Viet Minh

League for Independence of Vietnam
Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh
AbbreviationViet Minh
LeaderHo Chi Minh (1941–1951)
Governing bodyViet Minh General Department
Tổng bộ Việt Minh
Director of General DepartmentNguyễn Lương Bằng (1941–1951)
Secretary of General DepartmentHoàng Văn Thụ [vi] (1941–1943)
Hoàng Quốc Việt [de; vi] (1943–1951)
Members of General Department
FounderIndochinese Communist Party (now the Communist Party of Vietnam)
Founded19 May 1941 (1941-05-19)
Dissolved10 September 1955 (1955-09-10)[1]
Preceded byAnti-imperialist National United Front of Indochina (Mặt trận Thống nhất Dân tộc Phản đế Đông Dương)
Succeeded by
HeadquartersPác Bó, Cao Bằng
NewspaperCứu Quốc (National Salvation)
Armed wingPeople's Army of Vietnam
IdeologyCommunism
Marxism–Leninism
Vietnamese nationalism
Anti-Imperialism
Party flag

Việt Minh (Vietnamese: [vîət mīŋ̟] , chữ Hán: 越盟) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh[2] or Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội, chữ Hán: 越南獨立同盟(會); French: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam), which was a communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Front (Mặt trận Việt Minh), it was created by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) as a national united front to achieve the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[3][4]

The Việt Nam Độc lập Vận động Đồng minh Hội was previously formed by Hồ Học Lãm in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936, when Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organization soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be taken over by Hồ Chí Minh and the ICP in 1941.[5] They presented the organization as inclusive of political groups, with a founding charter more nationalist than communist. It exhorted "soldiers, workers, peasants, intellectuals, civil servants, merchants, young men and women" to overthrow "French jackals" and "Japanese fascists", while the group's first chairman was a non-communist.[6] In all, the Việt Minh established itself as the only organized anti-French and anti-Japanese resistance group.[7] The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. The United States supported France. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China. After World War II, the Việt Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and opposed the re-occupation of Vietnam by France, resulting in the Indochina War, and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War. It was also opposed by Vietnamese anti-communists and right-wing nationalists, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, the reason for the establishment of the State of Vietnam in 1949.

The political leader of Việt Minh was Hồ Chí Minh. The military leadership was under the command of Võ Nguyên Giáp. Other founders were Lê Duẩn and Phạm Văn Đồng.

The Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh is not to be confused with the Việt Nam Cách mệnh Đồng minh Hội (League for the Vietnamese Revolution, abbreviated as Việt Cách) which was founded by Nguyễn Hải Thần. Việt Cách later joined the Vietnamese National Coalition in 1946.

Today, the Vietnam Fatherland Front – a socio-political coalition lead by the Communist Party of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese government – is recognized as the modern incarnation of the Việt Minh front in current Vietnamese politics.

  1. ^ Trang, Dr Hoang Thi (9 August 2022). "Building the Vietnam Fatherland Front according to Ho Chi Minh’s thought in the current period". International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science. 6 (3): 612–616. doi:10.47772/IJRISS.2022.6329. Archived from the original on 8 August 2024. Retrieved 9 August 2024 – via ideas.repec.org.
  2. ^ Phạm Hồng Tung: Tìm hiểu thêm về Mặt trận Việt Minh. Tạp chí Nghiên cứu Lịch sử, số 2 năm 2000.
  3. ^ PV (17 November 2011). "Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam: Chặng đường 80 năm vẻ vang". Dân trí. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  4. ^ Thương Huyền (19 May 2021). "Mặt trận Việt Minh – biểu tượng của khối đại đoàn kết toàn dân tộc". Báo Điện tử Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam. Archived from the original on 9 August 2024. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
  5. ^ Nguyen, Sai D. "The National Flag of Viet Nam" (PDF). Vpac-usa.org. pp. 212–213. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 May 2005. Retrieved 4 January 2015.
  6. ^ "The Viet Minh". Alpha History. 2019. Archived from the original on 9 August 2024. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  7. ^ Hunt, Michael H. (26 June 2015). The world transformed: 1945 to the present. Oxford University Press. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-19-937102-0. OCLC 907585907.