Vietnam's Communist Revolution

This book traces the Vietnamese communist worldview throughout their revolution, and offers a new explanation for the tragedy of Vietnam.

This book uses new Vietnamese sources to challenge conventional scholarship and the popular image of the Vietnamese revolution and the Vietnam War. It is valuable for scholars, students, and general readers interested in Vietnam, Southeast Asia, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, American foreign relations, revolutions and communism.By tracing the evolving worldview of Vietnamese communists over 80 years as they led Vietnam through wars, social revolution, and peaceful development, this book shows the depth and resilience of their commitment to the communist utopia in their foreign policy. Unearthing new material from Vietnamese archives and publications, this book challenges the conventional scholarship and the popular image of the Vietnamese revolution and the Vietnam War as being driven solely by patriotic inspirations. The revolution not only saw successes in defeating foreign intervention, but also failures in bringing peace and development to Vietnam. This was, and is, the real tragedy of Vietnam. Spanning the entire history of the Vietnamese revolution and its aftermath, this book examines its leaders' early rise to power, the tumult of three decades of war with France, the US, and China, and the stubborn legacies left behind which remain in Vietnam today.