Famine, the August Revolution and Hồ Chí Minh's declaration
After a famine kills perhaps a million people in the north, the Việt Minh seize power as Japan surrenders, and Hồ Chí Minh declares independence on 2 September 1945.
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
- Ho Chi Minh: A Biography — Pierre Brocheux, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, 2 September 1945 — Hồ Chí Minh (1945)
By early 1945 northern Vietnam was starving. Japanese occupiers and the Vichy French administration had forced farmers to grow industrial crops and deliver rice quotas, Allied bombing had cut the railway carrying rice from the south, and floods and poor harvests made it worse. Through the winter and spring of 1944–45, bodies lay in the streets of Hanoi and villages of the Red River delta emptied. The historian David Marr judged that around one million people died; Vietnamese official accounts say two million.
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
A power vacuum
On 9 March 1945 Japan overthrew the French administration and set up a nominally independent Empire of Vietnam under Emperor Bảo Đại. Meanwhile the Việt Minh, a front founded by Hồ Chí Minh in 1941 and led by the Communist Party, built guerrilla bases in the northern mountains, worked with a small American OSS team, and won support by seizing Japanese rice stores and distributing grain to the hungry.
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
- Ho Chi Minh: A Life — William J. Duiker, Hyperion (2000)
When Japan surrendered on 15 August, the Việt Minh moved fast. They took control of Hanoi on 19 August, and within days of Huế and Saigon. On 30 August Bảo Đại abdicated, saying he would rather be a citizen of an independent country than king of an enslaved one. This was the August Revolution.
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
The declaration
On 2 September 1945, before a huge crowd in Ba Đình Square, Hồ Chí Minh read the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. It opened by quoting the American Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal”, and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, before listing France’s crimes. He hoped, in vain, for American support.
- Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, 2 September 1945 — Hồ Chí Minh (1945)
- Ho Chi Minh: A Life — William J. Duiker, Hyperion (2000)
- Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam — Fredrik Logevall, Random House (2012)
Independence denied
The Allies had other plans. British troops occupied the south and helped French forces retake Saigon; Chinese Nationalist troops occupied the north. Hồ negotiated with France, but talks broke down. After French ships shelled Haiphong in November 1946, killing thousands, the Việt Minh attacked the French in Hanoi on 19 December 1946, and the First Indochina War began. It would last until 1954.
- Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam — Fredrik Logevall, Random House (2012)
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
The new state was also a revolutionary one. In 1945–46 the Việt Minh assassinated or drove out rival nationalists, Trotskyists and others who might challenge them, a side of 1945 rarely discussed inside Vietnam but central to how many anti-communist Vietnamese remember it.
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
The August Revolution was a popular national uprising, led by the Party and Hồ Chí Minh, that ended eighty years of colonialism and a thousand years of monarchy in a matter of days. The famine, which the declaration said killed two million, was caused by French and Japanese exploitation.
- Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, 2 September 1945 — Hồ Chí Minh (1945)
- Ho Chi Minh: A Life — William J. Duiker, Hyperion (2000)
The Việt Minh filled a power vacuum skilfully, with genuine mass support, but also used terror against rivals. Most historians estimate the famine dead at around one million, with a range from several hundred thousand to two million; wartime requisitioning by Japan and the French, crop failures and broken transport all played a part.
- Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power — David G. Marr, University of California Press (1995)
- Vietnam: A New History — Christopher Goscha, Basic Books (2016)
Why it matters today
2 September is National Day, and the Socialist Republic dates its legitimacy to Hồ Chí Minh's declaration in Ba Đình Square, where his mausoleum now stands. The famine of 1945 remains a deep, quieter memory in northern families. For critics of the regime, 1945 is also when the Communists began eliminating rival nationalists.