Nguyen Tat Thanh, later known as Nguyen Ai Quoc was born into a family of patriotic Confucian scholars, and grew up in a locality that had a patriotic tradition of valorous fighting against aggression. Living in a country under the yoke of French colonialists, in his childhood and youth, he witnessed the suffering of his compatriots and the movement against the aggressors. With immense love for the people, in 1911, he left the fatherland to go to the West to find the way of national liberation.

From 1912 to 1917, Nguyen Tat Thanh came to many countries in Asia, Europe, the America and Africa and lived among the working class. At the end of 1917, he left Britain to return to France to continue activities for the movement of the overseas Vietnamese and French workers.

Under the influence of the October Revolution in 1917 and after reading Lenin’s Theses on the Nation and Colonial Questions, in December 1920, Nguyen Ai Quoc participated in the 18th Congress of the French Socialist Party, and became one of the founders of the French Communist Party.

In November 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc came to Guangzhou, China to select a number of young patriots living there to open a Political Cadres Training School. His lectures were compiled into the book “Duong Kach menh” (The Revolutionary Path) - an important theoretical document and idea basis for the revolutionary direction of Vietnam.

On 28th January 1941, he returned to the homeland after more than thirty years of activity abroad. He was deeply moved by the scene of his beloved country when passing the border.

In August 1942, taking the name of Ho Chi Minh, representing the Vietnam Independence league and the Vietnam, branch of the International Anti-aggression Association, he came to China to search for an international alliance coordinating anti-fascist actions on the Indochina battlefield. In August 1945, he led the people to rise up in a general insurrection to seize power in the whole country. In September, 1945 Ho Chi Minh solemnly proclaiming the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and he became the first President. Under his leadership the historical victory at Dien Bien Phu (1954) which completely liberated the North of Vietnam.

In 1964, US imperialists started their war against the North. Then Ho Chi Minh said: “The war may last five, ten, twenty or more years, but the Vietnamese people will not be intimidated.”

From 1965 to 1969, together with the party central committee, president Ho Chi Minh continued to construct and protect the North, and struggle to liberate the South for country’s reunification.

Before passing away president Ho Chi Minh left the Vietnamese people with the historical Testament. He wrote; “My ultimate wish is that our entire Party and people, by closely joining their efforts, will build a peaceful, reunified, independent, democratic and prosperous Vietnam, and make a worthy contribution to the world revolution”.

The Paris agreement of January 27, 1973, ended the aggressive war and the Vietnamese people fulfilled total liberation of the South, reunification of the country, and realized the sacred wish of President Ho Chi Minh, in 1975.

President Ho Chi Minh was a great leader of the Vietnamese people. He had creatively applied and developed Marxism-Leninism for the specific condition of Vietnam and founded the Vietnam National United Front, Vietnam People’s Armed Forces and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). In 1987, President Ho Chi Minh was revered as a national liberation hero and a world cultural celebrity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).