Word: minh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Communism was on the move in Asia, massively and triumphantly. Ho Chi Minh moved into Hanoi as the non-Communist forces retreated sullenly before him, bickering in a fashion which suggested that, before long, Ho might also be moving into Saigon and all of Indo-China...
...Hanoi, Viet Minh officials, all correctness and efficiency, moved into city offices as if they had always owned them. Viet Minh propagandists set up scores of "centers of political education for the people." Past fluttering banks of gold-starred flags, wispy Ho Chi Minh returned triumphantly to the city from which he fled in 1946 to hide in the jungle and mastermind Communism's war for Indo-China...
Missing from the scene of triumph was Ho Chi Minh, who has scarcely been seen by Western eyes since 1947. "He is working on an important task elsewhere," explained a newspaper, and from "elsewhere" a decree was issued over the 63-year-old Red leader's name proclaiming Hanoi the capital of Communist Indo-China. President Ho, the Communists indicated, will make his entry next week in time to receive India's Prime Minister Nehru when he stops off on his way to see Communist China's rulers in Peking...
...first taste of trouble came with an announcement of Communist fiscal policy. The only currency valid in the Northern zone was to be Communist Ho Chi Minh's piasters, a printed currency that had no value before Geneva. The Communists arbitrarily based it on the price of rice, 230 piasters for two pounds of grain. But since rice prices fluctuate wildly from area to area and from season to season, the currency would depend on the crop, thus make it impossible for any Northern businessmen to set up a solid business. Imports would be next to impossible...
What happened in the textile city of Namdinh (pop. 100,000), the third largest city in the north, was enough to scare even the most optimistic French businessman. As soon as the Reds arrived, everybody was ordered to turn in his nationalist piasters (value: 3? U.S.) for Ho Chi Minh piasters, got the arbitrary rate of 22 Ho Chi Minh piasters to one nationalist. Prices soared. After a short period of false prosperity, while merchants sold their stocks at wild prices, all business came to a standstill. Import taxes of 30% to 40% were levied on new goods, killing...