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PARTISAN REVIEW
The French colonial strategy, Ho explained, robbed the colonized
people not only of independence but also of their sense of solidari ty and
nationhood. He accused the French of dividing each of their colonies into
separate political entities, rupturing a people's sense of oneness, criticism
at least partially unfair since some of these "divisions" had long existed
along tribal lines and pre-dated the arrival of the French. Also insidious,
according to Ho, was the French strategy of turning one colonized people
against another, forcing Algerians to fight in Vietnam and obliging the
Vietnamese to fight for French interests in Africa. Brothers were turned
against brothers.
France's revolutionary decree of November 1792 had memorably
promised "fraternity and help to all the peoples who wish to regain their
freedom." But the French had betrayed their revolutionary promise of fra–
ternity with all oppressed peoples.
In
the twentieth century, Ho
concluded, exploitation had replaced comradeship. Only in Russia, he
believed, was fraternity alive and well.
Rebuffed at Versailles, Ho Chi Minh left Paris for Moscow. Lenin, he
decided, was the "personification of universal fraterni ty," the inheri tor of
the French Revolution's oath of fraterni ty wi th all oppressed people. Lenin
had not only liberated the men and women of his own country, Ho wrote,
he showed the way to all the disinherited of the universe. He called
Leninism "a compass" for the Vietnamese, "the radiant sun illuminating
our path to final victory, to Socialism and Communism."
Ho Chi Minh returned to Vietnam in 1941-after an absence of thirty
years. Was he a Communist, a socialist? Above all, he was a nationalist
and a hard-nosed pragmatist who wanted independence for his nation–
independence from the French and the Japanese.
In
later decades he
demanded independence from the Americans no less than from the
Chinese and Russians.
After World War
II,
Ho never ceased to remind the French and
American invaders of their revol utionary tradi tions. As late as 1965, he told
an American interviewer that "this aggressive war has...besmeared the
good name of the United States, the country of Washington and Lincoln."
To the French colonial masters, he called out, "Frenchmen in Indochina!
It
is now up to you to show that you are worthy children of the glorious
heroes who struggled for liberty, equality and fraternity." But the French
Revolution also taught Ho how to wield political power mercilessly. "The
French Revolution sacrificed many people without flinching," he wrote.
"If we want to wage revolution, we must not be afraid of sacrifices either."
Ho will indeed be remembered not only for his single-minded national–
ism but also for his ruthless land reforms in 1955, hideous massacres of
civilians, and other atrocities.
