dotofficial: Happy birthday, Ho Chi Minh! (May 19, 1890)Popularly known as “Uncle Ho,&rdq
dotofficial: Happy birthday, Ho Chi Minh! (May 19, 1890)Popularly known as “Uncle Ho,” Ho Chi Minh, born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, was one of the most important and influential in the Vietnamese struggle for independence. Inspired to undertake the revolutionary path at a young age, Ho became a socialist while receiving a political education in France, and became committed to ending French colonial rule and gaining freedom for his people. Becoming convinced of Marxism-Leninism, he served some time as a Comintern functionary and helped educate young Vietnamese activists in revolutionary theory. Following the Second World War, Ho became leader of the socialist government in northern Vietnam, which defeated France in its effort to reassert colonial rule, and Ho would continue to lead socialist Vietnam against the United States and its puppet government in southern Vietnam in the Vietnam War. In failing health as the 1960s waned, one of Ho’s final acts was to approve the Tet Offensive, which while a tactical failure, would prove to be an enormous strategic victory for the communists, and a major turning point in the war. A hero to anti-imperialists, Ho would not live to see his home free and unified, as he died in 1969. “The capitalists often boast that their constitutions guarantee the rights of the individual, democratic liberties, and the interests of all citizens. But in reality, only the bourgeoisie enjoy the rights recorded in these constitutions. The working people do not really enjoy democratic freedoms; they are exploited all their life and have to bear heavy burdens in the service of the exploiting class.” -- source link