Ho Chi Minh: the Most Important Political Figure of Vietnamese History - Case Study Example

Introduction Vietnam has gained the world’s attention when it defeated gigantic military forces of the United States during the Indochina war. In the battle likened to David against Goliath, the Vietnamese people proved that love of country and ingenuity to war tactics combined with solid unity and desire for be free can overcome the odds. In every battle, either in success or failure, a leader emerges and would be remembered, either for their strength or weakness or because of their bravery or defeats. Very seldom, in the pages of history those leaders at war-time were remembered for their good heart. Maybe one of these exemptions is Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh is considered to be one of the most prominent leaders of the world and the most important political figure of Vietnamese history (Tin 12). For the many historians, his life is as interesting as history itself. But for the Vietnamese people, he is more than just a part of history. His existence brought the ultimate changes in their everyday life and dictated the course of their future. Ho Chi Minh was considered to be a hero. It is in this light that this paper delves on the life of Ho Chi Minh. This paper will track not only the life of Ho Chi Minh as one great historical figure, but as a man who took the road less traveled, the revolutionary life. The young Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh was born as Nguyen Sinh Cung which means the patriot [Wil00]. In Vietnamese tradition, children born are being given by so-called milk name. He was second to the youngest of four children. He was born on May 19, 1890 at the village of Kien Lien of Annem. His father is Nguyen Sinh Sac and his mother is Hoang Thi Loan (Duiker 22). His mother died a year after giving birth to her fourth child. In line with the Vietnamese tradition, Ho was given a new name by his father to mark the occasion of his eleventh birthday. He would be now called Nguyen tat Thanh translated as: he who will succeed [Wil00]. Ho’s ideals had been greatly influenced by his father who earned a doctorate degree through the imperial examination, the highest level of academic educational attainment under the Confucian educational system (Duiker 23). Much of Ho’s educational foundation came from his father’s teachings. Despite of the high educational achievement, Ho’s father remained grounded and espoused the ideals of serving the poor in their community. He was known to decline grand celebrations for his achievements but instead asked the people in their village to just donate the food for the banquets to the poor. His father was Ho’s teacher, literally and figuratively. Ho did attend to a local school, but he did not like the style of teaching of the tutor which was traditional (Duiker 24). He went back to the tutorial of his father who was more liberal and tolerant. Even at the young age, Ho, along with his fellow students under the guidance of his father, was taught that what really matters in understanding the inner content of the Confucian classics is how to apply this in helping their fellow human beings (Duiker 23). The young Ho Chi Mihn lived a very active life. His education was not confined on the four corners of the classroom. He learned how to use the forge and bird hunting. He read romantic tales of heroism, he heard and listened intently to the stories of warriors’ triumphant struggles and the local struggles in Vietnam against the French colonizers (Tin 88), he felt proud to know that he had several relatives who fought and died for the cause (Duiker 24). In his village, Ho had been exposed to the reality that there are people being killed in the battle for sovereignty against French. His attendance to several funeral services for the war martyrs had opened his eyes on the sense of patriotism (Duiker 24). As he joined the others in shedding tears for the ultimate sacrifice of his fellow human beings, the urge to study his country’s history and situation had been triggered. The intensity of the feeling of nationalism increased. The road to discovery At the age of 35, Ho Chi Minh a.k.a. Nguyen Ai Quoc founded the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League. The Youth League was considered to be one of the many radical Vietnamese anti-colonial organizations during the 1920s (Bradley 125). The Revolutionary Youth League was established with the proposition of joining the struggle of overthrowing the imperialist domination and advancing the reestablishment of national independence (Duiker 122). Ho Chi Minh’s effort in founding the Revolutionary Youth League was a culmination of his search, exploration, self-discovery, integration with other oppressed nation and exposure to movements and people waging revolutions in their respective countries. During this time, tension in the political situation in Vietnam had increased. The anti-French sentiments had also relatively gathered wide support among the ranks of the intellectuals and gradually spreading in the rural areas. Vietnamese people were disgruntled and mustered protests against corruption, mounting taxes and forced labor (Knight 3). At the same time, Ho Chi Minh’s initial curiosity had turned into actually taking concrete actions. At 17, he initiated a campaign calling on all Vietnamese to cut their hair as an act of protest against the feudal exploitation. He went as far as skipping classes to convince people of his call and actually provided free haircuts (Duiker 35). A few months after, Ho Chi Minh was to be involved in a life-changing experience when he joined peasant unrest in the village of Hue (Tin 65). The mobilization was violently dispersed to the point that French troops shot the demonstrators resulting to numerous casualties (Duiker 35). Ho Chi Minh served as an interpreter for the peasants in airing their grievances was kicked out of the National Academy for being a trouble maker (Duiker 37). It is at this point that Ho Chi Minh begun his journey. Distinct from other youth his age, this journey he took, had no intention of self-glorification; it was a search for the truth and wisdom to help his countrymen (Duiker 39). He took a voyage on the sea. He stayed in New York for employment. He worked as a laborer and as a house servant to a wealthy family. Here, he involved himself with the struggle of the black activists against racial discrimination. Ho Chi Minh left the US at 1913. His next stop over would be in Great Britain. While in London, he studied English and work to avoid being hungry (Duiker 49). Involvement with political organizations was again expected. Ho Chi Minh became a member of the Overseas Workers Association, an underground movement of Chinese laborers struggling to improve the working conditions in British factories (Duiker 55). In 1919, Ho Chi Minh went to France. While in France, he was at the forefront of the Vietnamese workers movement and involved in the anti-colonial struggle. It was during this time that Ho Chi Minh changed his name to Nguyen Ai Quoc a nom de plume he would use for a long time. He became member of the French Socialist Party (FSP). Ho Chi Minh’s ideology by this time was already falling into places. He knew by now that the main problem besetting the world had been the exploitation of Western Imperialism, the moribund stage of world capitalist system [Joh02]. Ho Chi Minh became active in the convention of the Third International organized by Vladimir Lenin, a Russian revolutionary leader who implemented Karl Marx’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Mainly, the Third International’s main agenda is unity for a revolution led by the proletariat. By 1920, Ho Chi Minh a.k.a. Nguyen Ai Quo was to become an individual member of the Third International through his application to the Committee for Affiliation (Duiker 65). His involvement with Comintern shaped and sharpened his socialist ideas. The then profound ideas of Marxism were to be fully understood by Ho Chi Minh through the writings of Lenin. Despite the different context he was situated, Ho Chi Minh’s primary concern in his involvement with the socialist movement in France was the sad state of colonial nations in Asia. He was usually involved with debates on the agenda of the communist parties on the colonial peoples. Lenin’s message in a document entitled Theses enlightened Ho Chi Minh in what could be the role of the nationalist movements in Asia in the struggle against imperialism [Joh02]. Eventually, he joined the French Communist Party. In 1923, Ho Chi Minh was invited to Moscow by Dmitri Manuilsky, a senior official of the Comintern in USSR. Here, he saw how socialism could be a viable economic alternative to the world capitalist system. In November 1924, Ho Chi Minh went back to Asia, specifically to Canton, China. He spent a few months there, where he was exposed to the national democratic struggle of the Communist Party of China being led by Mao Tsung. He witnessed the realization of Karl Marx’s theory of the alliance of the workers and the peasants to create a motive force for the revolution. China’s colonial history and social condition could be paralleled to that of Vietnam and these provided Ho Chi Minh with awe and inspiration. By 1925, he was ready to put into practice all his learning. The Revolutionary Youth League of Vietnam concluded all Ho Chi Minh’s inputs from his experience. However, it was his first attempt to put into practice, in his own land, the basic Marxist tenets of dialectics. With the wisdom learned from Lenin, and then later from the Chinese experience led by Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh founded the agenda of the youth league on the principle of the national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective. The Communist Party of Vietnam The Communist Party of Vietnam was established on February 03, 1930 at Kowloon, China. The founding congress set the political program and strategy drafted by Ho Chi Minh himself. These programs set the political line for the Vietnamese revolution which is that of the advancement of a bourgeois democratic revolution with the component of agrarian revolution, dismantling of the French Imperialism feudal exploitation towards a national liberation and lead Vietnam to socialism and communism [Col85]. The Communist Party of Vietnam is the application of Marxism and Leninism in the context of a colonial nation that aspires for national liberation. The communist party’s foundation is a realization of Ho Chi Minh’s life-long search of the truth. It was also the start of a new chapter of his life as a revolutionary leader. Moreover, it was also the beginning of a new era in the long history of Vietnam as a country and as people – the period of organized and united resistance for the advancement of the people’s agenda and the country’s future. Conclusion “One becomes a revolutionary because one is oppressed” [Joh03]. This was one of the many meaningful anecdotes of Ho Chi Minh. Its meaning was derived from the fact that unlike other leaders who rise to fame because of their dogmatic ideologies, Ho Chi Minh actually had to thread the world’s history based on his actual experience to be able to acquire wisdom, not to be famous but to be able to liberate his country. He was not afraid to be skeptical and critical of Marxism if it does not fit the needs of his country, yet, eventually armed by the deeper meaning of Marxism’s theory and practice, he embraced it and contributed to the ideology of the continuing revolution by bringing it to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh died in September 1969. Reference Wil00: , (Duiker 47), Wil00: , (Duiker 23), Joh02: , (Kautsky 78), Joh02: , (Kautsky 90), Col85: , (Knight 227), Joh03: , (Pimlott 8), Read More