The Việt Minh, officially the League for Independence of Vietnam, was a communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Ho Chi Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Front, it was established by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) as a united front to achieve Vietnamese independence, the first step in a communist revolutionary project. With the collapse of Japanese authority at the close of World War II, the front moved swiftly to proclaim the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), the predecessor of today's Socialist Republic of Vietnam.