What was ho chi minh

In France returned to Vietnam to gain control of their colony, and Ho returned determined to fight for independence. The Soviet Union soon followed. Americans were envisioning South East Asia as a row of dominos, precariously positioned to fall one at a time to communism. Under political pressure for having lost China and failing to contain the communist threat, U. After eight years of war, the French were defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and forced to withdraw from Vietnam.

At the Geneva peace talks, Vietnam was divided into communist North and non-communist South. Ho Chi-Minh became the president of North Vietnam and was determined to reunite his country under communist rule. Ho initiated a land reform campaign in Patterned after Chinese land reform programs, the plan proved to be a failure within two years and so unpopular among the Vietnamese peasants that they revolted.

During the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, aid was limited to equipment and military advisors in the field. But by the end of , U. In President Lyndon Johnson escalated the U. Ho Chi Minh became the face of the revolution to the people of Vietnam. Ho himself would make public appearances for speeches and rallies, but for the most part was not directly involved in the war effort. He made few public appearances but his legacy was kept alive in North Vietnamese for propaganda purposes.

His political struggles with the West were nearly over. At its height, several tons of supplies, weapons and ammunition were sent each day. During the s, it was a common target for American bombs. At this same meeting, Ho ceded his position as party secretary-general to Le Duan. The U. President Lyndon Johnson made the decision to halt escalation of the war and called for peace talks to begin.

The conflict was still ongoing by September 2, , when Ho Chi Minh died in Hanoi at the age of The last U. Seven thousand people, mainly Americans and South Vietnamese, were evacuated from the city. Photos of the chaos in the streets as men, women and children jostled for space on the last helicopters was broadcast across the world. On April 30, , the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces.

Only the Americans have been defeated. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U. Hanoi was occupied with little resistance, and in early September a Democratic Republic of Vietnam was created, with Ho Chi Minh—in his first public use of the name—as president. For the next several months Ho attempted to broaden the popular base of the new government while seeking a negotiated settlement with France.

Politically astute and conciliatory, he managed to reduce the distrust of rival nationalist leaders and reached agreement on a coalition cabinet at the end of the year. Early in a National Assembly was elected and confirmed him as president.

Both achievements, however, were short lived. In the summer of , the tenuous alliance between the Viet Minh and the nationalists broke down, and the latter were driven out of the government. Meanwhile, negotiations with the French foundered when they retreated from the terms of the preliminary agreement. In September, despite the misgivings of Party colleagues, Ho signed a modus vivendi in Paris, but on his return to Hanoi, tensions between Vietnamese and French forces escalated, and in December war broke out.

On September 2, , Ho and his league declared Vietnamese independence. When the French colonial rulers tried to reassert their authority, Ho settled for nominal autonomy as a member of the French Union.

The French-Vietnamese truce broke in late , initiating a war that ended in with the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu. At the following Geneva conference, Ho allowed his Chinese and Soviet friends to pressure him into a highly unsatisfactory compromise that divided Vietnam in two. He pursued this particularly through support of the Viet Cong guerrillas fighting the Southern government.

Even though South Vietnam received ever-increasing support from the United States which after began to bomb the North , Ho remained confident of victory and rejected negotiations with Washington. At this time he was in Hong Kong, where he was briefly imprisoned, before returning to Vietnam to build up the Communist Party into the main oppositional force to French colonial rule.

In he again returned in secret to Vietnam, where he began to recruit Vietminh guerrilla fighters and to organize resistance to the Japanese, adopting the name Ho Chi Minh. Upon the defeat of the Japanese in he proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September, of which he became President and until Prime Minister.

Helped by his military commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, he won the ensuing Indochina War through his capacity to inspire and generate popular support. By his authority alone he managed to convince the more radical members of his party to accept the compromise of the Geneva Agreements, which left him only in control of Vietnam north of the 17th Parallel.

In this territory, he established a socialist regime, while striving to undermine the South Vietnamese government in any way possible. He managed to keep the support of both the Soviet Union and China as he led the country through the first years of the Vietnam War.

Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in Subjects: History — Contemporary History post