Post-1975 Land Reform in Southern Vietnam: How Local Actions and Responses Affected National Land Policy

Abstract

After 1975, the Vietnamese Communist Party struggled to carry out the socialist transformation of agriculture in the south of Vietnam. Party leaders considered land redistribution to be a temporary measure toward collectivization, but it turned out be a source of long-term struggle and conflict between the party and southern society. The land reform encountered difficulty in the Southern Region [Nam Bộ]; its implementation dragged on for many years, and the result was far different from the party’s original objectives. This article argues that villagers and local cadres were two key sets of actors who contributed to the poor performance of the reform. Moreover, in order to defend their land, villagers in the Southern Region engaged not only in forms of everyday resistance but also in some open, public, confrontational resistance and other kinds of politics.