ABSTRACT
The objective situation of the economic, political, social, and cultural devastation of the war would have presented a daunting challenge to any new government. In response, the Vietnamese government has on occasion overreacted by suspecting most of those who had formerly worked for the United States and the Saigon government. Many Vietnamese came to think that since they had been able to defeat the richest and most powerful country on earth by mobilizing the population, they could also succeed in rebuilding the country basically through self-reliance. In August 1975 the Central Committee of the Party declared a new revolutionary phase—the Socialist Revolution—with the following words: "To complete the reunification of the country and take it rapidly, vigorously and steadily to socialism. The targets of the X-l campaign were the landlords and compradors or the big capitalists and war profiteers who had collaborated with the United States and with the Saigon regime.
