Ho Chi Minh's Ghost

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Death of the Revolution? || Life Goes On || Parents and Children of the Revolution

Death of the Revolution?

Ho Chi Minh died of a massive heart attack on September 2, 1969. Contrary to his last wishes for a simple burial, the Communist Party leadership organized a state funeral and nation-wide mourning. Ho's body was embalmed, placed under glass, and displayed in a mausoleum. The revolutionary leader's embalmed body was turned into a symbol for the (dead?) revolution.

The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was built in Hanoi to house Ho's embalmed body. The large marble mausoleum is located at the symbolic center of the nation, the site where Ho Chi Minh read Vietnam's declaration of independence in August 1945.

Life Goes On

Parents and Children of the Revolution

Visiting the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and viewing Ho's embalmed body is one of the state rituals of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Inside, visitors read Ho's famous revolutionary slogan: "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom." This state commemoration project is intended to disseminate the dead leader's revolutionary spirit throughout the entire nation for generations to come.

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Continues...... Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam's socialist art and propaganda