Lien Viet

(full name, Hoi Lien Hiep Quoc Dan Viet Nam; United Vietnam National Front), founded in May 1946. The Lien Viet included the Vietminh front (which retained its organizational independence), several organizations that were affiliated with or members of the Vietminh, and parties and individual politicians outside the Vietminh’ front.

The principal members of the Lien Viet were the Vietminh, the General Confederation of Workers of Vietnam (founded in July 1946), the Society for the Study of Marxism-Leninism (founded in November 1945), the Union of Women of Vietnam (founded in October 1946), the Federation of Vietnamese Youth (founded in 1946), the Democratic Party of Vietnam (founded in 1944), and the Socialist Party of Vietnam (founded in July 1946). For several months the Lien Viet also included two right-wing bourgeois nationalist parties—the National Party of Vietnam (Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang) and the Vietnamese Revolutionary Union (Viet Nam Cath Mang Dong Minh Hoi, known as Dong Minh Hoi). Subsequently, only a small progressive group from the Dong Minh Hoi remained in the Lien Viet. In 1951 the Vietminh and Lien Viet merged to form a national front, which retained the name of Lien Viet. In March 1951 the Workers’ Party of Vietnam officially joined the Lien Viet.

The Lien Viet played a great role in rallying and mobilizing the popular masses for the struggle against the French aggressors in the Indochina War (Vietnamese People’s War of Resistance of 1945-54). The national congress of the front, held in September 1955, adopted a resolution calling for the dissolution of the Lien Viet and its replacement by the Patriotic Front of Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh was honorary president of the Lien Viet from 1946 to 1955; Huynh Thuk Khang was the organization’s chairman from 1946 to March 1951, and Ton Due Thang from March 1951 to September 1955. The press organ of the Lien Viet was the newspaper Cuu Quoc.