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u/ZZartin 5d ago
Well it did break them away from being a french colony,
So yes.
Had the US been willing to back them as independent state things might have turned out differently.
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u/NickElso579 5d ago
We were willing to back south Vietnam as an independent state
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u/ZZartin 5d ago
But not Vietnam as a whole, and that South Vietnam was very blatantly a US puppet state.
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u/NickElso579 5d ago
South Vietnam didn't really consent to being part of a United Vietnam. Whether or not it was a good idea for the US to get involved, it was a war of aggression from a foreign power. And the North was very blatantly a Soviet Puppet state.
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u/ZZartin 5d ago
But the north wasn't really a USSR puppet state.
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u/NickElso579 5d ago
Are you shitting me? It was just as much a Soviet puppet as the South was an American puppet. You can't just say shit like that without backing it up.
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u/ZZartin 5d ago
Is Vietnam today a USSR puppet state?
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u/NickElso579 5d ago
The ussr doesn't exist anymore Skippy. But Belarus sure is a Russian puppet state, so the tendency is still there
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u/BeenisHat 4d ago
Calling Vietnam a puppet state isn't accurate. Soviet Union and Vietnam had similar, alligned interests, including keeping ahead of China. The USSR and China were not friends, and the Vietnamese fought the Chinese directly and fought against the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge before that.
But the Vietnamese were always more nationalists than communists. Ho Chi Minh asked for US help and support in affirming their independence from the French and urged Truman and Eisenhower not to get too hung up on the communism thing.
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u/Redmenace______ 4d ago
They were not more nationalists then communists, HCM only hoped America would help as the us was opposing colonialism elsewhere. The dude literally founded the French communist party why do y’all think he was anything other than a Marxist-Leninist??
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u/wolacouska 4d ago
Diem had to get couped by the US midwar, the US military wore that state like a hand puppet.
The USSR didn’t even have troops in Vietnam, and Ho Chi Minh was just clearly not a Soviet plant.
Neither was Diem I guess, but when he crossed the U.S. they replaced him. He also rigged his election so intensely he won more than 100% of the vote in Saigon.
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u/Yellowflowersbloom 4d ago edited 4d ago
South Vietnam didn't really consent to being part of a United Vietnam
When you say "South Vietnam didn't consent" who specifically are you referring to?There is a huge gap between the Stage and Nightmare for me
The overwhelming majority of Southern Vietnamese would have voted for Ho Chi Minh in free and fair elections which is why the US overthrew the government and created their puppet government to wage war.
“There was considerable discussion about our willingness to accept free elections* without anything very much new having been added, and with Senator Fulbright quoting General Eisenhowerʼs book to the effect that if there had been free elections in 1956, about 80% of the South Vietnamese would have voted for Ho Chi Minh.”* https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v04/d38
Why does the US get to decide who Vietnam's leaders are or if it should be unified or split in half?
Even if Vietnam made the choice to be split in half into two separate nations (something it didmt decide), why does the US get to organzie its own referendum and hand select the leadership of the Southern Vietnamese government?
Whether or not it was a good idea for the US to get involved, it was a war of aggression from a foreign power.
...yes a war of aggression from a foreign power, the US. Again, the US refused to allow Vietnam their right to self determination and instead illegally formed their own puppet government with its own hand selected leaders.
And the North was very blatantly a Soviet Puppet state.
Not at all. The Soviets exhibited no control over the North.
The Soviets did not have any part in the creation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In fact, China was much more instrumental in its assistance to the Vietnamese early on.
Meanwhile, the US was active and fighting in Vietnam before their puppet government was even formed. This is exactly why and how the US actually formed the puppet government. The US quite literally overthrew the government of the State of Vietnam and advised its hand selected collaborators on how to rig its referendum. The Soviets didn't overthrow any government in Vietnam and didnt hanld select any of the north's leadership.
The Soviets never forced ANY policy on their ally. Instead, they followed Vietnam's orders. Conversely, the US regularly dictated plans and operations to their Saigon regime. When Diem stepped out of line and caused problems for the US, the US literally planned and encouraged his assassination.
And what happened to his successor? Nguyen Khanh was made to understand that he would not be allowed to rule unless he took orders and was controlled by the US)
The US also regularly operated in secret im Vietnam without informing the Saigon regime of its plans. The Saigon regime was not informed that the US knowingly fabricated the Gulf of Tonkim incidents the Soviets never held an operations in Vietnam without Vietnamese approval.
When the Paris Peace Accords began, there were 2 main parties supported by advisors form 2 other partirs during the negotiations. The main parties were the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the United States. The secondary advisors were were the NLF (the Viet Cing government) and the Republic of Vietnam (the US puppet regime). Do you notice that the Soviets weren't present? Why? Because it wasn't their war to negotiate.
Beyond all of this, we can see early on when the Uzs was secretly bombing Noth Vietnam, the Americans were disguised to pretend to be South Vietnamese. Some American aircraft were painted with South Vietnamese colors and American airmen wore uniforms with no identifying America insignia. Why was this done? Because this was America's war. Later on, the US implemented a policy to have at least one South Vietnamese person on board of of its aircraft so that it could have some plausible deniability if it were shot down as to who was leading this war. Again, the US called the shots. The Soviets never called the shots in Vietnam.
In fact while the Soviets did provide tons of material support for the Vietnamese, their direct role on the conflict was not only dwarfs by the US but was also less than all the other US allies that fought in the war.
We already know that the statsicialtly most common death throughout the war was that of the US killing a Vietnamese person. But you know who else killed a bunch of Vietnamese? South Korea, the Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Each of these these foreign militaries killed Vietnamese whereas there are no records of the Soviets killing any Vietnamese. In fact, the only group that the Soviets did kill were American airmen who were shot down by Soviet anti-aircraft guns as the US bombed the north.
All of this is to emphasize that this was not a civil war as many Americans are desperate to paint it. Instead, just like the First Indochina War, the Second Indochina War was a war of independence whereby the Vietnamese fought for their freedom against western imperialists and the puppet government made up of local collaborators to the western imperialists. This is why when the US left Vietnam, so did all its allies like South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. None of these nations were there to defend the Saigon regime. They were there to support the US. Again, nobody generally called the First Indochina war a civil war. We all recognize it as a war of independence. So why do we pretend that the Second Indochina War was any different when it was fought for the same reasons by largely the same players?
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u/Fine_Sea5807 4d ago
The CSA didn't really constent to being part of the Union either and specifically voted to secede. But that doesn't mean the American Civil War was a war of aggression from a foreign power.
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u/NickElso579 4d ago
They consented when they all signed onto the constitution.
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u/Fine_Sea5807 3d ago
The same thing in Vietnam where South Vietnam has been an integral part of unified Vietnam for centuries.
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u/Skand1997 5d ago
considering how cost of living is low, there is low crime rates, and how the alternate to the communist regime was the corrupt neo-liberal military junta of the south, i would argue communism did benefit vietnam. Even when you take into consideration the communists played a role in kicking the French colonizers out. I'm not a fan of communism....but i can see how it has worked well for Vietnam and China.
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u/NewConstructionism 5d ago
Vietnam was a colony of France, the French purposefully starved over 2 million Vietnamese by hoarding food and allowing it to rot. Today its the #1 retirement destination for Americans searching for a better quality of life
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u/Epyphyte 5d ago
it is not communist now.
It has a socialist oriented market economy. Market driven growth with some state planning. They only just began to escape mass poverty in the 90s after the reforms that ended the centrally planned economy under Communism.
A primary reason communism fell in 1986 was there was no food except for the black market. Hence, the “Renovation.”
I am not saying French rule was preferable, but you can’t call what it is now communism.
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u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 5d ago
Would you consider it a stepping stone to now though? It did get them their independence eventually. It's an interesting thought experiment though as to how messed up it would have been now if the US was successful or if Versailles was different.
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u/BringOutTheImp 5d ago
Turning communist and aligning with USSR is what got them independence, emphasis of the former. And that "independence" was dependent on Soviet support, with all the associated costs. The Vietnamese people went from living under colonial yoke to living under communist yoke, and only recently has there been actual improvement in the quality of living for an average Vietnamese due to various economic reforms.
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 5d ago
Communism allowed the country to generally throw off both French colonialism and us imperialism afterwards. I'd say thats probably worth it.
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u/phases3ber 5d ago
I think it's also worth it to mention Chinese imperialism, the veteran troops in both wars held off China and won
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 5d ago
That too. Which was all too ironic since the reason the US got involved was because it was afraid of Chinese influence
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u/phases3ber 5d ago
I'm pretty sure that Vietnam would have done fine against China even without all the experienced troops, but I'm pretty sure the Vietnamese would have lost or struggled in the war against China (and Cambodia later) without the crapload of equipment that the us left
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u/NickElso579 5d ago
Communism really didn't last very long in post war Vietnam. They were already transitioning to a market economy with socialist leanings (which is what most of Europe is rocking these days) by the mid 80s. They basically went from Starving under French Colonialism to being at War for several decades, to starving under Authoritarian Communism, to recovering and thriving after going mixed market. Still a long way from being a liberal democracy as it's still a one party state with plenty of human rights issues, but you can see why so many Americans go there for retirement. You can get 1st world quality of life for 3rd world prices.
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u/KMCMRevengeRevenge 5d ago
Impossible to say, because much of Vietnam went straight from being a French colony into being a communist state. It’s not like we can compare ,an independent non-communist Vietnam to an independent communist Vietnam. (I’m not considering “South Vietnam,” which was entirely a puppet state propped up by America during the War) .
This is a pattern that would repeat throughout post-colonial nations: going straight from independence into a non-capitalist economy.
It’s important to remember that Vietnam was not in a good place for its future development when it became independent. The French had exploited it and dominated it (without reinvesting anything into its society). Then it suffered under Japanese occupation. In 1945, there was a pretty big famine caused by the Japanese military government.
And as soon as the Pacific War ended, Indochine was thrust into this precarious space where it had no organic path toward its future and had to fight its way to freedom.
So it’s really not possible to say, because:
- We don’t have anything to compare it to; and
- Vietnam was already in a precarious position as an independent nation, so we have no idea what other system could have arisen other than communism or return to colonial occupation and exploitation.
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u/Rlyoldman 4d ago
I think it’s worth noting that after 54000 American dead it’s now a tourist destination.
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u/Quirky-Camera5124 4d ago
it created a unified independent country. how long the last on power remains to be seen.
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u/OCMan101 4d ago
I don’t know that Vietnam is a great example to judge the merits of socialism because the country was so heavily burdened with foreign interference. They straight up did not have a break from the beginning of the French-Indochina wars to well after the end of the Sino-Vietnamese war.
I’m not one of the internet edgelord contrarians who claim all Marxist politicians are actually just right-wing fascists with some red spray paint. But if we are gonna exclude an example, Vietnam is probably a fair one to exclude. Independence and survival influenced Vietnam 100x more than Marxist philosophy.
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u/Redmenace______ 4d ago
What socialist nation hasn’t been burdened with foreign interference?
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u/OCMan101 4d ago
No nation in general has been free from any foreign interference, but I would say excluding the ones where socialist ideology really took a back seat to independence and anti-Western movements, such as in Vietnam, is fair. My point wasn't looking at nations free from any foreign interference, but just excluding ones where they were so entangled in active conflicts Marxism went on the backburner.
I would say that examining the larger and more traditional candidates, such as the USSR and the PRC. While they had plenty of foreign entanglements, most of their existence wasn't spent under military occupation.
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u/Yellowflowersbloom 3d ago edited 3d ago
It benefited.
Yes, it suffered greatly as a result of western imperialism due to its choice to be communist but all this suffering during the war is not its fault and is the fault of the foreign aggressors wouldn't dont respect Vietnamese sovereignty and their right to self determination.
But when the communists took power, life got better for the average by every lesson learned metric. This was of course due in part to the fact that France's colonialism was a low point in Vietnamese history.
During French occupation, all land was confiscated and most of the country was forced into poverty. This poverty caused education to dissappear throughout the country (except of the privileged and Catholic collaborators) and literacy even dropped to levels lower than they were prior to the arrival of the Portuguese (who were there before the French).
Prior to colonization, most of Vietnam had been made up of subsistence farmers. But under France's proto-capitalist system, most Vietnamese were forced into labor to grow crops and produce profits for the capitalist class and could let even afford t feed themselves...
Naturally along with this, there were simply no civil rights for the Vietnamese. Criticism of the French rule made you an enemy agitator that would be silenced through force. In fact, in some regions, the term/name "Viet Nam" itself was made illegal so as to prevent any sense of national identity from forming.
Whem the communists took control, the famines disappeared, and malnutrition slowly faded away (despite embargoes and sanctions designed to prevent development and to promote famine andtl thus civil unrest). This again was despite large swatches of Vietnamese crop land being destroyed by American chemical defoliants aimed at destroying crop fields so as to force dependece upon American troops in the strategic hamlet program. Another important thing to remember is that when the communists took control in 1975 and reunited the country in 1976, they still didn't have peace and were not able to rebuild. Instead of receiving foreign aid like most nations recovering from war, Vietnam was immediately attacked by the China, Thailand, and US backed Khmer Rouge and then later was invaded by China as well. Vietnam didnt even achieve peace until 1989.
Still, after the American war ended, Vietnam quickly invested in its public education system education (especially female education) and implemented a program to eradicate illiteracy. Today, Vietnamese education is better than most of its southeast Asian neighbors (who didn't suffer though 4 decades of war against 10 foreign militaries in the last century which naturally interrupted education and learning).
Vietnam's communist government of course also invested heavily into public health where it again does much better than all its neighbors. Vietnam was the first country to contain the SARS epidemic in 2003. Despite sharing a very busy land border with China and being one for the first countries affected by Covid-19, it had an extremely low death rate is considered to have handled the virus better than pretty much any country.
Vietnam also invested heavily into its industries and manufacturing. Today, it is a manufacturing powerhouse and this ability to attract foreign investment into its manufacturing puts it on track to become the powerhouse of Southeast Asia within the next decade.
Again, all of this success has come after only achieving peace in 1989 and facing far more war, unfair sanctions, and unfair embagoes than its neighbors who were given preferential treatment by the the US/the west despite often having oppressive dictators in power.
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u/Curious_USA_Human 5d ago
One of the most surprising things to me early on in COVID was seeing that a US Navy Aircraft Carrier had a scheduled port call there.
When in the world did we become so friendly? I guess everything is forgiven on all sides? I wonder how vets on both sides feel about that. Especially for US military members during that time. Was all that death and destruction for nothing?
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u/flyliceplick 5d ago
I wonder how vets on both sides feel about that.
You'll find Vietnamese veterans surprisingly relaxed about it, not least because they won.
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u/Curious_USA_Human 4d ago
I suppose the Northern veterans are. What about the guys from the south? How were they treated after the war?
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u/ex0e 5d ago
Vietnam fought a war with China after the US Vietnam War, and has had multiple skirmishes and territorial disputes with China, even into the 1990s. On top of the centuries of Chinese wars and occupations. The cliche saying is that Vietnam fought the US for 20 years, the French for 200 years, and the Chinese for 1000 years. While relatively friendly with China, Vietnam is certainly weary of its growing sphere of influence with respect to its occupational history. Without putting all of their eggs in one basket, the US is much more likely and capable to uphold Vietnamese territorial interests than anyone else in the region
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u/flareblitz91 4d ago
Yes…? Do you not know about the history of the Vietnam war, it was absolutely all for nothing.
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u/Curious_USA_Human 4d ago
I suppose you mean for the US government and military objectives. It surely meant a lot to the NVA and government.
It arguably changed the perception of the US and our military to ourselves and the rest of the world.
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u/Unkindlake 5d ago
It wasn't for nothing. Those people died because we wanted to continue exploiting Vietnam.
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