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Unlike Cambodia, Vietnam has always been a land comfortable with rebellion both within itself (the north and south) and against foreign powers (China). I suppose that is why they were earier to rise up against the French. (Culture is a good predictor of people.)
Decent literacy rate plus bureaucracy culture from the Chinese, with a somewhat heterogeneous society with nascent ideals of nationalism.
Its weird the amount of abstraction, intellectualism, indoctrination that took place (during the cold war) over socialist values towards this grand ideal. That somehow a defence of it failure, always seems to be people took the wrong lesson and implemented it?
At the end of the day, it seems socialist values are usually populist motivated. It feeds into frustration of inefficiency of the current political economic situation of a country the wirld and a call towards an utopia. Born from chaos.
"And they all know how to love their country. Can we do the same? Where are our parties? We still have no party, no propaganda, no organisation, and you want us to boycott the French?"
All revolutions eventually split due to tactics and personality differences. Especially along the line of politics and violence. You can drag out a revolutionary group from being violent, by creating space for political engagement and participation without any serious gains.
Also you cant push ideology of a government when you dont have a government. Nationalism is the best route then social and political change. People like to descend to extremes, makes for a better argument.
The Vietnamese were *lucky*, they did not have to do *much* fighting. Wait for the Japanese to overthrow the French, wait for the Allied to defeat the Japanese (2nd World War). Then seize the country declare independence, then negotiate true independence from there.
Unfortunately that plan of independence was not that successful has the U.S. (to control the spread of communism) supported France in regaining its control of the Southern half of the country. (lastly by a negltiated agreement)
In addition to internal political fighting amongst the nationalists, the poor numbers and structure to maintain the "August Revolution". Ho Chi Minh political and diplomatic efforts failed left with the military option to deal with the French, the battle reunification was on.
"If the admiral thinks I was cowed by the might of his fleet, he is wrong. You dreadnought will never be able to sail up our rivers." The war between a crouching tiger against the giant elephant in the jungle in the first Indo-China war was on.
Mao Zedong rise to power turned what would have been poor campaign into something of impact. (His need to secure his borders) That in turn helped North Vietnam gain recognition by Russia who at first were holiding out for a more pure ideological alignment from Ho Chi Minh.
This changed the popular narrative Ho Chin Minh had created for himself as the personality of the President of Vietnam, from a nationalist collaborator to a full fledged communist.
A combination of factors such as: poor to zero further backing from Russia and China (fear of us intervention), lack of strong support by the French government, indifference of the locals from Sourh Vietnam and major advancement by the North Vietnamese forces.
A peace treaty formally dividing the two countries was drawn like Korea was drawn and the Fenech forces were withdrawn.
Leaving United States intrests firmly in control of South Vietnam in the person of Ngô Đình Diệm amd his "denounce the communist" campaign. And Ho Chi Mimh adopting more socialist polices in the North.
Most notable of his socialist policy was the land reform on advice of Chinese advisers, that led to riots, social and political changes that affected his personality cult and party control.
Reunification with South Vietnam still dictated foreign polocy despite signals for peace from Moscow and China.
With the appointment of Le Duan to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party and age, Ho Chi Minh influence in the country reduced focusing more on foreign diplomat in relations with China and USSR.
With Ngô Đình Diệm poor rule in South Vietnam, the South was facing rising tension which fed into the North plans for reunification. (Increased recruitment into Vietcong).
With the break from China with Moscow on the direction of socialism in the world. Vietnam had to choose a backer for the upcoming war and went with China who supported their reunification by all means necessary.
(They later went back to Moscow and played the two giants against each other to maximise their aid).
Then we had the warship incident which was the first of many incidents, that was just pretext for US to use a military strategy option, in a country where it had weak political stronghold and strong international intrest that was about to turned over.
Failure to set real terms and come to the table, led to continued escalation of US troops leading to protracted war where defeat was to costly of an option to admit.
Despite high casualty rates, the ability of the North Vietnamese to properly mobilize is population, plus its later adoption of guerilla warfare was its backbone.
During this time Ho Chi Mimh was showing signs of age with reduce physical and mental agility. Despite attempts till his final day to still influence the tide of the war. He died at the age of seventy-nine.
His death became a tool for the party to use towards their framing their goals. The party made him a mythological figure and even edited his wishes on his burial. And opinions on him are still fractured over if he is a nationalist or socialist or just a practical politician. End
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