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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by YpnBot (talk | contribs) at 17:41, 4 March 2014 (updated {{Vital article}}). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Minor typo

Found a typo in the part about the First Indochina War. "major strategic setback at during their defeat at the Siege of Dien Bien Phu"

Edit request on 12 October 2013

In the "Government and politics" section of the Vietnam page, it lists only 4 countries that are still Communist, it says: "The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, along with China, Cuba, and Laos, is one of the world's four remaining single-party socialist states officially espousing communism." However there are 5. Someone forgot to add in North Korea. Could you please add in North Korea? Thank you. RepublicOfGermania (talk) 16:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done North Korea no longer officially espouses communism. North_Korea#Regime_ideology --NeilN talk to me 16:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty absurd that, regardless what they officially espouse, China is considered communist while North Korea is not. The former is clearly a state-capitalist system, while the latter is significantly closer, at very least, to what we would call communism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.252.42.161 (talk) 02:29, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We're talking about whether countries assert communism. Regardless of the current system, communism is still officially part of the name and platform of the Chinese Communist Party. Communism is considered a long-term eventual goal, and maybe some people in the Party mean it. North Korea, on the other hand, ended Marxism-Leninism in favor of Juche in 1972, and removed communism references in 2009. It retains socialism, however. Abstractematics (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request on 26 October 2013

Somebody must add that the language of French is a minority language in Vietnam. Please have it done ASAP. Chipperdude15 (talk) 12:06, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vietnam#Language: "The French language, a legacy of colonial rule, is spoken by some educated Vietnamese as a second language, especially by the older generation; Vietnam remains a full member of the Francophonie, and education has revived some interest in the language.[133]" It is already there. © Tbhotch™ (en-2.5). 18:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Request

It should be mentioned that it was Vietnam that ended the Cambodian Holocaust of the Khemer Rouge.

See your own wiki pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War for reference.

It appears the North American and European politics enters into Wikipedia and makes acknowledgement of the ending of a Holocaust by a communist regime a fact that needs to be kept from the masses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.185.198.205 (talk) 07:54, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But the article does mention that. What it doesn't mention is that the North Vietnamese army originally installed the Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao in power over large swathes of Cambodia and Laos, enabling them to build up their forces by conscription.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The American/Vietnam War was fought nearly entirely in South Vietnam with massacres, eco-terrorism, and international war crimes.

This is not my or any opinion, it is not a POV, by the nature of the assertion it is not, because it is fact, which is sourced and a matter of public record and therefore shouldn't be a matter of controversy. The fact that Vietnam today continues to suffer from the chemical poisoning of their agriculture is not a POV or opinion, it is a matter of sourced fact. It appears that editors are more concerned about pushing a hostile political agenda by not only not including facts but by putting outright lies on the nature of the war. The war was not a North vs. South conflict, it was a war between the Southern government and the National Liberation Front, composed entirely of South Vietnamese citizens, the government being supported by the US military while the NLF being supported by the North. The fact that the NLF was supported by the majority of the population of South Vietnam is not a POV or opinion, it is a matter of sourced fact. A fact which is self-confirming in the history based on the aborted elections and overt corruption which is now a matter of public record and therefore should not be a subject of controversy. The nature of the conflict as it is currently described is 'not' factually correct. Michaelwuzthere (talk) 18:31, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the NFL, I have added a mention that they were a belligerent. The current lead is actually very neutral and includes the basic information that is necessary. Stumink (talk) 18:38, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There's no strong reason to believe any of the New Left agitprop about most South Vietnamese supporting communism. The famous "Eisenhower quote", far from endorsing this POV, was in fact Ike explaining his preference for Diem over Emperor Bao Dai (Diem defeated Bao Dai by well over 80% of the vote). According to The Pentagon Papers, from 1954 to 1956 "Diem really did accomplish miracles" in South Vietnam (while the North experienced a bloody land reform purge): "It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diem—would have been much smaller than eighty percent." (The Pentagon Papers 3 (1971), Beacon Press, p. 246.) In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible in the northern part of Vietnam due to Communist influence. (Woodruff, Mark (2005), Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of The Viet Cong and The North Vietnamese, Presidio Press, p. 6.) This would seem to vindicate the "American Plan" proposed at Geneva, which called for free elections in Vietnam to be supervised by the United Nations, and which the communist delegates rejected. As historian Robert F. Turner states: "Since Ho Chi Minh and other key Party leaders always received at least ninety-nine percent of the vote in the subsequent so-called "elections" in North Vietnam, it would have been suicide for Diem's government to accept the communist proposal. The consistent position of Diem and the American delegation that unification elections must have effective international supervision was admirable, and any criticism of either government for failing to submit to essentially unsupervised proposed elections envisioned by the Final Declaration at Geneva—which both governments denounced at the time—is unwarranted. Nevertheless, this argument was instrumental in turning many Americans against their government's policies in Vietnam." After the Geneva Accords, over 1 million North Vietnamese fled to the South; 3 million South Vietnamese fled after 1975. But all this vanishes down the memory hole, just like the fact that it was Ho Chi Minh who invited the French back into Indochina despite a deliberate Allied attempt to evict them, and who collaborated with the French to massacre the real Vietnamese nationalists.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:25, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If I could make another point, why do you think Saigon was so crowded with war refugees? Because large numbers of South Vietnamese were desperately trying to escape the areas of Viet Cong control! (The same is true of Cambodia and Laos: The Khmer Rouge were not a populist peasant uprising outraged at the evils of American imperialism, but a conspiratorial movement of French-educated intellectuals armed and trained by foreign powers. The North Vietnamese installed them in power over large swathes of Cambodia, enabling them to build up their forces through conscription, and the pretense that they were merely going to restore the monarchy prevented people from fighting very hard against them. There was never much popular support for communism anywhere in the world, which is why it died with the collapse of its state patron--outside of a few hardliners like Michaelwuzthere, of course.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
TheTimesAreAChanging, you're proving my point exactly. You're more concerned about pushing a hostile political agenda rather than what's true, even going so far as to regurgitate US government war propaganda right here. If you're personally offended that most Vietnamese in the South supported the NLF and did not support the Southern Catholic puppet state, which was in fact the continuing leading personality of the French colonial state, then that's you're personal problem. Wikipedia, however, does not belong to you and should have an objective perspective without US business propaganda putting outright lies and distortions that contradict established facts. Fact: The American/Vietnam war was fought mostly in South Vietnam, with concentrated bombing, chemical terrorism, and massacres. Fact: The National Liberation Front was entirely composed of citizens of South Vietnam and was not in any way under the control of the North beyond dependency on supplies and other such aid. Fact: The NLF had the support of the majority of citizens in South Vietnam, which the US government not only fully acknowledged but used as justification for aborting the planned election process which would have determined the fate of the country. Fact: The country continues to suffer the negative consequences of the bombing/chemical warfare to this day. The page currently either ignores or contradicts these facts, it should be fixed. --Michaelwuzthere (talk) 23:37, 29 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
North Vietnam created the NLF/Viet Cong and ran it from the start. Jeffrey Race noted that communist defectors found denials of this fact "very amusing" and "commented humorously that the Party had apparently been more successful than was expected in concealing its role." The aim was to hide the fact that "there was an invasion from the North." (Jeffrey Race (1972), War Comes to Long An, University of California Press, pp. 107, 122.) Since the end of the war, the communists have been fairly open in acknowledging this fact. In the end, it was the North Vietnamese army that conquered Saigon. The worst war crimes--like the Hue Massacre--were committed by the communists; and none of your unsourced rants about American imperialism using communist rhetorical terminology are appropriate for the lede.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:12, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If the NLF/VC had popular support, they probably would not have felt the need to slice off the genitals of village chiefs and sew them inside their bloody mouths, cut off the tongues of helpless victims, ram bamboo lances through one ear and out the other, slash open the wombs of pregnant women, machine gun children, hack men and women to pieces with machetes, and cut off the fingers of small children who dared to get an education. As one defector put it, "we had to make the people suffer, suffer until they could no longer endure it. Only then would they carry out the Party’s armed policy." (Ibid, p. 112).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:37, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Who is my supposed "political agenda" "hostile" to? The Communist Party of Vietnam? It's not as though I'm the one who seeks to change this article; while I'm offering a rebuke to your badly-informed POV, the burden is really on you to justify your flagrantly undue changes to the lede. The only valid point you've made here, amidst your personal attacks and hyperbolic assertions, is that the war was mainly fought in South Vietnam. Well, of course it was, but the article doesn't say otherwise. Because the invasion of North Korea led to Chinese intervention, the US focused on restrained counter-insurgency and diplomacy in Vietnam, with tragic unintended consequences. Whereas North Vietnam's civilian population was largely untouched by the war, the communists deliberately targeted South Vietnamese civilians.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 04:55, 30 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, a lot of hysterical propaganda in here. You're one step away from blaming the Vietnamese for invading the U.S.

The irony is, you don't even seem to see it. When the U.S. does something horrendous, it's a "tragic unintended consequence", while all other actors are merely provoking this great benevolent and diplomatic state. If an alien could somehow see the Vietnam war, and then see what many westerners write and say about it, he would probably wonder what they were even talking about.

The burden, apparently, is always on the "radical left", as in, the one willing to point out ugly, unpopular and "flagrantly undue" truths. The victors write the history books, indeed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.252.42.161 (talk) 02:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

From a Vietnamese

Everybody, "Ha Tay" isn't a province of Vietnam any longer, please change the map! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dangchanhung3 (talk • contribs) 05:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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