Editing Ho Chi Minh (section)

==Becoming president==
The [[1954 Geneva Conference]] concluded the war between France and the Việt Minh, allowing the latter's forces to regroup in the North whilst anti-Communist groups settled in the South. Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated to Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a [[Communist]]-led [[one-party state]]. Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be a 300-day period in which people could freely move between the two regions of Vietnam, later known as South Vietnam and North Vietnam. During the 300 days, Ngô Đình Diệm and [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] adviser Colonel [[Edward Lansdale]] staged a campaign to convince Northerners to move to South Vietnam. The campaign was particularly focused on Vietnam's Catholics, who were to provide Diệm's power base in his later years, with the use of the slogan "God has gone south". Between 800,000 and 1 million people migrated to the South, mostly Catholics. At the start of 1955, French Indochina was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the South.<ref>Maclear, pp. 65–68.</ref>{{sfn|Jacobs|2006|pp=43–53}}

All the parties at Geneva called for reunification elections, but they could not agree on the details. Recently appointed Việt Minh acting foreign minister [[Phạm Văn Đồng]] proposed elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States, with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, suggested United Nations supervision. This plan was rejected by Soviet representative [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], who argued for a commission composed of an equal number of communist and non-communist members, which could determine "important" issues only by unanimous agreement.{{sfn|Turner|1975|pp=89, 91, 97}} The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification. North Vietnam argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire while the Western allies sought to have no deadline. Molotov proposed June 1955, then later softened this to any time in 1955 and finally July 1956.{{sfn|Logevall|2012|p=610}} The Diệm government supported reunification elections, but only with effective international supervision, arguing that genuinely free elections were otherwise impossible in the totalitarian North.{{sfn|Turner|1975|p=107}}

[[File:Jawaharlal Nehru with Dr. Ho Chi-Minh.jpg|thumb|Ho Chi Minh with Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] in New Delhi, India, 7 February 1958]]
By the afternoon of 20 July 1954, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as the parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and the elections for a reunified government should be held in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire.{{sfn|Logevall|2012|p=604}} The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was only signed by the French and Việt Minh military commands, with no participation or consultation of the State of Vietnam.{{sfn|Turner|1975|p=97}} Based on a proposal by Chinese delegation head Zhou Enlai, an [[International Control Commission]] (ICC) chaired by India, with Canada and Poland as members, was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire.{{sfn|Logevall|2012|p=603}}{{sfn|Turner|1975|pp=90, 97}} Because issues were to be decided unanimously, Poland's presence in the ICC provided the Communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty.{{sfn|Turner|1975|pp=97–98}} The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Việt Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections, insisting that the ICC's "competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties".{{sfn|Turner|1975|p=99}} Of the nine nations represented, only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration. Undersecretary of state [[Walter Bedell Smith]] delivered a "unilateral declaration" of the United States position, reiterating: "We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by the United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly".{{sfn|Turner|1975|pp=95, 99–100}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-48579-0009, Stralsund, Ho Chi Minh mit Matrosen der NVA.jpg|thumb|left|Hồ Chí Minh with East German sailors in [[Stralsund]] harbor during his 1957 visit to East Germany]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-48550-0036, Besuch Ho Chi Minhs bei Pionieren, bei Berlin.jpg|thumb|left|Hồ Chí Minh with members of the East German [[Pioneer movement|Young Pioneers]] near Berlin, 1957]]
Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including rent reduction and [[Land reform in Vietnam|land reform]], which were accompanied with executions of "reactionary and evil landlords." During the land reform, testimonies by North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution per 160 village residents, which if extrapolated would indicate a nationwide total of nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions was widely accepted by scholars at the time.{{sfn|Turner|1975|p=143}}<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3024603|jstor=3024603|doi=10.2307/3024603|last1=Gittinger|first1=J. Price|title=Communist Land Policy in North Viet Nam|journal=Far Eastern Survey|year=1959|volume=28|issue=8|pages=113–126|issn=0362-8949}}</ref>{{efn| Dommen (2001), p.340 gives a lower estimate of 32,000 executions}} However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although it was likely greater than 13,500.<ref>{{cite mailing list |last=Vu |first=Tuong |title=Newly released documents on the land reform |date=25 May 2007 |publisher=Vietnam Studies Group |url=https://sites.google.com/a/uw.edu/vietnamstudiesgroup/discussion-networking/vsg-discussion-list-archives/vsg-discussion-2007/newly-released-documents-on-the-land-reform |access-date=30 November 2017 |quote=Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low-end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper "Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953–1956" presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (February 2001). In this paper, Moise (7–9) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book (which was 5,000) and accepted an estimate of close to 15,000 executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign, the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture (the central government bore less direct responsibility for these cases, however). |archive-date=1 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191201013541/https://sites.google.com/a/uw.edu/vietnamstudiesgroup/discussion-networking/vsg-discussion-list-archives/vsg-discussion-2007/newly-released-documents-on-the-land-reform |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Szalontai|first=Balazs|title=Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56|url=https://6931dbf1-a-017ed1b7-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/uw.edu/vietnamstudiesgroup/discussion-networking/vsg-discussion-list-archives/vsg-discussion-2011/drv-1956-decree-law/DRV%201956%20decree%20law.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cp-R3ROUQ71qMNWrYB5PoNF4zn1AbM0d-9c6MUbPPZALpDk4hyV6rybi8TdtN5P2p0RcEVIf61wGGrE3q3U0Ygk3U_7T6BkroHF5SmJZ6PDXNmifl--nYT_pHqyHfloE0_ypCwab_ZbO9refyEGpHEyRLeKw8Jy7NhKZI1x8NJ2wbO13M8HjtaXiHEzzDP-Qzu-fiwM8GUMl932SmyYS98YsvPlvYpTRyUGWD7Dj3pLiRpibd5-V8swsU9n1F6Gr3bcVYQ58utuSNoi2H-S0kEjG4C4C0y_b_UQtj4ei3h8LAzGBAOUhCMHdf1Y1V0yCm91UdjrIKgNmXOWcLed3p8U7ORhpcqPAZJp_zttHhsiWo2D7lY%3D&attredirects=0|access-date=30 November 2017|journal=[[Cold War History (journal)|Cold War History]]|volume=5|number=4|date=November 2005|pages=395–426|doi=10.1080/14682740500284630|s2cid=153956945}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{sfn|Vu|2010|p=103. "Clearly Vietnamese socialism followed a moderate path relative to China. &nbsp;... Yet the Vietnamese 'land reform' campaign&nbsp;... testified that Vietnamese communists could be as radical and murderous as their comrades elsewhere"}} In early 1956, North Vietnam ended the land reform and initiated a "correction of errors" to rectify the mistakes and damage done. That year, Hồ Chí Minh apologised and acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform.<ref name="Moise, pp. 237–268">Moise, pp. 237–268</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://hochiminh.vn/tu-tuong-dao-duc-ho-chi-minh/nghien-cuu-tu-tuong-dao-duc-ho-chi-minh/tu-chuc-thoi-chuc-va-nhung-lan-sua-sai-thoi-chu-tich-ho-chi-minh-8270 | title=Từ chức, thôi chức và những lần sửa sai thời Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh }}</ref> As part of the campaign, as many as 23,748 political prisoners were released by North Vietnam by September 1957.<ref>Szalontai, p. 401</ref> By 1958, the correction campaign had resulted in the return of land to many of those harmed by the land reform.<ref name="Moise, pp. 237–268"/>