Viet Minh
베트민
The communist-led national independence front founded by Ho Chi Minh at Pác Bó in Cao Bằng province on 19 May 1941 under the leadership of the Indochinese Communist Party; officially the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội). It fought Japanese and French rule, took power in the August Revolution of 1945 and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September, and fought the French Union in the First Indochina War. It merged with the Liên Việt front in 1951, but the name continued to be used for the Vietnamese communist forces.
In depth
The Indochinese Communist Party presented the Viet Minh as a broad united front for independence. Under a national General Department (Tổng bộ) it had executive committees in provinces, cities and communes, and it led national salvation associations of workers, women, youth and children. Communists formed its core, but non-communist groups such as the Democratic Party of Vietnam (joined 1944) and the Socialist Party of Vietnam (joined 1946) also took part. Until 1948 it set aside class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat to concentrate on winning sovereignty. It is not to be confused with Nguyễn Hải Thần's League for the Vietnamese Revolution (Việt Cách).
After Japan completed its occupation of French Indochina in 1941, the Viet Minh opposed Japan with support from the Republic of China and later the US Office of Strategic Services. It claimed 500,000 members at the end of 1944 and greatly expanded after the Japanese coup of March 1945. In the August Revolution it took over the nationalist organisations and received Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication, and on 2 September Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was its political leader and Võ Nguyên Giáp its military commander; Lê Duẩn and Phạm Văn Đồng are counted among its founders.
In early 1946 the Viet Minh agreed to the return of the French in exchange for promises of independence within the French Union, but negotiations broke down in December and the First Indochina War began. After recognition by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in January 1950 it obtained bases and weapons from China, purged its remaining bourgeois elements and changed course. On 7 March 1951 it merged with the National United League of Vietnam (Hội Liên Việt) into the Liên Việt front, which became the Vietnam Fatherland Front in 1955, but people went on calling the movement the Viet Minh.
After its victory at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954 the Viet Minh was represented at the Geneva Conference by Phạm Văn Đồng and regrouped north of the 17th parallel under the accords. Viet Minh cadres who stayed in the South became the basis of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government after the 1956 reunification elections failed to take place.