65-Years of African Liberation Day/75-Years of Palestine (Nakba)Day

May 1-31, 2023

Theme: Pan-Africanism Waging Class Struggle in Africa and the Diaspora,

Fighting for One Unified Socialist Africa

Honor, Commemorate, and Emulate

Ho Chi Minh (“Uncle Ho”)

May 19, 1890 – September 02, 1969

“It is well known that the Black race is the most oppressed and most exploited of the human family. It is well known that the spread of capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate result the rebirth of slavery which was, for centuries, a scourge for the Negroes and a bitter disgrace for mankind.”[1] Ho Chi Minh

 The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party ^(GC)’s organized African Liberation Day/Palestine (NAKBA) Day honors and commemorates the revolutionary life of Ho Chi Minh, who is also affectionately known as “Uncle Ho”. The A-APRP ^(GC) is fighting to build a revolutionary mass Pan-Africanist socialist party for Pan-Africanism and we therefore honor all revolutionaries who have fought capitalism, imperialism, zionism, neo-colonialism and the oppression and exploitation of women. Ho Chi Minh was a Marxist-Leninist and socialist and one of those People whose revolutionary contributions to humanity are etched in the chronicles of world history.

Ho Chi Minh was a staunch ally and supporter of the African Revolution, Pan-Africanism and that of all oppressed nations worldwide. “He at one time shared the misery of the proletariat of Africa and America.”[2]  Ho Chi Minh “was deeply interested in the lives of Black people and their struggles for equality. He was one of the first Asian communist leaders to explore the issues facing the Black communities and promote their freedom. . . . It was in Harlem that Ho attended Black activist meetings held by the Universal Negro Improvement Trust, an organization that had been established by the Jamaican Black nationalist Marcus Garvey in 1914.”[3]  Consequently, Ho Chi Minh saw the inter-relationship between the development of capitalism and imperialism, the kidnapping, trafficking and enslavement of African people, the colonization and neo-colonization of Africa and the liberation of African people and that of the liberation of Vietnam. Within a year of the establishment of the People’s Revolutionary Republic of Guinea, under the leadership of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) and President Ahmed Sekou Toure; President Toure, in 1960, visited Vietnam and President Ho Chi Minh and a joint agreement of cooperation and solidarity was signed. The defeat of French, Japanese and U.S. imperialism, by the heroic Vietnamese People, is recorded as one of the greatest contributions to oppressed humanity that the world has ever seen and experienced.

Nguyen Sinh Cung (Ho Chi Minh) was born May 19, 1890 into the family of a nationalist anti-French colonialism father and mother in Nghe Tinh Vietnam, a colony of French imperialism. The village of “Nghe Tinh also had come for many centuries all but a few of the country’s revolutionaries [and was also] the home of insurrections, a school for revolutionaries.”[4] Ho Chi Minh followed the example of his father and grew politically into a Vietnamese nationalist and socialist patriot fighting for the independence of a socialist Vietnam. As a servant of the Vietnamese masses Ho Chi Minh was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (1930), the Viet Minh (1941) and was, having won independence, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 1945 to 1969.

It was as a seaman Ho Chi Minh traveled to Africa, the U.S. and England and lived in France from 1915-1917 where he accepted the principles of scientific socialism and Marxism-Leninism. At the young age of 28, Ho Chi Minh presented to international imperialism, led by “the United Kingdom, France, United States and Italy”, at the Versailles Peace Conference, in 1919, his demand that France grant independence to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was inspired by the defeat of the czar and imperialism in Russia and joined the French Communist Party in 1920. He traveled to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1923. While in the USSR he attended and participated in the Fifth Congress of the Communist International. Because of Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnamese nationalism, he was critical of the French Communist Party for its lack of a serious commitment to national liberation struggles for independence. It was his drive to fight for the liberation of Vietnam that motivated his return to and begin to organize in his Homeland.

In 1924, in Canton (Guangzhou) China, Ho Chi Minh recruited other nationalist organizers and militants, exiled from Vietnam and founded the Vietnam Thanh Nien Cach Menh Dong Chi Hoi (Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association or Thanh Nien. Canton, China became his base and a home of Indochinese nationalism. He and other communist were expelled from China in April, 1927 and he returned to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). From there, in 1928, he went to Brussels and Paris and was the Communist International representative for communist parties in Southeast Asia.

Ho Chi Minh and the cadre of Thanh Nien met in Hong Kong in May 1929 and founded the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI). The founding of the Party in Vietnam was February 3, 1930 as the Vietnamese Communist Party, which later was renamed the Indochinese Communist Party.

Inside of Vietnam an insurrectionary movement unfolded with brutal repression from French imperialism. Ho Chi Minh was sentenced to death in abstention and sought refuge in the USSR. In 1938 Ho Chi Minh returned to China hosted by Mao Tse Tung. With the defeat of France by Germany, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap and Pham Van Dong re-entered Vietnam in January, 1941 and organized the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam or Viet Minh. It was around this same time that Nguyen Sinh Cung began to use the name Ho Chi Minh, “He Who Enlightens”. Seeking assistance from China, Ho Chi Minh, went to China and was arrested by the reactionary government of Chiang Kai-shek. Uncle Ho spent 18 months in prison because of political work and ideological convictions.

In 1945, Japan completely overran Indochina and executed all French colonial officials, which was a victory for Vietnam. French imperialism was in peril. Six months later, committing a crime against humanity, U.S. imperialism dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 6 and 9, 1945. Both of Vietnam’s colonial enemies were defeated and in retreat. Vietnamese guerilla warfare against the Japanese continued in South China and guerilla units began their descent in to Hanoi. September 2, 1945 and Vietnam’s independence was proclaimed.

With the defeat of German fascism in France, Charles De Gaulle came to power and refused to recognize the independence of Vietnam from French imperialism. The Vietnamese response was a war of liberation, the First Indochina War December 19, 1946 through August 1, 1954.The Vietnamese Revolution defeated French imperialism on the battlefield and by 1954 most of the countryside was under Viet Minh control and the larger cities were following. French imperialism was crushed at the Dien Bien Phu March 13 through May 7, 1954 and the independence of Vietnam was won. The defeat of French imperialism in Vietnam was not only a victory over French imperialism in Vietnam, but also in Africa and all of France’s colonized countries and territories worldwide.

Strategically, to obtain the independence of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh agreed with the partition of Vietnam at the Geneva Accords with the understanding that an election was to be held and Vietnam unified. U.S. imperialism and neo-colonialism in South Vietnam sabotaged the elections. In 1959, armed action in South Vietnam to reunify Vietnam began by the Vietcong. In July, 1959, Ho Chi Minh’s Lao Dong (Worker’s Party) concluded that the development of socialism in North Vietnam was organically linked with unification of South Vietnam. The revolutionary forces in North and South Vietnam were united on the question of unification.

U.S. imperialism was arrogant and had no idea what it would face by attempting to replace French imperialism in Vietnam. U.S. imperialism had not tasted and swallowed the bitter pill that French imperialism tasted and ingested at Dien Bien Phu. U.S. imperialism would have its victories that would bolster its belief that it was undefeatable.

February 24, 1966 President Kwame Nkrumah was a victim of the aggression of U.S. imperialism while expressing the African Personality in solidarity with the Vietnamese Revolution. The Convention People’s Party and President Nkrumah where overthrown by a coup de ’tat orchestrated by U.S. imperialism, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). “When the action took place, I was on my way to Hanoi, at the invitation of President Ho Chi Minh, with proposals for ending the war in Vietnam.”[5]  The war in Vietnam continued and the heroic Vietnamese people intensified their revolutionary war against U.S. imperialism. Victory of the Vietnamese Revolution was near!

It was near the end of the U.S. imperialism’s military aggression against Vietnam when Uncle Ho explained U.S. imperialism’s inevitable defeat,

“Johnson and his clique should realize this: they may bring in a half million, a million, or even more troops to step up their war of aggression in South Viet Nam. They may use thousands of aircraft for intensified attacks against North Vietnam. But never will they be able to break the iron will of the heroic Vietnamese people, their determination to fight against American aggression, for national salvation. The more truculent they grow, the more serious their crimes. The war may last five, ten, twenty or more years: Hanoi, Haiphong and other cities and enterprises may be destroyed; but the Vietnamese people will not be intimidated! Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom. Once victory is won, our people will rebuild their country and make it even more prosperous and beautiful.”[6] The Tet Offensive would be U.S. imperialism’s Dien Bien Phu, which witnessed the U.S. put its tail between its legs and run for its life.

In 1967 Kwame Ture was invited to participate in the Conference of the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) convened in Havana, Cuba. U.S. imperialism had reported that Kwame’s passport would be seized upon his return to the U.S. because of his denunciation of U.S. capitalism and imperialism. Kwame made the decision to travel internationally before his return to the U.S. and by invitation visited Vietnam.

“I was overwhelmed, couldn’t really believe it that Ho Chi Minh was inviting me to lunch. . . . That’s when he told me the he’d been in Harlem during the time of the young Garvey. That he had thought Garvey to be a great man. That’ he’d heard Garvey speak and had even once made a modest financial contribution to the Garvey movement.

So we went on to discuss other matters, then he suddenly leaned closer and asked, ‘When are you African-Americans going to repatriate to Africa?’ I froze completely. Never forgot it. . . . Ho Chi Minh was a great man. He clarified many things for me. He had a real appreciation of our struggle in America”[7]

The Vietnamese Revolution set a sterling example of the power of the organized Masses when politically educated and organized. The Vietnamese people crushed U.S. imperialism. The U.S. was run out of Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, January 31 through September 23, 1968, which laid the basis for the total and complete withdrawal of U.S. imperialism from Vietnam March 29, 1973.  Vietnam was reunified. Uncle Ho had transitioned to the revolutionary ancestors September 2, 1969. He never saw a liberated and unified Vietnam, but his revolutionary legacy lives for eternity!

We honor and commemorate Uncle Ho for his sterling revolutionary example and unwavering commitment to the defeat of imperialism, neo-colonialism, the emancipation of women and the development of scientific socialism and for his solidarity with revolutionary movements and Peoples, particularly for Africa and the African Diaspora, but worldwide.

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY LEGACY OF HIS EXCELLENCY HO CHI MIN!

VICTORY TO THE REVOLUTIONARY PAN-AFRICAN AND

INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM!

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[1] Bernard B. Fall. Ed. Ho Chi Minh On Revolution-Selected Writings, 1920-66: Lynching. (Printed in La Correspondance Internationale, No. 59, 1924) P. 43

[2] Jean Lacouture. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography: The Peasant. P. 4

[3] Joe Pateman. Critical Asian Studies. Under imperialism “Black lives don’t matter. Ho Chi Minh, The Black Race, and Black Liberation. September 8, 2021. www.cyberhood.net/documents/book_review/HCM2021.pdf

[4] Jean Lacouture. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography: The Peasant. P. 7

[5] Kwame Nkrumah. Dark Days In Ghana: Peking to Conakry. P. 9

[6] Ho Chi Minh. Selected Writings (1920-1969): Appeal To Compatriots And Fighters Throughout The Country (July 17, 1966). P. 306

[7] Stokely Carmichael with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. Ready For Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) P. 600-601