Land reform in Vietnam
Encyclopedia
Land reform in Vietnam was a program of land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

 in North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...

 from 1953 to 1956. It followed the program of land reform in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 from 1946 to 1953.

The aim of the land reform program was to break the power of the traditional village elite, to form a new class
New class
The "New Class" model, as a theory of new social groups in post-industrial societies, gained ascendency during the 1970s as social and political scientists noted how "New Class" groups were shaped by post-material orientations in their pursuit of political and social goals...

 of leaders, and redistribute the wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

 (mostly land) to create a new class that has no ownership. It was an element of the Communist revolution
Communist revolution
A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism, typically with socialism as an intermediate stage...

.

The reform was very radical. It led to allegations of many villagers being executed, land being taken away even from poor peasants and of creating paranoia among neighbours and kin. Many peasants were falsely labeled as landlords and executed.

Former Hanoi government official Nguyen Minh Can, told RFA
Radio Free Asia
Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation that operates a radio station and Internet news service. RFA was founded by an act of the US Congress and is operated by the Broadcasting Board of Governors . The RFA is supported in part by grants from the federal government of the United States...

’s Vietnamese service:
“The land reform was a massacre of innocent, honest people, and using contemporary terms we must say that it was a genocide triggered by class discrimination”.

Some reports said that up to 50,000 people were killed and another 500,000 died gradually in labor camps or from starvation. Almost 1 million of the North Vietnamese people uprooted and left the North to move South because of this event.

By the end of 1956, the Communist Party announced their land reform was a mistake, and a campaign to rectify the error lasted till 1958.

Further reading

The land reform in North Vietnam was documented by Hoang Van Chi
Hoang Van Chi
Hoàng Văn Chí was one of the first Vietnamese political writers, a prominent intellectual who was an opponent of colonialism and later of communism in Vietnam. He used the penname Mạc Định...

 in From Colonialism to Communism, first published in 1962 by the Congress of Cultural Freedom, in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

. P. J. Honey
P. J. Honey
Patrick James Honey was an Irish-born Vietnamese language scholar and historian.-Early life and education:...

wrote the Introduction for this work.

External links

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