Several chapters are devoted to a detailed examination of the Viet Cong and South Vietnamese government economies at war. Particularly significant is the role that economic issues and policies played in the successful efforts by the Viet Cong from 1960 to 1964 to gain the support of the peasant. Land reform, rent reduction, and even a minimum rural-wage policy were employed. The author provides the first documentary evidence that the Viet Cong were a major force for constructive economic and social change in the Delta.
On the other hand, by 1967 massive U.S. economic assistance has gone some distance toward putting the South Vietnamese government in a more favorable position, to the extent that economic benefits were associated with dependence on it and allegiance to it. No doubt, however, long-standing economic and social grievances are still potent force for the Viet Cong, and there is as yet no complete assurance that the revolutionary social and economic changes wrought by the Viet Cong would not be reversed if the Vietnamese government gained complete control in the countryside.
