Decades before the establishment
of the National Liberation Front by Ho Chi Minh, Minh’s great uncle allied
himself with De Tham, a fellow revolutionary fighter, in the hopes of freeing
Vietnam from the rule of the French.
Many years later, the hope of reaching this goal drove nationalists such
as Ho Chi Minh to take a stand in what became known as the First Indochina War,
which culminated in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. His ultimate goal, the unification of North
and South Vietnam, separated in 1954, would be reached, but not until years
after his death. (14)
Between 1946 and 1954, an eight
year conflict raged between revolutionaries backed by Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Cong
and the French, (15) who wanted to stay in power as the colonial ruler of
Vietnam. (16) However, the revolutionaries
defeated the French in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, proving that a third-world
Asian nation could overthrow a Western civilization. (17) After nearly 90 years of French rule, the
Vietnamese were finally independent from France, but they were not totally
united in their independence. Vietnam,
while free of French control, was split at the 17th parallel into a communist,
Viet Cong-run North and a United States-backed South. (18) Beginning in 1959, the Second Indochina War,
known as the Vietnam War to the Americans when they became involved in 1964,
intended to unite the country under one communist rule. It did just that in 1975, but unfortunately,
Ho Chi Minh was unable to see his dream come to fruition.
With the end of the Vietnam War
and the defeat of all foreign adversaries, the North and South were finally united
under one communist government. Despite
its involvement, the United States left the conflict, humiliated having never
lost a war, and all outside governments were now gone. Vietnam was independent and united together
at last.
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