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Another American, former Marine Lieutenant Charles Fenn (now a novelist writing in Ireland), had helped Ho set up the intelligence operation and occasionally corresponded with him. In one letter, previously unpublished, Ho wrote to Fenn: "The war is won. But we small and subject countries have no share, or very very small share, in the victory of freedom and democracy. Probably if we want to get a sufficient share, we have still to fight." He was right, of course. Ho and his Viet Minh colleagues approached the French as the Pacific war was ending and asked for a measure of autonomy and at least a pledge of eventual independence for Viet Nam. France dithered. In August 1945, the Viet Minh launched their revolution, and on Sept. 2, 1945, Ho proclaimed the Vietnamese republic. Its declaration of independence, modeled on that of the U.S., included a preamble beginning "All men are created equal."
The republic was baptized in blood. Initially, Ho and French civilian leaders in Hanoi sought to work out a compromise. Their efforts were undermined by colonialists in Paris, and for the next nine years the revolution ground on. In the spring of 1954, after a series of disasters on the battlefield and war exhaustion back home, the French were forced to leave Viet Nam. But Ho failed to secure at the conference table what his troops had won in combat. Under severe pressure from the Soviet Union, he was forced to accept control of only half of Viet Nam. In the South, a pro-Western government was set up—with heavy American assistance.
Executing the Exploiters
Ho's spoils seemed paltry at best. The French had concentrated their agricultural production in the South; crops in the North were insufficient to feed its population. Industry, indeed, had been established in the North—but the plant was minuscule: a cement factory, a brewery, a few railway-repair shops and an assortment of small machine and textile producers. Ho's major asset was coal, and its continuing abundance has provided North Viet Nam with badly needed foreign exchange. Clearly, intensive efforts were needed in the agricultural sector. Ho's first major program, accordingly, was agrarian reform, and his first mass target was the "exploiting landlords." There were, in fact, few landlords of any size. Nevertheless, the order rumbled down from Hanoi: find the exploiters and execute them. Anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 Vietnamese were executed—mostly village leaders who were replaced by heretofore landless peasants. As Honey points out: "By forcing the villagers to participate in the deaths of people they knew to be guiltless, Ho involved them in collective guilt. By giving authority to villagers who never expected it, he secured their cooperation."