Vietnam (Democratic Republic)

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; Vietnamese: Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa – VNDCCH) was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty recognized in July 1954, after which it became commonly known as North Vietnam. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the anti-communist, French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). North Vietnam launched a successful military offensive against South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it merged with the South to become the contemporary Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the August Revolution following World War II, Vietnamese communist revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh, leader of the Việt Minh Front, declared independence on 2 September 1945, proclaiming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The communist-led Viet Minh, cloaked in nationalism, was designed to appeal to a wider population than the Indochinese Communist Party could command. From 1945, the communist-led Viet Minh sought to consolidate power by purging rival groups. Meanwhile, France moved in to reassert its colonial dominance over Vietnam in the aftermath of WW2, eventually prompting the First Indochina War in December 1946. During this guerrilla war, the Viet Minh controlled most rural areas, and later, with assistance from Chinese communists, achieved the French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954. The negotiations in the Geneva Conference that year ended the war and affirmed Vietnamese independence. The Geneva Accords provisionally divided the country into a northern zone and a southern zone along the 17th parallel, stipulating general elections scheduled for July 1956 to "bring about the unification of Viet-Nam". The northern zone was controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and became commonly called North Vietnam, while the southern zone, under control of the non-communist State of Vietnam, was commonly called South Vietnam. Supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords was the responsibility of an international commission consisting of India, Canada, and Poland, respectively representing the non-aligned, the capitalist, and the communist blocs. The United States, which did not sign the Geneva Accords, stated that it "shall continue to seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly". Meanwhile, the State of Vietnam strongly opposed the partition of the country, with its prime minister Ngô Đình Diệm announcing in July 1955 that the State of Vietnam would not participate in elections, claiming that it had not signed the Geneva Accords and was therefore not bound by it, and raising concerns that an unfair election would occur under the Việt Minh governance in North Vietnam. In October 1955, Diệm's government held its own referendum, which was widely marred by electoral fraud, to depose Chief of State Bảo Đại and established the Republic of Vietnam with Diệm as its first president. Failure to unify the country by referendum led to the Vietnam War in 1955. Supported by their communist allies, mainly China and the Soviet Union, the northern People's Army of Vietnam and the southern National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) guerrillas fought against the Military Forces of South Vietnam. To prevent other countries from becoming communist in Southeast Asia, the United States intervened in the conflict along with Western Bloc forces from South Korea, Australia and Thailand, who heavily supported South Vietnam militarily. The conflict spread to neighboring countries and North Vietnam supported the Lao People's Liberation Army in Laos and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia against their respective US-supported governments. By 1973, the United States and its allies withdrew from the war, and the unsupported South Vietnam was swiftly overrun by the communist forces. The Vietnam War ended on 30 April 1975 and saw South Vietnam come under the control of the Việt Cộng's Provisional Revolutionary Government, which led to the reunification of Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the unified Vietnamese state experienced economic decline, refugee crises and conflicts with the Khmer Rouge in 1978 and with China in 1979. The expanded Socialist Republic retained Soviet-style political system, economic system and memberships in Eastern Bloc organisations such as COMECON until the Đổi Mới economic reforms in 1986 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.