Like most complex topics, it’s a little bit of both - anti-colonial and civil war. The communist side pushed the anti-colonial narrative because it benefited t

Like most complex topics, it’s a little bit of both - anti-colonial and civil war. The communist side pushed the anti-colonial narrative because it benefited them - “the only true independent representative of the Vietnamese people.” which made Vietnamese fighting Vietnamese more palatable. But this ignores that there were many competing factions in 1945, all vying for power in an independent Vietnam - VNQDD, Dai Viet, Revolutionary party, etc. In the North they were eliminated leading up the August revolution when the communists first took power. And while the North liked to call the South “puppets” due to the support it received from the US, the North received substantial support from the USSR and China (which it kept very quiet). So one could argue both North and South wanted an independent Vietnam - I think that is well supported. So saying it evolved into a civil war is correct. Of course that definition is muddied by the proxy war the great powers were carrying out through their support.