446 ChaPter^9
government accepted the concept of private property and did not proclaim
the establishment of a Communist society. In fact, the DRVN, as Ho envi-
sioned it, would be a broad alliance of all patriotic groups, even including
sympathetic businessmen and large landowners. Toward that end, the
Communist Party formally dissolved itself in November 1945. Though
Communism would remain a vital force in Vietnamese life, the DRVN would
have a Vietnamese, not Communist, government, though that would matter
little to the Americans who, in the Cold War, simply opposed any group that
was not open to allowing U.S. capital and trade rush into its country. So Ho
Chi Minh, though a Communist, was a nationalist–someone fighting for
national independence and the liberation of his people, like George Washington
and other Americans in 1776–and the U.S. would not tolerate that.
So the Americans supported the French, and French cruelty knew no
bounds. Their commander, General Jean Leclerc, publicly promised that they
would retain control over Indochina–Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—by force
of arms if necessary. This forced Ho, lacking international support and trying
to rebuild at home, to negotiate with his former colonial masters. To Ho, tol-
erating French control was preferable to letting Vietnam’s traditional enemy,
China, try to gain power of the country. As he reminded his critics in Hanoi,
“Don’t you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they
stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism
is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they
will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than eat
Chinese shit for the rest of my life.”
Many of Ho’s followers in the Viet Minh called him a sellout for continu-
ing to talk with France, but he was also preparing for war because he under-
stood that the government in Paris would not settle for anything less than
regaining full imperial control over Vietnam. By late 1946, France began to
seriously provoke the Vietnamese. In November, the French ordered all
Vietnamese troops removed from the area of Haiphong, a port city in the
North not far from Hanoi and promised “to give a harsh lesson” to the Viet
Minh: “by every means at your disposal you must take control of Haiphong
and bring the government and the Vietnamese army to repentance.” So the
French did just that, opening fire and calling in naval artillery support. By the
end of the day, over 6000 Vietnamese had died, another 25,000 were wound-
ed, and Haiphong had fallen to France. The DRVN then declared that all