North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly known as North Vietnam), was declared by the communist terrorist Ho Chi Minh and was recognized by Red China and the USSR in 1950. In 1954 after the defeat of French forces at the disastrous Battle of Dien Bien Phu, France formally recognized the DRV and the country was partitioned in two (although this partition had been decided upon already at the Potsdam Conference - albeit without France's agreement.)
Following the partition of Vietnam, there followed a mass exodus of North Vietnamese to the South, many of them Roman Catholics who were being persecuted by the communists. In its early years, the poor northern sector, cut off from the rich agricultural areas of the South, inevitably became repressive and totalitarian. Between 1955 and 1956, agrarian "reforms" were attempted with much brutality. In 1959, the Vietnamese Communist Party decided to assist the insurgency in the South, despite enormous costs.
North Vietnam's capital was Hanoi and it was ruled by a Communist government allied with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and it fought the insurgency against South Vietnam (aided by the United States and Australia) during the Vietnam War. Red China, for example, on 7 August, 1967, agreed to give North Vietnam an undisclosed amount of aid in the form of a grant.
With the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese terrorist forces on 30 April, 1975, and ignominious evacuation of the USA, political authority within South Vietnam was taken by the new Communist-backed Republic of South Vietnam. This government merged with North Vietnam on 2 July, 1976, to form a single country called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, commonly known today as Vietnam.
Sources
- Karnow, Stanley, Vietnam, Guild Publishing, London, 1983/1987 reprint.
- Dorr, Robert F., Air War Hanoi, Guild Publishing, London, 1988 reprint, ISBN: 0-7137-1783-1.
- McNamara, Robert S., In Retrospect - The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, Random House, New York, 1991, ISBN:0-712-67682-1
