Land reform in Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cải cách ruộng đất, IPA: [kâj kǎʲk ʐuə̂ˀŋ ɗʌ̌k]) began in the political turmoil following World War II in which a civil war pitted the communist Viet Minh against the French colonists and their supporters. At that time a large percentage of agricultural land was owned by large landowners and the majority of the rural population of Vietnam owned only small plots of land or was landless. The early success of the land reform program of the communist-led Viet Minh (and their successors, the Viet Cong), gave the communists a strong base of support among the 80 percent of the Vietnamese people who lived in rural areas. The support of the communists by a large number of rural dwellers 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 southern supporters, the Viet Cong, early 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 a "Land to the Tiller" program in the early 1970s. The defeat of South Vietnam by North Vietnam in April 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." 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 executions of "landlords and reactionaries," estimated most reliably at 13,500 killed, 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.
Under French rule, French citizens and Vietnamese supporters of the French (mostly Roman Catholics), 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. 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. In northern Vietnam about 21 percent of the rural population was landless and another 35 percent owned only very small parcels of land. Out of a total population of Vietnam of around 25 million in 1940, 8 million people were probably landless peasants. 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. 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."
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