From revolution to evolution: the changing meanings of socialist land in Vietnam

The socialist trope of people’s ownership of land laid down deep roots in Vietnam. According to the communist party’s foundational mythology, the revolution was fought to replace private land ownership with collective agriculture. By the end of the 1980s internal and external forces compelled reluctant party leaders to incrementally strengthen private rights property rights in land. This chapter explores why this shift towards private land rights has followed different trajectories for agricultural land, and urban residential land. It then discusses how public pressure over land-taking disputes has promoted the party-state to make some modest reforms without touching the socialist trope that land is a public asset.