7 Political Inmates Who Eventually Became Leaders.
1. Ho Chi Minh Born to a poor family during French colonial rule, Ho began his political career in France as an active socialist, organizing the Vietnamese living there into a movement that gained him some social recognition among the right people. A staunch fan of Leninist Russia and its socialist policies, Ho made various trips to Moscow and relied on them to hide him from the powers in leadership at the time. They wanted French rule to continue in different regions of Vietnam. When France was defeated by Germany during the early years of WW2, Minh saw an opportunity to advance his cause and established the Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi (League for the Independence of Vietnam). The organization was forced to seek assistance from the Chinese leaders at the time, who distrusted Ho Chi Minh as a communist, and he was arrested before spending 18 months in a Chinese prison. With the elimination of the two strongest adversaries of the Viet Minh (Japan at the hands of the USA and Fra...