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History of ho chi minh essay
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Communism as a political philosophy has had both its critics and nationalist proponents throughout recent history. As a tool for nationalistic movements in recent, one of the most compelling examples is how communism was introduced and used by Ho Chi Minh to help Vietnam become a unified and independent nation in the 1970s. Ho Chi Minh, a Marxist Leninist, charismatic and populist leader, adopted communism through his experiences, struggles, and challenges. Communism came to play an important role in bringing Vietnam independence and freedom from the French and subsequent colonialist rulers. Ho Chi Minh used communist to help the Vietnamese develop feelings of patriotism and nationalism toward the country. Ho Chi Minh created several organizations in order to educate and then mobilize the Vietnamese under communism. His first organization was the Revolutionary Youth League, which educated the Vietnamese people on the foundations, the ideological aspects, and the goals of communism. The second organization was the Communist Vietnamese Party, which emphasized the benefits of communism both economically and physically compared to the French colonialists. Thirdly, the Vietminh provided the military opportunity for the Vietnamese people to take communism into practice and revolt against the French colonialists. The successes of these communist organization helped Ho Chi Minh successfully unite Vietnam and gain freedom from France.
From the 17th century on, Vietnam had never had a steady period of peace or prosperity. Vietnam fell into a civil war between the 16th to early 19th century between three powerful lords, Trinh and Nguyen, and the Tay Son brothers. Next, French influence and invasions took over Vietnam and established Fre...
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The results of the success of communism being implemented into Vietnamese society led the Vietnamese people to successfully defeat the French colonialists in the First Indochina War and unify Vietnam in the Second Indochina War. These victories symbolize how the effects of communism were able to bring people together based on their similarities. The ideologies of communism were appealing to all of the Vietnamese people because they were all suffering economically and politically from the French. Because of these appealing communist ideologies, Ho Chi Minh was able to bring the Vietnamese together on nationalistic and patriotic terms. Overall, although there were ideologies that came into play simultaneously as communism, it was Ho Chi Minh who successfully ushered in his Marxist Leninist ideology that allowed for Vietnam to unite and free Vietnam.
Vietnam has a very rich and cultural diverse background dating all the way back to 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded and paved the way for English colonization. The French had been colonizing since the 19th century. The French role in Vietnams history is critical; they started out by bringing these simple peasants to the latest technology of farming and hunting (Yancey 37). The French helped these people out greatly in the beginning, but like all stories of occupation go they just got worse. They started forcing rules and laws on the people of Vietnam. Thus started the First Vietnam War, also known as the Indochina War between France and Vietnam. "The French possessed military superiority, but the Vietnamese had already the hearts and minds of the country. (38). Even from the beginning the Vietnamese had the odds to there favor. The French looked at the wars in numbers and how many lost on each side. They gathered from all the battles that they were winning because the Vietnamese casualties far outweighed the French; nonetheless they were wrong. To a certain point the French were fighting a game that they could not win at any cost. The French had the military superiority but the Vietnamese had the manpower and the Guerilla tactics. The Indochina War ended with French loosing terrible at Dienbienphu, where a whole French garrison was wiped out.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
In 1949, Mao Zedong led the Peoples Revolution, which established a Communist State in China. Communism has now been introduced to Asia. In this period, after World War II, Communism was a popular ideology being introduced throughout the world. Vietnam was one of the many countries under the threat of Communism. At this time, Vietnam was a French Colony. As time went on tension started to come between the French and the Vietnamese people. As tension increased so did the fighting between the French and The Vietnamese. Finally in 1954, The French decided that they could no longer withstand the revolts of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese were now free of French rule. However, many problems still remained in Vietnam. After the war there was a conference to discuss the troubles in Vietnam and all of the other troubles in Asia. That conference was called the Geneva Conference. Vietnam sent two delegations to the conference. One of the delegations represented Viet Minh (which was Communist in their leanings) and the other represented Bao Dia's government, which was backed by the United States. Both claimed to represent all of Vietnam. At the conference there was a discussion about dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel to solve the troubles between the two delegations. Now there were two Vietnams. One, in the north, was under Communist rule and the other, in the south, was not. While the Geneva Conference was being held, the United States was already concerned about Communism being spread. The United States then decided that the only way to solve the problems would be to contain Communism including in Vietnam.
The aim of this book by Bui Diem with David Chanoff is to present the Vietnam War told from a South Vietnamese perspective. The large-scale scope of the work concerns the fighting between North and South Vietnam over which party would run the country and wanting to become an independent state free from the Western powers. Diem's memoir contains in-depth details about his life and politics in Vietnam in 1940-1975. The book serves as a primary source in documenting the events in Vietnam during the war and as an autobiography of Diem's life. The purpose of this book is to give insight of the war through Diem's eyes and how it affected his life.
In his article, “To Be Patriotic is to Build Socialsim”: Communist Ideology in Vietnam's Civil War, Tuong Vo challenges a standard view of the civil war between North and South Vietnam – the war is power struggle between the two camps. Based on a newly availble documents and other primary sources, Vu argues that “[V]ietnamese communists never wavered in their ideology loyalty during the period when key decisions about the civil war were made (1953–1960).....a modernizing socialist idology rather than a mere for national unification was driving the Vietnamese civil war from the north” (Vu 2009, 34–35).
After returning, Minh had help from the Vietminh; an organization of communist that wanted freedom from other countries. Their main goal was to turn Vietnam into a self-governed communist country. France wanted none of this non-sense. In 1945 they had moved back into southern Vietnam and ruled most of the cities. Ho Chi Minh swore to fight France to gain control of the whole country. U.S. promised to aid France, and sent almost $15 million worth of financial aid to France. The French fought for four years, being financially aided by the U.S. the whole time. The U.S. spent nearly one billion dollars in order to help France regain control of the tiny country. The only reason that much effort was put into a small area was the fear of the y. Domino Theory. The Domino Theory first showed it's head during a 1954 news conference by U.S. President Eisenhower. The domino theory is the fear of the spread of communism from one country to the next, and so on. Even with the assistance of the U.S. France could not gain the control it once had on Vietnam.
Road to Failure in Vietnam: Why America was Defeated Why did America Fail to Defeat its Vietnamese Enemies Between 1965 and 1969?
He sees that it is the weaker party , which only has a personnel strength of approximately 50,000 personnel to fight against America and its allies with modern equipment and weaponry . In addition to strength in terms of personnel , the leader of Vietnam 's Ho Chi Minh communist movement also realize that military equipment and soldiers fighting capability is very limited . But in terms of mastery of the battlefield as well as the support of the community in the Vietnam war , it is a positive factor and excellence in the fight against the Americans .
Most historians view the nature of the Vietnam War as rooted in the history of the French colonies in Vietnam and the growing ethnic, political, and economical division between Catholic and Buddhist Vietnamese. (Brigham, Robert, Hoffman, Kenneth)
After World War II, the French began a fight for their former colony of Indochina, which included Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The French and other countries failed to see at that time the will and desire of the Vietnamese people to gain independence from foreign rule and to have their country unified. Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist, fought the French and overtook the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi with his followers, the Viet Minh, declaring the area the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Anderson, 2002) The French were unwilling to give up their colony and drove the Vietminh from many of the larger cities in the south. The United States entered the Vietnam struggle in 1950 when $15 million in aid was pledged to France in order to fight the Vietminh. (Anderson, 2002) The rationale was to align with France and keep the Soviet Union from expanding in Europe and to keep another country from falling into communist rule.
Despite having been an independent country for nine-hundred years, Vietnam experienced an entire century of brutal occupation before it would reclaim its independence, all of which was due, in large part, by two foreign occupiers from the 1880’s to the 1970’s. During their respective tenures, both the French and the United States had a different rationale for their presence in Vietnam, yet there are undoubtingly some similarities between the two countries’ policies. For the French, the strategic location of Vietnam, in addition to their western, imperial, and mercantilist mentality propelled them to take control and reclaim Vietnam before and after WWII. For the United States, the accumulating consequences of policies by different U.S. presidents, the aftereffects of the French presence, and global events propelled the United States to become heavily involved in Vietnam by 1963. For the Vietnamese, the overarching self-interests of the French and the United States highlights the struggles that the Vietnamese faced in achieving their independence. In comparing these two countries policies, both powers thought (in one form or another) that they were
Herring begins his account with a summary of the First Indochina War. He reports that the Vietnamese resisted French imperialism as persistently as they had Chinese. French colonial policies had transformed the Vietnamese economic and social systems, giving rise to an urban middle class, however; the exploitation of the country and its people stimulated more radical revolutionary activity. Herring states that the revolution of 1945 was almost entirely the personal creation of the charismatic leader Ho Chi Minh. Minh is described as a frail and gentle man who radiated warmth and serenity, however; beneath this mild exterior existed a determined revolutionary who was willing to employ the most cold- blooded methods in the cause to which he dedicated his life. With the guidance of Minh, the Vietminh launched as a response to the favorable circumstances of World War II. By the spring of 1945, Minh mobilized a base of great support. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the Vietminh filled the vacuum. France and the Vietminh attempted to negotiate an agreement, but their goals were irreconcilable.
The French’s began to colonize Vietnam in 1874. The Vietnamese people gave the French a hard time during the “Pacification Period.” During this time the French tried to gain control of Vietnamese rebel groups and the Chinese, who also wanted to obtain Vietnam. The French divided Vietnam into three different parts. The southern part of Vietnam included two regions called Cochinchina and Annam. The northern part of Vietnam included a region called Tonking. Most of the rebellions took place in Tonking and Annam. The French were in Vietnam because of Economic reasons but, Catholic missionaries also wanted to convert all the people of Asia to Catholicism. Also the French wanted to spread their culture within Vietnam and teach the Vietnamese people about French literature, language, and history. After this period of time France focused on modernizing Vietnam and bringing in rail roads, bridges, and highways. They also forced labor and taxed the Vietnamese people.
American involvement sparked protest in the US, catalyzing a global youth movement. Nationalism in Vietnam not only united the people to fight the Japanese, French and Americans, but also cultivated communist leanings which caused U.S. intervention (Hunt 128). Ho Chi Minh, the leader in Vietnam, was first and foremost a nationalist revolutionary who used communism to rally the people. Harnessing anti-Japanese sentiment, and backed by the allies, he formed the Indochinese Communist Party to drive out the Japanese and implement land reform in the North Vietnam (Hunt 122). Ho Chi Minh used communist ideals to get support from China and the USSR, but was primarily a nationalist domestically. This connection was key to Cold War political tension because the United States got involved in Vietnam to prevent communism, mistaking it for nationalism. Robert McNamara, U.S. secretary of defence during the Vietnam War, reflected in this confusion by writing, “we also totally underestimated the nationalist aspect of Ho Chi Minh 's movement. We saw him first as a Communist and only second as a Vietnamese nationalist” (McNamara). Because of the confusion between nationalism and communism in Vietnam the United States got involved in an extensive conflict that would turn the country against its leadership and begin an anti-war youth movement in the 1960s that became a catalyst for youth movements in France, Mexico and Prague (Hunt 185). Through this succession from nationalism to communism and outside intervention, Vietnamese nationalism shifted global political realities during the cold
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.