Foreign friends’ impressions of Ho Chi Minh

                                          A book by historian Pierre Brocheux

 

(VOVworld) – President Ho Chi Minh is a name that kindles respectful feelings among Vietnamese people and good impressions among foreign friends. Around the world, especially in places he traveled to, people remember him as an outstanding leader of the 20^th century. 

“From the bottom of my heart, I think Ho Chi Minh is a man of great humanity and strong determination to pursue his goals.” said French historian Pierre Brocheux.

Pierre Brocheux is the author of two books about President Ho Chi Minh and several notable books on Vietnam’s history. While he was studying Vietnam’s history and President Ho Chi Minh, Brocheux met a friend of Ho Chi Minh in France. The man told him stories about Ho Chi Minh’s humanity. Brocheux told VOV reporter: “I met a typesetter working for L' Humanité who was also a member of the Socialist Party together with Ho Chi Minh. At a referendum on the establishment of the French Communist Party, President Ho voted to form the Communist Party from the Socialist Party, which his friend was against. It didn’t affect their friendship. They maintained regular contact. When President Ho Chi Minh died, his friend called him the most loyal friend he had ever met.”

Foreign protesters against the war in Vietnam, who had met Ho Chi Minh, said he was friendly and warm. Raymond Dien, a French woman who lay across the tracks to prevent a train from transporting weapons to Vietnam, remembered the day she met President Ho Chi Minh in October 23, 1956. She was moved to tears when she recalled her 15-day trip with Henri Martin from France to Hanoi to attend a National Youth Congress. “Prior to the Congress, I saw President Ho Chi Minh. He called me to sit next to him. I was surprised because I didn’t think an ordinary person like me could sit next to the great leader that the whole world admired. He was a warm, modest, and dear man. I told him I was from Tours and he said he knew the city because he attended a Congress of the French Socialist Party there. He gave me an ivory bracelet. The next day he invited us to his house and it was an unforgettable day in my life.”

Countless studies and international conferences on President Ho Chi Minh have been organized. American historian William Duiker spent 35 years studying Ho Chi Minh and published a 300-page book entitled “Ho Chi Minh, a life”. The book consists of interviews with several people who knew and worked with Ho Chi Minh, documents and intelligence records of France, the UK, Russia, China, and the Communist International. It was a major biography of Ho Chi Minh. Duiker said Ho Chi Minh impressed him as a modern revolutionary with noble goals for changing the nation and a typical Vietnamese citizen.“The deepest impression that I have of his life is he’s a simple-minded and particularly his talent of leadership. He was able to combine revolutionary trends while at the same time symbolizing too many Vietnamese. He was able to appeal to all Vietnamese people almost like an uncle or a father.”

Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts in the past struggles for national liberation, reunification, and socialism and in the contemporary era have attracted young researchers. Galia Kolupaeva, a fourth-year student in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, St Petersburg University, Russia, is doing a thesis on the Communist International and President Ho Chi Minh’s career. “Few young Russians know as much about Ho Chi Minh as I do. But his name is very popular among people of my generation although they don’t study Asia. His name is regularly mentioned and a lot of Russian people remember Ho Chi Minh.”

On his 125^th birthday, foreign media are running many articles honoring President Ho Chi Minh and the value of his thoughts in the new era.