to principles.”2
If the capitalists’ system of ownership has at times “turned them from mutual allies into fighting wild beasts”3, here Ho Chi Minh, the Communist, armed with the wisdom of Marxism-Leninism and high morals and behaviour was able to tame these ferocious wild beasts and sometimes use them in the interests of the revolution. Thus, he was able to protect the newly-born Democratic Republic of Viet Nam against a pack of wolves and take it safely through the vulnerable stage of its infancy.
Thanks to the leadership of the Party and Uncle Ho, the Vietnamese revolution was able to stand firm in face of the rigorous trials of the early period and to set out bravely to fulfil the great tasks that history had entrusted to our people.
The imperialists and the representatives of their interests in their own countries as well as in the colonies were both unwilling to recognize and unable to realize the fundamental changes that had taken place on this peninsula during the years of World War II.
De Gaulle fancied that he had “bestowed generous favours” on the Indochinese people by his March 24, 1945 Manifesto. Most of the French bourgeois statesmen and army officers believed they could reestablish their rule in Indochina by military strength. They advocated restoring the weakened French position on the international arena by holding on to the colonies. While the majority of the French people condemned colonialism and supported our people’s just struggle for independence and unification, those in colonialist circles who were more or less enlightened, like Leclerc, and chose to protect their interests in a different way were very scarce. Only when the French Expeditionary Corps had been completely routed did De Gaulle acknowledge his mistake on the Indochina problem.
Imperialism, avaricious, brutal and muddle-headed, had become a stain for the whole of mankind to clean up. Our entire Vietnamese people, millions rising as one, were determined not to let the enemy annex our country for a second time. And that winter, Uncle Ho voiced the profound aspiration and determination of the whole nation:
“We would rather sacrifice all than lose our country. Never shall we be enslaved! Compatriots, rise up!”
It was his own grave that the enemy was digging, he forced the war upon us. This well-deserved lesson was taught to the French imperialists eight years later in Dien Bien Phu. We have proved a new truth of our era: “A nation, even a small one, which has a correct political line and resolutely rises up in arms against the aggressors, is fully capable of defeating even mighty imperialists.”
The man who negotiated with the French authorities in Paris in Autumn 1946, became “the wrecker of French colonialism.”
By the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu, our people won back half of the country. The liberated North has been advancing steadily on the road to socialism and has become the impregnable bulwark for the revolutionary cause in the whole country.
The senile and decrepit French imperialists have been put out of action. For colonialism the bell has tolled. However, the long hard fight between our people and imperialism has not ended. The US imperialists, the imperialist ringleader, are still bent on clinging to South Viet Nam. With their tremendous economic and military potential, US neo-colonialism, more perfidious and much more brutal, has not yet drawn the necessary lesson. The war which was started on this peninsula by French soldiers released by British forces from Japanese prisons in Saigon has not ended with the French Expeditionary army’s ignominious defeat. It is still continuing over half of our country and has nowadays become the biggest, fiercest and longest war since World War II.
In realization of their global strategy, the US imperialists have mobilized over one million and a half US, satellite and puppet troops for their war of aggression in South Viet Nam. They wanted to stamp out the revolutionary national liberation movement which, blazing here, was vigorously fanning up the anti-colonialist flame already kindled everywhere, threatening to destroy the whole lifework of the imperialists. They have employed here the most modern means of destruction of the western world. They have unloaded on this peninsula a quantity of bombs and shells greater than what they had used on all battlefronts during World War II. The “Huns” of this century have unleashed on our country the most atrocious war of aggression in the history of mankind.
Again President Ho’s anti-US appeal resounded all over the country:
“They may send here five hundred thousand, a million or even more troops to step up the war of aggression against South Viet Nam. They may employ thousands of aircraft to intensify their attack against the North... The war may drag on for five, ten, twenty years or even longer, Hanoi, Haiphong and some other towns and enterprises may be devastated. But the Vietnamese people will never be intimidated. Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.”
In response to the call of Uncle Ho and the Party, our entire army and people, braving all hardships and sacrifices and heightening their fighting spirit and superb heroism are determined to live up to his teaching: “So long as there remains a single aggressor on our soil, we must fight on to drive him out.”
South Viet Nam, tenacious and staunch, which started fighting the first and will put aside its arms the last and which deserves the title “the Brass Wall of the Fatherland”, has grown stronger and stronger as it fights and driven the aggressors, armed to the teeth, deeper and deeper into the quagmire of their criminal war. From the flames of a long and fierce fight, the revolutionary power has emerged. The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Viet Nam is carrying out its historic mission of leading the army and people to drive out the US imperialists, liberate South Viet Nam and advance towards the peaceful reunification of the country.
The North has stood firm in face of the enemy’s barbarous and wanton bombing. It has beaten off the air pirates who came to perpetrate crimes and poured its efforts into aiding South Viet Nam while continuing to advance steadly on the road of building socialism.
We have frustrated one strategy after another of the enemy’s war of aggression. The aggressor army of the US imperialists, over-supplied with arms and ammunition, cannot, certainly, avoid the doom that has befallen the other invaders on this soil.
Over forty years of our people’s revolutionary struggle since the founding of the Party are for ever engraved in radiant relief on our nation’s history of undaunted struggle to build up and preserve the country. The significance of our Party’s and people’s struggle for national liberation has gone beyond that of a country’s resistance against aggression, for it stands as witness of the new truths of the present era.
Against this magnificent background appears President Ho’s image, majestic yet simple, noble yet familiar, dazzling yet pure and fresh like the sunlight at dawn.
The short period from the successful August 1945 Revolution to the beginning of the National Resistance War on December 19, 1946 was of great importance in the history of our Party’s and people’s revolutionary struggle. By these unforgettable days alone, we can form a picture of Uncle Ho.
President Ho was the most eminent son of our Fatherland.
President Ho was an outstanding combatant of the world communist movement.
President Ho was a great strategist who guided the Vietnamese revolution through untold stress and storm to victory.
President Ho was the new Vietnamese man. He was the leader, the teacher and comrade. He was the quintessence of the qualities and the moral values of a new society which was taking shape.
President Ho was the new man of the new epoch.
Thanks to the Party and President Ho, a new generation, the Ho Chi Minh generation, was born.
This generation has undertaken the mission of a shock team fighting for a new era of their country and of mankind: the era of Independence, Freedom and Socialism.
This generation, trained after the example set by our great Uncle Ho, is unceasingly going forward to realize his and the Party’s ideal: “To build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Viet Nam, thus making a worthy contribution to the world revolutionary cause.”
This generation is advancing steadily in response to his call: “Forward! Complete victory will surely be ours!”
Spring 1972
(1) Ho Chi Minh — “Learning to Play Chess” Prison Diary.
(2) Le Duan — The Vietnamese Revolution: Fundamental Problems, Essential Tasks.
(3) Lenin, Complete Works, Vol. 30, p. 570. Su That Pub., Hanoi, 1971. (in Vietnamese).