Newly available evidence has shed new light on the inner workings of the socialist state in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In a “campaign against modern revisionism” in 1964 the militant faction within the Vietnamese Workers’ Party led by Lê Duẩn sidelined those members who favored a more cautious approach to the struggle for the reunification of the country. After the outbreak of the war, the propaganda machine in the DRV including writers and other artists had to foster popular support for the war and keep morale among civilians and soldiers high. The DRV Ministry of Public Security enforced ideological conformity and after 1965 intensified its efforts to track down and eliminate any party members and individuals who dissented from the aggressive line of the party leadership. Thus, in 1967, in the wake of the Tet Offensive the security apparatus lashed out against those who did not fully support Lê Duẩn’s risky plan for a general offensive and were not deemed fully reliable. The fact that many of those arrested or put under house arrest were close to General Võ Nguyên Giáp shows that the “Antiparty Revisionist Affair,” as the purge came to be known, was also part of internal factional infighting in Hanoi.

The 1968 Tet Offensive proved to be the turning point of the Vietnam War, and its effects were far-reaching. In late January, the combined forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam and the People’s Liberation Armed Forces launched a massive offensive in South Vietnam, striking near simultaneously at 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 36 of 44 province capitals, 72 of 245 district towns, and 23 airfields/bases. Despite intelligence indicators that predicted a major enemy buildup, the United States and its South Vietnamese allies were taken by surprise at the scope and ferocity of the communist attacks. The allies recovered quickly; in the bitter fighting that followed into the early fall months, the communists were soundly defeated at the tactical level and failed to achieve any of their battlefield objectives. However, the fact that the enemy had pulled off such a widespread offensive and caught the allies by surprise ultimately contributed to a psychological victory for the communists at the strategic level. The Tet Offensive set into motion the events that would lead to the election of Richard Nixon, the long and bloody US withdrawal from Southeast Asia, and ultimately the fall of South Vietnam.

The Vietnamese communist leadership displayed a remarkable degree of ingenuity and resourcefulness in its quest to drive out the Americans, finish off the regime in Saigon, and win the conflict by achieving national reunification under its exclusive aegis. At times, it proved callous to the extreme, making choices it understood might result in massive death and suffering for its people. Increasingly reliant over time upon military and other aid from socialist allies, most notably China and the Soviet Union, it still jealously guarded its autonomy, refusing even to consult those allies about major strategic matters. The audacity and temerity of the Hanoi Politburo were matched only by its impenetrability and staunchness. In the end, it prevailed over its enemies owing less to their shortcomings than to the merits of its masterfully crafted and carefully calibrated strategy of “struggle” on three separate yet closely intertwined fronts.

Few issues from the Vietnam War divided the American public more than the character and nature of the National Liberation Front (NLF). The US government claimed that communist North Vietnam controlled the NLF, and that it wanted to overthrow the government of South Vietnam by force. Antiwar scholars and activists, in sharp contrast, argued that the NLF was born in the tinder-dry rice paddies of South Vietnam in response to President Ngo Dinh Diem’s oppressive policies. The NLF was very skillful at portraying itself as local freedom fighters, organized simply to free South Vietnam from foreign domination and a corrupt Saigon government. This made it difficult for successive US presidential administrations to win support at home and abroad for their counterinsurgency programs. In reality, the NLF was both Southern and communist. The Lao Dong, the Workers’ Party of Vietnam, was a nationwide, unified movement with revolutionaries placed in most villages and hamlets throughout Vietnam. The party leadership in Hanoi included several southerners, like Le Duan – the partys general secretary – who favored armed rebellion to liberate Vietnam south of the 17th parallel and to reunify the country under the socialist banner.

This chapter describes the immediate aftermath of the Vietnamese invasion. Apart from the ongoing war in Cambodia, the immediate, violent response to the Vietnamese invasion was the February 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war.

Hanoi entered into negotiations with Washington and Saigon in 1968–9, Chapter 4 explains, but merely to probe and sow division among its enemies. But then unsettling circumstances intervened, including the Sino-Soviet Border War of early 1969; the death a few months later of Ho Chi Minh, who, despite his lack of influence over communist decision-making, remained the venerable face of the Vietnamese struggle for reunification and independence and thus an important public relations tool; and, finally, Nixon’s decisions to “Vietnamize” the anticommunist war effort in the South and then to authorize incursions into Cambodia and Laos. The period 1969–71 was marked by uncertainty and indecisiveness as communist decision-makers reassessed their strategic priorities and placed greater emphasis on alternative modes of struggle. Concerned about potential diplomatic isolation and the loss of Soviet and Chinese support, Le Duan decided to go-for-broke once more. The 1972 Easter Offensive was an abject disaster. Hanoi then tried its luck at the bargaining table, resulting in the Paris peace agreement of 1973 and the suspension of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam.

Chapter 4 relates the impact of the Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Despite public claims to the contrary, Hanoi at that time had no desire to negotiate an end to the conflict; it was committed to “complete victory.” Nothing short of the surrender of its enemies was going to satisfy it. To meet that end, Le Duan’s regime relied heavily on political and material support from the Soviet Union and China, which was not always easy to obtain in light of the growing ideological dispute between the two. Mounting frustration with the course of the war eventually prompted Le Duan to order a major, months-long military campaign to break the stalemate and expedite victory: the Tet Offensive of 1968. Although it dealt the United States a major psychological blow, the three-staged offensive fell far short of meeting Le Duan’s own expectations. In fact, it energized the regime in Saigon and rallied the Southern population behind it to an unprecedented degree.

The United States pulled out the last of its combat troops from South Vietnam in March 1973. That ended the American War and completed the de-Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Shortly after the signing of the Paris agreement, Hanoi resumed combat operations. The regime in Saigon, communist decision-makers publicly claimed, had failed to honor its side of the bargain, leaving them no choice. In 1974–5, Le Duan’s regime mounted yet another major campaign to bring about the collapse of its counterpart in the South. This time it calculated correctly, and its armies triumphed. Chapter 6 relates the rationale for Hanoi’s decision to proceed with the campaign, despite the possible resumption of US attacks against the North, and the reasons for its ultimate – and final – triumph on 30 April 1975.

Chapter 3 explains that Ho Chi Minh insisted on respecting the basic terms of the Geneva accords even as it became obvious that the rival regime headed by Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon had no intention of doing the same. Ho’s passivity in the face of Diem’s actions shocked and dismayed some of his own followers, especially in the South. In 1959, Hanoi finally sanctioned insurgent activity below the Seventeenth Parallel, but under restricting guidelines because Ho feared provoking US intervention. His tentativeness alienated growing segments of partisans, including Le Duan, a rising star in the communist ranks. By 1963, the tension between Ho and other “doves,” on the one hand, and Le Duan and other “hawks,” who favored all-out war to “liberate” the South, on the other, had split the Vietnamese communist movement into two competing, rival wings. Following Diem’s overthrow in a coup abetted by the United States in early November 1963, Le Duan and his chief lieutenants staged a coup of their own in Hanoi. The new regime at once escalated hostilities in the South, resuming the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam and setting Hanoi on an irreversible collision course with the United States.

The epilogue explains that the resilience and stubbornness of Le Duan and other communist leaders hindered the country’s reconstruction and development after the Vietnamese Civil War finally ended. In the decade of life and leadership left for Le Duan, few positive changes took place in Vietnam. The 1978–9 incursion into Cambodia eliminated the Khmer Rouge threat, but the decade-long occupation of that country by Vietnamese forces that followed brought worldwide condemnation. Vietnam contained the Chinese incursion into its own territory in 1979, but anti-Chinese campaigns domestically prompted an exodus of tens of thousands of productive members of society. Through all this, Le Duan’s unwavering adherence to Stalinist principles of economic transformation hampered economic growth. His death in 1986 paved the way for Đổi mới, the “renovation” policy that introduced market reforms. It also set the stage for the normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States – and of life itself for average Vietnamese. Although Vietnam’s American War and Fourth Civil War have been over for nearly fifty years, the struggle for their memory continues.

Chapter 4 relates the impact of the Americanization of the Fourth Civil War for Vietnam. Despite public claims to the contrary, Hanoi at that time had no desire to negotiate an end to the conflict; it was committed to “complete victory.” Nothing short of the surrender of its enemies was going to satisfy it. To meet that end, Le Duan’s regime relied heavily on political and material support from the Soviet Union and China, which was not always easy to obtain in light of the growing ideological dispute between the two. Mounting frustration with the course of the war eventually prompted Le Duan to order a major, months-long military campaign to break the stalemate and expedite victory: the Tet Offensive of 1968. Although it dealt the United States a major psychological blow, the three-staged offensive fell far short of meeting Le Duan’s own expectations. In fact, it energized the regime in Saigon and rallied the Southern population behind it to an unprecedented degree.

By the early 1960s, Vietnam was firmly lodged in China's embrace. Khrushchev's commitment to Vietnam was limited, as he focused instead on relations with the United States. However, after his ouster in October 1964, Khrushchev's successor, Leonid Brezhnev, began to see Vietnam as an opportunity to demonstrate Moscow's revolutionary leadership. The Soviet Union's support for Vietnam served two purposes: establishing credibility in the revolutionary world and asserting its position as America's equal. As the war escalated, both Moscow and Beijing's commitment to Vietnam grew. Despite disagreements over military tactics, the Soviets won Hanoi's loyalty, largely because they supplied Vietnam with badly needed military aid. Yet the end of the war became a Pyrrhic victory for the Soviets. Moscow ended up investing heavily in Vietnam's reconstruction and industrialization, which contributed to the Soviet Union's later insolvency. This chapter highlights the importance of understanding the Vietnam War not only as an East–West struggle but also as an East–East struggle, with the Soviet Union and China competing for power and influence across the region.

Chapter 4 evaluates US tactical air power from 1967 to 1968. Over North Vietnam, the Rolling Thunder air interdiction campaign struggled to isolate NVA/VC forces. Simultaneously, a strategic bombing campaign could not coerce Hanoi to withdraw its support of the insurgency. The direct attack of the NVA/VC forces in South Vietnam proved more effective, with the ultimate test occurring near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the US Marine base at Khe Sanh. Here, the NVA massed two divisions hoping to overrun the marines to achieve a decisive victory as they had against the French in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. Instead, the American combined arms campaign defeated the NVA. The massing of ground forces at Khe Sanh differed from the NVA’s previous tactics of dispersing and taking sanctuary in Laos and Cambodia. Such defensive measures had previously allowed the NVA/VC to survive but had also delayed plans to launch a General Offensive and General Uprising. When the NVA/VC finally commenced their offensive in early 1968, they failed militarily at Khe Sanh and, more broadly, in the Tet Offensive. However, more importantly, the North Vietnamese succeeded politically as American support for the war evaporated.

The Cold War and process of decolonization divided the world, with Vietnam emerging after 1954 as a center of global competition. Leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi believed that success in their revolution could tip the worldwide balance of power in favor of the socialist bloc and national liberation movements. This conviction, combined with the need to conduct diplomacy from a position of military weakness, made those leaders accomplished practitioners of international politics as they balanced commitments to Marxism-Leninism, anti-imperialism, and anti-Americanism.

This chapter addresses how Hanoi navigated its membership and commitment to overlapping international movements at the height of the Cold War. It demonstrates that despite confronting the United States in Indochina, DRV leaders never thought strictly in terms of their own interests. Over the years they iterated and acted upon commitments to socialist internationalism, “world revolution,” and “Third Worldism” (tiermondisme). The Cold War and Sino-Soviet dispute created challenges for Hanoi, but the contemporaneous process of decolonization in the Third World also created opportunities.