Lê Duẩn

Lê Duẩn (; 7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd National Congress in 1960. When Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, he consolidated power to become the undisputed leader of North Vietnam. Upon defeating South Vietnam in the Second Indochina War in 1975, he subsequently ruled the newly unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1976 until his death in 1986.

He was born into a lower-class family in Quảng Trị Province, in the Annam Protectorate of French Indochina as Lê Văn Nhuận. Little is known about his family and childhood. He first came in contact with revolutionary thoughts in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk. Lê Duẩn was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (the future Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1930. He was imprisoned in 1931 and released in 1937. From 1937 to 1939, he climbed the party ladder. He was rearrested in 1939, this time for fomenting an uprising in the South. Lê Duẩn was released from jail following the successful Communist-led August Revolution of 1945.

During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), Lê Duẩn was an active revolutionary leader in South Vietnam. He headed the Central Office of South Vietnam, a Party organ, from 1951 until 1954. During the 1950s Lê Duẩn became increasingly aggressive towards South Vietnam and called for reunification through war. By the mid-to-late 1950s Lê Duẩn had become the second-most powerful policy-maker within the Party, eclipsing former party First Secretary Trường Chinh. By 1960 he was officially the second-most powerful Party member, after Party chairman Hồ. Throughout the 1960s, Hồ's health declined and Lê Duẩn assumed more of his responsibilities.

Following Hồ's death in 1969, Lê Duẩn assumed leadership of North Vietnam. Throughout the Second Indochina War (1955–1975), he adopted an aggressive posture, prioritizing the use of large-scale attacks in order to achieve victory. When South Vietnam was reunited with North Vietnam in 1976, he assumed the new title of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Later in December 1978, Lê Duẩn oversaw the Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia which ultimately led to the fall of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge on 7 January 1979. This had a serious impact on relations between Vietnam and China, with Vietnam responding with a period of deportation of ethnic Chinese Hoa people. China carried out an invasion on the Vietnamese northern border which was to be known as the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, though was short-lived and remained inconclusive. From then on, Vietnam maintained a closer alliance with the Soviet Union and joined Comecon in 1978.

Lê remained General Secretary until his death in 1986. He died in Hanoi; his successor was initially Trường Chinh. Lê Duẩn was also known as Lê Dung, and was known in public as "anh Ba" (third brother). Provided by Wikipedia