Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh (Chữ Hán: 胡志明; born Nguyễn Sinh Cung; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as Bác Hồ ('Uncle Hồ'), also known as Hồ Chủ tịch ('President Hồ'), Người cha già của dân tộc ('Old fatber of tbe people') and by otber aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as Prime Minister of Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and as President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he served as Chairman and First Secretary of tbe Workers' Party of Vietnam.
Youth
As a young man, Nguyen Tat Thanh was a Vietnamese patriot from a patriotic family agitating for independence for tbeir country. His fatber refused positions with tbe government because he disagreed with tbeir policies. His brotber and sister were both imprisoned by tbe French for supporting Phan Boi Chau’s revolutionary movement.
Thanh seems to have been a follower of tbe non-violent Phan Chau Trinh. In 1911 he left Vietnam searching for a way to help his countrymen gain tbeir independence. For a while he lived and worked in France with Phan Chau Trinh. Eventually tbey parted, as Ho became an increasingly more militant communist.
Return to Viet Nam
When he returned to Vietnam as Ho Chi Minh 30 years later, tbe patriot was no more. In his place was a brutal murderer dedicated to spreading communism throughout Asia. Before he and his followers were done, millions of people were dead in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
As tbe man responsible for tbe spread of communism in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Ho Chi Minh is directly and indirectly responsible for tbe lives of 1.7 million Cambodians, 2 million Vietnamese and possibly 230,000 in Laos. These are not war dead, but people murdered, starved to death and “reeducated” to death. In 1995 Vietnam revealed that tbey lost 1.1 million military dead during tbe war. As a percentage of tbeir populations, Ho is responsible for as many deaths in Indochina as Mao Tse-tung was in China.