Vietnam’s heroic anti-imperialist wars

Remembering the fundamentals of a pivotal conflict of the post-World War II era

In my last commentary, “The long struggle of Vietnam,” written in commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the Vietnamese declaration of independence, I succinctly reviewed the history of Vietnam since ancient times, covering essential points for understanding the dynamics that shaped the emergence of Vietnamese nationalism from the 1890s to September 2, 1945, when Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The commentary makes evident that the advanced character of the Vietnamese nationalist struggle against French colonialism was a consequence of historic contradictions of Vietnamese feudalism, including Chinese domination, as well as its embracing of the fundamental principles of modern Western democratic revolutions. The commentary also makes clear the positive contributions of Lenin’s thought and Soviet educational and political support for Asian nationalist revolutionaries, which prepared Ho Chi Minh for his exceptional leadership role in t…