This letter dated September 8, 1921 was written in French and signed by Nguyen Ai Quoc to French pastor Ulysse Soulier, the co-founder of a protestant missionary project in Indochina and the co-author of a 50-page document entitled “The call of French Indochina, for the Protestants-France-in Indochina.”
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Nguyen Ai Quoc's letter to pastor Ulysse Soulier |
When the document was released, Nguyen Ai Quoc was actively working in France and wrote the letter to the French pastor, in which he emphasized his strong national viewpoints. In the letter, Nguyen Ai Quoc said that the Vietnamese people were oppressed physically, socially, politically, and spiritually. Therefore, they could not become good Protestant believers, as their suffering was just partly eased. One cannot make a healthy person by curing only part of his illness. On the contrary, there are many risks that can make a patient paralyzed.
To conclude the letter, Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote that to change a spirit of a people, especially a nation with customs, traditions, and sensibilities formed over the course of thousands of years, one must grasp that people’s mind.
The letter is considered one of the earliest private and political sources from the revolutionary life of President Ho Chi Minh found to date.
According to Assoc. Prof., and Dr. Pascal Bourdeaux, a lecturer at École pratique des Hautes Études, a school in Paris, the letter was written in the year when political views were formed and in the period when there were few archives about Ho Chi Minh’s activities in France. Therefore, the finding of this original document was rare and unprecedented.
The letter is more important with the autograph of the French pastor on the left margin of the first page of the letter written in 1965 when the war in Vietnam escalated fiercely, and the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, also known as the 2nd Vatican Council was opened under the pontificate of Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962 and closed under the pontificate of Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. The council symbolized the opening of Protestantism with contemporary culture and modern world, application of technological advances, and recognition of liberation of nations. In that religious and political context, pastor Soulier read Nguyen Ai Quoc’s letter which was sent to him 44 years ago. He admitted that Nguyen Ai Quoc’s thought was accurate, but the eyes of the French Protestant believers were still not wide enough.
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Défap Library where the letter has been preserved |
The French pastor also showed his interest in Nguyen Ai Quoc’s writing on borderless religion by giving a mark on the paragraph on the matter. In that paragraph, Nguyen Ai Quoc wrote that Christ’s work was to liberate people while colonialism worked to oppress and subjugate them. He emphasized that a controlled Indochina could not be a truly Indochina of Christianity. Nguyen Ai Quoc’s straightforward, decisive, and polite words impressed the French pastor.
Pastor Soulier's brief autograph written when colonialism was defeated all over the world demonstrated his full acknowledgement of Uncle Ho's strategic vision. Thus, nearly a century later the rare letter with Uncle Ho's signature has shown us President Ho Chi Minh’s strategic vision, wisdom, and wholeheartedness for his people.
Translated by Mai Huong