South Vietnam After 1954 (AQA GCSE History): Revision Note

Summary

The leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, became deeply unpopular with large sections of the South Vietnamese population. His brutal attempts to suppress his opponents led to protests and an armed rebellion by the National Liberation Front (NLF). These armed rebels were trained and supplied by communist North Vietnam and were soon being called the Vietcong. 

Diem attempted to crush the Vietcong, but the Vietcong fought a guerrilla war and its soldiers were hard to track down and identify. The Vietcong were very popular with peasants in the countryside, and as more and more land came under Vietcong control, civil war broke out in South Vietnam.

Opposition to Diem

• The US backed Ngo Dinh Diem to become the leader of South Vietnam because he was strongly anti-communist

  • However, he was also corrupt, introduced new taxes and crushed any opposition 

  • This made him deeply unpopular with many South Vietnamese people 

• Diem announced that elections were to be held in just the south of Vietnam in October 1955, despite nationwide elections being promised in 1956 as part of the Geneva Agreement

  • Diem won the election, with 98.2% of the votes cast choosing him to be president

  • Many historians have questioned how free, fair and accurate the election was

• Over 100,000 people were imprisoned for opposing Diem in the run-up to the election

  • This did not stop his critics, who organised themselves into two main groups; Buddhists and the NLF

Buddhist opposition to Diem

• Buddhism had been present in Vietnam since the 2nd century CE 

  • Diem was Catholic, and he restricted Buddhists’ freedom to worship

  • When nine Buddhists were shot dead by government troops during banned religious celebrations, Buddhist protests intensified

• These protests included indirect action, such as marches, hunger strikes and, most famously, Buddhist monks burning themselves to death

  • These protests attracted widespread international press attention and caused people to question Diem’s leadership

National Liberation Front opposition to Diem

• The NLF brought together a wide range of Diem’s political opponents but soon became dominated by communists

• The NLF took direct action:

  • They killed hundreds of people who worked in Diem’s government

• Diem used the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to try and crush the NLF

• The NLF took to the jungle to hide and then launched their attacks from there

  • The ARVN leaders called the NLF “Viet Nam Cong San”, which means Vietnamese communist

  • They were soon being called the Vietcong for short

The Vietcong

• The Vietcong aimed to overthrow Diem’s government and create a united and independent Vietnam

  • They were supported by people from all across Vietnamese society; not all of whom were communists

  • Nationalists wanted to reunite the country

  • They included:

    • Poor peasants who had been taxed heavily by Diem

    • Middle class professionals who saw Diem’s government as corrupt and unfair

• From 1959 onwards, the Vietcong were supported by North Vietnam and supplied with instructions and training, as well as weapons and equipment

  • This was delivered along supply routes that became known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail

  • The Ho Chi Minh Trail stretched from North Vietnam, through the neighbouring countries of Loas and Cambodia, before emerging in the jungles of South Vietnam

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Civil war in the south

• Large areas of the countryside in South Vietnam soon came under the control of the Vietcong

  • Diem instructed the ARVN, supplied with American weapons, to take back control of these areas

  • The result was a civil war

• The Vietcong waged a guerrilla war against Diem and the ARVN

  • The Vietcong soldiers did not wear uniforms, so it was impossible to identify them amongst the peasant farmer population

  • They left booby traps and launched surprise attacks

  • They planned to drag the war out for years and launch thousands of small attacks rather than large, crushing defeats

• The Vietcong knew the remote jungle areas well and were supported by the local populations