In spite of Ho Chi Minh’s efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the issue of Vietnamese independence, the French government was oriented to the re-conquest of Vietnam (see “France seeks re-conquest of Vietnam” 5/15/2014).  When the French commander sent an ultimatum to the government of Vietnam on December 17, 1946, Ho Chi Minh responded on December 19 with a declaration of a war of national resistance and with a call to the people to rise up and defend the independence of the nation (Duiker 2000:393-98).  

     The Vietnamese forces were able to defend Hanoi for two months, before withdrawing before the superior firepower of the French.  At first, the Vietnamese government was relocated to the outskirts of Hanoi, but by April 1947, the government was relocated to the mountainous zone of Viet Bac.  In the first years of the war, President Ho Chi Minh often moved clandestinely, avoiding French efforts to assassinate him.  The government adopted a strategy of guerrilla resistance, but also including larger operations when the conditions were favorable.  In October 1947, the French launched an offensive against the government base of operations in Viet Bac, but the offensive was a failure, resulting in the death of many French soldiers (Prino 2008:50; García Oliveras 2010:48-50; Duiker 2000:406-13). 

     In spite of the setback, the French continued with plans to retake its former possession.  In 1949, the French established a Vietnamese government with limited sovereignty in the Associated States of Indochina, under the authority of former emperor Bao Dai.  Thus, there were two governments claiming authority: a revolutionary government led by Ho Chi Minh, and the puppet government of Bao Dai.  By 1953, the army of the puppet government, trained by the French with US financial aid, had reached 200,000 troops; and French troops numbered 250,000.  However, the revolutionary government took control of more territory, such that by 1953 nearly all of the north was under its control, except for Hanoi and the large cities.  And in those areas under French control, popular organizations were maintained, and there were strikes by workers and protests by students, professors, political personalities, and merchants. In a desperate attempt to reverse the deteriorating situation, the French and puppet armies destroyed entire villages, relocating people to concentration camps.  Animals were killed, and rice fields were destroyed.  But the French and their puppets could not reverse the tide.  In the battle of Dien Bien Phu, which lasted for 55 days from March 13 to May 7, 1954, the forces of the revolutionary government directed by General Vo Nguyen Giap obtained a decisive victory.  More than 1500 French soldiers were killed, and 4000 were wounded; nearly 16,000 French soldiers were killed, captured, or listed as missing in action, and all of the French officers surrendered.  In addition, by May 1954, the revolutionary government had control of 75% of the national territory (Prino 2008:51-54; García Oliveras 2010:51-87, 91, 96; Duiker 2000:430-35, 441-43, 448, 452-55).     

     Beyond the military and political gains within Vietnam, the international political climate had changed by 1954 in favor of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  The victory of the Chinese Revolution had established the Popular Republic of China in 1949.  By 1950, China, the Soviet Union, and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe had recognized the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  Ho Chi Minh was able to undertake a diplomatic trip to China and the Soviet Union, and Vietnam subsequently received military equipment and advisors from China.  In France, as a consequence of the failure of the French military occupation to effectively re-conquer its former colony, there emerged popular opposition to the Indochina War (García Oliveras 2010:68-71, 75, 85; Duiker 2000:414-23). 

     Early in 1954 at an international conference in Berlin, the major powers agreed to hold another conference in Geneva in order to discuss issues related to international peace, including Korea and Indochina.  The Geneva peace talks began immediately following the decisive victory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at Dien Bien Phu, as we will discuss in the next post.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, French-Indochinese War

     With Vietnamese independence established in fact, the French immediately took steps to retake control of Indochina.  The French war of re-conquest began in the south, and it began before the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence.  The first French detachment had departed for Vietnam on August 16, 1945.  On August 23, French parachutists arrived in the southern region, seeking to make contact with French colonists and to communicate that the French government would recognize neither the independence nor the unity of Vietnam.  In early September, French troops, with the support of an Indian division of the British Army, disembarked in Saigon.  They proceeded to immediately liberate and arm thousands of French who had been imprisoned by the Japanese.  The French and the British, supported by Japanese troops, began an offensive on October 21 in the Mekong Delta.  These troops later advanced to the central region of the country (García Oliveras 2010:44-45).  

     The French developed a plan for the secession of Cochin China and the establishment there of a puppet government.  Located in the Mekong Delta, the French colony of Cochin China had extensive rice fields and French-owned rubber plantations, and it was the richest and most economically developed region of the country.  Three-fifths of French properties in Indochina were located in this region (García Oliveras 2010:45).

     On February 28, 1946, the French and Chaing Kai Shek arrived at a negotiated settlement for the release of French troops imprisoned in China.  The liberated French troops penetrated northern Vietnam in order to join in the French war of re-conquest.  Meanwhile, French reinforcements proceeding from France disembarked in the south (García Oliveras 2010:45-46).

      Ho Chi Minh undertook negotiations with the French.  Ho insisted upon the independence of Vietnam, but he was prepared to accept a transition period of several years.  He rejected French claims for the separation of Cochin China, demanding the unification of Vietnam and the nullification of the French colonial division of Vietnam into the protectorates of Tonkin in the north and Annam in the central provinces and the colony of Cochin China in the south.  The French proposed the formation of an Indochinese Federation that would be headed by a French governor and that would have authority to represent Vietnam in all international relations, but that would include a degree of autonomy for Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:353-59).

     On March 6, 1946, Ho Chi Minh and French negotiator Jean Sainteny signed an agreement, according to which France would recognize Vietnam as a free state with its own government, parliament, and army, which would form part of an Indochinese Federation that would pertain to the French Union.  It was agreed that the destiny of Cochin China would be determined by popular referendum.  It also was agreed that 15,000 French troops would enter Hanoi and that the 200,000 troops of Chaing Kai Chek would withdraw from Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:362-65).

      But in signing the accord, the French were to some extent driven by an interest in the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Vietnam.  Believing that they could easily attain the military re-conquest of Indochina, the French remained oriented to retaking full control of Indochina rather than implementing the March 6 accord and its promise of limited sovereignty for Vietnam.  In June and July of 1946, Ho Chi Minh and a Vietnamese delegation traveled to Paris in an effort to avoid a new armed conflict through a negotiated implementation of the March 6 accord.  But prior to the arrival of the delegation, the French Government recognized the secessionist Autonomous Republic of Cochin China, thereby reneging on the March 6 agreement to decide the status of the territory through referendum.  In the Paris talks, the two sides were far apart concerning the degree of autonomy that Vietnam would have as a free state in the French Union.  Meanwhile, the French government was moving toward the creation of an Indochinese federation of puppet governments, and French troops continued to engage in military actions in Vietnam.  The Vietnamese delegation suspended the talks and returned to Vietnam.  In a final effort to attain a negotiated settlement, Ho Chi Minh remained in Paris. Ho signed an agreement with French Minister of Overseas Territories Marius Moutet on September 14, which reinforced the accord of March 6, thus avoiding a total breakdown of the talks.  But Ho’s efforts toward peaceful negotiation of Vietnamese independence could not succeed, inasmuch as an independent Vietnamese government headed by Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh Front, and the Indochinese Communist Party was incompatible with French imperialist interests  (García Oliveras 2010:46-47; Duiker 2000:367-81). 

     On November 20, French troops opened fire on Vietnamese troops in Haiphong and Lang Son, leaving thousands of civilian casualties in Haiphong.  On December 17, the commander of the French troops sent an ultimatum to the Vietnamese government, demanding that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam turn over security functions of Hanoi to the French.  On December 19, Ho Chi Minh issued a call to the nation, noting that the French have decided to re-conquer the country and calling upon the people to struggle against French colonialism and to save the country.

On the evening of December 19, Vietnamese militia units launched attacks against French installations in Hanoi.   The French-Indochinese War had begun (García Oliveras 2010:47-48; Duiker 2000:389, 393-98).

      It would be a difficult struggle for the Vietnamese, but they would prevail, as we will see in the next post.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, French-Indochinese War

     Japan had surrendered on August 13, 1945.  On August 16, the Vietminh established a National Liberation Committee, with Ho Chi Minh as chair, to lead a popular insurrection to take power and to form a provisional government.  From August 16 to August 25, popular uprisings occurred in all the cities and towns of the country.  Local authorities fled or turned power over to the revolutionaries; members of local popular committees, supported by armed militias, occupied the administrative posts.  By August 25, the revolution had de facto control of the entire country, and Ho Chi Minh discretely entered Hanoi on that day.  On August 29, the puppet emperor Bao Dai abdicated, presenting the imperial seal to a delegation representing the National Liberation Committee.  On September 2, 1945, before a crowd of one-half million people, continually shouting “independence,” in Ba Dinh square in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (García Oliveras 2010:39-40; Ho 2007:180, 222; Prina 2008:49-50, 81; Duiker 2000:303-24).   

     The Declaration began by citing the “undeniable truths” of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America: “All men are created equal.  They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  And it cited the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen emitted by the French Revolution:  “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights” (Ho 2007:51).

     The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence lists grievances against the French colonial regime.

The Declaration notes that the people have taken de facto control of Vietnam.

     In light of this independence in fact, the provisional government formally declares its independence from French colonial rule.  “We, the provisional government of the new Viet Nam, representing the entire Vietnamese people, hereby declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France, cancel all treaties signed by France on Viet Nam, and abolish all privileges held by France in our country” (Ho 2007:53).  The Declaration expressed its confidence that the Allies, who have affirmed the principle of equality among nations, “cannot fail to recognize the right of the Vietnamese people to independence” (Ho 2007:53).

     The Declaration concludes with an expression of the determination of the Vietnamese people to defend their independence.  “Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and in fact has become a free and independent country.  The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their freedom and independence” (Ho 2007:53).

      The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence was short and to the point.  It asserts that: the world powers have affirmed the principle of the democratic rights of all; French colonial domination of Vietnam has violated these proclaimed democratic rights in numerous ways; the people of Vietnam have the right to be independent and have established its independence in fact, taking political control of the nation from the Japanese occupation army; the new government of Vietnam expects that the world powers will respect the right of Vietnam to be an independent nation; and the people of Vietnam are prepared to make any sacrifice that may be necessary to defend its independence.

     The new government took immediate steps in defense of popular interests and needs.  Taxes that had been established by the French, such as taxes on land and on the manufacturing of salt and alcohol, were abolished.  Communal lands, which comprised more than twenty percent of land in the northern and central provinces, were distributed among villagers.  In accordance with the program announced by the Viet Minh Front in 1941, the government confiscated land belonging to French colonialists and Vietnamese collaborators and distributed it to peasants, but most privately-owned land was not affected by the land redistribution program; for land that continued to be privately owned, land rent was reduced by twenty-five percent.  In addition, a farm credit bureau, programs in literacy and mass education, and an eight-hour limit to the working day were established (Duiker 325-26; Ho 2007:163-65).  

     In September, the newly independent nation convoked free nationwide elections for a National Assembly, which were held in January 1946.  The National Assembly approved the first Constitution in the history of the nation on November 9, 1946.  The 1946 Constitution established a National Assembly as well as People’s Councils at local levels, with representatives elected by the people through universal suffrage.  The National Assembly was established as the highest authority in the nation and as the only organ with legislative power, and with the authority to elect the president, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, and the Council of Government (García Oliveras 2010:43; Ho 2007:164-65, 171-73). 

      Thus, the independence of Vietnam was established by the people in 1945.  But it would not be accepted by the global powers.  Although Ho Chi Minh would repeatedly search for peaceful resolutions of the conflict between true Vietnamese independence and the imperialist interests of the global powers, Ho would be compelled to lead the people in two wars of independence before the reunification and independence of the nation were definitively established in 1976.  We will discuss this long struggle in subsequent posts.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh

     The ascent of the Indochinese Communist Party from 1930 to 1945 (see “The Indochinese Communist Party” 5/12/2014) was not a straight line.  During 1930 and 1931, the Indochinese Communist Party organized a number of workers’ strikes.  But in 1931, there was a harsh repression of the party by colonial authorities.  Ho Chi Minh was detained in Hong Kong on June 6, 1931, and he would spend 1934 to 1938 in exile in the Soviet Union (García Oliveras 2010: 32-33; Ho 2007:82, 179; Duiker 2000:191, 196-211, 228-29).  

     In spite of the repression of the movement leaders, the mass organizations gradually resumed their activities.  In 1935, there were strikes on the rubber plantations, and a number of strikes occurred in Saigon.  In 1936, the Central Committee of the Indochinese Communist Party formed the Democratic United Front of Indochina, which united progressive and democratic forces in a single organization, including the national bourgeoisie, in a common struggle against French colonialism.  The Democratic United Front had considerable progress in developing a popular movement, in part because leftist parties were part of a Popular Front government in France, and French colonial polices were less repressive toward political organizations in French Indochina.  From 1936 to 1938, there was a significant growth in party membership, as the party was especially successful in recruiting members from the peasantry and the working class.  But when a more conservative government took control in France in 1938, and with the German occupation of France and the formation of the puppet Vichy regime in 1940, the Democratic United Front of Indochina was repressed by French colonial authorities.  Nevertheless, the work, commitment, and spirit of sacrifice of the members of the Indochinese Communist Party in the cause of national independence was recognized by the people, such that the prestige of the party in popular consciousness was greatly enhanced (García Oliveras 2010: 32; Ho 2007:42-43, 83-84, 179, 221-22; Duiker 2000:233-42).  

     The surrender of France to Germany in 1940 and the entrance of Japanese troops in French Indochina had weakened French colonialism, but they also established an alternative domination in the form of Japanese occupation and super-exploitation.  During the Japanese occupation, the colonial government of French Indochina negotiated an arrangement with Japan, in which the French would maintain formal political sovereignty, but the Japanese would have full military control of northern Vietnam.  In accordance with this agreement, the Japanese imposed taxes to maintain the military and reoriented Vietnamese agricultural production toward exportation to Japan, leaving the people in a situation of extreme poverty.  Popular resistance, which had been significant during the 1930s as a result of French colonialism and the effects of the Great Depression, intensified under the harsh conditions of the Japanese occupation.  In the cities and villages, there was growing popular sentiment of the need for a struggle for independence (Prina 2008:15-16; García Oliveras 2010:37). 

     In August 1938, Ho Chi Minh returned to China, where political conditions established by the Japanese threat obligated Chaing Kai Shek and the Nationalist Party to cooperate with the communist parties, including the Indochinese Communist Party, which had been established by Ho Chi Minh and others in Hong Kong in 1930.  In early February 1941, Ho returned to his native country for the first time in 30 years, establishing headquarters in the small village of Pac Bo, not far from the Chinese border.  At the Eighth Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party in May 1941, held in a spacious cave near Pac Bo, the Vietminh Front (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) was established.  Informally developed the previous year by Ho and other party leaders, the Vietminh sought to unite various political currents and religions in a common struggle to end Japanese occupation and French colonialism and to establish an independent nation of Vietnam.  The Vietminh gave primary emphasis to the goal of national independence from Japanese occupation and French colonial rule.  It sought support from patriotic members of the landed bourgeoisie, and therefore it proposed the redistribution of land owned by the French and their Vietnamese collaborators, but not the redistribution of the land of patriotic members of the Vietnamese landed bourgeoisie, concerning which it proposed the more limited measure of reduction in land rents.   The Vietminh adopted a strategy of guerilla warfare in opposition to the Japanese occupation, and it organized mass demonstrations, acts of sabotage, boycotts, and the looting of crops destined for exportation to Japan.  From 1943 to 1945, Vietminh units increasingly operated in the north, such that by June 1945 seven provinces had been liberated from Japanese troops, and guerrilla activities and popular uprisings were occurring in other provinces (Prina 2008:16, 66-67; García Oliveras 2010:33, 37-39; Ho 2007:49, 85-86,164, 179; Duiker 2000:245-99).  

     At the Ninth Plenum of the Indochinese Communist Party on August 12, 1945, Ho convinced Party leaders that the party should launch a general popular insurrection to seize power throughout the country, once Japan announces its surrender to the allies.   On August 16, shortly after the news of the Japanese surrender reached Indochina, Ho addressed a National People’s Congress, composed of delegates of the Vietminh Front.  Ho reiterated the need to seize power, so that the nationalist forces would be in a strong position when the allied occupation forces arrive.  Following his address, the Congress approved the creation of an independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam; and it established a National Liberation Committee, with Ho Chi Minh as chair, to lead a general insurrection and to serve as a provisional government. From August 16 to August 25, in cities, towns, and villages throughout the country, local committees were established that functioned as provisional local governments, taking power from the Japanese occupation army, which in most cases did not offer resistance.  The local committees took power with the support of popular armed militias and in the name of the Vietminh Front.  On the afternoon of August 25, accompanied by Party Secretary General Truong Chinh, Ho Chi Minh discreetly entered by car the old imperial capital of Hanoi, going directly to a three-story row house in the Chinese section of the city, where arrangements had been made for his accommodations on the top floor.  That same afternoon, Ho convened at his new residence a meeting of the Indochinese Communist Party, which confirmed the decision of the Vietminh Front to create a National Liberation Committee that would function as a Provisional Government of the nation, with the exception, following Ho’s recommendation, that the committee would be expanded to include non-Party elements.   Ho’s proposal for the formation of a broad-based provisional government representing all progressive sectors was unanimously accepted by the members of the National Liberation Committee at a meeting on August 27.  Plans were made for a formal declaration of national independence to be held on September 2, which we will discuss in the next post (Duiker 2000: 303-17, 321; García Oliveras 2010:40; Prina 2008:49-50, 81).


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Vietminh, Viet Minh

     In 1925, working as a representative of the Communist International in south China, Ho Chi Minh formed the Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam, which included a journal as well as a training institute in downtown Canton for the education of new recruits.  It was the first communist group of the Vietnamese revolutionary movement.  The Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam was committed not only to the independence of Vietnam from French colonial rule.  It also was committed to the class struggle, of peasants against Vietnamese landholders and of workers against the bourgeoisie, and it was committed to the international proletarian revolution represented by the Communist International.  Ho had to abandon China in 1927, because of repression by the forces of Chiang Kai Shek.  But members of the Revolutionary Youth, after being released from prison, were able to maintain operations, moving its headquarters from Canton to Hong Kong (Prina 2008:80; García Oliveras 2010:28-30; Duiker 2000:105, 112-45, 153-54).  

    In July 1928, Ho relocated to Siam, where he worked to create communist cells among Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian émigrés and to reorganize the networks of the Communist International in Southeast Asia.  When two other Vietnamese communist organizations were formed in 1929, Ho convoked a Congress for the founding of a united party, and in this manner the Indochinese Communist Party was established in Hong Kong in February 1930 (Prina 2008:80; García Oliveras 2010:30-31; Kuiker 2000:146-67).

     On February 18, 1930, the newly formed party issued an appeal (written by Ho) to “workers, peasants, soldiers, youth, and school students” and to “oppressed and exploited fellow countrymen” and “sisters and brothers.”  The Appeal called upon these popular sectors to participate in a revolution that was both a nationalist anti-colonial revolution as well as a class revolution.  It described a world revolution that “includes the oppressed colonial peoples and the exploited working class throughout the world” (Ho 2007:39).  It maintained that in Indochina this revolution takes the form of an anti-imperialist revolution formed by workers, peasants, students, and merchants:

And the appeal notes that the French imperialists “use the feudalists and the comprador bourgeoisie to oppress and exploit our people” (Ho 2007:40).

      The Appeal put forth a ten-point program that was a practical synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and the nationalist anti-colonial perspective.  The program sought “to overthrow French imperialism and Vietnamese feudalism and reactionary bourgeoisie,” thus giving equal balance to both French colonialism and class exploitation.  The program sought “to make Indochina completely independent” and “to establish a worker-peasant-soldier government.” It sought “to confiscate the banks and other enterprises belonging to the imperialists and to put them under the control of the worker-peasant-soldier government,” and it included a plan “to confiscate all the plantations and property belonging to the imperialists and the reactionary bourgeoisie and distribute them to the poor peasants.”  The program also proposed social reforms, including an eight-hour working day, elimination of unjust taxes that were particularly hurtful to the poor, an increase in education, and the promotion of gender equality (Ho 2007:41; Bello 2007:xv-xvii).

      For the next 15 years, the Indochinese Communist Party would experience a tremendous growth in Vietnamese popular support, such that it would arrive at a position of leadership of the Vietnamese Revolution when the independence of Vietnam was declared in 1945. This dramatic growth was a result of the party’s connecting the issue of national liberation to the interests of the peasants, who comprised more than 90% of the population.  Its formulation of a clear program in relation to peasant interests differentiated it from the various bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties of the period.  As Ho expressed 30 years after the forming of the party, the growth of the Party, at the expense of other parties, was a consequence of the Party’s formulation of a program that “fully answered the aspirations of the peasants, who made up the majority of our people” (Ho 2007:178-79).  

      The growth of the Indochinese Communist Party from 1930 to 1945 was analogous to the dramatic growth of the Bolshevik Party in Russia in 1917.  In both cases, the increase in popular support was a consequence of the party’s capacity to identify interests of importance to the people and to formulate clear and consistent proposals in relation to these interests.  In the case of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, the issues were the transfer of power to the soviets, disengagement from the war, and the distribution of land to peasants (see “The Russian Revolution (October)” 1/23/2014).  In the case of the Indochinese Communist Party, the issues were national liberation from colonial domination and the distribution of land to peasants.  And in both cases, the identification of key interests occurred in the context of the formulation of a general perspective not of reform but of revolutionary transformation of the nation and the world. 

      Was Ho involved in the “exporting” of the Russian Revolution to Indochina?  Let us recall the basic facts that we have summarized in recent posts from May 2 to May 9.  Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen the Patriot, was a Vietnamese nationalist who encountered and became committed to Marxism-Leninism in Paris from 1917 to 1923.  He worked in the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow in 1923 and 1924, where he also studied at an institute for the education of Asian leaders.  Beginning in 1925, he worked as a Comintern “agent” in Southeast Asia.  As such, he was subject to the direction of the Comintern, which established the policies of the Russian Revolution in relation to the nationalist revolutions in Asia.  For this work, however, he received no salary.  Directed by the Comintern, he nevertheless was expected to find his own means of support.  Initially, he received a modest income from the Soviet news agency ROSTA for sending articles to Moscow on conditions in China (Duiker 2000:104, 113-14). Similarly, the Comintern provided little financial support for the activities of the Indochinese Communist Party.  The Indochinese Communist Party had success because of the commitment of its members, and because its ideas made sense to many in the popular sectors.  Revolutions cannot be exported, but revolutionary ideas can be disseminated, if they are credible to the people, as a result of their capacity to clarify structures of domination and to formulate the basic characteristics of a more just social situation.


References

Bello, Walden.  2007.  “Introduction: Ho Chi Minh: The Communist as Nationalist” in Ho Chi Minh, Down with Colonialism.  London: Verso.

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Indochina, Communist Party of Indochina

     For Ho Chi Minh, there was never a question of having to decide between nationalist and class revolutions, or between nationalism and socialism.  His instincts were clear from the first moment of his encounter with French socialism in Paris:  both traditions and movements were valid.  The fulfillment of the one would require the fulfillment of the other.  Although the two traditions had different assumptions and concepts, with different understandings of structures of domination and different proposed projects for human liberation, he believed that both had formulated self-evident truths.  For a philosopher, this situation might have created an epistemological dilemma, requiring the study of philosophers of knowledge.  But Ho Chi Minh, a political activist emerging as a known political leader on an international level, worked through the epistemological dilemma by developing a program of action, thus forging what we might call a “practical theoretical synthesis” of the two traditions.  His program of action was straightforward: national independence and national reunification, establishing the political independence of the nation and control over the territory of the empire of Vietnam prior to French colonialism; agrarian reform, taking land from the landholders and distributing it to the peasants; popular assemblies and popular democracy, establishing structures of popular authority over the political process; a vanguard formed by the most politically conscious intellectuals, peasants and workers, in order to educate the people in the correct path; decisive state action to protect the social and economic rights of the people; and the formation of strategic alliances both within the nation and on an international plane, so that necessary support can be obtained as the revolutionary process unfolds.  It was a program of action that incorporated the insights of both socialism and nationalism.

     Such is the style of the formulations of charismatic leaders.  Their insights are formulated in the context of the need to address practical situations, such as the need to formulate a program of action in a call to the people, or the need to define a strategy or program in response to internal debates in the movement.  Thus, the formulated understandings of charismatic leaders can be described as “practical intellectual formulations” or “practical theoretical formulations.”  They have a style that from an academic point of view may appear to be overly succinct.  Or they may be formulated piecemeal, partially expressed in one context and further developed in another.  But their style, a consequence of their being formulated in political practice, should not prevent us from appreciating their insight.  Indeed, the fact that the insights of charismatic leaders are formulated in the context of political practice is the key to their wisdom.  Advances in human understanding of social dynamics are attained when charismatic leaders, drawing upon a received political-intellectual-moral tradition and committed to universal human values, arrive at new insights as they seek to understand what to do in the context of problems, dilemmas, and new situations confronted by the on-going social movement.  

     As we reflect on the intellectual development of Ho Chi Minh,  what is of most importance is that Ho, when he first encountered socialist currents in Paris, did not reject Western socialism for its prevailing Eurocentrism, in spite of Ho’s formation in the nationalist perspective of the colonized.  Rather, he embraced Leninism as the current within European socialism that most fully affirmed the validity of the anti-colonial struggles in the colonies, and at the same time, he adapted Leninism to the colonial situation.  Through this process, he was able to reaffirm the basic principles of the nationalist movement, while at the same time appropriating for the nationalist movement important insights of the European socialist movement, thus enabling the nationalist movement to become more theoretically advanced and therefore more politically advanced.  And he endeavored to push European socialism toward encounter with the Third World revolutions and to a greater level of consciousness of the significance of the Third World revolutions for the global socialist revolution.  He thus sought to bring both communism and Third World nationalism to a more advanced theoretical and political stage. 

     Ho’s creative synthesis of Marxism-Leninism and a Third World anti-colonial perspective was appreciated by Fidel Castro.  As we will see in future posts, Fidel also would formulate a synthesis of Third World nationalism and Marxism-Leninism in the practical context of social struggle.  In an address in Vietnam on September 12, 1973, four years after Ho’s death, Fidel declared:

     Ho’s practical theoretical synthesis of two revolutionary intellectual-moral-political traditions that emerged in different social and historical contexts illustrates the exceptional intellectual capacity of the charismatic leader.  And his role as the historic leader of the Vietnamese Revolution illustrates the pivotal importance of the charismatic leader, who is able to creatively formulate the necessary direction of the revolutionary movement, and as a consequence, possesses widely recognized moral authority, thus making possible the political unification of the revolutionary movement and the people. 


References

Castro, Fidel.  2008.  “Discurso de Fidel Castro en Vietnam" in Agustín  Prina, La Guerra de Vietnam, Pág. 173-80.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh

     The tradition of Marxism-Leninism focused on the class struggle, on the need for the workers to take power from the capitalist class, to form alternative structures of popular democracy, and to direct economic development in accordance with the interests of the workers and the popular sectors.  In contrast, the tradition of national liberation focused on the struggle of the colonized and neocolonized peoples against colonial domination, seeking self-determination and sovereignty (see “Third World and Marxism-Leninism” 7/24/2013). 

      Ho Chi Minh, having been formed in the Third World anti-colonial tradition of the Confucian scholars, and having encountered Marxism-Leninism in Paris and Moscow from 1917 to 1924, formed a synthesis of the two traditions.  See “Confucian scholars and nationalism” 4/29/2014; “Who was Ho Chi Minh?” 5/2/2014; “Ho encounters French socialism” 5/5/2014; and “Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014. 

     For Ho Chi Minh, Marxism-Leninism had formulated self-evident truths: workers could not protect their interests without taking power and directing the political-economic system.  But these truths should be applied to Indochina with flexibility, because in the colonial situation, it was principally a class struggle not between workers and factory owners but between peasants and landholders, some of whom were Indochinese, and others of whom were French, as a result of colonialism.  So Ho understood the need to adapt Marxism-Leninism to the colonial situation.

     Ho discerned that the anti-colonial struggle and the class struggle were intertwined.  The anti-colonial struggle could not succeed in establishing the true sovereignty and independence of the nation without taking on the land question, because land was used to produce raw materials for export, in accordance with the interests of core capitalists, with whom the landholders were allied.  Thus, in order to break foreign control over the resources of the nation, it would be necessary to develop a program of agrarian reform that would take land from the landholders and distribute it to peasants, under one form of property or another.  This necessarily involved dislodging the national estate bourgeoisie and its allies in the Vietnamese imperial court from power, and placing the land and the political-economic system under the control of the peasants and their nationalist allies. Therefore, the national struggle for independence could not succeed without it including a class struggle of peasants and their allies against the landholding bourgeoisie. 

     For Ho, this intertwining of the anti-colonial and class struggles occurs not only in the colonies but also in the advanced societies.  He understood that the proletarian movement in the core could not take power without allying itself with and defending the interests of the colonized peoples, because imperialist exploitation of the colonies gave the international capitalist class the capacity to contain the worker’s movement in the core through reformist concessions. 

     In 1917, Lenin had initially believed that the proletarian revolution in the West would triumph first, and the politically triumphant working class in the core would support workers’ revolutions in the colonized regions.  But by 1920, Lenin understood what was beginning to emerge.  An alliance between core workers and national liberation struggles had not been formed, and core capitalists were beginning to utilize resources emerging from the superexploitation of colonized zones to channel the workers’ movement in the core toward reform, thus maintaining control of the political-economic system.  Lenin, therefore, advocated alliance of Western communists with the national liberation struggles of the colonized peoples, even when these struggles included the national bourgeoisie.  Ho Chi Minh would push Lenin’s concept of alliance to its fullest implications.  He envisioned a global democratic revolution consisting consisting of complementary movements of class struggle in the core and national liberation in the colonies, with both movements working in alliance, mutual support, and solidarity (see “Ho reformulates Lenin” 5/7/2014).  He saw the world of his time as divided between a democratic camp, formed by the socialist nations, the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries, and the movements of national liberation in the colonized regions; and an anti-democratic, imperialist and reactionary camp, headed by the United States.  He considered it certain that the democratic camp would eventually prevail, although he believed that the struggle would be long and hard.

      The creative synthesis of Ho Chi Minh was forged in the context of political practice, as we shall discuss in the next post.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin

    Ho Chi Minh possessed a double social and experiential foundation for his understanding.  On the one hand, he was an intellectual and activist of the colonized world, formed in the tradition of the patriotic nationalism of the Confucian scholars.  On the other hand, he had experienced encounter with Marxism-Leninism and the communist movement in Paris and Moscow from 1917 to 1924 (see “Ho encounters French socialism” 5/5/2014; “Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014). 

     Thus, Ho Chi Minh possessed the social foundation for a synthesis of Third World nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, and he had developed the basic components of this synthetic perspective by 1924.  Although his perspective necessarily involved a reformulation of Lenin on the basis of the colonial situation of Indochina, Ho did not announce a reformulation of Lenin’s thesis.  Rather, his strategy was to invoke Lenin, calling upon the international communist movement to take seriously Lenin’s thesis on the colonial question, and providing interpretations of Lenin’s thesis that were subtle reformulations.

       In its classical formulation, Marxism-Leninism viewed the industrial working class as the vanguard of the socialist revolution, since the factory workers had the most advanced revolutionary consciousness.  And it viewed the peasantry as prepared to support a worker-led socialist revolution, if the revolution unequivocally supported peasant interests in obtaining land (see “The proletarian vanguard” 1/24/2014).  

     At the time of the triumph of the October Revolution, Lenin believed that in order for the Russian Revolution to be able to sustain itself, a triumph of the proletarian revolutions in the advanced nations of Western Europe would be necessary (see “A permanent global revolution” 1/27/2014).  When the proletarian revolutions in the West did not triumph, Lenin reformulated his understanding of the global revolution, giving greater emphasis to the revolutions of national liberation in the colonies.  He understood that the profits obtained through the exploitation of the colonies increased the capacity of capitalism to make concessions to core workers, thus enabling the system to create a labor aristocracy in the advanced nations, thereby undermining the possibility of revolutionary transformation to a political-economic system governed by workers.  Lenin therefore called for the formation of alliances between the proletarian movements in the core and the national liberation movements in the colonies, even when the national liberation movements include the national bourgeoisie, with the intention of struggling against international imperialism and the imperialist exploitation of the colonies.  He believed, however, that the revolutions in the colonies ultimately must be led by a proletarian vanguard (Lenin 2010:130-37; 1972:55-60; 1993:261-65).

     Lenin’s “Thesis on the national and colonial questions” converted Ho Chi Minh into a Leninist.  Ho invoked Lenin’s concept in order to criticize the Western communist parties for ignoring the national liberation movements in the colonies.  Like Lenin, Ho believed that the colonies were decisive, because most of the strength of the capitalist class was derived from the exploitation of the colonies.  As we have seen (“Ho the delegate of the colonized” 5/6/2014), Ho believed that attacking capitalism via the industrial working class of the advanced countries was like trying “to kill a snake by stepping on its tail.”  He did not make the reverse error of believing that the capitalist snake could be killed by the movements of national liberation of the colonized. Rather, he advocated the forging of a global revolution through complementary movements of workers in the core and of national liberation in the colonized regions, working on a basis of alliance, solidarity, and mutual support.

        But Ho’s understanding involved a subtle reformulation of Lenin.  Lenin considered support for national liberation movements as a tactic in the global transition to socialism, which ultimately would require revolutionary movements in the colonies led by a proletarian vanguard.  Ho, however, viewed the global revolution as a having complementary dimensions: a proletarian struggle in the core, which would embrace and support national liberation movements; and national liberation struggles in the colonized region, which would seek not merely political independence but would pursue a class revolution within the nation.  For Ho, they were different but equal partners, and they would support each other in order to kill the capitalist snake.

      Ho Chi Minh’s view of the global revolution implied a reformulation of the concept of the vanguard, and here too Ho was subtle.  The vanguard in the Vietnamese revolution was composed of “workers,” but Ho had a dynamic concept of workers.  In his view, during the transition to socialism, agriculture would be modernized, and peasants therefore would be transformed into agricultural workers.  At the same time, intellectuals would learn to complement their intellectual work with manual labor (as Ho himself did during his life).  Thus peasants and intellectuals were workers, even though they were in a sense workers in formation.  But as potential workers, they could become part of the vanguard, if they possessed advanced political consciousness.  In practice, the Workers’ Party of Vietnam was composed of intellectuals, peasants, and workers, with intellectuals being in the majority, but with peasants and workers also playing a significant role.  In this way, Ho subtly reformulated the Marxist-Leninist concept of the proletarian vanguard, adapting it to the colonial situation of Vietnam (Ho 2007:155-57, 168, 170-71).

      Ho always presented himself as a disciple of Lenin, and he was.  But he reformulated Lenin’s insights in accordance with the colonial situation of Vietnam.  Whereas Lenin envisioned a proletarian vanguard, Ho developed a vanguard consisting of enlightened intellectuals, peasants, and workers.  Whereas Lenin distrusted the peasant as susceptible to bourgeois thinking, Ho discerned the revolutionary spontaneity of the peasant.  Whereas Lenin believed that petit bourgeois socialists betray the revolution (see “The role of the petit bourgeoisie” 1/28/2014), Ho saw the central role of the Confucian scholar-gentry class in the origin and development of Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism.  Whereas Lenin saw patriotism as an instrument of the bourgeoisie in manipulating the working class into participating in imperialist wars (see “Revolutionary patriotism” 8/15/2014), Ho saw genuine patriotism as a necessary component of the struggle against colonial domination. 

     In adapting Lenin to the colonial situation of Vietnam, Ho was following the recommendations of Lenin himself.  In his message to the communist organizations of the East, Lenin asserted, “Relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourself to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries.  You must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism” (1993:263).

     Ho Chi Minh, therefore, was both Marxist-Leninist and nationalist, who forged in practice a theoretical synthesis of the two political-intellectual-moral traditions, a theme to which we discuss further in the next post.


References

Ho Chi Minh.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.

Lenin, V.I.  1972.  “Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial Questions” in Speeches at Congresses of the Communist International.  Moscow: Progress Publishers.

__________.  1993.  “Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East” in John Ridell, Ed., To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920—First Congress of the Peoples of the East.  New York: Pathfinder Press.

__________.  2010.  “Tesis sobre la cuestión nacional y colonial” in La Internacional Comunista: Tesis, manifiestos, y resoluciones de los cuatro primeros congresos (1919-1922).  Madrid: Fundación Federico Engels.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin

     As Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, encountered Marxism-Leninism in Paris and Moscow from 1920 to 1924 (see “Ho encounters French socialism” 5/5/2014), he endeavored to bring the international communist movement to a more advanced stage of genuine internationalism, moving it beyond a context defined by the movements of Western and Eastern Europe.  He believed that the key was Lenin’s “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions,” which affirmed the importance of the national liberation struggles in the colonized regions and the oppressed nations.

     His reading of Lenin’s “Thesis” was not only a moment of an intellectual conversion experience; it also provided him with a basis for active engagement in the communist movement, in which he in effect was functioning as a delegate of the colonized peoples.  He wrote in 1960 concerning the impact of his reading of the “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions:”

      Nguyen Ai Quoc’s effort to broaden the perspective of the international communist movement to include the perspective of the colonized was constant in the years following his conversion experience.  In 1921, he was the driving force in the Communist Party’s forming of a new organization of colonial subjects living in France.  In 1922, he founded a new journal dedicated to the interests of the colonized peoples of the French empire.  As a delegate representing Indochina at the International Peasant Conference in Moscow in October 1923, Quoc maintained that the Comintern “would become a genuine Communist International only when it included representatives of the Asian peasantry as active participants” (Duiker 2000:91).  In an article published in 1924 in the International Press Correspondence, the official organ of the Comintern, Quoc argued that it may appear that the question of Indochina is of little interest to European workers, but in fact the international capitalist class draws its strength from the exploitation of the colonies, from which it obtains raw materials for its factories, a reserve army of cheap labor, and markets for its manufactured products.  In the same year, he wrote a report on the conditions of Annam, noting that the industrial proletariat comprised only 2% of the population; that the peasantry had revolutionary potential, because of its patriotism; and the intellectuals of the scholar-gentry class were the most politically active sector (Duiker 2000:78-79, 90-91, 97-98; Fall 1967:29).

     During his time in Moscow, Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote a book on the process of French colonialism (published in English as French Colonization on Trial), which he had begun in Paris (Duiker 2000:67, 96).  He describes the exorbitant rent, taxes and fines and the forced labor imposed on the colonized in Vietnam and in other regions of the French colonial empire.  He maintains that indiscriminate violence with impunity is a common practice in French colonialism, including patterns of violence against women.  He contends that colonialism presents itself in accordance with the ideals of fraternity and equality in order to hide its exploitative nature.  He asserts that French Catholic priests are among the abusers and exploiters (Fall 1967: 69, 71, 84-90, 93, 100, 106-10; Ho 1968: 200, 204, 236, 237, 241, 259-63).

       Addressing the Fifth Congress of the Communist International on June 23, 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc asserted:

     In Nguyen Ai Quoc’s “Report on the National and Colonial Questions” at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International as well as other writings of 1924, he was critical of the communist parties of the West for lacking contact with the colonized peoples and for ignoring the colonial question, thus not following in practice the theory of Lenin on the colonial question.  He believed that the international proletarian movement could not attain success without alliance with the colonized peoples, which he viewed as constituting a considerable force of revolutionary opposition to world capitalism.  At the same time, he understood that Third World nationalism without communism would not liberate the colonized peasant.  Furthermore, he understood that the peasantry, while possessing an orientation toward spontaneous rebellion, was unaware of communism, and that the peasants needed organization and leadership in order to form an effective struggle.  He thus saw the need to educate Western workers and the Western communist parties on the importance of encounter and alliance with the anti-colonial struggles in the colonies, and at the same time he recognized the need for the spreading of communism among the peasants, workers, students, intellectuals, and merchants of the colonies (Ho 2007:24-38). 

     By 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc had developed the basic components of a synthesis of Marxism-Lenin and the patriotic nationalism of the Confucian scholars, a synthesis that would involve a subtle reformulation of Lenin, as we will discuss in subsequent posts.


References

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

Fall, Bernard B., Ed.  1967.  Ho Chi Minh On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920-26.  New York: Frederick A. Praeger.

Ho Chi Minh.  1968.  Páginas Escogidas.  La Habana: Instituto del Libro.

__________.  2007.  Down with Colonialism.  Introduction by Walden Bello.  London: Verso.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Third International, communism

     Ho Chi Minh was attracted to socialism from the moment of his first encounter.  William Duiker attributes this to an affinity between Western socialism and the Confucian ethic.  He writes:

     Ho approached the French socialist movement from a vantage point principally defined by the colonial situation of the colonized peoples of Asia and Africa.  French socialism was at that moment characterized by a division between social democracy, organized in the Second International; and communism, led by Lenin and organized in the Third International.  As he encountered this debate, Ho learned of Lenin’s “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions,” which, by virtue of its affirmation of the importance of the national liberation struggles in the colonies, converted Ho into a Leninist (García Oliveras 2010:25-27; Bello 2007:xii-xiv). 

     In an article written in 1960, “The Path Which Led Me to Leninism,” Ho describes his first encounter with Lenin’s analysis of the colonial question.  Describing the debates in the French Socialist Party concerning whether or not the party ought to join Lenin’s Third International, Ho writes:

     The conversion experience had long-term consequences for the political and intellectual development of Ho Chi Minh, then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc.  He joined with those members of the French Socialist Party who voted on December 29, 1920 to form the French Communist Party and to affiliate with Lenin’s Third International.  He subsequently became a part of the international communist movement, headquartered in Moscow.  He undertook a number of important activities in the name of the French Communist Party, as a representative of Indochina.  In 1923, he was invited to Moscow to work for the Communist International (Comintern), where he was assigned to work for a commission dedicated to analyzing the situation of the colonized peoples of Africa and Asia.  He was in the Soviet Union from June 1923 to October 1924, during which time he took courses at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, “the leading institute for training Asian revolutionaries invited to Soviet Russia to study” (Duiker 2000:92); and he participated in various organizations established by the Russian Revolution, such as the Red Labor International, the Youth International, and the Women’s International (Duiker 73, 86-94, 104; Prina 2008:79; García Oliveras 2010:27-28). 

      As Nguyen Ai Quoc participated in the international communist movement, he did so as a true delegate of the colonized peoples, challenging the movement to fulfill in practice Lenin’s thesis on the colonial question.  This will be the topic of our next post.


References

Bello, Walden.  2007.  “Introduction: Ho Chi Minh: The Communist as Nationalist” in Ho Chi Minh, Down with Colonialism.  London: Verso.

Duiker, William J.  2000.  Ho Chi Minh.  New York:  Hyperion.

Fall, Bernard B., Ed.  1967.  Ho Chi Minh On Revolution: Selected Writings, 1920-26.  New York: Frederick A. Praeger.

García Oliveras, Julio A. 2010.  Ho Chi Minh El Patriota: 60 años de lucha revolucionaria.  La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Prina, Agustín.  2008.  La Guerra de Vietnam.  Mexico: Ocean Sur.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, colonial, neocolonial, blog Third World perspective, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, French socialism, Third International