page_title: North Vietnam
section_title: Proclamation of the republic
hierarchical_section_title: North Vietnam / Leadership under Hồ Chí Minh (1945–69) / Proclamation of the republic
caption_attribution_description: English: Cabinet of Vietnam Government 1945
context_page_description: North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was a state in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976.
  During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh, declared independence from French Indochina on 2 September 1945, announcing the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Việt Minh was a coalition of multiple Vietnamese nationalist groups, mostly led by communists after the reestablishment of the previously banned Communist Party of Vietnam in February 1951.
  France moved in to reassert its colonial dominance over Vietnam which led to the First Indochina War in December 1946, a guerrilla war between France and the Việt Minh. The Việt Minh captured and controlled most of the rural areas in Vietnam which led to French defeat in 1954. The negotiations in the Geneva Conference that year ended the war and recognized Vietnamese independence. The Geneva Accords provisionally divided the country into a northern and a southern zone along the 17th parallel, stipulating general elections scheduled for July 1956 to "bring about the unification of Viet-Nam".
context_section_description: After about 300 years of partition by feudal dynasties, Vietnam was again under one single authority in 1802 when Gia Long founded the Nguyễn dynasty, but the country became a French protectorate after 1883 and under Japanese occupation after 1940 during World War II. Soon after Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945, the Việt Minh in the August Revolution entered Hanoi, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 2 September 1945: a government for the entire country, replacing the Nguyễn dynasty. Hồ Chí Minh became leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt had spoken against French rule in Indochina, and the U.S. was supportive of the Viet Minh at this time.
caption: The North Vietnamese government in 1945
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