commerce and manufacturing, colonialism brought little improvement in livelihood to the mass of the population. In the countryside, peasants struggled under heavy taxes and high rents. Workers in factories, coal mines, and rubber plantations worked in harsh conditions for low wages. By the early 1920s, nationalist parties began to demand reform and independence. In 1930 Ho Chi Minh formed an Indochinese Communist Party. Until World War II started in 1939, such groups labored without success. In 1940, however, Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, rest!
             Citing the local French administration to a figurehead authority. Seizing the opportunity, the Communists organized the broad Vietminh Front and prepared to launch an uprising at the war's end. The Vietminh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) emphasized moderate reform and national independence rather than specifically Communist aims. The Vietminh were fighting for freedom, not communism. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, Vietminh forces arose throughout Vietnam and declared an independent republic in Hanoi. The French, however, were unwilling to concede independence and, in October, drove the Vietminh and other nationalist groups out of the south. For more than a year, the French and the Vietminh sought a negotiated solution, but the talks, held in France, failed to resolve differences and war! Ho Chi Minh even had asked for United States assistance against the French but was declined.
             Broke out in December 1946 (Karnow).
             The conflict lasted for nearly eight years. The Vietmin
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