VIETNAM: PEASANT LAND, PEASANT REVOLUTION Vietnam: Peasant Land, Peasant Revolution Patriarchy and Collectivity in the Rural Economy Nancy Wiegersma Associate Professor Fitchburg State College, Massachusetts M MACMILLAN PRESS © Nancy A. Wiegersma 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-45730-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33--4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Wiegersma, Nancy A. Vietnam: peasant land, peasant revolution: patriarchy and collectivity in the rural economy. 1. Vietnam-Economic conditions 2. Vietnam-Rural Conditions I. Title 330.597 HC444 ISBN 978-1-349-09972-6 ISBN 978-1-349-09970-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09970-2 To the memory of Oscar J. Wiegersma, an American farmer Contents List of Tables and Figures XI Preface xiii Acknowledgements xvi Glossary XVIII I Peasants and Socialism I The Vietnamese 2 The USA Encounters Socialism in Vietnam 4 Contemporary Reassessments 10 A Vietnamese View 15 The Vietnamese Village in Transition 17 Colonialism 20 Vietnamese Resistance 22 2 Collective Property and the Rise of the Confucian Patriarchy 26 Pre-Chinese History of the Vietnamese 26 Chinese Rule Ill BC-940AD 28 Post-Independence- The Tenth to the Fifteenth Century 32 The Mandarinate and the Le Code 35 Separation of the Country- The Rise of the Trinh and the Nguyen Dynasties 38 East-West Contact in the Eighteenth Century 40 The Tay Son and the Ascendancy of the Nguyen Dynasty 42 Origin and Development of Communal Land 46 3 Land and Economy in the Traditional Village 51 State and Village Authority 51 The Village Economy 52 The Village Lands 53 The Village Lists 57 A Generalised Description of Land Use in Village Vietnam 58 Production Relations 60 Village Industry 62 Markets, Money and Credit 64 vii viii Contents 4 The Colonial Impact 67 Development of the Infrastructure and Tax Policies 67 Village Administration 69 Land Concessions 71 The Creation of a Land Market 75 The Survey and Land Register 75 French Land Law and the French Courts 77 Money-lending 80 Labour Market 83 Results of Colonialism 84 5 The Nationalist-Communist Resistance 87 Communism and Nationalism in the 1920s 90 The 1930s- Formation of the Communist Party and the Nghe Tinh Soviets 94 The Popular Front 96 Divergent Politics in the South (Cochin China) 99 Japanese Power and the August Revolution 103 The Viet Minh 105 Anti-Colonial War: 1945-54 107 6 The Post-Colonial Village lll The Villages 111 Land Southern Village 113 Central Village 116 Labour 120 Water 122 Village Authority and Control of Production 124 Breakdown of the Traditional Patriarchy- Peasant Women's Status in the South 126 Produce Markets, Money and Credit 128 Accumulation of Capital and Technological Change 131 Contrasts 134 7 Socialism in the North 137 Land Reform 138 Industry 141 Agricultural Collectivisation 145 Family Economy 148 Contents ix Successes 149 Continuing Problems 152 8 The Revolutionary Village 156 The Village and the Collective 157 Land 158 Labour 161 Control of Production 163 Collective 163 Patriarchal Control of Family Economy 166 Technological Change 167 Local Industry, Handicrafts and Markets 168 Women in the Northern Village 169 Comparisons 171 9 US Intervention 174 Economic Policies 175 Diem's Land Reforms 181 The Landlords and the War 184 The Land-to-the-Tiller Law 189 Economic Results of the US Intervention 196 10 The National Liberation Front 202 National Liberation Front Land Reforms and Programmes (1960-72) 204 Women in the National Liberation Front 209 Economic Change with Rural Revolution 210 Comparisons between the Viet Minh and the National Liberation Front 218 11 Integration of the Country 220 Agriculture in the Transition Period 221 New Management 224 Integration in the Industrial Sector 225 Economic Planning 227 Vietnamese Allies and Enemies 228 Reforms 232 Successes and Problems 237 Conclusions 240 Southern Differences 240 Accommodating the Patriarchs 242 X Contents Afterword 247 Notes 251 Bibliography 267 Index 276 List of Tables Tables 4.1 French concessions 1931 75 4.2 Concentration of land in Vietnam under French occupation 77 4.3 Rice: acreage, yields, production average, 1935/6 to 1939/40 85 6.1 Distribution of public land and private land in selected areas, 1959 118 6.2 Percentage of communal land in villages according to village officials 118 6.3 Distribution of land between residents and non-residents by sex, My Xa hamlet, 1960 120 6.4 Double-cropping in Cochin China in contrast to the Central Lowlands 133 7.1 Investment and consumption shares in national income 144 7.2 Production of staple crops in North Vietnam 150 7.3 Rice production 151 9.1 South Vietnam: indices of total agricultural and total food production, average 1935-39 and 1952-54 (base period) and annually 1957, 1958 and 1959 176 9.2 Rice: area, production and exports, Cochin China, 1934-51 177 9.3 Real per capita income 179 9.4 Regional value of production: rice, secondary crops, livestock, fish, and non-food, 1964 and 1970, 1964 prices 198 10.1 Rural and urban population by region, 1964 and 1970 212 10.2 1964 and 1970 regional cultivated area: rice, secondary food crops, non-food crops 213 10.3 Area, production and yield of rice 215 10.4 Changes in cultivated area in rice, for selected provinces, Upper and Lower Delta, 1964 and 1968 216 XI xii List of Tables 11.1 Grain production in Vietnam 223 11.2 Chronology of events leading to the Vietnam-China war 230 11.3 Main indices of SRV economic development 238 Figures 2.1 Population density Tonkin Delta (schematic map) 48 2.2 The communal lands of the Tonkin Delta 49 3.1 An idealised version of land distribution in the traditional Vietnamese village 59 Preface On the tenth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the US Secretary of State George Shultz stated, 'Our goals in Central America are like those we had in Vietnam.' Others have also noticed the many similarities between the US political, economic and military interventions in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central America in the 1980s. Even some of the details of interventionary policy are the same. Roy Prosterman from Washington State University, for example, wrote the land-to-the-tiller laws for both Vietnam and El Salvador. Because of the current US involvement in Central America, there is renewed interest in understanding issues raised by American intervention in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. Americans are continuing to be concerned about what happened in Vietnam, why we failed (probably because the USA failed) and what has happened there since the US involvement. The Vietnamese revolution was not an aberration and this point becomes clearer as we view similar scenarios in Central America. Despite the continuing importance of understanding Vietnam for an appreciation of contemporary world politics, most Western observers do not understand the development of Vietnamese socialism and the forces behind the Vietnam War. I have tried in Vietnam: Peasant Land, Peasant Revolution, to promote a deep understanding of the development of revolutionary forces in Vietnamese society and the way that US involvement influenced these forces. By focusing on the village community and the peasant family as the fundamental building blocks of Vietnamese society, the book first presents a clear picture of traditional Vietnam and then shows the dynamics of change during French Colonialism, the American Intervention, and the present socialist period. The focus on peasants and on their land brings out the basic differences between the various governments and their policies concerning the great majority of Vietnamese - the peasants. I hope therefore that the reader can find answers to questions about Vietnamese 'hearts and minds' which have been unanswered by the voluminous journalism of the Vietnam War Period. I worked on the Southeast Asia desk at the US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, from 1969 until 1972. I xiii XIV Preface travelled to Vietnam in 1972, during my tenure at the Department of Agriculture, and worked with a team of economists on a book published by the US Department of Agriculture entitled Agriculture in Vietnam's Economy. Since 1972, I have published numerous articles on Vietnam and worked on the present book while holding a college faculty position in economics, currently at Fitchburg State College. My interest in rural Vietnam dates from the mid-1960s, prior to my working for the US Department of Agriculture in Vietnam. I began writing on Vietnamese land tenure and economic development while I was a graduate student at the University of Maryland in the mid-1960s. It was in this period, also, that I first joined the peace movement which later became known as the anti-Vietnam War movement. Even as a federal employee in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I continued my active involvement in this movement. Many people who were part of the US anti-war movement in the 1960s have been disillusioned and disappointed in the policies of reunited Vietnam in the post-war period.