Ho Chi Minh
Explore Ho Chi Minh — the Vietnamese revolutionary who led his nation's struggle for independence from France and the United States across three decades of war.
Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) was the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a revolutionary who dedicated his life to Vietnamese independence and became one of the most significant anti-colonial leaders of the 20th century. His struggle against French colonialism and then American intervention in Vietnam lasted over three decades and reshaped Southeast Asia.
Born Nguyen Sinh Cung, Ho traveled the world as a young man — living in London, Paris, New York, and Moscow — before founding the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. During World War II, he led the Viet Minh resistance against Japanese occupation and declared Vietnamese independence in September 1945, quoting the American Declaration of Independence. When France attempted to reimpose colonial rule, Ho led the Viet Minh to victory at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
The partition of Vietnam and American escalation drew Ho into the Vietnam War, though he died in 1969 before its conclusion. His forces prevailed in 1975, reunifying Vietnam under communist rule. Ho Chi Minh's legacy is complex: to Vietnamese, he is the father of the nation; to Cold War Americans, he was a communist enemy; to anticolonial movements worldwide, he was an inspiration. His life illustrates how colonialism, communism, nationalism, and Cold War geopolitics intertwined in the postwar world.