Ho's Effect in Vietnam
Casualties and Massacres
"You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win."
-Ho Chi Minh, his determination came at a huge cost. Time Magazine. In the First Indochina War 5 Vietnamese died/ French soldier. In the Vietnam War 9.6 Vietnamese (PAVN, VC, and Civilians) died/ U.S. or ARVN soldier. However, Ho and his followers continually pursued unification. Reforms were implemented harshly as to executions, especially on landlords.
"I was forced to attend reeducation sessions...the communists said that with a rifle they shot down B-52 planes. One South Vietnamese man laughed and said, "I cannot believe this. A B-52 flies so high that a rifle cannot shoot that far."... The next day that man had disappeared."
-Phuong Hoang, a Vietnamese refugee, on the cruelty of reeducation camps. Vietnam War: Primary Sources. |
"... I learned that they seized everything we had... To survive, the family sold buffalo dung as fertilizer but the money was confiscated because "the fertilizer belonged to the people."
-A Viet Minh veteran returning home to find all his property had been taken. Ho Chi Minh: A Biography. |
Anti-Imperialist Feelings
"She saw the young girl [Vietnamese] lying on her back, bound and gagged, and one of the men, many times, slowly thrust his bayonent into her stomach and, very slowly, draw it out again."
-Ho Chi Minh, speaking of French imperialists' cruelty. Le Paria August 1st, 1922. Anger naturally created an anti-French mood, but Ho added action to the Vietnamese bitterness.
"Why must we rage the Resistance War? They will enslave our people...suppress all our democratic freedoms...plunder all our land and property... massacre our brothers, sisters, and relatives... we must fight the French colonialists."
-Ho Chi Minh in his letter Appeal made to the Compatriots to Carry Out Destruction, to Wage the Resistance War, during the 1st Indochina War. |
"The barbarous U.S. imperialists have unleashed a war of aggression in an attempt to conquer our country...They have resorted to extremely savage means of warfare-toxic chemicals, napalm bombs, and so forth..."
-Ho's speech in Fight Until Complete Victory, over radio urged Vietnamese to fight against U.S. soldiers. The Viet Cong were known to fight furiously, and persist despite the casualties.
"In the morning, the soldiers [Viet Cong] were gone and word passed quickly that a half-dozen Republicans[U.S. soldiers] had been murdered in their sleep-throats cut from ear to ear."
-Le Ly Hayslip in When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. |