The Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957) was launched by Chairman Mao Zedong aimed at lifting up diverse views and investigation into possible solutions for the path forward for the newly established People’s Republic of China, and the People’s Democratic Dictatorship. It encouraged investigation, openness to new ideas, and, as Karl Marx said, ruthless criticism of all that exists.

In this spirit of letting a hundred flowers bloom, the HUNDRED FLOWERS SERIES focuses on investigating and republishing source materials on the various schools of thought existing within Marxism-Leninism, and the various approaches taken to Socialist governance and theory — Actually Existing Socialism.

This book gives the reader an introduction into the approach taken by Vietnamese Communists.

Since its inception in February of 1930, the Communist Party of Vietnam has raised up the application of Marxist principles to Vietnamese historical, social, and material conditions as a foundational value, and a requirement for national liberation and socialist transition. This Socialism with Vietnamese Characteristics owes its greatest earliest contributions to the work of Chairman Hồ Chí Minh, who drew from the rich history of the Vietnamese and broader Indochinese people and began applying Marxist theory to their conditions in a way no other thinker or revolutionary had at the time. Not as a matter of dogma, or ideal, but of science. General Secretary Lê Duẩn, a contemporary of Chairman Hồ Chí Minh, would go on to further refine the application of Hồ Chí Minh Thought and expand upon the work of his Comrade. General Võ Nguyên Giáp, as the Minister of Defence, masterminded one of the greatest military upsets in modern history, and, as a contemporary of Comrades Hồ Chí Minh and Lê Duẩn, likewise contributed considerably to the foundations of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which today stands as a prosperous and developing beacon of peace, liberation, and Socialism.