The Admiral of the USSR Fleet, Sergei Gorshkov is welcomed by Major General Giáp Văn during his visit to Hanoi in December 1979 to establish a working relationship with the Ministry of Defense of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Source: dantri.com.vn

AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN VIETNAM AND THE SOVIET UNION

by  PHI-VÂN NGUYEN

December 2019

In the early 1950s, the Cold War was heating up in Asia. China received Moscow’s blessing to guide revolutions in Asia. So Beijing backed Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam in its struggle against the French. Yet twenty-five years later, two completely different alliances divided the region. China became a strategic partner for the United States and backed Cambodia as a close ally. Vietnam was not part of this. Instead, Hanoi sided with Moscow in an alliance opposed to China. Why did Communist countries, who fought together for decades, end up clashing against each other?

The Sino-Soviet Rupture

Historians have studied in significant details the reasons behind the Sino Soviet split.1 Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, new leaders came to power in Moscow, dedicated to lessening Cold War tensions through peaceful coexistence and developing the economy. In 1956, Nikita Krutchev announced the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. Mao, however, opposed this liberal line and became convinced that Krutchev had lost his faith in the socialist revolution. He started competing with Moscow for the leadership of the communist movement. But frictions turned into serious clashes by the late 1960s. 

Cuban Poster. In the 1950's, Communist countries upheld the ideal of a joint struggle against imperialism. Just a decade later, this solidarity started to show important cracks in the foundations.

The rift between the Soviet Union and China widened as the years passed. The Cultural Revolution in 1966 brought radical attacks against Soviet revisionism. For the Soviet Union, attacks against Communists officials loyal to Moscow were threatening. For China, Moscow’s foreign policy seemed even more dangerous. Its repression of the Prague Spring in 1968 suggested that it would not hesitate to use force against fellow Communists to protect its own interests. In March 1969, incidents at the border between Chinese and Soviet troops signalled the risks of a full-scale war. While the two countries managed to avert an armed conflict, the Communist world remained divided. Worse yet, the Chinese turned to normalizing their relations with the United States, convinced that the Soviet Union was their number one enemy. 

This video of AP Press shows that thousands attended Ho Chi Minh’s funeral in September 1969. For China and the Soviet Union, it was the opportunity to avoid a full-scale armed conflict at their border.

Vietnam Tries to Remain Neutral

Even after 1975, Hanoi tried to remain neutral in the dispute between China and the Soviet Union.2 Vietnam recognized the contribution of both Communist brothers to its military victory. It also dismissed both Chinese and Soviet ambassadors from Vietnam after December 1976.3 On paper, Hanoi seemed to have no preference between the two Communist partners. But one day, Vietnam would have to choose. And among these two Communist partners, China seemed the most intransigent and radical.4 Finding a way out of this impasse was urgent. Even more so because the relationships with its neighbours deteriorated. 

The Khmer Rouge undertook radical reforms upon taking power in April 1975. Many of them attempted to remove all Vietnamese living within Cambodia. Angkar, the name of the Communist party, emboldened by its victory, also dreamed of Cambodia’s lost empire. This led the Khmer Rouge to carry out brief, but violent incursions into the Vietnamese side of the Mekong delta.5

On the Northern flank, Vietnam’s relations with China were only slightly better. During the war, Beijing’s rapprochement with Washington showed that China was ready to fraternize with its number one enemy.6 Since 1975, the relationships between Hanoi and Beijing deteriorated. Many bones of contention separated the former comrades in arms. The two countries claimed jurisdiction over the Spratly and Paracels islands. They also disagreed over the nationality of the ethnic Chinese population in Southern Vietnam.7 But what seemed the most worrying for Hanoi, was Beijing’s geopolitical position. China’s 1978 constitution made no secret that the Soviet Union was its chief enemy.8 This achieved to convince Hanoi that Beijing was not just excessive. It was plain dangerous. Reaching out for allies, in this situation, was therefore urgent.

A Failed Rapprochement With the United States

Such an external support did not have to come from the Soviet Union. In fact, Hanoi tried its best to normalize its relationship with the United States. Jimmy Carter started his mandate with a message of peace and the willingness to work with Hanoi. But the White House had to revise this ambition. Soon after coming to power, Carter had to deal with two problems. A growing lobby to retrieve Prisoners of War (POW) and Missing in Action (MIA), opposed normalization. The Senate also imposed more checks on the President.9 Moreover, Hanoi did not make the prospects of normal relationships more appealing. Vietnam insisted on receiving the $3.25 billion Richard Nixon had promised for the reconstruction of Vietnam. It had to find a solution to the economic crisis it faced.10 Hanoi even  published the secret letter to substantiate its claims.11 This is when the United States turned further away from Vietnam. Instead, Washington relied more on what Pierre Grosser calls a “golden triangle.” It established diplomatic relationships with Beijing and facilitated the normalization between China and Japan.12

The Treaty of Mutual Friendship and Cooperation

Vietnam could only hope that its disagreement with China would not go further. Yet Hanoi would not tolerate the Khmer Rouge’s aggressivity. The instability in Cambodia could spill over Vietnam.13 Sooner or later, Hanoi would have to intervene.

It was because of the prospects of waging a war with Cambodia, that Vietnam had to conclude an alliance. Without the possibility of improving relations with the United States, Hanoi turned to the Soviet Union. Months after planning the invasion of Cambodia, Hanoi ambassadors signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union in Moscow.14 Its article six stipulated that the two countries would consult each other for a joint action in case a foreign attack. Both Moscow and Vietnam would stand together against an attack their enemies. Yet China was the primary target. It was the only one sharing a border with both countries. The die was cast. The entire region was divided. But the fault line did not lie along ideological camps. It split the Communist world into two camps. And both would soon collide.

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References

  1. See Chen Jian. Mao’s China & The Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Lüthi, Lorenz. The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008; Radchenko, Sergey. Two Suns in The Heavens, The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy, 1962–1967. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2009; Westad, Odd Arne. Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998.
  2.  See Marangé, Céline. “Les relations politiques de l’Union soviétique avec le Vietnam de 1975 à 1995.” Outre-mers 94, no. 354–355 (2007): 147–71.
  3. Thayer, Carlyle. “Review of Nicholas Khoo, Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivarly and the Termination fo the Sino-Soviet Alliance. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.” H-Diplo Round Table XIII, no. 14 (2012), accessed 16 December 2019, p.16.
  4. Qiang Zhai. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
  5. See Nayan Chanda’s testimony Chanda, Nayan. “Vietnam’s Invasion of Cambodia, Revisited.” The Diplomat  (2018). For detailed analysis of the same journalist, see Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War After the War. New York: Harcourt Publishing, 1986.
  6. See Nguyen, Lien-Hang. “The Sino-Vietnamese Split and the Indochina War, 1968–1975,” In The Third Indochina War, Conflict Between China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, 1972–1979, edited by Odd Arne Westad, and Sophie Quinn-Judge, 12–32. London: Routledge, 2006; and Chen Jian. “China, the Vietnam War, and the Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968-1973,” in the same volume.
  7. An analysis of Chinese and Vietnamese relations can be found in Chen Jian. “China, the Vietnam War, and the Sino-American Rapprochement, 1968-1973.” In Third Indochina War: Conflict Between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-1979, edited by Odd Arne Westad, and Sophie Quinn-Judge, London: Frank Cass, 2006. For a concise overview of this crisis in French, see Grosser, Pierre. L’histoire Du Monde Se Fait En Asie, Une Autre Vision Du Xxe Siècle. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2017, chp. 11.
  8. Céline Marangé, p. 153.
  9. On the tensions between Vietnam and the United States after 1975, see Martini, Edwin A. Invisible Enemies, The American War on Vietnam 1975–2000. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press, 2007. On the specific issue of POW/MIA, Franklin, H. Bruce. MIA, or Mythmaking in America. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Allen, Michael J. Until the Last Man Comes Home, POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. For a shorter explanation, see Franklin, H. Bruce. “Missing in Action in the Twenty-First Century,” In Four Decades On: Vietnam, the United States and the Legacies of the Second Indochina War, edited by Scott Laderman, and Edwin Martini, Durham: Duke University Press, 2013. On the attempts to normalize relationships and growing domestic pressure on Carter's administration, Jespersen, Christopher T. “The Politics and Culture of Nonrecognition: The Carter Administration and Vietnam.” The Journal of American-East Relations 4, no. 4 (1995): 397–412. On the role of refugees in US reluctance to normalize relationships, Stur, Heather Marie. ““Hiding Behind the Humanitarian Label”: Refugees, Repatriates, and the Rebuilding of America’s Benevolent Image After the Vietnam War.” Diplomatic History 39, no. 2 (2015): 223–44, Demmer, Amanda. “The Last Chapter of the Vietnam War: Normalization, Nongovernmental Actors and the Politics of Human Rights, 1975–1995,” diss., University of New Hampshire, 2017, Demmer, Amanda C. “Forging Consensus on Vietnamese Reeducation Camp Detainees, The Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association and US – Vietnam Normalization.” In The Cold War at Home and Abroad: Domestic Politics and U.S. Foreign Policy since 1945, edited by Andrew L. Johns, and Mitchell B. Lerner, 195–223. Lexington: Kentucky University Press, 2018.
  10. Path, Kosal. Vietnam’s Strategic Thinking during the Third Indochina War. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2020, chp.1.
  11. Menétrey-Monchau, Cécile. “The Changing Post-War US Strategy in Indochina,” In The Third Indochina War, Conflict Between China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, 1972–1979, edited by Odd Arne Westad, and Sophie Quinn-Judge, 65–86. London: Routledge, 2006.
  12. Grosser, Pierre. L’histoire Du Monde Se Fait En Asie, Une Autre Vision Du Xxe Siècle. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2017, p. 484.
  13. Goscha, Christopher E. “Vietnam, the Third Indochina War and the Meltdown of Asian Internationalism.” In The Third Indochina War, Conflict Between China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, 1972–1979, edited by Odd Arne Westad, and Sophie Quinn-Judge, 152–86. London: Routledge, 2006.
  14. See the original text, https://boatpeoplehistory.com/archives-3/kd/treaty-ussr-srvn/.