Youth Union founding day, 26 March

From the founding of the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League in Guangzhou in 1925, Nguyễn Ái Quốc placed great faith in the young. The training courses there were mainly for young people, who then returned home and went into factories, plantations and schools to spread ideas and build the movement.

Around 1926, eight Vietnamese boys from expatriate families in Siam were chosen to study in Guangzhou and formed a group of young pioneers, one of the earliest revolutionary youth organisations. Among them was Lê Hữu Trọng, renamed Lý Tự Trọng by Nguyễn Ái Quốc, who would become the most celebrated example of Vietnamese youth.

In March 1931 the second plenum of the Party Central Committee met in Saigon, devoted much of its time to work among young people and decided to found the Indochinese Communist Youth Union. The plenum stressed that youth were a vital force for the revolution and needed an organisation of their own to gather and train them.

In the same year, on 21 November 1931, Lý Tự Trọng was executed by the French colonial authorities at just 17, after being arrested while protecting a rally. Before the court the young man spoke proudly of his ideals. He is regarded as the union's first member, and his name is given to an award for youth leaders and to many schools across the country.

The path of youth can only be the path of revolution; there can be no other

Lý Tự Trọng, before the colonial court, 1931

The union changed its name several times to match the tasks of each period. From 1931 it was the Indochinese Communist Youth Union. From 1937 to 1939 it was the Indochinese Democratic Youth Union, tied to the struggle for livelihoods and democratic rights. From 1939 it became the Indochinese Anti-Imperialist Youth Union. In 1941, when the Việt Minh front was formed, it took the name Vietnam National Salvation Youth Union.

In 1956 it became the Vietnam Working Youth Union. In 1970, after President Hồ Chí Minh passed away, it was named after him as the Hồ Chí Minh Working Youth Union. In December 1976 the Fourth Party Congress renamed it the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union, the name it still carries today.

During the resistance against France, youth volunteer brigades built roads and carried supplies for the Điện Biên Phủ campaign. In 1951 President Hồ Chí Minh gave a youth volunteer unit four lines of verse that young people still repeat whenever they face a hard task. In 1961 the third national Youth Union congress set 26 March as the union's annual founding anniversary.

During the war against the United States, the Three Readies movement in the North and the Five Volunteers movement in the South sent millions of young people to the front, onto the supply routes and into work on the home front. Many young people of that era became symbols of courage and of a readiness to take on the hardest jobs.

Nothing is too hard / If only the heart holds firm / Dig through mountains, fill the sea / With resolve, it can be done

President Hồ Chí Minh, to youth volunteers, 1951

Today, March is Youth Month every year. Youth Union branches in schools, offices and companies organise blood drives, green Sundays, tree planting, village road repairs, career advice and job fairs. It is also the time to admit new members, often on 26 March itself to make the moment more meaningful.

Beyond March, the volunteer spirit carries on through summer campaigns such as Green Summer, exam-season support for students and volunteer teams heading to remote areas. For young working people, 26 March is a reminder that youth is when we learn fastest and dare to try most, and that it is best spent on work that matters.