ABSTRACT
According to Ho Chi Minh, he came to Marxism in the summer of 1920 after reading V. I. Lenin's "Theses on Nationalism and Colonialism." He had read Marxist works before, but Lenin's theses impressed him because of the links the author established between imperialism and capitalism on the one hand and imperialism and nationalism on the other. The age-old oppression of colonial and weak nationalities by the imperialist powers has not only filled the working masses of the oppressed countries with animosity towards the oppressing nations but also with distrust of them in general, even of the proletariat of those nations. The more backward a country is, the stronger is the hold within it of small agricultural production, patriarchalism and ignorance, which inevitably lends particular strength and tenacity to the deepest of petty-bourgeois prejudices, national egoism and national narrowness.
