Editor’s Pick

ON 19 AUGUST 1945, the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or League for the Independence of Vietnam, began a general uprising—popularly known as the August Revolution—against Emperor Bao Dai. Four days earlier, after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese emperor, Hirohito, had surrendered to the United States. This provided a unique opportunity for the Viet Minh, as Japan had fully taken over French Indochina, of which Vietnam was part, in March, after imprisoning or executing all colonial officials. Bao Dai, who had been propped up as a figurehead by both the French and the Japanese, abdicated on 25 August, and the Viet Minh’s founder, Ho Chi Minh, declared Vietnamese independence on 2 September.

Having led a Vietnamese delegation at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference, Ho had spent over two decades as an agent of the Communist International, establishing the Parti Communiste d’Indochine during this period. He advocated for the policy adopted by the Comintern, in 1935, to establish broad antifascist alliances, including with colonial powers. Léon Blum’s Popular Front government in France briefly allowed the PCI to operate more freely. After France fell to the Nazis, in 1940, Ho took advantage of the political vacuum to return to Vietnam and establish the Viet Minh. Although it was dominated by the PCI, the Viet Minh was open to nationalists of all political stripes and even cooperated with the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek against Japan.

Chiang, however, imprisoned Ho for eighteen months. Following his release, in 1944, Ho cultivated a relationship with the Office of Strategic Services—the precursor to the US Central Intelligence Agency—providing intelligence inputs from inside Vietnam, which was controlled by Vichy France and Japan. After the Japanese turned on the French, the OSS provided the Viet Minh the weapons and training that enabled its success during the August Revolution.