19th century and French colonization

Flag of Colonial Annam.

The West's exposure in Vietnam dates back to 166 BC with the arrival of merchants from the Roman Empire, 1292 with the visit of Marco Polo, and the early 1500s with the arrival of Portuguese and other European traders and missionaries.^{[citation needed]} Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit priest, improved on earlier work by Portuguese missionaries and developed the Vietnamese romanized alphabet Quốc Ngữ in Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanam et Latinum in 1651.^[3]

Between 1627 and 1775, two powerful families had partitioned the country: the Nguyễn Lords ruled the South and the Trịnh Lords ruled the North. The Trịnh-Nguyễn War gave European traders the opportunities to support each side with weapons and technology: the Portuguese assisted the Nguyễn while the Dutch helped the Trịnh.

In 1784, during the conflict between Nguyễn Ánh, the surviving heir of the Nguyễn Lords, and the Tây Sơn Dynasty, a French Catholic Bishop, Pigneaux de Behaine, sailed to France to seek military backing for Nguyen Anh. At Louis XVI's court, Pigneaux brokered the Little Treaty of Versailles, which promised French military aid in return for Vietnamese concessions. The French Revolution broke out and Pigneaux's plan failed to materialize. Undaunted, Pigneaux went to the French territory of Pondicherry, India. He secured two ships, a regiment of Indian troops, and a handful of volunteers and returned to Vietnam in 1788 . One of Pigneaux's volunteers, Jean-Marie Dayot, reorganized Nguyễn Ánh's navy along European lines and defeated the Tây Sơn at Qui Nhơn in 1792. A few years later, Nguyễn Ánh's forces captured Saigon, where Pigneaux died in 1799. Another volunteer, Victor Olivier de Puymanel would later build the Gia Định fort in central Saigon.

After Nguyễn Ánh established the Nguyễn Dynasty in 1802, he tolerated Catholicism and employed some Europeans in his court as advisors. However, he and his successors were conservative Confucians who resisted Westernization. The next Nguyễn emperors, Ming Mạng, Thiệu Trị, and Tự Đức brutally suppressed Catholicism and pursued a 'closed door' policy, perceiving the Westerners as a threat. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese and foreign-born Christians were persecuted and trade with the West slowed during this period. These acts were soon being used as excuses for France to invade Vietnam. Actually, the early Nguyễn Dynasty accomplished almost everything the previous great Vietnamese dynasties did (like building roads, digging canals, issuing a legal code, holding examinations, sponsoring care facilities for the sick, compiling maps and history books, exerting influence over Cambodia and Laos, etc), except those feats were not enough in the new age of science, technology, industrialization, and international trade and politics. The Nguyễn Dynasty is usually blamed for failing to modernize the country in time to prevent French colonization in the late 19th century.

Under the orders of Napoleon III of France, French gunships under Rigault de Genouilly attacked the port of Đà Nẵng in 1858, causing significant damages, yet failed to gain any foothold. De Genouilly decided to sail south and captured the poorly defended city of Gia Định (present-day Saigon). From 1859 to 1867, French troops expanded their control over all 6 provinces on the Mekong delta and formed a French Colony known as Cochin China. A few years later, French troops landed in northern Vietnam (which they called Tonkin) and captured Hà Nội twice in 1873 and 1882. The French managed to keep their grip on Tonkin although, twice, their top commanders, Francis Garnier and Henri Riviere were ambushed and killed. France assumed control over the whole of Vietnam after the Franco-Chinese War (1884-1885). French Indochina was formed in October 1887 from Annam (Trung Kỳ, central Vietnam), Tonkin (Bắc Kỳ, northern Vietnam), Cochin China (Nam Kỳ, southern Vietnam, and Cambodia, with Laos added in 1893. Within French Indochina, Cochin China had the status of a French Colony, Annam was a Protectorate where the Nguyen Dynasty still ruled in name, and Tonkin had a French Governor yet local governments were run by Vietnamese officials.

After Gia Định fell to French troops, many Vietnamese resistance movements broke out in occupied areas, some led by former court officers, such as Trương Định, some by peasants, such as Nguyễn Trung Trực, who sunk the French gunship L'Esperance using guerilla tactics. In the north, most movements were led by former court officers and lasted quite long, with Phan Đình Phùng until 1895 and Hoàng Hoa Thám until 1911. Even the teenage Nguyễn Emperor Hàm Nghi left the Imperial Palace of Huế in 1885 and started the Cần Vương, or "Save the King", movement, trying to rally the people to resist the French. He was captured in 1888 and exiled to French Algeria. Decades later, 2 more Nguyễn kings, Thành Thái and Duy Tân were also exiled to Africa for having anti-French tendencies.

In the early 20th century, Vietnamese patriots realized that they could not defeat France without modernization. Also, having been exposed to Western philosophy, they aimed to establish a republic upon independence, departing from the royalist sentiments of the Cần Vương movements. Japan served as a perfect example that modernization could help an Asian country to defeat a powerful European empire (Russia - see Russo-Japanese War). Thus emerged two parallel movements of modernization:

The first was the Đông Du ("Go East") Movement started in 1905 by Phan Bội Châu. Phan Bội Châu's plan was to send Vietnamse students to Japan to learn modern skills, so that in the future they could lead a successful armed revolt against the French. With Prince Cường Để, Phan Bội Châu started 2 organizations in Japan: Duy Tân Hội and Việt Nam Công Hiến Hội. Due to French pressure, Japan later deported Phan Bội Châu to China.

Phan Chu Trinh

Phan Boi Chau

Phan Chu Trinh, who favored a peaceful, non-violent struggle to gain independence, led the second movement Duy Tân ("Modernization"). He stressed the need to educate the masses, modernize the country, foster understanding and tolerance between the French and the Vietnamese, and a peaceful transition of power.

The early part of the 20th century also saw the growing in status of the Romanized Quốc Ngữ alphabet for the Vietnamese language. Vietnamese patriots realized the potential of Quốc Ngữ as a useful tool to quickly reduce illiteracy and to educate the masses. The traditional Chinese scripts or the Nôm script were seen as too cumbersome and too difficult to learn. The use of prose in literature also became popular with the appearance of many novels; most famous were those from the literary circle Tự Lực Văn Đoàn.

However, as the French suppressed both movements, and after witnessing revolutions in China and Russia, Vietnamse revolutionaries began to turn to radical paths. Phan Bội Châu created the Vietnam Quang Phục Hội in Guangzhou, planning armed resistance against the French. In 1925, French agents captured him in Shanghai and spirited him to Vietnam. Due to his popularity, Phan Bội Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In 1927, the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, modeled after the Guomingtang in China, was founded. In 1930, the party launched the armed Yên Bái Uprising in Tonkin which resulted in its chairman, Nguyễn Thái Học and 12 other leaders captured and executed by the guillotine.

Marxism was also introduced into Vietnam with the emergence of three separate Communist parties (Indochinese Communist Party, Annamese Communist Party, Indochinese Communist Union) and later a Trotskyist movement led by Tạ Thu Thâu. The Comintern sent Nguyễn Ái Quốc to coordinate the unification of the parties into the Vietnamese Communist Party in 1930, in Hongkong, with Trần Phú as the first Secretary General. Later, the party changed its name to Indochinese Communist Party as Comintern, under Stalin, did not favor nationalistic sentiments. Nguyễn Ái Quốc was a leftist revolutionary living in France since 1911. He participated in founding the French Communist Party and in 1924 traveled to the Soviet Union to join the Communist International (Comintern). Through the late 1920s, he acted as a Comintern agent to help build Communist movements in Southeast Asia. During the 1930s, the Vietnamese Communist Party was nearly wiped out under French suppression with the execution of top leaders such as Trần Phú, Lê Hồng Phong, and Nguyễn Văn Cừ.

In 1940, during World War II, Japan invaded Indochina yet kept the Vichy French colonial administration in place as a Japanese puppet. In 1941 Hồ Chí Minh, formerly known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, arrived in northern Vietnam to form Việt Minh Front (short for Việt Nam Độc Lập Đồng Minh Hội). Việt Minh Front was supposed to be an umbrella group for all parties fighting for Vietnam's independence, yet it was dominated by the Communist Party. Within Vietnam, Việt Minh had a very modest armed force, which worked with the American OSS to collect intelligence on the Japanese. From China, other non-Communist Vietnamese parties also joined Việt Minh and established armed forces with backing from the Guomingtang.

First Indochina War (1945 – 1954)

In 1944-1945, millions of Vietnamese starved to death in the Japanese occupation of Vietnam.^[4]

In early 1945, due to a combination of Japanese exploitation and poor weather, a famine broke out in Tonkin killing between 1 and 2 million people. In March 1945, Japanese occupying forces ousted the French administration in Indochina. Emperor Bảo Đại of the Nguyễn Dynasty nominally declared Vietnam independent, but Japanese retained true control.

In August 1945, the Japanese surrendered to the Allies, creating a power vacuum in Vietnam. The Việt Minh launched the "August Revolution" across the country to seize government offices. Emperor Bảo Ðại abdicated on August 25, 1945, ending the Nguyễn Dynasty. On September 2, 1945 Hồ Chí Minh declared Vietnam independent under the new name of Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and held the position of Chairman (Chủ Tịch).

In southern Vietnam, British forces landed in Saigon to disarm the Japanese in October and decided to restore order,which they did. The British commander South east Asia, Lord Mountbatten, sent over 20,000 troops of the 20th Indian division under General Douglas Gracey to occupy Saigon. The first soldiers arrived on 6 September and increased to full strength over the following weeks. In addition they re-armed Japanese prisoners of war (known as Gremlin force) The British began to withdraw in December of 1945, but this was not completed until June of the following year. The last British soldiers were killed in Vietnam in June 1946. Altogether 40 British and Indian troops were killed and over a hundred were wounded. Vietnamese casualties were 600. They were followed by French troops trying to re-establish their rule. In the north, Chiang Kaishek's army entered Vietnam, also to disarm the Japanese, followed by the forces of the non-Communist Vietnamese parties, such as Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng and Việt Nam Cách Mạng Đồng Minh Hội. In 1946, Vietnam had its first National Assembly election, which drafted the first constitution, yet its situation was very precarious: the French tried to regain power by force; some Cochin-Chinese politicians formed a seceding government of Cochin-China (Nam Kỳ Quốc); the non-Communist and Communist forces were killing each other. Stalinists purged Trotskyists. Religious sects and resistance groups formed their own militias. The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties but failed to secure a peace deal with France.

In 1947, full scale war broke out between Viet Minh and France. Realizing that colonialism was coming to an end worldwide, France fashioned a semi-independent State of Vietnam, within the French Union, with Bảo Đại as Head of State. Meanwhile, as the Communists under Mao Zedong took over China, Viet Minh began to receive military aid from China. Beside supplying materials, Chinese cadres also pressured the Vietnamese Communist Party, then under First Secretary Trường Chinh, to emulate their brand of revolution, unleashing a purge of "bourgeois and feudal" elements from the Viet Minh ranks, carrying out a ruthless and bloody land reform campaign (Cải Cách Ruộng Đất), and denouncing "bourgeois and feudal" tendencies in arts and literature. Many true patriots and devoted Communist revolutionaries in the Viet Minh suffered mistreatment or were even executed during these movements. Many others became disenchanted and left the Viet Minh. The United States became strongly opposed to Hồ Chí Minh. In the 1950s the government of Bảo Ðại gained recognition by the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Việt Minh force grew significantly with China's assistance and in 1954, under the command of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, launched a major siege against French bases in Điện Biên Phủ. The Việt Minh force surprised Western military experts with their use of primitive means to move artillery pieces and supplies up the mountains surrounding Điện Biên Phủ, giving them a decisive advantage. On May 7 1954, French troops at Điện Biên Phủ, under Christian de Castries, surrendered to Viet Minh. On July 1954, the Geneva Accord was signed between France and Viet-Minh, paving the way for France to leave Vietnam.

Second Indochina War (1954 – 1975)

The Geneva Conference of 1954 ended France's colonial presence in Vietnam and temporarily partitioned the country into 2 states at the 17th parallel (pending unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections). Ngô Ðình Diệm, a former mandarin with a strong Catholic and Confucian background, was selected as Premier of Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam. While Diệm was trying to settle the differences between the various armed militias in the South, Bảo Ðại was persuaded to reduce his power. Diệm used a referendum in 1955 to depose Bảo Đại and declare himself as President of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). The Republic of Vietnam (RVN) was proclaimed in Saigon on October 22, 1955. The United States began to provide military and economic aid to the RVN, training RVN personnel, and sending U.S. advisors to assist in building the infrastructure for the new government.

Also in 1954, Vietminh forces took over North Vietnam according to the Geneva Accord. Two millions North Vietnamese civilians emigrated to South Vietnam to avoid the imminent Communist regime. At the same time, Viet Minh armed forces from South Vietnam were also moving to North Vietnam, as dictated by the Geneva Accord. However, some high ranking Viet Minh cadres secretly remained in the South to follow the local situation closely. The most important figure among those was Lê Duẩn.

The Geneva Accord had promised elections to determine the government for a unified Vietnam. However, as only France and Viet Minh (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) had signed the document, the United States and Ngô Đình Diệm's government refused to abide by the agreement, fearing that Hồ Chí Minh would win the election due to his war popularity, and would establish Communism in the whole of Vietnam. Ngô Đình Diệm took some strong measures to secure South Vietnam from perceived internal threats. He eliminated all private militias from the Bình Xuyên Party and the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects. He kept a tight lid on revolutionary parties emigrating from the North, causing one of their leaders and famous writer, Nguyễn Tường Tam to commit suicide while awaiting trial in jail. Diệm also acted aggressively to root out Communist agents still remaining in the South. He formed the Cần Lao Nhân Vị Party, mixing Personalist philosophy with labor rhetorics, modeling its organization after the Communist Party, although it was anti-Communist and pro-Catholicism. Another controversial policy was the Strategic Hamlet Program, which was effective in fencing the Communists out of the villages, yet became unpopular as it limited the villagers' freedom and altered their traditional way of life.

In 1960, at the Third Party Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party (renamed Labor Party on the surface since 1951), Lê Duẩn arrived from the South and strongly proposed the use of revolutionary warfare to topple Diệm's regime, unifying the country, and build Marxist-Leninist socialism. Despite some elements in the Party opposing the use of force, Lê Duẩn won the seat of First Secretary of the Party. As Hồ Chí Minh was aging, Lê Duẩn virtually took the helm of war from him. The first step of his war plan was coordinating a rural uprising in the South (Đồng Khởi) and forming the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) toward the end of 1960. The figurehead leader of the NLF was Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, a South Vietnamese lawyer, yet the true leadership was the Communist Party hierarchy in South Vietnam. Arms, supplies, and troops came from North Vietnam into South Vietnam via a system of trails, named the Ho Chi Minh Trail, that branched into Laos and Cambodia before entering South Vietnam. At first, most foreign aid for North Vietnam came from China, as Lê Duẩn stayed distant to the "revisionist" policy of the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. However, under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union picked up the pace of aid and provided North Vietnam with heavy weapons, such as T-54 tanks, artillery, MIG fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles, etc.

Meanwhile, in South Vietnam, although Ngô Đình Diệm personally was respected for his Confucian and Catholic virtues, many of his government associates abused power and even tried to promote Catholicism over other religions. This perceived religious partiality sparked protests from the Buddhist community. The most famous case was of Venerable Thích Quảng Đức, who burned himself to death to protest. Although most Western media often wrongly reported that Thích Quảng Đức was protesting the war, and Communist propaganda tried to portray the Venerable as a patriotic fighter, his official letter to Diệm only aimed to convince the President to act impartially to all religions and to rule wisely for the sake of the countrỵ. To the Venerable, the act of self burning was not a political suicide mission but a tradition of utmost self sacrifice for the benefit of others. However, Diệm's government mishandled the issue, causing protests to spread widely. In the United States, the Kennedy administration became worried that the problems of Diệm's regime were undermining the US's anti-Communist effort in Southeast Asia. Thus, on November 1 1963, with secret blessing from the US, South Vietnamese generals led by Dương Văn Minh overthrew Ngô Đình Diệm and killed both him and his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, who was also his official advisor.

Between 1963 and 1967, South Vietnam became extremely unstable as no government could keep power for long. The Communist-run NLF expanded their operation and scored some significant military victories. In 1965, the US, then under President Lyndon Johnson, decided to send troops to South Vietnam to secure the country and started to bomb North Vietnam, assuming that if South Vietnam fell to the Communists, other countries in the Southeast Asia would follow, in accordance with the Domino Theory. Other US allies, such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and Taiwan also sent troops to South Vietnam. Although the American-led troops succeeded in containing the advance of Communist forces, the presence of foreign troops, the widespread bombing over all of Vietnam, and the social vices that mushroomed around US bases upset the sense of national pride among many Vietnamese, North and South, causing many to become sympathetic to North Vietnam and the NLF.

In 1967, South Vietnam managed to have a National Assembly and Presidential election with Lt. General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu being elected to the Presidency, bringing the government to some level of stability. However, in 1968, the NLF launched a massive and surprise Tết Offensive (known in South Vietnam as "Biến Cố Tết Mậu Thân" or in the North as "Cuộc Tổng Tấn Công và Nổi Dậy Tết Mậu Thân"), attacking almost all major cities in South Vietnam over the Vietnamese New Year (Tết). NLF and North Vietnamese forces even captured the city of Huế, after which many mass graves were found with victims being executed for having relations with the South Vietnamese government or the US (Thảm Sát Tết Mậu Thân). However, at the end, the NLF forces were pushed out of all cities in South Vietnam and nearly decimated. In subsequent major offensives in later years, North Vietnamese regulars with artillery and tanks took over the fighting. In the months following the Tet Offensive, an American unit massacred civilian villagers, suspected to be sheltering Viet Cong (NLF guerillas), in the hamlet of My Lai in Central Vietnam, causing an uproar in protest around the world.

In 1969, Hồ Chí Minh passed away and wished to be cremated. However, the Communist Party embalmed his body for public display and built the Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum on Ba Đình Square in Hà Nội, in the style of Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow.

A historical photo of Ho Chi Minh lying in state in his mausoleum. His body is now displayed in a larger display case.

Although the Tết Offensive was a catastrophic military defeat for the Việt Cộng, it was a stunning political victory as it led many Americans to view the war as unwinnable. President Richard Nixon entered office with a pledge to end the war "with honor." He normalized US relations with mainland China in 1972 (Sino-American relations) and entered into détente with the USSR. Nixon thus forged a new strategy to deal with the Communist Bloc, taking advantage of the rift between China and the Soviet Union. A costly war in Vietnam begun to appear less effective for the cause of Communist containment. Nixon proposed "Vietnamization" of the war, with South Vietnamese troops taking charge of the fighting, yet still receiving American aid and, if necessary, air and naval support. The new strategy started to show some effects: in 1970, South Vietnamese troops (ARVN) successfully conducted raids against North Vietnamese bases in Cambodia (Cambodian Campaign); in 1971, ARVN made an incursion into Southern Laos to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail (Operation Lam Son 719), yet the operation failed as most high positions captured by ARVN paratroopers were overrun by North Vietnamese troops; in 1972, ARVN successfully held the town of An Lộc against massive attacks from North Vietnamese regulars and recaptured the town of Quảng Trị near the DMZ during the Easter Offensive.

At the same time, Nixon was pressuring both Hanoi and Saigon to sign the Paris Peace Agreement of 1973, for American military forces to withdraw from Vietnam. The pressure to Hanoi materialized with the Christmas Bombings in 1972. In South Vietnam, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu vocally opposed any accord with the Communists, but was threatened with withdrawal of American aid.

Despite the peace treaty, the North continued the war as had been envisioned by Lê Duẩn and the South still tried to recapture lost territories. In the U.S., Nixon resigned after the Watergate scandal. South Vietnam was seen as losing a strong backer. Under U.S. President Gerald Ford, the Democratic-controlled Congress became less willing to provide aid to South Vietnam.

In 1974, South Vietnam also fought and lost the Battle of Hoàng Sa against China over the control of the Paracel Islands in South China Sea. Neither North Vietnam nor the U.S. interfered.

In early 1975, North Vietnamese military led by General Văn Tiến Dũng launched a massive attack against the Central Highland province of Buôn Mê Thuột. South Vietnamese troops previously anticipated attack against the neighboring province of Pleiku, and were caught off guard. President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu ordered the moving of all troops from the Central Highland to the coastal areas, as with shrinking American aid, South Vietnamese forces could not afford to spread too thin. However, due to lack of experience and logistics for such a large troop movement in such a short time, the whole South Vietnamese 2nd Corps got bogged down on narrow mountain roads, flooded with thousands of civilian refugees, and was decimated by ambushes along the way. South Vietnamese First Corp near the DMZ was cut off, received conflicting orders from Saigon on whether to fight or to retreat, and eventually collapsed. Many civilians tried to flee to Saigon via land, air, and sea routes, suffering massive casualties along the way. In early April 1975, South Vietnam set up a last ditch defense line at Xuân Lộc, under commander Lê Minh Đảo. North Vietnamese troops failed to penetrate the line and had to make a detour, which the South Vietnamese failed to stop due to lack of troops. President Nguyễn văn Thiệu resigned. The power eventually went to Dương Văn Minh.

Dương Văn Minh led the coup against Diệm in 1963. By the mid 1970s, he had leaned toward the "Third Party" (Thành Phần Thứ Ba), South Vietnamese elites who favored dialogues and cooperation with the North. Communist infiltrators in the South tried to work out political deals to let Dương Văn Minh ascend to the Presidency, with the hope that he would prevent a last stand, destructive battle for Saigon. Although many South Vietnamese units were ready to defend Saigon, and in the Mekong Delta, the ARVN 4th Corp was still intact, Duong Van Minh ordered a surrender on April 30 1975, sparing Saigon from destruction. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese fled the country by all means: airplanes, helicopters, ships, fishing boats, barges, etc. Most were picked up by the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea or landed in Thailand. The seaborne refugees came to be known as "boat people". In a famous case, a South Vietnamese pilot, with his wife and children aboard a small Cessna plane, miraculously landed safely without a tailhook on the aircraft carrier USS Midway.

In restrospect, during this period, North Vietnam was a Socialist state with a centralized command economy, an extensive security apparatus to carry out Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a powerful propaganda machine that effectively rallied the people for the Party's causes, a superb intelligence system that infiltrated South Vietnam (spies such as Phạm Xuân Ẩn climbed to high government positions), and a severe suppression of political opposition. Even some decorated veterans and famed Communist cadres, such as Trần Đức Thảo, Nguyễn Hữu Đang, Trần Dần, Hoàng Minh Chính, were persecuted during the late 1950s Nhân Văn Giai Phẩm events and the 1960s Trial Against the Anti-Party Revisionists (Vụ Án Xét Lại Chống Đảng) for speaking their opinions. Nevertheless, this iron grip, together with consistent support from the Soviet Union and China, gave North Vietnam a militaristic advantage over South Vietnam. North Vietnamese leadership also had a steely determination to fight, even when facing massive casualties and destruction at their end. The young North Vietnamese were idealistically and innocently patriotic, ready to commit utmost sacrifice for the "liberation of the South" and the "unification of the motherland".

South Vietnam, meanwhile, was a young state aspiring to be a democracy in Western style. It created democratic institutions such as popular elections for the National Assembly and the President, the freedom of the press, the right to protest, etc. Its economy was based on free enterprises. However, most of these institutions were rendered greatly ineffective by corrupt yet powerful politicians and high ranking military officers. Most of the technocrats that ran the government, the low ranking officers, and the soldiers were often apathetic to politics, unlike their heavily indoctrinated counterparts in the North. The political and military systems in the South were also vulnerable to Communist infiltration, while it was almost impossible to do the reverse to North Vietnam. During the existence of South Vietnam, nevertheless, South Vietnamese learned many American practices that became useful for the country even many decades later, such as in the fields of economics, business and public management, and infrastructure management. These skills would help the southern part of the country to become the "locomotive" of the national economy in many years to come.

Socialism after 1975

After April 30th, 1975, unlike the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Vietnamese Communists did not commit a "blood bath", but most government officials and military personnel were sent to reeducation camps. Nevertheless, many North Vietnamese soldiers and cadres began to realize that they had been indoctrinated into thinking that the South Vietnamese people were utterly poor and exploited by the imperialists and foreign capitalists and treated like slaves. Contradictory to what they were taught, they saw an abundance of food and consumer goods, fashionable clothes, plenty of books and music; things that were hard to get in the North.

Despite some early successes, the Vietnamese Communists made many serious long-term mistakes and caused an overall decline of the country over many years.

In 1976, Vietnam was officially unified and renamed Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRVN), with its capital in Hà Nội. The Vietnamese Communist Party dropped its front name "Labor Party" and changed the title of First Secretary (used by China) to Secretary General (used by the Soviet Union), with Lê Duẩn remained Secretary General. The National Liberation Front was dissolved. The Party emphasized development of heavy industry and collectivization of agriculture. Over the next few years, private enterprises were seized by the government and their owners often being sent to the New Economic Zone to clear land. The farmers were coerced into state-controlled cooperatives. Transportation of food and goods between provinces was deemed illegal except by the government. Within a short period of time, Vietnam was hit with severe shortage of food and basic necessities. The Mekong Delta, once a world-class rice-producing area, was threatened with famine.

In foreign relations, the SRVN became increasingly aligned with the Soviet Union by joining the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and signing a Friendship Pact, which was in fact a military alliance, with the Soviet Union. Tension between the SRVN and People's Republic of China mounted as Vietnam moved closer to the Soviet Union (China's rival) and got into conflict with Cambodia (China's ally). The SRVN was also embargoed by the U.S. and its allies.

Many of those who held high positions in the old South Vietnamese government and military, together with influential people in the literary and religious circles, were sent to reeducation camps, which were actually hard labor prison camps. The inhumane conditions and treatment in the camps caused many inmates to remain bitter against the Communist Party decades later.

The SRVN government implemented a Stalinist dictatorship of the proletariat in the South as they did in the North. The network of security apparatus (Công An) controlled every aspect of people's life. Censorship was strict and ultra-conservative, with most pre-1975 works in the fields of music, art, and literature being banned. All religions had to be re-organized into state-controlled churches. Any negative comments toward the Party, the government, Uncle Ho, or anything related to Communism might earn the person the tag of Phản Động (Reactionary), with consequences ranging from being harassed by police, expelled from school or workplace, to being sent to prison. Nevertheless, the Communist authority failed to suppress the Black Market, where food, consumer goods, and banned literature could be bought at high prices. The security apparatus also failed to stop a nationwide clandestine network of people planning to escape the country. In many cases, the security officers of some whole districts were bribed and even got involved in organizing the escape schemes.

These living conditions resulted in an exodus of over a million Vietnamese secretly fleeing the country either by sea or overland through Cambodia. For the people fleeing by sea, their wooden boats were often not sea-worthy, packed with people like sardines, and lacked sufficient food and water. Many got caught or shot at by the Vietnamese coast guards, many perished at sea due to boats capsizing, storms, starvation, and thirst. Another major threat was the Thai pirates in the Gulf of Siam, who robbed, raped, and murdered the boat people viciously. In many cases, they massacred the whole boat. Often, they gang raped the women for days then sold them into prostitution. The people who crossed Cambodia faced equal dangers with mine fields, and the Khmer Rouge and Khmer Serei guerillas, who also robbed, raped, and killed the refugees.

The Vietnamese refugees who survived reached UNHCR camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Indonesia. Some famous camps were Bidong (Malaysia), Galang (Indonesia), Bataan (the Philippines), Songkla (Thailand). While most refugees were resettled to other countries within five years, others languished in these camps for over a decade. In the 1990s, refugees who could not find asylum were deported back to Vietnam. Communities of Vietnamese refugees emerged in the US, Canada, Australia, France, West Germany, and the UK. The refugees often sent relief packages packed with necessities, such as medicines, fabrics, toothpaste and soap, dried food, etc., to their relatives in Vietnam to help them survive. Very few would send money as it would be exchanged far below market rates by the Vietnamese government.

Vietnamese-led forces entering Phnom Penh in 1979.

In late 1978, following repeated raids by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia into Vietnamese territory, Vietnam sent troops to overthrow Pol Pot. The pro-Vietnamese People's Republic of Kampuchea was created with Heng Samrin as Chairman. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge allied with non-Communist guerilla forces led by Norodom Sihanouk and Son Sann to fight against the Vietnamese forces and the new Phnom Penh regime. Some high ranking officials of the Heng Samrin regime in the early 1980s resisted Vietnamese control, resulting in a purge that removed Pen Sovan, Prime Minister and Secretary General of the Cambodian People's Revolutionary Party. The war lasted until 1989 when Vietnam withdrew its troops and handed the administration of Cambodia to the United Nations. The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, on a positive note, helped stop the genocide of millions of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge (see Khmer Rouge and Cambodia under Pol Pot).

In early 1979, China invaded Vietnam to supposedly "teach Vietnam a lesson" for the invasion of Cambodia and the supposed persecution of the Hoa people. The Sino-Vietnamese War was brief, but casualties were high on both sides.^{[citation needed]}

Vietnam's third Constitution, based on that of the USSR, was written in 1980 . The Communist Party was stated by the Constitution to be the only party to represent the people and to lead the country.

In 1980, cosmonaut Phạm Tuân became the first Vietnamese and the first Asian to go into space, traveling on the Soviet Soyuz 37 to service the Salyut 6 space station.

During the early 1980s, a number of overseas Vietnamese organizations were created with the aim of overthrowing the Vietnamese Communist government through armed struggle. Most groups attempted to infiltrate Vietnam but eventually were eliminated by Vietnamese security and armed forces. Most notable were the organizations of Hoàng Cơ Minh from the US, Võ Đại Tôn from Australia, and Lê Quốc Túy from France. Hoàng Cơ Minh was killed during an ambush in Laos. Võ Đại Tôn was captured and imprisoned until his release, in the 1990s, due to diplomatic pressure. Lê Quốc Túy escaped to France after many of his comrades were arrested and executed. Lê Quốc Túy later died in France from poison.

Throughout the 1980s, Vietnam received nearly $3 billion a year in economic and military aid from the Soviet Union (USSR) and conducted most of its trade with the USSR and other COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) countries. Some cadres, realizing the economic suffering of the people, began to break rules and experimented with market-oriented enterprises. Some got punished for their feats, but years later would be hailed as visionary pioneers.

Changing names

For the most part of its history, the geographical boundary of present day Vietnam covered 3 ethnically distinct nations: a Viet nation, a Cham nation, and a part of the Khmer Empire.

The Viet nation originated in the Red River Delta in present day north Vietnam and expanded over its history to the current boundary. It went through a lot of name changes, with Đại Việt being used the longest. Below is a summary of names:

Almost all Vietnamese dynasties are named after the king's family name, unlike the Chinese dynasties, whose names are dictated by the dynasty founders and often used as the country's name.

It is still a matter of debate whether the Hồng Bàng Dynasty was real or just a symbolic dynasty to represent the Lạc Việt nation before recorded history. The Thục, Triệu, Anterior Lý, Ngô, Đinh, Anterior Lê, Lý, Trần, Hồ, Lê, Mạc, Tây-Sơn, and Nguyễn are usually regarded by historians as formal dynasties. Nguyễn Hue's "Tây-Sơn Dynasty" is rather a name created by historians to avoid confusion with Nguyễn Anh's Nguyễn Dynasty.