The humiliation of the colonial past seemed as if it could finally be swept away. In early February 1950, while Ho was still away, the party resolved that it would follow Mao Zedong’s lead and lean to the Soviet-led Communist side in the Cold War. Fighting a war of national liberation would not be enough, Truong Chinh told his colleagues; Vietnam must do her part in the internationalist struggle against the imperialist bloc led by the United States:
