Ho Chi Minh was not a "left-leaning nationalist" who just happened to be a Communist. He had been part of the world Communist movement since he had helped to found the
French Communist Party in 1920. He never wavered in his loyalty to Leninism, which means that to him, national liberation, however important, was only the first step to building socialism and crushing capitalism and imperialism. This doesn't mean that in 1945 he wasn't open to compromise with France and the United States. But so, at that time, was Stalin!
For two attacks on the theory of Ho as "more nationalist than communist" see
(1) The views of Pierre Asselin
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/pierre-asselin have been summarized as follows:
"Professor Asselin (Ideology, The Vietnamese Communist Revolution, and the Origins of the American War in Vietnam) looks at the American War in Vietnam through the perspective of North Vietnam. His paper highlights the importance of ideology and explains how Marxism-Leninism and the influence of Mao and Stalin helped shape North Vietnamese domestic and foreign policies, from 1954 to 1960, which “effectively set Hanoi on an irreversible collision course with the United States.” While the bulk of the paper focus on those “six years period,” it lays a valuable foundation for understanding the causes of the war and Hanoi’s determination “to fight to the end, regardless of the sacrifice required. . . [until] final victory.”
"The author faults “American standard accounts” of the war and American historians, with “limited language skill,” for “long understating or ignoring [communist] ideology as a motive force of the Vietnamese effort against Western intrusion,” therefore, leading to the mistaken conclusion that North Vietnamese leaders may be “avowed communists [but] they were really nationalists.” For him, Ho Chi Minh is not a nationalist, but a true communist who, together with his comrades, incited “class struggle” to reinvent society immediately upon gaining control of the north after the 1954 Geneva Accords. He points out that, as the first president of an independent Vietnam in 1945, Ho was “chiefly responsible for popularizing Marxism-Leninism in Vietnam,” and that “No single person played a more important role than Ho in adapting communist thought to Vietnamese circumstances and in spreading its ideas.” To the communists, national liberation is not as important as communist revolution.
"Professor Asselin maintains that, for them, defeating the Americans and their collaborators in South Vietnam was necessary “less for the sake of the people of South Vietnam” than for the ultimate goal of “annihilating imperialism and capitalism” and to fulfill Vietnam’s “moral obligation” before the “international Communist movement.”..."
http://vietusactivities.com/remarks/nguyen-manh-hung-s-comments.html
(2) Ton That Thien's "Was Ho Chi Minh a Nationalist? Ho Chi Minh and the Comintern"
http://www.tonthatthien.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/1990-Was-Ho-Chi-Minh-A-Nationalist.pdf Yes, of course he was biased
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tôn_Thất_Thiện but he still brings out many facts on the primacy of Communism over nationalism to Ho. As he notes, Ho's line in 1939-45 (and especially after 1941)--"waving high the flag of national independence, postponement of the social revolution, carefully concealing the Communist aims of the Party, broad national united front, etc."--far from being a deviation from the Comintern line was exactly what the Comintern wanted.
"Another widespread view about Ho is that in 1945-1946, Ho pursued a moderate and conciliatory policy toward France. They cited as concrete manifestation of this attitude Ho's agreement of March 6, 1946 by which he accepted for Vietnam the status of Free State - instead of independent state - member of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union. Jean Sainteny, the French representative who negotiated this agreement with Ho, asserted that Ho sincerely wanted friendly relations with France, and even liked the idea of being vice-president of the French Union..." But again this was completely in accord with Soviet policy, which wanted a friendly France (the Communists were after all participating in the French government):
"The CPF, which the CPI had always considered a senior party since the days of its foundation, warned the Vietnamese to make sure that their actions met the criteria of the current Soviet line and avoid any "premature adventures". Maurice Thorez stressed in 1946 that "under no circumstances" the CPF wished to be considered as "the eventual liquidator of the French position in Indochina".89 And in April 1946 he told a stunned Sainteny that the March 6, 1946 agreement was "very satisfactory" and if the Vietnamese did not respect it "we know what necessary measures to take, make the cannons talk if need be”.90
"...Ho knew perfectly what Soviet policy at the time was, and he had to conform to it. This, and not the weakness of his government alone at the time, explains his seeming moderation towards the French in 1945-1946, and well until the end of 1947. But in 1947 the situation changed. In May, the French communist ministers were out of the French government, and in September, in Poland, Zhdanov, on behalf of Stalin, announced a new policy: that of confrontation with the West. In Indochina, full war had already developed, and Ho did not have to make any turnaround to meet the demands of Moscow...
"...in the first week of January 1950 Ho went secretly to Moscow to have a meeting with Stalin. Khrushchev has said in his memoirs that Ho had a meeting with Stalin while the latter was alive, but gave no specifics.94 We now know, from Hoang van Hoan’s memoirs, that in the first days of January 1950, three weeks before China’s recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and one month before that of the Soviet Union, Ho made a secret visit to Peking to discuss Chinese recognition and aid. At this meeting with the Chinese leaders, Liu Shao-chi suggested that he went to see Stalin also. The Soviet ambassador, Nikolai Roschin, was asked to send a message to Stalin. The Soviet leader agreed, and two days later Ho flew to Moscow to request Soviet aid. At the Stalin-Ho meeting, the Chinese ambassador, Wanh Jia-hsiang, was present, and he told Hoan afterwards that at that meeting it was agreed that the main task of aiding Ho's government would be shouldered by China.95
"Ho had definitely chosen side. This was one month before the United States recognised the State of Vietnam, two months before it gave economic aid to the Saigon government, and six months before President Truman decided to give full military aid to the French for their war in Indochina following the outbreak of the Korean War. The prevalent view in current literature on the Vietnam War is that June 1950 marked the American involvement in Indochina, and was the start of the train of events leading to Vietnam being dragged into the cold war and to America's woes in the following years. That view must be abandoned today, because it is undisputable that it was Ho who has plunged Vietnam into the East-West confrontation by being the first to choose side...
"Paul Mus,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mus the greatest admirer and apologist of Ho Chi Minh, has said that Ho Chi Minh could not be considered "a marginal, operational communist, a nationalist dressed in red". To hold such an opinion, "one would have to forget the proofs that he has given of his devotion to the leadership of the Communist International". Mus cited as example Ho's acceptance of the Geneva agreement which better served the immediate interests of world communism than those of his Vietnamese fatherland. "Such gestures would remove any doubt, if this were necessary, concerning his deep-rooted and conscious membership of Ho Chi Minh to the communist movement..."
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ft-leaning-nationalists.461937/#post-18451704
