While I disagree that communism is in essence evil (it should be awesome!), I fully agree that appart from the attempts of Gorbatchev (who was and is a great man) and the first 3 years of the needed revolution, the soviet experience is a terible one. You won't catch me ever saying otherwise.
There are indeed very few places where communism has succeeded in changing the paradigm for a better one in a sustained fashion, but there are a few (Italy, Sweden, France...). But anyone who actually understands communism (have read what it actually is) and the modern world fully aknowledges that it is in its pure form only an ideal, not reachable, since logic and experience show us that putting men in the equation too often fatally corrupts it.
I'm not more sensitive about communism than about most political systems. I simply find debating those extremely interesting and rewarding. so I thrive to be accurate, that's all. If you take this as a defense of it, I must confess I'm quite surprised, as I really don't see where I defended the soviet regime here. Becca had many pre-concieved ideas about Russia and communism, and I can understand where they come from, she's not alone in this, but if correcting her on those is defending Stalinism, I guess something really got lost on the way.
Of course, I disagree that capitalism is better than social democracy, whole heartidly and empiricaly, and that's my real opinion you can attack. But I'd rather not be attacked for one that isn't mine. Are we good?

Now about Indochina

It is my understanding that when France took control of those territories between 1860 and 1890, they were under the rule of the chinese emperor. Of course, religion always plays a part, and it all started as "protection" of the persecuted catholic minorities. This was not a great place to live in, and health, education, economy got at first much better under french colonialism, essentially because this never was an actual settlement colony. The problem is that the french administration never managed to create a truly equal society, as the more non-urban populations remained marginalized. It really starts going to hell afterWWI, with some insurections, and at the tail-end of WWII, under the very violent japanese occupation.
And that's where your equation starts missing a few crucial names : Churchill, Truman & Staline decided without consulting France that Indochina would now become Chinese (in the north) and British (in the south) colonies.
When the locals see the chinese army arriving, and plundering everything, a lot of them allies themselves with the french who are standing by with Leclerc (not De Gaulle).
ensues a horrible chaotic fight where the british with the french, the liberated locals fight the Việt Minh , the dozen of thousand remaining and armed japanese, the colaborationist governement, etc, mixed race families are massacred, trostkist are massacred by the Việt Minh , etc. Pure chaos.
Finally, order is somewhat restored in Saigon, but the british leave the mess to the french, seing how the Việt Minh is nothing they want to confront themselves with, with all the problems they are starting to face in India.
So what happens is that De Gaulle actually first tries to find a way to save the situation by giving it all away back to the exiled prince/emperor Vinh San, who accepts before being killed in a plane "crash".
It then becomes an opposition between Ho Chi Minh and general Leclerc (the people's hero of the WWII french army), and Ho Chi Minh allies himself with Truman to even the odds. This calms the situation majorly : the Việt Minh recognizes and allows the french military's return, and the France recognize Viet Nam as a free state (not independant, because everyone is afraid that China would take advantage of this to invade). Laos and Cambodia are in similar tense situation, and with the constant friction between the Việt Minh and the french army, civil war starts in late 1947, before turning into war.
In 1950, China turns communist, and this complicates things even further.
As the civil war turns dirtier with the newly communist armed Việt Minh in the north, France is seing an exode of the people from hte north to the south, and can't control the north anymore.
It becomes a dirty waiting game, exhausting the french army who doesn't really know anymore if it's there to help or to maintain a sort of colonial empire.
France tries one last stand and takes back in the isolated Diên Biên Phu in the North. In 1954, the inevitable happens, and the Việt Minh attacks without end the position for almost two months, killing or taking prisoners the 13000 soldiers with no escape route.
In France, no one sees the point in trying to keep on after that, and by the summer, the Geneva treaty states that France will leave the whole peninsula, and the Việt Minh will leave Laos and Cambodia, even if everyone knows that Russia and China will ake advantage of that. France just doesn't have the will or the means to keep on.
And that's where I don't really see why people seem to bring De Gaulle again and again in this, since he didn't held any governement position until 1958.

But after all that, I think it's fair to add two names to yor equation : Kissinger and Bush sr. Kissinger, I guess I don't need to explain why, but Bush Sr was director of the CIA during the worst part of the war, and there are quite many official documents that attest a very ugly conspiracy as to why the war wasn't ended earlier, and that is wher e we fall back to comics as Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz masterfully told that story in Brought to Light
You can read it there