Ho Chi Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyen Sinh Cung, also known as Nguyen Tat Thanh and Nguyen Ai Quoc , was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was also Prime Minister(1945–55) and President (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.

He led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems, but remained a highly respected inspiration for those Vietnamese fighting for his cause—a united, communist Vietnam—until his death. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh was born Nguyen Sinh Cung (as appeared in a letter from the director of the College Nationale, dated 7 August 1908), in 1890 in the village of Hoang Tru (the name of the local temple near Sen Village), his mother's village. From 1895, he grew up in his father Nguyen Sinh Sac (Nguyen Sinh Huy) 's village of Sen Village, Kim Lien, Nam Dan, Nghe An Province. He had three siblings: his sister Bach Lien (or Nguyen Thi Thanh), a clerk in the French Army; his brother Nguyen Sinh Khiem (or Nguyen Tat Dat), a geomancer and traditional herbalist; and another brother who died in his infancy. As a young child, He studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vuong Thuc Do.In addition to his studious endeavors, he was fond of adventure, and loved to fly kites and go fishing. In addition to his studious endeavors, Following Confucian tradition, at the age of 10, his father gave him a new name: Nguyen Tat Thanh ("Nguyen the Accomplished").

Thanh's father was a Confucian scholar and teacher, and later an imperial magistrate in the small district of Binh Khe (Qui Nhon). He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died after several days after having received 102 strokes of the cane as punishment for an infraction. For the father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy but refused because it meant serving French.This exposed To rebellion at a young age and seemed to be the norm for the place where came came age. In deference to his father, Thanh attended a lecture in Hue, the alma mater of his later disciples, Pham Van Dong and Vo Nguyen Giap and his later enemy, Ngo Dinh Diem.

Ho Chi Minh's sister obtained employment working with the French Army. She used this position to steal weapons that she hoped one day would be used to drive the French out of Vietnam. She was eventually caught and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although he had refused to learn French himself, Nguyen decided to send Ho to a French school. He was now of the opinion that it would help him prepare for the forthcoming struggle against the French. After his studies. Ho was, for a short period, a schoolteacher. He then decided to become a sailor. This enabled him to travel to many different countries. This included several countries that were part of the French Empire. In doing so. Ho learnt that the Vietnamese were not the only people suffering from exploitation.

Ho finally settled in Paris in 1917. Here he read books by Karl Marx and other left-wing writers and eventually he became convened to communism. When in December, 1920 the French Communist Party was formed. Ho became one of its founder members. Ho, like the rest of the French Communist Party, had been inspired by the Russian Revolution. In 1924, he visited the Soviet Union. While in Moscow, Ho wrote to a friend that it was the duty of all communists to return to their own country to: "make contact with the masses to awaken, organise, unite and train them, and lead them to fight for freedom and independence." However, Ho was aware that if he returned to Vietnam he was in danger of being arrested by the French authorities. He therefore decided to go and live in China on the Vietnam border. Here he helped organise other exiled nationalists into the 'Vietnam Revolutionary League'.

In September 1940, the Japanese army invaded Indochina. With Paris already occupied by Germany, the French troops decided it was not worth putting up a fight and they surrendered to the Japanese. Ho Chi Minh and his fellow nationalists saw this as an opportunity to free their country from foreign domination and formed an organisation called the Vietminh. Under the military leadership of General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietminh began a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese. 

The Vietminh received weapons and ammunition from the Soviet Union, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, they also obtained supplies from the United States. During this period the Vietminh leant a considerable amount about military tactics which was to prove invaluable in the years that were to follow. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies after the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In August 1945, the Vietminh was in a good position to take over the control of the country. 

In September, 1945, Ho Chi Minh announced the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Unknown to the Vietminh Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin had already decided what would happen to post-war Vietnam at a summit-meeting at Potsdam. It had been agreed that the country would be divided into two, the northern half under the control of the Chinese and the southern half under the British. After the Second World War France attempted to re-establish control over Vietnam. In January 1946, Britain agreed to remove her troops and later that year, China left Vietnam in exchange for a promise from France that she would give up her rights to territory in China. 

France refused to recognise the Democratic Republic of Vietnam that had been declared by Ho Chi Minh and fighting soon broke out between the Vietminh and the French troops. At first, the Vietminh under General Vo Nguyen Giap, had great difficulty in coping with the better trained and equipped French forces. The situation improved in 1949 after Mao Zedong and his communist army defeated Chaing Kai-Shek in China. The Vietminh now had a safe-base where they could take their wounded and train new soldiers. By 1953 the Vietminh controlled large areas of North Vietnam. The French, however, had a firm hold on the south and had installed Bo Dai, the former Vietnamese Emperor, as the Chief of State.