The Second of September, 1945.
Hanoi was bedecked with red bunting. A world of flags, lanterns and flowers. Fluttering red flags adorned the roofs, the trees and the lakes.
Streamers were hung across streets and roads, bearing slogans in Vietnamese, French, English, Chinese and Russian: “Viet Nam for the Vietnamese”, “Down with French Colonialism”, “Independence or Death”, “Support the Provisional Government”, “Support President Ho Chi Minh”, “Welcome to the Allied Mission”, etc.
Factories and shops, big and small, were closed down. Markets were deserted. All trade and industrial activities in the city were suspended. The whole city, old and young, men and women, took to the streets. Everyone felt that they should attend the first great festival of the nation.
Multi-coloured streams of people flowed to Ba Dinh Square from all directions.
Workers in white shirts and blue trousers came in ranks, full of strength and confidence. Today ordinary working people arrived at the festival with the dignified bearing of masters of their own country and their own destinies.
Hundreds of thousands of peasants came from the city suburbs. People’s militiamen carried quarterstaffs, swords or scimitars. Some even carried old-style bronze clubs and long-handles swords taken from the armouries of temples. Among the women peasants in their festive dresses, some were clad in old-fashioned robes, yellow turbans and bright-green sashes. Never before had peasants from the poor villages around Hanoi walked into the city with such pride.
Old men wore solemn faces while young girls were radiant in their colourful dresses.
Most lively were the children. From this day on, they were the young masters of an independent country. They marched in step with the whistle blows of their leaders, singing revolutionary songs.
Buddhist bonzes and Catholic priests also came from their monasteries to attend the great national festival.
The autumn sun was shining brightly on that day when Ba Dinh Square made history. The guard of honour stood at attention around the newly-erected rostrum. The Liberation Army fighters, who had followed the Military Order No 1 of the Insurrection Committee a few days earlier to march south and “attack the important towns and cities held by the enemy”, were now standing side by side with the self-defence units of the workers, youth and labouring people of the capital to defend the Provisional Government.
After long years of exile and wandering in the world, sentenced to death by the French imperialists, subjected to all sorts of privations and hardships in dozens of jails, Uncle Ho was now back and making his first appearance before a million of his countrymen. Not long before, this had been only a dream.
The name of Ho Chi Minh was soon to be known all over the world and surrounded with the legendary anecdotes which often accompany great men. But on that day, his name was still unfamiliar to his people. Few of them knew that he was none other than the famous Nguyen Ai Quoc.
Here is how President Ho Chi Minh, the head of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, appeared for the first time before his people as a great leader.
He was a thin old man with a broad forehead, bright eyes and a sparse beard, wearing an old hat, a high-collared khaki jacket and white rubber sandals.
A couple of days before, the problem had arisen as to what he should wear for the occasion. He eventually chose the khaki suit. During the next twenty-four years as President, on great national days as well as on visits to foreign countries, he always appeared in this simple, unchanging attire: a plain suit, without any decorations, as on that occasion when he first stood before his people.
The “old man” had a lively gait, which rather surprised some people at that time. They did not find in the President the stately bearing of “high-born” people. His voice carried the accent of a rural area in Nghe An province.
Such was the way he appeared before a million of his countrymen.
His speech was quiet, warm, articulate and clear. There was none of the eloquence so often heard on solemn occasions. But its very simplicity suggested deep feelings and determination. Everything he said was full of vitality; every sentence, every word went straight to people’s hearts.
In the middle of the Declaration of Independence, Uncle Ho stopped and asked suddenly, “Do you hear me distinctly, fellow-countrymen?”
A million voices thundered in reply, “Yes.. !”
From that moment on, he and the sea of people were merged into one.
That was the Declaration of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, which had just won back independence after a national struggle lasting eighty years. It was also the heartfelt and touching declaration of the most conscious vanguard of the most revolutionary class, many of whose sons, absolutely loyal to the interests of the class and the nation, had fearlessly faced the guillotine or the firing squad, shouting: “Long live the independence of Viet Nam” while they tore away their black blindfolds.
The ceremony concluded with the oath of independence:
“We, the entire Vietnamese people, swear to give resolute and wholehearted support to the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and President Ho Chi Minh.
We swear to join the Government in safeguarding the full independence of the Fatherland, to oppose any scheme of aggression, even at the cost of our lives.
“If the French should invade our country once more, we swear that we will neither serve in their army, work for them, sell them food nor act as guides for them!”
One million people took the oath with one voice — a voice which expressed the resolve of the whole people to carry out what President Ho had just read in the conclusion of the Declaration:
“Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and has in fact become a free and independent country. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their freedom and independence.”
The Indictment of French Colonization had been written thirty years before. But only now was the French colonial regime being brought to public trial by the entire Vietnamese people.
A new page of history had been turned. A new era had begun: that of Independence, Freedom and Happiness.
The map of the world would have to be redrawn, for a new State had been born: the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam.
Together with the general uprising which had taken place during the latter part of August, Independence Day, September 2nd, was a day of extremely great significance in the nation’s political and spiritual life.
Uncle Ho's concern of thirty years before — “Poor Indochina! You will perish if your senile youth do not come back to life soon.” — need no longer weigh on his mind. The whole nation had come back to life.
Independence and freedom had come to every citizen. Everyone could realize their sacred value and knew his responsibility to defend them. Innumerable difficulties lay ahead. But for the imperialists who wanted to restore their lost paradise things would not be so easy either.