Book Reviews : From Colonialism to Communism: A Case History of North Vietnam. By HOANG VAN CHI. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964. Pp. vii, 252. $6.50.)
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296401700424 |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| Author | Donald Douglas Dalgleish |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
810
queville
foresaw)
distinguish
the
two
rival
systems.
The
aggregate
portrait
is
both
illuminating
and
productive
of
fresh
perspectives.
There
is
less
to
be
said
in
favor
of
the
authors’
concluding
essay,
that
which
pro-
poses
to
assess
the
theory
of
convergence.
What
do
they
mean
by
the
phrase?
Like
Humpty
Dumpty,
they
indicate
that
it
means
just
what
they
want
it
to
mean,
and
that
is
that
the
two
opposed
political
systems
are
supposed
to
become
alike
in
pre-
cisely
those
operational
categories
that
have been
described.
On
this
basis
they
reject
the
whole
idea,
and
predict
instead
that
each
system
will
evolve
separately
in
accord-
ance
with
its
own
history
and
attributes.
Since
this
prediction
happens
to
be
a
uni-
versal
and
timeless
truism,
no
one
will
quarrel
with
it.
But
is
this
what
is
commonly
implied
in
the
idea
of
the
U.S.-U.S.S.R.
converg-
ence
theory?
Certainly
the
general
view
is
more
broadly
conceived
than
just
the
workings
of
the
political
process;
and
it
suggests,
not
an
identity
or
coalescence
of
the
two
regimes
but
rather
a
gradual
lessening
of
the
extreme
distance
between
their
social-political-economic
configurations.
The
process
is
already
under
way,
and
it
moves
from
both
ends.
The
motive
impulses
are
not
political
speculations
but
pri-
marily
the
imperatives
of
industrial
rationalization
and
of
scientific
advance.
These
carry
with
them
as
pragmatic
requirements
such
phenomena
as
centralization,
bu-
reaucracy,
hyper-interdependence,
mass-manipulation,
and
other
sociological
by-
products
destined
to
exert
pressure
upon
democratic
and
communist
systems
alike.
Brzezinski
and
Huntington
argue
that
all
this
must
ultimately
be
expressed
through
the
indigenous
political
system
of
each
country
in
its
own
way.
True,
in
part
-
but
consider,
for
example,
how
the
forms
of
dissent
in
both
countries
are
perceptibly
changing
the
mode
of
their
expression.
In
a
curiously
oblique
argument
against
expecting
benefits
in
the
foreign
affairs
field
from
a
prospective
convergence,
the
authors
remind
us
that
&dquo;even
a
common
Communist
system
has
not
prevented
bitter
hostility
between
China
and
Russia,&dquo;
and
further,
that
&dquo;most
European
wars
were
fought
by
countries
with
very
similar.
social
and
political
structures.&dquo;
From
which
intelligence
several
inferences
can
be
drawn.
The
clearest,
however,
would
seem
to
be
the
authors’
fear
of
the
spectre
of
an
American-Soviet
détente.
LOUIS
WASSERMAN
San
Francisco
State
College
From
Colonialism
to
Communism:
A
Case
History
of
North
Vietnam.
By
HOANG
VAN
CHI.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger,
1964.
Pp.
vii,
252.
$6.50.)
This
case
study
of
post-World
War
II
economic,
political,
and
ideological
de-
velopments
in
North
Vietnam
is
an
effective
combination
of
scholarly
detachment,
clear
organization,
a
sprightly
style,
and
meaningful
personal
experience.
Both
the
general
reading
public
and
the
political
specialist
are
therefore
effortlessly
provided
with
a
general
but
reliable
account
of
how
the
Vietnamese
Communists
relentlessly
transformed
the
native
anticolonial
movement
into
a
totalitarian
system
fully
opera-
tional
in
a
nonindustrial
setting.
Additional
but
somewhat
sketchy
insights
are
pro-
vided,
for
example,
into
the
failure
of
French
colonial
administration
to
extend
a
form
of
Western
civilization
beyond
unavoidably
vulnerable
centers
of
urban
activity
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