Original: H led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.
Simplified: In 1976, in imitation of its mentor, the Soviet Union, the victorious Communist North renamed the capital of the non-Communist South, Saigon, to Ho Chi Minh City, in honor of their leader.