Uncle Ho at Dong Hieu Farm 60 years ago

On March 24, 1956, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Nghiem Xuan Yem signed a decision to establish two farms, Dong Hieu and Tay Hieu, with Hieu River as the boundary. Since its inception, Dong Hieu Farm has strived to implement the 3-year plan (1958 - 1960), maximizing internal resources and taking advantage of the Soviet Union's assistance in terms of experts, techniques, facilities, and staff training. The farm launched emulation movements, promoting initiatives to improve tools. Through emulation movements, many typical advanced examples have emerged, such as Ms. Dau Thi Hanh (coffee master), Mr. Ho Cong Y (tobacco master), etc.

Representatives of cadres and workers of Dong Hieu Farm (Nghia Dan) welcomed Uncle Ho to visit. Photo: Document

By the end of 1961, Dong Hieu Farm emerged as a comprehensive model of the farm sector in the whole country. Many Party and State leaders visited and encouraged, such as Comrade Hoang Quoc Viet (Chairman of the General Confederation of Labor), Nguyen Con (Member of the Party Central Committee)... and a number of foreign delegations came to exchange and learn experiences such as Mongolia, Japan,... Most notablyThe farm was honored to welcome Uncle Ho to visit.December 10, 1961.

At about 9 o'clock that morning, a helicopter flew in and landed at the stadium on the east side of Dong Hieu Farm. Uncle Ho stepped out of the plane wearing a simple khaki outfit that had faded over time. He wore a round-brimmed white hat, white socks in rubber sandals, and waved his right arm to greet the people as he walked, his face beaming with a bright smile. After receiving the bouquets of fresh flowers from the children, Uncle turned to ask Comrade Manh: Are you the Farm Manager? Comrade Manh replied: Yes, I am the Director. Uncle Ho immediately corrected himself: Manager! Uncle Manh felt a little embarrassed.

To pick up Uncle Ho from the landing site to the grandstand at the central stadium for the talk, a provincial Volga car was waiting, but Uncle Ho rode in an old, open-top GAT-69 with license plate BAA827 of the Farm, driven by comrade Hoang Vinh Khanh (from the South). Taking advantage of the time sitting in the car, Uncle Ho asked comrade Manh many questions about the Farm such as: area, production, does the Farm grow rice? number of workers? This Farm used to be a French plantation, so are there many old workers... When the car passed the Farm's infirmary, Uncle Ho immediately asked uncle Manh: Is this area your office? Yes, this is the infirmary. Uncle Ho immediately corrected: It should be called a hospital!

Uncle Ho visited the coffee garden of Dong Hieu State Farm. Photo: Document

The convoy arrived at the central stadium. Everyone thought that Uncle Ho was sitting in the Volga car in front, but they didn't expect that he was sitting in the GAT 69 car. The car reached the electric pole in a corner of the stadium. Uncle Ho sat in the car and saw the slogan written on the banner: "Enthusiastically responding to the Lam Tra Noi Song campaign" (a campaign launched by the Nghe An Party Committee). However, because the words were cut without accents, Uncle Ho asked Uncle Manh to read them to him. Then he reminded him: The words must be written with accents so that people can easily understand them and bad people cannot take advantage of it and distort it.

Stepping onto the stage, Uncle Ho waved his white hat to the people and signaled for everyone to sit down and listen to his speech. The speech began with the sentence: "Today, Uncle Ho and comrades Vo Thuc Dong and Nguyen Khai, on behalf of the Party Central Committee and the Government, visited and talked with you at the Farm and the local people." As soon as Uncle Ho finished speaking, the whole stadium applauded enthusiastically for a long time. Uncle Ho signaled for everyone to be quiet. Then he continued: "This Farm has made quite a lot of progress, such as increasing the reclaimed area, increasing labor productivity, reducing costs... I am pleased to praise the farm's cadres and workers. There has been quite a lot of progress, but it is not 100% good... I praise to encourage you, not to make you complacent with your achievements and not strive any further...".

Next, Uncle Ho advised the Farm to pay attention to promoting more comprehensive technical improvements; to compete continuously and more widely; to pay comprehensive attention to cultivation; to turn the farm into both an enterprise and an agricultural one... Uncle Ho also advised: "To do that, every cadre, every worker needs to promote the spirit of mastery, mastery of the State, mastery of the farm... Being a master does not mean eating as much as you want, working as much as you want. Being a master means making the farm prosper, producing a lot... Knowing how to unite internally, unite between the farm and local people... To do that, there must be leadership... The Party Committee alone cannot do it, but must have Party cells and all Party members..., union members, youth...".

Uncle Ho visited the livestock farm of Dong Hieu Farm. Photo: Document

Uncle named three exemplary comrades in production, study and with many initiatives: Tran Kim Manh (Director), Nguyen Van Lang (Head of Cultivation), Vo Trong Tao (Head of Livestock) and gave badges to those three comrades. Then Uncle continued, now, if any of you want to be rewarded, raise your hands. Everyone raised their hands. Uncle said again calmly: “Uncle and the Central Committee are ready to reward you if you can keep up with those soldiers. There is a “deal”, you know. If you can do it and Uncle doesn’t reward you, it is Uncle’s fault. If Uncle is ready to reward you but you can’t do it, whose fault is it? (Someone answered: it is you)… Do you agree?...”.

Before ending the talk, Uncle asked the ladies and gentlemen to convey his greetings and those of the Party Central Committee to the friendly farms and local people, then continued: “The farms have the duty to unite and help local people. The techniques of the farms are more advanced, so the local people need to unite with the farms, learn the working methods of the farms, build good cooperatives, and make the lives of the members more and more prosperous, that is socialism. Can you do that?”

The talk at the stage lasted about 1 hour (around 9 to 10 am) and ended with the song "Solidarity" led by Uncle Ho.

After the talk at the grandstand, Uncle Ho and other comrades visited some places in the farm such as visiting coffee lot 119 of the Nai Sinh Team; visiting the farm's pig breeding farm; visiting the unit's kitchen; visiting the farm's traditional room and talking intimately with the farm's leaders. Uncle Ho sent his best wishes to the elderly, children and people of all ethnic groups...

Youth Union members of Thai Hoa town restore the relic of Uncle Ho's visit to Dong Hieu Farm on December 10, 1961 in Dong Hieu commune, Thai Hoa town. Photo: Tran Tu

At 3:00 p.m. that same day, Uncle Ho walked around, waved goodbye to everyone who came to see him off, gave a few more instructions, then boarded the plane to say goodbye to Dong Hieu with the last words: Uncles, aunts, children, stay away from the plane, or the spinning propeller will stir up dust! Seeing Uncle Ho off on the plane, everyone was moved, both regretful and disappointed, and many cried. Those images and memories could never fade in everyone's mind...

Having been visited and talked to by Uncle Ho, the cadres and workers of Dong Hieu Farm seemed to be given a new breath of life to continue working and producing better. Over the past 60 years since Uncle Ho visited, generations of cadres and workers of the farm in particular, cadres and people of Thai Hoa town and Nghia Dan district in general have always carried out the spirit of his teachings, always promoted the tradition of patriotism, determined to overcome all difficulties and challenges and achieve achievements in all fields.

December 10, 1961 - the day Uncle Ho visited Dong Hieu Coffee Farm was also chosen by the Government as Vietnam Coffee Day. On December 23, 2015, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism signed Decision No. 447 recognizing the National Historical Relic Site of Uncle Ho's Visit to Dong Hieu Farm as a National Historical Relic. The relic site is a "red address" that always promotes its values, especially the traditional educational value of the source associated with the implementation of "Studying and following Ho Chi Minh's ideology, morality and style".

A corner of Thai Hoa town seen from above. Photo: Contributor