Honestly, the AP program is chock full of bad history. This is a case where I believe it is bad history again, or at least too simplistic. It is a complicated topic due to the internal politics in Viet Nam, but overall it could be viewed as a kind of independence war. And not independence for only the north, but for the south too. I am not saying that I would necessarily call it a war of independence, but it could be argued. In any case, it wasn’t necessarily a war about communism from Vietnamese perspectives. The fact is that the North and South were not separate countries and both governments intended to represent an entire free Viet Nam. There were various independence movements aside from communist ones in Viet Nam, such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD). This was a non-communist nationalist party also aiming for independence. It was based on and associated with the Chinese Guomindang.

These wars (First Indochina against the French and Second Indochina, which involved the US aiding the RVN, Republic of Viet Nam, against the DRVN, Democratic Republic of Viet Nam) have a backdrop of colonialism. First Indochina is indisputably a war of independence. The DRVN declared independence for Viet Nam in 1945, and the French waged a war in order to try to take back their colonies they lost during WWII. Second Indochina is a bit more complicated due to the politics involved. However, I still think it is very much based in the spirit of independence in that it was about Vietnamese people wanting to have self-determination. When the DRVN defeated the French in 1954, that really should have been the end of the story. However, while the DRVN had won the war, at the same time the Geneva Conferences were occurring and there the DRVN had few allies. Eventually they had to bend a bit with pressure from the People’s Republic of China: there would be a temporary demilitarized zone and an election between the DRVN and a different government that had been created in large part by the French in the south. This election would decide which would govern all of Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh was already fairly legendary in VN by this point, in large part because of his declaration of independence in 1945, and his general good relations with the people. It was clear that Ho’s government would win the election. So, Ngo Dinh Diem (possibly being advised by the US), dissolved this southern-based government (the Associated State of Viet Nam) and reorganized it as the Republic of Viet Nam. This effectively voided the agreement from Geneva. This event was a major part of why another war occurred.

Some people mistakenly believe Second Indochina was a civil war. I believe they are mistaken because of the nature of US involvement in Viet Nam. The US had been involved in the country since the DRVN declared independence. In fact, by the end of First Indochina, the US was largely funding France’s war effort. This is not a neutral position, The Associated State was a collaboration between the French and former emperor Bao Dai. In a sense (and in policy), the ASVN was a colonial enterprise; the ASVN was not meant to get true independence, but was to be a part of a federation under France. This government and its successor, the RVN, had lots of Vietnamese supporters, to be sure. However, it is clear that the ASVN at least was founded in a compromising fashion (this is not true of the DRVN; Ho Chi Minh had come to communism decades earlier because Western capitalist states refused to help him in his independence goals; his relationship with China and the USSR was not one derived from a colonial relationship). There are even quotes from people in the US government in 1946 talking about how it was in the best interests of themselves, the French, and the Western world to become involved in Viet Nam.

A former professor of mine, who specializes in 20th century Viet Nam, described the political situation concerning the ASVN like this, from a sort of DRVN perspective: imagine that the US was conquered by a foreign power. After a group has defeated the colonizer and secured independence, the rest of the world does not recognize it. Instead, the country is divided in half by the other countries, say, into West America and East America. The East American government is headed by a disgraced leader with close ties with the colonizer, and in fact the East American government was founded by the colonizers. East America is funded and even supported militarily much later (or, at least the successor to the ASVN is supported militarily) by yet another powerful country, an ally of the colonizer. It’s clear to West America that they should reunite America under one banner. Yes, the ASVN was replaced by the RVN, a true nationalist government, but it’s still very heavily supported militarily (by 1966, for example, there were 350,000 American troops in Viet Nam) by a foreign power. Would you call this a war over communism or a war of independence from foreign colonizers?

Communism was a major component of the war, as the RVN was very anti-communist and it wasn’t a puppet state despite its history. It had many supporters. But, this also was not a simple civil war and its origins were in foreign involvement, not purely Vietnamese politics.

There are many useful books that discuss the Vietnamese Revolution and the wars. Hue-Tam Ho Tai’s Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution is an important one that addresses anti-colonialism in VN regardless of political background of the participants. In a similar vein, Tai’s Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong puts revolution in socio-cultural context. The idea of revolution and even communism was not just a northern phenomenon. In modern Viet Nam, the Revolution and the following wars are kind of viewed in tandem. As Christoph Giebel points out in Imagined Ancestries of Vietnamese Communism: Ton Duc Thang and the Politics of History and Memory, Ton Duc Thang’s museum shrine in Ho Chi Minh City exists in large part because of a desire by southern revolutionaries to be recognized as integral in the Revolution and in the following wars and reunion. Duiker’s Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam is a bit outdated nowadays, but the quotes from US government officials and sources such as that, as well as general information are not outdated since they are objective facts. In terms of a more up to date general history, both of Viet Nam as a whole and the wars, Christopher Goscha’s Vietnam, A New History is worth reading. Duiker’s Ho Chi Minh, A Life is a great way to get acclimated with Ho’s politics and history.