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108-531: President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam Struggle for Independence Presidency First Indochina War Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh Thought Legacy Hồ Chí Minh (born Nguyễn Sinh Cung ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho ( Bác Hồ ), and by other aliases and sobriquets ,

216-601: A French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters. The article implored Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré to outlaw such Franglais as le manager , le round and le knock-out . His articles and speeches caught the attention of Dmitry Manuilsky , who would soon sponsor his trip to the Soviet Union and under whose tutelage he would become a high-ranking member of the Soviet Comintern. In 1923, Quốc (Hồ) left Paris for Moscow carrying

324-489: A Việt Minh advisor who was killed trying to escape. According to journalist Bernard Fall , Hồ decided to negotiate a truce after fighting the French for several years. When the French negotiators arrived at the meeting site, they found a mud hut with a thatched roof. Inside they found a long table with chairs. In one corner of the room, a silver ice bucket contained ice and a bottle of good champagne, indicating that Hồ expected

432-818: A chef or dishwasher (reports vary) at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. Claims that he was trained as a pastry chef under Auguste Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in Haymarket, Westminster are not supported by documentary evidence. 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 . During 1913, Thành

540-524: A clerk in the French Army ; his brother Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a geomancer and traditional herbalist ; and another brother (Nguyễn Sinh Nhuận), who died in infancy. As a young child, Cung (Hồ) studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vương Thúc Quý. He quickly mastered chữ Hán , a prerequisite for any serious study of Confucianism while honing his colloquial Vietnamese writing. In addition to his studies, he

648-618: A concern that he had betrayed the organization. However, according to Ton That Thien's research, he was a member of the inner circle of the Comintern, a protégé of Dmitry Manuilsky and a member in good standing of the Comintern throughout the Great Purge . Hồ was removed from control of the Party he had founded. Those who replaced him charged him with nationalist tendencies. In 1938, Quốc (Hồ) returned to China and served as an advisor to

756-484: A coup against them. On 1 November 1963, a coup overthrew Diệm, who was killed the next day together with his brother. Diệm had followed a policy of "deconstructing the state" by creating several overlapping agencies and departments that were encouraged to feud with one another to disorganize the South Vietnamese state to such an extent that he hoped that it would make a coup against him impossible. When Diệm

864-766: A document from the Centre des archives d'Outre-mer in France shows that he was admitted to Collège Quốc học on 8 August 1908, which was several months after the anti- corvée demonstration (9–13 April 1908). In Saigon , he applied to work as a kitchen helper on a French merchant steamer, the Amiral de Latouche-Tréville , using the alias Văn Ba. The ship departed on 5 June 1911 and arrived in Marseille , France on 5 July 1911. The ship then left for Le Havre and Dunkirk , returning to Marseille in mid-September. There, he applied for

972-628: A given name meaning "Bright spirit" or "Clear will" (from Sino-Vietnamese 志 明 : Chí meaning "will" or "spirit" and Minh meaning "bright"). His new name was a tribute to General Hou Zhiming (侯志明), Chief Commissar of the 4th Military Region of the National Revolutionary Army , who helped release him from a KMT prison in 1943. In April 1945, he met with the OSS agent Archimedes Patti and offered to provide intelligence, asking only for "a line of communication" between his Viet Minh and

1080-564: A nationwide total of nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions was widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although it was likely greater than 13,500. In early 1956, North Vietnam ended

1188-770: A negotiated peace. During the so-called "Maneli Affair" of 1963, a French diplomatic initiative was launched to achieve a federation of the two Vietnams, which would be neutral in the Cold War. The four principal diplomats involved in the Maneli affair were Ramchundur Goburdhun , the Indian Chief Commissioner of the ICC; Mieczysław Maneli , the Polish Commissioner to the ICC; Roger Lalouette, the French ambassador to South Vietnam; and Giovanni d'Orlandi,

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1296-954: A passport with the name Chen Vang, a Chinese merchant, where he was employed by the Comintern , studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924 before arriving in Canton (present-day Guangzhou ), China in November 1924 using the name Ly Thuy. In 1925–1926, he organized "Youth Education Classes" and occasionally gave socialist lectures to Vietnamese revolutionary young people living in Canton at

1404-918: A politician, Hồ was a writer, poet, and journalist. He wrote several books, articles, and poems in Chinese, Vietnamese, and French. Hồ Chí Minh (胡志明) was born as Nguyễn Sinh Cung (阮生恭) in 1890 in the village of Làng Chùa or Hoàng Trù in Kim Liên commune, Nam Đàn district, Nghệ An province, in Central Vietnam which was then a French protectorate . Although 1890 is generally accepted as his birth year, at various times he used four other birth years: 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895. He lived in his father Nguyễn Sinh Sắc 's village of Làng Sen in Kim Liên until 1895 when his father sent him to Huế for study. He had three siblings: his sister Bạch Liên (Nguyễn Thị Thanh),

1512-511: A relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Brière. As a French police document discovered in 2018, Quốc also had relations with the members of Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea like Kim Kyu-sik , Jo So-ang while in Paris. During this period, he began to write journal articles and short stories as well as run his Vietnamese nationalist group. In May 1922, he wrote an article for

1620-455: A scholar named Phan Châu Trinh as well as his friend Phan Văn Trường . In Paris he joined the Groupe des Patriotes Annamites (The Group of Vietnamese Patriots) that included Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Văn Trường, Nguyễn Thế Truyền  [ vi ] and Nguyễn An Ninh . They had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence under the pseudonym Nguyễn Ái Quốc ("Nguyễn

1728-643: A senior agent undertaking Comintern activities in Southeast Asia. Quốc (Hồ) remained in Thailand, staying in the Thai village of Nachok until late 1929, when he moved on to India and then Shanghai . In Hong Kong in early 1930, he chaired a meeting with representatives from two Vietnamese communist parties to merge them into a unified organization, the Communist Party of Vietnam. He also founded

1836-540: A thousand," noting that Stanley Karnow provided no source for the extended quote attributed to him in his 1983 Vietnam: A History and that the original quote was most likely forged by the Frenchman Paul Mus in his 1952 book Vietnam: Sociologie d'une Guerre . Mus was a supporter of French colonialism in Vietnam and Hồ Chí Minh believed there was no danger of Chinese troops staying in Vietnam. The Vietnamese at

1944-630: A woman to teach me the language and keep house". She was 21 and he was 36. They married in the same place where Zhou Enlai had married earlier and then lived in the residence of a Comintern agent, Mikhail Borodin . Hoàng Văn Chí argued that in June 1925 he betrayed Phan Bội Châu , the famous leader of a rival revolutionary faction and his father's old friend, to French Secret Service agents in Shanghai for 100,000 piastres . A source states that he later claimed he did it because he expected Châu's trial to stir up anti-French sentiment and because he needed

2052-796: Is believed that while in the US he made contact with Korean nationalists , an experience that developed his political outlook. Sophie Quinn-Judge states that this is "in the realm of conjecture". He was also influenced by Pan-Africanist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey during his stay, and said he attended meetings of the Universal Negro Improvement Association . At various points from 1913 to 1919, Thành (Hồ) claimed to have lived in West Ealing and later in Crouch End , Hornsey . He reportedly worked as either

2160-527: Is composed of the president, the prime minister and other members. The members of the NDSC are proposed by the president and approved by the National Assembly. NDSC members do not need to be members of the National Assembly. The decision-making process of the NDSC is that of a collective leadership . Among its powers is the right to mobilise all forces in the name of national defense, and in case of war

2268-475: Is just one single entity". At a meeting in Hanoi held in French, Hồ told Goburdhun that Diệm was "in his way a patriot", noting that Diệm had opposed French rule over Vietnam, and ended the meeting saying that the next time Goburdhun met Diệm "shake hands with him for me". The North Vietnamese Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, speaking on behalf of Hồ, told Maneli he was interested in the peace plan, saying that just as long as

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2376-526: Is to represent Vietnam internally and externally. The officeholder is elected by the National Assembly of Vietnam , is responsible to it and reports to it. The tenure of the president is five years, the same as that of the National Assembly. The president continues to serve in his functions until the National Assembly elects a successor. The president has the following executive and legislative powers: The National Defense and Security Council (NDSC)

2484-722: The August Revolution against the Japanese, resulting in the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. After the French returned to power the following month, Hồ's government retreated to the countryside and began guerrilla warfare . The Việt Minh defeated the French Union in 1954 at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ , ending the First Indochina War and resulting in the division of Vietnam , with

2592-558: The Battle of Route Coloniale 4 successfully broke the French border blockade, he met with Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing the Việt Minh. Mao Zedong's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60,000–70,000 Viet Minh shortly. The road to the outside world

2700-582: The Chinese Communist armed forces. He was also the senior Comintern agent in charge of Asian affairs. He worked extensively in Chongqing and traveled to Guiyang , Kunming , and Guilin . He was using the name Hồ Quang during this period. When France was defeated by Germany in 1940 , Hồ and his lieutenants, Võ Nguyên Giáp and Phạm Văn Đồng , saw this as an opportunity to advance their own cause. In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh returned to Vietnam to lead

2808-775: The French protectorate of Annam . From 1911, he left French Indochina to work, and in 1920 was a founding member of the French Communist Party . After studying in Moscow , Hồ founded the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League in 1925, which five years later became the Indochinese Communist Party . On his return to Vietnam in 1941, he founded the communist-led Việt Minh independence movement, and in 1945 led

2916-683: The Pathet Lao , and used 30,000 men to build a network of supply and reinforcement routes running through Laos and Cambodia that became known as the Hồ Chí Minh trail . It allowed the North to send manpower and material to the Việt Cộng with much less exposure to South Vietnamese forces, achieving a considerable advantage. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord,

3024-583: The Việt Minh independence movement. The Japanese occupation of Indochina that year, the first step toward an invasion of the rest of Southeast Asia, created an opportunity for patriotic Vietnamese. The so-called "men in black" were a 10,000-member guerrilla force that operated with the Việt Minh. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy France and the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II , supported closely yet clandestinely by

3132-475: The Whampoa Military Academy . These young people would become the seeds of a new revolutionary, pro-communist movement in Vietnam several years later. According to William Duiker , he lived with a Chinese woman, Zeng Xueming (Tăng Tuyết Minh), whom he married on 18 October 1926. When his comrades objected to the match, he told them: "I will get married despite your disapproval because I need

3240-572: The cane as punishment for an infraction. His father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy, but he refused because it meant serving the French. This exposed Thành (Hồ) to rebellion at a young age and seemed to be the norm for the province. Nevertheless, he received a French education, attending Collège Quốc học ( lycée or secondary education) in Huế in Central Vietnam. His disciples, Phạm Văn Đồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp , also attended

3348-470: The "North First" faction which favored focusing on the economic development of North Vietnam, and the "South First" faction, which favored a guerrilla war in South Vietnam to reunite the country within the short term. Between 1961 and 1963, 40,000 Communist soldiers infiltrated South Vietnam from the North. In 1963, Hồ purportedly corresponded with South Vietnamese President Diệm in hopes of achieving

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3456-466: The "greatest devastation" from American bombing, saying that Johnson was seriously considering a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. Little came of the backchannel of the "Seaborn Mission" as the North Vietnamese distrusted Seaborn, who pointedly was never allowed to meet Hồ. President of Vietnam The President must be a delegate of the National Assembly . In addition,

3564-495: The 1964 election, he decided to make his intentions clear to Hanoi. In June 1964, the "Seaborn Mission" began as J. Blair Seaborn , the Canadian commissioner to the ICC, arrived in Hanoi with a message from Johnson offering billions of American economic aid and diplomatic recognition in exchange for which North Vietnam would cease trying to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. Seaborn also warned that North Vietnam would suffer

3672-477: The 300 days, Ngô Đình Diệm and CIA adviser Colonel Edward Lansdale staged a campaign to convince Northerners to move to South Vietnam. The campaign was particularly focused on Vietnam's Catholics, who were to provide Diệm's power base in his later years, with the use of the slogan "God has gone south". Between 800,000 and 1 million people migrated to the South, mostly Catholics. At the start of 1955, French Indochina

3780-690: The Allies. The OSS agreed to this and later sent a military team of OSS members to train his men and Hồ Chí Minh himself was treated for malaria and dysentery by an OSS doctor. Following the August Revolution organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ Chí Minh 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. Although he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government

3888-578: The American advisers left South Vietnam "we can agree with any Vietnamese". On 2 September 1963, Maneli met with Ngô Đình Nhu , the younger brother and right-hand man to Diệm to discuss the French peace plan. It remains unclear if the Ngo brothers were serious about the French peace plan or were merely using the possibility of accepting it to blackmail the United States into supporting them at a time when

3996-510: The Buddhist crisis had seriously strained relations between Saigon and Washington. Supporting the latter theory is the fact that Nhu promptly leaked his meeting with Maneli to the American columnist Joseph Alsop , who publicized it in a column entitled "Very Ugly Stuff". The possibility that the Ngo brothers might accept the peace plan contributed to the Kennedy administration's plan to support

4104-584: The Constitution. On the other hands, presidents of Vietnam are regularly one of the top-ranked members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam , making them practically among the most influential figures of the Vietnamese politics alongside the constitutional powers that they gained from their formal presidency. The former president Võ Văn Thưởng was listed as the fourth-ranking figure in

4212-779: The Council of State was concurrently chairman of the National Defense Council (later the National Defense and Security Council) and commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces . The Council of State supervised the works of other institutions, most notably the Council of Ministers, the Supreme People's Organ for Control and the People's Councils at all levels. It also presided over

4320-409: The Council of State were taken from the Standing Committee of the National Assembly , which lost most of its powers and prestige in the 1980. The members of the Council of State were elected by the National Assembly and consisted of a chairman, deputy chairmen, a general secretary and other members. Council of State members could not concurrently be members of the Council of Ministers. The chairman of

4428-479: The Declaration of Independence of Vietnam on 2 September 1945 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. In the same month, a force of 200,000 Chinese National Revolutionary Army troops arrived in Hanoi to accept

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4536-442: The Democratic Republic of Vietnam government found that war was inevitable. The bombardment of Haiphong by the French Navy only strengthened the belief that France had no intention of allowing an autonomous, independent state in Vietnam. The attack reportedly killed more than 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in Haiphong. French forces marched into Hanoi, now the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 19 December 1946, after

4644-439: The French Colonial School but did not succeed. He instead decided to begin traveling the world by working on ships and visiting many countries from 1911 to 1917. While working as the cook's helper on a ship in 1912, Thành (Hồ) traveled to the United States. From 1912 to 1913, he may have lived in New York City ( Harlem ) and Boston , where he claimed to have worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel . The only evidence that he

4752-424: The Haiphong incident, Hồ Chí Minh declared war against the French Union, marking the beginning of the Indochina War . The Vietnam National Army, mostly armed with machetes and muskets immediately attacked. They assaulted the French positions, smoking them out with straw bundled with chili pepper, destroying armored vehicles with "lunge mines" (a hollow-charge warhead on the end of a pole, detonated by thrusting

4860-471: The ICC's "competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties". Of the nine nations represented, only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration. Undersecretary of state Walter Bedell Smith delivered a "unilateral declaration" of the United States position, reiterating: "We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by

4968-448: The Indochinese Communist Party. In June 1931, Hồ was arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) as part of a joint operation between the French authorities in Indochina and the HKPF; scheduled to be extradited from Hong Kong to French Indochina, Hồ was successfully defended by British solicitor Frank Loseby. Eventually, after appeals to the British Privy Council , Hồ was reported as dead in 1932 to avoid being extradited to Indochina; it

5076-514: The Indochinese Federation and the French Union . The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement, for both the French and Vietminh, was for Chiang's army to leave North Vietnam. Fighting broke out in the North soon after the Chinese left. Historian Professor Liam Kelley of the University of Hawaii at Manoa on his Le Minh Khai's Asian History Blog challenged the authenticity of the alleged quote where Hồ Chí Minh said he "would rather smell French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for

5184-409: The Italian ambassador to South Vietnam. Maneli reported that Hồ was very interested in the signs of a split between President Diệm and President Kennedy and that his attitude was: "Our real enemies are the Americans. Get rid of them, and we can cope with Diệm and Nhu afterward". Hồ and Maneli also discussed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which passed through officially neutral Cambodia and Laos, saying "Indochina

5292-435: The National Assembly can entrust the NDSC with special duties and powers. From the current Constitution of Vietnam , the Vietnamese media has described the presidency to be relatively similar to the presidents of Singapore , Germany , Austria ...which are largely ceremonial positions , however, the Vietnamese president still have certain, even though unclear, executive , judicial and legislative powers as designed by

5400-448: The National Assembly had the power to appoint and dismiss the president. The president represented Vietnam both internally and externally. The power and responsibilities of the president in 1946 constitution is very similar to the power and responsibilities of the president of the United States with elements from the president of France being both the head of state and the head of government . The 1959 constitution significantly reduced

5508-446: The Patriot") prior to Thành's arrival in Paris. The group petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks , but they were ignored. Citing the principle of self-determination outlined before the peace accords, they requested the allied powers to end French colonial rule of Vietnam and ensure the formation of an independent government. Before

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5616-421: The Politburo hierarchy. The Politburo elected in the aftermath of the 11th National Party Congress (held in January 2011) by the Central Committee elected Trương Tấn Sang as the first-ranking member of the Politburo. This was the first time in Vietnamese history where the highest-ranking member of the Politburo does not hold post of either general secretary or chairman (was in existence from 1951 to 1969) of

5724-454: The Politburo passing a resolution calling for North Vietnam to complete the overthrow of the regime in Saigon as soon as possible; while the members of the "North first" faction were dismissed. As the South descended into chaos, whatever interest Hồ might have had in the French peace plan faded, as it became clear the Việt Cộng could overthrow the Saigon government. A CIA report from 1964 stated that factionalism in South Vietnam had reached "almost

5832-469: The President has traditionally been a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and a member of the Politburo . The Central Committee of the Communist Party nominates candidates to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly , which then confirms and nominates those candidates for official election by all delegates of the National Assembly. The President appoints the Vice President , Prime Minister , ministers, and other officials with

5940-403: The President is incapacitated from work over a long period of time, the Vice President shall act as President. In case of vacancy of the Presidency, the Vice President shall serve as acting President until a new President is elected by the National Assembly." Nguy%E1%BB%85n Sinh S%E1%BA%AFc Nguyễn Sinh Sắc ( chữ Hán : 阮生色 ,1862–1929) was the father of Ho Chi Minh . Hoàng Thị Loan

6048-444: The United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly". Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including "rent reduction" and " land reform ", which were accompanied with executions of "reactionary and evil landlords." During the land reform, testimonies by North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution per 160 village residents, which if extrapolated would indicate

6156-426: The United States Office of Strategic Services and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–1954). He was jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities before being rescued by Chinese Communists. Following his release in 1943, he returned to Vietnam. It was during this time that he began regularly using the name Hồ Chí Minh, a Vietnamese name combining a common Vietnamese surname (Hồ, 胡 ) with

6264-402: The Viet Minh. The subsequent Geneva Accords peace process partitioned North Vietnam at the 17th parallel. Arthur Dommen estimates that the Việt Minh killed between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians during the war. Benjamin Valentino estimates that the French were responsible for 60,000–250,000 civilian deaths. The 1954 Geneva Conference concluded the war between France and the Việt Minh, allowing

6372-419: The Việt Minh in control of North Vietnam, and anti-communists in control of South Vietnam . Hồ remained as president and leader of the party during the Vietnam War , which lasted from 1955 to 1975. Hồ officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems and died in 1969. North Vietnam was ultimately victorious against South Vietnam and its allies . Vietnam was officially unified in 1976. Saigon,

6480-425: The Western allies sought to have no deadline. Molotov proposed June 1955, then later softened this to any time in 1955 and finally July 1956. The Diệm government supported reunification elections, but only with effective international supervision, arguing that genuinely free elections were otherwise impossible in the totalitarian North. By the afternoon of 20 July 1954, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as

6588-474: The charge against the side of a tank; typically a suicide weapon ) and Molotov cocktails , holding off attackers by using roadblocks , landmines and gravel. After two months of fighting, the exhausted Việt Minh forces withdrew after systematically destroying any valuable infrastructure . Hồ was mistakenly reported to be captured by a group of French soldiers, led by Jean Étienne Valluy at Việt Bắc, during Operation Léa . The person in question turned out to be

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6696-401: The conference, the group sent their letter to allied leaders, including French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and United States President Woodrow Wilson . They were unable to obtain consideration at Versailles , but the episode would later help establish the future Hồ Chí Minh as the symbolic leader of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam. Since Thành was the public face behind

6804-477: The consent of the National Assembly . The president is furthermore the nominal supreme Commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and Chairman of the Council for National Defense and Security . Additionally, the President is also a member of the Central Military Commission and the Central Police Party Committee. Since September 2011, the President is also the Chairman of the Central Steering Committee for Judicial Reform. The powers and prestige of

6912-465: The country, his subordinates imprisoned 2,500 non-Communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee. Hundreds of political opponents were jailed or exiled in July 1946, notably, members of the Nationalist Party of Vietnam and the Dai Viet National Party after a failed attempt to raise a coup against the Viet Minh government. All rival political parties were hereafter banned and local governments were purged to minimize opposition later on. However, it

7020-409: The current CPV Politburo, and Nguyễn Phú Trọng served as the state's president from 2018 to 2021 while being the incumbent General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam , the title for the highest-ranking member in the Politburo as well as in the whole Communist Party of Vietnam that he has assumed undisrupted since 2011. According to Article 93 of the Constitution of Vietnam (2013): "When

7128-433: The elections of the National Assembly. The office of Chairman of the Council of State, the head of state, was abolished in the 1992 Constitution and replaced by the office of President. The importance of the president has not remained constant throughout Vietnamese history. For instance, while Hồ Chí Minh was ranked as first member of the Politburo , the highest decision-making body in Vietnam, his successor, Tôn Đức Thắng ,

7236-475: The former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. The details of Hồ Chí Minh 's life before he came to power in Vietnam are uncertain. He is known to have used between 50 and 200 pseudonyms. Information on his birth and early life is ambiguous and subject to academic debate. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely. Aside from being

7344-511: The independence of the Việt Cộng was stressed in communist propaganda. North Vietnam created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 as a " united front ", or political branch of the Việt Cộng, intended to encourage the participation of non-Communists. At the end of 1959, aware that the planned national elections would never be held and that Diệm intended to purge opposing forces (mostly ex-Việt Minh) from South Vietnamese society, Hồ Chí Minh informally chose Lê Duẩn to become

7452-417: The land reform and initiated a "correction of errors" to rectify the mistakes and damage done. That year, Hồ Chí Minh apologised and acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform. As part of the campaign, as many as 23,748 political prisoners were released by North Vietnam by September 1957. By 1958, the correction campaign had resulted in the return of land to many of those harmed by

7560-419: The land reform. As early as June 1956, the idea of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government was presented at a Politburo meeting. In 1959, Hồ Chí Minh began urging the Politburo to send aid to the Việt Cộng in South Vietnam; a " people's war " on the South was approved at a session in January 1959, and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March. North Vietnam invaded Laos in July 1959, aided by

7668-418: The latter's forces to regroup in the North whilst anti-Communist groups settled in the South. Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated to Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a Communist -led one-party state . Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be a 300-day period in which people could freely move between the two regions of Vietnam, later known as South Vietnam and North Vietnam. During

7776-593: The major cities, but particularly in the South, in Saigon-Cochinchina, they had been a challenge. From the outset, they had called for armed resistance to a French restoration and an immediate transfer of industry to workers and land to peasants. The French Socialist leader Daniel Guérin recalls that when in Paris in 1946 he asked Hồ Chí Minh about the fate of the Trotskyist leader Tạ Thu Thâu , Hồ Chí Minh had replied, "with unfeigned emotion," that "'Thâu

7884-481: The money to establish a communist organization. In Ho Chi Minh: A Life , William Duiker considered this hypothesis, but ultimately rejected it. Other sources claim that Nguyễn Thượng Huyện was responsible for Chau's capture. Chau, sentenced to lifetime house arrest , never denounced Quốc. After Chiang Kai-shek 's 1927 anti-communist coup, Quốc (Hồ) left Canton again in April 1927 and returned to Moscow, spending part of

7992-478: The negotiations to succeed. One demand by the French was the return to French custody of several Japanese military officers (who had been helping the Vietnamese armed forces by training them in the use of weapons of Japanese origin) for them to stand trial for war crimes committed during World War II. Hồ Chí Minh replied that the Japanese officers were allies and friends whom he could not betray, therefore he walked out to seven more years of war. In February 1950, after

8100-531: The next party leader. This was interpreted by Western analysts as a loss of influence for Hồ, who was said to have preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp for the position. From 1959 onward, the elderly Hồ became increasingly worried about the prospect of his death, and that year he wrote down his will. Hồ stepped down as General Secretary of the Vietnam Communist party in September 1960 and Lê Duẩn

8208-570: The office of president have varied over the years. For instance, while the inaugural president, Hồ Chí Minh , was also the chairman of the Communist Party , making him (in that capacity) the first ranking member of the Politburo , the highest decision-making body in Vietnam. His successor, Tôn Đức Thắng , was not a member of the Politburo and served as a symbolic figure under General Secretary Lê Duẩn . Since Trường Chinh 's ascension to

8316-677: The parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and the elections for a reunified government should be held in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was only signed by the French and Việt Minh military commands, with no participation or consultation of the State of Vietnam. Based on a proposal by Chinese delegation head Zhou Enlai, an International Control Commission (ICC) chaired by India, with Canada and Poland as members,

8424-433: The party. Since Trương Tấn Sang is first-ranked member of the Politburo, he is the body's unofficial head. Politburo meetings are held regularly; decisions within the Politburo are made through collective decision-making , and policies are only enacted if a majority of Politburo members supports them. The president is selected for a term of office of five years. The term of office of the incumbent president continues until

8532-561: The point of anarchy" as various South Vietnamese leaders fought one another, making any sort of concerted effort against the Việt Cộng impossible; leading to much of the South Vietnamese countryside being rapidly taken over by communist guerilla forces. As South Vietnam collapsed into factionalism and in-fighting while the Việt Cộng continued to win the war, it became increasingly apparent to President Lyndon Johnson that only American military intervention could save South Vietnam. Though Johnson did not wish to commit American forces until he had won

8640-550: The power of the president, making the president the de jure leader of Vietnam while handling most of the de facto power to the post of general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam . The 1980 constitution transformed the office of head of state dramatically. The office of president was abolished and replaced with the office of Chairman of the Council of State (CC). The CC chairmanship

8748-568: The presidency is five years, and a president can only serve three terms. If the President becomes unable to discharge duties of office, the Vice President will assume the acting presidency on an interim basis until the President resumes duty, or until the election of a new president by the National Assembly. Vice President Võ Thị Ánh Xuân served as Acting President of Vietnam twice, in 2023 and 2024. Her predecessor, Đặng Thị Ngọc Thịnh ,

8856-464: The presidency, the president has been ranked 1st (if concurrently served as General Secretary) or 2nd in the order of precedence of the Communist Party's Politburo, except for President Nguyễn Minh Triết (who ranked fourth) and President Võ Chí Công (who ranked third). Four persons served concurrently as head of both the party and state: Hồ Chí Minh (1951–1969), Trường Chinh (1986), Nguyễn Phú Trọng (2018–2021), and Tô Lâm (2024). The tenure of

8964-493: The president-elect takes office. On assuming office, the president takes the following oath before the parliament: In my capacity as President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, I swear complete allegiance to the country, people, and constitution; to fulfill the tasks assigned by the State, and people. [REDACTED] Vietnam portal The president is the head of state of Vietnam, and his main priority

9072-424: The publication of the document (although it was written by Phan Văn Trường), he soon became known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, and first used the name in September during an interview with a Chinese newspaper correspondent. Many authors have stated that 1919 was a lost "Wilsonian moment", where the future Hồ Chí Minh could have adopted a pro-American and less radical position if only President Wilson had received him. However, at

9180-541: The school, as did Ngô Đình Diệm , the future President of South Vietnam and political rival. His early life is uncertain but there are some documents indicating activities regarding an early revolutionary spirit during French-occupied Vietnam, but conflicting sources remain. Previously, it was believed that Thành (Hồ) was involved in an anti-slavery (anti- corvée ) demonstration of poor peasants in Huế in May 1908, which endangered his student status at Collège Quốc học . However,

9288-497: The summer of 1927 recuperating from tuberculosis in Crimea before returning to Paris once more in November. He then returned to Asia by way of Brussels , Berlin, Switzerland, and Italy, where he sailed to Bangkok , Thailand, arriving in July 1928. "Although we have been separated for almost a year, our feelings for each other do not have to be said to be felt", he reassured Zeng in an intercepted letter. In this period, he served as

9396-494: The surrender of the Japanese occupiers in northern Indochina. Hồ Chí Minh made a compromise with their general, Lu Han , to dissolve the Communist Party and to hold an election that would yield a coalition government. When Chiang forced the French to give the French concessions in Shanghai back to China in exchange for withdrawing from northern Indochina, he 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

9504-666: The time of the Versailles Conference, Hồ Chí Minh was committed to a socialist program. While the conference was ongoing, Nguyễn Ái Quốc was already delivering speeches on the prospects of Bolshevism in Asia and was attempting to persuade French socialists to join Lenin 's Communist International . Upon hearing of the October 1920 death of Irish republican hunger striker (and Lord Mayor of Cork) Terence MacSwiney , Quốc (Hồ)

9612-463: The time were busy spreading anti-French propaganda as evidence of French atrocities in Vietnam emerged, while Hồ Chí Minh showed no qualms about accepting Chinese aid after 1949. The Việt Minh then collaborated with French colonial forces to massacre supporters of rival Vietnamese nationalist movements in 1945–1946, and of the Trotskyists. Trotskyism in Vietnam did not rival the Party outside of

9720-635: Was a Vietnamese communist revolutionary and politician. He served as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955, and as president from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist , he was the Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam , the predecessor of the current Communist Party of Vietnam . Hồ Chí Minh was born in Nghệ An province in

9828-485: Was a great patriot and we mourn him', but then a moment later added in a steady voice 'All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.'" The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties, but they 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 ,

9936-413: Was a symbolic figure with little power. The post of head of state was strengthened in the 1980 Constitution by the appointment of Trường Chinh who was, by order of precedence, the second-highest-ranking member in the Politburo, behind Lê Duẩn . The office of president retained the second highest rank in the Politburo order of precedence until Nguyễn Minh Triết was appointed in 2006; he ranked fourth in

10044-491: Was also employed as a pastry chef on the Newhaven – Dieppe ferry route. From 1919 to 1923, Thành (Hồ) began to show an interest in politics while living in France, being influenced by his friend and French Section of the Workers' International comrade Marcel Cachin . Thành claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police had only documents recording his arrival in June 1919. When he arrived, he met

10152-522: Was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the South. All the parties at Geneva called for reunification elections, but they could not agree on the details. Recently appointed Việt Minh acting foreign minister Phạm Văn Đồng proposed elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States, with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, suggested United Nations supervision. This plan

10260-422: Was fond of adventure and loved to fly kites and go fishing. Following Confucian tradition, his father gave him a new name at the age of 10: Nguyễn Tất Thành. His father 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 having received 102 strokes of

10368-520: Was his wife, the daughter of his adoptive father and teacher. He passed the Confucian cử nhân examination in 1894 and in 1901 gained a second-rank (pho bang) position. He was a magistrate in the Binh Khe district ( Qui Nhơn ), until he was demoted for abuse of power after a landlord whom he had ordered to be beaten died shortly after receiving a caning. Ho Chi Minh's parents' house is now preserved as

10476-611: Was in the United States is a single letter to French colonial administrators dated 15 December 1912 and postmarked New York City (he gave his address as the poste restante in Le Havre and his occupation as a sailor) and a postcard to Phan Chu Trinh in Paris where he mentioned working at the Omni Parker House Hotel. Inquiries to the Parker House management revealed no records of his ever having worked there. It

10584-583: Was modelled after the Soviet office of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . The Council of State, as with the Council of Ministers , was a collective decision-making body . Both the Council of State and the Council of Ministers were part of the executive branch; the strengthening of these institutions weakened the role of the legislative branch. The duties, powers and responsibilities of

10692-515: Was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned President Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, citing the Atlantic Charter , but Truman never responded. In 1946, future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Hồ Chí Minh became acquainted when they stayed at the same hotel in Paris. He offered Ben-Gurion a Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam, which Ben-Gurion declined. In 1946, when he traveled outside of

10800-530: Was noted that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 's first Congress had over two-thirds of its members come from non-Việt Minh political factions, some without an election. Nationalist Party of Vietnam leader Nguyễn Hải Thần was named vice president. They also held four out of ten ministerial positions ( Government of the Union of Resistance of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam  [ vi ] ). Following Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication in August, Hồ Chí Minh read

10908-490: Was officially named party leader, leaving Hồ to function in a secondary role as head of state and member of the Politburo . He nevertheless maintained considerable influence in the government. Lê Duẩn, Tố Hữu , Trường Chinh and Phạm Văn Đồng often shared dinner with Hồ, and all of them remained key figures throughout and after the war. In the early 1960s, the North Vietnamese Politburo was divided into

11016-554: Was open for Việt Minh forces to receive additional supplies which would allow them to escalate the fight against the French regime throughout Indochina. At the outset of the conflict, Hồ reportedly told a French visitor: "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win". In 1954, the First Indochina War came to an end after the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu , where more than 10,000 French soldiers surrendered to

11124-559: Was overthrown and killed, without any kind of arbiter between the rival arms of the South Vietnamese state, regime authority in South Vietnam promptly disintegrated. The American Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported after visiting South Vietnam in December 1963 that "there is no organized government worthy of the name" in Saigon. At a meeting of the plenum of the Politburo in December 1963, Lê Duẩn's "South first" faction triumphed, with

11232-576: Was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire. Because issues were to be decided unanimously, Poland's presence in the ICC provided the Communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty. The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Việt Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections, insisting that

11340-405: Was rejected by Soviet representative Vyacheslav Molotov , who argued for a commission composed of an equal number of communist and non-communist members, which could determine "important" issues only by unanimous agreement. The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification. North Vietnam argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire while

11448-530: Was ruled that, though he would be deported from Hong Kong as an undesirable, it would not be to a destination controlled by France. Hồ was eventually released and, disguised as a Chinese scholar, boarded a ship to Shanghai. He subsequently returned to the Soviet Union and studied and taught at the Lenin Institute in Moscow. In this period Hồ reportedly lost his positions in the Comintern because of

11556-898: Was said to have burst into tears and said “a country with a citizen like this will never surrender”. In December 1920, Quốc (Hồ) became a representative to the Congress of Tours of the French Section of the Workers' International, voted for the Third International , and was a founding member of the French Communist Party. Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of the party, he tried to draw his comrades' attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. While living in Paris, he reportedly had

11664-406: Was the first woman in Vietnamese history to assume the (acting) presidency following the death of President Trần Đại Quang in 2018. General Lương Cường is the incumbent President of Vietnam, serving in this role since 21 October 2024, succeeding General Secretary Tô Lâm. Hồ Chí Minh was appointed Vietnam's first president in 1946 by the National Assembly. The 1959 Constitutions stated that

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