Tố Hữu, whose real name is Nguyễn Kim Thành, was born 4 October 1920 in Hoi An, Quang Nam province, as the youngest son of the family.
In 1938 Thành met a teacher, who gave him the pseudonym "Tố Hữu" 素有, taken from a remark by Lady Du that her son – Zhao Kuangyin, the future Emperor Taizu of Song – "always had great aspirations" (吾兒素有大志),[4] Thành accepted this name and interpreted it as "pure friend", written with the homophonous characters 素友.
[5][6] Intellectual discontent with this control was expressed by the poet Lê Đạt who, during the Nhân Văn affair, declared that Tố Hữu considered writers and artists petty bourgeois elements, and regarded literature as a mere tool of politics.
As an example, he mentioned the case of Nam Cao whom Tố Hữu compelled to write a work on the rural taxation system, a topic with which the writer was by no means familiar.
[7] He continued to hold many important party and government posts, including member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Central Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (as the government cabinet was then called), and the same post that was later renamed Deputy Prime Minister.
As the leader of the cultural section, he was named as the chief instigator of the persecution of intellectuals during the Nhân Văn affair.
However, according to the musician Văn Cao, one of the prominent victims, the main author of this policy was Trường Chinh, the general secretary of the communist party at that time.
Tố Hữu had to step down from his position as deputy prime minister and played no further political role in Vietnam.