The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), officially the Vietnam People's Army, also recognized as the Vietnamese Army, the People's Army or colloquially the Troops, is the national military force of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the armed wing of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The PAVN is the backbone component of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and includes: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Border Guard and Coast Guard. Vietnam does not have a separate and formally-structured Ground Force or Army service. Instead, all ground troops, army corps, military districts and special forces are designated under the umbrella term combined arms and are belonged to the Ministry of National Defence, directly under the command of the CPV Central Military Commission, the Minister of National Defence, and the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army. The military flag of the PAVN is the National flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam defaced with the motto Quyết thắng added in yellow at the top left.
Việt Minh is the common and abbreviated name of the League for Independence of Vietnam, which was a communist-led national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Front, it was created by the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) as a national united front to achieve the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, was de facto formed on 8 June 1969 by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as an armed underground government opposing the government of South Vietnam under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. Delegates of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, as well as several smaller groups, participated in its creation.
The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. Formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and nominally conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV), the movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.
The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of North Vietnam in 1954 and then all of Vietnam after the collapse of the South Vietnamese government following the Fall of Saigon in 1975. Although it nominally exists alongside the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, it maintains a unitary government and has centralized control over the state, military, and media. The supremacy of the CPV is guaranteed by Article 4 of the national constitution. The Vietnamese public generally refer to the CPV as simply "the Party" or "our Party".
The Vietnam Fatherland Front is an umbrella group of mass movements in Vietnam aligned with the Communist Party of Vietnam that dominates the National Assembly of Vietnam forming the Vietnamese Government and all recognized national socio-political organizations. It was founded in February 1977 by the merger of the Vietnam Fatherland Front of North Vietnam and two Viet Cong formal groups, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces, and is considered as the modern incarnation of the League for the Independence of Vietnam. It is an amalgamation of many smaller groups, including the Communist Party itself. Other groups that participated in the establishment of the Front were the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Ho Chi Minh Young Pioneer Organization. It also included the Democratic Party of Vietnam and Socialist Party of Vietnam, until they disbanded in 1988. It also incorporates some officially sanctioned religious groups, such as the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha as well as other major organizations overseeing Buddhism, Caodaism, Hòa Hảo, Islam, Christianity and their major branches such as Protestantism and SDA in the country.
The national flag of Vietnam, formally the National Flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and locally recognized as the Gold-Starred Red Flag or the Flag of Fatherland, was designed in 1940 and used during an uprising against the French and Japanese in Southern Vietnam that year. The red background symbolizes revolution and bloodshed. The golden star symbolizes the soul of the nation and the five points of the star represents the five main classes in Vietnamese society—intellectuals, farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, and soldiers.
Nguyễn Hữu Thọ was a South Vietnamese revolutionary and Chairman of Consultative Council of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam from 6 June 1969 to 2 July 1976, and the Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam from 4 July 1981 to 18 June 1987.
Võ Chí Công was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary, and the Chairman of the Council of State of Vietnam between 1987 and 1992. He was the Standing Deputy Chairman of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam from 1962 to 1976.
Huỳnh Tấn Phát was a Vietnamese architect, politician and revolutionary. He was the Prime Minister and de facto leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. After unification, Phát became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction before serving as Vice President of Vietnam until his death. He is the designer of the flag of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
The People's Revolutionary Party of Vietnam was a political party in South Vietnam established in 1962, being the counter-part of the Workers' Party of Vietnam in the Southern half of the Vietnamese territory to provide formal political leadership for the National Liberation Front countering the French-associated State of Vietnam and subsequently the US-backed Republic of Vietnam regimes. In 1976, following the communists' victory and the overthrowing of the South Vietnamese regime, the party was merged with the Workers' Party of Vietnam in North Vietnam to form the modern Communist Party of Vietnam.
North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a communist state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1945 to 1976, with formal sovereignty being fully recognized in 1954. A member of the Eastern Bloc, it opposed the French-supported State of Vietnam and later the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. The DRV emerged victorious over South Vietnam in 1975 and ceased to exist the following year when it unified with the south to become the current Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The following is a list of political organizations and armed forces in Vietnam, since 1912:
This article describes the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) from its origins in the 1920s through to the consolidation of its position as the ruling party of a united Socialist Republic Vietnam after 1976.
The Liberation Army of South Vietnam, also recognized as the Liberation Army, was an irregular and regular military force established by the Workers' Party of Vietnam in 1961 in South Vietnam as the nominal armed wing of the National Liberation Front and largely operated as a proxy of the existing People's Army of Vietnam. In 1962, the People's Revolutionary Party of South Vietnam separated from the Workers' Party of Vietnam in terms of external appearance, openly directing the Liberation Army's military. Politically, the South Vietnamese Liberation Army was under the direction of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. The military forces from the North to the South of Vietnam, although collectively known as the Liberation Army of South Vietnam, still use the unit names, military badges and War flag of the Vietnam People's Army.
Đồng Khởi was a movement led by remnants of the Việt Minh that remained in South Vietnam and urged people to revolt against the United States and the Republic Of Vietnam, first of all in large rural areas in southern Vietnam and on highlands of South Central Coastal Vietnam. This movement took place from the end of 1959, culminating in 1960, rapidly spreading across the South, dissolving the rural government structure of the Republic of Vietnam under President Ngô Đình Diệm, resulting in a significant part of rural South Vietnam being controlled by the communists, leading to the foundation of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.
Socialism in Vietnam, in particular Marxism–Leninism, is the ideological foundation of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) for the development of the country ever since its establishment.
Fourth Republic of Korea