Dustin Huddleston, The Intersection of Ho Chi Minh, Marxism, and Confucianism

“In serving one’s lord, one should approach

one’s duties with reverence and consider

  one’s pay as of secondary importance.”

-Confucius-

The woman looked confused and blurted out, “So do they worship Confucius?”

“No, no.   He is the religion’s most famous teacher.   He collected and organized the texts that became the core doctrine of Confucianism, so people kind of named the religion after him,” I explained.

“Ah, so he was like Jesus and the four Gospel writers all rolled into one!   What a guy!” boasted the husband of the woman.   He proudly smiled and nodded in the direction of the statue of Confucius.  

“Ah, no.   You see they don’t necessarily worship a central figure.   A social structure is formed from the teachings, which create relationships that influence society, ” I replied.   Hmmm, the influence of the relationships on Vietnamese society, I thought.   I might be on to something.   What an ironic place to formulate an idea for my paper!   Maybe Confucius himself was feeding me some form of divine inspiration, or maybe these people were sent here to inspire my thought process.  Or maybe I was just plain lucky.  

My thought was suddenly interrupted by the booming voice of the husband.   He had to be a military man.

“Relationships?   Sounds like brainwashing to me,” stated the husband.

“Not exactly.   You see, um, well look at it this way,” I started to say.

“You’ve got ten minutes to get back to the bus,” my Vietnamese guide, Vo Le Truc, said to me as he was walking towards the entrance of the Confucian Temple of Literature.   It was only the second day that I had been in Vietnam.

How do I explain Confucianism without confusing these people?   My mind was swirling with the information that I had read in these past months from various books on Confucianism. I didn’t think I would be tested on my knowledge so soon. Did my old Religions of Asia instructor, Wayne Elzey, put these people up to this?

“I’m sorry, I have to get going, enjoy the rest of your trip,” I said to the couple as I walked away.   My frustration at not being able to explain Confucianism to the couple was overshadowed by my sigh of relief in getting out of the situation.   As I was browsing the shop for special gifts, I picked up on my thoughts about Confucianism and Vietnamese society.

Vietnam provides an ideal example of how Confucianism can influence a country’s social and political structure.   It can make families perform extraordinary tasks for survival; it can legitimize a leader’s rule and the government he or she wishes to form; it can allow other religions to coexist peacefully.    The civil religion of Confucianism has substantially contributed to the formation of the Vietnamese state by constructing a unique social structure.  

Confucianism arrived in Vietnam as the Chinese empire spread southward during the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE).   With the Chinese conquerors came their culture, in which Confucianism was prominent, but the “Confucian” system and world-view arose during Chinese antiquity many years before its most famous teacher, Confucius, was born.  

Confucius, Kongfuzi, K’ung Fu-Tzu, or Master Kong was born in the Chinese state of Lu around the year 551 B.C.   Raised by a poor fatherless family, Confucius first worked for the government of the state of Lu.    He then traveled around Chinese states asking their rulers to implement his ideas on government.   After receiving negative receptions to his ideas, Confucius returned home to teach his philosophy.   (Moore 11-15)

The philosophy of Confucianism is enclosed in the nine ancient Chinese works handed down by Confucius and his followers. These writings can be divided into two groups: the Five Classics and the Four Books.   The Book of Changes, Book of History, Book of Poetry, Book of Rites, and Spring and Autumn Annals make up the Five Classics.   The Four Books consist of sayings by Confucius and Mencius (one of his greatest followers) and commentary on the sayings by followers of the two thinkers.  

The books preach the Confucian philosophy of civil order and ethics.   The notion of ethics is exemplified in the term ren .   Ren can be translated as love, goodness, and humanity.   Ren is the absolute virtue representing the highest form of human qualities.   Zhong   (sincerity) and shu (reciprocity) along with ren make up the structure of human relations.   The structure is supported by the Confucian golden rule, “What you do not want done to you, do not do to others” (Analects 15:23).

Along with zhong, shu, and ren, righteousness, filial piety and propriety are virtues important to social relations.   One who possesses all of these virtues becomes a qunzi, or perfect gentleman. The qunzi is surrounded by the five relationships that construct a harmonious civil order.

The five relationships make up the framework for all social relations in society.   These relationships do not restrain an individual from practicing another religion such as Buddhism.    They are civil relationships that allow other religions to coexist.   All of the relationships must be performed within the Confucian virtues of ethics: zhong , shu , ren , and qunzi.  

The first relationship involves the parent and the child.   The parent gives care, education, and moral guidelines to the child.   In turn the child gives the parent obedience, respect, and care in old age and after death.   During my visit to Vietnam in March of 2003, my group’s Vietnamese guide, Vo Le Truc, gave a personal example on the strength of the parent/child relationship.   If he wants to go out on the town, he is obligated to ask his parents for permission.   If they disapprove of the idea, he cannot go out.   The Confucian relationships prohibit Truc from disobeying his parents since he owes them obedience and respect.   Even in his adulthood, his parents retain authority over his life.   In her book Fire in the Lake, Frances Fitzgerald contrasts Confucian authority over the child to parental authority in the West: “The traditional Vietnamese child. . . grew up into a monolithic world composed of the family and its extension in the state.   For him there was no alternative to the authority of the father and no questions of the specialized knowledge” (Fitzgerald 17).

However, as Truc further explained, the relationships offer loopholes as well.   Truc said that if he really wants to go out, he would ask his grandmother.   If she approves, then Truc’s parents must respect her decision because they owe her obedience and respect as children to her.  

Truc’s parents would have to also obey the husband/wife relationship.   The husband protects the wife and provides some sort of support (money, food, a place to live).   The wife in turn is obedient to the husband and maintains the household that they live in.  

In Confucianism, the elder brother must protect and watch over his younger siblings.   The younger siblings owe their elder brother deference.   Mai, a Christian Vietnamese tailor I met in Ho Chi Minh City, spoke of the sibling relationship to me as I was being fitted for a dress shirt.   She has one younger sister, an older sister, and an older brother who watches over all three of his younger sisters.   Her brother helped start their business by providing money to buy fabric, stocking the fabric on the various shelves in the shop, and making business cards to hand out to customers like myself.   The sisters in turn give some of their profits to the elder brother to fulfill their Confucian obligation.  

These relationships frame the responsibilities within the family.   Each family member has obligations to the others.   These obligations form a tight bond between family members. A strong local society is formed when numerous families link together to live in a village.   The more isolated the area, the stronger the bond to the village.  

During the Vietnam War, that bond was tested and on display for the world to see.   Approximately twenty-five years of war against first the French and then the United States put an unprecedented strain on the Vietnamese family.   Not only was the resolve and strength of the Vietnamese family to war remarkable, but also the reaction to an outside threat was equally astonishing.  

“Astonished” was the right word to describe my demeanor as I crawled through the Cu Chi tunnels outside of Ho Chi Minh City.   Families, villages, and cadres who had inflitrated from elsewhere survived attacks by French, South Vietnamese, and American forces by building these tunnels in the villages around Cu Chi. Now the tunnels have become a tourist attraction in southern Vietnam.   Visitors can crawl through the tunnels, see examples of booby traps constructed by the Viet Cong, and even fire machine guns for a price of one American dollar per bullet.   With my ears still ringing from discharging multiple rounds of a Soviet-made AK-47, I struggled to get through the dark cool tunnels several feet underground.   As I got deeper and deeper into the tunnels, I marveled at the labor and ingenuity that was required to successfully build such a network.  

What force could have supplied the energy for this undertaking? The tight-knit villagers were inhabited the area of Cu Chi undertook this awesome display of determination and the will to survive.   As the bus driver honked his way through traffic on the way back to the hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, I remembered two examples of the determination of the people from my memorable day at the Cu Chi tourist site.  

The first was the outdated yet informal video that I saw at the beginning of the tour.   I remember a scene that showed a young Vietnamese girl carrying a rifle.   The narrator said that the girl fights in memory of her dead father.   Her will to fight is a direct result to the bond formed by the family relationships in Confucianism.   She fights for the survival of her family, just as Phung Le Ly thought it was her duty to fight for her family in the novel/movie Heaven and Earth.  

The second scene I remembered was of the mechanically-animated people working to make weapons for the villagers.   The manikins moved to show the work that took place to construct lethal weapons out of sticks, rocks, and even discharged United States military ammunition.   The scene represented villagers working together to survive.   At first glance one would think that the superior firepower of the United States military would put the villagers at a disadvantage.   Yet the villagers had something that the invading soldiers did not; they had a sense of fighting for their land and for their families.   This was their home and even if it took living in tunnels for a good part of the day to keep alive, then that is what had to be done.  

Both these cases present a compelling example of the strong bonds the family and the community form from the relationships in Confucianism.   During a crisis or threat of death, a community or family always refers back to its religious or core philosophy.   In the Cu Chi villagers’ case, that was Confucianism.   The beliefs that you grew up with help you through times of struggle and conflict.  

Americans are no strangers to looking back to religious values.   Many of the ragged patriots of the American Revolutionary War referred back to their religious values.   African American slaves incorporated Christian beliefs to help get through the hard times of slavery.   Even in times of economic despair like the Great Depression, Americans clung to their religious beliefs.  

Confucianism’s influence does not stop at creating a strong family structure.   Another relationship deals with the obligation that the ruler has to his subjects and the subjects to the ruler.   The head of state must provide care and guidance to the people he governs. He must lead with virtue and a sense of reciprocity.    The subjects in turn give the ruler loyalty and obedience.  

Ho Chi Minh knew what the Confucian doctrines said about the actions of a ruler.   In the traditional Confucian model, the Emperor must rule with virtue to establish and maintain social harmony.   If the state is ruled right, all rudiments of society will exist peacefully and fruitfully.   If the ruler does not follow the mandate sent from heaven, then society will be plagued with war, drought, and sorrow.   As Jennifer Oldstone-Moore states in her book Confucianism , the ruler must remember “The focus of Confucianism in particular is on creating harmony in human society”   (Moore 8).

The Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh came across to most of his people as an ideal example of a Confucian ruler.  He successfully tapped into the Confucian framework of the Vietnamese people.   It is no surprise that he is revered as “Uncle Ho” to the people of Vietnam.   Not only did he receive loyalty from the people of Vietnam as a ruler, but also as a family member.   His image was always that of a common man who represented guidance for the Vietnamese people.

As I walked through the Mausoleum that contains Ho’s body in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, I got a sense of how much the leader is still revered in Vietnamese society.   His image is everywhere, from billboards to currency; he even has a city named after him.   Yet he was not just a visual representative of Confucianism.   Ho reflected Confucian thinking in a variety of ways during his life.  

In many of his doctrines to the nation, we can see a Confucian essence.   William J. Duiker’s book Ho Chi Minh, A Life portrays one such instance.   After declaring Vietnam’s independence in 1945, Ho addressed several issues, one being education, at the first council of ministers located at the Northern Palace.   At that time 90% of the Vietnamese people were illiterate. The French education system during colonial rule had greatly reduced the literacy rate for the Vietnamese people.   Ho put a new decree in place instructing that all Vietnamese should learn to read and write within one year.     As Duiker observes:

         The decree carried a strong Confucian flavor: “Let those who cannot yet read and write learn to do it.   Let the

         wife learn from her husband. Let the younger brother learn from the elder.   Let parents learn from their children.

         Let girls and women study harder” (325).

Uncle Ho knew that these words would hit home with Vietnamese families.   They could relate to each individual family member educating one another.   After all, they already had their certain Confucian obligations in place, and Ho knew this.  

Ho also knew that he had to rely on the Communist countries of China and Russia after it was apparent that first the French and then the United States were not going to let him unify Vietnam peacefully.   With the aid of Russia and China came the rise of the socialist ideology in Vietnam.   How would the people react to this new form of government?    Ho wanted Confucian harmony and one Vietnamese state to exist in his countr,y and socialism was the catalyst that he would use to generate that effect.  

With his studies in Russia and his Vietnamese background, Ho knew that socialism could be tied in with Confucianism. Fitzgerald states, “Confucianism, like Marxism, focused not on the individual, but on the society as a whole”   (Fitzgerald 216).    He also knew that Western capitalism went against the Confucian doctrine.   As Duiker states:

         In the Confucian mind, Western industrialism was too easily translated into greed and an unseemly desire for self-

         aggrandizement.   By contrast, socialism stressed community effort, simplicity of lifestyle, equalization of wealth

         and opportunity, all of which had strong overtones in the Confucian tradition (63).

Other statements Ho would have seen as subscribing to a socialist doctrine are evident when Confucius speaks on equality of property and distribution of goods saying, “One need not fear of having little, but of not having equal distribution of goods” (Duiker 75).    The Confucian model for an ideal society was laced with socialist doctrines.  

Ho Chi Minh always had these fundamentals of Confucianism in his mind, even towards the end of his days.   In 1965, Ho visited the birthplace of Confucius and proclaimed that he had been a “lifelong admirer of the Old Master.”   He recited Confucian sayings that dealt with humanitarian principles.   He specifically took notice of Confucius’s principle of Great Unity and attributed it to an ancient form of a classless society  (Duiker 555).

Ho Chi Minh’s success can be attributed to his effective use of Confucianism to gain loyalty and respect from the Vietnamese people.   Leaders like Ngo Dinh Diem, who meant to rule Vietnam, tried to do the same but proved unsuccessful.   Fitzgerald writes, “ He [Ngo Dinh Diem] spoke of himself as the chosen of Heaven, the leader elected to defend Vietnamese morality and culture” (Fitzgerald 15).   Throughout his reign over the South Vietnamese government, Ngo was unable to connect closely with the United States government, and, more important, with the Vietnamese people.   The tiger cages in Ho Chi Minh City are just one example of Ngo not leading with virtue and care for his people.  

The final Confucian relationship provides a blanket of loyalty and care to a non-specific group in society.   The relationship teaches friends to be loyal to friends.   The last general relationship is broad in order to cover all relationships in society.   Other relationships outside the five exist as well: the student to the teacher and the employee to the employer.   All of these relationships limit conflict within society and provide harmony throughout humanity.

Harmony exists with respect to Confucianism and other religions.   Confucianism is a civil religion, a concept that is alien to most Westerners.   The religion is fused within society coexisting together.   This allows other religions, such as Buddhism and Christianity, to coexist peacefully with Confucianism in society.    A person can subscribe to Confucian teachings and also be a Buddhist.   Like Mai at the tailor shop in Ho Chi Minh City, a person can be a Christian and practice the five social relationships.   Fitzgerald writes on what religion was in Vietnam before French missionaries arrived, “‘Vietnamese religion’ was a blend of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism sunken into the background of animism” (Fitzgerald 14).

Some Americans have a hard time grasping this concept because of the separation of church and state.   Fitzgerald touches on these misunderstandings by Westerners to comprehend the place religion has in Vietnamese society.   She speaks about Western journalist covering the Vietnam War unable to “imagine” Vietnamese society not having the division of church and state (14).

The mistaken impressions of the journalists are related to my experience at the Confucian Temple of Literature. The American couple’s misunderstanding of Confucianism can be traced back to the notion of religion in the United States.   The state is separate from the church, creating two independent elements in society that scarcely mesh.   Churches and times of worship are highly visible in Western countries.   In Vietnamese Confucianism, temples are visible but figures of Confucius, and famous scholars confuse Westerners into thinking that the figures are the object of worship.   Religions like Christianity use days of worship and the act of worship to generate acts of kindness and social harmony.   Worship in the Western sense is not needed in Confucianism because Confucianism is social harmony.

The Confucian system has the potential to create smooth social connections.   With its five core relationships, harmony is a reachable goal.   Whether or not the goal of harmony was reached in Vietnam is not the issue.   The more important point is that the civil religion of Confucianism has substantially contributed to the formation of the Vietnamese state by constructing a unique social structure.   This civil religion influenced the Vietnamese people to overcome any outside force that threatened the bond of the family.   Ho Chi Minh successfully tapped into the Confucian ideology of the people to gain support and faith in the Vietnamese population.   Ho also used Confucian doctrine to generate acceptance of socialism among the Vietnamese.   The religion also allowed other religious expressions to coexist peacefully in the same society.   These influences helped Vietnam gain independence and create a society dominated by strong family values to provide necessary social cement.

Works Cited

Confucius: The Analects. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.    

Duiker, William J. Ho Chi Minh: A Life. New York: Theia Publishing, 2000.

Fitzgerald, Frances. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1972.  

Heaven and Earth. Warner Brothers, 1993.