Ton Duc Thang

Ton Duc Thang,

1888–1980, Vietnamese politician. He was an early supporter of Ho Chi MinhHo Chi Minh
, 1890–1969, Vietnamese nationalist leader, president of North Vietnam (1954–69), and one of the most influential political leaders of the 20th cent. His given name was Nguyen That Thanh. In 1911 he left Vietnam, working aboard a French liner.
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 and was imprisoned (1929–45) by the French colonial regime. After Vietnamese independence, he rose quickly in the North Vietnamese Communist party. He was vice president (1960–69) and became president of North Vietnam, a largely ceremonial position, upon Ho's death in 1969. After 1976, Ton was president of the newly reunited Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Ton Duc Thang

 

Born Aug. 20, 1888, in Long Xuyen Province. Veteran of the revolutionary movement in Vietnam. State figure of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Member of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) since 1930.

Ton Due Thang was born into a peasant family. While still young he became an adherent of the revolutionary movement. In 1910 he went to work in a factory in Saigon, and in 1912 he went to France and became a sailor. In 1919, while in the French Navy, Ton Due Thang took part in an uprising of French sailors in the Black Sea. After his demobilization in 1919,. he worked in the Renault plant in Paris. Returning to his native country in 1920, Ton Due Thang joined the revolutionary struggle and was a founder of the Fellowship of Revolutionary Youth of Vietnam in 1925. In 1929 he was arrested by the French colonial regime, sentenced to 20 years at hard labor, and deported to the island of Poulo Condore, where he remained until the victory of the August Revolution of 1945.

After the revolution, Ton Due Than was a leader of the armed struggle against the French imperialists in South Vietnam. In 1951 he became a member of the Central Committee of the CPV. He served as vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) from 1949 to 1955, and as chairman of the committee from 1955 to 1960. After serving as vice-president of the DRV from 1960 to 1969, Ton Due Thang became president in 1969. From July 1976 he was president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

From 1951 to 1955, Ton Due Thang was chairman of the Standing Committee of the Lien Viet (United Vietnam National Front), and from 1955 to 1977 he was chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Patriotic Front of Vietnam. He was chairman of the Society for Vietnamese-Soviet Friendship from 1950 to 1969. Since 1977, Ton Due Thang has been the honorary chairman of the Patriotic Front of Vietnam. In 1955, Ton Due Thang won the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Nations; in 1967 he was awarded the Order of Lenin and in 1978 the Order of the October Revolution.