The 110th birth anniversary of late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, a prominent leader of Vietnam’s revolution in the 20th century, was marked at his memorial site in Duc Tan commune, central Quang Ngai province, on March 1.

Pham Van Dong at the Geneva Conference in 1954.

The ceremony was attended by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, many members of the Politburo and Party Central Committee, and Bounthong Divixay – a member of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Central Committee and Governor of the Lao province of Champasak.

At the event, Secretary of the Quang Ngai Party Committee Le Viet Chu recalled the life and career of the late PM, who was a Politburo member and an adviser to the Party Central Committee. Dong was also an excellent disciple of the late President Ho Chi Minh.

Pham Van Dong, alias To, was born on March 1, 1906 in Duc Tan commune of Mo Duc district. He joined the revolutionary youth movement in Hanoi in 1924.

In May 1940, he met Ho Chi Minh, who was then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc, in China’s Kunming. There he became a member of the Indochinese Communist Party – the predecessor of the Communist Party of Vietnam – and engaged in revolutionary activities in China’s Liuzhou.

In early 1941, he and Vo Nguyen Giap were sent back to Vietnam to build revolutionary bases in the northern provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Can and Lang Son.

In August 1945, Pham Van Dong was elected to the National Liberation Committee at the Tan Trao National People’s Congress. After the August Revolution, he was appointed as the Finance Minister of the Government of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam and elected a deputy of the first National Assembly.

He led the Vietnamese delegation to the Fontainebleau Conference in France in 1946 and the Geneva Conference in 1954.

In September 1954, Pham Van Dong was assigned to concurrently hold the positions of the Deputy PM, Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations.

He was appointed as the PM by the National Assembly in September 1955 and continued to be entrusted with the post at the third National Party Congress five years later.

He passed away in 2000.

Addressing the ceremony, Politburo member and Deputy PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc hailed the late PM as a talented politician, theorist, diplomat and cultural thinker, who was respected by his peers, Vietnamese people as well as international friends.

VNA