The point of Vietnam was to stop Soviet expansionism. I’ve heard to ludicrous suggestion that Ho Chi Minh was Vietnam’s “George Washington”. He was a Comintern agent from 1917 on, and was actually a founding member of The French Communist Party when he lived in Paris.
Credit to Vietnam, in that the mid-80’s they recognized that Communism just flat out didn’t work, and pretty much ditched it.
Yes. Up until Vietnam, Soviet expansion was pretty much progressing with very little pushback. When Reagan came into office, we stopped them cold.
The comparison of Ho Chi Minh with George Washington which I have commonly heard is insulting.
George Washington was a great man, one of the greatest in history for those who believe in individual rights and liberty.
When King George III heard that Washington was going to step down following the end of formal hostilities, the King said “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
He did, and he was.
Washington believed in the concept of Liberty, the rule of law, and individual freedom. That scumbag Ho Chi Minh was a communist party functionary who believed in all things communist and all that went along with it.
I agree Vietnam deserves some credit there.
Ho was in Versailles during the Peace Conference negotiations to end WW I. He tried to get to the powers that be (Wilson) at that conference to facilitate Vietnam’s independence or at least resolve it’s status under the French. He was turned away as a nobody pretty much. He was, by that time, a committed Socialist.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-18/little-known-story-vietnamese-communist-leader-ho-chi-minh-s-admiration-us
in Paris in 1918-19, Ho Chi Minh hooked up with other Vietnamese nationalists â remember, thousands of Vietnamese and other subjects from France’s colonies had been brought to Europe for the first time to assist with World War I.
US President Woodrow Wilson had put forth a list of 14 points as a basis for a peace settlement and one of these was the principle of self-determination. It’s likely he was directing this at Europe, but colonial peoples everywhere were inspired by this to seek independence from their European colonial masters.
So, Ho Chi Minh and his fellow Vietnamese nationalists petitioned Wilson when he came to France for the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. They wanted help to get their freedom from France, but were ignored.”
“...
I've read VN is now a tourist destination. However, isn't their official government still communist?