Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace

The Vietnam War was the longest-running international conflict of the 20th century. Gabriel Kolko, a Canadian scholar, argues that although the eventual victor had plenty of time to prepare for rule, the end of the war caught the Communists "unprepared for peace." Faced with the daunting task of rebuilding two ruined economies and forging a single nation, the Vietnamese Communist Party began to abandon some of the doctrinal tenets over which the war was, in some measure, fought. In time, it even adopted a market philosophy, which has caused disillusionment among some of its older cadres; in the near future, Kolko writes, "socialism's lingering institutional residues are likely to be eroded even further." Kolko provides a fine account of that sad war's denouement.