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Communist forces in the Vietnam War lost most battles and suffered disproportionally higher casualties than the United States and its allies throughout the conflict. The ground war in South Vietnam and the air war in the North were certainly important in shaping the fates of the victors and losers, but they alone fail to explain why Hanoi bested Washington in the end. To make sense of the Vietnam War, we must look beyond the war itself. In his new work, Pierre Asselin explains the formative experiences and worldview of the men who devised communist strategies and tactics during the conflict, and analyzes their rationale and impact. Drawing on two decades of research in Vietnam's own archives, including classified policy statements and reports, Asselin expertly and straightforwardly relates the Vietnamese communist experience - and the reasons the war turned out the way it did.

Vietnam War, 1961-1975. --- Vietnam (Democratic Republic) --- History, Military. --- Vietnam War, 1961-1975 --- Vietnam Conflict, 1961-1975 --- Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 --- Vietnamese War, 1961-1975 --- Vietnam (Democratic Republic, 1946- ) --- Democratic Republic of Vietnam --- Demokraticheskai︠a︡ Respublika Vʹetnam --- Wietnamska Republika Demokratyczna --- Vietnamská demokratická republika --- Demokratichna Republika Vietnam --- SRV --- S.R.V. --- DRV --- D.R.V. --- North Vietnam --- Việt-Nam dân chủ Cộng hòa --- Nước Việt-Nam dân chủ Cộng hòa --- Vietnam (North) --- Tonkin --- Vietnam

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"Immediately after its founding by Hò̂ Chí Minh in September 1945, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) faced challenges from rival Vietnamese political organizations and from a France determined to rebuild her empire after the humiliations of WWII. Hò̂, with strategic genius, courageous maneuver, and good fortune, was able to delay full-scale war with France for sixteen months in the northern half of the country. This was enough time for his Communist Party, under the cover of its Vietminh front organization, to neutralize domestic rivals and install the rough framework of an independent state. That fledgling state became a weapon of war when the DRV and France finally came to blows in Hanoi during December of 1946, marking the official beginning of the First Indochina War. With few economic resources at their disposal, Hò̂ and his comrades needed to mobilize an enormous and free contribution in manpower and rice from DRV-controlled regions. Extracting that contribution during the war's early days was primarily a matter of patriotic exhortation. By the early 1950s, however, the infusion of weapons from the United States, the Soviet Union, and China had turned the Indochina conflict into a "total war." Hunger, exhaustion, and violence, along with the conflict's growing political complexity, challenged the DRV leaders' mobilization efforts, forcing patriotic appeals to be supplemented with coercion and terror. This trend reached its revolutionary climax in late 1952 when Hò̂, under strong pressure from Stalin and Mao, agreed to carry out radical land reform in DRV-controlled areas of northern Vietnam. The regime's 1954 victory over the French at Điện Biên Phủ, the return of peace, and the division of the country into North and South did not slow this process of socialist transformation. Over the next six years (1954-1960), the DRV's Communist leaders raced through land reform and agricultural collectivization with a relentless sense of urgency. Mass Mobilization in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945-1960 explores the way the exigencies of war, the dreams of Marxist-Leninist ideology, and the pressures of the Cold War environment combined with pride and patriotism to drive totalitarian state formation in northern Vietnam"--

Communism --- Land reform --- Vietnam (Democratic Republic) --- History. --- Politics and government. --- Agrarian reform --- Economic policy --- Land use, Rural --- Social policy --- Agriculture and state --- Vietnam (Democratic Republic, 1946- ) --- Democratic Republic of Vietnam --- Demokraticheskai︠a︡ Respublika Vʹetnam --- Wietnamska Republika Demokratyczna --- Vietnamská demokratická republika --- Demokratichna Republika Vietnam --- SRV --- S.R.V. --- DRV --- D.R.V. --- North Vietnam --- Việt-Nam dân chủ Cộng hòa --- Nước Việt-Nam dân chủ Cộng hòa --- Tonkin --- Vietnam --- Vietnam (North) --- Asian history --- colonialism & imperialism --- marxism & communism