Ho Chi Minh, thoughts?

[G4b3n]

What are Revleft's thoughts on Ho Chi Minh?
Personally, I admire his struggle against French and American Imperialism. He even had this strange infatuation with classical liberalism in an attempt to appeal to western benevolence. But when that didn't work,the armed struggle for independence took full affect in the late 40s.

Was his regime "socialist" or on the track to building such a society in any meaningful sense of the word?

What were the primary reasons his forces were victorious in defeating western imperialism in Vietnam?

[John Nada]

What are Revleft's thoughts on Ho Chi Minh?In before,"He was a romantic Stalinist class collaborationist bourgeois nationalist gangster who divided the French proletariat.":rolleyes:
As for our Communist Parties in Great Britain, Holland, Belgium and other countries - what have they done to cope with the colonial invasions perpetrated by the bourgeois. class of their countries? What have they done from the day they accepted Lenin’s political programme to educate the working class of their countries in the spirit of just internationalism, and that of close contact with the working. masses in the colonies? What our Parties have done in this domain is almost worthless. As for me, I was born in a French colony, and am a member of the French Communist Party, and I am very sorry to say that our Communist Party has done hardly anything for the colonies.Check your privilege!:lol:
Personally, I admire his struggle against French and American Imperialism. He even had this strange infatuation with classical liberalism in an attempt to appeal to western benevolence. But when that didn't work,the armed struggle for independence took full affect in the late 40s.Him and the Vietnamese people liberation struggle was an inspiration for all. It provoked progressive movements in the US too.
Was his regime "socialist" or on the track to building such a society in any meaningful sense of the word?I don't like the Doi Mai "reforms" put them back on the capitalist path. I think they and lot of the former People's Republics could've stuck with constructing socialism and had better success. I mean they all gave up and restored capitalism before computers really took off. That would've helped a lot. Something like Cybernet.

But the US destroyed that nation. It's not surprising that they didn't pull it off. Fuck I doubt the US could've held on to capitalism with that level of death and destruction.
What were the primary reasons his forces were victorious in defeating western imperialism in Vietnam?IMO it was one of the best, if not the best, application of protracted people's war. You can't beat an opponent if you only conquer the territory, but not the people. Imperialist invaders can't do it. The world saw the most powerful military in the world lose to poor peasants and workers with AKs. This showed that a quantitatively weaker forces can defeat a powerful modern imperialist army.

[Jessup]

It was definitely Socialist, IMO. And his struggle against imperialists is something that should be talked about more.

[Antiochus]

Jessup, is your "I am a National Anarchist" a joke?

Ho Chi Minh, not really socialist although it (Vietnam) certainly had the potential to be so. It should be noted that the Vietnam War was more of a nationalist liberation movement than a conscious Socialist one.

[Armchair Partisan]

Technically not, I guess - no workers' control over the means of production (or if I'm wrong about that, correct me). He probably thought of himself as one and was probably worth fighting for under those circumstances, with Diem and the US being the only alternative.

As for whether it was "on track" - not really. Socializing a country is not that slow, IMO - it can be painful to transition from one economic system and its infrastructure to an entirely different one, but then that's always the case. If a country remains left-capitalist for decades, it's not going to progress any further.

Why they won? Well, Western incompetence. The US and the State of Vietnam had enough firepower to raze the North to the ground all over (and oh, they tried), and enough money to pay off rebellious elements of society in the aftermath (it's called "investing into the poor little third world country", which is just supposed to sound awesome in the capitalist media). However, Diem and his clique managed to alienate the greatest number of people possible and forgot about the carrot while using the stick a lot.

[Comrade Jacob]

Ho Chi Minh was a legend. Vietnam was/is governed by socialists but not yet achieved it

[Asero]

It should be noted that the Vietnam War was more of a nationalist liberation movement than a conscious Socialist one.

No one can deny that the Vietnam War was very much a war for national liberation, and that what lead Ho to socialism was nationalism, but it seems to me an incredibly disrespectful, let alone elitist, thing to say to the (predominantly from the working-classes) partisan veterans and martyrs who fought for the goals of socialism, for a fair and equal society.

It also falls into the theoretical lap of the Vietnamese ruling Party who justifies their blatant revisionism by appeals to nationalism by stating that Ho Chi Minh was more of a nationalist than a socialist.


Nguyen Hao Thu, aged 90, lives in a bright and beautiful flat in Hanoi. She chatters like a bird in fluent French and broken English, describing how, as a young woman, she saw her country crushed between two powerful enemies. First, it was the French who refused to let go of their colony at the end of the second world war. In 1946, aged 21, Thu took to the jungle and joined the guerrilla struggle, specialising in mixing acid, saltpetre and alcohol to make gunpowder: “I was very happy in the forest. With the powder in the bomb, you can – pop! – realise our dream.”

And that dream was not simply nationalist, to expel the foreign invader. It was specifically communist and revolutionary. Thu recalled a childhood during which the French took away her father, a kindergarten teacher; she used to bring food to him in jail when she was just seven years old. “I hated all the people who wanted to fight and occupy Vietnam. In my mind, I became communist,” she said. Her family were comfortably middle‑class, but during the 1930s, she said, their home was used as a meeting place for the underground Vietnamese Communist party. She remembered reading Marx and Lenin and how, when she was 16, the French executed one of her friends. “Sincerely, I am communist.”

Le Nam Phong is nearly as old as Thu. He was 17 when he signed up as a common soldier to fight the French in 1945. He spent the next 30 years at war, rising to become a lieutenant general in the army of North Vietnam and a key figure in the eventual destruction of the US military machine. Sitting outside his comfortable home, slicing a mango on a warm evening, he remembers his own revolutionary motive: “Socialism? Yes, of course. The purpose of all the fighting was to build a socialist society, to gain freedom and independence and happiness. During the first days against France and against the US, we already had in mind the society we wanted to create – a society where men would not exploit other men; fair, independent, equal.”

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/22/vietnam-40-years-on-how-communist-victory-gave-way-to-capitalist-corruption

[John Nada]

Technically not, I guess - no workers' control over the means of production (or if I'm wrong about that, correct me). He probably thought of himself as one and was probably worth fighting for under those circumstances, with Diem and the US being the only alternative.Ho Chi Minh was a Marxist. He first joined the French Communist Party before going on to help found the Indochinese Communist Party, which was a proletarian movement.

The task of Indochinese Communists was to liberate their people from imperialism. Imperialism holds back revolutions in both the oppressed and oppressor nations. French imperialism holds back progress among France's oppressed colonies in order to prop up French capitalism. The same is true with Japan and the US. Rather than wait for a proletarian revolutions in France, Japan and the US, which has yet to materialize thanks to superprofits from imperialism, the proletariat(with allies among the poor peasantry) in Vietnam fought off the imperialists for socialism. This would not only allowed the proletariat in Vietnam to start building socialism, but makes it easier for the proletariat in the oppressor nations(France, Japan and the US) to overthrow "their own" bourgeoisie(who're financed by plundering the third-world). This is the theory of national liberation.
As for whether it was "on track" - not really. Socializing a country is not that slow, IMO - it can be painful to transition from one economic system and its infrastructure to an entirely different one, but then that's always the case. If a country remains left-capitalist for decades, it's not going to progress any further.If being "left"-capitalist precludes one from build socialism, than the first-world don't have a chance in hell.

France and the US had(have) no interest in building up Vietnam beyond exploiting it. This left the nation underdeveloped. Since parts of the country were almost left in feudalism thanks to imperialism, going full communism(in one country) isn't easy.

It isn't quick, hence the dictatorship of the proletariat for a transition to construct socialism. Important things like land reform had to be carried out. Hell, getting a dictatorship of the proletariat in the first place isn't quick. It'd likely would've went quicker if Vietnam was developed and wasn't bombed to hell and back. Even faster if the proletariat in the US and France overthrew "their own" bourgeoisie. Unfortunately it didn't go quick enough to stop the revisonists from restoring capitalism(pretty sad considering the sacrifices).
Why they won? Well, Western incompetence. The US and the State of Vietnam had enough firepower to raze the North to the ground all over (and oh, they tried), and enough money to pay off rebellious elements of society in the aftermath (it's called "investing into the poor little third world country", which is just supposed to sound awesome in the capitalist media). However, Diem and his clique managed to alienate the greatest number of people possible and forgot about the carrot while using the stick a lot.
The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follows: for a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the “lower classes” do not want to live in the old way and the “upper classes” cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph. This truth can be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters). It follows that, for a revolution to take place, it is essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class-conscious, thinking, and politically active workers) should fully realise that revolution is necessary, and that they should be prepared to die for it; second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics (symptomatic of any genuine revolution is a rapid, tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses—hitherto apathetic—who are capable of waging the political struggle), weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it.Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm Bold Mine. There has to be revolutionaries willing to take advantage of the reactionaries' mistakes. Just taking advantage of the enemies' weaknesses and mistakes takes power and skill.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam had one of the largest and well-equipped military in the world. Experience showed that the PVA could stand toe-to-toe with south Vietnamese military(itself large and well-equipped too). There was a reason the US and south Vietnam didn't invade the north. That, and the heroic example left by the PLA and KPA in the Korean War, shut down that route.

Think about how hard it is in the first-world to convince people about Marxism or Anarchism. Now imagine doing this while living off the land, with extremely reactionary force actively trying to kill you and anyone associated with you. That's what the NLF(Vietcong) had to go through(big understatement). The US and south Vietnam were doing shit that was straight out of a slasher flick. That they didn't win was due to the efforts of the proletariat and allies.