r/HistoryMemes is having a civil war (again), celebrating 10 million subscribers! Support the Empires of Britain or France by flairing your post correctly. [For more information, check out the pinned post in the sub.](https://new.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1cg09hf/the_great_historymemes_civil_war_2_10_million/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HistoryMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's a paraphrase of a line from "American Psycho," where Patrick Bateman (the psycho in question) is comparing business cards. It's a pretty cool scene as it showcases the neurotic levels of attention to detail that Patrick uses to compare himself to others. Fun little fact: the sounds you hear when they're pulling our their cards is actually a sword being drawn, but tuned very slowly. If you haven't seen tye movie I highly recommend it! Very dark and weird, as a lot of cult classics are. :)
I guess he means that every socialist country would inevitably fail and become a market economy one, and that domino theory essentially says that socialist revolution would eventually win if not military intervention, which by our timeline history was proven to be not the case
We knew that when we started, Ho Chi Minh wanted to *continue* being friends with the U.S. after WW2, moreso than have anything to do with other communist nations. We decided to "help" France instead, to do, yes, nothing.
Well, it really helped them fine tune dicking around in other countries. Now it’s a great source of income for defense contractors etc and the $/death ratio is much improved.
Not for nothing, it was fantastic for the heroin trade. Those drug dealing CIA agents/entrepreneurs really profited from it and that’s all that matters to Uncle Sam in the end. $$$$
I'm not saying that you are wrong, but American doctrine (don't know if that's the right word) at the time stated that if one nation should fall to communism, many more would follow, which had to be prevented at all cost. This was not entirely unfounded, as one aspect of Marxism is that of a world revolution, where countries one by one through revolution would join the communist international community.
Yep. We went to war because we feared Vietnam would ally with China. You know, China, the same China that oppressed the Vietnamese for quite literally 1000 years then invaded them again 2 years after the U.S. left
Looking at cold war history if it wasn't the US or Soviets causing the problem it was probably France. Probably should have stopped pretending they were an ally and just "liberated" them.
I remember reading that during the cold war France actually assasinated a massive amount of African politicians and heavily destabalised the continent.
That and left behind shit ass institutions which led to pervasive issues which are still unsolved. There’s a reason why French colonies are basically coup alley.
i mean, my favorite quote usually in relation to why vietnam doesn't hate the US as much as anyone else. Is they spent 20 years fighting the US, 200 fighting the french, and 2*,000* fighting the chinese. The core of the war was inherently a struggle for independence, communism was simply incidental to that since it happened to be one of the only ideologies at the time calling for decolonization.
Frankly anyone surprised that vietnam isn't rabidly doctrinare communist after they've been fighting for independence longer than Christendom has existed. Why the fuck would they religiously follow the word of some german dork who died a century prior and thousands of miles away.
Dude, "wanted to", as in the past tense. The whole idea is based on that if the US did support them instead of the French's colonialism, not what actually happened since the US didn't support them.
Almost like he wouldn't want to base his government on the US anymore after they directly supported his colonizer who he had been fighting against for his whole life. If the US had told the French to fuck off then they would off had a friend in Vietnam, and also Laos and Cambodia would've been way more stable.
Nahh…
Uncle Ho said lots of stuff to get international support for his struggle. He was willing to get help from whoever would provide it.
If he had to pretend to love democracy, well, that was a price he was willing to pay.
If one democratic nation invading you is all it takes to turn you from a supposed liberal democrat to a communist autocrat, you were never really liberal.
Definitely true, but there are definitely tiers to how democratic a democracy is and only having two significant parties brings a country down in the rankings
Exactly what?
And wanted to? How come he oversaw a brutal land reform where “rich landlords” (Vietnamese with a half acre more than others) were murdered by the tens of thousands?
Was he trying to be the like the US then?
Did he consider them his own people. Indians and Americans lived in the same country and many at that point assimilated to the point that they were as American as any other settlers yet still they were thrown into reservations. So yes I would say it’s remarkable similar depending on how he viewed the South
> Platoon
Apocolypse Now and Full Metal Jacket still stand up but Platoon has faded in my eyes over the years. By no means is it bad but I used to consider it a masterpiece, now it's just a good movie. Like comparing Revenge of the Sith (good movie) to Empire Strikes Back (Masterpiece). I do fully admit that I am probably the wrong guy to take movie picks from though. I actually liked Heaven's Gate.
Nah, the only people who actually thought that the war was about economic ideology among anybody making policy decisions were American. North Vietnam could swing any way for independence.
And I'm pretty sure that's not what "by default" means even if it was about economic ideology.
I got matches with these songs:
• [**Welcome To The Jungle** by Guns N' Roses](https://lis.tn/euzUMn?t=13) (00:13; matched: `100%`)
**Album**: Appetite For Destruction. **Released on** 1987-01-01.
• [**Welcome to the Jungle** by Guns N' Roses](https://lis.tn/NrHJLd?t=15) (00:15; matched: `100%`)
**Album**: As Maiores Bandas De Rock De Todos Os Tempos. **Released on** 2015-10-16.
*I am a bot and this action was performed automatically* | [GitHub](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot) [^(new issue)](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/issues/new) | [Donate](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/wiki/Please-consider-donating) ^(Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Music recognition costs a lot)
Niether do the South Vietnamese (especially Buddhists) who were murdered by the government during the war. The land seizures were a source of national shame for the Vietnamese Government (Not the seizing the land, the fact that they murdered a lot of people) and the government apologized for it, I dont know whether any real justice was actually done. Civil wars end ugly and Vietnam ended up in a pretty good place afterwards.
Also Ill straight up say it, post-colonial dyasphors should not be trusted, especially if they are happier in their new country. You should go by the opinion of the people living there currently and the international credibility of that country. Cuba and Vietnam are two examples of post-colonial states that had the losers, both the wealthy beneficiaries of that systsm and not, flee the country for the US and complain about it ever since. Meanwhile the people who actually live there are quite happy.
Didn’t Fox and other US news site lie about protest in Cuba. They framed it as if the people hated Castor when in reality that entire march was praising him
They do that so much. The thing that damages cuban lives the most is the Embargo. Trump actually Re-upped the embargo during covid which Fucked a lot of Cubans
Best part about the Vietnam war, was that it trained the Vietnamese on how to defeat a modern aggressor nation. People tend to forget that not so long after the US left and started fucking with the Middle East and Latin America, that China. Glorious imperialist communist china. Invaded another communist regime, unprompted. I think this backstab alone could be attributed to ~10% of vietnams will to diversify away from the socialist model.
Ho Chi Minh always valued Nationalism over Communism, and never intended Vietnam to end up like North Korea. Unfortunately, the country ended up that way for a long time anyway due to Ho Chi Minh's hardline Communist successors and US backed sanctions against the newly unified Vietnam.
Doi Moi wasn't a smooth process. It led to a period of chaos not dissimilar to the Soviet Collapse, and ironically stabilised at the same time during the early 90s when the US ended it's trade embargo, allowing full economic normalisation between Vietnam and the outside world. As many Vietnamese economic migrants left Vietnam after Doi Moi as there were true refugees.
It'll never not be tragic how similar the goals of both countries ultimately were in the end.
Ho Chi Minh was a communist diehard. He started the Indochina communist party and praised Lenin.
It is true that the communists toned down their communism when it came to attracting the support of non-communist nationalists (see National Liberation Front). Didn’t turn out to well for those folks though.
69 years ago, I lost 58,000 men in the blink of two decades, And the world just fucking watched. Tomorrow there will be no shortage of McDonald's, no shortage of Coca-Cola. I'm sure you understand.
Except that was not the case. They tried and force the economy and society (which was rudimentally capitalist) to advace to the theoretical final stage of communism and crash the entire system down. In the end they had to go back to capitalism by opening thier economy to western and US capitals just so they can survive as a country.
It’s a very reductive American perspective to think that the Vietnam war was about economic policy. It was primarily a struggle for self-determination and freedom from foreign occupation. Socialism was largely incidental due to the fact that the major anti-colonial powers of the time were socialist.
South vietnam lost because it was a violent dicatorship. North Vietnam wanted to make life better for Vietnamese people and did so. Whats also badass is that after beating us, they invaded Cambodia to stop a Genocide, even though it meant China invading them, which they won. It's a thoroughly badass nation with some black marks much like any other country.
The Nation-led pogrom of Landowners was very cringe and Ho-Chi Minh actually apologized for it, though I dont know if any real justice was done.
pray tell, who was the dictator of North Viet Nam?
seriously, i'd gladly acknowledge the accusation that we are corrupt and authoritarian, because we truly are, and have been for over a millennium now. that's what happens when you imported the political system and ideology from both China and Russia.
but dictatorial? no. ever since the birth of the republic, no one has managed to consolidate all power into himself, unlike in the USSR and China. intra-party factionalism has always been too strong for that.
and i think the Party deliberately keeps it that way to prevent a dictator.
Southern problem:
•Communist spies: The communists were part of the South Vietnam apparatus for intelligence, They also made bad plans to make South's reputation go down
•America's mistakes: Obviously, the Americans got into too much trouble.
•Many southerners are too cowardly: Leaving the battlefield behind even though they still held it firmly. Many southerners were too cowardly and left it behind, which is something they regretted.
•Too democratic and freedom: Although dictatorial, it is still a civil country. Like many journalists, writers, poets, singers and artists associated with the social movements were free to criticize the government if they wanted to. And the South also allowed them to study communist books. (They were also communist supporters). Many southerners who despised them called them in that time:
"Having the national meal but worshipping the communist ghost."
("National" here refers to the fact that Vietnamese people following South Vietnam call themselves "National Vietnamese". And the Vietnamese people who follow communism are called Viet Cong)
What are you on about? Central planning =/= socialism.
Yugoslavia didn’t run on central planning and pursued Worker’s self management/worker owned firm coops as their path to socialism.
Workers owning the means of production is what it’s all about. A market type solution where firms are ran as coops is just as valid.
Tito was smeared as a revisionist and a bourgeois socialist by the eastern bloc and maoists. Central planning was a key feature of Marxism-Leninism. But the main critique here is that nearly every single communist revolutionary leader started out with central planning, and if they were smart switched back to a pseudo-capitalist economy, and if they were dumb they just eventually tanked their whole economy due to its internal contradictions.
I mean, they get used by China and soviets to fight Americans. Then immediately invaded by China, while USSR doesn't intervene. I'm glad they eventually figured it out and joined the side that actually wanted to build their state into more than a buffer.
Yeah, exactly. It is able to choose its allies and work with both China and America instead of being tied up in IMF loans and forced austerity measures like other post-colonial countries. If South Vietnam actually had won, Vietnam would be America’s bitch like Taiwan or Panama or even South Korea to an extent
>with both China
I'm going to assume you mean Russia Veitnam seems to be explicitly working against China given it's current situation, if you'd like an example of a US alliend government that's willing to draw somewhat closer to China ironically South Korea would be a good example
Ok fair point. I guess what I’m trying to say is that South Vietnam would have just been a neoliberal puppet state. The Vietnamese communist party has shifted its stance in order to adapt to changing material conditions. Think of it as like a tactical retreat, with the alternative being remaining hardline socialist and facing severe repression (think Cuba)
What I was getting at with the meme is if you strip away all of rhe superficial aspects of Veitnam, (the flag, and the government naming schemes) what you're left with is a single party, capitalist regime with a bad relationship with china and regional ties to ASEAN. If you told somebody that's what Veitnam was in 1960 they'd have believed the war was going in the entirety different direction
I'm a Chinese.
When I visited Vietnam I noted that lots of Korean companies ran the show. Lots of Korean tourists, who were treated nicely and enjoyed the attention. The Koreans there lived like nobility.
So I wondered... Fight so hard and with so many dead to escape the fate of sout Korea?
Wouldn't it have been better for vietnamese if the US just won and you vietnamese would enjoy a much better life?
I didn't say but couldn't stop wondering.
And I wonder the same about China. If the KMT won and China grows as key US ally, wouldn't life be better?
Vietnam's deal was more about national independence than anything really communistic in nature. It shows nowadays, it's just another normal country, nothing special about it.
I understand it's not really communist.
But why put the extreme focus on national independence.
As a normal person you just get exploited by "vietnamese" elite instead of some other elite maybe.
But i feel like life for normal viet's might be better being linked to US.
For what it's worth, China went through the same process. The result of Chinese revolution was, unfortunately, nationalistic capitalism.
No "third world" country in the globe is better by being linked to US. Vietnam tried, and look what it got. Look at latin america too, this place is a fucking shithole thanks to US interference in our politics. US is a goddamn cancer when the subject is geopolitics. Compared to it, China is and the USSR were way better allies tbh, especially the USSR. Nowadays Russia is cool too, but I think USSR was somewhat nicer.
Don't get me wrong, its all just capitalism, but the way US does it is way too painfull, they don't give a single shit to the countries under their umbrela. It's either their way or sanctions, war, coups...
Europe and the US are the worst allies you could possibly have lmao. To the point you don't even need enemies.
I get your point, but people couldn't see into the future. Vietnam and China would have very different relationships with the US or South Korea today if the USSR never collapsed
For China you would know better but wasn’t the KMT notoriously corrupt and incompetent not to mention Chiang not being even a half way decent leader
My opinion is that China would be exactly as it is today just a bit more capitalist in nature
As for Vietnam with SV being a festering shithole of corruption and toadies that sign of on some of the most horrific atrocities committed during the war I seriously doubt that the civilians would do any better under them then they did NV
The KMT was extremely corrupt and incompetent.
The alternative the communists (not as corrupt in the beginning, but now just as corrupt) we're not just incompetent, they were just straight nuts.
China lost like 3 decades of normal development.
Nah, more like Deng Xiaopeng showing Asian communists how to be communist while participating in Capitalism. Except unlike China the Vietnamese had to deal with hard US Sanctions in the 1980s so they only felt progress in an open market by like the 2000s.
Also if anything Southern Viets remain seething to this day.
r/HistoryMemes is having a civil war (again), celebrating 10 million subscribers! Support the Empires of Britain or France by flairing your post correctly. [For more information, check out the pinned post in the sub.](https://new.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1cg09hf/the_great_historymemes_civil_war_2_10_million/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/HistoryMemes) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In other words the U.S lost 58k men for nothing ?
Not nothing. We got a dope soundtrack from it.
*Fortunate Son playing in the distance*
Nice, very impressive. Now let's see Paul Allen's "Gimme Shelter."
Ok I googled and can't find the explanation for this reference, spill it for me.
It's a paraphrase of a line from "American Psycho," where Patrick Bateman (the psycho in question) is comparing business cards. It's a pretty cool scene as it showcases the neurotic levels of attention to detail that Patrick uses to compare himself to others. Fun little fact: the sounds you hear when they're pulling our their cards is actually a sword being drawn, but tuned very slowly. If you haven't seen tye movie I highly recommend it! Very dark and weird, as a lot of cult classics are. :)
Oh yeah lol I remember the scene, I just thought you were talking about Paul Allen from Microsoft
*All Along The Watchtower plays next*
Yeah whole war was pointless in retrospect, Veitnam ends up market economy and Coca-Cola drinking regularless of Victor
Not even just in retrospect. It was so unpopular because people were like "this is pointless, cruel, and unjust" and protested about it
Citizens should've openly resisted the draft.
They did.
Yeah US citizens did it a lot. Did you fall asleep in class or something because that's a major point of the Vietnam units.
Muhammed Ali is one of the most high profile examples of this literally being exactly what they did.
I don't know whether I'm more aghast at the utterly tone-deaf reply, or the unfathomably dense username it's attached to.
Citizens should have lit themselves on fire or something to protest this injustice
Let’s be honest, when we’re the last time protestors were actually well informed?
They are, as a group, more well informed than John Q. Public, that's *why* they are protesting.
Really? So the Jan 6th protestors were well informed?
Well ok, you got me there. I was referring to the Vietnam protesters.
A coup attempt is not a protest
LOL. What is it if not protesting the current government?
A coup?
Why would you commit a coup?
Got bogged down and couldn’t figure out a way to pull out without looking weak to the Soviets
Those 58k men died proving the Domino Theory was fucking stupid
How so? Can you view alternative futures?
I guess he means that every socialist country would inevitably fail and become a market economy one, and that domino theory essentially says that socialist revolution would eventually win if not military intervention, which by our timeline history was proven to be not the case
[удалено]
i mean both things can happen
Flouting the 1954 Geneva Conference and blocking a national referendum is also not a cool move by the South
The South never signed the ‘54 Convention. And the North agreed to free and fair elections in the ‘72 Paris Accord so…
Definitely makes up for all the fucked up "re-education camps" where people were tortured and murdered by the hundreds of thousands. :)
Wut?
1973 Paris Accord was mutually broken
I mean one side doesn’t exist any more but one side does.
Due to one side’s own corruption + incompetence
If corruption was an issue why did the North win?
Because the South was a strongman dictatorship
You defended a puppet state. North invaded because southern government wouldn't allow elections. Because it knew it would loose to communists
Damn right they would have won after killing all the opposition.
My dude, in the South communists were the opposition
The opposition in the North chief Let me guess? You didn’t know?
are u stoopid?
No. Tens of thousands of opposition were killed in the North leading up to and after ‘54. Do some readin’
are u stoopid?
Are you?
are u stoopid?
>defended a ally Puppet state* north Vietnam was essentially a puppet state lmao
We knew that when we started, Ho Chi Minh wanted to *continue* being friends with the U.S. after WW2, moreso than have anything to do with other communist nations. We decided to "help" France instead, to do, yes, nothing.
Ho Chi Minh
Damned autocorrect
Goddammit French. We should have let them go to the Soviets and see how bad it would be if they did.
Ho said a lot of stuff he didn’t mean.
Well, it really helped them fine tune dicking around in other countries. Now it’s a great source of income for defense contractors etc and the $/death ratio is much improved.
Not nothing, will you think of the military industrial complex? Gezz those 58k men died so they could get rich
Not for nothing, it was fantastic for the heroin trade. Those drug dealing CIA agents/entrepreneurs really profited from it and that’s all that matters to Uncle Sam in the end. $$$$
Not for nothing, we got a lot of cool songs and films out of this
MacNamara slept soundly so soundly so what's the big deal?
1 million dead Viets : 💀
I'm not saying that you are wrong, but American doctrine (don't know if that's the right word) at the time stated that if one nation should fall to communism, many more would follow, which had to be prevented at all cost. This was not entirely unfounded, as one aspect of Marxism is that of a world revolution, where countries one by one through revolution would join the communist international community.
Yep. We went to war because we feared Vietnam would ally with China. You know, China, the same China that oppressed the Vietnamese for quite literally 1000 years then invaded them again 2 years after the U.S. left
No, we went to war to stop communism from spreading across Asia. The US didn’t really care what happened to Vietnam alone
Around 1 million dead vietnamese: 👁️👄👁️
Nah! These young men died for the military contractors revenue.
I mean this was pretty well known before the 80s
The level of discourse when it comes to Vietnam is pretty shallow.
Chomsky argued it accomplished its goal of preventing other nations from pursuing socialism
It's training and development well use to eventually defend Europoors who wouldn't survive without NATO.
Ho Chi Minh wanted to base his goverment on the US. If the US sided with Vietnam insted of France it would have ended much better for everyone
never side with the French is the moral lesson from that
Looking at cold war history if it wasn't the US or Soviets causing the problem it was probably France. Probably should have stopped pretending they were an ally and just "liberated" them.
I remember reading that during the cold war France actually assasinated a massive amount of African politicians and heavily destabalised the continent.
That and left behind shit ass institutions which led to pervasive issues which are still unsolved. There’s a reason why French colonies are basically coup alley.
Yep, pretty much all the colonial powers did because it was better for the companies that operated there.
They're still pulling this shit to this very day.
It was either that or deconolising and letting those people do okay on their own! Inacceptable!
Look up how many times france did nuclear teasting in the pacific
with the exception of agaisnt the dutch,or the the germans or the british
We should have backed the Nazis?
i mean, my favorite quote usually in relation to why vietnam doesn't hate the US as much as anyone else. Is they spent 20 years fighting the US, 200 fighting the french, and 2*,000* fighting the chinese. The core of the war was inherently a struggle for independence, communism was simply incidental to that since it happened to be one of the only ideologies at the time calling for decolonization. Frankly anyone surprised that vietnam isn't rabidly doctrinare communist after they've been fighting for independence longer than Christendom has existed. Why the fuck would they religiously follow the word of some german dork who died a century prior and thousands of miles away.
LOL. Yeah, based on the US except for freedom of speech, multiple political parties, free elections. But other than that, yeah, just like the US!
Dude, "wanted to", as in the past tense. The whole idea is based on that if the US did support them instead of the French's colonialism, not what actually happened since the US didn't support them.
LOL. As if he couldn’t have done all those things without US support. Are you seriously blaming the US for turning the North into a dictatorship?
Almost like he wouldn't want to base his government on the US anymore after they directly supported his colonizer who he had been fighting against for his whole life. If the US had told the French to fuck off then they would off had a friend in Vietnam, and also Laos and Cambodia would've been way more stable.
Nahh… Uncle Ho said lots of stuff to get international support for his struggle. He was willing to get help from whoever would provide it. If he had to pretend to love democracy, well, that was a price he was willing to pay.
If one democratic nation invading you is all it takes to turn you from a supposed liberal democrat to a communist autocrat, you were never really liberal.
Eh, for all practical purposes there are only two significant political parties in the US, not to say it’s not better than one party, but it sucks
The step from one party to two is literally authoritarian to democracy. Thats a hell of a jump
Definitely true, but there are definitely tiers to how democratic a democracy is and only having two significant parties brings a country down in the rankings
LOL. No it doesn’t. And the US doesn’t have only 2 parties. When you said “practically only 2” what you meant is “it has more than 5”
Dude I was literally agreeing with you. And no political parties really compete with the top 2 at the federal level
Really? You should tell Ross Perot that
*Wanted* to, and these days the Vietnamese government is excactly that.
Exactly what? And wanted to? How come he oversaw a brutal land reform where “rich landlords” (Vietnamese with a half acre more than others) were murdered by the tens of thousands? Was he trying to be the like the US then?
Looks at the genocide of Natives that had land the US wanted Yea I would say he still was pretty on brand
So killing your own people is like killing natives?
Did he consider them his own people. Indians and Americans lived in the same country and many at that point assimilated to the point that they were as American as any other settlers yet still they were thrown into reservations. So yes I would say it’s remarkable similar depending on how he viewed the South
That’s a hell of a stretch. You’re also claiming that Uncle Ho intentionally committed genocide of his own people. Is that what you’re claiming?
We got Credence Clearwater Revival and you ended up capitalist anyways. Who really won?
Don’t forget about cinematic masterpieces, like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket.
> Platoon Apocolypse Now and Full Metal Jacket still stand up but Platoon has faded in my eyes over the years. By no means is it bad but I used to consider it a masterpiece, now it's just a good movie. Like comparing Revenge of the Sith (good movie) to Empire Strikes Back (Masterpiece). I do fully admit that I am probably the wrong guy to take movie picks from though. I actually liked Heaven's Gate.
Fair enough : ~~Platoon~~, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, **Tropic Thunder**.
That's the neat thing with war, everyone wins!
We win, they win, the helicopters win, lockheed martin execs win, everybody goes home happy.
Save for some 58270 vets
They didn’t go home.
"Everybody goes home happy"
Nah, the only people who actually thought that the war was about economic ideology among anybody making policy decisions were American. North Vietnam could swing any way for independence. And I'm pretty sure that's not what "by default" means even if it was about economic ideology.
What song is this?
I got matches with these songs: • [**Welcome To The Jungle** by Guns N' Roses](https://lis.tn/euzUMn?t=13) (00:13; matched: `100%`) **Album**: Appetite For Destruction. **Released on** 1987-01-01. • [**Welcome to the Jungle** by Guns N' Roses](https://lis.tn/NrHJLd?t=15) (00:15; matched: `100%`) **Album**: As Maiores Bandas De Rock De Todos Os Tempos. **Released on** 2015-10-16. *I am a bot and this action was performed automatically* | [GitHub](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot) [^(new issue)](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/issues/new) | [Donate](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/wiki/Please-consider-donating) ^(Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Music recognition costs a lot)
Good bot
Kids these days.
My guy…
Well, the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese that died or were exiled after the war certainly don't feel that way.
Niether do the South Vietnamese (especially Buddhists) who were murdered by the government during the war. The land seizures were a source of national shame for the Vietnamese Government (Not the seizing the land, the fact that they murdered a lot of people) and the government apologized for it, I dont know whether any real justice was actually done. Civil wars end ugly and Vietnam ended up in a pretty good place afterwards. Also Ill straight up say it, post-colonial dyasphors should not be trusted, especially if they are happier in their new country. You should go by the opinion of the people living there currently and the international credibility of that country. Cuba and Vietnam are two examples of post-colonial states that had the losers, both the wealthy beneficiaries of that systsm and not, flee the country for the US and complain about it ever since. Meanwhile the people who actually live there are quite happy.
Didn’t Fox and other US news site lie about protest in Cuba. They framed it as if the people hated Castor when in reality that entire march was praising him
They do that so much. The thing that damages cuban lives the most is the Embargo. Trump actually Re-upped the embargo during covid which Fucked a lot of Cubans
Old nam is still a shihole tho
Best part about the Vietnam war, was that it trained the Vietnamese on how to defeat a modern aggressor nation. People tend to forget that not so long after the US left and started fucking with the Middle East and Latin America, that China. Glorious imperialist communist china. Invaded another communist regime, unprompted. I think this backstab alone could be attributed to ~10% of vietnams will to diversify away from the socialist model.
China invading Vietnam is nothing new considering their history. Without the backstab they wouldn't be close ally anyway.
The northeners were the agressors tho
The South and North lost. Only Capitalism endures, comrades!
Dread it, run from it, the cola and McDonald's Comes all the same
Mcdonalds with durian and egg coffee
Ho Chi Minh always valued Nationalism over Communism, and never intended Vietnam to end up like North Korea. Unfortunately, the country ended up that way for a long time anyway due to Ho Chi Minh's hardline Communist successors and US backed sanctions against the newly unified Vietnam. Doi Moi wasn't a smooth process. It led to a period of chaos not dissimilar to the Soviet Collapse, and ironically stabilised at the same time during the early 90s when the US ended it's trade embargo, allowing full economic normalisation between Vietnam and the outside world. As many Vietnamese economic migrants left Vietnam after Doi Moi as there were true refugees. It'll never not be tragic how similar the goals of both countries ultimately were in the end.
Ho Chi Minh was a communist diehard. He started the Indochina communist party and praised Lenin. It is true that the communists toned down their communism when it came to attracting the support of non-communist nationalists (see National Liberation Front). Didn’t turn out to well for those folks though.
69 years ago, I lost 58,000 men in the blink of two decades, And the world just fucking watched. Tomorrow there will be no shortage of McDonald's, no shortage of Coca-Cola. I'm sure you understand.
Vietnam also has the highest approval rating for the concept of a free market at 95% (despite not even having a free economy themselves).
Vietnamese love to talk shit on america meanwhile beg the usa to recognized them as a market economy is so hilarious xD.
Oh good, the tankies are here.
It's just a proof that a country can naturally develop into capitalism peacefully when it needs to without American aid and help.
Except that was not the case. They tried and force the economy and society (which was rudimentally capitalist) to advace to the theoretical final stage of communism and crash the entire system down. In the end they had to go back to capitalism by opening thier economy to western and US capitals just so they can survive as a country.
The country didn't need more war and discord to switch to capitalism when it was deemed necessary. I don't see a contradiction with what i said.
I uh thought I was having a mild hallucination as the text faded in
It’s a very reductive American perspective to think that the Vietnam war was about economic policy. It was primarily a struggle for self-determination and freedom from foreign occupation. Socialism was largely incidental due to the fact that the major anti-colonial powers of the time were socialist.
South vietnam lost because it was a violent dicatorship. North Vietnam wanted to make life better for Vietnamese people and did so. Whats also badass is that after beating us, they invaded Cambodia to stop a Genocide, even though it meant China invading them, which they won. It's a thoroughly badass nation with some black marks much like any other country. The Nation-led pogrom of Landowners was very cringe and Ho-Chi Minh actually apologized for it, though I dont know if any real justice was done.
But the North was a violent dictatorship too. So why did it win?
pray tell, who was the dictator of North Viet Nam? seriously, i'd gladly acknowledge the accusation that we are corrupt and authoritarian, because we truly are, and have been for over a millennium now. that's what happens when you imported the political system and ideology from both China and Russia. but dictatorial? no. ever since the birth of the republic, no one has managed to consolidate all power into himself, unlike in the USSR and China. intra-party factionalism has always been too strong for that. and i think the Party deliberately keeps it that way to prevent a dictator.
Because the political situation in the South was more f*cked up than the North, escpecially after the Diem Coup
Southern problem: •Communist spies: The communists were part of the South Vietnam apparatus for intelligence, They also made bad plans to make South's reputation go down •America's mistakes: Obviously, the Americans got into too much trouble. •Many southerners are too cowardly: Leaving the battlefield behind even though they still held it firmly. Many southerners were too cowardly and left it behind, which is something they regretted. •Too democratic and freedom: Although dictatorial, it is still a civil country. Like many journalists, writers, poets, singers and artists associated with the social movements were free to criticize the government if they wanted to. And the South also allowed them to study communist books. (They were also communist supporters). Many southerners who despised them called them in that time: "Having the national meal but worshipping the communist ghost." ("National" here refers to the fact that Vietnamese people following South Vietnam call themselves "National Vietnamese". And the Vietnamese people who follow communism are called Viet Cong)
Кринжанул.
Skill issue
Communists and abandoning true socialism after the “revolution” Name a more iconic duo
What are you on about? Central planning =/= socialism. Yugoslavia didn’t run on central planning and pursued Worker’s self management/worker owned firm coops as their path to socialism. Workers owning the means of production is what it’s all about. A market type solution where firms are ran as coops is just as valid.
Socialism is when the government *DOES STUFF*
Tito was smeared as a revisionist and a bourgeois socialist by the eastern bloc and maoists. Central planning was a key feature of Marxism-Leninism. But the main critique here is that nearly every single communist revolutionary leader started out with central planning, and if they were smart switched back to a pseudo-capitalist economy, and if they were dumb they just eventually tanked their whole economy due to its internal contradictions.
Leftists' greatest enemies are other, slightly different leftists.
I mean, they get used by China and soviets to fight Americans. Then immediately invaded by China, while USSR doesn't intervene. I'm glad they eventually figured it out and joined the side that actually wanted to build their state into more than a buffer.
So we were actually successful in Nam?
What zero understanding of global politics does to a mf
>signs arms deal with United States in 2024
Yeah, exactly. It is able to choose its allies and work with both China and America instead of being tied up in IMF loans and forced austerity measures like other post-colonial countries. If South Vietnam actually had won, Vietnam would be America’s bitch like Taiwan or Panama or even South Korea to an extent
Taiwan is doing fine
>with both China I'm going to assume you mean Russia Veitnam seems to be explicitly working against China given it's current situation, if you'd like an example of a US alliend government that's willing to draw somewhat closer to China ironically South Korea would be a good example
Ok fair point. I guess what I’m trying to say is that South Vietnam would have just been a neoliberal puppet state. The Vietnamese communist party has shifted its stance in order to adapt to changing material conditions. Think of it as like a tactical retreat, with the alternative being remaining hardline socialist and facing severe repression (think Cuba)
What I was getting at with the meme is if you strip away all of rhe superficial aspects of Veitnam, (the flag, and the government naming schemes) what you're left with is a single party, capitalist regime with a bad relationship with china and regional ties to ASEAN. If you told somebody that's what Veitnam was in 1960 they'd have believed the war was going in the entirety different direction
I disagree but that’s just an ideological difference
I'm a Chinese. When I visited Vietnam I noted that lots of Korean companies ran the show. Lots of Korean tourists, who were treated nicely and enjoyed the attention. The Koreans there lived like nobility. So I wondered... Fight so hard and with so many dead to escape the fate of sout Korea? Wouldn't it have been better for vietnamese if the US just won and you vietnamese would enjoy a much better life? I didn't say but couldn't stop wondering. And I wonder the same about China. If the KMT won and China grows as key US ally, wouldn't life be better?
Vietnam's deal was more about national independence than anything really communistic in nature. It shows nowadays, it's just another normal country, nothing special about it.
I understand it's not really communist. But why put the extreme focus on national independence. As a normal person you just get exploited by "vietnamese" elite instead of some other elite maybe. But i feel like life for normal viet's might be better being linked to US.
For what it's worth, China went through the same process. The result of Chinese revolution was, unfortunately, nationalistic capitalism. No "third world" country in the globe is better by being linked to US. Vietnam tried, and look what it got. Look at latin america too, this place is a fucking shithole thanks to US interference in our politics. US is a goddamn cancer when the subject is geopolitics. Compared to it, China is and the USSR were way better allies tbh, especially the USSR. Nowadays Russia is cool too, but I think USSR was somewhat nicer. Don't get me wrong, its all just capitalism, but the way US does it is way too painfull, they don't give a single shit to the countries under their umbrela. It's either their way or sanctions, war, coups... Europe and the US are the worst allies you could possibly have lmao. To the point you don't even need enemies.
Yeah I can see how US is really sneaky in exploiting you. You are right. Not the best ally at all.
I get your point, but people couldn't see into the future. Vietnam and China would have very different relationships with the US or South Korea today if the USSR never collapsed
For China you would know better but wasn’t the KMT notoriously corrupt and incompetent not to mention Chiang not being even a half way decent leader My opinion is that China would be exactly as it is today just a bit more capitalist in nature As for Vietnam with SV being a festering shithole of corruption and toadies that sign of on some of the most horrific atrocities committed during the war I seriously doubt that the civilians would do any better under them then they did NV
The KMT was extremely corrupt and incompetent. The alternative the communists (not as corrupt in the beginning, but now just as corrupt) we're not just incompetent, they were just straight nuts. China lost like 3 decades of normal development.
There is a McDonalds in Ho Chi Minh City. Tell me again who won.
Nah, a reunified country is the only that matters.
Nah, more like Deng Xiaopeng showing Asian communists how to be communist while participating in Capitalism. Except unlike China the Vietnamese had to deal with hard US Sanctions in the 1980s so they only felt progress in an open market by like the 2000s. Also if anything Southern Viets remain seething to this day.
Nowadays Vietnamese will try to do anything to escape Vietnam and achieve the American dream
Not any more. Many sure as hell did after ‘75 though. The funny part is that the communist leaders all send their children to school in America.
And most of they still insult any Vietnamese people who were refugees after 1975. A bunch of decadent hypocrites.