History of Vietnam since 1945 between France and the Viet-Minh, paving the way for the French to leave Vietnam. The Geneva Conference of 1954 ended France's colonial presence in Vietnam and partitioned the country into two states at the 17th parallel pending unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections. Ngô Đình Diệm, a former mandarin with a strong Catholic and Confucian background, was selected as Premier of the State of Vietnam by Bảo Đại. While Diệm was trying to settle the differences between the various armed militias in the South, Bảo Đại was persuaded to reduce his power. Diệm created a referendum in
Land reform in North Vietnam province. This experiment was fruitful according to the official, and a Central Land Reform Committee was established on 15 March 1954 which was headed by Pham Van Dong. Land reform then expanded to larger areas by five waves (see the table below). Compared to the prior campaign, land reform campaign proper was carried out more violently and in larger areas especially after the Geneva Conference because the VWP leaders realized that the Geneva Agreement was impossible to be implemented; and feared that Diem’s “March North” may start a fire at its backyard. Five times the number of landlords than the