The Socialist Republic of Vietnam

By complete coincidence, we arrived in Hanoi on what would have been Ho Chi Minh's 117th birthday, and the day before government "elections".

Ho Chi Minh: The guy is a legend here; posters, pictures, shirts, a city named after him. Once again, having not listened in high school history class, a lot of this is new to me. Please let me know if there are errors in my one-day of study:

Vietnam had been a French colony since the late 1700s/early 1800s, and Ho Chi Minh was the fellow who led the Vietnamese struggle to gain independence. According to what we've read/seen here, Ho's ultimate vision was for an independent Vietnam, free of foreign control. And he actually received US assistance between 1941-1945 when the Japanese invaded Vietnam. However, the US stance changed when:
- the perception was that he was aligned/controlled by communist Russia; and
- the US needed France's help with NATO to ensure communism didn't spread in Europe (and France didn't want to give up control of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).

We'll never know if Ho Chi Minh was "controlled" by Russia or not -- its a fact that he had believed in communism since the 1920s and the Russians supported his nationalistic and/or communism causes in the 1950s. In any case, France relinquished control of Vietnam in 1954, and the country was divided into the Communist North (led by Ho Chi Minh) and South (led by Ngo Dinh Diem, selected by and aligned with the US). This was supposed to be a temporary solution (with the expectation that proper elections for a united country held in 1956), but that never happened because everyone knew Ho Chi Minh (and the communists) would win. In any case, Ho wanted a united Vietnam, encouraged guerrilla attacks the south, and the rest is history. In 1975, the city of Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Government elections have an interesting twist: All candidates must be affiliated with or endorsed by the controlling Communist Party. Apparently the theory is within the party, there may be candidates that are more qualified for a given role than others, and the people should make the decision of who to select. There's a funny poster where two people are placing their ballots in the box, with two military folks standing right behind them!!!! Clearly these elections aren't at the same level as typical western multi-party systems, but it is a small step.

Again, all this is new to me, so please let me know of any corrections.