Le Duan Biography

Born April 7, 1908
Quang Tri Province, Vietnam
Died July 10, 1986
Hanoi, Vietnam

North Vietnamese political leader

Le Duan was one of the leaders of the Communist Party in Vietnam for nearly thirty years. He first joined the Communist rebels as a young man during their fight for independence from French rule. In 1930 he joined Ho Chi Minh (see entry) and other future North Vietnamese leaders in forming the Indochinese Communist Party. Le Duan rose through the ranks to become secretary general of the party, which had become known as the Vietnamese Workers' Party, in 1957. During the Vietnam War, he convinced Ho Chi Minh to support the South Vietnamese guerrilla fighters known as the Viet Cong. Le Duan remained in charge of the Vietnamese Communist Party until his death in 1986, although some younger members had begun to view his ideas as outdated by that time.