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Declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

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"Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence" redirects here. For other uses, see Declarations of independence of Vietnam.
Declaration of independence of
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
A copy of the original declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
RatifiedSeptember 2, 1945
Author(s)Ho Chi Minh
PurposeTo announce and explain establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Speech recording

The declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Tuyên ngôn độc lập Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa) was written by Hồ Chí Minh, and announced in public at the Ba Đình flower garden in Hanoi on 2 September 1945. It led to the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), replacing the Empire of Vietnam under the Nguyễn dynasty and Emperor Bảo Đại, who abdicated on August 25.

This declaration was a declaration of independence from France, but France initially never recognized the DRV as an independent country. After the First Indochina War broke out; on 8 March 1949, France formed the independent State of Vietnam (an associated state) with the Élysée Accords as an alternative method to solve the Vietnam question. The declaration is also considered the foundation of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam although this state was actually formed on 2 July 1976.

History

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Vietnam, under the Nguyễn dynasty, became two protectorates of France in 1883, but during World War II, Japan occupied the country from 1940. During this period, Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Minh in 1941 to coordinate resistance against both French colonial authorities and Imperial Japanese occupying forces.[1] This group fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese and were to a degree supported by the Americans in 1945 via the Office of Strategic Services.[2] In March 1945, Japan overthrew French rule in Indochina.

On August 22, 1945, the OSS agent Archimedes Patti, who had met Ho Chi Minh in southern China, arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and was accompanied by Jean Sainteny a French government official.[3] The Japanese forces informally surrendered (the official surrender took place on September 2, 1945 in Tokyo Bay) but the only force capable of maintaining law and order was the Imperial Japanese Army, and so remained in power and kept French colonial troops detained.[4]

Japanese armed forces allowed the Việt Minh and other nationalist groups to take over public buildings and weapons without resistance, which began the August Revolution against the Nguyễn dynasty and its Empire of Vietnam, a Japanese puppet state established right after Japan overthrew the French. On the morning of August 26, 1945, at No. 48 Hàng Ngang, Hà Nội, Chairman Hồ Chí Minh presided over a meeting of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which he had called. The meeting unanimously decided to prepare to proclaim independence and to organize a large meeting in Hà Nội for the Provisional Revolutionary Government to present itself to the people. That was also the day that Vietnam officially promulgated the right of freedom and established a democratic republic system.

On August 30, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh invited several people to contribute their ideas toward his Declaration of Independence, including a number of American OSS officers. OSS officers met repeatedly with him and other Viet Minh officers during late August, and Patti claimed to have listened to Ho read to him a draft of the Declaration, which he believed sounded very similar to the United States Declaration of Independence.[5]

On 2 September 1945, communist Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration during a public meeting in front of thousands of people at what is now Ba Đình Square, he announced the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as an independent republic. France would recognize the DRV as only a non-unified free state within the French Union under a preliminary treaty. The war between the two sides later broke out, leading to the establishment of a rival indigenous state that was anti-communist on 8 March 1949.

References

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  1. ^ "Viet Minh take control in the north | October 11, 1954".
  2. ^ "The OSS in Vietnam, 1945: A War of Missed Opportunities by Dixee Bartholomew-Feis". The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. 2020-07-15. Retrieved 2024-05-09.
  3. ^ Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift
  4. ^ Stuart-Fox, Martin. A History of Laos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, http://www.taiwandocuments.org/japansurrender.htm
  5. ^ Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981
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