Here is the first scholarly book-length analysis of Communist Vietnam's political system. Taking advantage of the unprecedented wealth of revealing documentary material published in Vietnam since 1985, Gareth Porter offers new insights into the functioning of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and its management of the Vietnamese economy and society. He examines the evolution of the system from the time the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was founded in 1945 through the 1986-1990 period of economic liberalization and cautious political reform by the successor regime, the SRV.