VIETNAM .·•.,. .•, ' .l. I,.r •,' ,\..,.:- -~:)- • ,\ #! •./· ),.).,. ,I•,, ": I 1fI r, ' '1( )~ .,.; 1d· .•-1. "J •1• . . •i nI~: - t•.': p. e'. Marxist Regimes Series Series editor: Bogdan Szajkowski, Department of Sociology, University College, Cardiff Afghanistan Bhabani Sen Gupta Angola Keith Somerville Bulgaria Robert J. McIntyre China Marc Blecher Ethiopia Peter Schwab German Democratic Republic Mike Dennis Ghana Donald I. Ray Grenada Tony Thorndike . Guinea-Bissau Rosemary E. Galli and Jocelyn Jones Guyana Colin Baber and Henry B. Jeffrey Hungary Hans-Georg Heinrich Kampuchea Michael Vickery Laos Martin Stuart-Fox Madagascar Maureen Covell Marxist Local Governments in Western Europe and Japan ed. Bogdan Szajkowski J. Mongolia Alan K. Sanders Nicaragua David Close PD.R. Yemen Tareq and Jacqueline Ismael Romania Michael Shafir J. Soviet Union Ronald Hill Surinam Henk E. Chin and Hans Buddingh' Vietnam Melanie Beresford Further Titles Albania Benin and The Congo Cape Verde, Sao Tomi and Prfncipe Cuba Czechoslovakia Democratic People's Republic ofK orea Marxist State Governments in India Mozambique Poland Yugoslavia Zimbabwe Adaptations ofC ommunism Comparative Analysis Cumulative Index VIETNAM Politics, Economics and Society Melanie Beresford ~ Pinter Publishers ~ London and New York i I niver.si tv oi Houston Libranes © Melanie Beresford, 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. First published in Great Britain in 1988 by Pinter Publishers Limited 25 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DS British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beresford, Melanie Vietnam: policies, economics, and society. (Marxist regimes series) Bibliography: p. Includes index. I. Vietnam-Politics and government-I 975- 2. Vietnam-Economic conditions. 3. Vietnam-Social conditions. I. Title. II. Series. OS559.912.B47 1988 959.704 88-5859 ISBN 0-86187-448-X ISBN 0-86187-449-8 (pbk.) l I :I l Typeset by Josh.ua Associates Limited, Oxford Printed in Great Britain by SRP Ltd, Exeter Editor's Preface -LViemam occupies a unique position among the panoply of Marxist designs and experimentations. Ir is the only Marxist regime which after long and protracted war had to absorb a well-developed and ideologically hostile southern part of a previously divided country and consequencl~ endure a complex process of reunification of social and political structur~ This, the first comprehensive book on contemporary Vietnam's policies, economics and society provides the reader with an in-depth analysis of these processes as well as an evaluation of chem. In addition it also gives a comprehensive background to the history of che country, the role played by Marxist groups in the development of Vietnam and Indochina, and Hanoi's relations with its neighbours as well as the wider communise movement. This work also raises a number of very important questions about the appraisal of Marxist adaptations in the developing countries. The study of Marxist regimes has commonly been equated with the study of communise political systems. There were several historical and methodo logical reasons for chis. For many years ic was not difficult to distinguish the eight regimes in Eastern Europe and four in Asia which resoundingly claimed adherence co the tenets of Marxism and more particularly to their Soviet interpretation-Marxism-Leninism. These regimes, variously called 'People's Republic', 'People's Democratic Republic', or 'Democratic Republic', claimed co have derived their inspiration from the Soviet Union to which, indeed, in the overwhelming number of cases they owed their establishment. To many scholars and analysts these regimes represented a multiplication of and geographical extension of the 'Soviet model' and consequently of the Soviet sphere of influence. Although there were clearly substantial similari ties between the Soviet Union and the people's democracies; especially in the initial phases of their development, these were often overstressed at the expense of noticing the differences between these political systems. le took a few years for scholars to realize that generalizing the particular, i.e., applying the Soviet experience to ocher states ruled by elites which claimed to be guided by 'scientific socialism', was not good enough. The relative simplicity of the assumption of a cohesive communist bloc was questioned after the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Communise Informa tion Bureau in 1948 and in particular after the workers' riots in Poznan in 1956 and the Hungarian revolution of the same year. By the mid-l 960s, che Umversitv of Houston Ubranes Editor's Preface v1 totalitarian model of communist politics, which until then had been very much in force, began to crumble. As some of these regimes articulated demands for a distinctive path of socialist development, many specialists studying these systems began to notice that the cohesiveness of the communist bloc was less apparent than had been claimed before. Also by the mid-1960s, in the newly independent African states 'democratic' multi-party states were turning into one-party states or military dictatorships, thus questioning the inherent superiority ofliberal democracy, capitalism and the values that went with it. Scholars now began to ponder on the simple contrast between multi-parry democracy and a one-party totalitarian rule that had satisfied an earlier generation. More importantly, however, by the beginning of that decade Cuba had a revolution without Soviet help, a revolution which subsequently became to many political elites in the Third World not only an inspiration bu c a clear military, political and ideological example to follow. Apart from its romantic appeal, to many nationalist movements the Cuban revolution also demonstrated a novel way of conducting and winning a nationalist, anci imperialisc war and accepting Marxism as the state ideology without a vanguard communise parry. The Cuban precedent was subsequencly followed in one respect or another by scores of Third World regimes, which used the adoption of 'scientific socialism' ried co the tradition of Marxist thought as a form of mobilization, legitimation or association with che prestigious symbols and powerful high-status regimes such as che Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Vietnam. Despite all these changes the study of Marxist regimes remains in its infancy and continues co be hampered by constant and nor always pertinent comparison with the Soviet Union, thus somewhat blurring the important underlying common theme-the 'scientific theory' of che laws of develop ment of human society and human history. This doctrine is claimed by rhe leadership of these regimes co consist of the discovery of objective causal relationships; it is used co analyse the contradictions which arise between goals and actuality in the pursuit of a common destiny. Thus the political elites of these countries have been and continue co be influenced in both their ideology and their political practice by Marxism more rhan any other current of social thought and political practice. The growth in the number and global significance, as well as rhe ideological, political and economic impact, of Marxist regimes has presented scholars and students with an increasing challenge. In meeting chis challenge, social scientists on both sides of the political divide have put forward a dazzling profusion of terms, models, programmes and varieties of inter- Editor's Preface v11 pretation. It is against the background of this profusion that the present comprehensive series on Marxist regimes is offered. This collection of monographs is envisaged as a series of multi-disciplinary textbooks on the governments, politics, economics and society of these countries. Each of the monographs was prepared by a specialist on the country concerned. Thus, over fifty scholars from all over the world have contributed monographs which were based on first-hand knowledge. The geographical diversity of the authors, combined with the fact that as a group they represent many disciplines of social science, gives their individual analyses and the series as a whole an additional dimension. Each of the scholars who contributed to this series was asked to analyse such topics as the political culture, the governmental structure, the ruling parry, other mass organizations, parry-scare relations, the policy process, the economy, domestic and foreign relations together with any features pecul~ar to the country under discussion. This series does not aim at assigning auchenciciry or authority to any single one of the political systems included in it. le shows chat, depending on a variety of historical, cultural, ethnic and political factors, the pursuit of goals derived from the tenets of Marxism has produced different political forms at different rimes and in different places. Ir also illustrates the rich diversity among these societies, where attempts to achieve a synthesis between goals derived from Marxism on the one hand, and national realities on rhe other, have often meant distinctive approaches and solutions ro the problems of social, political and economic development. University College Bogdan Szajkowski Cardiff Contents Editor's Preface V List of Illustrations and Tables XI Acknowledgements Xll Basic Dara Xlll Vietnamese Terms XVlll Abbreviations and Glossary XIX Part I: History and Political Traditions l Geographical and Historical Setting 3 2 The Coloni~l Regime and rhe Origins of Vietnamese Communism 8 3 The Establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945-1954 17 4 From the Democratic to the Socialist Republic, 1954-1976 33 Part II: The Social System ·---------·5·3 -·· 5 Social Structure 55 v'Part ill: The Political System 77 6 The Viemamese Communist Parry 79 7 Constitution and Government 98 8 Political and Social Organization 115 Part IV: The Economy 127 9 The Economy of the North, 1954-1979 129 IO Transition to Socialism in the South 146 11 The Reform Process 160 X Cc111tl'tlls Part V: The Regime's Policies 177 12 Domestic Policies 179 v l 3 Foreign Policy and External Relations 190 ✓ 14 Concluding Remarks 209 Notes 212 Selected Bibliography 228 Index 237 I . I . l List of Illustrations and Tables Map Viemam: provincial boundaries and principal cities xvu Figures 4.1 US troop build-up, 1960-71 39 6.1 Organization of the Vietnamese Communist Parry 80 Tables 5.1 Population growth rates and per capita food output, 1976-84 67 5.2 Population density and urbanization in Vietnam, by Region, 19 84 68 5.3 The structure of employment, 1975-84 73 5.4 Education in Vietnam, 1955-80 75 6.1 Parry membership, 1930-86 80 6.2 Membership of the Political Bureau, 1987 82 6.3 Secretaries-General of the Vietnamese Communist Parry 83 7.1 Membership of the Council of Ministers, 1987 106 7.2 Electoral choice 109 7.3 Social composition of National Assembly, 1976 to 1987 11 0 9.1 Output index of major industrial products 133 9.2 Output and productivity of North Vietnamese agriculture 135 9.3 Structure of state investment outlays, 1955-84 142 9.4 Estimates of Foreign Aid to Socialist Vietnam 144 9.5 Grain imports to Vietnam, 1975-84 145 10.1 Land distribution in eight villages of the Mekong River Delta in 1978 149 10.2 Rice production in South Vietnam, 1956-84 150 10.3 State grain procurement, 1975-84 154 11.1 Growth rates of industry, 1975-84 166