Viet Minh

Viet Minh, in full Vietnam Doc Lap Dong Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam), nationalist organization in Vietnam that led the struggle for independence from French colonial rule. Founded by Communists in 1941, the Viet Minh mobilized diverse elements of the Vietnamese nation, including peasants, urban workers, intellectuals, and sectors of the landowning and business classes. It succeeded in driving the French from Vietnam in the First Indochina War (1946-1954).

The Viet Minh was organized in 1941 by Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh, and others, after Japan invaded Vietnam and subordinated the French in 1940 during World War II (1939-1945). The ease of Japanese victory led many Vietnamese to conclude that the French, who had controlled Vietnam since the 1880s, were not invincible. During the rest of World War II the Viet Minh provided valuable assistance to United States forces fighting the Japanese in Vietnam. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA) commissioned Ho Chi Minh as a secret agent, known as Agent 19. The Allied defeat of Japan in August 1945 provided Vietnamese nationalists an opportunity not to be missed. Leading a popular uprising, known as the August Revolution, the Viet Minh easily displaced the demoralized Japanese and, with the French troops in Japanese prisons, assumed control of Vietnam.

On September 2, 1945, the same day the Japanese surrendered to Allied forces, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam. Officers of the OSS stood with him on the stage and the U.S. flag flew in salute. The Viet Minh hoped that the United States would recognize Vietnamese independence. Most U.S. intelligence officers in Vietnam agreed that, despite being Communist-led, the Viet Minh was primarily a nationalist organization, unwilling to become a tool of either the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a Communist nation, or of China, where Communists were battling the anti-Communist Kuomintang (KMT) for control of the government. They concluded that U.S. interests in Southeast Asia would best be served by recognizing Ho’s government, but this advice was rejected by officials in Washington, D.C. Primarily to ensure France’s cooperation in the deepening Cold War, the United States agreed instead to assist the French in recapturing Vietnam.

In early 1946 British and KMT troops entered Vietnam to disarm the Viet Minh and prepare the way for the French, who were ferried to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in U.S. naval vessels. Outgunned, the Viet Minh were forced to accept an agreement that permitted French troops to disembark, with the condition that Vietnam would become an autonomous state in the French Union (to be modeled on the British Commonwealth), and that French troops would leave in 1952. Once ashore, however, the French quickly chose to violate this agreement, and to move against the Viet Minh. On November 22, 1946, in an action that was widely condemned, the French navy bombarded the port city of Haiphong, killing 6000 civilians and wounding 25,000. The First Indochina War had begun.

Viet Minh armed forces had numbered only 2000 when independence was declared, but once they issued the order for national resistance in December 1946 their numbers jumped to 60,000. The United States advised the French to develop a government that would be loyal to France and counteract the Viet Minh, so France named Bao Dai—the former Vietnamese emperor—to be the figurehead ruler of Vietnam. Bao Dai had collaborated with both the French and the Japanese, and he had abdicated during the August Revolution. By 1949, however, the CIA (which had replaced the OSS) reported that the Viet Minh enjoyed the support of the vast majority of Vietnamese, including the country’s normally anti-Communist Catholic minority.

The French quickly regained control of the cities, north and south, but the Viet Minh ruled the countryside. There the Viet Minh kept their promises to take land from the French landlords, and their Vietnamese collaborators, and to give it to peasants who had no land. The peasantry, which made up about 80 percent of the country’s population, therefore became the social base of the Viet Minh. In February 1951 the Lao Dong, or Workers’ Party, was established, committed to forging an alliance between the peasants and urban workers. The Lao Dong aimed to solve the problem of social inequality by reconstructing an independent Vietnam along socialist lines. By 1953 most members of the Viet Minh had been absorbed into the Lao Dong, which then directed Viet Minh activities.

On May 8, 1954, Viet Minh forces, numbering over 200,000, utterly defeated French troops at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. This victory led to peace negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland. Agreed to by all major powers except the United States, the Geneva Accords provided for the withdrawal of the French and for internationally supervised elections for a new government, which were to be held throughout Vietnam in 1956. Both the USSR and China, which by then was under Communist control, had recognized the government of Ho Chi Minh in 1950. However, at Geneva they were unwilling to provoke the United States so they persuaded the Vietnamese to accept a temporary partition of their nation until the elections.

The scheduled elections never took place. Intelligence agents reported to the United States that Ho Chi Minh would win the voting easily. The United States therefore chose to recognize a handpicked government in South Vietnam led by Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to hold the national elections. This violation of the Geneva Accords set in motion the events that led to the Vietnam War (1959-1975).

The Viet Minh were in a weakened position. The Geneva Accords had stipulated that all Viet Minh forces withdraw to North Vietnam. Although many rural villages in the south remained loyal to the Viet Minh, they were now virtually leaderless and subject to repression by Diem’s government in Saigon. Some Viet Minh managed to return south between 1956 and 1960, but most remained confined to the north.

Popular opposition to the Diem regime developed independently among peasants in South Vietnam in response to the return of land to former landlords and the forced relocation of peasants. Diem referred to the militant opposition in the countryside as the Viet Cong (short for Viet-nam Cong-san, or Vietnamese Communists) and launched a violent campaign against them. Diem’s policies ultimately led to the establishment, in December 1960, of the opposition movement called the National Liberation Front (NLF). The core organizers in the NLF were former Viet Minh members who promised to overthrow the South Vietnamese government (widely perceived as a puppet regime controlled by the United States), to reunify Vietnam, and to create a more equal society. The term “Viet Minh” fell out of use after the founding of the NLF.