History, Structure, and Revolution in Vietnam

Abstract

The singularity of the Vietnamese revolution cannot be explained entirely by factors such as a racially discriminating colonialism or oppressive landlordism. These factors are to be found in many Asian and African countries which did not produce a Ho Chi Minh or a Vo Nguyen Giap. Vietnam's Confucian past is critically important. It was distinguished by (1) an incompletely centralized monarchy which generated both political and moral expectations that it could never satisfy; (2) a peculiarly bipolar political system in which the monarchy had to share power with a provincial intelligentsia which lived close to the peasantry; and (3) a transcendental neoConfucian philosophy, diffused through civil service examinations, which stressed the writings of the idealist philosopher Mencius. Large peasant rebellions, often advised by Confucian scholars, and bent on punishing rulers who did not exemplify the proper cosmic principles through "benevolent government," recurred in Vietnam before French colonialism. Ho Chi Minh and many of his associates were descendants of the provincial scholar class who might be so involved. Confucianism and RevolutionIn the aftermath of World War II, it was tempting to think that the political and social ferment which was then accompanying decolonization in Asia and Africa had common inspirations, rules, and methods, and would probably also have common results. One British historian wrote in 1951 that the non-Western world of oppressive bureaucrats, huge landed estates, rural overpopulation, frustrated poor peasants, and unskilled workers was the inevitable breeding place of &dquo;twentieth-century

Reinventing rural development in Vietnam: Discursive constructions of grassroots democracy during the renovation reform

“…The present reform politics are but the most recent efforts to regenerate the countryside and harness its productive forces. Vietnam has a long history of peasant rebellions under persistent tensions between an incompletely centralised authority (Confucian monarchy/colonial rulers) and rural leadership and the masses (Woodside, 1970, 1989; Marr, 2004). It is likely that this history has contributed to the Party's interpretations as a means of addressing the concerns of the rural populace when they respond with dissatisfaction to perceived failures of Party and state to govern.…”

From Food Crisis to Agrarian Crisis? Food Security Strategy and Rural Livelihoods in Vietnam

“…Confucius is recorded, for example, as listing the key "requisites of government" as "sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler" (Confucius 1971, p. 254). If, by contrast, the government was unable to ensure adequate supplies of food, it was taken as a sign that the king had lost the "mandate of heaven," and thus his legitimacy (Woodside 1989). Indeed, famine was a potent driver of unrest and rebellion throughout Vietnam's pre-colonial history, and the maximization of rice production remained a consistent concern of its kings (see Peters, this volume).…”

Good Governance as Managerialism: Rationalisation and International Donors in Vietnam's Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector

“…: 6). The Confucian legacy was central to the way in which Leninism was adapted in Vietnam (Woodside, ). One of the key ideational commonalities between neo‐Confucianist philosophy dominating Vietnamese political culture since the 15 th century, and Leninism, was ‘a common humanist opposition to religious mysticism and to speculation about the afterlife’ (Nguyen Khac Vien, 1971: 51–2, cited in Woodside, ).…”

“…The Confucian legacy was central to the way in which Leninism was adapted in Vietnam (Woodside, ). One of the key ideational commonalities between neo‐Confucianist philosophy dominating Vietnamese political culture since the 15 th century, and Leninism, was ‘a common humanist opposition to religious mysticism and to speculation about the afterlife’ (Nguyen Khac Vien, 1971: 51–2, cited in Woodside, ). Confucianism was formally rejected by Ho Chi Minh's Communist movement, but at the same time, their elitist, patriarchal models of society, and their ideas of political power based on rationality, could be directly linked with their family‐inherited Confucianist culture.

For the fund of ancient wisdom and practice on which the legitimacy of the traditional Confucianist elite was based, the Vietnamese Communist movement substituted a ‘scientific’ system of thought that gave party leaders the ability to discern the truth and to point to the correct path (Porter, : 7‐8).

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