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Vietnam Society in the 1954-75 Period
North Vietnam
At the time of the 1954 partition, Vietnam was overwhelmingly
a rural society; peasants accounted for nearly 90 percent of the
total population. During the ensuing 20 years of political
separation, however, the North and the South developed into two
very different societies. In the North the communists had
embarked on a program intended to revolutionize the socioeconomic
structure. The focus of change was ostensibly economic, but its
underlying motivation was both political and social as well.
Based on the Marxist principle of class struggle, it involved no
less than the creation of a totally new social structure.
Propertied classes were eliminated, and a proletarian
dictatorship was established in which workers and peasants
emerged as the nominal new masters of a socialist and ultimately
classless state.
As a prelude to the socialist revolution, a land reform
campaign and a harsh, systematic campaign to liquidate "feudal
landlords" from rural society were launched concurrently in 1955.
Reminiscent of the campaign undertaken by communists in China in
earlier years, the liquidation of landlords cost the lives of an
estimated 50,000 people and prompted the party to acknowledge and
redress "a number of serious errors" committed by its zealous
cadres.
In urban sectors the party's intervention was less direct,
initially at least, because large numbers of the bourgeoisie had
fled the North in anticipation of the communists' coming to
power. Many had fled to the South before the party gained full
control. Those who remained were verbally assailed as exploiters
of the people, but, because the regime needed their
administrative and technical skills and experience, they were
otherwise treated tolerantly and allowed to retain private
property.
In 1958 the regime stepped up the pace of "socialist
transformation," mindful that even though the foundations of a
socialist society were basically in place, the economy remained
for the most part still in the hands of the private, capitalist
sector. By 1960 all but a small number of peasants, artisans,
handicraft workers, industrialists, traders, and merchants had
been forced to join cooperatives of various kinds.
Intellectuals, many of whom had earlier been supporters of
the
Viet Minh (see Glossary), were first conciliated by the
government, then stifled. Opposition to the government, expressed
openly during and after the peasant uprisings of 1956, prompted
the imposition of controls that graduated to complete suppression
by 1958. Writers and artists who had established their
reputations in the pre-communist era were excluded from taking
any effective role in national affairs. Many were sent to the
countryside to perform manual labor and to help educate a new
corps of socialist intellectuals among the peasants.
The dominant group in the new social order were the highlevel party officials, who constituted a new ruling class. They
owed their standing more to demonstrations of political acumen
and devotion to nationalism or Marxism-Leninism than to
educational or professional achievements. Years of resistance
against the French in the rural areas had inured them to hardship
and at the same time given them valuable experience in
organization and guerrilla warfare. Resistance work had also
brought them into close touch with many different segments of the
population.
At the apex of the new ruling class were select members of
the Political Bureau of the communist Vietnamese Workers Party
(VWP, Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam), and a somewhat larger body of
Central Committee members holding key posts in the party, the
government, the military, and various party-supported
organizations. Below the top echelon were the rank and file party
members (500,000 by 1960), including a number of women and
members of ethnic minorities. Party cadres who possessed special
knowledge and experience in technical, financial, administrative,
or managerial matters were posted in all social institutions to
supervise the implementation of party decisions.
Occupying an intermediate position between the party and the
citizenry were those persons who did not belong to the party but
who, nevertheless, had professional skills or other talents
needed by the regime. Noncommunists were found in various
technical posts, in the school system, and in the mass
organizations to which most citizens were required to belong. A
few even occupied high, though politically marginal, posts in the
government. The bulk of the population remained farmers, workers,
soldiers, miners, porters, stevedores, clerks, tradespeople,
teachers, and artisans.
Social reorganization did little to evoke mass enthusiasm for
socialism, and socialist transformation of the private sector
into cooperative- and state-run operations did not result in the
kind of economic improvement the government needed to win over
the peasants and merchants. The regime managed to provide better
educational and health care services than had existed in the pre1954 years, but poverty was still endemic. The party attributed
the "numerous difficulties" it faced to "natural calamities,
enemy actions, and the utterly poor and backward state of the
economy," but also acknowledged its own failings. These included
cadre incompetence in ideological and organizational matters as
well as in financial, technical, and managerial affairs.
Data as of December 1987
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