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p The people of I’lttnam. the home country «/
the most nioiif.il and the mini cimn.stent \lar\
nl-l.enini\t <>/ imr lime, the never-to-
be-forgotten and must belnred Ho (,lu Minh
this heroic people impressed us with their
patriotic ardour and revolutionary deeds.

Fidel Gaslro

1

p The Geneva agreements enabled the Vietnamese to achieve their goals by peaceful political means. They also enabled them to restore the Democratic Republic- of Vietnam within its old frontiers as proclaimed on September 2, 1945. But this time their aspirations, notably their desire for unity, were thwarted by another enemy, U.S. imperialism, much more formidable than the French.

p The U.S. imperialists sought to keep up neocolonialist oppression in the southern part of the country, temporarily separated from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, suppress the progressive, democratic forces there by setting up a puppet regime, and in this way prevent the further spread of the revolutionary liberation movement in Indochina.

p Washington was well aware that strict observance of the Geneva Agreements, and primarily the holding of general elections within the specified time limits, could result in the unification of Vietnam under the Vietnam Workers’ Party largely due to the influence of the Communists and particularly President Ho Chi Minh both in the North and South. In his memoirs, the then U.S. President Eisenhower wrote of his government’s Vietnam policy: "I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs, who did not agree that had the elections been held ... 80 per cent of the population would have voted for Ho Chi Minh."

p Stale Secretary Dulles thought so too. In a telegram dated July 7, 1954, that is, before the Geneva Agreements had been signed, he instructed his diplomats as follows: since it was undoubtedly true that elections might eventually mean unification of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, this made it all the more important they should only be held as long after the cease-fire agreement as possible.

p Long before the signing of the Geneva Agreements, the United States began undermining any peaceful settlement of the Vietnam problem. To start with, Washington found a person the United States could rely upon in its military intervention in South Vietnam: it was Ngo Dinh 224 Diem, graduate of a Jesuit college in the United Slates, who was connected with the CIA since 194fi. A fortnight before the Geneva Agreements were signed, undercover CIA agents succeeded in having him appointed prime minister in Bao-Dai’s government.

p In the first lew months after the cease-fire, Washington augmented its military, diplomatic and economic personnel in South Vietnam. American missions and advisers filled the places vacated by the French, and soon took over the government functions of the Saigon regime.

p Nominally, Bao Dai, who lived in France, continued to be head of South Vietnam. But this did not quite suit the ruling element in the United Slates nurturing plans to make South Vietnam an American colony ofa new type. To get rid of Bao Dai, the US advisers helped Ngo Dinh Diem hold a referendum. The voters had little choice: either say “yes” to the monarchy and the hateful Bao Dai or to the republic and Ngo Dinh Diem. The outcome of the rigged referendum was a foregone conclusion. On October 26, 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem put himself at the head of the socalled Republic of Vietnam in Saigon. The newly formed republic was promptly recognised by the United States and Britain, and a little later by France.

p With the blessings of his overseas sponsors, Ngo Dinh Diem proceeded to perpetuate the division of Vietnam. Police terror swept across Vietnam south of the 17th parallel. Former participants in the Resistance movement Communists, democrats, neutralists, and all those who supported the Ceneva Agreements were flung into jail or shot without trial. Concentration camps sprang up all over the country. Ngo Dinh Diem ignored the many proposals of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for holding general elections under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Agreements.

p The narrow stream called Benhai, the temporaty line of demarcation, was, with heavy prodding from the U. S. imperialists and their stooges in South Vietnam, turned into a fortified barrier, as if North and South were separated by an ocean. This demarcation line also slashed across the hearts of millions of people separated from their relatives and friends. The North and South began developing in different directions.

p When peace was restored in North Vietnam, the government completed the agrarian reform, and abolished large-scale landownership acting on the land to the tiller slogan. The first steps were taken to set up agricultural cooperatives.

p In 1958-1960 the working people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam carried out a three-year economic development plan. North Vietnam embarked upon broad socio-economic change, singalling the beginning ofa socialist revolution.

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p In September 1960, the Vietnam Workers’ Party held its 3rd congress. For the first time after thirty years of heroic struggle, it could convene in the open, at Hanoi.

p In his opening speech, Ho Chi Minh described the 3rd Congress as "the Congress of socialist construction in the North and of struggle for peaceful national unification".

p The Resolution of the Congress pointed out that "in the present stage, the Vietnamese revolution has two strategic tasks:

p “Firstly, to carry out the socialist revolution in the North.

p “Secondly, to liberate the South from the rule of the American imperialists and their henchmen, achieve national reunification and complete independence and freedom throughout the country.

p “These two strategic tasks are closely related to each other and impel each other forward".

p The delegates again elected Ho Chi Minh Chairman of the Party’s Central Committee.

p Over the years of peaceful construction, Ho Chi Minh gave priority to the economic development of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. He toured the country, met local Party officials, workers and peasants, addressed conferences and meetings, and rallied people for rebuilding the country on socialist lines and reuniting it. "The North is the foundation, the root of the fighting forces of our people,” Ho Chi Minh said."Only when the foundation is firm can the house be stable. Only when the roots are strong can the tree flourish. We must strive to consolidate the North in every aspect, enabling the North to be firm and strong and move forward."

p The heroic effort of the Vietnamese and the generous assistance of the fraternal socialist countries enabled backward, agrarian North Vietnam to move ahead economically. The successful fulfilment of the First FiveYear Plan (1961-1965) laid the material and technical foundation of a socialist society. North Vietnam now had an iron-and-steel and nonferrous metals industry, engineering, and a power industry. Cooperatives and large state-run establishments, which now predominated in North Vietnam, changed the countryside beyond recognition. The North, which had earlier suffered chronic food shortages, now surpassed South Vietnam, always regarded the country’s rice bowl, in agricultural output. In ten years of peaceful development North Vietnam accomplished a cultural revolution, and practically did away with the blight of illiteracy.

p Ho Chi Minh promoted the role of the Party in socialist construction. He urged the Vietnamese to combine national interests and their internationalist duty. He pointed out that the Party and people must rally in defence of the socialist community, help strengthen the unity of the 226 world Communist and working-class movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and back the peoples’ drive for national independence, democracy, socialism and peace.

Ho Chi Minh was happy to be able to write in those days: "Socialist construction in our country and our being part of the socialist world community are a realisation of Lenin’s idea that a backward colonial country can advance to socialism by-passing the stage of capitalist development. The successes of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in all fields are ensured, on the one hand, by the self-sacrifice, heroism and creative activity of its people, who are carrying out Lenin’s instructions on industrialisation and collectivisation, and, on the other hand, by the disinterested, fraternal assistance of the Soviet-led socialist camp."

2

p As they built a socialist society, the working people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam never forgot about the suffering of their fellowcountrymen in the South, where freedom fighters were battling imperialists and their puppets, who had blocked the Geneva Agreements.

p Thoughts of South Vietnam, which the imperialists wanted to wrest away from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and turn into a colony, preoccupied Ho Chi Minh and his associates. The peaceful unification of the country was at the centre of the activities of the Vietnam Workers’ Party. What Ho Chi Minh had said in 1946 "Today Vietnam is our common country... Rivers can dry up, mountains can wear away, but our solidarity will never decrease" - inspired millions of Vietnamese in the struggle against their latest enemy.

p In December 1960, the patriotic forces of South Vietnam set up the National Front for Liberation to head the armed struggle for independence and freedom.

p To save the Saigon puppet regime, the Americans mounted a military intervention. They landed their troops in South Vietnam, and unleashed an undeclared air-war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese again had to take up arms to defend their freedom. The second national war of resistance began against the imperialist aggression.

p As a TASS correspondent, I witnessed this heroic struggle at first hand. The stark reality of the first days of the war still stands before my eyes. The government again appealed to the people, who had only just won a long-awaited peace: "All citizens must come to the defence of their homeland!"

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p Day and night soldiers marched in the streets of Hanoi. Their columns filed past, making way for lorries pulling battle-ready AA-guns. The newspapers wrote that in the first days of the war, about a million people had volunteered for the People’s Army. The whole nation was poised to defend its independence and sovereignty, the right to peace and happiness.

p And again, as in the years of the first Resistance, the heart and soul of the struggle was President Ho Chi Minh. In April 1965, he was appointed Chairman of the Supreme Defence Council set up by decision of the National Assembly. In his National Assembly speech Ho Chi Minh set forth the goals that the Vietnamese were determined to fight for to the last drop of blood:

p “The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam once again solemnly declares that its unswerving stand is resolutely to defend Vietnam’s independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. Vietnam is one country, the Vietnamese are one nation, nobody is allowed to infringe this sacred right. The US imperialists must respect the Geneva Agreements, withdraw from South Vietnam and immediately stop their attacks on North Vietnam. That is the only way to settle the war in Vietnam, to implement the 1954 Geneva Agreements, to safeguard peace in Indochina and Southeast Asia. There is no other solution. Such is the answer of our people and government to the US imperialists."

p Vietnam was not alone in its struggle against the world’s most powerful imperialist nation. The Soviet Union, the forces of peace, democracy and socialism throughout the world, came to its aid. When the imperialist aggressors made their first bombing raids on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Soviet government declared that it would do all it could to ensure Vietnam’s security and to strengthen its defence capability. In record short time, the Vietnam People’s Army was equipped with modern Soviet armaments: anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, fighter planes, and other equipment. The Soviet Union sent military experts to assemble and adjust the weaponry and teach the Vietnamese how to use it. In a short time, many thousands of Vietnamese learned to combat the enemy airforce. Many young Vietnamese took a crash course in flying at Soviet military schools and were then dispatched to the newly formed air squadrons.

p With the generous assistance of the Soviet Union and other fraternal socialist countries, the Vietnamese Communists under Ho Chi Minh’s guidance quickly turned North Vietnam into an impregnable fortress which the aircraft and ships of the aggressor vainly tried to take by storm. American generals regarded this highly effective air-defence system as the strongest ever recorded in military history.

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p In the course ol’lhe second war of resistance, Ho Chi Minh and his associates made creative use of Marxism-Leninism and successfully put into effect the strategy of revolutionary war. They succeeded in combining various forms of struggle armed, political and diplomatic and thereby contributed to revolutionary practice.

p While repelling fierce U.S. attacks, North Vietnam supported the national liberation struggle in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It had close links with South Vietnam, and with Laos and Cambodia via the celebrated Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran along the Lao border.

p Back in the years of preparation for the August Revolution and the struggle against the French colonialists, Vietnamese revolutionaries used this trail to maintain communications between the Party organisations of Bac-bo and Nam-bo bypassing cordons of the colonial police. After the second war of resistance broke out, the Ho Chi Minh Trail (called so by Western journalists because Ho Chi Minh had become the symbol of heroic resistance) was turned into a communication line skilfully concealed from enemy pilots by a thick canopy of tropical trees. Moving south day and night were columns of lorries carrying volunteers, munitions, food and medical supplies. By the same road, but in the opposite direction, went lorries carrying the sick and wounded, and children of the fighting patriots.

p The new enemy was much stronger than any that Vietnam had ever fought, and the scale of the lighting was by far the greatest. However, Ho Chi Minh was confident of the ultimate victory. And he instilled optimism in the hearts of all patriots.

p Particularly memorable was July 17, 1966, when Ho Chi Minh made his traditional radio address on the anniversary of the signing of the Geneva Agreements. Shortly before, the aggressors had again escalated the air war, sending 50 fighter-bombers to raid Hanoi’s suburbs. The air was still filled with the smoke of explosions. It was a time when the people in the capital craved to hear the voice of their President. The whole country gathered round loudspeakers in the streets. Transistor radios were switched on in the guerilla hideouts in the jungle, and behind shuttered windows of resistance fighters in the enemy-occupied cities of the South. Ho Chi Minh said:

p “The war may last five, ten, twenty or more years; Hanoi, Haiphong and other cities and enterprises may be destroyed; but the Vietnamese people will not be intimidated! Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom. Once victory is won, our people will rebuild their country and make it even more prosperous and beautifuj."

p Ho Chi Mmh’s words, "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom!" became the motto of the people’s liberation struggle, and inspired their faith in ultimate victory.

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p It was a patriotic war, a war for the salvation of the homeland. The Vietnamese were defending their independence, freedom, and the very foundations of their life. Calling upon their countrymen to rise like one man in the struggle against the enemy, the Party and President Ho Chi Minh appealed primarily to their patriotic sentiments and pride, and love of their country.

p Ho Chi Minh never identified the imperialist aggressors with the U.S. people, and warned others against it. In an interview to a U.S. magay.ine he said he never identified Americans, most of whom wanted justice, with their successive governments, which had committed no fewcrimes against the Vietnamese. Those who were trying to deprive the Vietnamese of their independence and freedom, he said, had forgotten the Declaration of Independence, which said that all men were created equal, and were endowed with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

p Repulsing the U.S. aggression, the Vietnamese relied primarily upon themselves, their own material resources and revolutionary drive. They also relied on the solidarity of friends all over the world. Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam Workers’ Party developed an effective strategy of combining all-round national efforts with international support. The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam pointed out that victory in the long struggle against the imperialist aggressors was inseparable from the massive assistance received from the Soviet Union, the other socialist countries, and from progressives all over the world.

p The Vietnamese were fighting against heavy odds. In 1965, socialist China, Vietnam’s northern neighbour, was switched out of the picture by the so-called cultural revolution. For several years, that country was under the heels of "the cruellest kind of military-feudal dictatorship”, as it was described in later documents of the Communist Party of China. The United States imperialists took advantage of the events in China to further escalate the aggressive war against Vietnam.

A consistent internationalist, Ho Chi Minh took very close to heart the excesses of the "cultural revolution" which proved tragic for the Chinese people and for the cause of socialism in general. He condemned the ugly forms of the Mao /cdong personality cult. In an article about revolutionary morals and the struggle against individualism, written shortly before his death, Ho Chi Minh pointed out that if the malady of individualism struck a party leader it would inevitably affect the Party and the whole nation, and damage the cause of socialism. The Vietnamese Communists interpreted Ho Chi Minh’s words as unambiguous criticism of Mao Zedong’s personality cult and the excesses of the " cultural revolution" in China.

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p After the first enemy air-raids on Hanoi, the City Administrative Committee stepped up the evacuation to rural areas of kindergartens, schools, industrial establishments and offices that had begun somewhat earlier. I remember the whispered rumours that Ho Chi Minh would not leave the city and stay in his wooden house on stills in the palacegrounds. The thought of this gave people an added charge of confidence.

p Over the many long years of struggle, Ho Chi Minh had grown used to a spartan life style. Upon his return to Hanoi after eight years of guerilla fighting, and a long life in caves and bamboo huts, he asked that a modest wooden house be built for him on the grounds of the presidential palace. In this modest abode he lived and worked in those grim days. His desk stood on the bank of a miniature pond grown over with giant water lilies. Overhanging the desk was the shady canopy of a tree he had planted himself. After working hours, he watered the flowers and fed the fish in the pond this was his favourite pastime. If there was an air alert Ho Chi Minh, like all the other residents of the presidential palace, put on a crash helmet and went down into the bomb shelter.

p Braving danger, he often drove out of Hanoi to air defence units, and talked to pilots. In Vietnam, people are wont to ask one another about one’s health. And people were particularly concerned about, the health of their President. Laughing, he replied:

p “Bring down more U.S. aircraft, and Til be in the best of health."

p He was visiting a military unit on the day reports had come from Moscow that a spacecraft with a lunar vehicle had landed on the Moon. Ho Chi Minh asked the soldiers if they had heard about it, and added:

p “Ours is an epoch of science and technology. To beat the American aggressors, it is not enough to follow the correct line of the Party and to be a hero. It is also necessary to know science and technology. As soldiers, you must study the science and technology of the fraternal socialist countries in order to be on top of the situation."

p Ho Chi Minh suffered greatly when he heard about the savage acts committed by the imperialists and their underlings in the South. And he always rejoiced at every new victory of the Vietnamese patriots in the South. In the last few years of his life, knowing he did not have much time left, he was haunted by the thought that he had not yet accomplished his task. He wanted to see the day when the South and North would reunite. In 1963, when the National Assembly decided to award him the Gold Star, he thanked the deputies and requested their permission not to accept this top decoration while the country was still divided and patriots were still shedding their blood in the South.

p “I beg the Assembly to agree to this: we shall wait until the South is 231 completely liberated and the country peacefully reunified. When the North and South will have reunited into one family, then the National Assembly will allow our Southern compatriots to hand me this high decoration."

p Reminiscing about those days, Le Van Luong, a veteran of the Communist Party, said: "When our South was engaged in a bitter struggle against the United States, Baq Ho thought of visiting the South in order to meet friends and countrymen, and asked that such a visit be arranged for him. Realising that Baq Ho’s health was failing and that he was well advanced in years, the comrades in the Political Bureau replied that the most important thing at the time was to win as soon as possible, after which he would be invited to the South. To this he said: T want to go there now’. For a long time, Baq Ho kept coming back to this question and asking about the preparations for his trip. Seeing that he was determined to go, those responsible for such trips had to tell him that the road to the South was very hard and they feared he would not cope. Ho replied that if he could not go by car, he was willing to go on foot. In fact, he added, he’d prefer to go on foot.

p In the last few years of his life, Ho Chi Minh continued to go for long walks, climbing mountains, and sometimes scaling steep slopes. The doctors tried to stop him, then gave up. He wanted to see for himself if he still had strength enough to visit the South.

p He wanted to talk to comrades from the South who came to Hanoi. Many Party workers and freedom fighters from the South, and especially women and children, met with Ho Chi Minh. He questioned his guests about things in the South, and was glad to have those meetings.

p Early in 1969, Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong, played host to one of the many visiting groups of South Vietnamese patriots. Replying to his greetings, the only woman in that group said:

p “Esteemed Uncle Ho, your children and grandchildren in the South remember your behest to rout the American aggressors. And we shall never waver, no matter how long we have to fight.” Then she stopped, confused, and ended unexpectedly: "The only thing that is worrying us is your advanced age."

p Ho Chi Minh smiled. Even at nearly eighty, he had not lost his sense of humour. Turning to Pham Van Dong, he asked:

p “How old shall I be this year?"

p “Seventy-nine."

“So, I still have 21 years before I turn a hundred. I remember I called upon my countrymen to fight for five, ten, even twenty years, if necessary. Even if it takes us twenty years, I will have a whole year in reserve to visit my dear countrymen in the South..."

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p Over the years that I worked in Vietnam I repeatedly saw and heard Ho Chi Minh. When he mounted the rostrum to address a public meeting his face was radiant and smiling. He raised his hand asking for silence, and began his speech with his customary:

p “And now to adjourn our meeting marking our victories in the war against the U.S. aggressors, for the liberation of the South, let us sing our favourite, ’We Stand United’. Three, four...” And he broke into the song that he had sung in his guerilla days in the jungles, his voice still sounding loud and clear.

p He was striking in appearance. His "special features” were his pointed white goatee worn by old men in Vietnam, and his kind expressive eyes, always youthful, always alive and sparkling. He had a light gait, quick movements, and youthful ardour. He showed genuine interest in what people were saying. His uncommon friendliness created an easy and cordial atmosphere. Like all those who had the privilege to meet him, I was struck by his simplicity of manner combined with the iron will and boundless courage of a revolutionary fighter.

p Ho Chi Minh was truly the Leninist type of revolutionary, who not only adopted but indeed put into practice Lenin’s great ideas, and who, by force of his personal qualities and personal example, demonstrated the strength and soundness of communist ideas. When asked by a correspondent what three of political virtues he would like to have, the outstanding Chilean Salvador Allende replied, "Ho Chi Minh’s integrity of character, his humaneness, and majestic modesty".

p Right up to the end of his days, Ho Chi Minh retained these qualities. He was as simple and modest as Lenin. Here is what Le Van Luong wrote in his reminiscences:

p “In 1969, the Political Bureau passed a resolution to organise a celebration of four important dates: the 40th anniversary of the Party, the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the centenary of Lenin’s birth and the 80th birthday anniversary of Ho Chi Minh. Ho was ill at the time. A bit earlier, to spare his strength, the Political Bureau had proposed that he preside at discussions of only the most important Party and state affairs. The Political Bureau should deal with other matters in his absence, and then report the results. The discussion of the four anniversaries belonged to the second group of questions. When Ho heard about it, he said:

p “I agree only with three-quarters of this decision... To commemorate 233 Lenin’s centenary is right. But I don’t think my birthday should be given prominence."

p Many people who were close to Ho Chi Minh spoke of a specific trait of his character. In documents that he was given to edit he invariably crossed out negative turns of speech and replaced them with positive ones. For instance, the phrase "Without socialism the peoples cannot achieve full liberation" he changed to "Only socialism can bring people full liberation...” This was not a purely linguistic approach. It represented his pattern of thinking, that of an outstanding leader. He always singled out the positive side of any event or process opening the way to the future.

p Ho Chi Minh attached tremendous importance to the political education of all members of the Party, the Party cadres, and indeed all working people. He thought it highly important to make them ardent patriots and revolutionaries. In an address to the youth, he said: "In any matter think first of all not about yourself, but about your countrymen, about the whole nation... Be in the front ranks when things are tough, and stay behind when it comes to rewarding your efforts."

p For all Vietnamese Communists, and for all Vietnamese people, he served as a model of how to serve the interests of the nation, of how to promote the public good, how to organise competition, to support everything that was progressive, to encourage criticism and self-criticism, how to tighten discipline, to arouse the enthusiasm of the masses, to rally the people for the struggle against the enemy.

p One of the most remarkable features of Ho Chi Minh’s character was his love for children. He had never had a family of his own, and gave all of his unspent fatherly feelings to the millions of Vietnamese children. He could often be seen amidst children at schools, at Young Pioneer clubs, at agricultural cooperatives.

p I remember Ho Chi Minh in the time of peace attending receptions at the Soviet Embassy, after which he gathered the children of Soviet diplomats, treated them to sweets and asked them about their life in Vietnam. The children liked good old Uncle Ho.

p Right up to his last days, Ho Chi Minh remained loyal to the principles of proletarian internationalism. Like all outstanding fighters for communism, he proved by his own example that those who are moved by love of their own country and people, would never betray the ideals of internationalist fraternity; that only a consistent internationalist is a genuine patriot.

p Ho Chi Minh did a lot to promote Vietnam’s fraternal relations with the socialist countries, with the international communist movement, and the national liberation forces.

p A great friend of the Soviet people, he had a great admiration for 234 Lenin and the Great October Socialist Revolution. In newspaper articles, speeches at Party congresses and conferences, and at public meetings Inpropagated the achievements of the Soviet Union, which he called "the bulwark of the revolutionary movement and the struggle for world peace”, "the most powerful bastion of progress, democracy and peace”, and "living evidence of the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist”. He said: "In the face of imperialists who seek to prolong their tottering system detested by all peoples, we, revolutionaries of all countries, must at all times strengthen our unity with the USSR and the Communist Party of the USSR."

p He always saw the Soviet Union as the closest and most dependable friend of fighting Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was sure the Vietnamese would never forget that they largely owed their victories to the massive assistance of the Soviet Union.

p Ho Chi Minh paid several visits to the USSR after the Vietnam Revolution, both as President and Party leader. In 1955, as soon as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam embarked upon economic reconstruction, he headed a government delegation to the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In the course of that visit the two countries signed their first cooperation agreements, and consolidated the fraternal friendship and solidarity between the two countries.

p In the 1920s, Ho Chi Minh dreamed of meeting Lenin and visiting his Kremlin office. Thirty years later, he was shown around Lenin’s Hal and office which had shortly before been turned into a museum. His inscription in the visitors’ book read: "Lenin is a great teacher of the proletarian revolution. A man of high moral integrity, he teaches all of us how to work hard, how to be thrifty, morally pure and honest. Lenin’s behests will live forever."

p Before boarding his home-bound plane. Ho Chi Minh made a short and moving speech in Russian:

p “We are returning home, taking with us the fraternal love and friendship of the Soviet people. And although Vietnam and the Soviet Union are thousands of kilometres distant from each other, our hearts will always beat in unison."

p One of his last major printed works was an article in 1’ravda about the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Each line was permeated with fraternal feeling. "At the height of their anti-U.S. resistance for national salvation, determined to defeat the U.S. aggressors and successfully build socialism in their land, the Vietnamese people, grateful and confident, turn their thoughts to the Soviet Union, the home of the great Lenin and the glorious October Revolution,” Ho Chi Minh wrote.

p “We Vietnamese have a saying, when you drink water, think of the 235 spring. The more they recall the clays of humiliation under foreign rule and the revolutionary struggle marked by sacrifices and hardships and also by glorious victories, the more the working class, the people of Vietnam, are grateful to Lenin and the October Revolution...

p “Following the path charted by the great Lenin, the path of the October Revolution, the Vietnamese people have won great victories. That is why their attachment and gratitude to the Soviet people are most profound."

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, all Soviet people, always hold Ho Chi Minh in high esteem. Soviet people have always regarded Ho Chi Minh as an outstanding revolutionary and an eminent leader of the international Communist and national liberation movement, a staunch Marxist-Leninist, and consistent fighter for socialism, and a devoted friend of the Soviet people.