Page 97 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

916 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1
of yours, and in the end it will be you who
tire of it. • Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969)

Burleigh, M. (2000). The Third Reich: A new history. New York: Hill and to the West to search for ways to liberate his country,
Wang. which had been colonized by the French since 1862. Ho
Fest, J. C. (1974). Hitler. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Hamann, B. (1999). Hitler’s Vienna: A dictator’s apprenticeship. New Chi Minh’s travels were to last him thirty years, but in
York: Oxford University Press. 1917 he alighted in Paris, a fertile ground for revolu-
Hitler, A. (1933). Mein kampf. Marburg-Lahn, Germany: Blindenstu-
dienanstalt. tionaries. He joined the French Socialist Party, frequented
Keegan, J. (1989). The mask of command. New York: Penguin. Vietnamese nationalist milieus, and published anti-
Kershaw, I. (1999). Hitler: 1889–1936 hubris. New York: W.W. Norton. colonial articles in his journal, The Pariah, under the
Kershaw, I. (2000). Hitler: 1936–1945 nemesis. New York: Longman.
Kershaw, I. (2000). The Nazi dictatorship: Problems & perspectives of alias Nguyen Ai Quoc (“Nguyen Who Loves His Coun-
interpretation (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. try”).World War I ended in 1918, and in 1919 came the
Weinberg, G. (Ed.). (2003). Hitler’s second book:The unpublished sequel
to Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. New York: Enigma Books. peace conference at Versailles. Ho Chi Minh used the
conference as an opportunity to present a list of reforms
to the delegations present; when he was turned away, Ho
Chi Minh, who had already been involved in French
socialist activities, became even more deeply committed
Ho Chi Minh to Marxism. In 1920 he became one of the founding

(1890–1969) members of the French Communist Party, where he
President of the Democratic advocated for Vietnamese independence.
Republic of Vietnam In 1923 he traveled to Moscow for further Marxist
training, and from 1924 he traveled and worked as a
o Chi Minh was the most prominent leader of the Communist revolutionary in various parts of Asia.What
HVietnamese nationalist movements against French drove him foremost was his mission to liberate Vietnam
colonialism. Ho Chi Minh epitomized the will of colo- from French rule, at whatever cost. Jailed, tortured, sen-
nized peoples to obtain independence from Western tenced to death, and surviving years of hardship, Ho Chi
imperialism, but also embodied the paradoxical conver- Minh emerged the undisputed leader of the Vietnamese
gence of two apparently conflicting ideologies: national- Communist movement when he founded the Indochi-
ism and Marxism. nese Communist Party (ICP) in 1930 in Hong Kong.
Born Nguyen Sinh Cung in the village of Kim Lien, in The French colonial government was at its weakest
Nghe An province, he assumed multiple aliases during during the Japanese wartime occupation of Vietnam,
his years as a revolutionary, but was best known as Ho and it was in 1941, during the occupation, that Ho Chi
Chi Minh, which means “He Who Enlightens.” Ho Chi Minh returned to Vietnam and established the Viet
Minh grew up in a poor family of Confucian scholars. Minh Front, or the League for the Independence of Viet-
His father, despite being a scholar-official, preferred to nam. The surrender of Japan on 16 August 1945 gave
remain in the village to teach rather than serve an impe- the Viet Minh the opportunity to launch its nationwide
rial court he considered corrupt. At the time, Vietnam August Revolution and to seize power. On 2 September
had been broken up into three fragments (Tonkin, 1945, in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, by then an emaciated,
Annam, and Cochinchina) under the colonial control of wizened man, read the Declaration of Independence,
France.The Vietnamese royal court, centered at Hue, the declaring the formation of the Democratic Republic of
imperial capital, and under the nominal rule of the Vietnam (DRV).
Nguyen dynasty, answered to the French. Ho Chi Minh The French were determined to regain their colonial
was thus steeped early on in an atmosphere of fervent possessions, but the First Indochina War (1946–1954)
nationalism. In 1911, after pursuing an education at the concluded with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in
National School in Hue, Ho Chi Minh decided to travel May 1954. The Geneva Accords, signed in July 1954,