Viet Minh

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League for Independence of Vietnam Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh
Abbreviation	Viet Minh
Leader	Ho Chi Minh (1941–1951)
Governing body	Viet Minh General Department Tổng bộ Việt Minh
Director of General Department	Nguyễn Lương Bằng (1941–1951)
Secretary of General Department	Hoàng Văn Thụ [vi] (1941–1943) Hoàng Quốc Việt [de; vi] (1943–1951)
Members of General Department	Võ Nguyên Giáp Phạm Văn Đồng Trường Chinh Trần Huy Liệu [ja; vi; zh] Hồ Tùng Mậu
Founder	Indochinese Communist Party (now the Communist Party of Vietnam)
Founded	19 May 1941 (1941-05-19)
Dissolved	10 September 1955 (1955-09-10)[1]
Preceded by	Anti-imperialist National United Front of Indochina (Mặt trận Thống nhất Dân tộc Phản đế Đông Dương)
Succeeded by	Vietnamese Fatherland Front National Liberation Front of South Vietnam
Headquarters	Pác Bó, Cao Bằng
Newspaper	Cứu Quốc (National Salvation)
Armed wing	People's Army of Vietnam
Ideology	Communism Marxism–Leninism Vietnamese nationalism Anti-Imperialism
Party flag

The Việt Minh (Vietnamese: [vîət mīŋ̟] ^ⓘ, chữ Hán: 越盟) is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh^[2] or Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội, chữ Hán: 越南獨立同盟(會); French: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam), which was a communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Front (Mặt trận Việt Minh), it was created by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) as a national united front to achieve the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.^[3][4]

The Việt Nam Độc lập Vận động Đồng minh Hội was previously formed by Hồ Học Lãm in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936, when Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organization soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be taken over by Hồ Chí Minh and the ICP in 1941.^[5] They presented the organization as inclusive of political groups, with a founding charter more nationalist than communist. It exhorted "soldiers, workers, peasants, intellectuals, civil servants, merchants, young men and women" to overthrow "French jackals" and "Japanese fascists", while the group's first chairman was a non-communist.^[6] In all, the Việt Minh established itself as the only organized anti-French and anti-Japanese resistance group.^[7] The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. The United States supported France. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China. After World War II, the Việt Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and opposed the re-occupation of Vietnam by France, resulting in the Indochina War, and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War. It was also opposed by Vietnamese anti-communists and right-wing nationalists, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, the reason for the establishment of the State of Vietnam in 1949.

The political leader of Việt Minh was Hồ Chí Minh. The military leadership was under the command of Võ Nguyên Giáp. Other founders were Lê Duẩn and Phạm Văn Đồng.

The Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh is not to be confused with the Việt Nam Cách mệnh Đồng minh Hội (League for the Vietnamese Revolution, abbreviated as Việt Cách) which was founded by Nguyễn Hải Thần. Việt Cách later joined the Vietnamese National Coalition in 1946.

Today, the Vietnam Fatherland Front – a socio-political coalition led by the Communist Party of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese government – is recognized as the modern incarnation of the Việt Minh front in current Vietnamese politics.