Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to bring democracy to the entirety of Vietnam without causing a third world war. The POD can be as far back as right after the battle of Dien Bien Phu but not before then or during the battle. Good luck I'm eager to find out what you come up with!
AHC: Bring democracy to Vietnam without a WWIII
- Thread starter Ethan387
- Start date
Avoid long-term American involvement in Indochina. If Ho Chi Minh is allowed to (relatively) peacefully unify the Vietnams under a single banner, the country will likely be a reasonably open socialist state: there will probably be democratic forms, although there will be a major thumb on the scale for the ruling party. Foreign policy-wise, Vietnam will be non-aligned. By the modern day, a more developed and less militarized Vietnamese state, in a more stable, less wartorn region, will have incentives to fully liberalize and democratize.
Redhand
Banned
I think that American intervention in Vietnam isn't responsible for its authoritarian streak but rather the fact that it wasn't freed after Versailles and Ho Chi Minh was given an incentive to look more into Marxism, which was more suited to his authoritarian tendencies.
And an open socialist state seems to be a contradiction in my opinion as the socialism he envisioned was heavily influenced by Mao. He wasn't thinking about making an open and more inclusive political process, he was a nationalist who believed heavily in land reform. That lends itself to being a radical who desired a large and controlling state.
I don't see liberalization happening just because things are less militarized. There is nothing in Vietnamese history that makes liberalization seem remotely likely, nor desirable, without at least going through the growing pains of capitalism first.
Even the most liberalized East Asian states were heavily into authoritarianism at one point or another. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, all were more or less dictatorships at one point, and due to western economic influence, liberalized and democratized in time. All of the nations that had significant Soviet or Chinese influence have continued to struggle with authoritarianism even into the age of the global economy.
I think American intervention has had a great deal to do with the present state of authoritarianism in Vietnam. The incredibly bloody war there killed millions of Vietnamese and militarized both their state and society. Had Vietnam instead had those resources and people to 'expend' on economic development, the country would be much different.
That isn't to say that Uncle Ho was a democrat, or that Vietnam would be a democracy by 1975 without the Vietnam War. Instead, the country would be more open during the Cold War period, something more like Tito's Yugoslavia or KMT Taiwan than Maoist China. The Communists would have to contend with strong anti-Communist and nationalist sentiment, and would face major incentives to stay non-aligned. The Soviets aren't going to care enough to support them more than rhetorically and with trade, and the Vietnamese are going to come into conflict with the PRC eventually. The country will be an authoritarian socialist state with increasingly nationalist pretensions by the mid-1960s. There will be internal bloodshed and repression, and the likelihood of a conflict with Cambodia and/or Thailand is reasonably high.
Still, the country won't be carpet-bombed, and if the DRV makes a decisive split from the rest of the Communist bloc, they may find American aid forthcoming. That, combined with the failures of state planned economics, could mean a shift towards state-directed export development, a la South Korea and Taiwan. Vietnam has a substantial internal market and a large population that could shift to urban centers. Textile and other light industrial production could take off with foreign investment; there is no reason a pragmatic-minded Communist Party couldn't pull a Deng Xiaoping and form 'Special Economic Zones' to bring in foreign capital to prop up state-owned companies.
That means by the 1980s, Vietnam could easily be a middle-income country with a well-educated population (courtesy of socialism) combined with growing inequality and industry, with reformists in power attempting defensive liberalization to prevent social unrest. With the end of the Cold War sometime in the 1990s (assuming not too many butterflies, the Soviet economic model doomed it to long-term decline), Vietnam may face a political crisis and a pacted transition to democracy, where the old regime competes as a reformed leftist party and former regime officials still control much of the state.
I think having the US actually take note of Ho Chi Minh's petition regarding Vietnamese independence may be the solution, but that would be post-WWI and extremely unlikely (nigh-ASB).
Redhand
Banned
Wilson would have none of that as he was really only self determination to a point, being the continent of Europe, in his views. That's not even mentioning how much the French would drag their feet on this.
The US couldn't make this happen, it would have to be France making an internal decision to let Indochina go.
But even with a free Vietnam after WW1, like many created nations after the conflict, it might not last, and quickly descend into military dictatorship and authoritarianism, which when the Cold War arrives, gets them right back where they OTL albeit maybe more united, with leftist movements exported from China trying to make inroads while the US supports a likely repressive but noncommunist regime.
Well...but the thing is, Vietnam being democratic isn't going to happen...South Vietnam wasn't democratic back then either...
The POD here has to be after Diem Bien Phu- by that time the Vietnamese were already dependent on the Chinese and Soviets and under pressure from the Chinese to implement land reforms with accompanying executions.
(It's also debatable whether it was still possible to avoid long-term American involvement in Vietnam after Diem Bien Phu.)
Sure, they were, but however reliant on Chinese and Soviet aid they were in 1954, they were even more reliant on 'fraternal' support after the Vietnam War.
Redhand
Banned
No, they weren't, but with time, they might have become democratic when exposed to capitalism and the global economy. South Korea and Taiwan were repressive dictatorships for quite a while until taking a place in the global economy, and South Vietnam could have done the same thing. Of course, Diem had to go, and he did, but without the country being in a constant state of war and insurrection, they might have liberalized and democratized.
South Korea and Taiwan would not have democratized and liberalized if they were in a constant state of war either. Vietnam being more agrarian is something that needs to be acknowledged, yes, but with time, I think they would become like their democratic anticommunist allies, provided the US makes sure not to back another loser like Diem.
I'm pretty sure the democratisation of SK and Taiwan had other perhaps more important factors at play than "capitalism and the global economy." Both were tied to Japan and the USA after WWII economically...
With minimal outside investments Vietnam would remain primarily agrarian. I'd have to favor Ho Chi Minh over any tin pot dictator that the USA/France could prop up. The USA lost a valuable ally against the USSR/China IMO by bombing the fuck out of Vietnam.
This cannot be easily done-
Here's a couple answers-
Answer #1 - Vietnam becomes more deeply enmeshed with USSR and Central European Communist states via Warsaw Pact, COMECON, party caucuses and other functional organizations. The Vietnamese guest worker population in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland is larger than OTL. There's an internal Vietnamese Community Party rift over glasnost. Some version or other of a Vietnamese Vaclav Havel emerges and has a suitably heroic background as a veteran. The hardliners overplay their hand and lose support and the reformist party opens up to competitive elections in 1989-1991 era.
Answer # 2 - The Tiananmen demonstrations of '89, or the earlier democracy demonstrations of 1987 cause the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party power monopoly in China by the late 80s, early 90s. The loss of any functioning model for a successful communist political system in China or Russia has knock-on effects, leading to the Vietnamese party surrendering its monopoly of power.
Answer # 3 - US led ground intervention occurs after Dien Bien Phu, and Chinese Communists do not counter it with a large overt force. US helps install anticommunist regime, possibly the Diem regime, through a lengthy, messy counterinsurgency. This reduces the communists eventually down to a small guerrilla and terrorist level. The Diem or alternate anticommunist regime in Vietnam spends a few decades as an authoritarian state. By the late 80s, early 90s, it has its first democratic transitions of power as the military steps out of politics.
Answer # 4- Sino-Soviet War occurs in 1969, resulting in massive nuke damage of China and its infrastructure and some damage to the USSR, with some of it substantial in the Soviet Far East. (Maybe such a huge war is "WWIII" and violates the OP, although I am positing that the US and its allies do *not* become military participants)
This Sino-Soviet circular firing squad is devastating to the global prestige of Communism.
The US, with bigger problems to worried about, and being tired, draws down from Vietnam. But North Vietnam, denied military aid, receives much humanitarian aid from Europe in dealing with knock-on effects of radioactive fallout and refugee movements.
Lengthy negotiations begin in Vietnam over peace and unification is brought into the agenda by multiple parties. Warfare that does continue is at a lower, guerrilla level of intensity, with neither side gaining much confidence from large conventional arms deliveries. Eventually this resolves into coalition government and an opening to participation by multiple political groups beyond simply the Communist party.
# 5 -Due to a series of rapid political failures first by the Diem regime and then its successors in the southern zone of Vietnam in the years 1954 to 1956, Eisenhower and Dulles decide that South Vietnam is a lost cause and make Thailand their first line of defense in Southeast Asia, while they allow a process of elections and political negotiations to result in Vietnamese unification. Vietnam is soon de facto controlled exclusively by the communist party from Hanoi. Vietnam begins a process of socialist construction in the 1950s through late 1970s instead of having wars. With the Sino-Soviet break, and the lack of a war with the US, early unified communist Vietnam has much tighter ties with the USSR and East Central Europe than China.
By the late 1980s, with Vietnam as a more "normal" developed Communist state, some limitations of the model are becoming apparent.
Although the cult of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh resistance to France has some devotees and helps party legitimacy, this cult and legacy does not receive any reinforcement or refreshment by continued wars in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The Communist Party in Vietnam is judged much more on its economic record than by its founding glory by the time we reach the late 1980s. Dissidence grows in Communist Vietnam as it does in Communist Europe and Mongolia, and it receives a more sympathetic hearing by the populace and elites as we get to the late 1980s. With the last war having ended in 1954, hardliners attempts to link reformism and dissidence to "French and American plots" fall fairly flat. Additionally, the unification by election in the 1950s gives the idea of elections more political legitimacy among communist and non-communist Vietnamese, that the dissident movement (some led by students and intelligentsia, others perhaps led by Buddhist and or Catholic or syncretic clergy).
I think honestly, that odds are at least 10 to 1 against all these scenarios, but these ideas are the best I can do with a post Dien Bien Phu p.o.d.
Here's a couple answers-
Answer #1 - Vietnam becomes more deeply enmeshed with USSR and Central European Communist states via Warsaw Pact, COMECON, party caucuses and other functional organizations. The Vietnamese guest worker population in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland is larger than OTL. There's an internal Vietnamese Community Party rift over glasnost. Some version or other of a Vietnamese Vaclav Havel emerges and has a suitably heroic background as a veteran. The hardliners overplay their hand and lose support and the reformist party opens up to competitive elections in 1989-1991 era.
Answer # 2 - The Tiananmen demonstrations of '89, or the earlier democracy demonstrations of 1987 cause the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party power monopoly in China by the late 80s, early 90s. The loss of any functioning model for a successful communist political system in China or Russia has knock-on effects, leading to the Vietnamese party surrendering its monopoly of power.
Answer # 3 - US led ground intervention occurs after Dien Bien Phu, and Chinese Communists do not counter it with a large overt force. US helps install anticommunist regime, possibly the Diem regime, through a lengthy, messy counterinsurgency. This reduces the communists eventually down to a small guerrilla and terrorist level. The Diem or alternate anticommunist regime in Vietnam spends a few decades as an authoritarian state. By the late 80s, early 90s, it has its first democratic transitions of power as the military steps out of politics.
Answer # 4- Sino-Soviet War occurs in 1969, resulting in massive nuke damage of China and its infrastructure and some damage to the USSR, with some of it substantial in the Soviet Far East. (Maybe such a huge war is "WWIII" and violates the OP, although I am positing that the US and its allies do *not* become military participants)
This Sino-Soviet circular firing squad is devastating to the global prestige of Communism.
The US, with bigger problems to worried about, and being tired, draws down from Vietnam. But North Vietnam, denied military aid, receives much humanitarian aid from Europe in dealing with knock-on effects of radioactive fallout and refugee movements.
Lengthy negotiations begin in Vietnam over peace and unification is brought into the agenda by multiple parties. Warfare that does continue is at a lower, guerrilla level of intensity, with neither side gaining much confidence from large conventional arms deliveries. Eventually this resolves into coalition government and an opening to participation by multiple political groups beyond simply the Communist party.
# 5 -Due to a series of rapid political failures first by the Diem regime and then its successors in the southern zone of Vietnam in the years 1954 to 1956, Eisenhower and Dulles decide that South Vietnam is a lost cause and make Thailand their first line of defense in Southeast Asia, while they allow a process of elections and political negotiations to result in Vietnamese unification. Vietnam is soon de facto controlled exclusively by the communist party from Hanoi. Vietnam begins a process of socialist construction in the 1950s through late 1970s instead of having wars. With the Sino-Soviet break, and the lack of a war with the US, early unified communist Vietnam has much tighter ties with the USSR and East Central Europe than China.
By the late 1980s, with Vietnam as a more "normal" developed Communist state, some limitations of the model are becoming apparent.
Although the cult of Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh resistance to France has some devotees and helps party legitimacy, this cult and legacy does not receive any reinforcement or refreshment by continued wars in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The Communist Party in Vietnam is judged much more on its economic record than by its founding glory by the time we reach the late 1980s. Dissidence grows in Communist Vietnam as it does in Communist Europe and Mongolia, and it receives a more sympathetic hearing by the populace and elites as we get to the late 1980s. With the last war having ended in 1954, hardliners attempts to link reformism and dissidence to "French and American plots" fall fairly flat. Additionally, the unification by election in the 1950s gives the idea of elections more political legitimacy among communist and non-communist Vietnamese, that the dissident movement (some led by students and intelligentsia, others perhaps led by Buddhist and or Catholic or syncretic clergy).
I think honestly, that odds are at least 10 to 1 against all these scenarios, but these ideas are the best I can do with a post Dien Bien Phu p.o.d.
I don't think this is possible...Vietnamese were radicalized because of French repression of more moderate Indochinese independence movements...
And Vietnam really don't like being under the rule of foreign powers in general...I mean, they were under Chinese rule for around 1000 years, but they eventually broke out of that...
And Vietnam really don't like being under the rule of foreign powers in general...I mean, they were under Chinese rule for around 1000 years, but they eventually broke out of that...
Current Vietnamese politics are undemocratic, but hardly radical. They follow the Chinese style of dictatorial politics combined with an open economy and a greater degree of space for private and social life in the non-political sphere than classic communist regimes.
Nationalism does not require Vietnam to be undemocratic. As a country that defeated the two oldest republics, and which has a dominant ethnicity and lacks Burmese or Balkan style ethnic rifts, it has nothing to be "afraid" of in democratic reform. If willing to reform for other reasons, Vietnam could "safely" loosen political controls.
Of the five concepts I proposed, only 1 of them (#3) is based on more successful foreign intervention being decisive. The other 4 concepts don't involve foreign military intervention being any more successful than OTL. In 1 of them (#5) there is less foreign intervention.
Yes, I know...it's just that like with China, people are more focused on $$$...
And Vietnam becoming democratic in the past isn't fully possible because of suppression of moderate independence movements...leaving only radicals...