On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh announced the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi, complete with a Declaration of Independence and the creation of a provisional government which would rule until elections could be held and a National Assembly could meet to constitute a new government (this occurred in March 1946). The DRV sought to unite under its national control the three colonial entities into which the Kingdom of Dai Nam had been divided since French conquest began in the mid-19th century: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina. The DRV referred to these new territories, respectively, as Bac Bo, Trung Bo, and Nam Bo. Despite the outbreak of war in the south in September 1945, the DRV continued to operate from its capital in Hanoi until 19 December 1946, when full-scale war pushed the central government into the hills of northern Vietnam. The DRV led the fight against the French during the entire Indochina War. Not only was it born in a state of war, but it developed during the Indochina conflict as a state of war. Nevertheless, when the Geneva Accords put an end to the Indochina War in mid-1954, the DRV could only claim half of the Vietnam Ho Chi Minh had declared independent in September 1945. The portion positioned below the 17th parallel was assigned to non-communist Vietnamese nationalists running the State of Vietnam until elections could be held in 1956 to unite the country peacefully. That never happened. In April 1975, after a second war, the DRV took the south by force, unified the country and, in 1976, renamed it all the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnamese Communist Party was in charge. See also ASSOCIATED STATES OF INDOCHINA; BAO DAI SOLUTION; CIVIL WAR; COLD WAR; INDOCHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY; REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM.