Nguyen Van Linh

Nguyen Van Linh , 1915-98, Vietnamese political leader, b. near Hanoi as Nguyen Van Cuc. As a young man he was active in organizing Vietnam's Communist party and was twice jailed (1931-36; 1941-45) for his political activities. In the years following Vietnam's independence (1945), Linh rose in the party ranks. During the Vietnam War , he was a Viet Cong guerilla leader, directing Hanoi's war efforts in South Vietnam and specializing in anti-American propaganda. In 1968 he led North Vietnam's Tet offensive , a campaign that, though militarily unsuccessful, marked the beginning of the end for South Vietnam and for American involvement in the war. Although Linh lost power during the 1980s due to his opposition to Hanoi's policy toward the South, he became the leader of the Vietnamese Communist party in 1986. Linh maintained party supremacy in the political sphere, but he revitalized Vietnam's economy by lessening state control and introducing elements of a free market system. He retired in 1991.

Nguyen Van Linh (b. 1 July 1915, d. 27 Apr. 1998). General Secretary of Vietnamese Communist Party 1986–92 Born Nguyen Van Cuc in Hanoi, he soon became active against the French colonial occupation, was imprisoned, and sent to the French penal colony at Con Dao Island, 1930–6, 1941–5. A member of the Indochinese Communist Party since 1936, he became its chief organizer in central and south Vietnam, first against the French, and then against the US-backed governments of Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu. After the end of the Vietnam War he became head of the party in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), where he introduced a number of unorthodox, but relatively successful, economic policies. As party general secretary and de facto Vietnamese leader he introduced economic reforms while insisting upon the maintenance of the party's political monopoly.