Freedom As A Weapon Of Communism

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

We all learned about the Declaration of Independence in school. Mention of it often conjures up
a vague medley of stars, stripes, and founding fathers–or perhaps a group of costumed men in
powdered wigs bending over a table, signing the document that was to become a rallying point
for our national, and more importantly, personal freedoms. We take a certain pride in the thought
that the United States formed an example of democracy first in a monarchical world, and later in
the dark times when communism hung over civilization like a cloud.

The Declaration was, at the time of its ratification, a novel document, an example eagerly
followed by many former colonies and oppressed nations. When we think of it at all, we think of
it as so entwined with democracy and critical individual freedoms that it must be abhorrent to
anyone who is not a proponent of ‘our’ system. But not all of its admirers were striving for
democratic equality. The versatility of the form gave it broad appeal as a national freedom
declaration. A group of revolutionaries did not need to be strict proponents of democracy to
borrow the Declaration’s assertions of freedom, nor was it necessary to heed the second
paragraph with its statements of individual rights. And so tucked in between the stories of true
and semi democracies, we find other freedom movements that do not even pretend to be
democratic. Perhaps one of the clearest examples can be found in the work of Ho Chi Minh, a
famous Vietnamese communist leader, whose declaration borrowed from and paraphrased the US
version without attaining its principles. While the US and Vietnamese declarations appear to
uphold similar ideals, the communist reality of Ho Chi Minh’s regime systematically subverted
and finally nullified the stated ‘inalienable rights’ rather than making them a foundation of
governance.

Ho Chi Minh, son of a poor Vietnamese scholar, left his homeland to spend time in England, the
US, and France during World War I. After hostilities ended, he traveled back to his native haunts
to begin a series of intrigues and irregular campaigns to free Vietnam from imperial France.
Although the revolution he staged was one of the longest and deadliest of 20th-century freedom
movements, it was not unpopular with the people–at least at first. ‘Uncle Ho,’ as he was lovingly
referred to, wrote a declaration to France which made overt reference to the US Declaration:

“All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and
happiness…”

In the next line, he quotes the French Declaration, itself heavily influenced by the original US
document.

“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights…These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety
and Resistance to Oppression.”

France had long been the colonial power over Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh studied the situation
carefully while he was in France and it was there that he began to work towards the goal of
freedom for his country. If, he argued, the inviolable rights of man are to liberty and resistance to
oppression, then necessarily French oversight of Vietnam was unlawful. In the years ahead, he
would fight and fight hard for the nation’s freedom. But national freedom is only one part of the
US Declaration. There are also individual freedoms and rights, and it is here that the shadow of
Communism’s tyranny comes out into the open.

Ho Chi Minh’s almost utopic vision crumbled under the crushing realities of guerrilla warfare
and resultant famine, destruction, and anarchy. When the country was divided, and he and his
adherents were cut off from the rich farmlands of South Vietnam in resource-poor North
Vietnam, he was forced to appeal to his communist neighbors. To maintain the resistance, he
consolidated power and complemented his totalitarian regime with ‘purges’ to maintain control.
To give an example, the Land Reform Campaign of 1953-56 systematically redistributed land
holdings of the wealthy to their less fortunate neighbors. Typically, this was done under cover of
accusations of criminal activity, ostracism, imprisonment, or even execution. Thus individual
rights–the concepts of freedom of life, property, and liberty–were rendered meaningless.

Near the end of his declaration, Ho Chi Minh wrote,

“Our people…have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of
centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.”

It was not democratic. Life and liberty and the freedom to work and trade and pursue happiness
were not privileges available to the individual except as they served the purposes of the state.
Instead of serving a monarchy, the people were obliged to bow to communism–tyranny of the
same kind under a different name.

For us, the Declaration of Independence is a declaration of national and individual freedoms, of
democracy that while flawed generally allows us to live out our lives unhindered. But for the
people of North Vietnam, it was political cover for a regime just as totalitarian and perhaps more
oppressive than colonialism. It is not enough for the language of freedom to influence rising
states; it must be backed by the moral frameworks underpinning democracy. Otherwise, it is a
weapon to be wielded against the people it is supposed to protect.

Hannah Fritsch from Lipscomb University authored this article as part of VOC’s Student Essay Contest.