North Vietnam's determination to seek a neutral course in domestic policy was revealed by two significant develop-
ments in the winter of 1959-1960. First was the growing skepticism over the applicability t o Vietnam of the Chinese model of economic and social development. In September Premier
Pham Van Dong had publicly exposed this skepticism when he enumerated various defects in the 1959 economic plan, singled
out for special criticism the excessive agricultural production goals which had been forced on the peasants, and pointedly asserted that "socialist ideology and enthusiasm cannot automatically make us skillful." Further admission of failure in North Vietnam's "leap forward" program appeared at-this time in the progressive reduction of the highly unrealistic goals of the Three Year Program (1958 to 1960). Most striking was the drastic scaling-down of the 1960'food target from the plan figure of 7.6 million tons to 5.5 million tons.