Leadership Styles of Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem Essay

Throughout reading multiple different sources, it was very difficult to fully assess Ho Chi Minh’s role in the Geneva Accords negotiation. The Geneva Accords allowed for a national election to determine the destiny of Vietnam in 1956. This was an election that Ho was heavily favored to win because he had a large following, and northern Vietnam was more densely populated than southern Vietnam. South Vietnam recognized this and refused to allow the election to happen, so Ho Chi Minh created the National Liberation Front for southern Vietnam. This began the second war in an attempt to unify Vietnam once again (Kirkpatrick). To his people Ho Chi Minh was known as “Uncle Ho”. He remained as a strong symbol for Vietnam’s unification (History.com Staff). While in the midst of a second war, the Vietcong, know as Guerrillas, were conducting strong revolt against the U.S. aided regime in South Vietnam. Later, Ho Chi Minh conceded his position as the party’s secretary-general; however, he remained chief of state. Since this point on, the majority of his undertakings were behind-the-scenes. Ho still continued to have an immense amount of influence in the government. His old followers dominated this. He focused on becoming more and more of a symbol to the people of Vietnam. His public personality is best symbolized by his popularly known name; Uncle Ho. Uncle Ho symbolized the idea of unification in a divided Vietnamese nation (Ho Chi

The Geneva Peace Agreement in May 1954 set the foundation for the developments in the next coming years in Vietnam. The Agreement accorded that Vietnam was to be divided at the 17th parallel into communist North and democratic South Vietnam giving each country independence, a 200 day legal migration period and general elections to be held at both zones in 1956 to reunify Vietnam. The division would cause developments in each country including economic development through the growing nationalism in North Vietnam, political developments through political ineptitude and corruption in South Vietnam and social changes

The leader of this communist introduction and development in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh, born Nguyen Tat Thanh, grew up with a passion for freeing his country of the French. Ho Chi Minh worked hard on his French when his tutor told him, “If you want to defeat the French, you must understand them. To understand the French you must study the French language.” Ho Chi Minh’s patriotism developed mainly from his Chinese-language instructor, Hoang Thong, who was anti- French himself. Thong believed that losing one’s family was worse than losing one’s country. Ho Chi Minh’s first involvement against political action came on May 9, 1908 when he joined a peasant uprising as a translator. Attempting to translate in the front of the crowd, he was beaten and forced to hide at his friend’s house at night to prevent being arrested. In the following years, Ho Chi Minh yearned to go overseas; he said to journalist Anna Louise Strong, “The people of Vietnam, including my own father, often wondered who would help them to remove them the yoke of French control…I saw that I must go abroad to see for myself. After I had found out how they lived, I

Ho Chi Minh had 3 different solutions to bringing Vietnam out from French rule which he called brocade bags. Ho drew the term “from a well-known Chinese tale widely read in Vietnam in which not one but three such bags figured as repositories of ingenious solutions to daunting problems confronting their owner.” (page 23) His three brocade bags were: the ideas of Lenin, patriotism, and a populist program. With them, Ho drew a mass base of support from the general population. One of the struggles Ho face with was that he did not have enough proletariats to help make a good spearhead towards change.

Vietnam is a southeastern Asian country that has been occupied by the French since the early 19th Century. During War War II Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. In order for the native Vietnamese to fight off both the French Colonial Administration and the invading Japanese, political leader Ho Chi Minh inspired by Soviet Communism, established the League of Independence of Vietnam. After Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, the Japanese withdrew their forces from Vietnam. The French educated Emperor Bao Dai was now back in control of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh saw this as an opportunity to finally gain control and almost immediately took control of the northern city of Hanoi. Ho Chin Minh declared himself as president. In hopes to regain control of Hanoi, France backed Emperor Bao and created the state of Vietnam in 1949. Although both sides wanted the same goal of uniting Vietnam, their government views were drastically different. Ho and his followers wanted the nation to be modeled after other communist countries. While Bao and his followers wanted their country to be in close ties with democratic countries in the west. These causes led to a civil war for the sole control of Vietnam.

Mintz and McNeil of Digital History state that Vietnam, like Cambodia and Laos, was a French colony until it gained its independence after the First Indochina War. The Northern supporters and Southern dissenters of communism divided Vietnam during this time. The Geneva Accords, created after the war in 1954, required Vietnam to hold an election between the leaders of the North and South after two years. The US was afraid of what would follow if the North were to win, and decided to intervene in the hopes of stopping the spread of communism. With help from the US, South Vietnam avoided the agreement's orders and cancelled this election; power went to the South Vietnamese prime minister instead.

The Vietnam conflict began long before the U.S. became directly involved. Indochina, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, was under French colonial rule. The Vietnam communist-nationalist, also known as the Vietminh, fought for their freedom from the French. The French were being slaughtered, and were doing little to keep the communist North Vietnamese out of South Vietnam. The U.S. sent financial aid to France to help them eliminate the communist threat. At the Geneva Conference in 1954, the major powers tried to come to an agreement on Indochina. There would be a temporary division on the 17th parallel in Vietnam. The Vietminh would control North Vietnam, and South Vietnam would be ruled under the emperor Bao Dai. There was to be an election held in two years to set up the permanent

In a speech explaining what the Vietnamese were hoping to achieve through communism, Ho Chi Minh lists, “reunification, independence, and democracy” (Ho, “Geneva”). Ho Chi Minh was more than the two dimensional Soviet puppet the Americans made him out to be. He was a multifaceted enigma who wanted to establish communism in Vietnam as a means to an end for the reunification of Vietnam, which would benefit the poverty stricken

North and South Vietnam became separate countries and fought in many battles. This was referred to at the Indochina War. Ultimately the French were defeated and a peace treaty called the Geneva Split was signed by both sides making the 17th parallel the border between North and South Vietnam. Bao was then replaced by Ngo Dinh Diem, who had a pro-democracy and anti-communist point of view. South Vietnam was renamed the Government of the Republic of Vietnam.

The Vietnam War was the longest war in the history of the United States it lasted from 1959-1975. Billions of dollars was spent trying to win and unwinnable war. Countless of lives were lost and America failed to achieve its objective. The origins of the war stem from the Indochina wars that occurred in the late 40s and early 50s. After many years of colonial war, the Viet Minh a communist group led by Ho Chi Minh sought independence for Vietnam. The French were not reluctant to let go of their crowning jewel without a fight. The French were aided militarily by the Unites States who sought the membership of France to the NATO and were willingly to provide as much aid to ensure that they won the war and Vietnam did not fall to communism. This led to an eight year war which culminated with the defeat of the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. A cease fire was issued and peace agreements known as the Geneva Accords where drawn during the 1954 Geneva Conference. The agreement issued a temporary division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel which created a Communist North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh and a democratic South Vietnam led by prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem. Vietnam was supposed to unify after the nationwide election of 1956 which Diem refuse to acknowledge.

Vietnam Fact Sheet Date: Nov. 1, 1955-Apr. 30, 1975 BACKGROUND: Prior to World War II, the French had controlled most of Indochina, and Vietnam. Once Japan lost the war, they left the country in 1945 which led to the French wanting control of Vietnam again. Vietnam wanted to pursue a communist way of living since China had become a communist country in 1949. Ho Chi Minh, a national leader, had declared Vietnam an independent country. Minh’s leaders declared a war against the French, and the country was soon divided after the French lost the battle at Dien Bien Phu.

A leader emerged, HoChi Minh, who organized a group to fight back against the Japanese. Members of the group became known as the Viet Minh. HoChi Minh wanted support from America to help Vietnam become independent. France wouldn’t leave their hold in the country. An agreement was made between HoChi Minh and the French. The northern part of Vietnam went to the

Ho was a communist leader and therefore ruled North Vietnam in accordance with his communist ideals (“Vietnam War”). Emperor Bao ruled South Vietnam under his cultural influences from the West (“Vietnam War”). Later Ngo Dinh Diem forced Emperor Bao to resign his position because Diem wanted to rule the south with his own anti-communist views. Although Diem was an anti-communist leader, the people of South Vietnam opposed his presidency (“Domino Theory”).

The Vietnam War was a contention amongst North and South Vietnam, however it had worldwide repercussions. The North was driven by a Communist and patriot administration that had battled against the Japanese in World War II and against French frontier run in the late 1940s. In 1954, it won control of North Vietnam when the French consented to a segment in the Geneva Accords. The South was driven by a non-Communist administration; after 1956, it was going by Ngo Dinh Diem. A Catholic, Diem was not able solidify his administer with a transcendently Buddhist populace. He administered with the support of a military provided and prepared by the United States and with generous U.S. monetary help. By the late 1950s, a Communist guerrilla constrain

Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, also known as the Viet Minh, a previous political party transformed into a guerilla force led by a devoted Communist, Ho Chi Minh. Minh’s ultimate goal was for Vietnam to gain independence from European ruling – the French and to be free from Vietnam’s enemy, Japan. By July 1954, the Geneva Agreement was signed granting Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam their independence The Geneva Agreement created a demarcation line at the 17th parallel temporarily separating the military of the French and the Viet Minh between the French and Vietnam, and excluded United States. The Soviet Union and Communist China violated the agreement by providing Ho Chi Minh with more weapons and equipment. Minh was relentless in his motivation to dethrone the government leader, Diem, in the South. Political leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Din Diem faced multiple oppositions from the Soviet Union and the communist regime, but Diem was fully supported by the U.S. Military Advisers.