Le Duan - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Le Duan was born in Quảng Trị province on 7 April 1907 (although some sources cite 1908) as Lê Văn Nhuận. Little is known about Le Duan's family and youth. The son of a railway clerk, he became active in revolutionary politics early in his life. He received a French colonial education before he began working as a clerk for the Vietnam Railway Company in Hanoi during the 1920s. Through his job, he came into contact with several communists. It was in this period he became a keen supporter of Marxism.

Le Duan became a member of the Revolutionary Youth League in 1928. He was one of the cofounders of the Indochina Communist Party, which was established in 1930. His activities in the newly-established communist party did not last long; he was arrested in 1931. He was released six years later, in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he worked his way up the party ladder, and at the Second Congress of the Indochina Communist Party, he was elected to its Central Committee. He was arrested the following year for trying to foment an uprising in South Vietnam, but was released shortly after the 1945 August Revolution, the event in which the Indochinese Communist Party took power. Following his release from jail, he became a trusted associate of Hồ Chí Minh, a leading Vietnamese communist.

During the First Indochina War Le Duan served as the Secretary of the Regional Committee of South Vietnam. At first in Cochin China in 1946, but he was appointed to be responsible for the Central Office of South Vietnam from 1951 until 1954. The Viet Minh's stance in the South became increasingly tenuous by the early-to-mid 1950s, and in 1953 Le Duan was replaced by his deputy Lê Đức Thọ, and returned to North Vietnam. In the aftermath of the 1954 Geneva Accords, which indirectly decided to split Vietnam, into North and South Vietnam, Le Duan was responsible for reorganising the combatants who had fought in South and Central Vietnam. In 1956, Le Duan wrote a thesis called "The Road to the South", which called for a violent revolution in South Vietnam against the United States to achieve reunification. The thesis was accepted as a blueprint for action by the Vietnamese Central Committee at its 11th Plenum in 1956. Although "The Road to the South" was formally implemented, in practice its implementation was postponed to 1959.

Throughout 1956, the party had been split by factional rivalry between party boss Trường Chinh and President Hồ, who was supported by Võ Nguyên Giáp. This rivalry focused on the issue of land reform in North Vietnam. As Le Duan was identified with neither of these factions, neither objected when he began performing the duties of First Secretary (head of the communist party) on behalf of Hồ in late 1956. At the May Day parade in 1957, Trường Chinh was still seated as the second most powerful figure within the communist system. Le Duan was gradually able to place his supporters, notably Lê Ðức Thọ, in top positions and outmaneuver his rivals. He visited Moscow in November 1957 and received the green light for his war plans regarding the South. By 1958, Le Duan was ranked as second only to Hồ in the party hierarchy, although Chinh remained powerful. Le Duan was a party man, and throughout his life, he would never hold a governmental post.

In December 1957, Hồ told the 13th Plenary Session of a "dual revolution"; Chinh became responsible for the socialist transformation of North Vietnam, while Le Duan focused on planning the offensive in South Vietnam. Le Duan was ordered by the Politburo, in August 1956, to guide the revolutionary struggle in South Vietnam. The same month he traveled from U Minh to Ben Tre, and instructed the South Vietnamese communists to stop fighting in the name of religious sects. He entrusted Sau Dương to write an ideological thesis on the proper conduct of military propaganda. Le Duan made a brief, secret visit to South Vietnam in 1958, writing a report, The Path to Revolution in the South, in which he stated that the North Vietnamese had to do more to assist the southern communists against the South Vietnamese government. The Central Committee decided to initiate the revolution in South Vietnam in January 1959.

Shortly after writing The Road to the South, Le Duan was appointed to the Secretariat in 1956, and in 1957, he was given a seat in the Politburo. Le Duan was informally chosen as the party's First Secretary (later known as the General Secretary) by Hồ in 1959, at the January plenum of the Central Committee, and was elected to the post de jure at the 3rd Party Congress. Le Duan was not Hồ's original choice for First Secretary according to Bùi Tín; his preferred candidate was Võ Nguyên Giáp, but since Le Duan was supported by the influential Lê Đức Thọ, the Head of the Party Organisational Department, Le Duan was picked for the post. Le Duan was considered a safe choice because of his time in prison during French rule, his thesis, The Road to the South and his strong belief in Vietnamese reunification. Hoàng Văn Hoan claimed, after being sent into exile, that the 3rd Congress, which elected Le Duan as First Secretary, purged several party members; this may be true, three former ambassadors lost their seats in the Central Committee at the Congress.