I think the north was run by Vietnamese after booting out the French capitalists who treated them really really poorly exploiting them like so many other colonialists. They looked north to China and Russia and saw similar scenerios and decided that is what is needed to get their country back on track. They then looked south and saw their brothers being exploited and decided they needed to do something about it. Capitalists hate being told they cant do what they think they have the right to do and so the battles ensued because the capitalists had the superior fighting power. 1000s on both sides lost to idealogy once again.
Financially the country is doing very well at this point however its ex military politicos that are making the fortunes and the rest work hard and have capitalist opportunities, they blow our brains out with growth potential.
