Many years after his death, the public in Việt Nam realized that Hồ Chí Minh left a will expressing his wish to be cremated after his death. Yet in reality, Vietnamese citizens are still paying taxes for the state to do the opposite, spending an amount on his mausoleum complex equivalent to the budget of a government ministry.
The construction of the Hồ Chí Minh Mausoleum officially began on Sept. 2, 1973, four years after his death, and it was inaugurated on Aug. 29, 1975. The structure was built on the site of the old grandstand in Ba Đình Square, where many of Việt Nam’s most significant historical events took place. The total operating budget for the complex remains unclear, but one available figure allows for an estimate.
The High Cost of Administrative Maintenance
The Hồ Chí Minh Mausoleum complex is operated by a joint government body: the Hồ Chí Minh Mausoleum Management Board, a government-level agency. It works in coordination with the Mausoleum Protection Command and Regiment 375, Guard Command K10.
These two armed units are referred to as “affiliated specialized agencies,” essentially lent to the Board by their respective ministries. The legal or organizational basis for this structure, or how it operates, remains unclear. Government Decree No. 18/2018/ND-CP defines the Management Board’s functions, but it is brief and provides no clarifying details.
According to state budget estimates, the budget for the Mausoleum Management Board increased from 157.3 billion đồng in 2010 to 318.73 billion đồng in 2016. These are the only two years in which this spending appeared in the government’s public disclosure of central budget expenditures over a 13-year period.
This 2016 allocation of over 318 billion đồng exceeded the budgets of several other ministries and agencies that year, including the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (209.92 billion), the Government Inspectorate (214.795 billion), Vietnam Television (299.97 billion), and the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (92.435 billion).
Whether the Defense and Public Security ministries allocate extra funds to maintain their forces at the Mausoleum remains unclear, as their spending figures are rarely disclosed. The latest available data, from the Ministry of Finance’s Inspection Portal in 2019, praised the Management Board for disbursing over 57 percent of public investment funds in the first four months of that year but offered no detailed numbers.
The Mausoleum’s Operational Structure
The Hồ Chí Minh Mausoleum Management Board is responsible for the long-term preservation and absolute safety of Hồ Chí Minh’s embalmed body. It also manages security, ceremonial activities, and daily operations at the mausoleum, Ba Đình Square, the Monument to Fallen Heroes, the Reception Area for Visitors, and the Hồ Chí Minh Memorial Site at Đá Chông (Site K9) in Ba Vì District, Hà Nội, along with other related facilities.
The Board’s leadership structure is integrated with the military: its head is the Commander of the Mausoleum Protection Command, who is appointed and dismissed by the Prime Minister. This Commander is accountable to the Government and the Prime Minister for all Board operations.
The Mausoleum Protection Command—formerly Unit 69—operates under the Ministry of National Defense. It serves as the “specialized affiliated body” that assists the Management Board in implementing its political mission.
According to Government Decree No. 18/2018 and Ministry of National Defense Circular No. 52/2017/TT-BQP, the Command’s duties include advising the Party, State, Central Military Commission, and Ministry of National Defense on the body’s preservation. It is also tasked with ensuring security, managing order, and organizing the reception of citizens and foreign visitors.
The Command further organizes political and cultural activities to promote the Mausoleum’s significance and manages its own internal units.
The leadership of the Management Board (the head and two deputy heads) are senior officers—colonels and major generals—from the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security, who also serve as standing members of their respective Party committees. The Mausoleum Protection Command currently consists of twelve subordinate departments and five basic units.
On June 18, 1973, at the ceremony to dismantle the old grandstand for the Mausoleum’s construction, the then National Assembly Chairman Trường Chinh declared, “The entire Party, people, and army will forever remember President Hồ Chí Minh, firmly implement his sacred Testament, and continue his great revolutionary cause.”
Perhaps Trường Chinh forgot a crucial point. During his lifetime, Hồ Chí Minh wrote in his will that he wished to be cremated and his ashes divided among the three regions of Việt Nam. However, the version of the will published by the Politburo in 1969 excluded the part about cremation.
The Party unilaterally disregarded his wishes. According to Trường Chinh’s own words, it “decided to preserve President Hồ Chí Minh’s body and build his Mausoleum in historic Ba Dinh Square so that people could come to visit and pay their respects.”
This decision was a clear act of propaganda intended to promote and perpetuate the leader’s image and ideology. If the state insists that learning from Hồ Chí Minh’s moral example should be encouraged, then the public also deserves the full truth about the display of his body. This includes information about the extensive state apparatus that has maintained an embalmed corpse for fifty years and will likely continue to do so.
Moreover, unilaterally violating a person’s will and interfering with the remains of the deceased are illegal acts under Vietnamese law. Using taxpayers’ money to fund such acts must be stopped, and those responsible should be held accountable.
Duyên Hải wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 22, 2019. J. Miu translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.