PHAM VAN DONG

..... When speaking about the Will, first of all we have to speak about the man who wrote it. It is the man who had struggled for his whole life for the noblest ideal in the present-day era, which Lenin had correctly judged as intelligence, good senses and honour of the times.

It is the fighter who had indefatigably struggled in all the sixty years for the noble goals of the Vietnamese nation, being national independence in combination with socialism, the staunch and undaunted revolutionary who had overcome innumerable difficulties and obstacles, always held initiative and seized opportunities, hitting right at the targets so as to advance towards the destination. The source of this miraculous strength is the personal Ho Chi Minh with his noble qualities in close association with the fine traditions of the nation, with the quintessence of human kind, the peak of which is the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, the light of the times. The source of this miraculous strength is the profound confidence in the great potentialities of the nation and people of Vietnam. In short, Ho Chi Minh Thought has always originated from human being and finally returned to human being with the possiblities of its myriad changes.

It is known to all that the goals Ho Chi Minh had striven to achieve is national independence in combination with socialism and this is the process of revolutionary struggle experiencing through various periods and stages. Ho Chi Minh’s life of activities had completed the first stage, a very difficult and important stage, an extremely essential step of the eradication of the old and the construction of the new, or in other words, there are still so many things to be done. Ho Chi Minh, of all people, was deeply conscious of all the things I have mentioned above, so when he was reaching the age of “seventy”, he had to think about what he deemed necessary to pass down to his successors. It is certain that our Uncle Ho had thought this over and over again. He had visited Con Son and it was termed as a pilgrimage to the abode of national hero Nguyen Trai during the last years of his life. Upon starting this extremely important work, Uncle Ho had gone through so many tosses and turns, recalling his life in close association with the fate of the people and the country, strewn with the ups and downs, but also full of triumphs, and at the same time looking forward to the future with his profound trust in the coming generations. Uncle Ho had reserved three years to write his Will, and after each year, he had spend time re-reading, correcting and adding, for a total of over 1,000 words with so great the sentiment, aspiration and mettle....

..... It should be stressed here that Uncle Ho’s cherished aspiration is “The entire Party and people unite to strive to build a prosperous, powerful, democratic, independent, reunified and peaceful Vietnam, thus making a worthy contribution to the world’s revolutionary cause”.    

The Will, short and succinct as it is, has borne innumerable values of ideology and sentiment, is the crystalisation of Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary life, that has brought about the change in life of the Vietnamese nation and at the same time, left behind the immortal haritages to the future generations....