Le Duan
North Vietnamese communist politician
Died when: 79 years 94 days (951 months)Star Sign: Aries
Lê Du?n (Vietnamese: [le z??^n]; 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 H? Chí Minh's policy of ruling through collective leadership. From the mid-1960s (when H?'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 Qu?ng Tr? Province, in the southern part of French Indochina as Lê Van Nhu?n.
Little is known about his family and childhood. He first came in contact with revolutionary thoughts in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk.
Lê Du?n 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 Du?n was released from jail following the successful Communist-led August Revolution of August 1945. During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), Lê Du?n was an active revolutionary leader in South Vietnam.
He headed the Central Office of South Vietnam, a Party organ, from 1951 until 1954. During the 1950s Lê Du?n became increasingly aggressive towards South Vietnam and called for reunification through war.
By the mid-to-late 1950s Lê Du?n had become the second-most powerful policy-maker within the Party, eclipsing former party First Secretary Tru?ng Chinh.
By 1960 he was officially the second-most powerful Party member, after Party chairman H?. Throughout the 1960s H?'s health declined and Lê Du?n assumed more of his responsibilities.
On 2 September 1969 H? died and Lê Du?n became the most powerful figure in the North. He became the General Secretary in 1960, officially becoming the main personality in the party after H?
Chí Minh. After H?'s death, Lê Du?n took over the leadership of North Vietnam. Throughout the Vietnam War of 1955 to 1975, Lê Du?n took an aggressive posture, seeing attack as the key to victory.
When South Vietnam was reunited with North Vietnam in 1976 and the party was restructured, Lê Du?n became General Secretary of the Party.
Lê Du?n and his associates were overly optimistic about the future. The Second Five-Year Plan (1976–1980) failed and left the Vietnamese economy in crisis.
He endorsed the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia of December 1978, aiming to overthrow the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge regime. This had a serious impact on relations between Vietnam and China, with Vietnam responding with the deportation of ethnic Chinese and China carrying out a heavy-loss punitive expedition against Vietnam in 1979.
From then on, Vietnam maintained a closer alliance with the Soviet Union and joined Comecon in 1978. Lê remained General Secretary until his death in 1986.
He died in Hanoi; his successor was initially Tru?ng Chinh. Lê Du?n was also known as Lê Dung, and was known in public as "anh Ba" (third brother).
