“To Be Patriotic is to Build Socialism”: Communist Ideology in Vietnam’s Civil War

Abstract

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) was the instigator and victor in the Vietnamese civil war (1959–1975). It was led by a communist party (the Vietnamese Workers’ Party, or VWP) that had displayed a particularly sharp binary worldview since at least the 1940s.¹ To communist leaders, the world was divided into two opposing camps. The socialist camp was imagined as a paradise in which peace, happiness, and goodwill ruled. In contrast, the capitalist or imperialist camp symbolized everything that was bad, including war, suffering, and exploitation. The interests of the two camps were fundamentally opposed and a war of mutual destruction between them was inevitable. Yet, because history was viewed as following a linear progressive path and the socialist camp represented progress, this camp was expected to triumph in such a war.