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ABSTRACT
Much of the Cold War was waged in what was then often referred to as the “Third World.” The first work reviewed here looks at the victory of the Vietnamese communists in the first Indochina War. Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam did not win against France just because of nationalism. It won due to Sino-Soviet aid and its adoption of communist methods of mobilization. The second book examined looks at the persistent endeavor to build socialism in the Third World over a period of decades and using a variety of tactical approaches. Despite the end of the Cold War, these efforts have left behind a number of Leninist style party states on several different continents.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Although the term is now considered somewhat derogatory, it was not thought so during the 1960s and 1970s. Therefore, this reviewer will use it instead of more contemporary terms like “Global South.” For a brief discussion of this matter, see Jeremy Friedman, Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2021), 279, n. 3.
2. This term comes from Nigel Gould-Davies, “Rethinking the Role of Ideology in World Politics During the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999), 104.
3. Christopher Goscha, The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
4. E.g., Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History (New York: Basic Books, 2016).
5. This summary of the argument is based mostly on “Introduction: States of War,” in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 1-14.
6. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution.
7. Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). This work and others are discussed in Robert P. Hager, “The Cold War and Third World Revolution.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 52 (1) (March 2019): 51-57.
8. Charles B. McLane, Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia: An Exploration of Eastern Policy Under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
9. Most of this discussion of this phase of the war is based on “The Rise of the Archipelago State” chap. 1 in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 15-56.
10. Ibid., 67.
11. “The Asian Routes of War,” chap. 3 in ibid., 89-120.
12. Additionally, the American consul in Hanoi reported that the Chinese communists had smuggled arms to Vietnam from Shanghai to Hong Kong and then to Haiphong. Ronal H. Spector, Advice and Support: The early years, 1941-1960 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1985), 81, n.11.
13. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 65. The communist-led military force at that time was known as the Vietnamese National Army. It is not to be confused with the Vietnamese National Army later created by the Associated State of Vietnam and the French. Ibid., 59.
14. Ibid., especially 80-83.
15. Ibid., 31-32, 170-171, and 207.
16. Ibid., 61 and 65.
17. E.g., ibid., 43-44 and 212.
18. Except where noted, much of the following section has relied on “The Levée en masse and War Communism,” chap. 8 in ibid., 248-280.
19. Tuong Vu, Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 101-109.
20. This was the case at, for example, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 401.
21. Ibid, 417.
22. Jeffrey James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 108. This work is also discussed in Hager, “Cold War and Third World Revolution.”
23. Ibid, 62-63.
24. Ibid., 314-315.
25. See ibid., 340 for some details of the cult of personality around Ho.
26. Ibid., 411.
27. Quoted in Ibid., 272.
28. Ibid., 338-339.
29. Ibid., 411-415.
30. Ibid., 424.
31. Ibid., 318-319.
32. Ibid. 431-433.
33. E.g., Fred Halliday, Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 18; and “Internationalism in Practice: Export of Revolution,” chap. 4 in ibid., 94-132.
34. “Imperial Dust: Ho Chi Minh’s Associated States of Indochina,” chap. 11 in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 347-388.
35. Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: Indochina at War, 1946-54 (Harrisburg, Penn., 1961), 249-250.
36. Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964), 74-75; Bernard B. Fall, Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 196-1961 (Garden City, New York), 45; and Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 20-21.
37. This is the term used in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 250.
38. These mistaken views have become accepted as revealed truth so much that they are now repeated uncritically in college- and university-level textbooks. See Robert P. Hager, “Teaching Students about the Vietnam War: The Case for Balance,” Democracy and Security 13, no. 4 (2017): 304-335.
39. Robert S. Snyder, “The US and Third World Revolutionary States: Understanding the Breakdown in Relations,” International Studies Quarterly 43, no. 2 (June 1999): 265-90.
40. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 411-412 and 430.
41. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 1-13.
42. This section is based mostly on “Asian Axis: The Indonesian Communist Party and the Struggle for Power in Sukarno’s Indonesia,” chap. 1 in ibid., 18-74.
43. Ibid., 76.
44. This section is based mostly on “Democratic Communism: Allende’s Chile and Peaceful Transition,” chap. 2 in ibid., 75-123.
45. This section is based mostly on “Tanzanian Ujamaa: Building Socialism in a Communist World,” chap. 3 in ibid., 124-166.
46. This section is based mostly on “Lenin without Marx: Communism Comes to Angola,” chap. 4 in ibid., 167-210.
47. This section is based mostly on “Opiate of the Masses, or Stimulant: Socialism, Religion, and Revolution in Iran,” chap. 5 in ibid., 211-262.
48. Francis Fukuyama, “Patterns of Soviet Third World Policy,” Problems of Communism 36 (September-October 1987): 1-13.
49. For a discussion of Algeria, see Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. This work and others are discussed in Hager, “Cold War and Third World Revolution.”
50. Robert P. Hager, “The Origins of the ‘Contra War’ In Nicaragua: The Results of a Failed Development Model,” Terrorism and Political Violence 10 (1) (Spring 1998): 133-164.
51. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 13.
52. For example, he attributes the 1960 Soviet decision to withhold military aid from the MPLA to Moscow’s adherence to peaceful coexistence. Ibid. 174.
53. One example was the Soviet airlift support to the neutralist forces and the Pathet Lao in Laos from 1960-62. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, 164-165, 167, 178-179, 181, 194, 196, and 201. Soviet crews manned submarines and bombers provided to Indonesia in its dispute with the Netherlands over West Irian. David Easter, “Active Soviet Military Support for Indonesia during the 1962 West New Guinea Crisis,” Cold War History, 15 (2) (2015): 201-220. The USSR also provided airlift support to Egypt when it intervened to support the republican side in the civil war in Yemen in 1962. Jesse Ferris, “Soviet Support for Egypt’s Intervention in Yemen, 1962-1963. Journal of Cold War Studies 10 (4) (2008): 5-36.
54. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 436-437.
55. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 269-274.