Divine Ho Chi Minh. How the Father of Vietnamese Independence Became a God. Ho Chi Minh Ho Chi Minh was the leader of the communists
Ho Chi Minh(Vietnamese Hồ Chí Minh, Ho Ti Minh); real names: Nguyen Shinh Kung, Nguyen Tat Thanh; pseudonyms: Nguyen Ai Quoc, Ho Chi Minh; (May 19, 1890, Kimlien, Namdan County, Nghe An Province, French Indochina - September 2, 1969, Hanoi, DRV) - Vietnamese politician and follower of Marxism-Leninism, founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam, leader of the August Revolution, first president of North Vietnam, creator of Viet Minh and Viet Cong, Marxist philosopher, poet.
early years
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19, 1890 in Kimlien Village, Namdang County, Nghe An Province. His birth name (first or milk name) is Nguyen Xinh Kung. Father - Nguyen Shin Shak - a supporter of the Confucian patriotic party, was the most educated person in the village, received the honorary title of fobang (second in importance), and was subsequently invited to the post of head of the county. Mother - Hoang Thi Loan - died at the age of 32 during the birth of her fourth child.
According to Vietnamese tradition, before entering school, Nguyen Sinh Cung received a second (official, or "book" name) - Nguyen Tat Thanh (Vietnamese Nguyễn Tất Thành, "Nguyen the triumphant").
Emigration period
In 1911 Tat Thanh, under an assumed name, joined a steamship as a sailor.
He returned to his homeland only after 30 years. Over the years he visited America and Europe. In 1916-1923 he lived in the USA, Great Britain, France.
In France
In Paris, he takes the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc (Vietnamese Nguyễn Ái Quốc, "Nguyen the Patriot").
In 1919, he appealed to the leaders of the powers signing the Treaty of Versailles to grant freedom to the peoples of Indochina. 
In 1920 he joined the French Communist Party. Since the 1920s - an activist of the Comintern.
In Soviet Union
In 1923 he arrived at the invitation of the Comintern from Paris to Moscow. For conspiracy, the pass to the USSR was issued in a different name. I had to go through Germany: to Berlin, from there to Hamburg, on June 30, 1923, I arrived by steamer in Petrograd, and then by train to Moscow.
In Moscow he worked in the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI). I really wanted to see Lenin, but I didn’t have a chance to meet, since the Soviet leader was already seriously ill and soon died. Nguyen Ai Quoc was able to attend the farewell ceremony.
He gave an interview for the Ogonyok magazine to Osip Mandelstam.
Graduated from the Communist University of the Workers of the East. In the Soviet Union, Nguyen Ai Quoc finally took shape as a communist leader.
Nguyen Ai Quoc presented his views at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in 1924, where he delivered a report on the colonial question.
In China
In December 1924, when Sun Yat-sen was at the head of the revolutionary Canton government in southern China and collaborated with the Communists in the hope of military and financial support from the Comintern, Nguyen Ai Quoc was sent to Canton. There he received Chinese documents with a new Chinese pseudonym "Li Qu" and began to work on establishing ties between the Comintern and revolutionary-minded emigrants from Vietnam. Under the guise of a hired Chinese, he officially got a job as an interpreter for the Chief Political Adviser of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang and at the same time the representative of the Comintern in China, Mikhail Markovich Borodin.
After some time, he organized the "Committee for Special Political Training" in Canton, where, under the pseudonym "Comrade Vuong", he taught the Vietnamese the methods of organized collective revolutionary struggle, as opposed to individual terror. Met Fan Boy Chau.
In 1925, after Phan Boi Chau was arrested in Shanghai, "Comrade Vuong" organized in Canton the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association, with its own print organ, the Youth newspaper, and several other revolutionary organizations - women's, peasant, pioneer. For organizational work with the revolutionaries of neighboring countries, he created the "Union of the Oppressed Peoples of Asia." There is also some information about his acquaintance and marriage at this time with a Chinese woman, Zeng Xuemin, who was called "Thang Tuyet Minh" in Vietnamese.
In 1926, through Borodin, "Comrade Vuong" organized the dispatch of the first group of Vietnamese revolutionaries to Moscow to study at the Communist University of the Working People of the East. At the same time, he wrote and distributed the first Vietnamese communist educational pamphlet, Ways of Revolution, outlining the political program of the future Indochinese Communist Party.
In April 1927, after Chiang Kai-shek's coup, Borodin's apparatus was evacuated. "Li Qu" not only lost his job, but was also threatened with arrest. To avoid arrest, in May 1927 he urgently tried to move to Hong Kong. However, they did not let him in there and had to make a difficult journey to the north of China, and from there to the territory of the USSR.
Back in Europe
Arriving in Moscow, in December 1927, Nguyen Ai Quoc went on a working trip to European countries. In Brussels, he took part in the work of the recently created international Anti-Imperialist League. Further, through France and Switzerland, he moved to Italy, where in the port of Naples he boarded a steamer bound for the Indochinese state of Siam.
In Siam
In Siam, Nguyen Ai Quoc again, as before in China, settled in places where a large number of Vietnamese emigrants lived - in the province of Udon. There, under the new pseudonym "Thau Tin", he began the work of organizing revolutionary groups among the Vietnamese. At that time, cells of the Association of Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam already existed in Siam.
On November 11, 1929, Nguyen Ai Quoc was sentenced to death in absentia by a Vietnamese imperial court in French Indochina. Separate communist groups were already operating in the Vietnamese lands of French Indochina by this time. The Comintern instructed Nguyen Ai Quoc to work on their unification, and in December 1929 he set off by sea through Singapore to Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong
Nguyen Ai Quoc, with the assistance of the Communist Party of France (and personally Maurice Thorez), of which the Communist Party of Vietnam was considered a branch, managed to unite disparate party groups, and in 1930 the Communist Party of Indochina was formed.
Independence movement
In 1941, the Viet Minh was established in Japanese-occupied Indochina. After arriving in South China to establish contact with the Chinese Communists and Vietnamese emigrants, he was arrested by the Kuomintang government and spent a year and a half in prison. After the departure of the Japanese, the Viet Minh took power in Indochina.
He was Prime Minister (1946-1955) and President (1946-1969) of North Vietnam.
As President of North Vietnam
In 1955-1956, his government carried out an agrarian reform. Received material and military assistance from China and the USSR. In 1965, in connection with the US bombing of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh announced a continuous fight against them and refused any negotiations.
Death
He died in 1969, at the age of 80. He was embalmed by Soviet specialists, although in his will he asked to be cremated, placed in three ceramic urns and buried in every part of the country - in the north, south and in the center where he was born. He was buried in Hanoi, in the mausoleum on Badinh Square.
Memory
Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 in his honor.
In Moscow, Ho Chi Minh Square was named in 1969; in 1990, a monument to Ho Chi Minh was erected on it.
Street in Leningrad.
A trail leading to Yastrebinoye Lake in the Leningrad Region is named in his honor.
In 1987, UNESCO proposed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ho Chi Minh
On May 19, 2010, the Ho Chi Minh Institute and a monument to him were opened in St. Petersburg, at the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg State University.
An avenue was named in his honor and a monument was erected in Ulyanovsk.
Monument in Buenos Aires (Argentina, 2012).
Park them. Ho Chi Minh (since the 1960s) and the youth football championship. Ho Chi Minh in Santiago (Chile).
Ho Chi Minh is depicted on the front side of all Vietnamese polymer banknotes of the latest series, as well as a commemorative banknote dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Bank of Vietnam, issued in 2001.
Chilean poet Victor Jara dedicated the song "El derecho de vivir en paz" to Ho Chi Minh
Kyiv Specialized School No. 251 is named after him
In 1971, the German composer Günther Kohan wrote the cantata "The Testament of Ho Chi Minh" (German: Das Testament von Ho chi Minh).
Nicolas Guillen wrote "Elegy for Ho Chi Minh"
(real name - Nguyen Tat Ghanh)
(1890-1969) founder and first president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
In translation, the name Ho Chi Minh means "Shining". Nguyen Tat Thanh was born at the end of the 19th century, at a time when Vietnam was part of the French colony of Indochina, which also included Laos and Cambodia.
In 1911 Nguyen went abroad and worked as a sailor. In 1916-1923 he lived in the USA, Great Britain, France.
In 1920 he joined the French Communist Party. It was at this time that his anti-colonial convictions took shape. New friends helped Ho Chi Minh get to the Soviet Union, where he finally took shape as a communist leader. He presented his views at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (1924), where he delivered a co-report on the colonial question.
Now the task of Ho Chi Minh was the formation of the Communist Party in Indochina. In 1925, he organized the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association. To avoid arrest, he had to settle not in Vietnam, but in Cambodia. At that time, separate communist groups were already operating in Indochina. Ho Chi Minh managed to unite them, and in 1930 the Communist Party of Indochina was formed. Since 1951, it became known as the Vietnam Workers' Party, and since 1976 - the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In the mid-1930s, Ho Chi Minh studied in Moscow at the Communist University of the Working People of the East and worked in the Comintern.
Soon new political events took place in his homeland. With the outbreak of World War II, Japanese troops entered Indochina. This happened in 1940. Returning here a year later, Ho Chi Minh led the revolutionary movement, now not only against the French colonialists, but also against the Japanese invaders. On his initiative, in May 1941, the League for the Struggle for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh) was created, which united all the patriotic forces of the country. He was later elected its chairman.
In August 1945, a revolution took place in Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh became chairman of the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was proclaimed in September of that year. He hoped that an Allied victory in World War II would bring independence to Vietnam as well. But that did not happen.
As soon as the war ended, the French returned to Vietnam but were met with resistance. The Vietnamese wanted to achieve independence by all means, and the French were just as determined to keep this colony. Now a long bloody war has begun here to liberate the country from colonial dependence. The war lasted 9 years, until in 1954 the People's Army of Vietnam captured the fort of Dien Bien Phu, the main base of the French.
After that, at the Geneva meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Soviet Union, China, the USA, Britain and France, an agreement was adopted on the division of Vietnam into two parts: South and North. Elections were held, and Ho Chi Minh became president of North Vietnam, holding several posts at once - Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Workers' Party and General Secretary of the party. In 1955, Ho Chi Minh paid an official visit to the Soviet Union and agreed to help Vietnam.
At this time, a very difficult situation developed in South Vietnam. Scheduled elections were disrupted, and American military bases were located throughout the territory. At the same time, patriotic forces (Viet Cong) began to actively operate here. At first, there were separate skirmishes between patriots and Americans, but they became more and more frequent. The fight took on a massive character. In February 1965, the United States began bombing and shelling the southern regions, and in June 1965, the entire territory of Vietnam. The Ho Chi Minh government turned to the Soviet Union for help. Such assistance has been provided. The USSR helped Vietnam with military force, equipment, and sent military specialists.
The government of Ho Chi Minh constantly supported the South Vietnamese patriots and provided them with everything they needed. To supply their army, a whole system of messages and foot roads was organized, which was called the "Ho Chi Minh trail."
American planes bombarded entire villages, burned people with napalm, but the Vietnamese continued to desperately resist.
The Vietnam War took on such a cruel and disgusting character that not only in other countries, but in America itself, people demanded an end to it.
Finally, in 1968, negotiations between the United States and Vietnam began in Paris. However, Ho Chi Minh did not have a chance to find out how they would end. On October 5, 1969, he died. And only six years after his death, the two Vietnamese states united into a single Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh remained in the history of Vietnam not only as a politician. He was also a gifted poet, and his poems have been translated into many languages of the world. It is curious that one of the first editions was published in Paris back in the days when Vietnam remained a colony of France.
A desperate traveler and adventurer, a sophisticated politician, an excellent speaker, a spy who worked for several intelligence agencies of the world - in Vietnam he is called Uncle Ho, sweetly and in a family way, like some brownie.
No, he was not fond of black magic, as Hitler, the cult of his personality could not be compared with Stalin's, and the number of followers was significantly less than that of Mao. And yet, which of the great dictators could boast of having an entire religion named after himself? But at Ho Chi Minh there are temples in which they worship only him.
Communist Buddhists
One of these temples is located on the outskirts of the city of Vung Tau. Today this city belongs to the oilmen. Tankers and bulk carriers float along its embankments. Once upon a time, Vung Tau was considered the Vietnamese Las Vegas. Here wine flowed like rivers, music did not stop, and revelry in casinos and brothels did not subside. When the Vietnamese communists expelled the Americans and captured Vung Tau, they burned all the brothels along with the prostitutes. Those that did not die were sent "for re-education" to labor camps. A similar fate awaited the merry capital of South Vietnam, the city of Saigon. It was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the legendary founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Once upon a time, music did not stop here. Photo: AiF / Grigory Kubatyan
Perhaps, from that moment on, Ho the Illuminator (this is how the pseudonym Shi Ming is deciphered) became a god. No, the communists of Vietnam officially consider themselves atheists and do not believe in God. But in Southeast Asia it is impossible to be an absolute atheist. For example, in neighboring Laos, those who have not served as a monk in a Buddhist temple for some time are not accepted into the Communist Party. And in Vietnam, Buddhists and communists fought together against the American occupation. Therefore, when the communists came to power, they did not destroy Buddhist temples (most of them had already been destroyed by the Americans), but instead began to mix the two ideologies.
So the temple near Vung Tau looks like an ordinary Buddhist one. It is located on a hill, to get to it, you need to go through a patterned gate with dragons, lions and yin and yang symbols, and then climb the stairs. In the courtyard of the temple there is a massive bronze bell, as in all Buddhist temples, and the same huge drum. The only difference is a red flag with a hammer and sickle flying from a flagpole in the center of the courtyard.
The interior of the temple resembles a cross between a Chinese pagoda and a memorial cemetery. The walls are adorned with plaques bearing the names of fallen heroes. On the altar in the center stands a bust of Ho Chi Minh, and in front of him is a bronze bowl with smoking incense sticks. To the left and right of the altar are sculptures depicting herons standing on the backs of turtles. Herons have pearls in their beaks. Birds symbolize the intellectual elite, pearls - higher knowledge, and turtles - simple people-workers. Strange sculptures for the sanctuary of a proletarian leader, they would be more suitable for a Confucian temple. However, there is also symbolism glorifying labor. For example, images of electric towers on full-length Chinese porcelain vases.
Photo: AiF / Grigory Kubatyan
Veterans of the war and responsible party workers periodically gather in the Ho Chi Minh Temple, bring wreaths with stars laid out from flowers. Groups of schoolchildren are also brought here, as Soviet children were taken to the Lenin memorials. And yet the cult of Ho Chi Minh went even further. Altars with his portraits, flowers and smoking sticks are found even in private homes: in the living rooms, where portraits of deceased relatives traditionally hang, there are statuettes of Buddhas or images of the Virgin Mary. In front of the altar of Ho Chi Minh, a dish with watermelons, bananas, mangoes. In Vietnam, for some reason, deities are always offered fruit and never sausage.
Ascetic or polygamist?
In the center of Hanoi is the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. They say that Uncle Ho was against making a mummy out of him. But that was the way it was in the socialist countries. Having taken away the usual religions from people, the communists gave a new one. Instead of crosses, crescents or buddhas - red flags, sickle-hammers and golden stars. In Vietnam, you can often see T-shirts with a portrait of Ho, where he has a gold star instead of a halo. The communists did not even have to break the old foundations. Using the relics of saints for worship is a common practice in Southeast Asia. Except that instead of a round Far Eastern stupa, a square Middle Eastern mausoleum was built. But they go around the communist shrine in a circle in the same way as they go around the holy Buddhist places.
Ho Chi Minh has temples where only he is worshiped. Photo: AiF / Grigory Kubatyan
Ho Chi Minh's way of life partly makes him related to the Buddha. He lived ascetically, in a small house, had no wife, and ate modestly. Even walked in shoes made of car tires, like the poorest of the peasants. At the same time, he devoted himself completely to the country and the struggle for its independence.
Sometimes there are books whose authors doubt Uncle Ho's holiness and even accuse him of secret polygamy. Well, every true religion must have its heretics. The Vietnamese authorities do not burn them at the stake - not those times, but still they are fighting heresy as best they can: they curse, expel, forbid. And Uncle Ho looks at it with the bronze eyes of hundreds of statues and smiles from thousands of portraits. He is the god of the Vietnamese, and quite powerful. After all, even militant capitalism that came to the country could not overthrow him, like many other communist deities. This means that sticks will continue to smoke in his temples and there will always be fresh fruit on his altars.
From AiF. Without Borders, No. 13, 2012
Ho Chi Minh
Role of Ho Chi Minh in world history
Ho Chi Minh (Vietnamese pronounce Ho Chi Minh), the first president of the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh is one of the politicians who had the greatest influence on the course of the history of Vietnam and the entire national liberation movement in the 20th century, being the leader of a still small country at that time. In 1954, the Viet Minh troops under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh defeated the French troops near the town of Dien Bien Phu. It had an enormous psychological impact on the national liberation movements in the countries of Asia and Africa and prompted them to take more decisive action. The colonial system built by Western European countries over several centuries collapsed within a few years. The second thing that Ho Chi Minh and then his successors managed to do was to win a moral victory over the United States during the so-called Vietnam War. It was a victory over a superpower that was forced to withdraw from Vietnam as a result of military and political setbacks. The Vietnam War changed America in many ways.
Origin of Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh was born on May 19, 1890 in the province of Nghe An, in the village of Kim Lien. The name given at birth is Nguyen Tat Thanh (Nguyen Tat Thanh), according to another version Nguyen Sinh Cung (Nguyen Sinh Cung). There are different versions about the origin of the name Ho Chi Minh. The most common is this: while living illegally in China for some time, Ho Chi Minh used the passport of a deceased Chinese.
Ho Chi Minh's father was an employee assigned to the imperial court, he had a degree. Thanh was the youngest of three children, he also had a brother and sister. He graduated from a French-Vietnamese school, then worked as a teacher in Phan Thiet province. In 1911 he went to Europe on board a merchant ship. Settled in Paris, where he worked as an assistant photographer.
In France, Ho Chi Minh became actively involved in the activities of the French left. At that time, he used the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the patriot) and began to gain some popularity in political circles.
Ho Chi Minh's fight for Vietnamese independence
In 1920, Ho Chi Minh attended the congress of the French Socialist Party in Tours, at which its left wing broke away, resulting in the formation of the French Communist Party (PCF). In 1921 he participated in the creation of the Intercolonial Union and wrote many articles for the newspaper Le Paria. In 1923 he left for Moscow, where he took a course of study at the KUTV (Communist University of the Working People of the East), lived in the same room with Chiang Qingguo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, who, after his father, took over as president of Taiwan. In 1924 he participated in the work of the 5th Congress of the Comintern. In 1927, in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, he organized the Association of Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth to prepare young Vietnamese for the revolutionary struggle. Together with the Indian communist MN Roy, he founded the League of Oppressed Peoples. In 1929 he worked underground in Thailand. In 1930, he formed the Communist Party of Vietnam, which was later transformed into the Communist Party of Indochina. In 1941, in Japanese-occupied Indochina, Ho Chi Minh established the Vietnam Independence League (Viet Minh). Under him, for tactical reasons, she collaborated for some time with the US Office of Strategic Studies (the predecessor of the CIA), as well as with Kuomintang China against Japan. After the surrender of Japan, the Viet Minh took power in Indochina into their own hands. Ho Chi Minh led the independent government of Indochina. Prior to this, despite the fact that Vietnam was a colony of France for more than a hundred years and was under Japanese occupation for some time, the power of the emperor nominally remained. Ho Chi Minh gave the former emperor a job as his adviser, but subsequently fired him for separate negotiations with the colonialists and let him go to France.
In 1946, Ho Chi Minh led the Vietnamese delegation at the Fontainebleau conference. However, the conference convened to regulate Vietnam's relations with the Indo-Chinese Union and France failed to solve the task. In December 1946, the DRV troops struck at the French forces in Tonkin, the First Indochinese War began, which ended with the defeat of France, the signing of a peace agreement at the Geneva Conference of 1954, and the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel. In 1955-1956, the government of Ho Chi Minh carried out agrarian reform. The agrarian reform, just like in the USSR in the 1930s, affected many people. Ho Chi Minh pursued, in general, a Stalinist policy. During the reign of N.S. Khrushchev in the USSR, Ho Chi Minh, who disagreed with the debunking of I.V. Stalin, adhered to China. In subsequent years, the Vietnamese government received military and economic assistance from both the USSR and China to wage war with the United States. Ho Chi Minh died on September 2, 1969. Vietnam's victory in the war against the United States took place in 1973-75. already under his successors.
Uncle Ho
The Vietnamese have great respect for the founder of their independent state. They called him "Uncle Ho". In the same way during the war it was called by the Americans.
The largest city of Vietnam, the former Saigon, with a population of 7 million people, is named after Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh City. In the capital of the country, Hanoi, after the death of the leader, the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh was built, open to the public. A memorial has been built in Vinh, the center of Nghe Anh Province, where Ho Chi Minh was born.
Ho Chi Minh is considered as the father of the nation. He didn't have his own children. Ho Chi Minh led an ascetic life. He had no property, dressed modestly.
A Chinese historian discovered that while Ho Chi Minh was living in southern China, he dated a woman. From the photo given by this historian, a beautiful woman, of Chinese-European appearance, is looking. Ho Chi Minh probably could not take her with him to Vietnam, as his compatriots would have disapproved of a foreigner.
There are about 200 known relatives of Ho Chi Minh currently living in Vietnam who are not his first line heirs (following legal terms). They meet annually in Hanoi.
Ho Chi Minh also proved to be an outstanding cultural figure. He was recognized by UNESCO as a "Hero of the national liberation movement, an outstanding cultural figure."
Ho Chi Minh lived in the USSR for several years and often visited him after he became the leader of Vietnam. A monument was erected to him in Moscow and a bust in Ulyanovsk. In Vladivostok, a memorial plaque was installed at the railway station. In Khabarovsk, the Ho Chi Minh locomotive operates on the Far Eastern Railway. In 2010, the Ho Chi Minh Institute was opened in St. Petersburg at St. Petersburg State University.
The most prominent of the Vietnamese politicians of the 20th century and the first president of North Vietnam, who became widely known under the name Ho Chi Minh, changed several names and many pseudonyms during his long and colorful life. At birth, he received the name Nguyen Sinh Kung. Nguyen was born on May 19, 1890 in the Vietnamese village of Kimlien, located in the province of Nghe An. His father - Nguyen Shinh Shak - was the most educated person in his village and an ardent supporter of the Confucian patriotic party. Nguyen's mother, Hoang Thi Loan, died while giving birth to her fourth child, at the age of 32. Before entering school, the future leader of North Vietnam, according to an ancient Vietnamese tradition, received a new "adult" name - Nguyen Tat Thanh (in Vietnamese it means "Nguyen the Triumphant").
From an early age, Nguyen was very sensitive to social injustice and the exploitation of man by man. Looking through the small cells of the mosquito net at the window into the evening Vietnamese sky, young Ho Chi Minh thought for a long time about the fate of his homeland and its long-suffering people. Vietnam at that time was in colonial dependence on France, the indigenous population of the country was seriously infringed in their political and economic rights. The formation of the future communist leader of North Vietnam took place in an atmosphere of colonial oppression, which later prompted him to actively search for ways to restore social justice.
In 1911, Tat Thanh took a job as a sailor on a steamship to go to Europe. He returned to his native place after a long thirty years, having managed to visit the USA, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, the USSR, China and other countries during this time. During his stay in Paris, he is actively involved in the activities of French left-wing organizations, takes the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen-Patriot) and begins to gain fame in European political circles. In 1920, Ho Chi Minh (he took this name for himself later, but for the convenience of the story we will call him that) joins the French Communist Party, around the same time he becomes an activist in the Comintern.
In 1923, at the invitation of the Comintern, Ho Chi Minh arrived from Paris to Moscow. For reasons of secrecy, he makes this trip under a false name and gets to the USSR through Germany. While in Moscow, he really wanted to personally meet with Lenin, but he did not have such an opportunity - the Soviet leader was seriously ill and soon died. Nguyen was only able to attend the farewell ceremony for the legendary revolutionary. While in Moscow, Ho Chi Minh worked in the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and in parallel he graduated from the Communist University of the Working People of the East. It was in the Soviet Union that the political views of the future president of North Vietnam were finally formed - after visiting the USSR, he became a staunch communist for life.
In 1924, Ho Chi Minh went to China, which was under the rule of the conservative political party Kuomintang. There he lives under the name of Li Qu and is actively working to establish ties with revolutionary-minded Vietnamese emigrants. After some time, he organized the "Committee for Special Political Training", the "Association of the Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam" and several other revolutionary organizations in Canton. Under the pseudonym "Comrade Vuong," he teaches the Vietnamese the methods of collective revolutionary struggle, oversees the publication of propaganda newspapers and pamphlets. There is information that during this period of his life, Ho Chi Minh was married to a Chinese woman, Zeng Xuemin; in the Vietnamese version, this name sounds like Thang Tuyet Minh.
In 1927, a military coup led by Chiang Kai-shek takes place, and Ho Chi Minh has to urgently leave China because of the threat of arrest. He again arrives in Moscow, from where he goes on a long working trip to Europe. After that, revolutionary activity leads him to the Indochinese state of Siam, where he again conducts active underground activities in organizing revolutionary groups among the Vietnamese population. In 1929, the authorities of French Indochina pass Ho Chi Minh a death sentence in absentia for his revolutionary activities, in order to avoid the execution of the sentence, he moves to Hong Kong. In 1930, while in Hong Kong, he became the founder of the Communist Party of Indochina, devotes the following years of revolutionary work to this political formation.
In 1941, in Japanese-occupied Indochina, Ho Chi Minh established a military-political organization - the Viet Minh - whose goal was to fight for the independence of Vietnam from Japan and France. During a working trip to South China, he was arrested by the Kuomintang government and spent a year and a half in prison. After the departure of the Japanese, the Viet Minh takes power in Indochina, after which Ho Chi Minh becomes the prime minister and president of North Vietnam. His government is carrying out agrarian reform and is beginning to receive material as well as military support from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Rich political experience allows Ho Chi Minh to receive assistance from both countries, despite the differences between Moscow and Beijing.
The first political leader of North Vietnam remains in the presidency until his death. Ho Chi Minh died in 1969 in the eightieth year of his eventful life. He died on the morning of September 2, but his death was officially announced only the next day, since the second day was a national holiday - the anniversary of the revolution, and the government decided not to overshadow him with sad news. The capital of South Vietnam - the city of Saigon - in 1976 in honor of the great Vietnamese leader was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. In Moscow, a square was named after Ho Chi Minh, on which to this day there is a monument to this revolutionary, politician, philosopher and poet. His portrait is featured on the front of many Vietnamese banknotes. The people of Vietnam sacredly honor the memory of a selfless fighter for freedom, as well as a great thinker and humanist who left a noticeable mark on the history of the 20th century.
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