Replies

I think that the appropriate response to AndyJackson’s point about colonialism is that 1.) Ho Chi Minh’s effort to unify South with North Vietnam had a lot more to do with doctrinaire Communism than anti-colonialism

I think it had a lot more to do with Emperor Ho's quest for uncontested power than either doctrinaire Communism or anti-colonialism. Communism was merely cover for one man's quest for absolute power, and the recreation of Vietnam's Indochinese empire (including Cambodia and Laos). It took a Chinese punitive invasion in 1979 to put an end to Vietnamese ambitions.

110 posted on 10/12/2009 7:19:48 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always)

>>> I think it had a lot more to do with Emperor Ho’s quest for uncontested power than either doctrinaire Communism or anti-colonialism. <<<

After the examples of Lenin and Stalin and Mao, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ho either confused his personal quest for power with a tradition of national Communism or saw no essential difference between the two.