Title: Post-war Vietnam
Headings: Post-war Vietnam
Post-war Vietnam
Contents
A new nation
Problems and obstacles
Purges and ‘re-education’
Economic challenges
Socialist policies
Land reform and agrarian policy
Food shortages
The 1980s reforms
Recent developments

Content: Post-war Vietnam
Post-war Vietnam
One of the challenges of post-war Vietnam was the enormous bombing damage left by years of war. The withdrawal of United States troops and North Vietnam’s victory brought about the reunification of Vietnam. As is often the case, securing peace and building a new nation brought its own challenges. Ravaged by war and ostracised by the West, post-war Vietnam took many years to recover and develop into a viable nation-state. Contents
1 A new nation
2 Problems and obstacles
3 Purges and ‘re-education’
4 Economic challenges
5 Socialist policies
6 Land reform and agrarian policy
7 Food shortages
8 The 1980s reforms
9 Recent developments
A new nation
Two years after the withdrawal of the last United States combat troops, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks and soldiers rolled into Saigon. Within days, the US-backed South Vietnamese government turned on its heels and fled, its leaders spirited out of the country with American help. After more than a century of foreign domination and 21 years of war and division, Vietnam was finally a single, independent nation, free from external control and interference. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, in honour of the revolutionary leader, who had died six years earlier. North Vietnam’s communist party, Lao Dong, merged with the People’s Revolutionary Party of South Vietnam to form the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). A new national constitution was adopted and on July 2nd 1976, North and South Vietnam were officially reunified.