The August Revolution : The Man From Prisons, Jungles, Mountains, and Foreign Countries

Vũ Ngự Chiêu

Sunday afternoon, September 2, 1945.  High on a stage at Cot Co [Flag Pole] park—which was surrounded by a jungle of people, banners, and red flags—a thin, old man with a goatee was introduced.  Ho Chi Minh—Ho the Enlightened—Ho the Brightest—a mysterious man who had set off waves of emotion among Ha Noi’s inhabitants and inspired countless off-the-record tales ever since the National Salvation [Cuu Quoc], the Viet Minh organ, had announced the first tentative list of the “Viet Minh” government on August 24.[1]

It was to take the Vietnamese months, if not years, to find out who exactly Ho Chi Minh was.[2]  However, this did not matter, at least not on that afternoon of September 2.  The unfamiliar old man — who remarkably did not wear a western suit but only a Chinese type “revolutionary” uniform — immediately caught the people’s attention with his historic Declaration of Independence.