The Astonishing Reason Why Vietnam Became Communist

Why is it that when Communism was failing all over Europe, Communist states in Asia survived? I have been wondering about this question for the last couple months as I have been learning more about the history of Vietnam.

Much of Vietnamese culture comes out of China. 1000 years of Chinese occupation left their mark on Vietnamese agricultural methods as well as Vietnamese governance. Chinese haven’t only influenced Vietnam but has also occupied or influenced much of East Asia over the last couple thousand years. By studying Vietnamese history, it is probably safe to apply some generalities to the rest of East Asia.

Before I get into this, I should probably give a bit of my own background. My education is mostly economics. I went to university for business in the late 1990’s. Many of my classes were in economics. An interest of some of my economics classes was the fall of the Soviet Union as well as the rise of China. Because of these classes, I don’t tend to look at Socialism like a political movement, but as an economic system. When looked at from this point of view, I find it hard to see political ideologies as good or bad, but more as a series of trade-offs.

I know much of this article drifts dangerously close to picking a political side, which is a stance I try to avoid in this blog. As you are reading this, try not to think of this in a political lens, but as an economist trying to explain why certain cultures lean socialist while others lean capitalist. The point here is to explain the economic forces which nudge society in different political directions.

A Quick European History of Agriculture

Populations of Europe were struggling due to the “Little Ice Age”, from about 1000 AD to 1600 AD, when much of the agricultural land was less viable for farming due to lower agricultural yields. This caused much of the population of Europe to gradually shrink over hundreds of years following the bountiful period of the “Roman Warming Period” of 250 BC to 400 AD.

The people of Europe were already in a perpetual state of starvation when plague hit in the 14th century. The Black Death killed 30-50% of the population of many communities all over Europe.

As Jared Diamond mentioned in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, diseases weren’t too uncommon in Europe and Asia because farmers kept livestock. This close proximity to multiple species created a vector for diseases to mutate. Thousands of years of exposure to these diseases left Europeans at an advantage when they later faced the indigenous people of the Americas because these people had no defense against these diseases.

The Black Death had the unforeseen effect of reorganizing the political environment from a feudal system into a proto-Capitalist system. Not only did it loosen the ties of serfs to the land, which was held by the noble class, but the amount of farmland allotted to each serf increased. This gave Europeans an opportunity to have a surplus of production which helped raise many industrious people of the lower class out of poverty.

Europeans saw an increase in production for several reasons. Smaller farms were merged into larger farms increasing production through economies of scale. Letting some of the fields lie fallow gave fields rest which caused them to become more productive the next time they were planted. Labor shortage led to better technology to improve production, including improvements to plows and harnesses. Labor saving devices such as the watermills or windmills (to grind grain), the spinning wheel (to quickly produce yarn), and the printing press (to rapidly reproduce written text) were invented. All of these improvements yielded an economic surplus for a new emerging middle class.

Populations started to re-grow rapidly. The discovery of the New World gave a new home for this excess population to immigrate to and Europeans quickly formed New World colonies. The indigenous population of the New World had been unfortunate victims of diseases coming from Europe, causing many indigenous communities to witness up to 90% of their populations die, leading to complete civilizational collapse. This left Europeans largely unopposed as they started to settle the New World.

Europeans Settle the New World

European settlers moved further and further West on the North American plain. The mineral rich soil was already some of the most fertile land in the world, protected by a thick layer of grass which was occasionally broken down by buffalo herds coming by and dropping off more of their nutrient rich deposits all over the place. These bison herds had a recent population explosion after the quick die off of their chief predator, indigenous humans. Prior to this, bison and human populations were balanced, with both populations at the optimal number to not cause a dramatic change in the size of either of their respective populations.

North American land was ready for European crops of wheat and barley along with improved European farming techniques to be used on New World crops of corn and potatoes.

Due to a surplus in production, there was extra money to be allocated to developing new industrial equipment. Technology progressed to create tools which allowed single farmers to farm even more land. Larger farms produced more food, allowing more people to live in cities and invent new technology. This technology built upon itself to start the industrial revolution.

This rapid increase in technology over a few hundred years created a stronger middle class which led to a strong sense of the individual identity. Concepts such as the “self-made man” began to emerge in the zeitgeist. This strong feeling of the individual works quite well within capitalism as the common belief is ‘if a person works hard enough, they have the same opportunities as everyone else within society.’

When this is compared to the story of Vietnamese agriculture, the story is quite different.

Communal Agriculture of Vietnam

Vietnamese agriculture is a large investment by the entire community and is incredibly labor intensive. Due to factors such as population density, the technology of agriculture in East Asia typically focused on increasing agricultural yield rather than reducing the input cost of human labor. East Asia has always had higher population density, so the land needs to be worked much more efficiently if everyone was going to survive.

Rice requires a huge amount of human labor, starting with rice needing to be hand planted. Agricultural land tends to start off as swamp, which requires a significant investment of labor to drain the water from the land before it is suitable for farming. In addition, a vast network of canals and water catchment systems need to be constructed and maintained to provide just the right amount of water for crops at just the right time. The entire process must be managed perfectly to obtain a full harvest.

I heard it hypothesized that the reason why some East Asian countries tend to be communal is because rice farming requires an entire village to work together to produce an ample harvest.

I disagree with that premise that rice farming alone is the reason for communal living. I have been reading “Uniquely Vietnamese” by James Edward Goodman where he mentions that it is the system of governance which makes Vietnam communal. Vietnam has always preferred to delegate governance to the village level, which is the most basic level of government in Vietnam.

Goodman goes on to mention that the central communal house, the Đình, was the heart of the village. The Đình held the ancestral village gods and would be a place of meeting for the entire community. The ancestral gods would be at the high altars and the elders would be on a slightly lower raised platform with the remaining villagers at the ground level. The Đình would be used for all civic meetings as well as communal meals for the many festive days which villagers celebrate. This formed a central cultural nexus of communal village life.

One might say this is a case of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Did the government evolve to fit the agricultural system or did the agricultural system shape the government? It is possible that, unlike Europe, which had a contracting population during the “Little Ice Age”, Vietnamese communities may have developed a system of governance and culture which allowed the community to better work together to extract a greater rice yield out of the land. This likely caused less starvation than experienced in Europe which may have been a contributing factor for the greater population density of East Asia.

In Vietnam, much of the agricultural land was owned by the entire village, typically of around 300-500 inhabitants. The village would divide the farmland into portions and assign a portion of land to each married man. The village council would also be responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the government. In the Gia Long code, it mentions “The families in the châu (region) or huyện (district) share the land, establish the taxation system, and all families assume the government of the locality.”

It doesn’t take much of a mental leap to see communal village life becoming Socialist at a state level. Much of the structure within the existing Socialist government of Vietnam goes back to the days of the emperor. There are many similarities between the structure of the government of Emperor Gia Long and the structure of The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam today. It is almost as if the old system never really changed but merely adapted in name only.

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By comparing Eastern and Western civilizations, it should be clear that different population density, types of agriculture, village culture as well as governance styles gave each civilization different ways of looking at collectivization. It shouldn’t be too surprising to see that one style of governance may work in one part of the world which may not work as well in another part of the world.

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