The insistence on respecting the Geneva accords and the continuing effort to influence domestic and world opinion encouraged the same conclusion. As part of the effort to win hearts and minds abroad, Hanoi dispatched urgent pleas to the British and Soviet governments, cochairs of the 1954 Geneva Conference, to convene “a new Geneva Conference on the Question of Indochina.” A new conference, it affirmed, was “necessary and urgent” to put an end to the accruing military commitment of the Americans to Saigon.143 It might also lead to better relations between the two halves of Vietnam, a necessary prelude to peaceful unification.144 “It is clearly on the diplomatic front that DRVN political leaders have chosen for the time being to deal with their differences with the South,” French diplomats in Hanoi reported in March in light of recent DRVN endeavors. Above all, Hanoi sought to “present itself before the eyes of world opinion as embracing pacifism at all costs,” and to that end had “gotten into gear” its entire propaganda machine.145 It was also pressing the French government to accept a permanent DRVN representation in Paris, which it planned to use to rally the Franco-Vietnamese community against Saigon and foreign interference in Indochina.146
PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
In late February 1956 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev stunned the socialist camp during the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) by denouncing Stalin, condemning his “crimes,” and detailing the errors of the personality cult he had cultivated. Without previously consulting or even informing allies, Khrushchev also proffered on behalf of the CPSU, the Soviet Union, and the rest of the socialist camp a commitment to “peaceful coexistence” with the West. This concept had first been voiced at the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council in 1949, then codified in a treaty between China and India in 1954, and eventually adopted by the movement of nonaligned states. In the future, Khrushchev announced, Moscow and other members of the socialist camp would forswear violent struggle against capitalism and its proponents in favor of constructive diplomatic engagement and economic competition, all with the aim of reducing Cold War tensions.
Khrushchev’s pronouncements had serious implications for Vietnam. According to historian Galia Golan, from that moment Moscow operated “under Khrushchev’s doctrinal tenet that local wars would inevitably escalate to global, nuclear proportions”; as a result, it opposed even more determinedly the resumption of hostilities in Indochina.147 “As one of the nuclear superpowers,” a western assessment noted, the Soviet Union “had the same interest as the United States in avoiding any disturbance of the lines which have been gradually built up between the Communist and Western powers” since 1954, especially in Vietnam.148 To impress upon DRVN leaders the seriousness of its commitment to peaceful coexistence and the attenuation of Cold War tensions, Moscow sent deputy premier Anastas Mikoyan to Hanoi in early April.149 Mikoyan informed his hosts that “they were always assured of the support of his government and of communist bloc countries,” but they had to “demonstrate patience and prudence in the pursuit of their final objective” of national reunification under communist authority.150
The VWP Central Committee convened shortly after Mikoyan’s visit to discuss the meaning for Vietnam of Moscow’s turn to peaceful coexistence. Though Khrushchev’s position validated Hanoi’s current strategy, including the “North-first” policy, many who spoke at the plenum voiced dismay at the apparent meaning of peaceful coexistence both for the socialist world generally and for Vietnam and its reunification struggle specifically. These speakers interpreted Khrushchev’s move as a unilateral concession to the United States that constrained the freedom of action of communist parties, threatened the unity of the socialist camp, and set back the prospects for world revolution and for their own effort to reunify Vietnam should peaceful reunification on their terms fail to materialize. As much as socialist countries loved peace, they reasoned, it was not always a viable option because of the implacable nature of capitalism and imperialism and of the structural forces that determined American Cold War policy. The enemies of socialism “have aggressive designs,” the committee reported in summarizing the discussions. Thus revolutionary forces in Vietnam and elsewhere must always be prepared to meet any challenge by any means.151 Unfortunately, henceforth the VWP and other communist parties would be unable to resort to military struggle to meet their revolutionary goals without running the risk of alienating Khrushchev and losing Soviet political and material support.152
According to Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi’s current strategy did satisfy the tenets of peaceful coexistence. However, even he, a force behind the decision to suspend military struggle in favor of political struggle in the South after July 1954, recognized that disavowing war altogether was unsound and potentially dangerous. “We must always remember that the enemies of our people are the American imperialists and their puppets,” and “they are preparing for war.”153 The refusal of Saigon and Washington to comply with the Geneva accords proved that blind faith in peaceful coexistence was problematic concerning the future of the Vietnamese revolution.154 Ho acknowledged that military action in the South might be warranted if the Americans and their lackeys continued their campaign of oppression, but he pointedly failed to specify at what point that warrant should be implemented.155 Other speakers at the plenum objected to Khrushchev’s attack on Stalin, whom Vietnamese communists generally held in high regard despite his flaws and errors. The denunciation of Stalin’s personality cult was especially galling, since it could be read as a criticism of the VWP’s cult of Ho Chi Minh, whose image was practically everywhere in Hanoi and whose every major public utterance was treated as an article of revolutionary faith. Equally offending was the fact that Khrushchev had presented Hanoi with a fait accompli, scoffing at the congeniality supposed to govern relations among “fraternal” world communist parties.
Despite these criticisms and reservations, the plenum’s final resolution endorsed the outcome of the CPSU’s Twentieth Congress. To do otherwise would have been an unthinkable breach of socialist etiquette and could have compromised Soviet–DRVN relations as well as the unity of the socialist camp more broadly. For the same reasons, after the plenum, DRVN leaders publicly praised the correctness of the views espoused by Khrushchev. “The collapse of the Stalin myth,” a western assessment of this plenum and its aftermath noted, “has not, on the surface at least, embarrassed the leaders nor given rise to any [public] criticism of the Kremlin’s leadership.” Interestingly, within days of the plenum’s conclusion, a large portrait of Ho was removed from the façade of the municipal theater in Hanoi, where the National Assembly convened. DRVN authorities also ceased to make official pronouncements in the name of the VWP and the DRVN government in addition to “President Ho Chi Minh.” Given the dependence on Moscow’s political and material backing, French diplomats believed, Hanoi “cannot hesitate in conforming in all circumstances its attitude” to “Soviet theses,” or in expressing its ideological loyalty to the Kremlin.156 At a minimum, it had to pretend to be loyal.
In an address to the nation shortly after the plenum, Ho Chi Minh reiterated that “resolutely implementing the Geneva accords by peaceful means on the basis of the unification of the North and the South . . . of the fatherland” was the “sacred mission” of the Vietnamese people.157 But there were limits as to how far Hanoi would go to mollify Moscow. Most notably, the party continued to give precedence to its own concerns in decision-making and to exploit the personal prestige of Ho Chi Minh, of his personality cult. This exaltation of the DRVN president was a part of North Vietnamese cultural reality, not just an act of propaganda. Ho’s prestige was “far too great an asset” to dispense with for the VWP posing as “champio[n] of a united and independent Vietnam.”158 Ho remained “a benign hero and father figure to the masses,” another assessment of this phenomenon noted. “He is an exemplar of the Vietnamese virtues—‘l’homme vietnamien réussi’ [the accomplished Vietnamese man]—in the fullest sense, and not merely a material one.”159
T
HE DEATH OF THE GENEVA ACCORDS AND DEMOCRATIZATION IN THE NORTH
In July 1956, the deadline for the promised elections on Vietnamese reunification passed. That outcome satisfied the United States. Fearful of a communist victory in those elections and thus of “losing” Vietnam, even while insisting publicly that free elections were impossible in a totalitarian state such as the DRVN, Washington had never supported elections or even reunification, just as it had never failed to impress those views upon Diem and his government. “Neither the United States nor Free Vietnam,” Senator John F. Kennedy, a prominent Democrat, had argued, “is ever going to be a party to an election obviously stacked and subverted in advance.”160 Reassuringly for Hanoi in light of their recent endorsement of peaceful coexistence, the Soviets were quick to excoriate Washington for this lapse of the Geneva accords.161 The Eisenhower administration’s expressed opposition to the elections and other aspects of the Geneva accords and its perceived leverage over Saigon have convinced many scholars that Washington was indeed responsible for the collapse of the accords. The decision, it is now clear, was made by Ngo Dinh Diem, who needed no American pressure or even advice to prevent the elections by refusing to arrange for them in the South.162 Diem was certain the DRVN would never permit free choice or an honest count in elections so vital to its interests.163 More significantly, he felt that he had worked too hard to consolidate his authority in the South to risk everything in elections in which his opponent would be Ho Chi Minh.164 Indeed, considering Diem’s personal characteristics, “the hope of unifying the nation by peaceful methods may never have been capable of achievement.”165
This outcome was a “grave disappointment” for DRVN leaders, but it was hardly shocking in light of developments in the South. Only recently, Diem had further solidified his position by successfully staging another election, this one for a constituent assembly mandated to draft a constitution for the newly established RVN. He had also ordered the withdrawal of all remaining French forces from the South and the closure of the French High Command, the organ charged with carrying out France’s obligations under the Geneva accords. Western observers took the latter action, effective on 28 April, to signal the “death” of the Geneva accords.166 Still, Hanoi reacted to these events with surprising passiveness, suggesting that key leaders, such as Ho and Giap, still thought peaceful reunification was ideologically sound and realistically achievable, or else that armed struggle remained an impossible choice.
Instead of going to war in the South, in late July 1956 the North actually “entered a period of calm” during which its leaders concerned themselves almost exclusively with domestic, northern matters. There were new initiatives of political and social liberalization, a domestic “détente” characterized by relaxation of personal controls and travel restrictions, reduction of mandatory political meetings, release of political prisoners and others arbitrarily arrested, and “remarkable” extensions of free speech.167 By November, the Council of Ministers and the National Assembly were jointly working on legislation to “guarantee democratic liberties and the individual rights of the population,” return the northern population to a “freer” life, end much of the arbitrary authority exercised by party cadres, and “reject all errors committed owing to ‘stalinism.’”168
Why did Hanoi respond so passively to the “killing” of the Geneva accords? Why did it not resume military struggle at that point, choosing instead to loosen its control in the DRVN? Beyond the litany of reasons previously discussed that militated against resumption of war, including the state of the armed forces, the wishes of allies, and the fear of American intervention, a main reason for those decisions was the general state of affairs in the North. Even if other circumstances had been more favorable, by mid-1956 DRVN authorities had too much on their plate at home to effectively support and sustain hostilities in the South. During Hanoi’s Municipal Party Congress in July and August, “grumbles” about party policies on such issues as security restrictions and tax collection were widely and aggressively pressed. These episodes, combined with similar ones a month later during the Eighth National Congress of the CCP, which concluded with a call for greater measures of conciliation on the part of the party with the people of China, played a meaningful role in precluding Hanoi from resuming hostilities in the South and spurred détente in the DRVN.169
Most consequential, however, was the fallout from the bungled handling of land reform. The party had so poorly managed that program that it caused both widespread hardship and resentment throughout the North. It distributed land to some eight million previously landless or poor peasants but created almost universal discontent due to the arbitrary methods used by cadres to classify households and reallocate land.170 Following party condemnation of the lack of zeal and forcefulness among cadres tasked with implementing the redistribution, many cadres had overreacted, manifesting “too much of the ruthlessness that was necessary and successful during the war” but which alienated people when applied indiscriminately in peacetime.171 At Quynh Luu in crisis-prone Nghe An Province, the political alienation and economic dislocation occasioned by the land reform campaign precipitated a rebellion. The denouement of that episode was bloody enough to compound the more general problems facing DRVN leaders trying to accomplish other basic social changes. Many of the rebels at Quynh Luu were Catholics, and many of the PAVN troops sent to suppress them were embittered southern regroupees.172 So serious were the problems caused by this and other, less serious crises provoked by the land redistribution program that Hanoi suspended it that summer, and Ho Chi Minh publicly apologized for its shortcomings.173
At its Tenth Plenum, which exceptionally lasted for forty days, in September and October, the VWP Central Committee confirmed the party’s commitment to the “democratization” these aforementioned actions represented, to the “North-first” policy that they amounted to, and to the current strategy in the South.174 “In our struggle to reunify the country, the consolidation of the North is the fundamental task,” the committee decreed. A subsequent official communiqué repeated the line that the struggle for national reunification would be “long, difficult, complex.” A British assessment noted that after the July 1956 deadline for elections passed, the party had not only failed to react but actually had “relegated the struggle for peaceful reunification to third place behind democratization and improving the conditions of workers, soldiers, cadres and functionaries” in the North.175
The Tenth Plenum convened specifically to address and find remedies to the disastrous consequences of land reform and their debilitating effects on party morale. Among the policy innovations included in what foreign observers variously called détente, democratization, or “de-Stalinization” were a special review of land reform, new limits on police powers, suspension of special courts for arbitrary trials, reinstatement of party members who had been punished for lack of enthusiasm in enforcing land reform, and disciplining of members guilty of committing grave errors as a result of too much enthusiasm for enforcing party reforms.176 The massiveness of the land reform program’s excesses is hinted at by the stature of the leading men who became casualties of this disciplining process. Chief among them was Truong Chinh, who had to resign his post as general secretary of the party. His closest associates, who, like him, had been zealous supporters of modeling Vietnam’s land reform program after China’s, were also demoted. They included Le Van Luong, who stepped down as both head of the powerful Party Organization Committee and vice minister of the interior; Hoang Quoc Viet, who lost his seat in the Politburo; and Ho Viet Thang, who was expelled from the Central Committee and compelled to give up his posts as vice minister of agriculture and vice chairman of the Land Reform Committee.177
Possibly, the four men were scapegoats sacrificed for the serious errors of the leadership and its agents during the land reform campaign, and possibly, too, for the decision to suspend military struggle and accept the Geneva accords.178 Also, it is not improbable that the sacking of Truong Chinh, Luong, Viet,
and Thang had to do with a tug-of-war among DRVN leaders pitting those who thought the party should move as slowly and cautiously in the North as it was in the South on the one hand, against their more doctrinaire comrades committed to the rapid socialist transformation of the North in accordance with orthodox Marxist-Leninist principles on the other. In May the British Consulate had speculated about the possible emergence of a cleavage dividing “ideologists” headed by Truong Chinh and unnamed “responsible ministers and administrators” led by Ho and Giap. “The former group might wish to press ahead with the ‘revolution’ [in the North] too fast for the taste of the latter, and, in the name of communist solidarity, might be willing to yield greater influence to China than nationalist sentiment would welcome,” the consulate hypothesized.179 During the Tenth Plenum, the Central Committee in fact condemned “leftist deviations”—that is, dogmatism, a perversion typically associated with Chinese radical communism.180
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