Dans ce Nord peuplé de 20 millions d'habitants, le parti met en place une réforme agraire contestée (55-56) par les intellectuels. Ho Chi Minh devient le chef de cet Etat. Au sud, Diem, soutenu par les États-Unis, rejette les élections prévues par les accords de Genève et se livre à une répression anticommuniste. Les communistes du Sud entrent en résistance. Le régime est renversé début 1963. Thieu succède à Diem. Les Etats-Unis profitent d'un incident naval dans le golfe du Tonkin le 2 août 1964 pour bombarder le Nord le 7 février 1965. Le Vietnam tient mais au prix de 2 313 000 victimes entre 1961 et 1975. Les Américains n'emportent jamais la décision. Ho Chi Minh incarne pour la jeunesse du monde en 1968 un héros de la résistance à Oncle Sam. Ho Chi Minh, malade, voit son armée l'emporter lors de l'offensive du Têt (janvier-mars 1968) et l'ouverture de la conférence de Paris en mai de la même année. Il meurt en 1969. Saigon est prise le 30 avril 1975. La capitale du sud devient alors Ho Chi Minh Ville.


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The spontaneous struggle of the peasants against seizure of their lands; the crushing taxes and all sorts of forced unpaid labor awakened hatred of the invaders and traitors in the heart of Ho Chi Minh," wrote Truong Chinh2 in a brief biography prepared for the President's 70th birthday. "The account of the exploits of heroes of his native district such as Mai Hac De, Nguyen Quang Trung and others, gave birth at an early stage to feelings of patriotism, the will to independence and his indomitable spirit... .The guerrilla warfare waged by Hoang Hoa Tham in North Vietnam deeply impressed him during his adolescence and led him to meditate on the success and failure of each one of these movements.

Ho Chi Minh had unbounded faith in the masses. Throughout his career he insisted that it was the masses, not the leaders that made history. Hence his language, his style of work and life, was designed to ensure the closest possible contact with the masses; to know their deepest aspirations and devise policies accordingly. American political and social scientists and those they serve in the Establishment basically despise the masses; they devote their skills to bamboozle them and when necessary, to manipulate them to support policies against their real interests-the war in Indochina,