Editing Lê Duẩn (section)

== Early life and career ==
Lê Duẩn was born as Lê Văn Nhuận in ''Bich La'' village, ''Triệu Đông'', [[Triệu Phong District|Triệu Phong]], [[Quảng Trị Province]] on 7 April 1907<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5180354.stm|author=Le, Quynh|title=Vietnam ambivalent on Lê Duẩn's legacy|publisher=[[BBC World News]]. [[BBC]]|access-date=30 March 2012|date=14 July 2006}}</ref> (although some sources cite 1908){{sfn|Shane-Armstrong|2003|p=216}}{{sfn|Lien-Hang|2012|p=54}} to a poor family with 5 children.{{sfn|Shane-Armstrong|2003|p=216}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/who-called-the-shots-in-hanoi.html?_r=0|author=Lien-Hang Nguyen|title=Who Called the Shots in Hanoi?|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=14 March 2017|date=14 February 2017}}</ref> Locals from his generation say that Duan's parents were [[Scrap metal shredder|metal scrap collectors]] and [[blacksmith]]s. The son of a railway clerk,{{sfn|Woods|2002|p=212}} he became active in revolutionary politics as a young man. He received a [[French Indochina|French colonial]] education before working as a clerk for the [[Vietnam Railways|Vietnam Railway Company]] in [[Hanoi]] during the 1920s.{{sfn|Shane-Armstrong|2003|p=216}} Through his job, he came into contact with several communist activists.{{sfn|Sawinski|2001|p=211}} In this period, he educated himself to a [[Marxist]].{{sfn|Tucker|2011|p=637}}

Lê Duẩn became a member of the [[Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League]] in 1928.{{sfn|Currey|2005|p=229}} He cofounded the [[Indochina Communist Party]] in 1930. Lê Duẩn was imprisoned the next year. He was released six years later, in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he advanced in the party hierarchy and at the ''2nd National Congress'', he joined its [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam|Central Committee]].{{sfn|Quinn-Judge|2002|p=316}} He was imprisoned again the following year for fomenting an uprising. After five years he was released, shortly after the [[August Revolution|1945 August Revolution]], in which the Indochinese Communist Party took power. Following his release, he became a trusted associate of [[Ho Chi Minh|Hồ Chí Minh]], the lead figure of the party.{{sfn|Ooi|2004|p=777}}

During the [[First Indochina War]] Lê Duẩn served as the ''Secretary of the Regional Committee of South Vietnam'', at first in [[French Cochinchina|Cochinchina]] in 1946, but was reassigned to head the [[COSVN|Central Office of South Vietnam]] from 1951 until 1954. The [[Viet Minh]]'s position in the South became increasingly tenuous by the early to mid-1950s and in 1953 Lê Duẩn was replaced by his deputy [[Lê Đức Thọ]] and moved to [[North Vietnam]].{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=19}}

=== The "Road to the South" ===
[[File:Le_Duan.jpg|thumb|Lê Duẩn in 1951]]
In the aftermath of the [[Geneva Accords (1954)|1954 Geneva Accords]], which split Vietnam into North and South, Lê Duẩn was responsible for reorganising the Việt Minh combatants who had fought in South and Central Vietnam.{{sfn|Ooi|2004|p=777}} While most Việt Minh fighters were regrouped to North Vietnam as stipulated in the Accords, 5,000 to 10,000 fighters were left in the south as a base for future insurgency.<ref name="Hastings">{{Cite book |last=Hastings |first=Max |title=Vietnam an epic tragedy, 1945–1975 |page=104 |publisher=Harper Collins |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-06-240567-8}}</ref>

In South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime countered the communists by launching the "Denounce the Communists" campaign. Tens of thousands of suspected communists were detained in "political re-education centers". There were also increasing attacks by communist cadres, with over 450 South Vietnamese officials assasinated in 1956. The North Vietnamese government claimed that over 65,000 individuals were imprisoned and 2,148 killed in the process by November 1957.<ref>{{cite book|last=Turner|first=Robert F.|title=Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development|year=1975|publisher=[[Hoover Institution]] Publications|isbn=978-0817964313|pages=174–178}}</ref> According to historian [[Gabriel Kolko]], from 1955 to the end of 1958, 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed and many were executed.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kolko |first=Gabriel |url=https://archive.org/details/anatomyofwarviet0000kolk/mode/2up?q=%2522political+prisoners%2522 |title=Anatomy of a war : Vietnam, the United States, and the modern historical experience |date=1994 |page=89 |publisher=New Press, W.W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-1-56584-218-2}}</ref> Historian [[Guenter Lewy]] considers such figures exaggerated, stating that there were only 35,000 prisoners in total in South Vietnam during the period.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lewy |first=Guenter |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/America_in_Vietnam.html?id=LtDufIAplzkC&redir_esc=y |title=America in Vietnam |date=1980-05-29 |page=294–95|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-987423-1 |language=en}}</ref>

As opposition to Diem's rule in South Vietnam grew, Lê Duẩn wrote ''The Road to the South'', calling for revolution to overthrow his government and forcefully reunify Vietnam. His thesis became the blueprint for action at the ''11th Central Committee Plenum'' in March 1956. Although "The Road to the South" was formally accepted, his plan was not fully implemented until later as both China and the Soviet Union opposed full-scale conflict in Vietnam at the time.{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=19, 58}} In 1956 Lê Duẩn was appointed to the [[Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam|secretariat of the party]]. He was ordered by the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam|Politburo]] in August 1956 to guide the communist insurgency in South Vietnam. That same month he traveled from [[U Minh]] to [[Bến Tre]] and instructed the southern communists to stop fighting in the name of religious sects.{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=19}} Throughout the year, the party had been split on the issue of land reform in the North. Lê Duẩn remained neutral, allowing him to act as the First Secretary (head of the Communist Party) on Hồ's behalf in late 1956.{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=24}} 

In 1957, he was given a seat in the Politburo.{{sfn|Ooi|2004|p=777}} At the 1957 May Day parade, Trường Chinh was still seated as the country's second most powerful figure. Lê Duẩn 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 approval for his war plans.{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=24}} In December 1957, Hồ told the 13th Plenary Session of a "dual revolution"; Trường Chinh became responsible for the socialist transformation of the north, while Lê Duẩn focused on planning the offensive in the south.{{sfn|Ang|1997|p=75}}
 
By 1958, Lê Duẩn ranked second only to Hồ in the party hierarchy, although Trường Chinh remained powerful. Lê Duẩn was a party man and never held a post in the government.{{sfn|Ang|1997|p=75}} He 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 fighters.{{sfn|Brocheux|2007|p=167}} In January 1959, under increasing pressure from southern communist cadres who were being successfully targeted by Diệm's regime,{{sfn|Lomperis|1996|p=333}} the Central Committee in Hanoi approved plans for North Vietnam to fully support the effort to overthrow the South Vietnamese government and reunify Vietnam under a communist government.<ref name="Hastings"/> In July 1959, North Vietnam invaded Laos, occupying eastern parts of the country in order to establish the [[Ho Chi Minh trail]] which would be used to send soldiers and weapons to South Vietnam.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morrocco |first=John |title=Rain of Fire: Air War, 1969–1973 |date=1985 |publisher=Boston Publishing Company |page=26 |isbn=9780939526147 |series=Volume 14 of Vietnam Experience}}</ref>
 
=== First Secretary ===
Lê Duẩn was informally chosen as the [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam|First Secretary of the party]] by Hồ in 1959, at the January plenum of the Central Committee and was elected to the post ''[[de jure]]'' at the ''3rd National Congress''.{{sfn|Ooi|2004|p=777}} According to Bùi Tín, he was not Hồ's original choice for the post; his preferred candidate was Võ Nguyên Giáp, but since Lê Duẩn was supported by the influential Lê Đức Thọ, the ''Head of the Party Organisational Department,'' Lê Duẩn was picked for the post. He was considered a safe choice because of his time in prison during the French rule, his thesis ''The Road to the South'' and his strong belief in [[Vietnamese reunification]].{{sfn|Ang|2002|p=21}}
 
According to [[Stein Tønnesson]], Le Duan had not, like Ho Chi Minh, traveled around the world during his youth. He had not, like Pham Van Dong or Vo Nguyen Giap, worked closely with Ho Chi Minh from 1940s. Ho Chi Minh's decision to leave the party leadership Le Duan in the years 1957-1960, and to endorse his formal election in 1960, must be interpreted as a way to ensure national unity. At a time when Vietnam was divided in two, and many southern cadres had been regrouped to the north, the safest way to ensure that the Vietnam Worker party remain a party for all of Vietnam was probably to make the leader of the southern branch the leader of the whole party. Presumably this was the motive behind Ho Chi Minh's choice.<ref>Le Duan and the break with China. Cold War international history project bulletin, Issue 12/13. P. 273</ref>