Revolutions Today and Yesterday, Part 2

By Zach Foster

Read Part 1 (How this applies to the revolutions in the Middle East)

Oddly enough, despite incredible evidence and living testimonies that largely vindicate the United States’ actions in Southeast Asia (particularly Vietnam) from 1954 – 1975, political agendas still manage to distort history and paint Ho Chi Minh as a hero.  Ho, famous for “leading” the Vietnamese to freedom from French Colonialism and reunifying the “artificially divided” Vietnam.  It is only prudent to analyze Ho’s path to Leninism in his own words.

First and foremost, let it be noted that Vietnam had been naturally divided for centuries long after independence from the Chinese and long before the French ever arrived.  Northern and Southern dynasties fought multiple wars against each other, one of which lasted nearly fifty years (the Trinh-Nguyen Wars).  The nineteenth century arrival of the French, who did exploit and oppress the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians, only served to nominally and loosely unite some Indochinese independence factions.

Let it also be known that Ho’s actual name is Nguyen Sinh Cung.  He granted himself his nom de guerre “Ho Chi Minh” (meaning Enlightened One) in 1941.

After World War I, I made my living in Paris…  I would distribute leaflets denouncing the crimes committed by the French colonialists in Viet Nam.

At that time, I supported the October Revolution only instinctively, not yet grasping all its historic importance. I loved and admired Lenin because he was a great patriot who liberated his compatriots; until then, I had read none of his books.

Above is a statement to be taken in question.  Ho claims to have supported the October Revolution, which was carried out in October of 1917.  At that time, Ho was not living in France, but rather in England, and had not yet come into contact with Marxism or Marxists.  His first contact with Marxism was in 1919 in France, long after the October Revolution and well into the Russian Civil War.  If he did know about the October Revolution and about Lenin, it would have been through reading newspapers or hearsay and his opinion would have been incredibly ill-informed.

In regards to Vladimir Lenin, Lenin also being a nom de guerre (what is it with these ultra leftist revolutionaries and the fancy nick names?), his credibility as a Marxist is nil at best.  In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx describes how the proletariat will become conscious of their economic slavery and rise up as a whole to overthrow the bourgeoisie.  In The Civil War in France, Marx praises the national guards (defense militias) raised by the people, of the people, and for the people for the purpose of defending the Paris Commune from French police and military brutality.

Unfortunately for Lenin, the Russian proletariat wasn’t waking up fast enough for his taste.  This is where he developed the basis for Bolshevism, what the world knows today as Leninism: a system based on Marxist theory but dependent on “vanguards of the revolution” (militant/paramilitary agitators) to “lead” the proletariat to a violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.  Lenin had basically turned a peaceful method of economic revolution into war.