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Local Government and Administration in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam since 1954 (Part I)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

George Ginsburgs
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Extract

When the Geneva agreements of July 1954 at Jast brought a measure of peace back to Indo-China, the Viet-Minh régime found itself in legal and recognised possession of that section of the country which lay north of the seventeenth parallel and which is officially known today as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. By then, part of this area, comprising the Viet-Minh's war-zones I, II, III and most of IV, thirty-three provinces in all, had already long been held by Ho Chi Minh's troops and in much of it a semblance of the new order's system of local government had been in regular operation for some years back. In a good deal of the rest, clandestine and fragmented centres of rebel control had perilously co-existed throughout the war with the old administration maintained at great cost by the French authorities. Finally, in many places, particularly the urban concentrations, no appreciable degree of Viet-Minh influence had managed to last out the conflict.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 211 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962

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References

1 For an analysis of the Viet-Minh's system of local government and administration during the period 1945–54, see the author's “Local Government and Administration in North Vietnam, 1945–54,” The China Quarterly, No. 10 (04–06 1962), pp. 174–204Google Scholar, and the literature cited therein.

2 Vide Arturov, O. A. (ed.), Demokraticheskaya Respublika Vietnam, Konstitutsiya, Zakonodatelnye Akty, Dokumenty (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Constitution, Legislative Acts, Documents) (Moscow: 1955)Google Scholar, for the text of most of these enactments.

3 Cf. Voevodin, L. D., in Voevodin, L. D., Zlatopolskii, D. L., Kuprits, N. Ya., Gosudarst-vennoe Pravo Stran Narodnoi Demokratti (State Law of Countries of People's Democracy) (Moscow: 1960), p. 525Google Scholar: “With the end of the war, the role of the representative organs, constituting the political basis of the republic, not only was fully rehabilitated, but propitious conditions were also created for the expansion of the scope of their activity.”

4 Text in Pravda, 09 23, 1954Google Scholar; Arturov, O. A. (ed.), op. clt., pp. 147–148Google Scholar. See also Arturov, O. A., “Gosudarstvennyi Stroi Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam” (“State Structure of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”), Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, 1954, No. 7, p. 47.Google Scholar

5 Merzlyakov, N. S., “Gosudarstvennoe Stroitelstvo v Demokraticheskoi Respublike Vietnam” (“State Organisation in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”), in 15 Let Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam (15 Years of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) (Moscow: 1960), p. 51Google Scholar; idem, Demokraticheskaya Respublika Vietnam (Gosudarstvennyi Stroi), (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, State Structure), (Moscow: 1961), p. 51Google Scholar; Budanov, A. G., Gosudarstvennyi Stroi Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam (State Structure of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) (Moscow: 1958), p. 88Google Scholar; idem, in Makhnenko, A. Kh. (ed.), Gosudarstvennoe Pravo Stran Narodnoi Demokratii (State Law of Countries of People's Democracy) (Moscow: 1959), p. 391.Google Scholar

6 Cong Bao, 1955, No. 11, p. 45Google Scholar; Merzlyakov, N. S., Demokraticheskaya Respublika Vietnam (Gosudarstvennyi Stroi), p. 51.Google Scholar

7 For a breakdown of the population of the D.R.V. by nationalities, see Cong Bao, 1960, No. 47, p. 732Google Scholar; Merzlyakov, N. S., op. cit. (note 6), p. 65.Google Scholar

8 Text in Cong Bao, 05 15, 1955, No. 8Google Scholar; Osnavnye Normathnye Akty o Mestnykh Organakh Gosudarstvennoi Vlasti t Upravleniya Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam, Koreiskoi Narodno-Demokraticheskoi Respubliki i Mongolskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (Sbornik Dokumentov) (Basic Legislative Acts on Local Organs of State Government and Administration in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Korean People's Democratic Republic and the Mongolian People's Republic, Collection of Documents) (Moscow: 1960), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

9 Duong-Cong-Hoat, , “Our Nationalities' Policy and the Thai-Meo Autonomous Zone,” Viet-Nam Advances, 1958, No. 6, p. 1Google Scholar. Cf. Voevodin, L. D., op. cit., p. 531Google Scholar: “National autonomy In the DRV belongs to the type of regional administrative autonomy. It expresses itself in that the nationalities population occupying a given territory is granted the right to create organs of self-administration called upon to resolve local matters in the social-economic, political and cultural life. The organs of self-administration created in autonomous regions constitute a (part of the State organs of the republic, are under the central authority of higher organs of authority and are organised in conformity with the general principles of organisation of local people's councils” (italics in original).

10 Mazaev, A. G., “Reshenie Natsionalnogo Voprosa v Demokraticheskoi Respublike Vietnam” (“Solution of the National Question in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”), in Demokraticheskaya Respublika Vietnam, 1945–1960 (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945–1960) (Moscow, 1960), p. 156.Google Scholar

11 Text in Cong Bao, 05 15, 1955, No. 8Google Scholar; Osnovnye Normativnye Akty, pp. 38–42.Google Scholar

12 Duong-Cong-Hoat, , op. cit., p. 2Google Scholar; Budanov, A. G., Gosudarstvennyi Stroi Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam, p. 58Google Scholar (giving the population as 350,000); Mazaev, A. G., op. cit., p. 156Google Scholar (putting the number of nationalities at twenty); Merzlyakov, N. S., op. cit. (note 6), p. 68.Google Scholar

13 e.g., Mazaev, A., “Pod Znamenem Novoi Konstitutsii” (“Under the Banner of the New Constitution”), Sovety Deputatov Trudyashchikhsya, 1960, No. 6, pp. 102–106Google Scholar; Merzlyakov, N. S., in 15 Let DRV, p. 55.Google Scholar

14 Text in Cong Bao, 06 15, 1955Google Scholar, No. 10; Osnovnye Normativnye Akty, pp. 43–52.Google Scholar

15 Art. 9 noted that in the absence of a doctor, the fact of insanity could be established by the testimony of the residents of the hamlet or village and sanctioned by the district authorities

16 See Loc, Nguyen Dinh, “Izbiratelnyi Zakon Demokraticheskoi Respubliki Vietnam” (“Electoral Law of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”), Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo, 1961, No. 1, pp. 80–90.Google Scholar

17 Now back at fifteen days for the decisions of the zonal and district councils, and five for the communal councils (Art. 22).

18 See, for instance, Merzlyakov, N., “Organy Vlasti Demokraticheskogo Vietnama” (“Organs of Authority of Democratic Vietnam”), Soviety Deputatov Trudyashchikhsya, 1958, No. 1, p. 77Google Scholar, describing a public meeting of the administrative committee of the Viet-Bac Autonomous Zone devoted to a discussion of the question of combating poor crops and measures for increasing the output of agricultural produce, to which were invited the chairmen of the people's councils of villages of the zone and leaders of social organisations.

19 Merzlyakov, N. S., op. cit. (note 6), pp. 67–68.Google Scholar

20 Duong-Cong-Hoat, , op, cit., pp. 2, 22Google Scholar; Mazaev, A. G., op. cit. (note 10), p. 156Google Scholar; Budanov, A. G., op. cit. (note 12), p. 60.Google Scholar

21 Text in Cong Bao, 08 15, 1956, No. 23Google Scholar; Osnavnye Normativnye Akty, pp. 53–58Google Scholar. The decree and the Resolution were based on the proposal of the Council of Ministers of June 6, 1956.

For data on the population and national composition of the Viet-Bac Zone, see Merzlyakov, N. S., op. cit. (note 6), p. 69Google Scholar; Mazaev, A. G., op. cit. (note 10), p. 157Google Scholar; Budanov, A. G., op. cit. (note 12), p. 60.Google Scholar

22 Cong Bao, 07 11, 1956, No. 11Google Scholar; Osnovnye Normativnye Akty, pp. 59–62.Google Scholar

23 Budanov, A. G., op. cit. (note 12), p. 60.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.; Mazaev, A. G., op. cit. (note 10), p. 156, fn. 36.Google Scholar

25 Cf. Arturov, O. A., in Kotok, V. F. (ed.), Gosudarstvennoe pravo zarubezhnykh sotsialisticheskikh stran (State Law of Foreign Socialist Countries) (Moscow, 1957), p. 414Google Scholar: “The post-war period (1954–57) was marked by the consolidation of all organs of democratic authority, of their ties with the masses and their unity in the system of a centralised peoples' authority, the transition from war to peace, the shift of the centre of gravity from the village to the city, the transition from fragmentation to centralisation.”