Ho Chi Minh Short Biography

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Outline the life of the personality you have studied In 1890 May, Ho Chi Minh, was born with the given name, Nguyen Sinh Cung, into a village in Central Vietnam. At the age of 11, his father (a Confucian scholar/official) changed Ho’s name to Nguyen Tat Thanh, which meant, “the one who will succeed.” As a youth, Ho had been greatly influenced by nationalist ideas from his father. He grew up with the belief that the Vietnamese were being exploited terribly by the French and had a right to rule themselves. But he also took to heart a quotation his father often used, that is was necessary to understand the enemy in order to defeat him. Hence Ho went abroad to learn about the West and their way of life before he returned to help his countrymen. In 1911, Ho departed Vietnam by ship and began his travel around the world. He visited France, North and West Africa, Arabia, India, Madagascar and South America. This made him develop an interest in social justice and human rights globally. He continued his travels until 1917 when he began living in Paris. In Paris, Ho became a founding member of the Association of Anamese. He signed an 8-point petition demanding democratic reform for the Vietnamese people – signing it with a false name, Nguyen Ai Quoc, to avoid detection from the French. He began regularly attending meetings of the French Socialist Party and became attracted by the Socialist ideas because of how they stressed community effort, simplicity of lifestyle and equalization of wealth and opportunity and because it had a lot in common with the Confucian philosophy of his father. Ho also looked up to Lenin, the Leader of the Russian revolution. Lenin suggested that capitalist system was only being sustained by its exploitation of undeveloped countries. This made Ho want a violent revolution was needed in areas of European colonization, especially Vietnam. This
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