Was Ho Chi Minh a hero?

[ButterflyBlood]

Poll question: Was Ho Chi Minh a hero?

I saw a huge argument about this in the archives and interestingly found him listed under heroes at www.moreorless.au.com

While the US will naturally be pissed at him for obvious reasons, the truth is he is the man who liberated his country from colonialism and then American imperalism.

[Minstrel Boy]

1. Hell yes he was.

And he would have been the democratically elected president of a united Vietnam in the mid-50s, if Eisenhower had allowed the election to proceed, and hadn't recognized a southern puppet regime.

[immoderate]

2. Ho was rebuffed when he went to US for assistance.

I still meet Vietnam partisans who say we should have "won" that war. I ask them:

We occupied them, we defoliated them, we carpet bombed them with more ordinance than was used by all in WWII, we killed 3.5 million of their population (about 10%, the true definition of decimation) and FOR WHAT??

The only answer I have gotten is: "We should have nuked them."

They only wanted to be left alone.

--IMM

[kiki]

The Domino Effect...

At the time, the 'Domino Effect' was cited as a justification for the war - that is, the idea that if the North Vietnamese won, all the countries of South-East Asia would be joining cooperatives and eating borscht mixed with Peking duck by the following morning. This was against the more rational voices at the time who pointed out that, like the Russians and Cuba, there wasn't a great deal of love lost between China and the North Vietnamese, and the latter were interested only in self-determination and not in ideas of communist expansion. Well, the North Vietnamese did win... can anyone tell me when the communist takeover of South-East Asia is supposed to start?

Was Ho Chi Minh a hero? Yes, to the North Vietnamese. Show me one individual who's been a hero to every single person or group in the world, and I'll give you a big kiss.

[immoderate]

56. Well said.

the people I pose the question to never bring up the Domino argument. They don't remember anything but that the great US was beat by a little country. If they don't bring it up, I'm not going to hand it to them.

Most often they say we should have nuked 'em. And I say, it's hard to argue with insanity.

--IMM

[kiki]

83. Bring it up!

Why not? It's just another one of their justifications to have been pissed up the wall by history.

In fact you could say that the Domino Effect predictions were actually more accurate than the current administration's pre-war predictions about Iraq. After all, the Vietnam war might have "failed" to "stop" an imaginary threat - but at least it didn't make it ten times worse...

[immoderate]

93. Yeah.

You make a good point. Brings to mind Bush's current statement about Lebanon, "An occupied country cannot experience democracy." LOL

--IMM

[yurbud]

3. Read the Pentagon Papers

He did approach us, and like a lot of revolutionaries, admired our history. It's too bad our actions didn't live up to it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

58. Just as Castro did, looking for help against Batista. n/t

[Toots]

4. I am sure he is not considered an American Hero but definately a Vietnames

Hero. Their greatest Hero in fact...

[T Town Jake]

5. Not in the slightest...

...he was a tyrant, who helped bring about the subjugation of a free people against their will with his actions.
His government also oversaw the inhumane torture of countless American POW's during that conflict.
Any person who states he was some kind of "hero," is obviously a fan of the fascist way of doing business - and worthy of nothing but unmitigated contempt.
No real Democrat of any genuine stripe would embrace "Uncle Ho" as any kind of "hero," unless they are into fascism.

[bpilgrim]

6. Ignorance on display

thanks for sharing :toast:

peace

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[bobthedrummer]

10. Don't encourage him man.

:silly:

[bobthedrummer]

9. Wow, I never heard fascism used so broadly as to include Ho Chi Minh

who was a communist and a hero to the Vietnamese people in a war of national liberation that we got sucked into when France lost Indo-China.

I think you really should brush up on your history and especially what is encompassed by the term "fascism", which is present in this administration.

I've been an anti-fascist since 1965.
Bob

[T Town Jake]

12. Oh, my "history" is quite-will "brushed up" on, thank you...

...and it's a stone cold fact that Stalinist-style Communism = fascism, period.

Ho was a Stalinist. QED.

But nice try.

[bobthedrummer]

15. You have a unique worldview of political identification-it doesn't make

sense to me at all--how can a communist be a fascist? Does that make Democrats and independents Stalinists if they think of Ho Chi Minh as a heroic figure?
:+

[T Town Jake]

Don't I though?...

...the fact that my Weltanschauung is so universally accepted among historians current should be a sure clue that I'm on to something, eh?

[IrateCitizen]

16. It's a fact? That's news to me!

Granted, Stalinism was hardly a desirable politico-economic system, but it was hardly equal to fascism, despite your protestations to the contrary. Both were largely authoritarian and repressive of individual freedoms, but the similarities largely end there.

Stalinist communism was built on a centrally-planned and controlled economy. All industries were owned by the state, and private holdings were made illegal.

Conversely, fascism is a system that actually encourages the private ownership of industry -- at least on the scale of large corporations. In turn, those large corporate interests are closely allied with the state. The state, in turn, looks to maintain order (by force if necessary) and bend the will of the populace toward the service of feverish nationalism.

If you're going to present yourself as some kind of final arbiter well-schooled in history, the least you could do is to learn the differences between Stalinist communism and fascism first. Failing to do so only makes you look foolish and serves to undermine any argument you might have.

[T Town Jake]

20. Here's a clue for both the unlearned & the mere wondering...

...Stalinist Communism = Fascism.

Does that clear it up?

[IrateCitizen]

22. When you find yourself in a hole, it's usually good to stop digging....

But since you're demonstrating such obstinance in continuing right now, the least I can do is get you a shovel.

Your restating your previous assertion without any explanation, proof, or even rebuttal to my statements does not serve well to bolster your argument amongst anyone outside of the simpleminded. However, if you insist in persisting in such futile efforts, I certainly won't stop you. Just allow me to get my lawn chair and a cold drink first so I can watch the train wreck happen in its entirety.

[T Town Jake]

23. Oh, don't worry for that...

...that "hole" you fantasize I'm "digging" is all in your imagination - and would pretty much be considered a laughing stock as a proposition among any serious historians.

But go right ahead, and pull up your dinky little chair...

[Vladimir]

28. Care to name the historians in question? n/t

[T Town Jake]

30. Well, Lenin wasn't one of them...

...if that's any help...

[Vladimir]

33. Ho ho ho

how very droll. Seriously, I would appreciate the odd reference, even the names of authors in question. In the spirit of educating oneself and all that...

[The Magistrate]

67. It Is An Interesting Exchange, My Friend

The root problem of it is a sort of semantic blurring: both Soviet Communism and Fascism are totalitarian systems, distinguished by the extinction of liberty of expression and thought among the populace in the interests of putting the "totality" of the country into a single direction deemed necessary and wise by the leadership. Many of the differences people seek to make much of do not weigh too greatly with me. The difference between say, the central planning of the Kremlin and the co-ordination of industrial enterprise and state control of credits, etc., under Fascism, are not really that great in practice or effect. Similarly, there is little signifigant difference between the ulktra-nationalism of Fascism and the "Socialism in one country!" and "Homeland of the world's workers!" lines prevalent in the Stalinist period.

[dogman]

91. Don't you think the difference is that the Fascists are more honest

about what their system is. The Soviets only claimed to be "of the people". I think present day Russia is quickly returning to Fascism as is China. That being said, my experience with the South Vietnamese was that the majority of common people felt Ho was their George Washington. People would say the ARVN gov't. was corrupt and in their terms #10. They would then say Ho was #1. These were are allies. I suspect this is our quandry in Iraq also. No one likes a gov't. that they see as being propped up by their occupiers.

[The Magistrate]

95. On The Larger Question, Sir, No

There does not really seem to me much to choose for honesty between the various totalitarianisms.

We are in agreement, though, concerning your observation that few like a puppet government. One thing the various Communist bodies in Asia, beginning with the Chinese, did manage to achieve was a reputation among the people for honest administration and collection and disbursement of monies. One of the signal death-knells of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in China was when merchants in Nationalist areas began to prefer payment in Communist notes to the government's paper, because the former were maintaining their value whereas the latter were systemnatically debauched for the ptofit of regime insiders. When solid merchants prefer the rebels' scrip, the jig is up....

[dogman]

99. I did not mean honesty as a virtue.

It was just the previous discussion implied there was a difference. I don't see a real difference other than the Soviet claim that the people, not the leadership, made the decisions. Not an important point.

[The Magistrate]

101. My Apologies, Sir

For not quite taking the point of your query.

But on that ground, even, there is little difference, to my view. The Communist Party claimed not so much to represent the people as to act in their interests, as a vanguard that knew what was best for them. Fascist leadership generally claimed to act as the expression of the will of the whole people of the nation, and made a great show of mass rallies, and in some instances even plebicites, to demonstrate they were acting as the people willed. Both these come under the heading of "Hypocrisy is the tribute Vice pays to Virtue."

[Vladimir]

109. I think the nationalist tendencies

are one of the most regrettable theoretical aspects of Communism in the 20th century, but they were a practical necessity in most countries where the communists came to power. In some places, like Yugoslavia (and arguably the Soviet Union too, during certain periods), nationalism was used to supress competing ethnic 'isms' (if you forgive the shitty terminology), and in many post-colonial envrionments nationalism framed the struggle for obvious reasons. As for the economy and political structure, I would argue that the main and most important similarity was that they were both prone to terminal corruption and mismanagement which led to revolution or counter-revolution according to need. Communist central planning is decidedly more democratic on paper (Sometimes in practice too - in Yugoslavia, where it was mixed with a certain amount of market economics), but that is worth little...

What I would strenuosly object to though, is the pidgeonholing of all communist governments with the Soviet regime. In many third-world countries, communism and socialism were a rallying cry for anti-colonialist liberation movements - fascism never was. To stick them all in the same basket simply because many of their leaders took inspiration from the Russian revolution is patronising in the extreme, and that is what I objected to with the assertion made by the previous poster...

[H2O Man]

112. Very good.

Perhaps the best way to address the original problem is to note the poster who equates Stalin's brand of communism as equalling fascism is confusing two definitions. Communism is when government controls business; fascism is when business controls government. Although they sound similar,and will have numerous similarities, they are distinct.

With an incorrect foundation, it is easy to continue the error by confusing Ho with Stalin. Again, while a person may be able to point out some similarities in the brutality of their forms of governing, they are distinct.

[Minstrel Boy]

34. Thanks, J Edgar

[bobthedrummer]

64. lol, I haven't seen that pic before

I won't give up hope for our "friend" but I won't suffer fools gladly.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

94. I consider myself to be a serious historian, and I have to admit that....

...the commentary contained in your posts in this thread are pretty distant from what I'm used to studying. Perhaps when you make that big jump to high school you will broaden your view to be less limiting in your view of the world.

[expatriot]

63. I agree... it's the inherent flaw of the "dictatorship of the proletariat"

I am a theoretical Marxist... but Marxism in practice has some inherent flaws which I won't go into here, but has to deal with constitutionalism, etc. but Marxism is a very complimentary to guerilla-level resistance and opposition... In fact, Ho Chi Minh was more of a Leninist than a Stalinist... But once revolutionaries win and they become the leaders it is very hard for them NOT to become dictators/fascists since they have a revolution to carry out and it is forever an "unfinished revolution" so it continues and continues and there can be no change of power, since that would derail the eternal revolution.


On edit: I do not agree with your original, overly-simplistic condemnation of Ho-Chi-Minh since your accusations of him may be true but definitely not unique and could be made against ANY and ALL nations and peoples at war.

I simply agree with your calling Ho Chi Minh, once in power, a 'fascist.'

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Revisionist history on display.

Ho fought the Japanese, the French, and the American efforts to sustain colonialism in Indochina. What "free people" were subjugated "against their will"? The vast majority of the Vietnames people backed Ho.

The "inhumane torture" of American POWs (who had bombed hospitals, schools, villages) pales in comparison of what was done to VC and NVA prisoners. Not to mention the 3 million dead inflicted by the benevolence of the USA.

[Bridget Burke]

19. Yes, how could he have "subjugated" the Vietnamese?

Whole nations have tried for centuries. Nobody every succeeded in the long run.

[Minstrel Boy]

18. Eisenhower: had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected

"This was a time in history when France, along with other old colonial powers, did not necessarily want to continue maintaining-expensively in more than a few cases-its colonies. Initially their troops had been sent to preserve the status quo, but the cause, not the meaning of the war, was changing.

"This put the French on the horns of a dilemma. Delay or equivocation in implementing complete independence could only serve to bolster the Communist claim that this was in reality a war to preserve colonialism. To American ears the first French pronouncements, soon made to the world, were a distinct step forward, but it was almost impossible to make the average Vietnamese peasant realize that the French, under whose rule his people had lived for some eighty years, were really fighting in the cause of freedom, while the Vietminh, people of their own ethnic origins, were fighting on the side of slavery. It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected Premier. Unhappily, the situation was exacerbated by the almost total lack of leadership displayed by the Vietnamese Chief of State, Bao Dai, who, while nominally the head of that nation, chose to spend the bulk of his time in the spas of Europe rather than in his own land leading his armies against those of Communism.

...

"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-1956

And we couldn't have that!

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/vietnam/55election.htm
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/vietnam/ddeho.htm

[ButterflyBlood]

29. no doubt you've seen this picture before

yeah, the pro-US side of Diem and his boys were such humanitarians...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

92. You appear to have a rather limited viewpoint....

...Ho led his people the Japanese, the French, and finally the U. S. ensure that Vietnam exists today as one nation

Additionally, Ho Chi Minh was a Communist with a very different political view from the views held by a fascist. If you want a good look at a true fascist, take a look at Mussolini, Hitler, and Herr Busch. All three had or have strong ties to their industrial base and to their military. All three used sham elections to gain or keep their political power. All three started wars that we know led to the downfall of at least two of the three mentioned, and I believe it will be the eventual downfall of Herr Busch.

Ho was definitely a hero to his own people, just as Washington was a hero to Americans.

If I have gained your contempt by responding in a rational way to your rather interesting rant, then so be it. Oh by the way, I'm also a Democrat...but evidently I have an open mind, where yours appears to be closed by hatred and anger.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. A hero in the struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism.

As much the "father of the nation" for Vietnam as George Washington is for the USA. Except Ho didn't own any slaves.

[LSdemocrat]

11. Revolutionary, yes. Hero is going a bit too far.

[IrateCitizen]

17. Ho Chi Minh is undeniably a hero to the Vietnamese...

... and in the final analysis, that is the only definition that really matters.

Ho was interested primarily in self-determination. Strangely, he tried to get a meeting with Woodrow Wilson after WWI to discuss Vietnamese independence, and he wanted to found a Republic on a document very similar to the Declaration of Indpendence.

Wilson rebuffed him, primarily because he was one of those "darkies" not worthy of self-determination like Anglos were.

Ho fought colonialism at every turn in his life. He dedicated himself to the cause of Vietnamese independence from outside powers. For that, he was vilified by the West and fought at every turn.

Is he a hero? Looking at his life from the perspective of the Vietnamese, there's no other way of really looking at it, in spite of the many faults he also had.

[New Democrat]

21. No way.

Just another murderer. I dont get why liberals like to idolize communist "revolutionists" when many of them are guilty of crimes against humanity.

[IrateCitizen]

24. The colonialism of the French and Americans was the crime here.

Ho approached Woodrow Wilson after WWI, looking for a hearing into Vietnamese independence from the French. Ho wanted to form a Republic founded on ideals very similar to the American form.

Wilson refused to meet with him.

Then, Truman urged the French to re-colonize Indochina following WWII, rather than grant the Vietnamese independence. Once the French tired of this folly after a few years, the US stepped in. In the process of our intervention, we killed some 3.5 million Vietnamese and made large portions of their countryside downright toxic due to defoliation, not to mention destroying the majority of their infrastructure.

Yet, somehow Ho Chi Minh is the bad guy in all of this? Was he perfect? Hardly. But he sure as hell represented much more of the interest of the Vietnamese than the French or the Americans. After all, his forces weren't the ones carpet bombing and poisoning the countryside....

[New Democrat]

26. I aint saying America or France was good either.

In most wars, both sides are wrong to some extinct. I don't respect most politicians. I think the majority of them are evil. Hell i don't even trust the guy in my icon.

[New Democrat]

51. ICON Changed.

[DemoTex]

25. The US killed millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians.

If you don't think bombs falling from B-52s at 31,000 feet at night on civilian populations aren't crimes against humanity, then you need to reconsider your definition of "crimes against humanity." I watched B-52 arc-light bombing runs over Laos and Cambodia. I'm still having nightmares.

[LynnTheDem]

31. You mean like Abe Lincoln, who "massacred his own people"?

Or would you be talking about them Founding Fathers, who committed treason and acts of terrorism in their revolution?

[New Democrat]

32. Damn straight i mean them

Fuck Abe lincoln and Fuck that slave owner Thomas Jefferson.

[Vladimir]

36. So which revolutionaries pass your purity test then? n/t

[New Democrat]

38. I'm having a hard time finding one.

[Vladimir]

40. Well you are at least consistent n/t

[LynnTheDem]

39. ALL the Founding Fathers. no cherry-picking!

Most ALL of them murdered people...their OWN people. And they were all complicit. So it's really "Fuck ALL them Founding Fathers" isn't it?

Freedom fighters aren't heros, according to you. Huh. Well you certainly are entitled to your own opinion. And I'll retain my right to totally disagree with you.

[New Democrat]

41. I dont know all the founding father so I cant say that

But i would sugest that the vast majority of them were immoral.

[understandinglife]

35. Puke.Snooze.Bye (nt)

[New Democrat]

37. ?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

97. I don't get why the current group of people that call themselves....

...conservatives fail to understand that Herr Busch has committed MANY crimes against humanity, just like his Daddy before him.

[Cuban_Liberal]

27. Absolutely not.

He was just another totalitarian Communist tyrant who brutally repressed civil liberties in his own country and tortured captured US servicemen. He was a beast.

:puke:

[LynnTheDem]

42. Isn't it funny how his own people called/call him a hero.

I'd say their opinion is the one that matters.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

After two years of construction, the mausoleum of President Ho Chi Minh was officially inaugurated on August 29,1975. The facade of the mausoleum faces the historic Ba Dinh Square.

The facade of the upper part bears an inscription "President Ho Chi Minh" made of dark violet precious stone. The mausoleum is the place to keep the remains of President Ho Chi Minh, the great patriot who had been conferred the title "World Cultural Activist" and national hero. The conferment was made on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's Birthday (1890-1990).

The mausoleum project was the results of artistic labor of both Vietnamese and former Soviet Union scientists in respect for President Ho Chi Minh.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum

The museum displays relics about the life and work of President Ho Chi Minh, a cultural figure and hero of the national liberation movement (1890-1969). The museum was inaugurated on May 19,1990, the anniversary of the Centenary Birthday of President Ho Chi Minh.

http://www.vietnamstay.com/attraction/hanoi/

[Cuban_Liberal]

43. I would disagree.

Saying that their opinion is the only one that matters is like saying that your neighbor's opinion about burning his garbage is the only one that matters.

[LynnTheDem]

47. Whether YOU think Ho is a hero or not, his own people do.

[Cuban_Liberal]

49. They're entitled to their opinion, as am I. n/t

[T Town Jake]

44. And if you'd taken a poll in Germany in 1938...

..."his own people" would've called Hitler a hero...

Your point, please?

[LynnTheDem]

48. And if you took a poll today, the vast majority of Germans would NOT

say Hitler was a hero.

The Vietnamese still see Ho as a hero.

Got the point yet?

[Cuban_Liberal]

53. Yes, we get the point.

The Communists still control Vietnam. Let's see what they think of Uncle Ho once the Communists don't control Vietnam. Get the point?

:eyes:

[LynnTheDem]

69. Of course, because as we all know,

only the American way is true and righteous.

[Cuban_Liberal]

71. Great non-sequitur!

:eyes:

[LynnTheDem]

75. Thanks! Not as great as yours though, but I tried!

[Cuban_Liberal]

78. Mine wasn't.

Your post was apples-and-oranges, because you tried to equate a vote in a non-Nazi Germany with a vote in a still-Communist-controlled Vietnam.

Nice try, though.

[LynnTheDem]

79. Actually I was responding to T Town Jake and his Nazi Germany vote post.

So NOT worth the time.

Have a nice day. :)

[Cuban_Liberal]

80. Then your post wasn't clear.

That's hardly my fault.

[LynnTheDem]

81. Uh huh, so unclear;

And if you'd taken a poll in Germany in 1938... T Town Jake Mar-07-05 12:04 PM #44

And if you took a poll today, the vast majority of Germans would NOT LynnTheDem Mar-07-05 01:03 PM #48

[Cuban_Liberal]

82. That doesn't change the fact that I'm not a mind reader.

The poor syntax didn't help, either.

[LynnTheDem]

84. I thought with your # of posts you'd know how DU works, but hey,

I shouldn't make assumptions.

See those dotted black lines on the left side of all the posts?

See how the black line from my "vote" post goes directly up to TTJ's post?

That means I was replying directly to him.

Hope this helps. :)

[Cuban_Liberal]

87. Which stills means you're comparing apples and oranges

LynnTheDem (1000+ posts) Mon Mar-07-05 01:03 PM
Response to Reply #44

48. And if you took a poll today, the vast majority of Germans would NOT


say Hitler was a hero.

The Vietnamese still see Ho as a hero.

Got the point yet?




Logic is a wonderful thing, once you figure out how it works. Good luck!

:hi:

[LynnTheDem]

90. I won't trade insults with you, sorry.

Again, have a nice day. :)

[Dorian Gray]

55. That's true...

for many who stayed in Vietnam. I taught in a high school, in the USA, that was filled with Vietnamese refugees. They had a different version of events, and none of them had any reverence for "Uncle Ho."

I also worked in Hong Kong, and there were still (in the 90s), Vietnamese refugee camps there. Many also had a bad taste when it came to the Vietamese Government.

Like Castro, there is good and bad when discussing a leader like Ho Chi Minh. It's complicated. Hero to some, villain to others. Sadly, to many people that I've been close to in my life, he was a villain.

[Imperialism Inc.]

105. I have to admit I find such tripe pretty annoying and ignorant.

People pretend that things happen in a vacuum and they don't. For every action there is a reaction. It is simply either ignorant or intellectually dishonest to pretend that what Ho turned in to didn't have everything to do with the geopolitical environment that he found himself in. Namely his country being colonized and being stabbed in the back by those he considered his allies in his efforts to finally make his country independent.
As far as his striving for independence he was most definitely a hero to his people. I also find it worthy of praise. Was there a bad side? Yes, surely. But I refuse to pretend I can separate his actions from the great evils perpetrated on him.

[Cuban_Liberal]

111. The "Ma, he hit me first" defense.

:eyes:

[Imperialism Inc.]

120. Wow. what an insightful reply.

Tripe followed by more tripe.
I suppose his approaching the French and then the American president to help establish a French modeled democracy were all just part of his devious plan to become a tyrant. Don't both answering. It is clear you have nothing useful to add.

[ArkDem]

45. He was a Ho.

[Padraig18]

46. He was a Communist thug. eom

[DoveTurnedHawk]

50. No

Whether or not his own people view him as a hero, it surprises me to see how any American could actually view him that way.

DTH

[NNguyenMD]

52. would have been nice if he set up a valid Democracy instead of a Communist

Regime.

I know the South wasn't any better and probably worse, but he was the victor of that war and the decision of where he wanted to take the future of Vietnam was in his hands.

[Minstrel Boy]

54. Ho died in 1969

The future course of Vietnam was out of his hands.

And since today, it's following China's course of capitalist tyranny, I don't think he'd approve.

[NNguyenMD]

59. I suppose you're right, but he could have influenced his subordinates to

always be wary of becoming an authoritarian regime, versus a democratic republic chosen by the people.

The legacy he left behind is the government that runs Vietnam today. For an anti-imperialist, you would think that values such as freedom of speech, religion, and from the fear of government intrusion would be at the top of his list.

The South Vietnamese Military dictatorship did not represent these values, given his people's idolization of him he could have been the beacon of personal freedoms, but he wasn't. If you ask me he could have been great but ultimately failed his people.

You can have a Socialist Regime and respect personal freedoms as well, that was not the kind of government that took power in 1975.

My father was jailed for 2 years for being a member of the educated class and for serving as a doctor in the ARVN, you think that American Educated Chinese Transplant "uncle Ho" didn't come up with a few plans of his own on what to do with the losing South Vietnamese before he died? I lay the responsibility of Vietnams failed corrupted political system onto him and his cronies.

The Vietnam War between the Vietnamese was a civil war, brother against brother, I understand it was an uprising by the rural poor against a brutal oppressive oligarchy of pro-imperialist aristocrats. What I don't respect is the result, after the "party of the people" basically decided to become an incompetent, corrupt, one-party authoritarian regime. They had the power to change Vietnam into a nation that could have been great and instead they squandered their chance and threw people like the members of my family in jail.

Ho Chi Minh was a Chinese-Wannabe, fucking sellout to his own people if you ask me. Where I come from, California, we call folks like him Posers.

[RaleighNCDUer]

68. Actually, I think you are right about some of this, but drawing the

wrong conclusions. Ho admired american democracy, but it rejected him. He turned to the Soviet Union as his model, and became a Leninist. He remained a Leninist to his death. But his followers, who took the reins during the war, and ran the nation after the war, were trained in Russia under Stalin, and took their lessons to heart. Despite what many believe, there's a huge difference between the socialist state of Lenin's dreams and the security state of Stalin.

I think Ho was a hero, but his ideals were betrayed by his followers, just as Stalin betrayed Lenin.

[NNguyenMD]

72. yeah, well maybe if he was alive long enough to see that through I would

believe more of what you said. As you can tell I'm also pretty biased about this as I do come from a family that paid dearly in the Communist takeover. Maybe if he lived long things would have been different, but we will never know. The unfortunate thing is no matter how many "what ifs" one can speculate , the anger will still always burn.

In the end, ordinary people were the real losers of that terrible war, the conscripts and civilians of North and South Vietnam, and those poor American boys sent home in flag drapped caskets to parents who today still ask what they died for. The only winners out of that terrible war were men who were good at holding on to power.

[RaleighNCDUer]

88. Sad, and true. All hypotheticals aside, what happened in

Vietnam after WW2 was a tragedy, and a mostly avoidable tragedy. And there is no way to know what might have been if we had as much faith in our ideals as we should. Wilson should have listened after WW1. The allies should have respected Vietnam's declared independence after WW2. I can't help but think that the election of Ho after Dien Bien Phu would have resulted in a far less traumatic transition than what happened after the Americans left, three million Vietnamese deaths later. And I could be wrong.

But we'll never know.

[LynnTheDem]

70. Yes because as we all know,

Democracy is the only True And Righteous form of government.

[DinahMoeHum]

57. He looked at George Washington as a hero and role model. . .

and the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence of 2 September 1945 is strikingly similar to our own:

http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/van_kien/declar.html


:bounce:

[NNguyenMD]

60. too bad no one told his buddies about them before he died...

because if you follow the history of Vietnam's political system after the NVA won the war, its quite obvious that his successors didn't bother to read it.

[Spinoza]

61. HO was

a fucking Stalinist dictator.

[barb162]

62. he was no better than Hitler

[American Tragedy]

65. Another Communist dictator with a thriving personality cult.

Indeed, with all of the classic modus operadi, too: re-education & concentration camps, collectivization of farms, harrassment and murder of intellectuals, and an apparent commitment to denying freedom of speech, religion, press, and property, a legacy which continued long after he perished.

Oh yeah. He was quite a guy.

But then, I've just never been much of a fan of invasive totalitarian regimes.

[jdots]

66. I don't know

but lets argue about something.

[Spider Jerusalem]

73. Vo Nguyen Giap doesn't get the credit he deserves.

I'd say Giap is probably more of a hero than Ho.

Ho may have been the spearhead of the Vietnamese independence movement, but it was Giap's superb grasp of strategy and tactics that led to Vietnamese independence (which was, after all, a military struggle, mostly).

[The Magistrate]

74. He Was Indeed, Sir, A Superb Military Leader

Along with such figures as Forrest and Manstein, even those who despise all they stand for ought to give the devil his due on the technical questions....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

76. The Vietnamese understood that war is more than body counts.

The Americans focused on killing people to win their "hearts and minds".
The Vietnamese realized that war isn't about battles but about winning the people to their side, the impact of the war on the international community, and the willingness to endure a long struggle.

Sort of like the Iraqis, today.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

98. Giap was to Ho as Zhukov was to Stalin. The only difference was in....

...the way both military leaders were treated in the years following their respective wars. Giap was, and continues to be, a hero after the war in Vietnam was over, while Zhukov was basically pushed to the side as a potential threat to Stalin following WWII.

[w4rma]

77. It's my understanding that he chose the "Communist" ideology because that

was the only way the Soviet Union would supply him with arms to fight for his country's independence from colonialism. If he had been offered arms from the U.S. in his fight he would have espoused capitalism.

Basically the guy was fighing for his nation's sovereignty. And he was supported, zealotly in many cases, by the vast majority of the people who lived in Vietnam. Like him or not, he was definitely a hero to the Vietnamese.

[Stop_the_War]

85. yes

[Swamp Rat]

86. Yer all commy demoRat pukes and trayturs hoo lyk Hitlery an vote fer

soshalist Holywood libruls... :puke: ... I was channeling a "moran," but I puked him out. :D

[LynnTheDem]

102. That's Ms. commy demoRat puke and traytur, to you, pinko!

:P :D

[Swamp Rat]

104. I new it! U yuzed Mz. wich meens yer wonna dem demoRat HiTlery commys

:puke: ... Dammit! You made the moran come back! Now stop, it please! :D

Btw, I saw a few of these today:



:D :D :D

[LynnTheDem]

106. SMILE when yer sezs that, pahdner; I be a TEXAN dem demoRat HiTlery commys

:D

Hey I saw a bunch of those today too. Thank goodness, their fleas were starting to annoy me.

[countryjake]

89. Just the brilliance of bringing together the NLF to unite...

against US imperialism made him a hero, & that was only one of the very last things he succeeded at! Yup, ending colonialism's rule in their country & whipping the ass of a superpower was quite the feat for a nation of rural folk; lots of heroes in that struggle for independence!

[liberalpragmatist]

96. To the Vietnamese, Yes

Certainly some horrible things happened under him. The torturing of US POWs was horrible and something I cannot condone.

Even so, he was genuinely concerned in his country's independence. He was a national hero and had the support of the majority of the country. Certainly there were opponents and certainly much of his leadership was authoritarian. But he embodied the national aspirations of the bulk of the Vietnamese people.

[Name removed]

100. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ConsAreLiars]

103. He built the kind of broad nationalist alliance needed to repel

invaders from Japan, France and the US. That alone isn't enough, since successful nationalists can build their forces using the worst forms of xenophobia and demonization of "the other" as a rallying cry. See Chimpy or Hitler for particularly vile cases in point. He earns hero status because he and those around him rejected that option and chose to build unity around shared visions of right and wrong.

Sure the US POW's had it hard, collaborators were punished harshly, war is hell and all that. But compared to Operation Phoenix http://www.serendipity.li/cia/operation_phoenix.htm and other examples of how the US forces acted, they end up looking something like Mother Teresa. During the war and after they defeated the US and drove the occupation forces from their land, every story I have read about US visitors suggests that an attitude of reconciliation is more prevalent than one of retribution. This is important. How do you identify your enemies, and do you distinguish between the policy of occupation that you resist and the people of the nation that sends its military against you? This is the difference a despot from someone who can be called a hero.

[brentspeak]

107. A hero to murderers like Stalin, Hitler, and Lenin, I suppose

but to human beings who reject genocide and government repression, this guy is just slightly better than Pol Pot.

[Zynx]

114. Ho Chi Minh doesn't even fall into the same league as Pol Pot.

The comparison is a particularly poor one. Such a bizzare assertion has to be backed up by some kind of argument.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

115. I see you're just another person that has swallowed the....

...Company koolaid and are begging for more.

Ever notice that we need to demonize every foreign leader that fails to agree with how we view the world? I'm not talking about Stalin and Hitler...those two did a good job of making themselves look like the worst mass-murderers that the world can offer.

Have you ever taken the time to see how the world views OUR leaders? With the millions of people killed in North Vietnam from our bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War, how do you think the Vietnamese view LBJ, Nixon, and Ford? Ever think they might be viewed by the Vietnamese as murderers and perpetrators of genocide?

How do you think we're viewed by the common people in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean basin?

How do you think Native Americans, the descendants of those that survived, view our actions against them over a period of about 400 years?

Yes, Stalin, Hitler, and others have been mass murderers on a major scale, but do some reading about our actions against other countries and/or people, and you might start to understand that the actions of people like Ho Chi Minh are small potatoes to some of our activities in this country and around the world.

And by the way, when did Ho Chi Minh ever engage in any form of genocide? Please explain. And how is his form of "government repression" any worse than the form that's been practised in this country since the 2000 selection?

[brentspeak]

118. This thread is about Ho Chi Minh, not the U.S.

You're going off on wild tangents.

Ho Chi Minh saw nothing wrong with throwing away as many Vietnamese lives as he thought possible and necessary in the two wars, yet he did not pay that ultimate price himself. Listen carefully, and you'll hear the silence of the graves of countless entire Vietnamese families who were sent to die in battle against the French and the Americans. They're not around to participate in this little debate we're having.

"But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow..."

[blindpig]

121. throwing away lives

sounds alot like US Grant.

Please take off your blinders. We are not exceptional.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

108. The Vietnamese will call him a hero

He isn't particularly a hero to me; authoritarian Communism doesn't do anything for me. It can be hard to find historical figures that hold up to moral scrutiny, especially those in positions of traditional power as power corrupts. My heroes include Ghandi, Emma Goldman, Mary Woolstonecraft - people who didn't have traditional power but were intensely moral people who wanted to better the world through peace and ideas.

However, the Vietnamese will see Ho Chi Minh as the chief figurehead of the struggle against French colonialism, Japanese Imperialism and U.S. interference.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

116. "US interference"??? That's an interesting way to describe a twenty....

...year war in Indo-China that cost the Vietnamese millions of lives. And that was yet another war in which the US has engaged based on completely fabricated reasons.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

117. Yes, it was just easier to write than what you wrote

For the sake of being concise.

[KG]

110. did a pretty good job of kicking not one, but two imperialist forces out

of his country.

so amusing the see how many DUers revile Ho cause he was a 'commie'.

actually not amusing, rather sad.

[durutti]

113. If George Washington was a hero. n/t

[aaronnyc]

119. Not for me

Look, if I were a socialist Vietnamese Nationalist, I'm sure that I would feel differently, but since I'm not, I certainly do not consider him a hero.

In many ways Ho Chi Minh was quite brutal (though not as brutal as many other leftist revoloutionaries). During land reform (after defeating France) he killed an estimated 50,000 people and imprisioned 100,000 more. Anyone who was even suspected of having collaborated with the French was killed. Freedom of speech was strictly supressed, as well.
While it easy for many of us to side with him, for his opposition to Japan, France, and the U.S., we should also remember that he killed hundreds of thousands of his own people.

While it is true that the U.S. did not allow elections for a unified Vietnam, because they knew that Ho Chi Minh would win, it should also be noted that Ho had no interest in establishing a democracy, where elections would be a regular occurance. He saw no virtue in the freedom of dissent.

I also have mixed feelings about his war with the U.S. Once Johnson and McNammra realized in '67 that the War was unwinnable they wanted a way to get out and save face. Ho Chi Minh, however, never really seriously entertained the idea of cutting a deal (which certainly would have been favorable to him) and ending the War and saving almost a million additional lives (the vast majority of which would have been the lives of his fellow Vietnamese). Was unifying Vietnam - given that a good portion of the South did not support the Communist regime in the North - really worth the horrible price of war?

It seems that many people on this board need to see every enemy of the U.S. as being good. A lot of people here seem to need a lot of moral clarity, where everything is good vs. evil (just like a certain president I can think of). ;)
Just because we were wrong doesn't mean that Ho Chi Minh was necessarily right. The Vietnam War (like most of the wars America has fought) is an example in which both sides were wrong IMO.

[Jackie97]

122. Not really.

Minh was a "hero" in the sense that he fought for national liberation and for getting rid of foreigners. Vietnam had foreigners in their country trying to tell them how to run it for over a hundred years. Being rid of foreign control was a good thing, BUT Minh's approach was to kill people who disagreed with him.

I read this book called "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places". It's from the pov of a woman who was a kid in Vietnam during the war. What I got out of reading her experience was that whenever the Republicans (pro-foreign domination) forces were around, the Vietnamese had to pretend to be on their side or else be killed. Whenever the Southern Communists were around, they had to pretend to be one of them or else be killed.

The whole time, they just wanted to be left alone by the world. They didn't necessarily want a Communist takeover (although I think they saw it as a lesser of the two evils at the time).