Vietnam. First of all, we must put to rest the myth that Ho Chi Minh was a hero or a figure that the people of the world and the Vietnamese should look up to. If this is not true, how can his words be believed?
Ho Chi Minh was to put it in a single word, a traitor. Starting during the reign of His Majesty Emperor Khai Dinh, Ho Chi Minh was a voice of rebellion and disrespect. Rather than encouraging the people to unite behind their traditional rulers in an effort to gain independence from their colonial masters, he made the situation worse by ridiculing the Son of Heaven, degrading the reputation of the monarchy and further fragmenting the populace. In fact, though he often talked about Vietnamese culture and patriotism, Ho himself was certainly no patriot, joining first the French Communist Party and becoming an advocate of a political system developed by an exiled German-Jew which ultimately led to the forced abdication of Emperor Bao Dai and the loss of traditional government in Vietnam in favor of a western Soviet-style government. How than can this man be called a national hero?
Ho Chi Minh was however, much like Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin, a master politician. He once said that Emperor Bao Dai, "may be far from us in distance, but not in our thoughts." Which is exactly why he always tried to be respectful to the Emperor, knowing the high esteem in which he was held, while at the same time murdering those who supported the monarchy. He merely used Bao Dai to gain a feeling that his government was legitimate; something others did as well. He also knew that he would be stronger without foreign help with the Vietnamese people than would South Vietnam even with all the power of France and America behind them. He was cruel, contradictory, and deceitful, but also dangerously clever in manipulating the public. He correctly predicted the result of the conflict with the United States when he said, "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win."
To see the results of the socialist policies of Ho Chi Minh, one needs only to visit Vietnam and observe the impoverished condition of the majority of the people. When Vietnam was an imperial monarchy it was actually a fairly wealthy country, however, the years of communist economic policy have taken their toll. In fact, even high party officials have become disheartened at the state of their homeland. Ho Chi Minh promised that Marxism would bring Vietnam a new prosperity but instead has delivered only poverty and heartache. Especially for Vietnam, the current government is simply not natural. Its policies have driven the nation into the ground and now hold them down, not out of loyalty to Marxism, but out of lust for the despotic power the party leaders have secured for themselves. |
