That sharp dresser on the cover by my middle finger. That man, in the tones of a bourgeois in Ha Noi speaking of an arriviste from Nghe An. Who in the world?
Ho in the world. Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh.
How do I know? Look by my thumb in the photograph below. Photo de couverture: Hồ Chí Minh au Ve congrès du Kominterne à Moscou, le 1er juillet 1924. Âgé de 34 ans, il était connu sous le nom de Nguyễn Ái Quốc, “Nguyen aimant sa patrie”. Il est au centre, au premier rang.
Sources: Agence RIA Novosti.
Cover photo: Ho Chi Minh at the 5th Congress of the Comintern at Moscow, the first of July, 1924. 34 years old, he was known under the name of Nguyen Ai Quoc, “Nguyen loving his country.” He is at the center, in the first row.
Ho Chi Minh, as the world remembers him, appearing here in world communism as Nguyen Ai Quoc. Nguyen, of the house who first unified the quoc, the country, which this man ai, loves.
Ho. Who he?
Look in the back of the book by my thumb and middle finger in the Notices biographiques. What I love about this entry from a French citizen working for their big school of government is that the author uses just the one name for her subject, the official name of the Vietnamese Communist:
Ho Chi Minh. In contrast, the French police of his day obsessed over his real name, that is, the royal name, that is, the name that tells you how you may charge and arrest and execute him. The United States diplomat William Duiker, retired here in North Carolina, also concerned himself as an historian with Ho Chi Minh’s real name.
This book calls him Ho Chi Minh, throughout, and here above in the Index des noms de personnes. Right on. What was that man up to in 1924? In the cover photograph with his buddies?
Notices biographiques says Il mena des activités anticoloniales à Paris dans le cadre du PCF jusqu’au printempts 1923, date à laquelle il gagna Moscou. Il exerca differentes fonctions au sein du Komintern jusqu’à son départ pour Canton, à l’automne 1924.
He “exercised different functions in the heart of the Comintern” That sein means the front of the thorax, more chest than belly. The word suggests nurture or being nurtured: breathing, lactating, pumping blood for yourself or offspring as does the pelican of heraldry.
It’s also where one sports jewelry for show. Praise and snark aside, what exactly did he do for a living? Chronologie gives context between my index finger and thumb. Lenin died 30 juin 1923 right in the middle of our man’s visit in Moscow. So his principal activity would have been to stay alive long enough to get out of town.
Day to day, he was in school, whether as student or teacher. At the Communist University of the Workers of the East, the Stalin School.
In the cover photograph shown at the top of the post he is taking part in the Fifth Congress of the Communist International where they founded the International Leninist School. He left before any matriculation there. What else do we know?
Look at my index finger, on the first page of the summary of the table of contents at the front of the book. The full table at the back of the book, with the appendices biographies and index we already have consulted, says no more.
Ho Chi Minh, agent of the Comintern at Moscow and at Canton (1923-1925)
In the spring of 1923, Ho Chi Minh departed secretly into Soviet Russia with the intention to sojourn there three months and then reach China. Arrived at Petrograd June 30, 1923, he soon got himself to Moscow, where he carried on intense political activity in the heart of the Comintern for a year and half [sic.] During this time, he took on political responsibilities at the heart of the Comintern, acquired Bolshevik skills of organization and subversion, and distinguished himself by his opposition to the French Communist Party. In the autumn of 1924, he left for Canton where he succeeded in allying the young Vietnamese revolutionaries in exile.
That is who is on the cover of Vietnamese Communism (1919-1991): Construction of a Nation-State between Moscow and Peking.