“Preliminary Comments on Mobilizing the Masses, 1953”

Modelled after the Chinese experience, the land reform undertaken by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam of 1953–56 is perhaps the most important domestic policy of the Vietnamese Communist revolution. Because of a scarcity of primary sources, however, very little is known about the influence of Chinese advisors on this policy. Luo Guibo’s recommendations on mobilizing the masses to carry out land reform are one of the very few known documents drafted by a leading Chinese advisor to the Hanoi government. Translating and making this document available makes possible a rare glimpse of the Chinese perspective on and assessment of the situation in Vietnam in the early 1950s. It also illuminates one aspect of the influential role of Chinese advisors in Sino–Vietnamese relations during that decade, especially in the controversial land reform campaign.