ABSTRACT
The next two chapters look at the Agrarian Question in North Vietnam from a wider perspective. In this chapter a historical comparison illuminates cooperators’ basic interests and permits some understanding of how they differed from those of top leaders responsible for policy formation. In particular, the state of direct material interests associated with the question of cooperator incentives had important implications for the possible evolution of the formal system. Here the position of local cadres and their role in the operation of the complex management structures of the NMS, especially the brigades, was a major issue that came to the fore as policy began to change in late 1979. The detailed discussion in chapters 7 to 10, revealing cooperator attitudes toward the relative value of various parts of collective activity, provides useful indications as to those areas where collective structures had a real economic basis that could gain popular support.
