Was the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945 - 1976) ever a democracy or a multi-party state?

by Theboyscampus

I was reading the History textbook(Vietnamese High School book) and they wrote that Ho Chi Minh and the party had to make some take some steps back and gave away some seats in the National Assembly for the so called opposition-reactionary parties like the VKMT or the Revolutionary Party of Vietnam, both are relatively called Viet Quoc(they actually call it the Vietnamese KMT in the 1930s timeline, imo because the VKMT led by Nguyen Thai Hoc was the only real VKMT according to the book) and Viet Cach. In fact, the vice president of the DRV was the leader of Viet Cach, these moves were made to "protect the newly independent countries from internal reactionaries and colonial invaders". What I want to ask is: was the vision of Uncle Ho for a Republic of Vietnam a democratic, multi-party republic? Did his ideals never happen because of the US' intervention in Vietnam?

KippyPowers

I think what is important to understand about Ho Chi Minh is that he was not a dominant political figure in Viet Nam in the same way that someone like Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin was. He was not a political theorist and never really wrote any political philosophy. He never had an ideology of his own (like "Maoism"). His primary concern was putting the Vietnamese people in a position to liberate themselves from the French. He discussed this point numerous times in interviews, that communist ideology was ultimately a means to an end, the end being national independence. Quite literally, Uncle Ho was both a nationalist and a communist. Why did he choose communism? Really, it's pretty simple. No other ideology was interested in helping his cause. It wasn't the nominally democratic states like the US that offered aid to VN's struggle. It was the communist USSR that offered him help, and not just nice words, but tangible action. Ho saw communism as the one ideology that made liberation of colonized peoples a core belief, so he adopted it.

That being said, during the period you mention, it was indeed Ho Chi Minh that advocated for democratic elections and minority seats for the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang, which was the nationalist (and anti-communist) party. This was the party that was supported by the Guomindang in China. Elections did take place, though their legitimacy could be a tad questionable. Although, to the DRVN's credit, the communist party won 97% of seats but still gave the VNQDD and other minority parties many more seats than 3% would have allowed. It's worth noting here as well that Ho actually did not intend to copy the Soviet model 1-for-1 with Viet Nam, particularly in these early years of nationhood. It was later, after his influence waned, and after he died, that VN adopted a more strictly Soviet model, in 1980. This can be seen from the constitutions that were drafted over the years, with the 1980 one being much more explicitly Soviet in nature.

To answer your question then, I think the answer is, unfortunately, that it's hard to say. He just never had a quantifiable ideology that we know of. His loyalty to communism was always in question, but I do not know that that necessarily means that he had a true democracy in mind for the country. He almost certainly had personal beliefs but he never put these into a political ideology like many of his contemporaries did.

A really great source for Ho Chi Minh is Ho Chi Minh, A Life by William J. Duiker. It's a very extensive biography, and it's what I mostly used here for this answer. Above all, you get a feeling that Ho lacked a clarity of vision. Instead, he was an "event-making man" who was focused on national independence and social and economic justice.