Interesting Wikipedia article on Vietnam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam
They share your view that it remains a Communist country which includes government control of major industries, severe censorship of citizens and the media.
Over time the economy has been improving and tourism has been thriving—but it remains to be seen if that will have any significant impact on the form of government.
They were fortunate that Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, before the end of the war, the new leaders weren’t as tied to the whole Comintern thing, like Ho was, and once they Soviet Union collapsed, they did what they had to do to stay in power.