Ton Duc Thang
Ton Duc Thang on 19th August, 1888 in Long Xuyen, Vietnam. He was known to be an enthusiastic communist when he was young. At the age of 24, he joined the French Navy. In 1918-1919 he participated an unsuccessful action to get hold of a battleship for the Bolshevik revolutionaries. In 1925, at the revolution in China, he demonstrated against the French military intervention. Therefore he was imprisoned in Poulo Condore, an island off the Southern coast of Vietnam, in 1929 and was kept there till 1945. In 1946 he appeared again as a public person after the revolution in last August. After this revolution, the leadership was at Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh. He was the president of the national assembly panel. In the war against the French (1946-1954) he was the president of the Lien Viet Party. After the Geneva Agreement that gave the Viet Minh control over North Vietnam, the Lien Viet was dissolved at was reorganized as the Fatherland Front. Ton Duc Thang remained as president. In 1955, this organization adopted the role of the Lien Viet and the Viet Minh and tried to influence the South Vietnamese. In 1960, Ton Duc Thang became the Vice President of The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The DRV supported the rebellious Vietcong in South Vietnam. Ton Duc Thang was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1967.
He succeeded Ho Chi Minh, who died in heart attack, as the president of DRV, after 1976 till his death in 1980 in Ha Noi, Vietnam, he leaded the united Socialist Republic of Vietnam.