History of the Communist Party of Vietnam

This article describes the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which ruled all or part of Vietnam beginning in 1945.

The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) originated in 1925. In the spring of that year the young man born Nguyen Sinh Cung—under the pseudonym Nguyễn Ái Quốc (Nguyen the Patriot) but best known as Ho Chi Minh (Ho the Enlightened One)—established the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth Association (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Thanh Niên Kách Mệnh Hội—commonly: "Thanh Niên") a Communist political organization.

Thanh Nien sought to employ patriotism to end the colonial occupation of the country by France. The group sought political and social objectives—both national independence and redistribution of land to working peasants.

The establishment of Thanh Niên was preceded by the arrival of Communist International functionary Ho Chi Minh in Canton, China from Moscow in December 1924. Ho was ostensibly sent to China to work as a secretary and interpreter to Mikhail Borodin, but he actually set to work almost immediately attempting to transform the existing Vietnamese patriotic movement towards revolutionary ends. Ho managed to convert a small group of émigré intellectuals called Tam Tam Xa (Heart-to-Heart Association) to revolutionary socialism and Thanh Niên was born.

The headquarters of the organization in Canton directed the underground revolutionary movement in Vietnam, making all important decisions.

Thanh Nien was designed to prepare for an armed struggle against the French colonial occupation. Ho Chi Minh and his associates envisioned three phases. In the first phase, an external center was to be established as a training center, source of unified political propaganda and headquarters for strategic decision-making and the maintenance of organizational and ideological discipline. Secret revolutionary groups called "cells" were to be trained in Canton and returned to Vietnam to operate.

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