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Communism in Eastern Europe after 1945
Rise and fall of communism in the soviet union
Rise and fall of communism in the soviet union
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Topical Question #4 (Communism) When communism eventually made its way to East Asia, it grew to have a noteworthy grasp within China and Vietnam. However, how both of these countries have taken communism under their wing is not the same, though there are some similarities. Both countries initially wanted communism for much of the same reasons, yet took different paths in how they became communist. This was due in large part to how the international world, in particular, the United States and the Soviet Union, responded to these two country’s development in the bipolar world during the Cold War. Once communism was firmly established, how each country transcended its country into its current form was almost identical. In order to understand …show more content…
After France’s humiliation in WWII, it tried to reclaim its colony of Vietnam. This would be to no avail. During the war, Japan had assimilated Vietnam into its empire as France had laid helpless to defend its territory. The United States would become heavily involved in Vietnam’s affairs as the U.S. foreign policy of containment was fully enacted. In the a statement of the U.S. Policy toward Indochina in 1948 it specifically states that “our long-term objectives are to eliminate so far as possible Communist influence in Indochina and to see installed a self-governing nationalist state which will be friendly towards the United States”. Given the state of the fragile country and due to the split between the interests of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the U. S., it was eventually decided that the country, like Korea, would be split into a communist North and a democratic South in 1954. However, this agreement, unlike Korea, was not meant to be a permanent solution. Two years later, the country would hold free elections. On the ballot, the Vietnamese people would decide which governmental system they wanted, democracy or communism. Unfortunately, the elections did not occur as the south realized that it was clearly obvious that the state wanted to be communist. In the aftermath of the failed election, the Vietnam War began. This war would last for about two decades until the North finally …show more content…
One of his most well-known policies, The Great Leap Forward would cost the lives of approximately twenty million Chinese. The most important reason behind this endemic was that the state moved to collectivize all the land within the country . Private property no longer existed. An example of this is how the government forced the elderly man to kill his ducks, despite the fact that he needed them to survive, as they were considered private property in Liang Heng’s story. In Mao’s China, the name of the game became who was in good standing with the communist party and who was not. In this highly politicized world, not only did the average citizen have to struggle economically to survive, but also politically. This game was heightened exponentially during Mao’s Cultural Revolution as struggle meetings, public execution, and house raids became the new norm in an impossible attempt to rid the country of impurity and rightist thought . In, contrast, the totalitarian society Mao had created was not the norm in Vietnam. Vietnam was more concerned with making its entire state communist and all of its energy was focused toward that aim. An endeavor that took the North almost three decades to
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
The U. S. Contained Communism In Vietnam In 1949, Mao Zedong led the Peoples Revolution, which established a Communist State in China. Communism has now been introduced to Asia. In this period, after World War II, Communism was a popular ideology being introduced throughout the world. Vietnam is one of the many countries under the threat of Communism.
Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious scholar claimed that all of China’s tragedies are ‘sustained by a mistaken belief in the correctness of the 1949 revolution’ and that the future progress of China depends on the recognition that the revolution was a failure. However, the CCP government was certainly not perfect and its most significant failures were its political failures such as the Anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution and also economic failures such as the great leap forward. Millions of peoples were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period as the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during the period and tens of Millions of peoples died due to starvation as there were widespread food shortages during the great leap forward movement.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
The French were forced out of Vietnam and Vietnam was divided between communists and anti-communists. The communist regime controlled North Vietnam. Those that supported the French and were against communism controlled South Vietnam. Then trained Communist supporters from the North, the Vietcong, started coming to the South. America decided that they wanted to stop the spread of communism by stopping communism in Vietnam. The United States believed in the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory is the theory that communism will continue to spread around the world unless it is stopped. America sent soldiers over to Vietnam to help the South fight against the North. Then American ships were supposedly attacked of the coast of Vietnam. This is when the United States officially entered the war.
“In July 1965, Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in Vietnam.” Although Johnson chose to enter America into the war, there were events previous that caused America to enter and take over the war. The South Vietnamese were losing the war against Communism – giving Johnson all the more reason to enter the war, and allowing strong American forces to help stop communism. There were other contributing factors leading up to the entrance of the war; America helped assist the French in the war, Johnson’s politics, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the 1954 Geneva Conference. President Johnson stated, “For 10 years three American Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--and the American people have been actively concerned with threats to the peace and security of the peoples of southeast Asia from the Communist government of North Viet-Nam.”
Programs such as collectivization and land reformation were essentially a microcosm of Mao's impact on China. Under the policy of collectivization, the government promoted cooperative farming and redistributed the land on the principle that the product of labor could be better distributed if the la...
...ence of 1957 would support the cession of foreign involvement in Vietnam. However the French would not relinquish any territorial claims until the electoral conference in 1956. It was there that the French finally gave up its remaining control in Vietnam, however, the United States and South Vietnam rejected the decisions made between the two conferences and thus began a new chapter in Vietnam’s history with American involvement and further wartime.
After World War II, the French began a fight for their former colony of Indochina, which included Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The French and other countries failed to see at that time the will and desire of the Vietnamese people to gain independence from foreign rule and to have their country unified. Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist, fought the French and overtook the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi with his followers, the Viet Minh, declaring the area the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Anderson, 2002) The French were unwilling to give up their colony and drove the Vietminh from many of the larger cities in the south. The United States entered the Vietnam struggle in 1950 when $15 million in aid was pledged to France in order to fight the Vietminh. (Anderson, 2002) The rationale was to align with France and keep the Soviet Union from expanding in Europe and to keep another country from falling into communist rule.
The struggle to bring communism resulted in millions of people being killed, especially in China. During China’s Great Leap Forward, a three-year famine broke out that killed more than 20 million people (Strayer, 1049.) Communism also affected the individual by taking away the value of a single citizen. In order to become an equal society, the people’s freedom to do what they want vanished as they had to take orders from the ruler. People were also forced to give up their personal property so that land could be redistributed to a more equal portion to the population (Strayer, 1047.) Lastly, people were forced to give up their traditions and what made them unique, as shown in Mo Bo’s writing “I was a teenage Red Guard.” She describes her experience of joining the Red Guard, which she joined simply to blend in with the other students. She states that, “Everyone wanted to join the Red Guards because nobody wanted to be ‘unqualified’, ‘backward’ and ‘non-revolutionary’” (Bo.) During the time of the Red Guards, people would carry around a small red book to show their loyalty. These books were a symbol of faithfulness and obedience towards Mao and people who did not carry the book with them was viewed as a bad communism and as an enemy towards the
This essay has critically analysed and examined the effect of Communism on the Chinese Society during the period of 1946-1964. The overall conclusion that can be drawn is that the Chinese Communist Party managed to defeat the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party and achieve victory in the Civil War, in spite of alienation by the Soviet Union and opposition from the U.S. This was primarily because of the superior military strategy employed by the Communists and the economic and political reforms introduced by this party which brought more equality to the peasants in the form of land ownership and better public services. This increased China’s production and manufacturing which not only boosted the country’s economy but also provided a more sustainable supply of food, goods and services for the Chinese people.
North Vietnam came under the control of the Vietnamese Communists who had opposed France and aimed for a unified Vietnam under Communist rule. Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French controlled the South. For this reason the United States became involved in Vietnam because it believed that if all of the country fell under a Communist government, Communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia and further. This belief is known as the domino theory. The decision to enter Vietnam reflected Americas idea of its global role - the U.S. could not recoil from world leadership.
Common misperceptions have convinced Americans over the years that communism is corrupt form of government. In reality, the leaders of so called communist countries are corrupt. Communism is an economic system derived by Karl Marx, which in theory is composed of publicly owned property and wealth spread equally among the population. According to Merino in his preface to What Are Some Concerns About Capitalism?, “Communism’s defining feature is the public, or communal, ownership of capital” in which “the means of production owned and utilized by all for the common good” where there is no difference in the wealth between the people. Communism and capitalism have opposite values, while communism is beneficial for society as a whole, capitalism
One of the best ways to end the capitalism-communism debate is by testing the two systems practically in real life uses. For example, USA and Germany are two economic superpowers that use capitalist based economy; USA has the best economy in the world and the highest GDP ($15.68 trillion) in the world while Germany is ranked the fourth country in highest GDP (3.4 trillion). China and North Korea are two commun...
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.