Celebrate the life of Comrade Ho Chi Minh

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Ho Chi Minh we publish a summary of the heroic struggle he led against Japanese, French and US imperialism.

The culmination of Ho Chi Minh’s life work is wonderfully encapsulated in the words of General Vo Nguyen: Time will pass by, but the Vietnamese people’s victory in the war of resistance against the US will forever enter history as one of the most brilliant exploits, a shining symbol of the triumph of revolutionary heroism and the human mind. It has gone into the world’s history as a great feat-of-arms of the 20th century, an event of international importance and of profound epochal character … Vietnam became the focal point of the fierce struggle between revolutionaries and reactionaries in the world, a place where there was a [battle] between progress and reaction, between justice and injustice in the struggle of humanity for peace, national independence, democracy and social progress.” (‘The anti-US war for national salvation – a great victory of ability and intelligence’, 2005)

Early life of Ho Chi Minh

Nguyen Tat Thanh (later known as Ho Chi Minh) was born in Nghe An Province on 19 May 1890.  He spent his very early years in a patriotic family – his father resigned his post in protest against French domination, and his older sister and brother both took part in the anti-French resistance movements and were imprisoned by the colonialists.

He left Vietnam in 1911 as a cook on a steamship, working in the US and the UK until he settled in France for a while in the early 1920s where he was known as Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot).  Instinctively he supported the October Revolution, although had not yet read Lenin’s books.

He then began to study Marxism-Leninism and participated in heated discussions regarding participation in the Second or Third International.  He asked the question: “which International sides with the peoples of colonial countries?”   In response “a comrade gave me Lenin’s ‘Thesis on the national and colonial question’ published by ‘L’Humanite’ to read.  There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me! I was overjoyed to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted out aloud as if addressing large crowds: ‘Dear martyrs compatriots! This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!’  After then, I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International. ” (Ho Chi Minh, ‘The path which led me to Leninism’, Selected Works Vol. 4)

In 1921 he participated in the founding of the French Communist Party and in 1924 attended the Fifth Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, when he was appointed as a standing member of the Oriental Department, before going to China, where he organised a revolutionary movement among Vietnamese exiles.

Formation of the Communist Party

The Indochinese Communist Party was brought into being mainly by the efforts of Nguyen Ai Quoc.  It was in his capacity as a representative of the Communist International that he was able to convene a meeting of representatives of different communist groups from Indochina on 3 February 1930 in Kowloon, near Hong Kong, to settle the question of uniting the Indochinese communist forces into a single Indochinese Communist Party.  The conference at Kowloon put forward the political line of carrying out a bourgeois democratic revolution, including an agrarian revolution, in order to overthrow the French imperialists and the feudal rulers, of gaining complete independence and of leading forward to socialism and communism.  To ensure success for this political line it was necessary to build up a party of the working class, form a worker-peasant alliance, establish a worker-peasant army, organise a national united front and achieve solidarity between the Indochinese revolution and the world revolutionary movement. 

Right after the setting up of the Party a mass revolutionary movement flared up throughout the whole of Vietnam, the apex of which was the setting up of the Nghe An and Ha Tinh Soviets; workers and peasants in these provinces rose up to overthrow the colonial rule and the local administration of the mandarins and despots, setting up worker-peasant power in some rural areas.  Again in 1936 a new revolutionary wave swept over Vietnam, which, because of the setting up of the French Popular Front government in France itself, was helped by the legalisation of several of the party’s newspapers.  The party was able to adopt a new orientation, shifting from underground to semi-clandestine and semi-legal activities. 

The struggle kept on mounting after the Second World War broke out, especially after the surrender of the French Army in France itself to the German fascists and after the entry of Japanese troops into Indochina.  It was in August 1940 that the Japanese troops attacked Lang Son and the French retreated south.   The French colonialists shamefully surrendered and opened the door of Indochina to welcome in the Japanese.  But the Vietnamese people resolutely opposed both the Japanese and French Fascists.

In 1941, now known as Ho Chi Minh (Bringer of Light), Nguyen Ai Quoc returned to Vietnam to take up direct leadership of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement.  The eighth session of the party Central Committee was called at Pac Bo and was presided over by Ho Chi Minh.  Analysing the situation in Vietnam and taking into account the world situation with the German, Italian and Japanese fascists being in a strong position, the central committee concluded that the revolution to be carried out in the immediate future should be a national liberation revolution, and that each Indochinese country should settle this question within their own country; and so the Vietnam Workers Party was formed. 

A national liberation revolution needed to unite as many forces as possible to fight against the French and Japanese fascist aggressors.  So the Vietnam Independence League (or Vietminh in short) was set up, which was comprised of National Salvation Associations of different strata of the population.  It was decided to set up revolutionary bases, build up and develop armed forces, speed up revolutionary work in all its aspects, to prepare for an armed uprising, preceding from local uprisings to a general uprisings to seize power.

This programme adopted by the Vietminh gave the hope of a bright future to the Vietnamese people who were suffering at the hands of the French and Japanese fascists.  In spite of severe repression the publications of the Vietminh and the Party “denounced … the illusion of seizing power through peaceful negotiations with the Japanese, fought against the aggression and sabotage of Trotskyites and the ABs [1] against division and factionalism, to consolidate unity and oneness of mind in the Party and the Front, and strengthen the Party’s leadership of the Vietnamese revolution” (‘An Outline History of the Vietnam Workers Party’, page 35, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Hanoi 1970). By educating through their publications, the Vietminh was able to prepare the people for an armed uprising.

Japanese fascists defeated

At the end of 1944 the anti-fascist war in the east being waged by the Soviet Army was winning great victories.  The fate of the German fascists was sealed.  In the Pacific area the Japanese were in a hopeless situation, so while defeat was in the offing for the fascists and while fighting broke out between the French and Japanese, with the enemy divided, the time for general uprisings was ripe.  In areas where conditions were favourable, guerrilla warfare was intensified and the local administration was overthrown.  In March 1945 the Vietnam Liberation Army was set up, and in June 1945 a liberated zone was created which comprised six Viet Bac provinces: Coa Bang, Bac Can, Lang Son, Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang and Ha Giang.  This liberated zone became the principal revolutionary base for the whole country, and it was to grow up into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

In August 1945 imperialism was so weakened by war that the Vietminh were able to take full advantage of the situation.  The Soviet Union at this time was going from strength to strength.  World War Two was ending.  The German and Italian fascists had laid down their arms and on 8 August 1945 the Soviet Union declared war on the Japanese fascists.  Within a few days, the Soviet armed forces had crushed the Japanese crack armies stationed in North-East China.  On 15 August 1945 Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Soviet Union and other Allied powers.  On 16 August at Tan Troa in Vietnam, the peoples congress put out an order for a general uprising and elected the Provisional Government with Ho Chi Minh as President.  The policy put forward was to mobilise the people for an uprising to seize power before Allied troops landed in Indochina; to disarm Japanese troops, wrest power from the Japanese and overthrow the Japanese puppets, so that the Vietnamese could receive Allied troops in their capacity as masters of their own country.  In Hanoi on 19 August a successful uprising took place, quickly followed by another success in Hue on the 23rd and yet another on the 25th in Saigon.  Within eleven days, the general uprising had succeeded in all provinces, bringing the August Revolution to a successful conclusion.

Birth of Democratic Republic of Vietnam

On 2 September 1945 in the capital, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, on behalf of the Provisional Government, read the Declaration of Independence, announcing to the Vietnamese people and to the world the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN), the beginning of a new era in the history of the Vietnamese people, the era when the Vietnamese people could become the real masters of their country.  About the August Revolution, Ho Chi Minh wrote:

“Not only the Vietnamese labouring classes and people, but also the labouring class and oppressed people elsewhere can be proud that this was the first time in the history of colonial and semi-colonial peoples that a party which was only fifteen years old, has successfully led a revolution and seized power in the whole country”.

Anti-French resistance

With the birth of the DRVN, there were tremendous problems to overcome immediately.  In the north Chiang Kai-shek troops had arrived on a so-called mission to disarm Japanese troops in Indo-China.  On the same so-called mission British troops, under the orders of the Attlee Labour Government, had landed in the south; they were there in fact to help the French regain a foothold in Vietnam.  A race against time was needed to organise general elections to demonstrate that the revolutionary power was a real power of the people.  On 6 January 1946 general elections were successfully held throughout the country.

Since the Chiang Kai-shek troops were being confronted with the powerfully growing revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the Central Committee pointed out that the Vietnamese people must concentrate their fighting against the French colonialist aggressors as they were the main enemy.  ‘Support the Resistance’ committees were set up everywhere; supporting and encouraging the south Vietnamese fight against the French became a broad and seething political campaign. 

As measures were being taken to improve people’s living conditions such as a 25% reduction in land rent, confiscation of the holdings of the French colonialists, equitable redistribution of communal lands to all citizens, promulgation of the eight-hour day, etc. along with education, etc. so that by the end of 1946 over two million people had learned how to read and write,  the Vietnamese people were unreservedly prepared to fight to throw out all the imperialist aggressors and colonialist who had been sapping the life-blood of the Vietnamese people. 

Ho Chi Minh was thus able to make this appeal and be confident that the Vietnamese people would carry it out: “We would rather sacrifice everything than lose our country.  We are determined not to be enslaved. … Those who have rifles will use their rifles; those who have swords will use their words; those who have no swords will use spades, shoes and sticks.  Everyone must endeavour to oppose the colonialists and save the country. .. Whatever hardships we may have to endure in the war of resistance, with our determination to face all sacrifices, victory will surely be ours!”

In spite of the lack of arms and equipment, the Vietnamese people were able to hold back the aggressive attacks of the French.  At the end of 1947 the French mounted, with ten thousand troops, a large scale offensive against Viet Bac, hoping to destroy the base area of the whole country.  However after two months of heroic fighting the people and the armed forces smashed the French plan for a lightning war, and managed to capture large quantities of weapons and military equipment.  To the victories of the Vietnamese were added those of the world revolutionary movement.  In October 1949 the Chinese revolution triumphed.  In January 1950 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was recognised by the Soviet Union, China and other peoples’ democracies.  In order to break the imperialist encirclement of the liberated areas in the north, so that the Vietnamese might have a direct land link with the socialist allies, an offensive by the armed forces to expand the Viet Bac base area was launched and succeeded.  The break in the imperialist encirclement of Vietnam marked a great leap in the growth of the strength of the people and armed forces.

This success, added to many other victories over the French, who by this time were relying heavily on the United States for arms and every other kind of support, prepared the people and armed forces of Vietnam for a general counter-offensive.  At the Vietnam Workers’ Party Second National Congress in February 1951, President Ho Chi Minh was able to say: “We are still making active preparations for the general counter-offensive. … When the preparations are truly completed, the general counter-offensive will be mounted.  The more complete the preparations, the quicker the general counter-offensive and the more favourable the conditions attending to it” (Selected Works p. 351).

The political programme of the Vietnam Workers’ Party, which was adopted by the 1951 Congress, pointed out that: “The basic task of the Vietnamese revolution now is to drive out the imperialist aggressors, to gain genuine independence and unity for the nation, to remove the feudal and semi-feudal leftovers, to give land to the tillers, to develop the people’s democratic regime, to lay foundations for socialism”.

Even while the resistance was going on, in 1953 the Central Committee decided to mobilise the masses for strictly carrying out the reduction of land rents and for achieving a land reform, thus putting into effect the slogan: “Land to the tillers”.  The “Land to the tillers” campaign showed the large numbers of peasants in Vietnam that it was in their interest to fight with the Vietnamese working class to overthrow the imperialists, so the resistance forces became stronger and they continued to record big victories.

Dien Bien Phu Victory

During the winter of 1953, General Navarre, commander-in-chief of the French expeditionary corps, tried to regain the initiative by concentrating 112 battalions in Bac Bo.  On 20 November 1953 the French dropped 5,000 troops by parachute on Dien Bien Phu, which was to serve as a big trap in which to lure the Vietnamese and so secure a foothold in the north-west.  Dien Bien Phu was turned into a powerful entrenched camp held by 16,000 crack French troops equipped with weapons supplied by the US.

The Vietnamese armed forces were determined to deprive the French of this stronghold.  By launching offensives in many widely distant regions, the Vietnamese forced Navarre to disperse his forces over a wider area while the guerrilla warfare developed in the enemy’s rear area.  The French command had lost all strategic initiative.  Dien Bien Phu was recaptured by the Vietnamese on 7 May 1954 after 56 days of fighting. The brilliant victory of Dien Bien Phu forced the French government to sign the Geneva Agreements on 20 July 1954 in spite of US attempts at prolonging and extending the conflict.

Military historian Martin Windrow characterised the Dien Bien Phu victory as “the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle.” (quoted by Michael Kenney,  ‘British Historian Takes a Brilliant Look at French Fall in Vietnam’. Boston Globe, 4 January 4, 2005).

French troops withdraw

The Geneva Conference, whose participant countries were Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, Laos, People’s Republic of China, State of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United State of America, all recognised the independence, unity and territorial integrity of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  The Vietnamese people were to carry out free general elections in 1956 in order to reunify their country.  The French troops were to be withdrawn from Indochina.

Because all the other participant countries were agreed on the Geneva Agreements, the US imperialists had to make a declaration pledging respect to the Geneva Conference on Indochina.  This, of course, as we all know, was in words only because even in 1953 President Eisenhower, speaking at the Governors’ Conference had this to say about Indochina: “Now let us assume that we lost Indochina.  If Indochina goes, several things happen right away.  The peninsula, the last bit of land hanging down there would scarcely be defensible.  The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming. … So when the United States vote four hundred million dollars to help the war we are not voting a give-away programme.  We are voting for the cheapest way that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the USA, our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of Indochinese territory and from southeast Asia” (‘Remarks at the Governors’ Conference’, Seattle, 4 August).

From this statement of President Eisenhower it is quite clear that by 1954 the US were already involved in the war, and that the declaration of supporting the Geneva Agreement meant nothing compared to the tin and tungsten they were getting from Indochina.

After 1954 the US imperialists couldn’t bear to see such “riches of Indochinese territory” fall from their grasp so they attempted to use the Ngo Dinh Diem stooge administration in south Vietnam to turn it into a new type colony and a military base, in order to attack the socialist north, and to create havoc in the 1956 general elections, because they knew if the Geneva Agreements were actually implemented then Ho Chi Minh would become president, and “the tin and tungsten that we so greatly valued from that area would cease coming”.

However in spite of the US imperialists’ trickery neither the south Vietnamese nor their compatriots were going to give up the fight. 

North liberated completely

From 1954, in the north the enemy had to accept defeat and had to stop (for the time being) bombardments of the whole of the territory of the DRVN.  This quotation shows what the Geneva Agreements meant to the people of north Vietnam: “On 1 January 1955 our people held a big mass rally at Ba Dinh Square to welcome President Ho Chi Minh, the Party Central Committee and the Government back to the capital after nearly nine years of arduous and heroic resistance.  This important historical event made a deep impression on and had great political significance for the people of the whole country.  On 16 May 1955 we liberated the whole area of Hai Phong.  The last expeditionary soldier of the French colonialists had left north Vietnam.  Half of our country was liberated.  That marked our people’s brilliant victory.

The north, completely liberated, had the necessary conditions to pass into the stage of socialist revolution….

“Under the leadership of the Party, our people strove to turn to account the advantages and overcome the difficulties so as to fulfil two very great tasks, namely the completion of land reform and the rehabilitation of the national economy with a view to preparing for the transition of the north to the stage of socialist revolution” (ibid).

The southern part of Vietnam

After the northern part of Vietnam was liberated, the Party Central Committee and President Ho Chi Minh put forward the two strategic tasks for the Vietnamese revolution: carrying out the socialist revolution and building socialism in the north; and struggling to liberate the south and reunify the country, fulfilling the people’s national democratic revolution in the whole country.

The people in the south were very much encouraged by the support, both material and political, which north Vietnam and other socialist countries were giving.  From 1955 to 1959 political struggles for consultations and for general elections (according to the Geneva Agreements), in order to reunify the country, were carried on by the south Vietnamese people, revolutionary bases were set up and held, in spite of cruel intimidation and a campaign of ‘denunciation and extermination’ by the Ngo Dinh Diem puppet clique.

In 1960 the struggle against the US-Diem clique grew even stronger.  The people of south Vietnam felt that they could no longer live under such a fascist brutal regime, and a tidal wave of uprising and demonstrations swept through the country.  In this way three quarters of the territory was liberated under the direction of the broad organisation, the National Front for Liberation (NLF) (derogatively referred to as the ‘Vietcong’). The revolutionary armed forces developed very quickly after the founding of the NLF.  By February 1961 the Peoples’ Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) were formed.

The PLAF recorded many victories, particularly by attacking enemy supply lines, etc. and had by 1968 won great victories, both in the dry and rainy seasons, thus giving the imperialists no time to rest.  While the US aggressors were groping in the dark for new plans, the PLAF launched the Tet general offensive in February 1968 with lightening attacks on 64 towns, including the ‘Presidential Palace’ and the US Embassy, along with 24 airbases, etc. 

The US command panicked at the prospect of another Dien Bien Phu.  Losses of the US troops were severe and the puppet administration was collapsing, with civil servants abandoning their posts. The Tet offensive forced the US to begin negotiating in 1968, although it was an extremely drawn out process which did not culminate in the signing of the Paris Peace Accords until 1973.

Reactionary role of Trotskyites

Let it be said in passing, that the Trotskyites in Britain, as elsewhere, did their usual dirty work to sabotage the movement for solidarity with Vietnam.  They denounced the NLF as “bourgeois” because it was conducting a national liberation struggle (and as always the Trotskyites avoid the struggle appropriate to the conditions of the time for some future fight they never, in fact, get round to).  They denounced Ho Chi Minh as a “Stalinist bureaucrat”.  He was certainly not a bureaucrat but was certainly a thorough going Marxist-Leninist and as such a supporter of Stalin and that, of course, was anathema to the Trotskyites.  Instead of backing the clear and precise slogans: “Victory to the NLF” and “Long Live Ho Chi Minh”, this gentry advanced the vague slogan “Victory to the Vietnamese revolution” (without any indication about how it might be achieved).

In particular, they opposed the adoption of these two slogans on the occasion of the historic October 1968 demonstration in London against the war in Vietnam.  In the event, such were the victories being won by the NLF and the strength of the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, and under the pressure of mass sentiment, that on the actual demonstration the Trotskyites were forced to chant the above two slogans even as they tried to lead the solidarity movement astray.  Thanks to their sabotage, the Vietnamese solidarity movement in Britain went into serious decline after 1968.

Crimes of US imperialism

In its impotent rage the US intensified the bombing of the occupied and liberated areas for several more years.  They dropped bombs and mines to kill the civilian population, splinter bombs to maim and kill, napalm bombs to kill and burn, toxic bombs to kill and destroy the crops and vegetation and all of these devices were dropped in vast quantities.  According to data published by the US Defence Department: from early 1969 to July 1971 on Nixon’s orders, 5,975,522 tons of bombs and shells had poured onto Indochina, mostly on south Vietnam.  That is more than twice the ordnance tonnage used in World War Two, and over a hundred times bigger than the size of bombs on Hiroshima (15,000 tons) and Nagasaki (20,000 tons).  The Vietnam figure, being a US estimate, can be taken as an under-estimate!

As Nixon’s policy of ‘Vietnamisation of the war’ got underway in 1969, there was no doubt that the US imperialists were being defeated.  One of the main strategic policies of the ‘Vietnamisation of the war’ policy was ‘pacification’ which was aimed at winning people over, expanding the areas under US – puppet control, wiping out the revolutionary forces, strengthening the political basis of the puppet administration and expanding the possibilities for it to draft people, especially in the countryside into the puppet army.

This ‘pacification’ programme meant that in the period 1969-71, 2,275,00 hectares of cropfields were sprayed with toxic chemicals, over 3,000 hamlets (25% of the total) had been razed to the ground, and according to Associated Press (AP) (21 September 1971) W Colby who was responsible for the ‘pacification’ programme in south Vietnam, admitted the 5,800,000 civilians – one third of south Vietnam’s population – were either killed, wounded or forcibly removed from their dwellings.  In spite of the killing and the bombings, Senator George McGovern was reported in AP, on 23 September 1971 as saying “Despite 50,000 GIs dead and ten years of defoliation and bombing, no road is safe at night and less than five per cent of the villages are secure”.

However, such were the victories of the south Vietnamese people under the leadership of the NLF, they were able to attack both the US aggressors and the puppet forces without let up and hold out in the liberated areas, looking after the wounded, teaching the children, keeping the roads and supply routes open, fighting the aggressive US army and puppets and producing goods to be able to live and fight!

Many of these tasks were done underground in a network of tunnels.  Facing the continuous bombing raids and to be out of sight of the enemy this was an excellent and now world-famous tactic.  For example near Saigon: “Hospital C2 is one hospital like all others, but the difference is that it lies in a place pockmarked with enemy positions on the approaches to Saigon.. .. Here the enemy has resorted to the most barbarous methods.  Yet the hospital has kept operating.  Its personnel have had to fight against the enemy to defend their ground.  Everything is under ground – dwelling houses, operating rooms, pharmacy, rooms for the wounded soldiers.  Besides their professional duties, doctors, assistant doctors, nurses have learned how to handle weapons of various types and how to fight the enemy”.

However, the US was unable to defeat the dauntless Vietnamese liberation fighters and, with the ‘Vietnamisation’ policy, began reducing troop numbers in 1969.  At the same time as the accompanying ‘pacification’ programme in the south, the US imperialists made vicious attacks on north Vietnam, aimed at killing the civilian population, with the bombing of dykes, the mining of Haip Phong harbour, bombing of hospitals, schools, factories, etc. .. all of which was fairly unsuccessful because the casualties were surprisingly very light  – the DRVN took great care and used great speed to evacuate the civilians.  With no battles or encounters going the right way for the US imperialist they were forced to sign the Paris Accords on 27 January 1973. The signing of the Paris Accords was indeed a victory for the Vietnamese people.

Even after signing the Paris Accords, the US still tried to prop up the puppet regime in the south, retain its influence, and prevent the unification of Vietnam.  But in April 1975 the puppet government finally surrendered.  There followed the famous scenes of US diplomats, troops and puppets scrambling to be evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the US Embassy compound in Saigon.  The Vietnamese people had fought heroically to win their national rights.

Long live Ho Chi Minh

In order not to break the thread of the narrative of the Vietnamese national liberation struggle – which was the life’s work of Comrade Ho Chi Minh – the fact that he died on 3 September 1969 before its completion was not included above.  For although his death was an extremely sad occasion, taking place before the final defeat of US imperialism and the reunification of Vietnam on 30 April 1975, the revolutionary struggle of the Vietnamese people, carried out for so long under his leadership and completed after his death, was the culmination and fulfilment of the mission to dear to Ho Chi Minh and so ably espoused by him over several decades.  He was the true leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people’s victory.

As the Communist Party of Vietnam reported of his funeral: “In the world, people of various nationalities and political beliefs came and paid their last respects to Ho Chi Minh at our embassies and diplomatic representations abroad, wrote condolences and signed the book of mourning. In many countries the population held meetings, memorial ceremonies or marched in processions carrying his portrait. In the United States and several West European countries, the people turned memorial ceremonies in honour of Ho Chi Minh into demonstrations against the aggressive war of the American imperialists in Vietnam.

“Those were expressions of the fine, deep and sincere feelings of the world’s peoples for Ho Chi Minh, their noble-hearted friendship with our people, and of the precious political support of the whole of progressive mankind for our nation’s just struggle against US imperialist aggression.

“Those deep feelings were due to the fact that Ho Chi Minh’s great revolutionary work was closely linked to the achievements of our Party, of our people, of the Vietnamese nation now fighting heroically and winning glorious victories, thus setting a brilliant example of struggle for national liberation, independence and freedom, and socialism. Ho Chi Minh was also venerated for his great contribution to the world revolution and to the communist and international workers’ movement, for his noble virtues, his high-minded and generous feelings toward our brothers and friends around the world.” (‘Biography, Ho Chi Minh will live forever in the hearts of the people of Vietnam and the world’ www.cpv.org.vn)

For the progressive movement in this country, the successful struggle of the Vietnamese people against the Japanese, French and US imperialists will be for ever a glorious moment in our history.  The waging of the national liberation and socialist struggle in Vietnam led by Comrade Ho Chi Minh according to the principles of Marxism-Leninism is a lesson that all workers and oppressed people must keep dear to their heart!

NOTE

[1] Anti-Bolsheviks (ABs) – sabotage agents employed by the French fascists who feigned to be communists in order to undermine the Party.

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