The Vietnamese Revolution and Its Leadership

This 1984 report by Allen Myers analyses the nature of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the decades-long revolutionary struggle which it led. The 1975 victory of the liberation forces over US imperialism and its local puppets was a triumph of epic proportions but it was bought at tremendous cost, with millions dead and the country utterly devastated.

Yet Vietnam was not allowed to recover in peace. The next 30 years brought still more hardship and great economic and political problems. In these circumstances, concessions to international capitalism were unavoidable, but the Vietnamese leadership has sought with some success to minimise the damage.

The introduction by Mike Karadjis sketches some of the impressive social indicators which the Vietnamese people still enjoy, despite the great pressures on the country.