Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

Although it is a relatively short document of less than 950 words and composed in clear language that avoids using difficult political jargon or legal terms, the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence nevertheless poses several explanatory and analytical challenges. It is hard to separate the text from the event—Ho Chi Minh even recorded an audio version about ten years later in a studio. Moreover, as it was made at a quickly shifting juncture of Vietnamese as well as world history and addressed to two distinct audiences, there are different Vietnamese versions and even more slightly different translations into English.

The primary aim of the declaration is clear, namely, to announce to the Vietnamese and to the world the birth of an independent Vietnamese state and its new government. The Vietnamese audience was told that the new state would be the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, whereas early translations into English—such as the one derived from the Hanoi-based French-language newspaper La république of October 1, 1945—coyly dropped the “Democratic,” suggesting that the provisional government thought that a simple “republic” would receive a more favorable international response. It is arguably for this reason, too, that Ho Chi Minh highlighted that his government was a “provisional” one, knowing that he might have to negotiate the nature of the government in the months to come. Indeed, the Japanese forces were yet to be disarmed, while the Chinese, British, and French forces that would soon make their presence felt on Vietnamese soil would all favor Vietnamese political groups other than the ICP.

The secondary aim of the independence declaration was to gain domestic and international acceptance for the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam and its provisional government. It was also the right time to present the Vietminh as the nation's major political force and to announce a radical rupture with the past. The period of time when Vietnam was ruled by foreigners—the French having encroached on Vietnamese sovereignty from 1859, to be briefly replaced by the Japanese in early 1945—was finally over. The abdication of Emperor Bao Dai represented a radical break with Vietnam's indigenous past, as it constituted the end to a centuries-old political institution and the associated feudal order. While the Vietminh had achieved the twin goals of ending imperialism and feudalism, the declaration also makes clear that these achievements would have to be defended.

While the aims of the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence were clear, its proclamation was also an opportunity to win over the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese and international audiences by explaining why the new state and government were legitimate and deserved to be supported and recognized. In part drawing on the argument and structure of the American Declaration of Independence, Ho Chi Minh nevertheless gave the Vietnamese declaration an original touch.

Ho's words of address, “the compatriots of the entire country,” are inclusive and set the tone for the speech, allowing him to connect to his audience as equals rather than keeping as much distance as possible between government and governed, as had been the preference of the Vietnamese imperial tradition. The term compatriots also allowed the speaker to give his address broader historical and mythical meaning. Moreover, the inclusive phrase, literally meaning “from the same sack of eggs,” allowed Ho to make much larger mythical claims. The phrase refers to offspring of the country's mythical progenitors, the water-based dragon Lac Long Quan and the mountain-based fairy goddess Au Co, whose eggs gave rise to the first Vietnamese people and the first of the nation's kings.

Having united his entire audience in Hanoi by reference to their common origins, Ho tried to find common ground for his global audience in referring to the international lineage of Vietnam's August Revolution. He adroitly omits reference to the Russian October Revolution of 1917 (the second phase of the Russian Revolution of that year, which brought the Communists to power); doing so would not have won him friends in the capitalist West, among General Lu Han's Chinese Nationalist forces, or among Vietnamese conservative nationalists. Ho suggests that the August Revolution was a continuation of the American and French revolutions and their ideologies. In a later section, the declaration also refers to the 1943 Tehran Conference (among U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, which, among other matters, pledged to recognize Iran's independence) and the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, held in San Francisco, invoking the norms of the newly emergent U.S.-led international society of states, particularly the “equality of nations.” In this context, it is unclear to what extent Ho actually subscribed to the notions of inborn and “inalienable” rights of individuals promulgated in the 1776 American Declaration of Independence and the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, or whether he rather believed in the inalienable collective right of peoples to form independent nations.

Regardless of Ho's beliefs in individual or collective rights or both, the Vietnamese experience of French rule clearly contradicted the ideals of the French Republic. As the Americans had summarized their grievances in 1776, Ho recalls the suffering of the Vietnamese, though in language far more modern and evocative—almost headline style—and everyone in his audience could have related to at least some of his points. Politically, French rule had been oppressive, inhumane, and divisive and had weakened the Vietnamese race. Economically, French domination had led to the exploitation of Vietnam's natural resources and its people. Ho does not refrain from reminding the French of their painful failure to live up to their colonial and protectorate obligations to defend the Vietnamese against Japanese occupation.

Given all these shortcomings, which blatantly contradicted the very ideals of the American and French revolutions, it followed that the French did not have any legitimate right to rule over Vietnam. If, in fact, they ever had, they had lost it, and so had the Japanese through their surrender. Instead, a combination of popular and morally superior actions had earned the Vietnamese the right to independence and the Vietminh the legitimacy to govern the country. With Emperor Bao Dai's abdication, there would be no return to the traditional monarchical and feudal order; the Vietnamese were finally free of foreign and domestic oppression.

The last few paragraphs, like the American Declaration of Independence, announce the rupture with the French colonial past and appeal to the Allied powers to recognize Vietnamese independence. All French treaties and privileges are considered annulled. While Ho threatened to fight any French attempt to return to power, the provisional government also indirectly suggested that it was willing to entertain relations with a nonimperialist France on equal terms. As the Allies had already recognized the equality of peoples at the 1943 Tehran and 1945 San Francisco conferences, Ho expresses his conviction that they should recognize Vietnam's independence as the Vietnamese people's right; even if they would not, the clock could not be turned back because Vietnam was already “free and independent.” In view of the decades of warfare to come, Ho's final words were almost prophetic: “To safeguard their independence and liberty,” the Vietnamese were “determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength” and “to sacrifice their lives and property.” These words were also a final bow to the Americans, whose support his triumphant and yet fledgling government greatly needed in the face of external threats and domestic political rivals who had different visions of Vietnam's future.

The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence originally closed with the signatures of Ho and his fourteen provisional government members. Most of them belonged to the ICP, which formally self-dissolved on November 11, 1945; this might be why later versions usually do not feature the signatures. It is equally plausible that the divergent political fortunes of some—Vo Nguyen Giap, for example, was repeatedly sidelined by party rivals—made it opportune to omit all signatures.