Download Lecture Outline: Decolonization and the Cold War, or “The Empire

Lecture Outline: Decolonization and the Cold War, or “The Empire Strikes Back”
I. Rehash: the New Political Order after World War Two
A. A face-off between the United States and the USSR
B. The British and French Empires fall apart
C. What we can learn from the case of Vietnam
1. Why Communism was so appealing in former colonies
2. How the Cold War changed the world’s political landscape
II. Ho Chi Minh, from Nationalist to Communist (1890-1940)
A. Born Nguyen Sinh Cung, in central Vietnam
B. French “new imperialism” in Indochina, beginning 1883
1. Economic exploitation – creating plantations
2. Cultural domination – a local elite and discrimination
C. Ho’s world tour, 1912
D. From Socialism to Communism in Paris (1917-1920)
1. Becoming Nguyen Ai Quoc (“Nguyen the Patriot”)
2. Frustration with Socialist unwillingness to help the colonies
3. Discovery of Lenin’s “Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions”
a. Imperialism is a necessary consequence of capitalism
b. Freeing colonies means getting rid of all elites, foreign and local
c. Revolution as the way to get rid of these elites
d. Key reform: redistribute the land
E. Travels as a Communist agitator
III. The Fight against the French (1940-1954)
A. Creating the Vietminh, May 1941
1. Uniting all people who want Vietnamese independence
2. Vo Nguyen Giap and a new fighting force
3. Nguyen Ai Quoc becomes Ho Chi Minh (“He who Enlightens”)
a. Humble self-presentation – brown canvas and sandals
b. “Uncle Ho”
B. The Vietminh takes power, August-September 1945
1. Bao Dai’s failed rally
2. Ho’s presidency
a. A Democratic Republic of Vietnam
b. Land reform and violence
C. The plans go nowhere
1. British step in, hand South Vietnam to the French, 1946
2. The French invade the North, 1947
D. Giap and Vietminh soldiers – inventing a new way of fighting in the colonies
E. The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, 1954
IV. From Former Colony to Cold War Battleground
A. Truman and the policy of “containment”
B. Geneva Accords, 1954
1. Divide Vietnam into Northern and Southern parts
a. Ho controls the North
b. Ngo Dinh Diem, US puppet, in the South
2. Promise free elections for 1956
C. United States prevents the elections to keep Vietnam from “going Communist”
D. Phase 2 of the war begins, 1959
1. From Vietminh to Vietcong
2. Combat drags on until 1975
E. Contradictions of the Cold War
1. Ho’s Communism versus Soviet Communism
2. The new political climate reduces ideals to empty words
3. The Sixties protest as response, with mixed results