Dear Comrades,

The Communist Party USA commemorates the 130^th birthday of Ho Chi Minh and stands in solidarity with the Communist Party of Vietnam on this auspicious day.

Ho Chi Minh was one of history’s greatest revolutionary theorists and activists. From the end of WWI to his death in 1969 as leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, he fought to liberate the Vietnamese people from French colonialism, Japanese imperialism, and U.S. imperialism. Victory was snatched from the hands of the Vietnamese people twice. Once after 1945, when French colonialist returned following the defeat of the Japanese imperialists and again in 1954 when U.S. imperialists replaced the French and established a neo colonial regime in the South. Ho Chi Minh never wavered in his commitment to achieve final victory in the peoples’ war for national liberation and socialism.

Ho Chi Minh’s great achievements were not just limited to the heroic struggle against colonialism and imperialism. He was also a great builder of socialism in his home country. Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Party of Vietnam worked and continue to work to build a better life for the people of Vietnam in a land that had been ravaged for generations by colonialists and imperialists.

The Communist Party USA also remembers proudly his stay in the U.S. in 1912-1913, where he lived and worked in Harlem (New York City) and Boston. This time in the US had a lasting impression on the Ho Chi Minh’s ideals and principles. In 1945 when Ho Chi Minh sat down to write the Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, he began with these words from American history: “All people are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.

Ho Chi Minh will always be remembered for the way he combined his lifelong commitment to the struggles for national liberation with working class internationalism.

On this occasion of Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, we in the CPUSA wish the CPV much strength and continued success in their ongoing efforts to develop The Socialist Republic of Vietnam.