The Soviet Union benefitted from its deal with Hitler, and then changed sides to get the millions in U.S. aid needed to win the war because the Soviets system could never produce that on its own. It was then permitted to subjugate the countries it occupied in Central Europe. We are still seeing the results in Ukraine and Belarus.
So the Vietnamese sent their number one dance team to the event?
Interesting.
Ho Chi Minh had left French Indochina as a young man and seems to have been knocking about the world in the way that has become somewhat rare nowadays but which used to be much more common back when life was simpler. He worked a variety of odd jobs to support himself, but it was honest work. He was committed to Vietnamese independence from France and, more broadly, to anti-colonialism, but his politics may have been rather fluid at that point. It’s interesting to speculate what might have happened had he fallen into better company, just as one can speculate about what might have happened if a wealthy German Jewish patron had admired Hitler’s watercolors, commiserated with him about the baleful impact of modern art, and helped make him a success as a painter.
But alas, Ho Chi Minh returned to France, got involved with the communists after the Russian Revolution, and became a founding member of the French Communist Party and a Comintern agent. As a Comintern agent, he was assigned to East Asian work, and he became a founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party, which was formed in Hong Kong by the Comintern. The rest we all know.
Putin is a recycled KGB man. I’m sure he has a special place in his heart for the Vietnamese regime. Whether he ever worked with Ho Chi Minh directly, I don’t know. And of course the Vietnamese regime is happy to make pilgrimages to Moscow.
Meanwhile the North Vietnamese are preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of conquering their neighbor, South Vietnam. America’s great shame will be on parade.