Land reform in Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cải cách ruộng đất, ) began in the political turmoil following World War II. In 1945, Vietnam gained their independence from Japanese occupation and overthrew the monarchical rule of the Nguyễn dynasty.
However, the newly independent nation faced the horrendous aftermath of the Vietnamese famine of 1944–1945 in which 2 million people starved to death from mismanagement during the war.
The Viet Minh then went on to wage a protracted war against the French Union. At that time a large percentage of agricultural land was owned by large landowners and the majority of the rural population were landless. The early success of the land reform programs of the communist-led Viet Minh (and their successors, the National Liberation Front), gave the communists revolutionaries a strong base of support among the 80 percent of the Vietnamese people who lived in the rural countryside. This was an important factor in determining the outcome of the Vietnam War.
From 1954 to 1975 land reform was on two separate tracks as the country was provisionally divided into two parts: South Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam) and North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam). Communist North Vietnam and its directed southern insurgency, the NLF, adopted a policy of confiscating the land of landlords and rich peasants and distributing it to poor and landless peasants and later organizing the rural population into collectives. Capitalistic South Vietnam failed in several land reform endeavors before finally achieving some success with the "Land to the Tiller" program in the early 1970s. The collapse of the South Vietnamese government in 1975 ended that program.
Vietnam expert Bernard Fall said land reform in South Vietnam was as essential to success in the Vietnam War as "ammunition for howitzers". South Vietnam's ally and financial supporter, the United States, either failed to realize the importance of land reform or failed to persuade the South Vietnamese government of its importance. In the words of an American official, "The Americans offered the peasant a constitution; the Viet Cong offered him his land and with it the right to survive."Prosterman, Roy L. (Aug 1970), "Land-to-the-Tiller in South Vietnam: The Tables Turn," Asian Survey, Vol 10, No 8, p. 751. Downloaded from JSTOR.
Land reform in North Vietnam was accomplished from 1954 to 1956 by confiscating and redistributing land owned by landlords to poor and landless peasants. This program resulted in the executions of "landlords and reactionaries", estimated to have killed 13,500 people, and resistance, including rioting, in the countryside. The North Vietnamese government apologized for the excesses and attempted to rectify errors. The communist government of North Vietnam (and after 1975 all of Vietnam) followed up land redistribution by establishing collective farms, but collectivized agriculture failed to result in large gains in agriculture production. Collectives were abandoned after 1988 and agricultural production rose rapidly thereafter.
Precolonial Vietnam There were two types of land ownership in precolonial Vietnam: Private ownership (this land could be traded freely) and state ownership (this land was primarily assigned to landless peasants for cultivation). These two types of land ownerships were taxed at the same rates.
The historical precolonial state regularly seized privately owned land and assigned it to landless peasants under a state owned system. Such land equalization programs (phép quân điền) have been documented since the 11th century. A well-documented land equalization program was conducted in Binh Dinh Province in 1839.
The Nguyen Dynasty carried out a land registry to establish formal land ownership across Vietnam over the period 1805–1836. The Vietnamese state raised its revenue primarily from agricultural land taxes and head taxes, which necessitated accurate surveys of land holding and effective censuses of adult males. Private owners of land had incentives to hide landless farmers who were in their employ in order to evade taxes. However, peasants under the state ownership system were incentivized to make themselves known in order to not lose cultivation rights.
French rule
During the period of French rule of Indochina (1887-1954) Vietnam consisted of three regions: Tonkin—the rice-growing area of the Red River valley of northern Vietnam; Cochinchina—the rice-growing area of the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam; and Annam—the connective between the two regions (aka Central Vietnam), consisting of a narrow coastal plain and highlands. Tonkin and Annam had difficulty growing enough rice to feed their population and often imported rice from Cochinchina which produced a surplus.Moïse, Edward E. (1983), Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 154
Under French rule, French citizens and Vietnamese allies were granted large tracts of land, confiscated or obtained in some manner from its traditional occupants and owners. In southern Vietnam, the production of industrial crops for export, notably rubber, began on a large scale. Vietnam was managed by the French primarily to produce revenue which was attained by exports, taxation and government monopolies. By the 1930s, one result of French economic exploitation was a serious problem of unequal land distribution.Cima, Ronald J. Vietnam: A Country Study, Washington: GPO, 1987. http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/16.htm and http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/47.htm, accessed 16 Sep 2015 Approximately 80 percent of the population of Vietnam was rural and depended upon agriculture for a livelihood. About one million families/households—40 percent of the rural population of southern Vietnam—were landless tenants.Prosterman, Roy L. (Nov 1967), "Land Reform in South Vietnam: A Proposal for Turning the Tables on the Viet Cong, Cornell Law Review, Vol. 53, https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol53/iss1/3, accessed 16 Sep 2015 In northern Vietnam about 21 percent of the rural population was landless and another 35 percent owned only very small parcels of land.Moïse, p. 150 Out of a total population of Vietnam of around 25 million in 1940, 8 million people were probably landless peasants.Cima, http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/16.htm, accessed 16 Sep 2015 The country's richest agriculture region, the Mekong delta, was considered one of the five worst areas in the world for the prevalence of landlessness and tenancy among its inhabitants.Prosterman, Roy L. (1970), "Land-to-the-Tiller in South Vietnam: The Tables Turn," Asian Survey, Vol 10, No. 8, p. 753. Downloaded from JSTOR
For the more than 70 percent of the population in the Mekong Delta who were landless or rented land to supplement their small holding, "Rentals were as heavy as any to be found in Asia -- 50 percent of the crop. The tenant had to provide his own hut, tools, and livestock, and hire supplementary labor at the height of the season.... By the time the tenant had discharged all his obligations, his share of the crop was roughly a third of the total."Prosterman (1967), p. 28
Viet Minh
The Viet Minh—a communist Vietnamese independence movement—fought to gain independence from France in the First Indochina War. They were the dominant political force in many of the rural areas of Vietnam, especially in the north where the French presence was less than in the south. In 1948, the Viet Minh initiated a modest program of reducing the rent peasants paid to landlords, although they were careful not to offend large landowners and landlords who supported the revolution. The Viet Minh confiscated land owned by French nationals, "traitors", and landlords who fled to the cities to avoid the war in rural areas. The redistributed land was allocated to poor and landless peasants, but the Viet Minh retained control of the ownership of the land.Moïse, p. 155-159 Scholar Jeffrey Race, who did a grassroots study of the people in one Mekong Delta province, said that "no other [Communist] Party activities had such an immediate and profound impact...the promise of land being one of the principal means of obtaining a core of activists in each village to drive out the government authorities."Race, Jeremy (1972), War Comes to Long An, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 126-128
According to an official report by Trường Chinh, there were more than 5 million hectares of land used for growing rice and other food crops in Vietnam, of which 9% was seized by the French colonialists, 10.2% was communal or semi-communal/semi-private, 1% was owned by the Catholic Church, nearly 50% by Vietnamese landlords, and about 30% by farmers. In 1953, the Viet Minh, now in control of 60 to 90 percent of the rural areas of Vietnam, took a bolder approach to expand the land redistribution programs in what was called the rectification movement according to the model and instructions of China. They continued the rectification movement in the North after Vietnam was provisionally divided at the 17th parallel as a result of the Geneva Accord of 1954. The land reforms carried out in North and South Vietnam bifurcate after 1954.Moïse, p. 168 Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai in 1953 responded to the Viet Minh program of land redistribution and rent reduction with a decree declaring that rents for land should not exceed 15 percent of the crop.Prosterman (1967), p. 27-29
North Vietnam
+ Land tenure situation in North Vietnam—1953Moïse (1983), pp. 151, 165 Incomplete data; totals do not add to 100%; households consist of an average of more than 5 persons. Households (% of total) Land owned (% of total) Land owned per person (ha) French and Catholic Church 0.0% 1.6 % not applicable Landlords 1.8% 17.3% Rich peasants 1.2% 4.4% Middle peasants 33.6% 34.6% Poor peasants 43.5% 15.7% Laborers 19.8% 1.9% Communal land not applicable 25.0% not applicable The rectification campaign begun by the Viet Minh revolutionaries continued under the communist government of North Vietnam from 1954 to 1956. In characteristic communist fashion, the government divided the farmers into social classes: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, and landless or nearly landless laborers. In North Vietnam about one-fourth of agricultural land was owned communally and allocated by the village or hamlet leaders to individual farmers.Moïse (1983), pp. 159-166
The Land Reform Law of 4 December 1953 called for (1) confiscation of land belonging to landlords who were enemies of the regime; (2) requisition of land from landlords not judged to be enemies; and (3) purchase with payment in bonds. The land reform was carried out from 1953 to 1956 in five "waves," each larger than the previous one and extending to most of the good agricultural land of North Vietnam. Some farming areas did not undergo land reform but only rent reduction and the highland areas occupied by minority peoples were not substantially impacted. Some land was retained by the government but most was distributed without payment with priority given to Viet Minh fighters and their families.Moïse (1983), pp. 178-181
The total number of rural people impacted by the land reform program was more than 4 million. The rent reduction program impacted nearly 8 million people.Szalontai, Balazs (2005), "Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955-1956", Cold War History, Vol. 5, No. 4, p. 401. Downloaded from JSTOR. North Vietnam had a total population of approximately 15 million people in 1955.
The land reform program was a success in terms of distributing much land to poor and landless peasants and reducing or eliminating the land holdings of landlords (địa chủ) and rich peasants. By 1960, there were 40,000 cooperatives spanning nearly nine-tenths of all farmland. The program, proceeded by a Three Year Plan (1957-1960), lifted agricultural production to 5.4 million tonnes or over double pre-Indochina War levels.