learning about Ho Chi Minh

[Drowzy_Shooter]

I don't know much about the man. Where did he differ from marx and lenin? Did he produce any good works worth reading?

[MarxEngelsLeninStalinMao]

Ho Chi Minh, unlike Marx and Lenin, was a patriot first, communist second. I don't know that much about his writings, I have only read "The Path Which Led Me to Leninism" and "About Trotskyism", but I could guess that he wrote other things that are worth reading.

[Skyhilist]

Basically he declared himself communist in order to receive funding from the USSR.

He was really only ostensibly a Marxist.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Basically he declared himself communist in order to receive funding from the USSR.

He was really only ostensibly a Marxist.

Actually, he joined the French Socialist party around the time he was working as a waiter to support his education. He abandoned the French Socialist Party for the French Communist Party when the latter refused to support Vietnamese independence with any level of consistency. Of course this all took place in the 20's in France, when the Soviet Union was in no place to sponsor him. Even during the Vietmanese War he and a group of other communist parties boycotted the 1965 international conference while in desperate need of soviet sponsorship. Contrast this with Fidel Castro who was singing praises for liberal democracy all the way up to the point that he found out that he needed an ally to protect him from the U.S, and who unconditionally supported every soviet military intervention not only in words but with arms and troops, and you will find that uncle ho was one of the better progressives of his era.

[Skyhilist]

Actually, he joined the French Socialist party around the time he was working as a waiter to support his education. He abandoned the French Socialist Party for the French Communist Party when the latter refused to support Vietnamese independence with any level of consistency. Of course this all took place in the 20's in France, when the Soviet Union was in no place to sponsor him. Even during the Vietmanese War he and a group of other communist parties boycotted the 1965 international conference while in desperate need of soviet sponsorship. Contrast this with Fidel Castro who was singing praises for liberal democracy all the way up to the point that he found out that he needed an ally to protect him from the U.S, and who unconditionally supported every soviet military intervention not only in words but with arms and troops, and you will find that uncle ho was one of the better progressives of his era.

Ok sure but plenty of these people were involved in some type of socialist activity when they were young. His actions in Vietnam were hardly socialist.
But yeah, definitely agree about Castro not being all that great, although I don't think that can be used as a basis to laud Ho Chi Minh given that most "socialist" leaders were more genuinely socialist that Fidel.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Ok sure but plenty of these people were involved in some type of socialist activity when they were young.


Considering that after his work in the French Communist Party, he earned his graduate education in the Soviet Union and went back to Vietnam from there to found the Indochinese Communist Party. I'd say it's not really possible to seperate the two periods of his life since they were linearly connected.


His actions in Vietnam were hardly socialist.


Ho Chi Minh was never alive to see the end of the Vietnamese war, so the only thing he could have done was what he had done, serve as the leader of the Vietnamese revolution. Sure it did not result in socialism, but when Engel's served under the bourgeois revolutionaries in Germany in 1848, that didn't result in socialism either. Who are we comparing his actions to? There are many who have said many a fine words about the Marxist programme, but of course theory is connected to practice, and if one insists on talking the talk then one must walk the walk, and that's exactly what Ho Chi Minh did


But yeah, definitely agree about Castro not being all that great, although I don't think that can be used as a basis to laud Ho Chi Minh given that most "socialist" leaders were more genuinely socialist that Fidel.

Fair enough

[Red_Banner]

The thing I am not thrilled with Ho Chi Minh, though he may have done this to appease the masses, is he tried to incorporate Confuscianism into socialism.

[Paul Pott]

What I would be interested in is biographies of Ho Chi Minh.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

The thing I am not thrilled with Ho Chi Minh, though he may have done this to appease the masses, is he tried to incoporate Confuscianism into socialism.

Ho Chi Minh was educated by Confucian scholars during his youth in Vietnam, and during his time in prison many biographers note that the poetry he wrote while in prison in Hong Kong contained more Confucian themes than political themes. Understandable considering that he endured many months of torture and spirituality is something deep and personal that would come to mind in such dark moments. Although I am sure there are some that are willing to jump on uncle ho for this, a poem of his comes to mind that I think is relevant:


A COMRADES PAPER BLANKET
New books, old books,
the leaves all piled together.

A paper blanket
is better than no blanket.

You who sleep like princes,
sheltered from the cold,

Do you know how many men in prison
cannot sleep all night?

Otherwise, his spirituality can not be said to have interfered in his political career, or at least to the extent of my research on the topic which admittedly only extends to a couple books and a few scholarly articles. However it is a common trope in anti-communist historiography to attribute the various eastern revolutionary's genuine feelings to anything other than genuine politics. Kim Il Sung is often said to have founded the Juche idea as a mis-match between Stalinism, Presbyterianism, and Confucianism based on the notion that both North Korea and Confucianism have a caste system and that both revere a powerful father figure. However, if one were to read the works of Kim Il Sung all one might find is a sort of Marxism Humanism deprived of dialectical materialism replaced with a sort of quasi hegelian conception of alienation, but you'll never find any spirituality or superfluous mentions of Stalin. And if one were to take a look at the Korean caste system in the DPRK, one will find that the highest castes are those descendant from peasents, workers, and guerillas, and the lowest castes are the former bourgeois and feudal lords, the exact opposite of Confucianism. The same bourgeois commentators also assumed that the rise of Kim Jong Un would be the death of the Korean regime since such a young leader is incompatible with the spiritual ideal of the elderly experianced ruler. However the fact that there has been no major uproar proves to the bourgeois of the west that even the "backward" people of Asia are capable of moving on from superstition just like the people of Europe and the west.

[Mandarin]

William Duikier wrote an excellent biography of Ho Chi Minh.

I think its probably up on amazon still. Just google Ho Chi Minh: A Life.

[Geiseric]

Considering that after his work in the French Communist Party, he earned his graduate education in the Soviet Union and went back to Vietnam from there to found the Indochinese Communist Party. I'd say it's not really possible to seperate the two periods of his life since they were linearly connected.



Ho Chi Minh was never alive to see the end of the Vietnamese war, so the only thing he could have done was what he had done, serve as the leader of the Vietnamese revolution. Sure it did not result in socialism, but when Engel's served under the bourgeois revolutionaries in Germany in 1848, that didn't result in socialism either. Who are we comparing his actions to? There are many who have said many a fine words about the Marxist programme, but of course theory is connected to practice, and if one insists on talking the talk then one must walk the walk, and that's exactly what Ho Chi Minh did



Fair enough

Umm Engels never served under bourgeois revolutionaries. He and Marx saw it as historically progressive since it strenghened the bourgeois as opposed to the aristocracy. The same goes for the Union army during the civil war, Marx saw them as historically progressive, but knew the underlying social formation of capitalism in the north couldn't of been developed enough to be overthrown unless the south, and slavery, lost.

He praised Union soldiers who supported the end of slavery, but he still realized that the republicans were bourgeois, albeit a very weak and developing bourgeois class. Vietnam in the 1960s was not semi feudal as 1848 Germany or 1860's U.S. was, and had a developed working class, whom were opposed to Vietnamese and other Imperialist bourgeois altogather.

The only reason the popular front in Vietnam, with the communists supporting bourgeois armies, happened is because Ho Chi Mihn subordinated his efforts to those of bourgeois powers who supported him at different times. This on the other hand led to the cold blooded murder of many other communists who refused a front with the bourgeois "allies". After WW2 this meant that Vietnam wasn't really independent, it was subordinated to the french.

[Watermelon Man]

I was in Vietnam recently. I did my homework first - Vietnam's history, Ho Chi Minh, and so on, and when I was there did my best to get a sense of what his legacy is like on the ground. Speaking to some older Vietnamese people who had a bit of experience living in Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, it seemed to me that he was a nationalist before anything else.

[StalinBad]

Ho Chi Minh, unlike Marx and Lenin, was a patriot first, communist second. I don't know that much about his writings, I have only read "The Path Which Led Me to Leninism" and "About Trotskyism", but I could guess that he wrote other things that are worth reading.

Screw Ho Chi Minh, then. He's worth as much as the National Bolsheviks. Nationalism is counter-revolutionary!!

[sixdollarchampagne]

... The only reason the popular front in Vietnam, with the communists supporting bourgeois armies, happened is because Ho Chi Mihn subordinated his efforts to those of bourgeois powers who supported him at different times. This on the other hand led to the cold blooded murder of many other communists who refused a front with the bourgeois "allies". After WW2 this meant that Vietnam wasn't really independent, it was subordinated to the french.

To second what Geiseric wrote: The following is from wikipedia (quoting Robert Alexander's magisterial work, International Trotskyism 1929-1985 A documented analysis of the movement)

The methodical assassination of Trotskyists in Saigon was reported in 1947 by Dwight Macdonald's politics magazine... "Virtually all of [the] Trotskyist leaders" were murdered by Stalinists, according to Alexander, who wrote, "Although in August 1945 the Vietnamese Trotskyists were an element of substantial importance in the country’s politics, within a few months they had been virtually exterminated—politically and for the most part physically—by the Communist government headed by Ho Chi Minh. The few Trotskyists escaping this holocaust were forced to flee abroad."