Land reform in Vietnam

The support of the communists by a large number of rural dwellers was an important factor in determining the outcome of the Vietnam War.

This program resulted in executions of "landlords and reactionaries," estimated most reliably at 13,500 killed, and resistance, including rioting, in the countryside.

Private owners of land had incentives to hide landless farmers who were in their employ in order to evade taxes.

In southern Vietnam, the production of industrial crops for export, notably rubber, began on a large scale.

Vietnam was managed by the French primarily to produce revenue which was attained by exports, taxation and government monopolies.

[7] The country's richest agriculture region, the Mekong delta, was considered one of the five worst areas in the world for the prevalence of landlessness and tenancy among its inhabitants.

The Viet Minh confiscated land owned by French nationals, "traitors", and landlords who fled to the cities to avoid the war in rural areas.

[10] Scholar Jeffrey Race, who did a grassroots study of the people in one Mekong Delta province, said that "no other [Communist] Party activities had such an immediate and profound impact...the promise of land being one of the principal means of obtaining a core of activists in each village to drive out the government authorities.

"[11] In 1953, the Viet Minh, now in control of 60 to 90 percent of the rural areas of Vietnam, took a bolder approach to expand the land redistribution programs in what was called the rectification movement.

The decree was unenforceable and rendered null by a failing colonial government and, in any case, contained loopholes that could have been exploited by landlords.

[18] The government's program was less generous to the majority of farmers than had been the Viet Minh redistribution of land in areas which it controlled.

[19] Many rural people believed that the United States army and the government of South Vietnam were on the side of the landlords.

Ordinance 57 resulted in the reverse of what was the objective of land reform advocates: large landowners and landlords increased their influence, especially in the important rice-growing area of the Mekong Delta.

Drawing on experience in other countries, Prosterman proposed a "land-to-the-tiller" program to compete "with the Viet Cong for the allegiance of the peasants."

Legal title was extended to peasants who lived in areas under control of the South Vietnamese government to whom land had previously been given by the Viet Cong.

[23] U.S.President Richard Nixon gave his support to new land reform measures in June 1969 in the Midway communiqué, judging it favorable to the vietnamization of the conflict.

"[26] The rectification campaign begun by the Viet Minh revolutionaries continued under the communist government of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1956.

In North Vietnam about one-fourth of agricultural land was owned communally and allocated by the village or hamlet leaders to individual farmers.

The program, proceeded by a Three Year Plan (1957-1960), lifted agricultural production to 5.4 million tonnes or over double pre-Indochina War levels.

[32] Executions and imprisonment of persons classified as "reactionary and evil landlords" were contemplated from the beginning of the land reform program.

[33] However, other scholarship has concluded that the higher estimates were significantly exaggerated and based on South Vietnamese propaganda with US support.

Scholar Balasz Szalontai wrote that documents of Hungarian diplomats living in North Vietnam at the time of the land reform provided a minimum number of 1,337 executions.

[36] Economist Vo Nhan Tri reported uncovering a document in the Vietnamese central party archives which put the number of executions at 15,000.

From discussions with party cadres, Vo Nhan Tri concluded that the overall number of deaths was considerably higher than this figure.

[38][39] In early 1956, North Vietnam initiated a "correction of errors" which put an end to the land reform, and to rectify the mistakes and damage done.

On 18 August 1956, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh apologised and acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform.

[47] Reform of the collective farm system began in 1981 in which farmers were permitted to sell their agricultural production after meeting a required level of output for the state.