Vietnam's Power Struggle

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“If you grew up in the 60’s, you grew up with war on TV every night, a war that your friends were involved in. And I want to

do this song tonight for all the young people out there if you’re in your teens. Cause I remember a lot of my friends when we were 17 or 18, we didn’t have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot of things. And the next time, they’re gonna be looking at you and you’re gonna need a lot of information to know what you’re gonna want to

do. Because in 1985, blind faith in your leaders or in anything will get you killed.”

-Bruce Springsteen

Vietnamese nationalism began when the Vietnamese revolted against France in the Yen Bay revolt under the leadership of Nguyen Thai Hoc. The Indochinese Communist Party was formed in 1930. In 1932, the French installed Bao Dai as emperor, attempting to appeal to traditional authority and oppose the nationalist movements. Through Bao Dai, the French gave the Vietnamese a government that was parented by Paris. When France fell to Germany, during World War II, Japan occupied Vietnam from 1941 to 1945. Ho Chi Minh saw the Japanese invasion as a chance to build up a new nationalist force, one that appealed to all facets of Vietnamese culture.

“Ho founded the Vietminh political organization and conceived the strategy that would eventually drive the French from Vietnam. He and the other Communists who constituted the Vietminh leadership skillfully tapped the deep reservoir of Vietnamese nationalism, muting their stressing independence and “democratic” reforms. Displaying an organization and discipline far superior to competing nationalist groups, many of which spent as much time fighting each other as the French, the Vietminh established itself as the voice of Vietnamese nationalism (Herring5).”

In August 1945, the Vietminh conquered Hanoi. Bao Dai renounced his throne, and soon after, the Japanese surrendered at Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh considered Vietnam independent, and on his own accord, named the country the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam”. Ho Chi Minh's declaration was not acknowledged by France. Soon, the Vietminh were driven into the North by French forces, but the Vietminh did not allow the French to penetrate any further.

In 1945, Ho Chi Minh wrote many letters to Harry Truman that appealed for official US recognition of the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam”.

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