Home » Images » 0045 Pictures From History » CPA0022471

Vietnam: Le Duan (1907-1986), General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, 1980-1986

Lê Duẩn (7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s and became General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP) at the 3rd National Congress in 1960. He continued Hồ Chí Minh's policy of ruling through collective leadership. From the mid-1960s, when Hồ's health was failing, until his own death in 1986, he was the top decision-maker in Vietnam.

He was born into a lower-class family in Quảng Trị province, in the central part of French Indochina as Lê Văn Nhuận. Little is known about his family and childhood. He first came in contact with Marxist literature in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk. Lê Duẩn was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (the future Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1930. He was imprisoned in 1931 and released in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he climbed the party ladder. He was rearrested in 1939, this time for fomenting an uprising in the South. Lê Duẩn was released from jail following the successful communist-led August Revolution.

During the First Indochina War, Lê Duẩn was an active communist cadre in the South. He headed the Central Office of South Vietnam, a party organ, from 1951 until 1954. During the 1950s Lê Duẩn became increasingly aggressive towards the South and called for reunification through war. By the mid-to-late 1950s Lê Duẩn had become the second-most powerful policy-maker within the Party, eclipsing former party First Secretary Trường Chinh. By 1960, he was officially the second-most powerful party member, after party chairman Hồ. Throughout the 1960s Hồ's health declined and Lê Duẩn assumed more of his responsibilities. On 2 September 1969, Hồ died and Lê Duẩn became the most powerful figure in the North.

Throughout the Vietnam War, Lê Duẩn took an aggressive posture. He saw attack as the key to victory. When the North finally won the war in 1975, Lê Duẩn and his associates were overly optimistic about the future. The Second Five-Year Plan (1976–1980) was a failure and left the Vietnamese economy in crisis. Vietnam was then headed by a gerontocracy (in which the rulers are much older than the average adult). Vietnam became internationally isolated during Lê Duẩn's rule. In 1979 the country had invaded Kampuchea and ousted Pol Pot, fought a war with China and became dependent on Soviet economic aid. Lê Duẩn died in 1986 and was succeeded by Trường Chinh in July.