2014/05/19 by Tuong Vu · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022463414000083
crossref issued 2014/05/19 · crossref published 2014/05/19 · crossref published-online 2014/05/19 · openalex publication_date 2014/05/19 · crossref created 2014/05/19 · crossref published-print 2014/06/01 · crossref deposited 2022/04/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21 · crossref indexed 2026/07/28
A new perspective has begun to challenge both the conventional portrayal of the Vietnamese revolution and the communist account of its success. This essay takes stock of new research that presents revolutionary Vietnam in a more complex and less triumphal way. It is argued that Vietnam's nationalist revolution (1945–46) should be conceptually distinguished from the subsequent socialist revolution (1948–88). The former had a distinctly urban and bourgeois character, was led by a coalition of the upper and middle classes, and lacked ideological intensity. The latter was imposed from above, based on socialist visions, and dependent on foreign assistance. The failure to disentangle the two revolutions in existing narratives assigns little agency to Vietnamese actors and leads to triumphs being exaggerated while tragedies are overlooked.