that control would be jeopardized by using it, the tactic was withheld, or postponed. A secondary consideration, influential especially under conditions of incomplete control of power, has been a desire to increase the production of rice, so necessary to support of both peasantry and the guerrilla forces of revolution. This necessity to avoid excessive disturbance of production has been a generally moderating influence upon tactics affecting land tenure.

This balance between ultimate goals, on the one hand, and the pacing of tactics to achieve them, on the other, is exemplified by the following NLF policy statements; the first of these republished in 1965:

Our Party's agrarian policy is to eliminate radically all oppression and exploitation in the countryside, liberate the peasant, and fulfill the slogan "Land for the tillers." This is the revolutionary position of the proletariat . . . We still must rally the forces of various strata and classes of the people in order that the Revolution will succeed. Therefore the slogan must be fulfilled in accordance with existing circumstances and requirements of the Revolution... However, certainly in the end, the slogan "Land for the tillers" will be fulfilled . . . The alliance among the poor, middle-class, and wealthy peasants to destroy the landlord class . . . is just and rational.62

An earlier NLF statement of 1963 (or before) spells out the flexibility of tactics at that time:

Our policy is . . . to reduce land rents and ensure the ownership of land by the peasants . . . to give back to the peasants land received during the Resistance and later stolen from them by the U.S.-Diem clique or reactionary landowners. . . The Front does not consider rich peasants as landowners... but maintains a coalition policy toward them if they reduce rents for (their) tenants . . . It respects the rights of middle-class peasants . . . of landowners in the cities to collect rents in the rural areas, and, further, their ownership (title) is recognized . . . With respect to land owned by the tyrannical and reactionary landlords who closely support the U.S.-Diem clique, we lead the peasants in their drive to refuse to pay land rent. With respect to those landlords who more or less support the Revolution we continue to recognize their ownership rights but lead the struggle of the farmers to obtain rent reductions according to a flexible rate that suits the present situation" (according to the relative productivity of the land).

63

These tactical considerations postpone measures designed to achieve ultimate reorganizations of agricultural production. As the first statement above, concluded: "Due to the existing conditions of the resistance struggle, the South cannot yet organize the peasants for the collective mode of doing business on a large scale and under perfect forms."

Other documents corroborate the conclusions to be drawn from those already quoted. An elaborate example is the document, "Vinh Long Province Agrarian Policy of the Party," confiscated at Binh Dinh on December 14, 1965, which recites:

The goal of the agrarian policy is to: Reinforce the peasants support for the patriots' fight for rural unification. Based on the relationship between our troops and the enemy's, the Party has framed the basic policy to solve the land problem for peasants. To carry out correctly this land policy the implementation of some basic principles should be followed: 1. Rent decrease-Provisional distribution and exploitation of land. 2. Confiscation of land from the U.S. imperialists and South VN government and landlords who bear a blood resentment toward peasants. 3. Recognizing the land possession of landlords who neither serve the South VN government nor bear blood resentment towards our people. 4. Protection of lands belonging to medium land owners, church, temples or notable families-Rent decrease is fixed according to the number of landless peasants, land possessed and the Strength of Revolutionary Movement. Farming problems 62 Nhan Dan. January 1, 1965, quoted in Pike, op. cit., p. 279.

63 Quoted in Ibid., p. 277.

es Ibid., p. 279.

can be solved as follows: Problems caused by VC terrorism causing tenants to leave their land untilled. If new peasants coming to exploit this land are removed by ex-landowners, the land may be returned to the landowners or not, according to the situation and by negotiations between the two sides. Land is to be equally distributed to landless peasants. Priority is given to poor families whose members are either wounded or killed guerillas or physically handicapped political cadre. Rubber, tea and fruit plantations belonging to the Revolution and sponsored by the Local Authority (VC) are to be provisionally given to peasants until the Authority needs to take them back for common reconstruction. Recognition of landowners giving land to landless or poor peasants. These givers are worthy of being guided to become new members. The clear policy of the Party is to leave lands possessed by medium landowners untouched.

From now on, dividing lands of medium landowners is forbidden. There are some shortcomings in the division of land belonging to medium landowners in some areas, which have caused deep divisions between peasants. Correction is urged by the Party to solve this problem. If dividing land does not cause resentment of medium landowners, the procedure should continue. Persuasion is needed where medium landowners do not want to give up some of their lands for others' use. The negotiation is to be in terms of paying a fair rent. Strong persuasion is necessary to preserve rural unity.65

Similarly revealing of the shifting and at times precarious balance in its relations with some of the peasant classes, is another NFL document which calls for "reliance on poor farmers, lower middle farmers (old and new) and the solidarity with middle farmers-since these classes form a solid foundation for the Front in the rural areas." 6

NORTH VIETNAM

With power within grasp on the eve of evacuation by the French and the Geneva Convention of 1954, North Vietnamese leadership proceeded with its land reform program. This moved initially in two successive steps, one on the heels of the other. The Land Rent Reduction Campaign of 1953-54 merged into the Land Reform Campaign of 1954-56. Conley describes Viet Cong tactics in such a situation critically:

67

To ease the party's accomplishments of immediate strategic goals, ultimate ends-though never forgotten-are not discussed. The urgent need is a platform that will attract that element of (peasant) society which has the most to lose from the victory of the party-dominated "Liberation Front." If that bloc of the population cannot be attracted en masse, it must be splintered into factions . . . These tactics were applied in North Vietnam; the ultimate goal was veiled and the peasants were splintered. As for the purpose of the two Land Campaigns, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed at the time:

We shall continue our work of mobilizing the masses for land rent reduction and land reform in order to put the slogan "land to the tillers" in practice." The words "land reform" had had to the Social Revolutionary peasant spokesmen and to the Bolsheviki at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. As for splintering the peasant classes, members of the land-owning classes who had supported the resistance against the French previously had been accepted. Now, writes Hoang Van Chi, these two campaigns had but one purpose, namely, the liquidation of the landowning class and the subsequent establishment of a proletarian dictatorship in the countryside.

69

To administer the campaigns a policy of "giving a free hand to the masses" was followed, which says Hoang Van Chi, "meant mob violence." 70

American Embassy, Saigon. Viet Cong Land Reform Policy. September 6, 1966, enclosure. pp. 1-6.

6 Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, Vietnam. The South Vietnamese Communists and Rural Vietnam, p. 11.

7 Conley, op. cit., pp. 210-211.

Ho Chi Minh. Selected Works v. IV. Hanoi, 1962, pp. 53, 29,
Hoang Van Chi, op. cit., p. 163.

70 Ibid., p. 147.

Peasants were taught how to classify their village populations into landlords, rich peasants, strong middle-level peasants, average middlelevel peasants, weak middle-level peasants, poor peasants and wageearning or landless peasants. Hoang Van Chi continues:

The party then put into practice its famous slogan: "Depend completely upon the poor and landless peasants, unite with the middle-level peasants, seek an understanding with the rich peasants and liquidate the landlords.”

Hoang then describes the process by which one class, then another in its turn, is "peeled off" in the communist drive for complete power:

Let us suppose that in a certain village there are twenty-six families named A, B, C, D, and so on, in alphabetical order according to their degree of wealth, A being the richest, and Z the poorest.

As a first step the party urged the people from G to Z to form a single alliance and to wage war against the unfortunate A, B, and C, who were proclaimed as landlords. D, E, and F, who came next in the general classification to the doomed A, B, C were not permitted to join this heroic fight, but their safety was guaranteed; and this is what is meant by the expression "to seek an understanding with rich peasants."

D, E, and F were set aside temporarily, in other words, and distinguished from those landlords whose time had come. Hoang continues:

Middle-level peasants on whom was bestowed the honour of siding with the poor and landless peasants . . . also rejoiced because they now felt secure under the new regime. Thus, to prove to the party that they fully merited this honour, they joined wholeheartedly in the fight against the luckless A, B, and C. The outcome in practice was usually for A to be shot publicly, and B and C to receive varying terms of penal servitude.

This was not the end; about a year later a "second wave of terror" was launched by orders from above to classify the population again, this time finding more landlords.

The result of this was a new classification, and this time the whole of D, E, F (rich peasants) and G, H, I, J, (strong middle-level peasants) became "landlords", while K, L, M and N (average middle-level peasants) became "rich peasants" and so on. Thus, the total number of newly found "landlords" was about five times the number of landlords found by the previous classification. Following an order from the central committee, the minimum number to receive the death sentence was raised from one to five per village. The number of those who committed suicide, or who died from starvation . . . increased in direct ratio . . . So far, nobody has been able to assess accurately the exact number of deaths that occurred during these two "sky-splitting and earth-shaking campaigns"-the expression used officially to describe the Land Reform; but according to refugees who reached Saigon in 1957, the whole countryside of North Vietnam was white with the turbans of mourners. . . This does not seem to be an exaggeration, since, apart from the number of people who were sentenced . . . and publicly shot, . . . (and) died in jails and in concentration camps, and . . . committed suicide . . . a far greater number of landlords' families-the majority of these being small children-died from starvation owing to the "isolation policy". The staggering size of the death toll could not have surprised the Vietnamese communists for their maxim during the days of terror was: "It is better to kill ten innocent people than to let one enemy escape." These words were used in a speech delivered in Hanoi by Dr. Nguyen Manh Tuong to the National Congress of the Fatherland Front in October 1956.7"

The program encountered resistance, especially in 1956, in the form of peasant uprisings that were put down with military force. Three years earlier the North Vietnamese organ Nhan Dan (People) had noted a reluctance of peasants to collectivize, a reluctance that previously had been met with in both Russia and China: "Haste was made

Ibid., pp. 164-167.

in grouping the farmers into collectives without giving them the time to adjust their consciences so as to become volunteers. The farmers, feeling forced to join the collectives, have shown no enthusiasm in the service of production." 72

The peasants' rebellion of 1956 is summarized by a United States source as follows:

On November 10, 1956, a rebellion broke out in Quynh Luu district, some 75 miles south of Hanoi in Ngho An Province. Farmers, some 20,000 in all, armed with swords and farm tools, surprised Communist guards, took their weapons and seized several district government installations. Local military units joined the rebels. Hanoi ordered General Hoang Sam and his crack 304th Division into Quynh Luu. Some 2,000 insurgents were driven into the hills where they attempted, unsuccessfully, to set up a guerrilla resistance. Eventually, most of the insurgents were killed or captured although several hundred of them managed to escape to South Vietnam.73

The Hanoi Government responded also by admitting its own errors. It dismissed Truong-Chinh as the official responsible, replacing him with Ho Chi Minh himself. Truong-Chinh nevertheless was retained as a member of the Politburo. This perhaps reflects a balance between rectification of mistakes and adherence to ultimate purposes. An editorial in Nhan Dan said, as reported in Saigon, that the land reform cadres have failed to "recognize honestly and sincerely that mistakes have been committed in the villages." Despite "many concrete achievements" in land reform, "it has left many grave shortcomings which have impaired the very foundations of the party and have to some extent weakened the solidarity of the union in the countryside." "

Price Gittinger has described the resumption of moves toward collectivization after the rebellion of 1956 had receded into the past:

The first stage is "manpower exchange teams" in which peasants, while retaining their private property, help each other with production tasks. These teams are then gradually shifted over to “cooperatives" where all resources are owned by the collective and peasants are paid on the basis of days worked. In adopting this procedure, the North Vietnamese have again chosen to pattern themselves closely after the Chinese, but there is no indication at present that their leaders are contemplating the extreme step of establishing communes. Indeed, Ho Chi Minh himself told a correspondent in January of this year (1959) that "we have no intention of organizing 'people's communes' in the immediate future."

1975

In 1964 Nhan Dan (People) carried a three-part series of articles by Nguyen Chi Thanh entitled Major Experiences in Cooperativization of Agriculture. These articles record a strong sense of the lineage of strategy and tactics and persistence of goals tracing continuously back to "Marxism-Leninism." In the first article the author wrote:

In the process of agricultural cooperativization our Party has adopted the following policy: "the poor peasant class and the lower middle peasant class must be taken as the basis. Unity with the middle peasant must be firmly established. The economic exploitation by the rich peasant class will be limited, even abolished; the thinking of the rich peasant class must be reformed, land owners must be repressed; working land owners will be given an opportunity to become new men; peasants will be led into the cooperative way of agriculture which is a first step toward socialism".

These policies represent creative application of the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the specific condition of our country. The results of cooperativization during the past years have proved that these policies are absolutely correct.

"To steadfastly lead the peasants into the cooperative way of agriculture as a first step toward socialism" is a general law that must be followed by any 72 Land Reform Failures in Communist North Vietnam. Review Horizon, Saigon, 1957. p. 13. The Quyn Luu North Vietnam Uprising, November 13, 1956, Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office, Vietnam. Field memorandum, number 30, October 28, 1966. 74 Land Reform Failures in Communist North Vietnam, op. cit., pp. 12-13. 75 Gittinger, J. Price. Communist Land Policy in North Viet Nam. Far Eastern Survey v. XXVIII. p. 123.

country while constructing socialism. With regard to the correct treatment of the social classes and various strata of the peasant class, decision must be based on the characteristics of each country.

In our country, the lower middle class peasant class is not economically and politically very different from the poor peasant class. These two classes are the most revolutionary. After the agrarian reform and before the cooperative movement, they were the largest in the rural areas. Consequently, unlike other countries, we took the lower middle peasant class as well as the poor peasant class as the basis for the cooperative movement, utilizing the great power of these two classes.

Before and after the agrarian reform, the economical background of the lower middle peasant class was very small and did not differ very much from that of the poor peasant class. Hence the middle class was willing to draw itself closer to the proletarian class and follow the Party in its revolution. Unlike what happens in other countries, the apathy, the capitalistic unruliness were efficiently corrected and were only minor problems. Hence in the democratic revolution as well as in the socialist revolution, our party maintained close relation with the middle class. The united poor and middle peasant classes formed a powerful block in the resistance war and the agrarian reform. In the socialist reform and in the cooperativization movement, the union between the poor class and lower middle class on the one hand and the middle class on the other also provided a great force.

The economic power of the rich peasant class of our country is small compared with the other countries. Politically, because in the past it was also exploited by the imperialist and feudal systems the rich peasant class had some sympathy with the democratic revolution. Therefore in the democratic revolution we maintained good terms with the rich peasant class. During the socialist revolution and cooperativization movement we limited, even abolished the economic exploitation by the rich peasant class and reformed its way of thinking.

76

Thanh further elucidated on policies to be followed towards other peasant classes. The distinction that he makes between "bas (ing) on" a class or classes of peasants, on the one hand, and "maintaining firm unity with another class or classes, on the other hand, is one of great importance. Strategic conditions that dictate employment of the tactic of "unity" at one time are subject to change. A shift in power, for example, may dictate a change, or even a reversal in the tactic of "unity" at another time. Thanh continues:

Some comrades think that as long as they "base on the poor peasant class and the lower middle peasant class" they are safely on the proletarian ground; it would not matter much if they neglect other policies. To put emphasis on the role of the poor peasant class and the lower middle peasant class is correct. But to neglect other policies such as "maintaining firm unity with the middle peasant class" is narrow, obstinate and can be deleterious. On the other hand, ill-founded emphasis on "unity with the middle class" indicates a rightest tendency, a hesitation to resist the wrong ideas and the apathy of the middle peasant class, especially the upper portion of this class. All these errors originate from a misunderstanding of the attitude, the thinking, the viewpoints of the proletarian class and obviously will do great harm to the Party's class policies in rural areas."

The aim in North Vietnam lay beyond the manipulation of class differences, and looked to their complete elimination. Thanh continued:

A step forward would be to eliminate any differences among the poor peasant class, the lower middle peasant and the upper middle peasant class and to form a new single class from all strata of the peasantry. This will be the collective peasant class. The party's class policies aim at this goal. . . It is certain that

76 Nguyen Chi Thanh. Major Experience in Cooperativization of Agriculture. November 11. 1964. U.S. Department of Commerce clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information. Joint Publications Research Service, Translation on North Vietnam's Economy, No. 139. pp. 2-3.

Ibid.