The persisting traditional intellectual and political legacies of both countrieshad ，of course，also been overlaid by the Marxist ideology that arrived in Vietnamand China in the second decade of this century.The young intellectuals who wereattracted to Marxism were disturbed by the dominance of Western power ，the humiliating ？backwardnessìthat had befallen their own lands ，and the poverty of most of theircompatriots.The new Marxist-Leninist credo taught them that through revolutionand the establishment of socialism，they would be able to leap-frog the capitalistWestern imperial states into a more advanced stage of history.This vision of renewednational pride through Communist revolution became a beacon that was not extinguishedin many loyalists'minds until the 1970s or 1980s.
Such an ideology could readily be turned to purposes of nation-building ，andthe Communist parties of China and Vietnam came to embody a nationalist thrust.They swept to power through long wars of liberation that enabled them to establisheffective governments-in-waiting long before they occupied the capital city andcould claim nationwide power.In all these respects ，their histories were unlikethe raft of East and Central European countries that were occupied by the Red Armyat the close of World War II.The two Asian Communist parties came to symbolizenational identity and thus enjoyed a status and source of legitimacy that in Europewas comparatively weak.In a country like Poland，it was the Church，not the Party，that became identified with patriotic pride.Even in the Soviet Union ，which wasmore successful in building a nationalist identity for the Party through its leadershipin the resistance to German invasion in World War II，the non-Russian nationalitieswithin the USSR continued to hold to their own separate loyalties and historicalsymbols ，and in the longer run these have proven stronger than the bonds thatParty rule tried to cement.And among the Russian population，a great many peoplecontinued to harbour loyalty to a separate Russian identity that came readily tothe fore when the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991.None of this applied to Chinaand Vietnam ，countries which，numerically，are overwhelmingly dominated by asingle ethnic group and whose Communist parties could readily wrap themselves inthe national flag.This has provided the two Asian parties with greater stayingpower ：they not only face far weaker potential challenges to party rule than inPoland or the ethnically-divided Soviet Union ，but also hold a far stronger confidencein their right and capacity to rule than was the case in much of Eastern Europe.
The wars of liberation in China and Vietnam were，notably，rural-based revolutions，again quite unlike Russia ，the fount of Communist revolutions ，whose BolshevikRevolution resembled more an urban coup than a protracted revolutionary struggle.The new Bolshevik government nurtured a suspicion of the rural areas and of thefarming population，and imposed collectivization almost as a war against the countryside.The regimes that were implanted elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe after WorldWar II generally followed their mentor's perception.This suspicion of the peasantwas entirely lacking in China and Vietnam ，where，if anything，the villageswere perceived as bastions of support for the revolution.The leadership in bothcountries believed that they could introduce a far larger degree of administrativedecentralization in their countrysides，entrusting local rural Party cadres toloyally pursue the national party line.