He was a Commie long before that:MoJo wrote:Contrary to most current and contemporary thinking, Ho Chi Minh wanted a democracy for Vietnam. If the US and other western powers would have backed Ho instead of the French at the end of WWII things could have been different. Unfortunately, the USSR and Red China moved in, and Ho adopted Communism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_MinhFrom 1919–23, while living in France, Nguyễn began to approach the political path, through his friend and Socialist Party of France comrade Marcel Cachin. Nguyễn claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police only had documents of his arrival in June 1919.[7] He joined in a group of Vietnamese nationalists in Paris whose leaders were Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Văn Trường, bearing a new name Nguyễn Ái Quốc (“Nguyễn the Patriot”). Following World War I, the group petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored.[11] Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, they expected U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to help remove the French colonial rule from Vietnam and ensure the formation of a new, nationalist government. Although they were unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, the failure further radicalized Nguyễn, while also making him a symbol of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam.[12]
In 1920, as a representative in the Congress of Tours of Socialist Party of France, Quốc voted for the Third International and became a founding member of the Parti Communiste Français (FCP). Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of PCF, he tried to attract his comrades' attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. In this period he learned to write journal articles and short stories as well as running his Vietnamese nationalist group.