Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai

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Nguyen Thi Minh Khai (born November 1, 1910 in Vinh ; † August 28, 1941 ) was a Vietnamese activist of the Communist Party of Vietnam in French Indochina . She supported the underground party since her youth and rose to be a leading member of the party. She was arrested by the French colonial authorities in 1940 and executed the following year.

The historiography of the Communist Party in Vietnam portrays her as the heroine and martyr of the struggle for independence.

Origin and career

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai was born in Nghe An as the daughter of a railroad worker . Her grandfather was a Mandarin who eventually lost his status and worked for him on the railroad. She attended school in the provincial capital Vinh . Already during her school days she was active in anti-colonial circles. She initially worked in the non-communist, clandestine Revolutionary Party of New Vietnam (Vietnamese: Tân Việt Cách mệnh Đảng ). In 1930 she was a founding member of the Indochinese Communist Party. A year earlier, she had gone underground due to the threat of persecution by the colonial authorities.

Party activity

In 1930 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai acted as the private secretary of Ho Chi Minh in exile in Hong Kong . There are reports that she had a marriage-like relationship with Ho Chi Minh. The party sources are silent on this. In 1931 she was arrested by the British security authorities in Hong Kong and, as her cover identity could not be refuted, expelled to China. She was arrested again there, but released a few months later. She then traveled to Moscow and took part in the 7th Congress of the Communist International in 1935 . In the process, she married the high-ranking party activist Lê Hồng Phong . Her sister married Vo Nguyen Giap, a military leader in the party . Nguyen Thi Minh Khai returned to Indochina and led the Communist Party cell in Saigon as secretary . In July 1940 she was arrested by the French security authorities and executed the following year. The colonial authorities, along with other communist cadres, ordered her execution in response to a failed Communist uprising in Indochina in autumn 1940.

Her husband Le Hong Phong died in 1942 as a result of torture on the prison island of Poulo Condore.

Historiography and souvenirs

In the official historiography of Vietnam, which is dominated by the communist party, Ngyuen Thi Minh Khai is one of the martyrs of the communist independence movement venerated by state propaganda. The historian Christopher Goscha classifies her as an exponent of the first generation of women in Vietnam to be trained according to modern standards, who have broken out of traditional Confucian gender roles.

In Ho Chi Minh City, one of the main streets was named after her.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bruce L. Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Oxford 2006, p. 276
  2. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. Berkeley 2009, p. 307
  3. ↑ a b c Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Santa Barbara, 2011, pp. 836f
  4. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. Berkeley 2009, p. 339
  5. ↑ Bruce L. Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Oxford 2006, p. 276
  6. ↑ Christopher Goscha: Vietnam - A New History. New York 2016, p. 110, p. 359
personal data
SURNAME Nguyễn, Thị Minh Khai
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nguyễn, Thị Vịnh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Activist of the Communist Party of Vietnam in French Indochina
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Vinh
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1941
Place of death Hóc Môn