ABSTRACT
The August 1945 revolution comprised a number of uprisings throughout Vietnam that took place at the end of World War II, following the Japanese surrender to the Allies. This chapter deals with events between 1957 and 1975, when Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, fell and the country was again reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The immediate political result of the August 1945 revolution was the establishment of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam under the Vietminh, a coalition of Communists and nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh. In 1969, the Who's Who of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Vietnam included several prominent non-Communist South Vietnamese, from a well-known architect who served as its president to several French-educated professors, physicians, lawyers, and artists holding other ministerial portfolios. By 1945, the French colonial regime had been drastically weakened by the Japanese invasion of Indochina and the eventual takeover of the colony's administrative apparatus.
