ABSTRACT
The situation in China was, in many ways, a model for the Vietnamese. The Chinese Communists, like the Vietminh, were able to rally the people against an alien force. In so doing the Chinese Communists transferred their limited appeal on social and economic grounds-chiefly affecting the poor tenant farmers and landless peasants of south-east China-into a 'national' appeal: that is, it extended 'vertically' to other groups and classes as well as 'horizontally' over a wider and indeed a different area.
