A request for ComradeH - North Vietnam without Le Duan's rise?

raharris1973

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According to a recent book, written by a Vietnamese with recently declassified documents, Le Duan (General Secretary of VCP) launched a coup against Ho Chi Minh in 1965, effectively starting the aggressive attempt to unite Vietnam. With the American involvement in 1960 (much earlier), expect the man to remove the idea completely. Ho Chi Minh preferred building up his force in the North (to make it much more self-reliant) before pushing out.

ComradeH - I was intrigued by this post. It goes so far as to portray Le Duan's rise as a coup and calls out old man Ho as a "northern-firster". I take it the recent book is only in Vietnamese right now and not in English translation? The documents he used were recently declassified by Hanoi, despite the impression it might give of Ho being not 100% "patriotically correct"?

So how important was Le Duan as an individual? If had died by the 1960s or fallen from from the Communist Party's top echelon, what difference would it have made for Party policy towards the war? Would the circumstances of the early and middle 1960s have simply resulted in the rise of another skilled party member championing the same ideas as Le Duan rising and implementing those ideas?

So here is the "what-if" content. What if Le Duan never rises in Vietnamese Communist Party or falls out of the leadership any time between 1945 and 1965?
 

Strange. I just take a (long) vacation of AH due to university and projects (engineering is one hell of a b****, I can tell you), personal procrastination, rushing 1300+ chapters of a wonderful story online. And the very day I come back to AH, I see a notice says "7 minutes ago" :v

Anyway, let's get this clear: what I say in the post is second-hand, ie I read it from others. My financial situation prevents me from buying history books regularly, and I have no idea on where to buy it. So take my comment with a grain of salt.

Regarding the importance of Le Duan, it's very hard to say... It is perhaps best to summarise like this, regarding economics in general, he is not so talented, but sure as hell, he is ready to put the security and sovereignty of Vietnam above all else. Urban legends say that he refuse Chinese aid at least once during Vietnam War because of conditions (Chinese drivers came along with Chinese trucks), and he dared to say that the first thing we (Vietnamese) need in the war was that "we must not be afraid of China".

Without Le Duan, I would say the Tet Offensive (1968) and Easter Offensive (1972) will be much less bloody, but the USA would have less reason to GTFO. It should be noted that both of these offensives were made with political-diplomatic goals in mind from the beginning - Or at least, the 1972 one. It is unknown if the Tet Offensive was made that way originally, but it is clear that the VCP quickly exploited the political and diplomatic effect when they saw it.
 
The decision to go to war and back the Viet Cong may not happen without Le Duan's takeover of power in 1960. Ngo Dinh Diem was destroying the communist's networks in the south in the process of repression against Diem's opponents and the consolidation of his rule over South Vietnam. For Le Duan it was a kind of "now or never" choice to escalate or risk losing the permanently.

From a blog post summarizing Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha:
This is where Le Duan, the veteran Communist who had run the party’s war in the south against the French, enters the picture [Until recently, Le Duan was barely mentioned in English-language writings on this period. Now thanks to the archival work of many scholars (Lien-Hang Nguyen, Pierre Asselin, Martin Grossheim, just to name a few), Le Duan has emerged as basically the most important North Vietnamese figure of the war years.]. Since Geneva, he had painted a dire picture of what was happening below the 17th parallel: Not only had Diem and the Americans rejected the idea of holding elections, but Diem’s repression was also destroying what little remained of the party’s southern network. Although Hanoi’s leaders balked at resuming war outright, unsure of Sino-Soviet support and worried that the Americans would send in troops, in 1959 Le Duan persuaded the party to intervene indirectly in the south or risk losing it forever. [This is the beginning of HCM’s loss of power, a fact that historians were not aware of in the past.]

The blog linked above is run by a Southeast Asian Studies professor who can speak Vietnamese, it's a great resource for the history of the Vietnam War and Southeast Asia more generally.
 

raharris1973

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I kindle'd Pierre Asselin and Lien-Hang Nguyen's books on Hanoi's war in recent years and they were very good. I would also recommend William Duiker's "Ho Chi Minh: A Life" which makes clear Have not ordered anything by Grossheim or Goscha. Was anyone else among the top VCP leadership fellow champions of the southern cause. I may be getting it wrong, but these are the names I remember: Ho Chi Minh, Giap, Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh and Le Duc Tho?

One thing I remember about Le Duan is that he was from a southern province, Quang Tri, just under the DMZ. The location of the DMZ could easily have been different. Until almost the very end of the Geneva negotiations in 1954, Hanoi was not going to budge any further on the territorial zones than the 16th parallel (which was after earlier seeking a line further south). Zhou Enlai had pushed Hanoi for compromise to the 16th but not further. At the last minute, Molotov split the difference between the existing Viet Minh and French positions (the French had been insisting on 18th parallel for the DMZ all along), and thus we had the DMZ at the 17th.

Anyway, long story. But if the dividing line had been at the 16th parallel instead of the 17th, Le Duan's home province, home town, and probably most of his kin would have been at home in North Vietnam. Would he have been as passionately committed to the southern cause if his hometown was not under the hated Diem collaborationist regime? It might have made a difference. Maybe his advocacy or personal commitment is not so foreceful. Or it might not. Though he was from the northern end of what was temporarily South Vietnam by birth and background, he no doubt had close comrades and a personal stake in more parts of the south, from his experience leading the fight against the French all the way down to the Mekong Delta and Ca Mau peninsula.
 

raharris1973

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Did Le Duan effectively "coup" his way into power in 1965 or 1960? I'm a little confused based on differing things I've heard here.
 
According to vo Giap duan had a stronger dedication to the south first approach. He also demanded immediate reunification.
The n.l.f. Dominated southern communist regime really suffered. They made victory possible and were given the gate almost as much as the supporters of Arvn and it’s non communist weltshaung.
 

raharris1973

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According to vo Giap duan had a stronger dedication to the south first approach. He also demanded immediate reunification.
The n.l.f. Dominated southern communist regime really suffered. They made victory possible and were given the gate almost as much as the supporters of Arvn and it’s non communist weltshaung.

I’ve heard that before, about postwar sidelining of the VC. I am sure there are bios or manuscripts that explore this, but i’ve Never seen a succinct summary of the specific things that Hanoi did to and with Ex -VC In terms of postwar positions in party, regional government or state enterprises. I do not know if Hanoi arrested many ex VC or why they did if they did.
 
Had you read somewhere that he took over specifically in 1960? Where would be good to look for more details.
I found a NY Times article that mentions Le Duan taking over an influential role around 1960:
Although Hanoi’s leaders balked at resuming war outright, unsure of Sino-Soviet support and worried that the Americans would send in troops, in 1959 Le Duan persuaded the party to intervene indirectly in the south or risk losing it forever.

This new strategy reactivated the Ho Chi Minh Trail to bring southward thousands of administrators (most of whom were native southerners sent north after Geneva). They formed a competing southern proto-state in the form of the National Liberation Front, created in 1960, and protected by the People’s Liberation Armed Forces — what came to be known, to its enemies, as the Viet Cong. That same year, Le Duan assumed the party’s leadership. He reactivated the Central Office of South Vietnam to run this indirect civil war to bring down Diem’s state and unify the country on Hanoi’s terms before the Americans could intervene.
- From The 30 Year's War in Vietnam, By Christopher Goscha

This NY Times opinion piece Who Called the Shots in Hanoi explains the circumstances of Duan's rise, but doesn't mention an exact year like the former link:
Le Duan’s operations in the South and his partnership with Le Duc Tho proved critical in his rise to the top and influenced his policies once there. With the division of the country at the 17th parallel in 1954, Le Duan and Le Duc Tho parted ways. Tho regrouped to North Vietnam; Le Duan sneaked back to the Mekong Delta, where he witnessed the near decimation of the southern resistance by the South’s president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and the promise of reunification grow more distant.

When Le Duan returned to Hanoi, he found the party besieged by difficulties in building socialism in North Vietnam. When a major shake-up in the Communist leadership took place, Le Duan’s time in the South paid off: He was the only Politburo member untainted by the party’s failed policies in the North. After the demotion of the general secretary, he took over the position, and the Vietnamese Workers’ Party.

Aside from these pieces, Goscha's book is the best starting place I can recommend.
 
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