The processes of urbanisation and urban development in the developing countries of the socialist world are poorly understood, yet they are clearly of some significance. In comparison with the rate of urbanisation in developing countries with predominantly market economies, the rate of urbanisation in socialist developing countries usually slows down considerably after the revolution that brings the socialist regime to power, In the Murray–Szelenyi model this slowdown in the rate of urbanisation is attributed to class struggle, as a newly formed state class attempts to wrest power from the bourgeois class. With Vietnam as a case study this article is an examination of urbanisation under socialism in the light of the Murray–Szelenyi model, It is argued that the model attributes too much importance to the power of the state in socialist societies. As a result it underestimates the significance of external pressures, particularly warfare, and the structure of civil society, especially ethnic conflict, in shaping the rate and pattern of urbanisation.
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