Transition period

                                                  
After the Geneva Conference of 1954 Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel and under the Geneva Accords all civilians were to be given the oportunity to move freely between North and South Vietnam for a 300 day period. Elections throughout Vietnam were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government for the country. There was around 1 million northeners, maily minority Catholics that fled south because of the fear of persecution by the communists in North Vietnam, following an American propoganda campaign  that was using slogans like "The Virgin Mary is heading south" and aided by a United States funded $93 million relocation program that included ferrying refugees from the north with the Seventh Fleet. It has been estimated that as many as 2 million more would have left North Vietnam if they had not been stoped by the Viet Minh. The northern mostly Catholic refugees were supposed to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti communist body of voters. Diệm later went on to fill his administrations key posts with mostly northern and central Catholics, Diệm was also a Catholic himself.

As well as the Catholics flowing south up to 130,000 "Revolutionary Regroupees" went to North Vietnam for "regroupment", they expected to return to South Vietnam within two years. The Viet Minh left about 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the South as a "politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism". The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956 and the PRC compleated its withdrawl of soldiers from North Vietnam at around the same time. Around 52,000 vietamese civilians moved from the South to the North.

In the North of Vietnam the Viet Minh ruled as the Democratic Republic of Vietmam, they engaged in a drastic land reform program in wich 100,000 percieved "class enemies" were executed. Some estimates from people range from 200,000 to 900,000 deaths from things like executions, camps, and famine. leaders in Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program so they restored a large amount of land to the original owners in 1956.

The South of Vietnam meanwhile constituted the State of Vietnam with Bảo Đại who was the last emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm as his Prime Minister. In June 1955, Diem announced that the scheduled 1956 elections would not be held, he claimed that South Vietnam had rejected the Geneva Accords from the start and was therefore not bound by them. He asked  "How can we expect 'free elections' to be held in the Communist North?". United States president Eisenhower agreed with senior U.S. experts when he wrote than in 1954 "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh over Emperor Bảo Đại".

In 1955 from April to June Diem (against U.S. advice) eliminated any political oposition to him in the south by launching military operations against the religious sect Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao sect of Ba Cut and the Binh Xuyen organised crime group. As broard-based oposition to what people considerd his harsh tactics grew grater, Diem increasingly sought to blame the communists.

On the 23rd of October 1955 there was a referendum on the future of the state of Vietnam, Diem rigged the poll that was supervised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, he was credited with 98.2% of the vote, this included 133% in Saigon. Three days later on 26th of October 1955 Diem declared South Vietnam to be an independent state known as the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) with himself as president.