declared independence on 2 September 1945 and proclaimed the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Việt Minh (formally the "League for the Independence of Vietnam"), led by the communists, was created in 1941 and designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command.[6]
From the beginning, the communist-led Việt Minh sought to consolidate power by purging other nationalist groups.[7][8][9][10][11][12] Meanwhile, France moved in to reassert its colonial dominance over Vietnam in the aftermath of WW2, eventually prompting the First Indochina War in December 1946. During this guerrilla war, the Việt Minh captured and controlled most of the rural areas in Vietnam, which led to French defeat in 1954. The negotiations in the Geneva Conference that year ended the war and recognized Vietnamese independence. The Geneva Accords provisionally divided the country into a northern zone and a southern zone along the 17th parallel, stipulating general elections scheduled for July 1956 to "bring about the unification of Viet-Nam".[13] The northern zone was controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and became commonly called North Vietnam, while the southern zone, under control of the de jure non-communist State of Vietnam, was commonly called South Vietnam.
Supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords was the responsibility of an
The official name of the North Vietnamese state was the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa). The South was known as the "Republic of Vietnam".
Việt Nam (Vietnamese pronunciation:
Geneva Conference
provisionally partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist parts.
After about 300 years of partition by feudal dynasties, Vietnam was again under one single authority in 1802 when
Hồ Chí Minh became leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was opposed to a return to French rule in Indochina, and the U.S. was supportive of the Viet Minh at this time.[26]
Early republic
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh claimed dominion over all of Vietnam, but during this time Southern Vietnam was in profound political disorder. The successive collapse of French, then Japanese power, followed by the dissension among the political factions in Saigon had been accompanied by widespread violence in the countryside.
Việt Minh, passing the General Uprising Order, selecting the national flag of Vietnam, choosing the national anthem and selecting the National Committee for the Liberation of Vietnam, which later became the Provisional Revolutionary Government led by Hồ Chí Minh. On 12 September 1945, the first British troops arrived in Saigon, and on 23 September 28 days after the people of Saigon seized political power, French troops occupied the police stations, the post office, and other public buildings. The salient political fact of life in Northern Vietnam was that the Chinese Nationalist Army occupied it, and the Chinese presence had forced Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh to accommodate Chinese-supported Viet Nationalists. In June 1946, Chinese Nationalist troops evacuated Hanoi, and on 15 June, the last detachments embarked at Haiphong. After the departure of the British in 1946, the French controlled a part of Cochinchina, South Central Coast, Central Highlands since the end to the Southern Resistance War. In January 1946, the Viet Minh held an nationwide election across all the provinces to establish a National Assembly. Public enthusiasm for this event suggests that the Viet Minh enjoyed a great deal of popularity at this time, although there were few competitive races and the party makeup of the Assembly was determined in advance of the vote.[note 2] Despite not joining the election, Việt Cách and Việt Quốc gained 70 seats in the National Assembly for establishing the unified government.[32]
In September 1945, the Việt Minh held secret meetings with Vietnamese Revolutionary League (Việt Cách) (18 September 1945) and Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Quốc) (19 September 1945). In these two meetings, Nguyễn Hải Thần represented Việt Cách and Nguyễn Tường Tam represent Việt Quốc. Hồ Chí Minh agreed to unite the Việt Minh with Việt Cách and Việt Quốc. Thus, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by the Việt Minh would receive the financial and political support of the Republic of China. For this proposal, within the Việt Minh there were many different opinions. Võ Nguyên Giáp disagreed with the suggestion that the proposals were not valid and not honest, as if replacing French colonialism with Chinese domination, but Hoàng Minh Giám thought that the unification of Vietnam with the Nationalist parties will reduce opposition and strengthen the power of the Việt Minh, as the Chinese are relieved and the French have to worry. Eventually the Việt Minh under Hồ Chí Minh refused to merge with the Pro-Chinese Việt Cách and the Việt Quốc League.[33]
On 6 January 1946, President
Việt Minh communist, the government in the hands of the Việt Minh want anyone to win it. The two opposition parties in the government are the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Quốc) and the Vietnam Cách mệnh Đồng minh (Việt Cách) did not participate in the election although Hồ Chí Minh previously sent a letter to Nguyễn Hải Thần leader of Việt Cách and Vũ Hồng Khanh leader of Việt Quốc. Hồ Chí Minh invited Việt Quốc and Việt Cách to attend the General Election and urged the two sides not to attack each other with words or actions until the Congress opens. Former Prime Minister Trần Trọng Kim said there were places where people were forced to vote for the Việt Minh.[34] According to the Việt Minh, the election was fair.[34] Despite being campaigned by many parties to campaign for the people to boycott the election and block the election in some places, where there are self-nominated candidates, publicly run, free elections are taking place everywhere. After the election results are announced, the truth is not the same as the propaganda parties. Many prestigious delegates of classes, religions and ethnic groups were elected in the First National Assembly, most of them not party members.[35]
The presence of
Hồ Chí Minh, Võ Nguyên Giáp, and other responsible Việt Minh members. When the Chinese nationalist army withdrew from Vietnam on 15 June 1946, in one way or another, Võ Nguyễn Giáp decided that the Việt Minh had to completely control the government. Võ Nguyễn Giáp is in immediate action with the goal of spreading Việt Minh leadership: the Allied Powers are supported by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (according to Cecil B. Currey, this organization borrows the revolutionary name of Vietnamese Nationalist Party of 1930 was founded by Nguyễn Thái Học and, according to David G. Marr, the Vietnamese Communist Party under Hồ Chí Minh tried to ban the Vietnamese Nationalist Party[37] betraying the revolutionary cause of Nguyễn Thái Học in 1930. By the end of 1945, many people still did not believe in it[vague].) Võ Nguyễn Giáp gradually sought to phase out opposition such as the pro-Japan nationalist groups, the Trotskyists, the anti-French nationalists, and the Catholic group called "Catholic soldiers". On 19 June 1946, the Việt Minh Journal reportedly vehemently criticized "reactionaries sabotage the Franco-Vietnamese preliminary agreement on 6 March". Shortly thereafter, Võ Nguyễn Giáp began a campaign to pursue opposition parties by police and military forces controlled by the Việt Minh with the help of the French authorities.[citation needed] He also used soldiers, Japanese officers who had volunteered to stay in Vietnam and some of the supplies provided by France (in Hòn Gai French troops provided the Việt Minh with cannons to kill some of the positions commanded by the Great Occupation) in this campaign.[citation needed
]
When France declared Cochinchina, the southern third of Vietnam, a separate state as the "Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina" in June 1946, Vietnamese nationalists reacted with fury. In November, the National Assembly adopted the first Constitution of the Republic.[38]
In the wake of the Hai Phong incident and the deterioration of the Fontainebleau Agreements, the French reoccupied Hanoi and the First Indochina War (1946–54) followed, during which many urban areas fell under French control. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution (1946–50), Chinese communist forces arrived on the border in 1949. Chinese aid revived the fortunes of the Viet Minh and transformed it from a guerrilla militia into a standing army. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 transformed what had been an anti-colonial struggle into a Cold War battleground, with the U.S. providing financial support to the French.
Provisional military demarcation of Vietnam
Further information:
Geneva Conference (1954)
Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954 at the end of the
Ngo Dinh Diem.[43] The CIA ran a propaganda campaign to get Catholics to come to the south. However Colonel Edward Lansdale, the man credited with the campaign, rejected the notion that his campaign had much effect on popular sentiment.[44] The Viet Minh sought to detain or otherwise prevent would-be refugees from leaving, such as through intimidation through military presence, shutting down ferry services and water traffic, or prohibiting mass gatherings.[45] Concurrently, between 14,000 and 45,000 civilians and approximately 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction.[41][46][47]
Land reform was an integral part of the Viet Minh and communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam. A Viet Minh Land Reform Law of 4 December 1953 called for (1) confiscation of land belonging to landlords who were enemies of the regime; (2) requisition of land from landlords not judged to be enemies; and (3) purchase with payment in bonds. The land reform was carried out from 1953 to 1956. Some farming areas did not undergo land reform but only rent reduction and the highland areas occupied by minority peoples were not substantially impacted. Some land was retained by the government but most was distributed without payment with priority given to Viet Minh fighters and their families.[51] The total number of rural people impacted by the land reform program was more than 4 million. The rent reduction program impacted nearly 8 million people.[52]
Results
The land reform program was a success in terms of distributing much land to poor and landless peasants and reducing or eliminating the land holdings of landlords (địa chủ) and rich peasants. By 1960, there were 40,000 cooperatives spanning nearly nine-tenths of all farmland. The program, proceeded by a Three Year Plan (1957–1960), lifted agricultural production to 5.4 million tonnes or over double pre-Indochina War levels.[53]
However, it was carried out with violence and repression primarily directed against large landowners identified, sometimes incorrectly, as landlords.[54] Executions and imprisonment of persons classified as "reactionary and evil landlords" were contemplated from the beginning of the land reform program. A Politburo document dated 4 May 1953 said that the planned executions were "fixed in principle at the ratio of one per one thousand people of the total population".[55] The number of persons actually executed by cadre carrying out the land reform program has been variously estimated, with some ranging up to 200,000.[56] However, other scholarship has concluded that the higher estimates were based on political propaganda which also emanated from South Vietnam with the support of the US, and that the actual total of those executed was significantly lower. Scholar Balasz Szalontai wrote that documents of Hungarian diplomats living in North Vietnam at the time of the land reform provided a minimum number of 1,337 executions.[57] This is consistent with Gareth Porter's report of a South Vietnamese government document released in 1959 that estimated around 1,500 executions.[58] Scholar Edwin E. Moise estimated the total number of executions at between 3,000 and 15,000 and later came up with a more precise figure of 13,500.[59][60]
In early 1956, North Vietnam initiated a "correction of errors" which put an end to the land reform, and to rectify the mistakes and damage done. On 18 August 1956, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh apologised and acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform. Too many farmers, he also said, had been incorrectly classified as "landlords" and executed or imprisoned and too many mistakes has been made in the process of redistributing land.[61] Severe rioting protesting the excesses of the land reform broke out in November 1956 in one largely Catholic rural district, leading to 1,000 deaths or injuries, and several thousand imprisoned. As part of the correction campaign, as many as 23,748 political prisoners were released by North Vietnam by September 1957.[62] By 1958, the correction campaign had resulted in the return of land to many of those harmed by the land reform.[61]
Collective farming
The ultimate objective of the land reform program of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam government was not to achieve equitable distribution of farmland but rather the organization of all farmers into co-operatives in which land and other factors of agricultural production would be owned and used collectively.[63]
The first steps after the 1953–1956 land reform were the encouragement by the government of labor exchanges in which farmers would unite to exchange labor; secondly in 1958 and 1959 was the formation of "low level cooperatives" in which farmers cooperated in production. By 1961, 86 percent of farmers were members of low-level cooperatives. The third step beginning in 1961 was to organize "high level cooperatives", true collective farming in which land and resources were utilized collectively without individual ownership of land.[64] By 1971, the great majority of farmers in North Vietnam were organized into high-level cooperatives. After the reunification of Vietnam, collective farms were abandoned gradually in the 1980s and 1990s.[65]
"The administrative units in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam are as follows:
The country is divided into provinces (tỉnh), autonomous regions (khu tự trị), and centrally run cities (thành phố trực thuộc trung ương);
The province is divided into districts (huyện), cities (thành phố), and towns (thị xã);
The district is divided into communes (xã) and townships (thị trấn).
Administrative units in the autonomous region are statutory."
— Article 78, Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam – 1959 (Điều 78, Hiến pháp Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa – 1959).
Autonomous regions
North Vietnam established a system of
autonomous regions (Vietnamese: Khu tự trị) similar to (and based on) the autonomous regions of China.[66][67][68] In recognising the traditional separatism of tribal minorities, this policy of accommodationism gave them self-government in exchange for acceptance of Hanoi's control.[69] These regions existed from 1955 but following the merger of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of South Vietnam the system of autonomous regions was not continued and were fully abolished by 1978.[66]
List of North Vietnamese autonomous regions and their subsidiary provinces:[66]
, respectively. These insurgencies were aided by the North Vietnamese government, which sent troops to fight alongside them.
Communist and capitalist states
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was diplomatically isolated by many capitalist states, and many other anti-communist states worldwide throughout most of the North's history, as these states extended recognition only to the anti-communist government of South Vietnam. North Vietnam however, was recognized by almost all Communist countries, such as the Soviet Union and other Socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, China, North Korea, and Cuba, and received aid from these nations. North Vietnam refused to establish diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia from 1950 to 1957, perhaps reflecting Hanoi's deference to the Soviet line on the Yugoslav government of Josip Broz Tito, and North Vietnamese officials continued to be critical of Tito after relations were established.[71]
Several non-aligned countries also recognized North Vietnam. Similar to India, most accorded North Vietnam de facto rather than de jure (formal) recognition.[72] In the case of Algeria however, relations between the DRV and Algeria were much closer as a result of clandestine weapon transfers from the former to the latter during the Algerian War, with Algeria placing a draft resolution in the 1973 summit of the Non-Aligned Movement calling on its members to support the DRV and PRG.[73]
In 1969, Sweden became the first Western country to extend full diplomatic recognition to North Vietnam.
government of Australia under Gough Whitlam. By December 1972, 49 countries had established diplomatic relations with North Vietnam,[75] and in 1973 more countries such as France established or reestablished their relations with the DRV.[75]
International Relations of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Despite there not being any official diplomatic ties between Japan and North Vietnam between 1954 and 1973, private exchanges were gradually being rebuilt. In March 1955 the Japanese Japan–Vietnam Friendship Association was created and in August of that year the Japan–Vietnam Trade Association was established.[76] Meanwhile, in 1965 North Vietnamese Vietnam–Japan Friendship Association would be established to help maintain unofficial relations between the two countries.[76]
During the
Charge d'Affaires ad interim of North Vietnam to France Võ Văn Sung.[76] Implementation, however, was delayed by North Vietnamese demands that Japan pay the equivalent of US$45 million in World War II reparations in two yearly installments, in the form of "economic cooperation" grants. Giving in to the Vietnamese demands, Japan paid the money and opened an embassy in Hanoi on 11 October 1975, following the unification of North Vietnam and South Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[77]
Earlier, the Japanese already gave similar funding to the South Vietnamese, which also re-established official diplomatic relations with Japan during the same period.[76]
With the re-establishment of relations between Japan and North Vietnam the Japanese agreed to resolve what are termed "unsolved problems", which after earlier negotiations in Vientiane, Kingdom of Laos, these "unsolved problems" revolved around grants given by the Japanese State to North Vietnam.[76] Between 1973 and 1975 the Japanese and North Vietnamese governments held over 20 both official and unofficial meetings, on 6 October 1975 both sides finally reached and agreement and the Japanese would provide the North Vietnamese with an endowment worth 13.5 billion yen.[76] Of this money, 8.5 billion yen would be used to purchase heavy farmland cultivation machinery as well as public works provided by Japanese-owned corporations.[76]
After diplomatic relations were re-established, in 1975, Japan would open an embassy in Hanoi and North Vietnam would open an embassy in Tokyo.[76]
^No clear number due to internal turmoil in 1945, circa 20 million population based on last reliable estimate of 22.6 million people in 1943 (Barbieri, p.625) and her estimate of 400,000 to 2 million dying from 1944–45 famine.
^Although former emperor Bao Dai was also popular at this time and won a seat in the Assembly, the election did not allow voters to express a preference between Bao Dai and Ho Chi Minh. It was held publicly in northern and central Vietnam, but secretly in Cochinchina, the southern third of Vietnam. There was minimal campaigning and most voters had no idea who the candidates were.[29] In many districts, a single candidate ran unopposed.[30] Party representation in the Assembly was publicly announced before the election was held.[31]
^From the start of the First Indochina War until French defeat in 1954, when the French Indochina was reestablished, DRV lost control over major cities but still controlled scattered rural areas, so Việt Minh retreated to these areas (the Vietnamese people usually call these hậu phương). DRV during this time was considered a government-in-exile controlling a rump state. However, the DRV did not cease to exist.
^ ab"Lời tuyên bố truyền thanh của Thủ tướng Chánh phủ ngày 16-7-1955 về hiệp định Genève và vấn đề thống nhất đất nước". "Tuyên ngôn của Chánh phủ Quốc gia Việt Nam ngày 9-8-1954 về vấn đề thống nhất lãnh thổ". In Con đường Chính nghĩa: Độc lập, Dân chủ – Quyển II. Sở Báo chí Thông tin, Phủ Tổng thống. Saigon 1956. pp. 11–13
^Nguyễn, Sài Đình [2]Archived 6 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine, The National Flag of Viet Nam: Its Origin and Legitimacy, p. 4.
^Emering, Edward J. [3]Archived 16 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Weapons and Field Gear of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong, 1998.
^Moise, Edward E. (1983), Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, pp. 178–181
^Szalontai, Balazs (2005), "Political and Economic Crisis in Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1955–1956", Cold War History, Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 401. Downloaded from JSTOR.
^"Politburo's Directive Issued on May 4, 1953, on some Special Issues regarding Mass Mobilization," Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 2010), p. 243. Downloaded from JSTOR.
^Kerkvliet, Bendedict J. Tria (1998), "Wobbly Foundations" building co-operatives in rural Vietnam, 1955–61," South East Research, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 193–197. Downloaded from JSTOR
^Pingali, and Vo-TungPrabhu and Vo-Tong Xuan (1992), "Vietnam: Decollectivization and Rice Productive Growth", Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol 40, No 4. p. 702, 706–707. Downloaded from JSTOR.
^SarDesai, D. R. (1968), Indian Foreign Policy in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, 1947–1964, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 194
^Huynh, Ngoc H., "The Time-Honored Friendship: A History of Vietnamese-Algerian Relations (1946–2015)" 1 May 2016. CUREJ: College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal, University of Pennsylvania, https://repository.upenn.edu/curej/214
^Gardner, Lloyd C. and Gittinger, Ted, Eds. (2004), "The Search for Peace in Vietnam, 1964–1968," Bryan, TX: Texas A&M University Press, p. 194
^ abBühler, Konrad G. State succession and membership in international organizations. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001. pp. 68–92.