How were ordinary people in North Vietnam affected by the Second Indochinese War, and what did they feel about it? Drawing from a variety of hitherto unused Vietnamese-language sources, including archival documents, newspapers, memoirs, diaries, and an interview, this article tries to answer these questions. These sources suggest that war at first had a limited integrative effect on society as the party-state sought to mobilize more human and material resources for war. War’s emancipatory effect is observed in the phenomenon of many North Vietnamese citizens escaping state control to come to live in the cities or engage in private trade and production for the black market. The last years of the war witnessed a strong disintegrative effect as the government lost its ability to control people and maintain public order. Despite the state’s intensive surveillance and propaganda system, available sources reveal an enormous gap between propaganda concerning the lives of ordinary people and the realities of public sentiment toward the war and the nation’s leaders.
Tuong Vu (Thu,) studied this question.