In February 1941, a group of six men, all wearing Nung tribal clothing, were traveling through the forested hill country in Southwest China. They were heading towards the Sino-Vietnamese border near Cao Bang. The leader of this group, a man in his early 50’s, was holding a bamboo stick. He would lean on the walking stick each time he went downhill. He always walked very fast, yet carefully stepping over one rock after another. At sunset, they reached the Sino -Vietnamese border, clearly marked by a stone pillar and number 108. The division between the two countries was written in Chinese and French but not in Vietnamese. To this group, it was the symbol of a lost land. While everyone was looking at the pillar, the leader paused, lifted his face, and stared at the darkening sky. Suddenly his eyes were filled with tears.
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| Nguyen Ai Quoc and members of his group, dressed like Nung tribal men |
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| Karl Marx statue |
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| Lenin stream |
Suppressing his emotion, he adjusted his posture and resumed his steady footsteps. Members of his group were behind him. The air was increasingly cold as night fell. Soon they reached a long and narrow dirt road. This was a region of fruit trees and in the evening their soft fragrance carried on the breeze. After daybreak the colors of blossoms would add to the beauty –white, pink, red, yellow. As the group descended from the hill country he noticed rows of pomelo, guava, water apple, mango, and papaya. In the lowlands he smiled as his eyes glanced through the banana plantations, beds of strawberries, and the rice paddies. Nguyen Ai Quoc - the disguised Nung leader - was now approaching his homeland, after more than thirty years of exile.
The previous December, Quoc had sent Vu Anh to the Sino -Vietnamese border to find a secure location for the new revolutionary base. Vu Anh crossed into Indochina and entered Cao Bang province. He found Pac Bo village, surrounded by rice paddies and corn fields, where the local Nung population was sympathetic to the revolution. This area had an escape route to China, which was strategically important to the Vietnamese revolutionaries. Vu Anh ventured into the vast and tangled jungle marked by massive limestone cliffs, and eventually he found a secret cave. He was delighted.
Vo Nguyen Giap, Pham Van Dong, and other young compatriots had joined Quoc in Guilin in early January 1941. They soon encountered a group of forty-two militant youths who had deserted Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army. Quoc saw this as a great opportunity and decided to engage them. Instead of sending these young men to the Military Academy in Yan’an, Quoc organized a twenty-five day political training course for them in Jingxi district, near the border with Indochina. These youths were from two Zhuang-Nung ethnic villages, whose population had earlier committed their support to the Chinese Communists. On January 28, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the graduates were welcomed back by their families and they all celebrated the traditional holiday. Quoc offered each household a red square of rice paper with gold Chinese characters, ‘Happy New Year’. On February 8, Quoc and his compatriots said goodbye to the villagers. They headed back towards the Sino-Vietnamese border marker 108, with a secret plan to re-enter and head for Cao Bang province.
The difficult journey to Pac Bo village would take twenty days on foot. Quoc and his group eventually arrived at a long and rocky path with mountain streams amid a thick green jungle. They noticed the crystal clear water - with the color of jade green. Quoc quickened his steps towards the bank of a stream. He bent his knees to scoop out some water with his hand. It felt like touching ice water. Quoc immediately thought of himself diving into the stream each morning. This would be one of his self-disciplines.
As soon as they reached the cave, Quoc unpacked his canvas bag and took out his trusted Hermes baby-typewriter. He would not want to waste any time, while his mind was full of new ideas and valuable lessons he had learned in China. The cave was big enough to accommodate six persons. At night its residents slept on beds of tree branches and leaves. The cave was pitch dark at night and the air was cold and damp. They would keep a small fire on all night every night. Outside there was a huge rock, resembling a statue, on which Quoc carved a face and named it ‘Karl Marx’. There was also a mountain creek with spring water constantly flowing, and he named it ‘Lenin stream’.
Quoc got up early every morning. After taking a cold bath in the stream, he did some physical exercise, then started his writing on a rock at the edge of Lenin stream. Daily diet for the group consisted of boiled rice, wild vegetables, dried meat, and sometimes fish from the stream. In the evening, all his colleagues would gather around the fire, and Quoc would lecture them about world history and modern revolutions. Quoc was in a cheerful mood and composed a poem at his new residence:
Morning time I walk to the creek
Night time I retreat to the cave
Vegetable congee and boiled bamboo shoot, I enjoy
Life of a revolutionary is quite a luxury
In Pac Bo, Quoc translated the ‘History of the Bolshevik Communist Party of the USSR’ into Vietnamese. Quoc also wrote ‘The Road to Liberation’, ‘Guerilla Tactics’ and ‘Instruction for Military Cadres’ for distribution in Cao Bang villages. In May 1941 Quoc created the Viet Minh (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi). The first publication of the Viet Minh contained a poem by Quoc and on its cover was the new Viet Nam flag – red background with a gold star.
Quoc wanted to mobilize Vietnamese residents in South China to prepare for an armed uprising inside Indochina. He instructed Vo Nguyen Giap, Pham Van Dong, and Phung Chi Kien to organize a series of political training courses. Forty Vietnamese resistance fighters who had crossed the border into Guangxi province to escape the French were recruited for the training. When the program was completed, all joined in a graduation ceremony, while honoring the new national flag flying above them. In Quoc’s mind, the graduates were like eagles flying off to spread the knowledge they had gained.
In June 1941, as head of the Viet Minh organization, Nguyen Ai Quoc made an appeal to all countrymen and women, “ All of you, revolutionary soldiers! The hour of liberation has come. Please raise our independence flag and lead the country to destroy our common enemy.” The name Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens) was officially adopted by Quoc at this time.
The previous summer, the French spy agency, Sûreté Générale, had collected evidence of a planned uprising in the South at the order of the Indochinese Communist Party. This would be known as the ‘Nam Ky Khoi Nghia’, masterminded by Nguyen Thi Bay, nicknamed by the French as “La Reine Rouge” (the Red Queen).
The insurrection failed and led to the executions of many senior leaders in the resistance movement. The Red Queen and four others known as Muoi Thiep, Hai Trieu, Hai Dang, and Chau were executed by a firing squad at a football field in Cho Lon on April 5, 1941. It was a day of deep mourning for the Vietnamese. All local businesses in Sai Gon and Cho Lon were closed down, out of respect and defiance.
On August 28, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and four members of her group, Ha Huy Tap, Nguyen van Cu, Phan Dang Luu, and Vo van Tan were guillotined in Sai Gon. Three major uprisings soon followed.
By then, Japanese troops had moved into Indochina following the accords between the puppet Vichy government and Japan, marking the Franco-Japanese collaboration.
>>Part 1: Paris, my two worlds
>>Part 2: A journey in search of freedom
>>Part 3: Nguyen the Patriot
>>Part 4: Indochina and little emperors
>>Part 5: The rise of patriotism
>>Part 6: Finding a compass
>>Part 7: Young Ho Chi Minh with Grand Chef Escoffier
>>Part 8: Young Ho Chi Minh in America
>>Part 9: Ho Chi Minh versus Albert Sarraut
>>Part 10: The path of destiny
>>Part 11: Moscow’s resolution on Indochina
>>Part 12: Lenin and Peoples of the East
>>Part 13: From Moscow to Canton
>>Part 14: A cross-cultural political training school
>>Part 15: Hong Kong, City without Gates
>>Part 16: "I’ll defend you because of honor, not for money"
>>Part 17: The Annamite prisoner is free
>>Part 18: Moscow and the razor’s edge
>>Part 19: Ho Chi Minh as Commander Hu Guang in China
>>Part 20: A long way from home
>>Part 21: Ho Chi Minh’s appeal to the nation