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The Cold War and Third World Socialism

Robert P. Hager

To cite this article: Robert P. Hager (2024) The Cold War and Third World Socialism, Democracy
and Security, 20:1, 94-107, DOI: 10.1080/17419166.2023.2300573
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17419166.2023.2300573

Published online: 30 Dec 2023.

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DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY
2024, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 94–107
https://doi.org/10.1080/17419166.2023.2300573

The Cold War and Third World Socialism

Robert P. Hager
Communist and Post-Communist Studies (Retired), Moorpark, California, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Much of the Cold War was waged in what was then often Vietnam; communism; Ho
referred to as the “Third World.” The first work reviewed here Chi Minh; China; Third world;
looks at the victory of the Vietnamese communists in the first socialism; Soviet Union
Indochina War. Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam
did not win against France just because of nationalism. It won
due to Sino-Soviet aid and its adoption of communist methods
of mobilization. The second book examined looks at the persis­
tent endeavor to build socialism in the Third World over
a period of decades and using a variety of tactical approaches.
Despite the end of the Cold War, these efforts have left behind
a number of Leninist style party states on several different
continents.

The two works reviewed here examine aspects of the Cold War in what was
then called the Third World.1 Together they illustrate a point that has been
made before that the Cold War was not just geopolitical but “geoideological.”
It was about the way people’s lives and societies were organized.2
The first book to be discussed is by Christopher Goscha,3 who is professor
of international relations in the History Department at the Université du
Québec à Montréal. He is the author of numerous works about Southeast
Asia.4 He sets out to explain why it was that the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (DRV) under the leadership of communist President Ho Chi Minh
was able to achieve such an overwhelming victory over a major power such as
France.5 The sources of the DRV’s victory have often not been analyzed
correctly. Some attributed it to nationalism. Additionally, Western sympathi­
zers have been mesmerized by the mythology of a “nation in arms” wearing
down the army of a great power through guerrilla tactics. Instead, Goscha
finds it necessary to look elsewhere for an explanation. He agrees that nation­
alism was important in motivating many Vietnamese to support the DRV, but
it does not by itself account for Ho’s victory. After all, other post-World War II
anticolonial conflicts in Indonesia and Algeria did not end with an

CONTACT Robert P. Hager rhager@ucla.edu Communist and Post-Communist Studies (Retired), Moorpark,
California, USA
The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam, by Christopher Goscha, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 2022, xi and 514 pp., $35.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 978-0-691 -18,016-8.
Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World, by Jeremy Friedman, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 2021, 368pp., $35.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 978-0-674 -24,431-3.
© 2024 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 95

overwhelming military victory by the nationalists over the colonial power.

Small unit guerrilla operations enabled the DRV to survive the early years of
the First Indochina War but did not compel France to leave. The decisive
battle at Dien Bien Phu was not a case of a nimble guerrilla army wearing
down a conventional one. Instead, victory was achieved by the People’s Army
of Vietnam (PAVN), an organized, professional force equipped with and
capable of effectively employing artillery and antiaircraft guns against the
French in a pitched battle.
Accordingly, Goscha examines the nature of the state that opposed France’s
attempt at colonial reconquest. Initially, the DRV was a decentralized one.
Goscha terms it an “archipelago state” that controlled noncontiguous parts of
Vietnam. In between these “islands” of the “archipelago” were areas con­
trolled, or at least contested, by the French. After 1949, the DRV would also
have to compete with the French-backed Associated State of Vietnam. The
archipelago state could field forces that could survive and wage a guerrilla war.
However, because of its somewhat weak nature, it could not field forces
capable of defeating the French in a decisive battle.
The victory of the Chinese communists in 1949 changed this. The People’s
Republic of China (PRC) provided military equipment and advisers that were
important for the PAVN. What was equally important was that the Chinese
provided a role model and assistance in state-making. This resulted in
a process of reforging the Democratic Republic of Vietnam using communist
methods copied from the Soviet and Chinese experiences. It was a centralized,
single-party state. The Vietnamese communist leadership was able to trans­
form the DRV into an entity capable of fielding a modern army that could
defeat that of a major power. This new structure also served to begin a process
of radical transformation of society from the top down.
The second work to be examined here is by Jeremy Friedman,6 who is
assistant professor of business administration at Harvard University. He has
previously published a book dealing with Sino-Soviet rivalry in the Third
World.7 In the one currently being reviewed, Friedman examines the attempt
to build socialism in the Third World. He argues that this was a phenomenon
that touched virtually the entire developing world one way or another.
Friedman’s work complements Goscha’s quite well. Chinese and Soviet
support for the Vietnamese communists during the First Indochina War was
the height of Stalin-era communist militancy in the East Asia during a time
when Moscow was often hostile to noncommunist regimes. It was a time of
armed communist attempts to come to power in Southeast Asian countries
such as the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia which had Soviet
endorsement even if it cannot be conclusively documented that they were
ordered by Moscow.8 Friedman’s first case study of attempting to build
socialism is Sukarno-era Indonesia. This was one of the earliest endeavors
by Moscow to woo the newly independent states of Asia and Africa. The other
96 R. P. HAGER

case studies cover succeeding attempts to build socialism in Chile, Tanzania,

Angola, and Iran. These efforts were not simply carbon copies of each other.
The states involved in attempting to build socialism tried to adapt to circum­
stances. Foreign communist states tried to influence the outcomes of these
attempts to build socialism. The Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China
(PRC), and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were usually the most
active. However, they showed tactical flexibility and sought to apply the
lessons learned from the previous unsuccessful attempts to achieve socialism.
The impact of the efforts to build socialism in the Third World is still visible
today.
Goscha’s book is a fascinating analysis of the First Indochina War. For the
most part, it is not a chronological history of battles and campaigns, although
some of the more important ones are discussed in detail. Instead, it is largely
organized into thematic chapters that discuss various aspects of how the DRV
built a state. From 1945-50, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was an
archipelago state in which regions of the country which it controlled often
were like islands in a hostile sea.9
In Indochina south of the sixteenth parallel, in accordance with the deci­
sions of Allied leaders at the Potsdam conference of July 17-August 2, 1945,
the British arrived to disarm the Japanese. They soon began helping the French
to reassert control. Therefore, the DRV was unable to consolidate power in the
South before the start of hostilities in September 1945. To complicate things
further several elements that had initially aligned themselves with the com­
munists wound up cutting deals with the French. These included that Cao Dai
and Hoa Hao religious groups after 1947. They also included the Binh Xuyen,
who initially had been essentially bandits, after 1948. The situation in Vietnam
north of the sixteenth parallel was different. Under the terms agreed to at
Potsdam, Nationalist Chinese forces were sent there supposedly to disarm the
Japanese, which they never got around to doing. Rather than help reassert
French control, they accepted the DRV administration. Eventually, they
agreed with France in March 1946 that they would leave. Therefore, the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam was better able to prepare militarily for the
full-scale outbreak of hostilities with the French when it came in
December 1946. There were some things that the archipelago state could
realistically accomplish. It contested France and, after 1949, the Associated
State of Vietnam for sovereignty in those areas that it could not completely
control. It could raise guerrilla forces that bogged down the French and even
fielded a few regiments by early 1949.10 Just surviving was an accomplishment.
One of the more interesting chapters is how use of Ho’s earlier contacts
throughout East Asia served to enable the importation of necessary supplies
during the time that the Chinese communists were not yet able to help.11
Involved in this process were many of the ports of the region from South
China to Thailand. It also included networks among the Vietnamese diaspora
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 97

in the latter. In 1947, the Malayan Communist Party sent a large shipment of
arms to their Vietnamese comrades.12 This was a benefit of Ho’s contacts from
his days in the Comintern. The archipelago state faced certain constraints.
This especially applied to the military sphere. Much of the Vietnamese
National Army in the early years was amateurish.13 Even when more profes­
sionalized and able to field several regimental-sized units, it was not capable of
defeating the French in open battle. This was illustrated by the failure of the
offensive in the South in 1950.14 The heart of the problem was that the DRV
state apparatus was not capable of providing the logistics support for a modern
army. There were other constraints on the communists’ agenda. They were
able to crush several noncommunist parties that had arrived with the
Nationalist Chinese forces in 1945. After the Chinese withdrawal, the com­
munists defeated them in a brief civil war in the summer of 1946.15 However,
during the 1945-50 period the communists felt it necessary to keep much of
their agenda hidden from many anticolonialist Vietnamese who were working
for the DRV. The Vietnamese communists were already seeking totalitarian
control. However, the small size of the Party, the lack of trained bureaucrats
for running such a state, and the need to keep noncommunist support made it
necessary to practice tactical moderation. Even the DRV’s new army had to
use the services of Vietnamese who had previously served in the French
colonial forces.16 Therefore, the communists were not always in complete
control of the state that they had created. They tried to control the noncom­
munist Vietnamese on whose support they relied on by using front organiza­
tions such as the Viet Minh and the Lien Viet. The Viet Minh was soon
revealed to be obviously controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party
(ICP). Therefore, many of the educated Vietnamese who the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam administration needed to run everything from the tele­
phone system to hospitals distrusted it. They were willing to support the DRV
against attempted French reconquest, but they were not willing to accept
subordination to communist rule. The Lien Viet was less tightly controlled
by the communists. Sometimes, its members openly resisted ICP efforts to
control them. Several times Goscha’s analysis gives one the impression that
a good faith effort by the French to negotiate an independent Vietnam would
have caused the DRV to lose the support of many of the patriotic Vietnamese
on whose services it relied.17 One of the themes that runs through Goscha’s
work is the impact of the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 on
developments in Vietnam.18 Tuong Vu has documented that the Vietnamese
communists saw themselves as part of the “democratic camp” headed by the
Soviet Union even before this, even if anti-Americanism was sometimes
muted for tactical reasons.19 What changed was that now the DRV leadership
saw itself in the forefront of a revolutionary process led by the Soviet Union of
Josef Stalin and the China of Mao Zedong. Although previously, the DRV
leadership had held back from building a larger standing army that could wage
98 R. P. HAGER

a conventional war, the aid now available to them made it possible to build
such a force. The Chinese were the largest source of this aid. In addition to
sending equipment, the Chinese dispatched an advisory mission which played
a major role in training the new People’s Army of Vietnam. Chinese advisers
would come to play a key role in planning operations.20 The PRC would also
transfer to the PAVN Soviet-made equipment, which would come to include
Molotova trucks and Katyusha rocket launchers.21 However important the
military material provided by communist countries would be to the final
triumph of their Vietnamese comrades, by itself it would not have ensured
success. After all, by 1961, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) was
receiving so much Soviet, Chinese, and Czechoslovak arms that soldiers had to
be diverted from other duties to transport and stock them. The FLN could
even afford to transship weapons to other African insurgent movements.22
The DRV’s open alignment with Soviet bloc was accompanied by changes in
its domestic structures. This was symbolized by the open leadership of the
DRV by a communist party. In 1945, the Indochinese Communist Party had
officially dissolved itself. In reality, it had always continued to dominate the
DRV. In 1951, it came out of the closet as the Vietnam Workers Party (VWP).
In part, internal radicalization of the regime was based on the experiences of
Ho and other ranking Vietnamese communists who had had a close relation­
ship with the Chinese communists going back to the 1920s. Ho himself had
studied and lived in the Soviet Union. During the 1930s, he had served with
the Chinese communist military and had known such ranking CCP personal­
ities as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping at the Chinese communist base at
Yan’an. Other ranking Vietnamese communists had also been there. Some of
the Vietnamese officers who had served with the Chinese Red Army spoke
Chinese more fluently than their native language when they returned to
Vietnam.23 The new DRV domestic program included the copying of Soviet
and Chinese institutions and practices.24 These included emulation cam­
paigns. VWP Secretary General Truong Chinh stressed that the most impor­
tant characteristic of a “hero [to be emulated is that he] follows the party and
the government line.” A “new man” was to be created. The cults of personality
around Stalin and Mao were replicated by the one around Ho Chi Minh.25
DRV officials turned to Chinese advisers for guidance in restructuring the
economy. State control over economic activity increased accordingly. The final
stage of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam becoming a totalitarian state like
other communist countries was the late 1953 adoption of the land reform
campaign. Ho and other key Vietnamese communists such as Truong Chinh
adopted a program drawn up for them by their Chinese advisers.26 Previously,
radical social reform had been put on hold by the Party leadership because of
the necessity of avoiding prematurely alienating many noncommunist
Vietnamese whose services the regime needed. Nevertheless, the regime
intended to “exterminate” landowners “when favorable conditions are
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 99

realized,” as Truong Chinh had put it in early 1950.27 Among those to be

“exterminated” were those who had previously been labeled “patriotic land­
lords.” These were landholders who had loyally supported the DRV in its war
for independence from the French. They were now being execrated as “adver­
saries of the revolution.” The regime sought to prepare the rural population for
the destruction of those to be tried as “landlords.” One way that it did so was
showing peasant audiences the Chinese musical “The White-Haired Girl,”
which was dubbed into Vietnamese. The premise of the film was the struggle
of a brave peasant woman against a cruel landlord who had oppressed her. The
obvious agenda in showing it to peasant audiences was to stoke hostility to
landlords.28 Patriotic or not, now “landlords” would be submitted to show
trials which led to the torture and execution of thousands.29 Also striking is
how often the DRV leadership was quite willing to inflict misery upon those
whom it ruled, even on the ones for whom the revolution was supposedly
being fought. During its operations in northwestern Vietnam in 1952-53, the
People’s Army had requisitioned so much rice as to cause famine among the
Tai people who lived there.30 The rationale for the land reform campaign was
that redistribution of land to the peasants was to give them a stake in
supporting the revolution.31 However, by the end of the war, the peasantry
was impoverished and exhausted by the calling up of men into the military,
conscription of both men and women for hauling supplies and labor, and ever
greater demands for food production. The latter led to cases of famine and
even local rebellions.32 The leadership of the DRV was willing to starve
peasants in order to liberate them.
Students of the foreign policies of revolutionary states have often com­
mented on the effort to “export revolution.” In other words, they attempt
to promote revolutionary change elsewhere.33 Goscha provides a detailed
account of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s efforts to do this in
neighboring Laos and Cambodia. This went beyond a purely defensive
attempt to deny the use of these countries by the French for attacking
the DRV. The Vietnamese communists succeeded in creating a satellite
communist state in parts of Laos even if they were less successful in doing
so in Cambodia.34
Reviewing a work like this, one might feel that there are some topics that
should have been addressed. For example, there were guerrilla units organized
by French special operations forces and recruited from the non-Viet peoples of
northern Vietnam. The resulting insurgency posed considerable problems for
the DRV and apparently lasted at least into 1957.35 In discussing Vietnamese
communist efforts to create a revolutionary movement in Laos, Goscha pays
considerable attention to the DRV’s efforts to form alliances with members of
the Laotian royalty. However, he neglects what were major efforts to recruit
allies among various leaders of the non-Lao peoples. Among these were Phay
Dang of the Hmong and Sithone Komadone of the Kha.36
100 R. P. HAGER

Nevertheless, Goscha provides an interesting and informative reexamina­

tion of one of the Cold War’s bloodiest battlefields. He has consulted numer­
ous works in several different languages and produced a well-documented
work that would be of interest even to readers who have already read con­
siderably about the First Indochina War of 1946-54. Goscha provides some
important corrective history by showing that the First Indochina War was very
much a part of the Cold War. The leadership of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam saw itself as part of the Soviet bloc. At the time being discussed here,
this included the Chinese communists with whom the Vietnamese commu­
nists had a long-standing “special relationship.”37 There is still a widespread
view among many Westerners that any connection between Vietnam and the
Cold War was all in the heads of Washington officialdom, that the Vietnamese
communists were really essentially nationalists who had some historic animus
toward China, and that the PAVN victory at Dien Bien Phu was the triumph of
guerrilla tactics.38
Goscha provides a reminder of just how mistaken all this is. This work also
adds to the literature on revolutionary state-making. Robert S. Snyder has
noted that revolutionary states often use conflicts with status quo powers to
mobilize their populations behind the agenda of rebuilding society. The ruling
party uses this tension to target members of the coalition that had supported
the revolution.39 Goscha argues that the war against France provided the VWP
the opportunity to upend the previous social order in rural Vietnam. During
the land reform which started in 1953, those previously embraced as “patriotic
landlords” were now “feudalists” aligned with the “imperialists.” The class war
was launched before the one with the French was finished.40 Friedman’s work
discusses the effort to build socialism as a global phenomenon. Although no
two socialist experiments in the Third World were alike, there were features
common to many of them.41 Often, they were carried out in preindustrial
societies where there was little in the way of an industrial working class to seize
the means of production. Frequently, there was little in the way of means of
production. In parts of the Third World, the liberation struggle against
colonial rule was not based on class, but on race and ethnicity. Also, religious
beliefs were often strong. Therefore, religious persecution in the Soviet Union
and China could be a handicap for those pushing a socialist ideology.
Indonesia was an important test case of possibility of socialist revolution in
developing countries.42 The ethnic, economic, and religious differences
between different regions of the country posed difficulties that communists
would encounter in many Asian and African countries.
The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) displayed some strengths. It
showed a remarkable ability to bounce back from disasters. It had been
crushed after a rising against the Dutch in 1927 and after an attempted coup
against the government of Indonesia in 1948. Despite this, it had grown so that
by the mid-1950s it was able to become part of the mainstream of Indonesian
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 101

politics. By the mid-1960s, it had become so large that approximately 20-25%

of the country’s population were members of the party or its front
organizations.
However, the PKI faced problems that would persist from its founding in
1920 until its destruction by the Indonesian military in 1965-66. One was the
issue of how to relate to Islamic organizations in a country in which most of
the population was Muslim. Another was the association with foreign powers.
The knottiest of questions would probably be the one of how to relate to
Sukarno. This would especially be the case after he began increasingly to
centralize the government and moved Indonesia away from parliamentary
democracy toward a presidentially dominated “Guided Democracy.”
After dropping its previous hostility to Sukarno, the Soviet Union sought to
use its economic aid to move Indonesia toward socialism. It desired that
Sukarno concentrate on building a socialist economy. Accordingly, Soviet
aid programs focused on building up heavy industry. Although Moscow
provided military aid to Jakarta’s campaign to force the Dutch out of West
Irian (Dutch New Guinea), it had misgivings about Sukarno’s foreign adven­
tures. The PRC role was rather different. Its emphasis was on anti-imperialism,
and it encouraged Jakarta’s increasingly belligerent policy toward the West. It
also at the very least was aware of the PKI’s decision to move away from
a peaceful transition to power to one accepting a violent confrontation. This
led to the killing of Indonesian military leaders by the communists in
September 1965 and the bloody repression of the PKI that followed.
After the crushing of the PKI and the demise of Sukarno, the Soviets would
draw several lessons to be applied in future attempts to build socialism. One
was to adopt a new view of Islam in order to use it as a positive force in the
national liberation process. Another was the limitations of reliance on radical
petit bourgeois nationalists. Therefore, a communist party was the more
reliable vehicle for building socialism, not a charismatic fellow traveler.
However, Sukarno’s central role in Indonesian politics was a product of his
earlier destruction of the parliamentary system. Therefore, communists oper­
ating in a democracy should strive to preserve the democratic system. Moscow
also blamed Beijing for encouraging the PKI to attempt to seize power and
provoking its destruction.43 As in Indonesia, the splits within the world
communist movement would affect events in Chile.44 The most bitter was
the split between the PRC and the Soviet Union. The Chinese accused the
Soviets of abandoning the revolution in pursuit of accommodation with other
white countries, a charge which Moscow heatedly denied. This was part of the
context during the time of the rise, 1970-73 rule, and overthrow of the Popular
Unity (UP) coalition. The Soviets saw Chile as test case of the possibility of
a peaceful revolutionary transition to socialism. The GDR saw it as an oppor­
tunity to make gains in its competition for global influence with West
Germany. The PRC would approve the UP’s anti-imperialist foreign policy
102 R. P. HAGER

but was always skeptical of its ability to last in power. The Communist Party of
Chile (PCCh) was committed to “peaceful coexistence.” This was so much the
case that in late 1964 PCCh Secretary General Luis Corvalán warned a visiting
Soviet delegation that it would not follow the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union (CPSU) if it reconciled with the Communist Party of China (CPC).
Much of the rest of the Chilean Left was not so obedient to Moscow’s desire for
peaceful tactics. The Socialist Party of Chile (PSCh) was much more radical
than its PSCh ally much of the time. It was subject to various ideological
currents then influencing the world communist movements, especially the
Sino-Soviet split and Moscow’s disagreements with Havana over the use of
armed struggle tactics in Latin America. Its leader Salvador Allende was
sympathetic to violent revolution. The PSCh disagreed with the USSR on
such matters as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, it estab­
lished close party-to-party ties with the CPSU. The Movement of the
Revolutionary Left (MIR) had ties to Cuba and was involved in such tactics
as organizing land seizures by peasants. It generally shared the Chinese
opinion of the Soviet Union. The Soviets and East Germans were unsure of
the Allende regime’s ability to remain in power. The UP was often disunited
and lacking a coherent plan for the economy. The radicalism of some within
the UP arguably helped pave the way for the 1973 military seizure of power.
Radicals within the PSCh opposed dealing with the Christian Democratic
Party. This effectively blocked a possible alliance which could have blocked
the coup. The PSCh was spoiling for a fight. The PCCh wanted to prevent one.
The Soviets would try to draw lessons from the failure of the UP. Initially
Soviet criticism was often aimed at the more radical elements of the Chilean
Left for provoking a reaction from the military. Later, Soviet emphasis on the
need to protect the revolution. Even later, Soviet commentary advocated that
sometimes revolutionaries would have to adopt an armed path to power.
Tanzania presented another attempt at building socialism.45 Tanzanian
President Julius Nyerere hoped to establish a purely African form of socialism
without class struggle. This approach he named “ujamaa,” which mean
“familyhood” in Swahili. Reactions among the various communist powers
varied. The PRC was more interested in Tanzania’s foreign policy. The coun­
try was a base for several of the liberation movements fighting Portuguese
colonialism or white minority rule in southern Africa. China’s priorities
seemed more focused on anti-imperialism rather than on building socialism.
This seems true to a pattern of Chinese behavior that Friedman describes in
his book.
Soviet hopes for a successful transition to socialism in Tanzania rested on
the attempt to learn from failures of attempts to build socialism in West
African countries such as Ghana, Guinea, and Mali. There the Soviets had
tried to foster the building of a heavy industry. This was to lead to the
emergence of an industrial proletariat and communist parties which would
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 103

take power. Instead, local elites resisted what seemed to be an attempt to

replace them.
Soviet and East German observers were initially skeptical regarding
ujamaa. This later shifted to cautious optimism, which then became one
of disappointment. The Soviets and East Germans drew several lessons
from the failure of ujamaa that they would attempt to apply elsewhere in
the Third World. One was the need for coherent ideology to serve as the
basis for guiding the building of socialism. Part of the reason for the
inability to make socialism work in Tanzania was the lack of a strong
organization to affect the policy. Therefore, success would require
a vanguard party. Also noted was the disaster caused by the program of
involuntary “villagization” in 1973-76. Instead, market incentives should be
used to get peasant cooperation.
The effort to build socialism in Angola attempted to apply the lessons of the
Tanzanian experience.46 In part, the regime’s radicalization would be the
product of war. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola
(MPLA) had been one of three Angolan movements fighting for independence
from Portugal before Lisbon gave up in 1975. It was able to capture political
power due to Soviet and Cuban assistance in the civil war that followed.
The MPLA regime was modeled along the lines of what the Soviets and East
Germans prescribed for “states of socialist orientation” in the 1970’s. Priority
was not placed on a rapid transition to a socialist economy. Not only was the
private sector accepted, but trade and foreign economic investment, even
American owned corporations, were permitted to have a role in the economy.
Priority was placed on consolidating the regime’s political control. In 1977,
ranking MPLA party members would attend a six-week class on ideology and
economic planning. The movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola
officially became a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party in December of
that year. The MPLA was reorganized along Leninist lines and officially
adopted Marxism-Leninism as its ideology. Political and ideological ortho­
doxy was tightened. In 1981, the MPLA would launch a “Generalized
Offensive against Liberalism and Disorganization.” Although the Angolan
economy never became socialist, the project of constructing socialist orienta­
tion had a lasting effect on Angola. The MPLA’s political power remains
intact. The regime survived the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the
Soviet bloc that had done so much to establish it.
Probably one of the more curious attempts to build socialism in the Third
World was the effort by the USSR and the GRD attempt to do so in the Islamic
Republic of Iran (IRI).47 The Tudeh, the country’s orthodox communist party,
was stigmatized by its association with the Soviet Union’s record of attempted
expansion at Iranian expense. Furthermore, the country was overwhelmingly
Muslim. Once again, the Soviet-bloc attempt to build socialism tried to
incorporate lessons learned from previous failures. The most noteworthy
104 R. P. HAGER

was that Soviet Middle Eastern specialist had reevaluated the role of religion in
revolutionary situations. It was now seen as potentially progressive.
The Soviet Union and East Germany attempted to befriend the regime of
the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after it came to power in February 1979. In
part, this was due to satisfaction that the end of the Shah’s regime had been
a blow to American influence in the Middle East. However, there was early
optimism about the domestic course that revolutionary Iran would take. The
Soviets and the East Germans did not believe that the Islamist regime could
last long. A more progressive regime could take its place. These hopes were
eventually disappointed when the IRI crushed the Tudeh in February 1983.
Interestingly, the Tudeh had remained committed to working with the
Islamists even while the Soviets and East Germans were becoming skeptical.
The IRI has survived until now, but the Soviet Union and the GDR have long
since collapsed. After reading all of Friedman’s case studies, one is struck by
how doggedly the Soviet Union and other communist states persisted in trying
to transform Third World countries into socialist states. One notable feature is
that this effort lasted decades. Also, it was tried in rather different societies.
Finally, one should note is that the apparent lessons of previous failures to
effect the transition to socialism were applied. Francis Fukuyama has noted
that Moscow at times chose differing approaches in choosing which Third
World states that it saw as its most effective allies in opposing the West. There
were times when it relied on noncommunist radical nationalists, which was
the policy associated with Nikita Khrushchev’s tenure in power. There were
other times when it stressed ties with avowedly Marxist-Leninist regimes,
which was the policy identified with that of Leonid Brezhnev.48 The effort to
remold Third World societies showed equal tactical flexibility.
Some might take issue with Friedman’s analysis here and there. Possibly
other Third World attempts at building socialism could have been selected for
his case studies. For example, one might say Algeria would have been just as
good an example of the Khrushchev era attempts at building socialism as
Indonesia.49 In discussing “states of socialist orientation,” Nicaragua might
have served as an example of the failure of such regimes. There, the regime’s
policies led to civil war, and to its being voted out of office.50 However, as
Friedman points out, because socialism was a global phenomenon, many
countries could have been chosen for examination.51 Sometimes his work
might leave the reader with the impression that the Khrushchev-era Soviet
commitment to “peaceful coexistence” was more pacific than it really was.52
During the Khrushchev years, there were a number of times in which Soviet
military forces were deployed abroad to support “progressive” causes in the
Third World.53
Overall, these points are rather minor. Each of the case study chapters has
a useful discussion of the background history of the country’s relevant political
history. Friedman has done an impressive amount of research in numerous
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 105

archives on several different. The result is a work that is rich in detail while
remaining highly readable.
What conclusions does one draw from all this? Goscha notes that the
communist states in China and Vietnam remain very much in power even if
their economies have embraced capitalism.54 Friedman notes that when the
Cold War ended in Europe it meant the collapse of socialism. In the Third
World, he argues that this was less so. This explains what the Cold War’s most
important legacy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America might be: the continued
existence of regimes based on the model of the Leninist party state.55

Notes
1. Although the term is now considered somewhat derogatory, it was not thought so during
the 1960s and 1970s. Therefore, this reviewer will use it instead of more contemporary
terms like “Global South.” For a brief discussion of this matter, see Jeremy Friedman,
Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2021), 279, n. 3.
2. This term comes from Nigel Gould-Davies, “Rethinking the Role of Ideology in World
Politics During the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 1, no. 1 (Winter 1999), 104.
3. Christopher Goscha, The Road to Dien Bien Phu: A History of the First War for Vietnam
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
4. E.g., Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History (New York: Basic Books, 2016).
5. This summary of the argument is based mostly on “Introduction: States of War,” in
Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 1-14.
6. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution.
7. Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). This work and others are
discussed in Robert P. Hager, “The Cold War and Third World Revolution.”
Communist and Post-Communist Studies 52 (1) (March 2019): 51-57.
8. Charles B. McLane, Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia: An Exploration of Eastern Policy
Under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
9. Most of this discussion of this phase of the war is based on “The Rise of the Archipelago
State” chap. 1 in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 15-56.
10. Ibid., 67.
11. “The Asian Routes of War,” chap. 3 in ibid., 89-120.
12. Additionally, the American consul in Hanoi reported that the Chinese communists had
smuggled arms to Vietnam from Shanghai to Hong Kong and then to Haiphong. Ronal
H. Spector, Advice and Support: The early years, 1941-1960 (Washington, DC: Center of
Military History, United States Army, 1985), 81, n.11.
13. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 65. The communist-led military force at that time was
known as the Vietnamese National Army. It is not to be confused with the Vietnamese
National Army later created by the Associated State of Vietnam and the French. Ibid., 59.
14. Ibid., especially 80-83.
15. Ibid., 31-32, 170-171, and 207.
16. Ibid., 61 and 65.
17. E.g., ibid., 43-44 and 212.
18. Except where noted, much of the following section has relied on “The Levée en masse and
War Communism,” chap. 8 in ibid., 248-280.
106 R. P. HAGER

19. Tuong Vu, Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 101-109.
20. This was the case at, for example, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien
Phu, 401.
21. Ibid, 417.
22. Jeffrey James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World
Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 108. This work is also discussed in
Hager, “Cold War and Third World Revolution.”
23. Ibid, 62-63.
24. Ibid., 314-315.
25. See ibid., 340 for some details of the cult of personality around Ho.
26. Ibid., 411.
27. Quoted in Ibid., 272.
28. Ibid., 338-339.
29. Ibid., 411-415.
30. Ibid., 424.
31. Ibid., 318-319.
32. Ibid. 431-433.
33. E.g., Fred Halliday, Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great
Power (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 18; and “Internationalism in Practice:
Export of Revolution,” chap. 4 in ibid., 94-132.
34. “Imperial Dust: Ho Chi Minh’s Associated States of Indochina,” chap. 11 in Goscha,
Road to Dien Bien Phu, 347-388.
35. Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: Indochina at War, 1946-54 (Harrisburg, Penn.,
1961), 249-250.
36. Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos: The Politics of Neutralization (New York: Frederick
A. Praeger, 1964), 74-75; Bernard B. Fall, Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 196-
1961 (Garden City, New York), 45; and Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The
Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1993), 20-21.
37. This is the term used in Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 250.
38. These mistaken views have become accepted as revealed truth so much that they are now
repeated uncritically in college- and university-level textbooks. See Robert P. Hager,
“Teaching Students about the Vietnam War: The Case for Balance,” Democracy and
Security 13, no. 4 (2017): 304-335.
39. Robert S. Snyder, “The US and Third World Revolutionary States: Understanding the
Breakdown in Relations,” International Studies Quarterly 43, no. 2 (June 1999): 265-90.
40. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 411-412 and 430.
41. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 1-13.
42. This section is based mostly on “Asian Axis: The Indonesian Communist Party and the
Struggle for Power in Sukarno’s Indonesia,” chap. 1 in ibid., 18-74.
43. Ibid., 76.
44. This section is based mostly on “Democratic Communism: Allende’s Chile and Peaceful
Transition,” chap. 2 in ibid., 75-123.
45. This section is based mostly on “Tanzanian Ujamaa: Building Socialism in a Communist
World,” chap. 3 in ibid., 124-166.
46. This section is based mostly on “Lenin without Marx: Communism Comes to Angola,”
chap. 4 in ibid., 167-210.
47. This section is based mostly on “Opiate of the Masses, or Stimulant: Socialism, Religion,
and Revolution in Iran,” chap. 5 in ibid., 211-262.
 DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY 107

48. Francis Fukuyama, “Patterns of Soviet Third World Policy,” Problems of Communism 36
(September-October 1987): 1-13.
49. For a discussion of Algeria, see Byrne, Mecca of Revolution. This work and others are
discussed in Hager, “Cold War and Third World Revolution.”
50. Robert P. Hager, “The Origins of the ‘Contra War’ In Nicaragua: The Results of
a Failed Development Model,” Terrorism and Political Violence 10 (1) (Spring
1998): 133-164.
51. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 13.
52. For example, he attributes the 1960 Soviet decision to withhold military aid from the
MPLA to Moscow’s adherence to peaceful coexistence. Ibid. 174.
53. One example was the Soviet airlift support to the neutralist forces and the Pathet
Lao in Laos from 1960-62. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, 164-165, 167, 178-179, 181,
194, 196, and 201. Soviet crews manned submarines and bombers provided to
Indonesia in its dispute with the Netherlands over West Irian. David Easter,
“Active Soviet Military Support for Indonesia during the 1962 West New
Guinea Crisis,” Cold War History, 15 (2) (2015): 201-220. The USSR also pro­
vided airlift support to Egypt when it intervened to support the republican side in
the civil war in Yemen in 1962. Jesse Ferris, “Soviet Support for Egypt’s
Intervention in Yemen, 1962-1963. Journal of Cold War Studies 10 (4) (2008):
5-36.
54. Goscha, Road to Dien Bien Phu, 436-437.
55. Friedman, Ripe for Revolution, 269-274.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).