Ho Chi Minh founded many newspapers and used them as a tool to disseminate Marxism-Leninism. He founded the newspaper Le Paria in France 1921 and Youth in Guangzhou, China in 1925. This newspaper was the official organ of the Vietnam Association of Young Revolutionary Comrades. In Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh held training courses on Marxism-Leninism to prepare for future revolutionary movements in Vietnam. He was very concerned with journalists and the training of journalists immediately after Vietnam gained independence in 1945 and after that, launched the 9-year resistance war against the French colonialists.
A first training course for journalists after the August 1945 Revolution was held by Ho Chi Minh at Huynh Thuc Khang school in Viet Bac forest. Huynh Thuc Khang was the only press school in the war against the French. The first press course was held on April 4, 1949 and had 42 trainees. Trainees included reporters from anti-French battle fields and intellectuals from Hanoi and provincial towns who joined the resistance war. The Board of Directors included resourceful and professional journalists such as Nhu Phong, Xuan Thuy, Tu Mo, Bui Huy Phon and Do Duc Duc, who also acted as trainers of the course. Other trainers included famous renowned revolutionaries such as General Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh, Hoang Quoc Viet and To Huu, and famous writers and poets such as Xuan Dieu, Nam Cao, The Lu and Nguyen Dinh Thi. Despite the shortage of media tools such as tape-recorders, cameras and type-writers, the trainees were provided with the basic knowledge and skills of a journalist.
At that time, Ho Chi Minh and the Party Central Committee was in Viet Bac to lead the resistance war which entered a very tough period to prepare for the autumn-winter 1949-50 border campaign. Although he was very busy, he still paid great attention to trainees of this first press course. In a letter to them, he reminded journalists:
…”If you want to be a capable journalist, you should:
- be closer to the people. If you only sit in your office, you can’t write about the facts.
- learn at least a foreign language to read foreign newspapers and learn from their writing style.
- after completing a story, you should read again three or four times and carefully amend it. The best way is to let some less educated people read it, ask them what they do not understand and then revise it until they can.
- always learn and be eager to make progress…”
In another letter to intellectuals in southern Vietnam including journalists on May 25, 1947, Ho Chi Minh wrote, “Your pens are offensive weapons to defend the just against the unjust. Intellectuals should act as courageous fighters in the resistance war to wrest back independence and unify the motherland.”
From then to the Dien Bien Phu campaign which ended the resistance war against the French, Ho Chi Minh created good conditions for war reporters to live and work with soldiers to write about the war. He wrote many articles for newspapers and reminded them about their political tasks in the resistance war. In an article for the July 1949 issue of the newspaper The Guerillas, Ho Chi Minh wrote, “You should encourage each person to become a soldier and each village to become a fortress. Wherever the enemies go, they would be harassed and wiped out. Wherever our soldiers go, they would be supported materially and spiritually. This is the task of The Guerrillas.”
In all articles for the press, Ho Chi Minh used simple language to make them understandable even to people with less education. Over the last more than 60 years, Ho Chi Minh’s teaching about the hearts and minds of journalists have always reminded journalists of the tasks required by the nation.
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