Ho encounters French socialism

     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:

¨For many Asian intellectuals, the group ethic of Western socialist theory corresponded better to their own inherited ideals than did the individualist and profit-motivated ethic of Western capitalism.  And nowhere was this more pronounced than in Confucian societies like China and Vietnam.  Chinese and Vietnamese nationalists from scholar-gentry families often found the glitter of the new commercial cities more than vaguely distasteful.  In the Confucian mind, Western industrialism was too easily translated into greed and an unseemly desire for self-aggrandizement.  By contrast, socialism stressed community effort, simplicity of lifestyle, equalization of wealth and opportunity, all of which had strong overtones in the Confucian tradition¨ (Duiker 2000:63).

     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:

“What I wanted most to know—and this precisely was not debated in the meetings—was: Which international sides with the peoples of the colonial countries?

     I raised this question—the most important in my opinion—in a meeting.  Some comrades answered: It is the Third, not the second, International.  And a comrade gave me Lenin’s “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions,” published by l’Humanité, 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 in me.  I was overjoyed to tears.  Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted 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” (Fall 1967:6).

     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