ABSTRACT
Vietnamese Communism emerged from the anti-colonial movement at the turn of the century. The lowland Vietnamese (Kinh) are the dominant ethnic group in Vietnam, comprising about 90% of the nearly 60 million population in the mid-1980s. Vietnamese Marxist-Leninists exaggerated and simplified the colonial role in village pauperization and political inequality in order to justify their own revolution against "colonialism and feudalism." At its Fourth National Congress in December 1976 the VCP announced the completion of its national liberation and the onset of socialist construction in a politically united Vietnam. Vietnamese Communists viewed the majority of "tribal nomads" as economically backward, culturally stagnant, and historically pre-capitalist. Hanoi experienced prolonged problems in trying to overcome interethnic tensions and tribal resentment of Vietnamese domination. During the war of liberation in South Vietnam the Communists made persistent appeals to tribal self-determination. The Party had allegedly eradicated both, thus making it easier to pursue political and cultural assimilation in a united Socialist Vietnam.
