North Vietnam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN), or less commonly, Vietnamese Democratic Republic (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân Chủ Cộng Hòa), also known as North Vietnam, was founded by Ho Chi Minh and was recognized by the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union in 1950. In 1954 after the defeat of France at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, France formally recognized the DRV and the country was partitioned in two by the Demilitarised Zone (or DMZ at the 17th parallel). North Vietnam was a Communist state, the first in Southeast Asia.
History of Vietnam series |
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Following the partition of the country, there followed a mass exodus of North Vietnamese to the South, many of them Catholics who claimed that North Vietnamese policy towards them amounted to persecution. In its early years, the poor nation, cut off from the agricultural areas of the South, is described by many as having become repressive and totalitarian. Between 1955 and 1956, agrarian reforms were attempted. In the process, tens of thousands of landowners were publicly denounced as "landlords" (địa chủ) and executed, with their land distributed to poor peasants. In 1959, the Communist Party of Vietnam secretly decided to help the war effort in the South, despite enormous costs. A literary movement called Nhân văn giai phẩm (Humanist arts) attempted to democratize the country and allow people to freely express their thoughts resulted in a purge in which many intellectuals and writers were sent to reeducation camps because they did not agree with the government.
North Vietnam's capital was Hanoi and it was ruled by a Communist government allied with the Soviet Union and China. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam fought against the United States and South Vietnam. China helped to support the government during the war; for example, on August 7, 1967 the PRC agreed to give North Vietnam an undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
With the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces on April 30, 1975, political authority within South Vietnam was assumed by the Communist-backed Republic of South Vietnam. This government merged with North Vietnam on July 2, 1976, to form a single nation called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, commonly known as Vietnam.
