August Revolution

In Vietnamese history, the August Revolution was the proclamation of a sovereign Vietnamese government in August 1945. The Japanese occupied Vietnam during World War II and allowed the French, who were the colonial power in Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), to continue to administer the region. In May 1941, at Pac Bo in northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communists, led by Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), formed a national front organization, the League for Independence of Vietnam, to fight against both the French and the Japanese. The League, better known by its Vietnamese abbreviated name, the Viet Minh, sought to enlist any Vietnamese citizen who would fight for national liberation from the French and Japanese.

When Japan surrendered at the end of World War II in the wake of Allied victory, Ho stepped in on 16 August 1945 and proclaimed himself president of the provisional government of a "free Vietnam." The Allies had other plans: they had agreed that Britain would occupy the southern part of Vietnam and the Nationalist Chinese would occupy the northern portion of the country. Before the Chinese troops arrived, the Viet Minh marched in and seized power in Hanoi on 19 August. The emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai (1913–1997), complied with Ho's demands and abdicated and left for exile in France. On 24 August in Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City), Tran Van Giau declared insurrection underway in the south. On 27 August Ho convened his first cabinet meeting in Hanoi, at which it was agreed that 2 September would be set as National Independence Day. On that day Ho publicly announced the formation of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) with its capitol at Hanoi. In subsequent negotiations with the French, who were allowed to reoccupy Vietnam, Ho agreed to the return of 25,000 French colonial troops in the north for a five-year period rather than face occupation by the Nationalist Chinese. Ho placated his disgruntled comrades with reassurances that colonialism was dying and that the French would have a difficult time reestablishing permanent rule, and reminded them that the Chinese had occupied Vietnam in the past for over a thousand years and were the greater threat. The DRV and the French soon clashed over administrative and military issues after the French returned to Vietnam, resulting in the eruption of the First Indochinese War.

Richard B. Verrone

Franco–Viet Minh War; Ho Chi Minh

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Marr, David. (1981) Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920– 1945. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

——. (1996) Vietnam, 1945: The Quest for Power. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Patti, Archimedes L. A. (1980) Why Vietnam? Prelude to America's Albatross. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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