This book focuses on how the Vietnam Communist party adapted to its environment in order to achieve and exercise power and to what degree these adaptations made the Vietnamese revolution distinctive.

1. Introduction 2. Communism and History in Vietnam 3. Vietnamese Revolutionary Doctrine in Comparative Perspective 4. Vietnamese Communism and the Peasants: Analogy and Originality in Vietnamese Experience 5. "Class-Ism" in North Vietnam, 1953-1956 6. Vietnamese Communism and Religious Sectarianism 7. Influences and Idiosyncracies in the Line and Practice of the Vietnam Communist Party 8. Political Participation and the Vietnamese Communist Party 9. Institutionalizing the Revolution: Vietnam's Search for a Model of Development 10. Vietnam and the Socialist Camp: Center or Periphery?