Revolutions and World Order

Rosemary Plummer
BA History

Revolutions and World Order: The Cases of North Korea, Vietnam, Iran and the Islamic State (ISIS)

Tuong Vu began this research seminar by announcing a slight change to the title, “Revolutions and World Order: The Cases of North Korea, Vietnam, Iran and the Islamic State’, became simply ‘Revolution and World Order, Communist vs Islamic states’. The seminar related to his recent book on the Vietnamese Communist revolution. His talk analysed the trajectories of states which desire to break away from the Western World. He explained the existing schools of thought on the topic of revolutionary states and explained that he belonged to a more optimistic group of scholars, who feel that revolutionary states will not destroy the Western World order, but rather believe that such states will eventually reintegrate. He emphasized that it is wrong to assume that the US is to blame for the collapse of all revolutionary states, which I found an especially interesting insight when considering the agency of smaller states. While I appreciate the need to recognise the agency of smaller states, it is disputable to what extent any small nation can truly have agency when the world’s greatest power is opposed to its very existence. Tuong Vu did however tackle this topic by noting that the existence of powerful allies can allow revolutionary states to exist longer than those who lack such allies. Tuong Vu mentioned that he grew up in Vietnam during the revolution, which undoubtedly gave him a unique insight into how enthusiasm can be quickly displaced by apathy and anger, as food starts to disappear and the dream of a utopia collapses. Tuong Vu then identified 3, logics of transcendence, explaining how material needs and shared values, combined with the impatience of revolutionaries often leads to states reintegrating into the existing world order, rather than achieving their goals of escaping this system.

Tuong Vu then offered a detailed comparison of the similarities between North Korea and North Vietnam, to back up his findings, alongside the benefit of his exclusive understanding of the Vietnamese nuclear weapons programme. He acknowledged that despite the many similarities between the two countries, it was the combination of ideologies, allies and nationalisms that led them to occupy such different places in the world order today. This was a fascinating comparison and it is a shame he did not have more time to also offer a full analysis of where Islamic states fit into this picture, as it would have been interesting to see how he labelled religion as effecting revolution – is it merely another ideology like communism or can it be seen as a more powerful force than that?

I really enjoyed the presentation style employed by Tuong Vu, as he ensured that his main points were clearly displayed at all times. He also began the talk with images of Obama meeting the Cuban leader and Trump engaging in talks with Kim Jong Un, to demonstrate the relevance of his work to the present, although upon being questioned he did admit that he had looked more at long term evolution than impacts on modern policy.

This seminar as a whole was a useful insight into perceptions of states and world order. I am currently taking a Philosophy module on War, Terror and Justice and this seminar encouraged me to perceive states as ever evolving entities and to understand that perhaps small revolutionary states are not just oppressed by larger states, but also play a role in their own downfall. If I was to research surrounding the area of revolution, I would be intrigued to see what scholars have to say about the rebranding of ideologies (such as communism in China) and to examine whether a revolutionary state can ever survive alone, as Tuong Vu implied that such an existence is impossible and will eventually, inevitably lead to collapse.