How did France got back into Viet Nam in the first place? Through the Ho-Sainteny Agreement of March 6, 1946. In that pact, Ho made a deal with the French devil that if France recognize Ho and the Viet Minh as legitimate rulers of all Viet Nam, Ho and the Viet Minh would agree to place Viet Nam into the French Union with Viet Nam being an autonomous region like others in that Union. France then told the US that one of America's allies in SE Asia, the Viet Minh who assisted the American OSS during WW II, invited France to return as colonial master. In effect, America's hands were tied with regards to Viet Nam, Indochina, and UN trusteeship towards independence. Once France completed her return to Viet Nam, France and the Viet Minh proceeded to slaughter any non-Communist and non-France aligned Vietnamese nationalists. Neither China nor the Soviet Union were needed at this time. It was only after the Viet Minh consolidated their power in North Viet Nam that the turn against France began.
Even I find that you're quite a pro-Vietnam member on this PDF and have an in-depth knowledge about Vietnam. But I grew up in a so-called "brainwashing communist education system", you're from a so-called "democracy" nation. It seems to be hard for us to discuss about history since our world view and stand are completely different.
I'm neither a pro-Ho nor anti-Ho myself. I find that Ho did an excellent job when led Vietnam to our independence and drove the French out of Vietnam. But then he failed severely after 1954 for not be able to lead Vietnam avoiding being a hotspot of the Cold War. Only that war with the U.S had totally destroyed Vietnam and divided Vietnamese people.
There's a sentence I've learned from the Chinese "absolute deterioration comes after absolute power". It might be right for Stalin, Mao, as well as Ho.
About Ho and the nationalists, I do not find anything wrong there. In Vietnam, we have a proverb: "secure your family first, then try to pacify the nation". Either Ho or the nationalist could do their jobs of sweeping away all the opponents. Only Ho emerged after the power struggle and showed himself very strong and clever. Then he and his fellowmen represented the Vietnamese people to fight against the French.
Anyway, I find little interest only discussing about the Vietnam War era. We found silly ourselves as to be so divided after the war. It's just a small part of our long time history.
Ho is a good leader, but he did not do any much better than our other leaders like Nguyen Hue, Tran Quoc Tuan...
Vietnamese have a longer, deeper history than just the Vietnam War to talk about.
I experienced in person myself that the Vietnamese community abroad still being so preoccupied with the dark of the past. All the hatred, division... they carried all along. But that's not with the Vietnamese live in Vietnam, it's a young generation in Vietnam, the generation who are ready to put the past aside and face the future.
And what could communism teach us democrats? And please do not bring up the current China, which is a corrupted offspring of failed communist ideologies and capitalist market principles. Without this offspring, China would not survive.
Well, like social welfare, insurance, collective possession, a planned economic system...
When it's about Communism, every one often thinks about Stalin-era communism. Stalin-era communism was obviously a failed experiment but still, there are...