Our host in Hang Ngang Street reserved the first floor of his house for us. Uncle Ho was offered the second floor for greater quietness. But he did not like to live alone, so he lived together with us. He had decided that Comrade Dong and Comrade Hoan were to stay back in Tan Trao for a certain period. For the servants and neighbours, we were just “gentlemen coming from the village for a visit.” Comrade Ninh, who wore a beard as he was too lazy to shave, also passed for an “old gentleman.”
The room in which we lived used to be a dining and sitting room, so there were no desks. Uncle Ho worked at the large dining table. His type-writer was placed on a small, square table, covered with a green cloth, in one corner.
After work, each of us managed to find a place to rest. One lay on a divan, another on a few benches put together. Uncle Ho rested on a collapsible canvas bed which he had found folded up in a corner.
On the very day he arrived, the first detachments of Chiang’s troops — the scouts and the forward elements — had made their appearance in Hanoi. From the balcony, we kept seeing groups coming in one after another.
It was hard to believe they were a victorious army. The soldiers’ faces were pale and haggard. Their yellowish uniforms were tattered and dirty. They carried shoulder poles with baskets of odds and ends; some were followed by their women and children. Many plodded heavily on legs swollen with beriberi. They were like dirty stains on the city from which the foul traces of colonialism had only just been swept away. They looked even more wretched than when we had seen them in Kunming and Kweilin five years earlier.
Uncle Ho chaired the first meeting of the Party Bureau in Hanoi. Though the revolution had triumphed in most of the provinces the central revolutionary power had not yet been established. The internal and international situation called for prompt action. The Bureau felt that it was important to make public the list of members of the Provisional Government and hold the inauguration ceremony at an early date. All this should be done before the bulk of Chiang’s army had arrived.
Instructions were given to the authorities in the northern provinces to delay the movement of Chiang’s troops for as long as possible, under the pretext of shortage of means of transport due to the flood.
A number of Liberation Army detachments in Thai Nguyen had been ordered urgently to come to Hanoi but their arrival had been delayed due to the flood which had destroyed many sections of the roads. People’s power had been established in Hanoi for over a week, yet the revolutionary armed forces consisted only of self-defence units and a number of civil guards who had just joined the revolution. That was also a matter of concern.
Early on the morning of August 26, we were informed that two detachments of the Liberation Army had reached Gia Lam. Comrades Nguyen Khang and Vuong Thua Vu started off to meet them. Only after some hard negotiations did the Japanese agree to let them come into Hanoi.
The military band played revolutionary marches as our troops crossed Long Bien Bridge. Our soldiers, their guns cocked, marched in Indian file along both sides of the road.
The presence in Hanoi of battle-tested revolutionary armed forces inspired enthusiasm among the people. A military review with the participation of Liberation troops and self-defence units was held at the square in front of the Municipal Theatre, filling all present with joy and confidence.
On the 28th, the list of members of the Provisional Government was released to the Hanoi press. The composition of the government was in line with the Viet Minh Front’s policy of broad unity among the various sections of the population in the work of rebuilding the country.
The day before, Uncle Ho had met the Ministers in the Provisional Government at Bac Bo Palace. Mr. Nguyen Van To, Minister of Social Welfare, later recounted how he saw an old man in brown shorts, wearing a khaki sun-helmet in poor shape, standing in the reception room leaning on a walking stick. The old man greeted him with a smile. It was only a few minutes later that he realized that the old man was President Ho Chi Minh himself.
The Party Bureau had decided that the day the Provisional Government was inaugurated would also be the occasion for the official proclamation of independence and the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. In addition to the government’s line and policies, it was necessary to prepare the wording of the oath to be taken at the ceremony. Uncle Ho discussed with the Bureau a task of great importance to be undertaken at once: the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
In a poorly lighted small room at the back of the big house, which stood in one of the thirty-six ancient streets of Hanoi, Uncle Ho was at work, now writing, now typing.
The family servants did not know what the bright-eyed old man, wearing an unbuttoned faded brown coat and smoking cigarettes, was doing there with such great concentration. Each time they asked him if he wanted anything, he would turn round, smile and say a few words to them. And each time he would say he didn’t want anything. They did not know that they were witnessing a historic moment.
One morning, Uncle Ho and Comrade Truong Chinh called us in. The historic Declaration had been finished. Uncle Ho read it to us so that it could be appro- ved by the collective. As he recalled later, those were the happiest moments in his life.
Twenty-six years before, he had come to the Versailles Peace Conference with a list of the most urgent demands concerning the living conditions and democratic liberties of the colonial peoples. None of those modest demands were accepted by the imperialists. He realized that one could not pin any hopes on the kind-heartedness of the capitalists. One could only rely on the struggle and the forces of the people.
Now on behalf of the whole nation he was gathering the fruits of eighty years of struggle.
We could see the joy beaming on his still sallow face.