Ho Chi Minh
... Ho Chi Minh devoted his life to the nationalism, which to promote the Vietnamese independence. Ho emphasized the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, and used communism as a device to bring the independence in Vietnam. ... Ho Chi Minh was one of people who criticized other nationalist groups for not being in tune with the needs of the Vietnamese peasants and workers. Ho Chi Minh was born in a small village in Central Vietnam in 1890. ... Although he had refused to learn French himself, Nguyen decided to send Ho to a French school. ... When Ho attended French schools in Vietnam, he was expelled from one for anti-French activities. ... Ho was, for a short period, a schoolteacher. ... Ho learnt that the Vietnamese were not the only people suffering from exploitation. ... Ho finally settled in Paris in 1917. ... Ho, like the rest of the French Communist Party, had been inspired by the Russian Revolution. ... It was logical that Ho make contact with top Russian Communists. While in Moscow, Ho wrote to a friend that it was the duty of all communists to return to their own country to: "make contact with the masses to awaken, organise, unite and train them, and lead them to fight for freedom and independence. ... Therefore Ho was now convinced by Lenin’s idea that ‘revolution and anti-colonial resistance were inseparable’. ... Ho became an asian expert to comintern’s top man in China, Michael Borodin. ... Ho was able to witness an Asian revolutionary movement in action. ... Not surprisingly Canton was a hotbed for Vietnamese nationalist exiles and Ho was able to make useful contacts, setting up groups, thinking out strategies for overthrowing the French in Vietnam. After Chiang Kai-shek turned on his Communist allies, Ho fled to Moscow by the way of Gobi. ... In 1930 the revolutionary Ho Chi Minh formed an Indochinese Communist Party. Ho had spent the last 20 years in exile working towards bringing an end to French rule. ... Ho identified the peasants as being the key group to win over as they were the majority. ... Thousands of people were slaughtered, the soviets were suppressed, Ho’s followers were rounded up and jailed. Ho, himself was sentenced to death in his absence. ... He was reported as being dead and the French authorities closed their file on Ho. ... Ho Chi Minh and his fellow nationalists saw this as an opportunity to free their country from foreign domination and formed an organisation called the Vietminh. The Viet Minh was the main repository of Vietnamese nationalism and anti-French colonialism. ... well-organized, and well-led Indochinese Communist Party was the controlling element in the Viet Minh. At this time, Ho’s philosophy was more nationalist than communist. It was clear that the Viet Minh would not take over private property or threaten the investments of the middle and upper classes. ... From 1941 to early 1945 Giap worked to build a Viet Minh military structure. ... When the Japanese occupation ended in 1945, the Viet Minh independence movement took over Hanoi. Ho proclaimed the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the declaration of independence, which was partly based on his recollections of the American Declaration of Independence. ... France refused to recognise the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that had been declared by Ho Chi Minh and fighting soon broke out between the Vietminh and the French troops. ... Ho Chi Minh and the other leaders of the Vietminh did not trust the word of the French and continued the war.