On 2 September 1945, to a huge tumultuous crowd of Viet­namese in Hanoi as well as to the nation and the world at large, Hồ Chí Minh declared the foundation of the new Democ­ratic Republic of Vietnam: 

 

 

We hold truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  


This immortal statement is extracted from the Declaration of Inde­pendence of the United States of America in 1776. Understood in the broader sense, this means: “All peoples on the earth are born equal; every person has the right to live to be happy and free.”  
The Declaration of Human and Civic Rights proclaimed by the French Revolution in 1791 likewise propounds: “Every man is born equal and enjoys free and equal rights.”  


These are undeniable truths.  


Yet, during and throughout the last eighty years, the French imperi­alists, abusing the princi­ples of “freedom, equality and fraternity,” have violated the integrity of our ancestral land and oppressed our countrymen. Their deeds run counter to the ideals of humanity and jus­tice.  


In the political field, they have denied us every freedom. They have enforced upon us inhu­man laws. They have set up three different politi­cal regimes in Northern, Central and Southern Viet Nam (Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina) in an attempt to disrupt our national, histor­ical and ethnical unity.  


They have built more prisons than schools. They have callously ill-­treated our fellow-com­patriots. They have drowned our revolutions in blood.  


They have sought to stifle public opinion and pursued a policy of obscurantism on the larg­est scale; they have forced upon us alcohol and opium in order to weaken our race.  


In the economic field, they have shamelessly exploited our people, driven them into the worst misery and mercilessly plundered our country.  They have ruthlessly appropriated our rice fields, mines, forests and raw materials. They have arrogated to themselves the privilege of issu­ing banknotes, and monopolized all our exter­nal commerce. They have imposed hundreds of unjustifiable taxes, and reduced our countrymen, especially the peasants and petty tradesmen, to extreme poverty.  


They have prevented the development of native capital enterprises; they have exploited our workers in the most barbarous manner.  


In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese fascists, in order to fight the Allies, invaded Indo­china and set up new bases of war, the French imperialists surrendered on bended knees and handed over our country to the invaders.  


Subsequently, under the joint French and Japanese yoke, our people were literally bled white. The consequences were dire in the extreme. From Quảng-Trị up to the North, two mil­lions of our countrymen died from starvation during the first months of this year.  


On March 9th, 1945, the Japanese disarmed the French troops. Again the French either fled or surrendered unconditionally. Thus, in no way have they proved capable of “protecting” us; on the contrary, within five years they have twice sold our country to the Japanese.  


In fact, since the autumn of 1940, our country ceased to be a French colony and became a Japanese possession.  


After the Japanese surrender, our people, as a whole, rose up and proclaimed their sover­eignty and founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam.  


The truth is that we have wrung back our independence from Japa­nese hands and not from the French.  

 

The French fled, the Japanese surrendered. Emperor Bao Dai abdicated, our people smashed the yoke which pressed hard upon us for nearly one hundred years, and finally made our Viet Nam an independent country. Our people at the same time overthrew the monarchical regime established tens of centuries ago, and founded the Republic.


For these reasons, we, the members of the Provisional Government representing the entire people of Viet Nam, declare that we shall from now on have no more connections with imperialist France; we consider null and void all the treaties France has signed concerning Viet Nam, and we hereby cancel all the privileges that the French arrogated to themselves on our territory.

 

The Vietnamese people, animated by the same common resolve, are determined to fight to the death against all attempts at aggression by the French imperialists.

 

We are convinced that the Allies who have recognized the principles of equality of peoples at the Conference of Teheran and San Francisco cannot but recognize the independence of Viet Nam. 

 

A people which has so stubbornly opposed the French domination for more than 80 years, a people who, during these last years, so doggedly ranged itself and fought on the Allied side against Fascism, such a people has the right to be free, such a people must be independent.

 

For these reasons, we, the members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, solemnly declare to the world: “Viet Nam has the right to be free and independent and, in fact, has become free and independent.  The people of Viet Nam decide to mobilise all their spiritual and material forces and to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their right of Liberty and Independence.”