North Vietnam

A propaganda drawing on Sự Thật, the Vietnamese Pravda.

The North Vietnamese government in 1946.

Ho Chi Minh declaring independence at Ba Dinh Square on September 2nd, 1945

After about 300 years of partition by feudal dynasties, Vietnam was again under one single authority in 1802 when Gia Long founded the Nguyễn dynasty, but the country became a French protectorate after 1883 and under Japanese occupation after 1940 during World War II. Soon after Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945, the Việt Minh in the August Revolution entered Hanoi, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 2 September 1945 establishing a new government for the entire country replacing the Nguyễn dynasty.[20] 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.[21]

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.[22][23] On 16 August 1945, Hồ Chí Minh organized the National Congress in Tân Trào. The Congress adopted 10 major policies of the 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-backed 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.[27]

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.[28]

On 6 January 1946, President Hồ Chí Minh held the nationwide General Election which voted for the first time and passed the Constitution. Many parties did not have the right to participate in General Elections seeking to undermine. These parties claimed to be the only 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.[29] According to the Việt Minh, the election was fair.[29] 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.[30]

The presence of Chiang Kai-shek's army up to that time ensured the survival of Việt Quốc and Việt Cách. These two parties did not have a cohesive program to enlist the people like the Việt Minh.[31] The leaders of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party and the Việt Cách Revolutionary Party are far from having comparable qualities with 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[32] betraying the revolutionary cause of Nguyễn Thái Học in 1930. By the end of 1945, many people still did not believe in it.) 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. 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.

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.[33]

Flag of the DRV during the Indochina War

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.

Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954 at the end of the First Indochina War, more than one million North Vietnamese migrated to South Vietnam,[34] under the U.S.-led evacuation campaign named Operation Passage to Freedom,[35] with an estimated 60% of the north's one million Catholics fleeing south.[36][37] The Catholic migration is attributed to an expectation of persecution of Catholics by the North Vietnamese government, as well as publicity employed by the Saigon government of the President Ngo Dinh Diem.[38] 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.[39] 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.[40] Concurrently, between 14,000 and 45,000 civilians and approximately 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction.[36][41][42]

After the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, or Vietcong, alongside the North Vietnamese Army, governed South Vietnam during the period before reunification. However it was seen as a vassal government of North Vietnam.[43][44][45] North and South Vietnam were officially reunited on 2 July 1976 as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The merged country's government was dominated by holdovers from North Vietnam.

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 and rich peasants. However it was carried out with violence and repression primarily directed against large landowners identified, sometimes incorrectly, as landlords.[48] On 18 August 1956, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform program. Too many farmers, he said, had been incorrectly classified as "landlords" and executed or imprisoned and too many mistakes had been made in redistributing land. Severe rioting protesting the excesses of the land reform program broke out in November 1956 in one largely Catholic rural district. About 1,000 people were killed or injured and several thousand imprisoned. Democratic Republic of Vietnam initiated a "correction campaign" which by 1958 had resulted in the return of land to many of those harmed by the land reform.[49] As part of the correction campaign as many as 23,748 political prisoners were released by North Vietnam by September 1957.[50]

Executions and imprisonment of persons classified as "landlords" or enemies of the state were contemplated from the beginning of the land reform program. A Politburo document dated 4 May 1953 said that executions were "fixed in principle at the ratio of one per one thousand people of the total population."[51] The number of persons actually executed by communist cadre carrying out the land reform program has been variously estimated. Some estimates of those killed range up to 200,000.[52] Other scholarship has concluded that the higher estimates were based on political propaganda emanating from South Vietnam and that the actual total of those executed was probably much lower. 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.[53] Moise's conclusions were supported by documents of diplomats from Hungary (occupied by the Soviet Union), living in Democratic Republic of Vietnam at the time of the land reform.[54] Author Michael Lind in a 2013 book gives a similar estimate of "at least ten or fifteen thousand" executed.[55]

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.[56] 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.[57] 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.[58]

The autonomous regions of North Vietnam on a map of its provinces created by the government of the United States.

North Vietnam established a system of autonomous regions (Vietnamese: Khu tự trị) similar to (and based on) the autonomous regions of China.[59][60][61] 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 wasn't continued and were fully abolished by 1978.[59]

List of North Vietnamese autonomous regions and their subsidiary provinces:[59]

• Thái-Mèo Autonomous Region (Khu tự trị Thái – Mèo, 1955–1962), later renamed Northwestern Autonomous Region (Khu tự trị Tây Bắc, 1962–1975)
  • Lai Châu
  • Sơn La
  • Nghĩa Lộ
• Việt Bắc Autonomous Region (Khu tự trị Việt Bắc), established in 1956.
  • Cao Bằng
  • Lạng Sơn
  • Thái Nguyên
  • Bắc Cạn
  • Hà Giang
  • Tuyên Quang
• Lào-Hà-Yên Autonomous Region (Khu tự trị Lào-Hà-Yên), established in 1957.

From 1960, the North Vietnamese government went to war with the Republic of Vietnam via its proxy the Viet Cong, in an attempt to annex South Vietnam and reunify Vietnam under a communist party.[62] North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces and supplies were sent along the Ho Chi Minh trail. In 1964 the United States sent combat troops to South Vietnam to support the South Vietnamese government, but the U.S. had advisors there since 1950. Other nations, including Australia, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and New Zealand also contributed troops and military aid to South Vietnam's war effort. China, DPRK and the Soviet Union provided aid to and troops in support of North Vietnamese military activities. This was known as the Vietnam War, or the American War in Vietnam itself (1955–75). In addition to the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, other communist insurgencies also operated within neighboring Kingdom of Laos and Khmer Republic, both formerly part of the French colonial territory of Indochina. These were the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Rouge, respectively. These insurgencies were aided by the North Vietnamese government, which sent troops to fight alongside them.

Ho Chi Minh with East German Young Pioneers near East Berlin, 1957

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.[63]

Several non-aligned countries also recognized North Vietnam. Similar to India, most accorded North Vietnam de facto rather than de jure (formal) recognition.[64] 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.[65]

In 1969, Sweden became the first Western country to extend full diplomatic recognition to North Vietnam.[66] Many other Western countries followed suit in the 1970s, such as the government of Australia under Gough Whitlam. By December 1972, 49 countries had established diplomatic relations with North Vietnam,[67] and in 1973 more countries such as France established or reestablished their relations with the DRV.[67]