A watershed party
International Viewpoint 26 January 1987
VIETNAM selves to be correct. It also put in question a certain number of "big options and policies and strategic leadership."
This is not the first time that the VCP has made a solemn self-criticism. It did so in 1956, after the disastrous failure of an overly authoritarian and drastic agrarian reform; and in the failure of over. policies put into pracafter 1975-76. But the selfnonetheless unprec-
THE SIXTH National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party met in official session from December 15 to 18, 1986. It clearly did not mark the end of the battles over orientation that have been going on now for nearly ten years. Despite the death last July of the party's previous secretary, Le Duan, and the retirement of three other historic leaders, this congress did not usher in any radical rejuvenation of the leadership bodies. It left to the Seventh Congress the task of adopting a new overall program on the paths of transition to socialism. It adopted only a limited number of concrete reforms, most of them concerning the economic targets of the 1986-90 five-
Nonetheless, the Sixth Congress promises to prove a watershed in the history of Vietnamese communism. Given the gravity of the situation in the country, it was an occasion for still sharper self- criticism than the previous congress in 1982. The congress took more radical steps than ever before to renew the leaderships. It represented an important stage in the conflict between the "renovators" and the
"orthodox," with the former strengthening their positions. On a deeper level, this congress made a break with the party's traditional theoretical framework of reference, a break whose long term portent it is still impossible to evaluate.
PIERRE ROUSSET
Fifth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was already a self-critical one. (1) At this one, four years later, Le Duan's successor as general secretary of the VCP, minced no words
Truong Chinh, in the speech he made to the 1,129
He explicitly laid responsiblility for the failures at the door of the leading bodies as a whole, rather than putting the blame on those who implemented the policies.
"We frankly analyse and bravely admit the serious and longstanding shortcomings and mistakes as concerns major viewpoints and policies, strategic guidance and the organization of the work .... Responsibility for these shortcomings and mistakes rests first of all with the party Central
Committee, the Political Bureau, the and with the Council of
Secretariat
Ministers. The party Central Committee would like to seriously criticize itself for its own shortcomings before the congress." (2)
The political resolution adopted by the Sixth Congress briefly hailed the
"achievements of these last years," claiming that they were the result of the party line laid out in the Fourth
Congresses (respectively in 1976 and 1982.) (3) But it very quickly turned to a self-critical tone: "We realize clearly that the present social and economic situation in our country is marked by acute difficulties .... Overall, we have not been able to achieve the general objective set by the Fifth Congress, which was to economic situation and the people's living conditions.
"Without underestimating the objective difficulties, the congress points the subjective cause of this situation, which are the errors
• leadership and management exercized by the state
The errors are grave ones concerning the big options and policies strategic leadership and implementa
Thus, it is clear that the criticism was not just of defective implementation of policies considered in themedented. Among other things, this was a reflection of the gravity of the crisis that the country is going through and of the extent of the problems of leadership and orientation posed.
The crisis is indeed a serious one and it is asserting itself in every area. An editor of Graffiti, the organ oi the Union des Jeunesse Vietnamiennes de France [Union of Vietnamese Youth in France], summed it up in the following terms: Crisis of confidence
"Vietnam is going through a real crisis today. There is an economic crisis, owing to a botched implementacurrency reform. There is a political crisis, owing to the coexistence within the leading bodies of lines that have today become irreconcilable. And there is a crisis of confidence among the population, who are waiting now for real changes and little by little losing their confidence." (4)
If the crisis is so grave, it is because the first already belated attempts at reform failed, and many people think that that was because of conscious obstruction in the national leadership bodies. Since 1978-79, and voluntarisy orientations aie the bankruptcy orientations have been patent: agricultural production is below the level of 1976!
Reforms have been officially introduced, after having in fact been put into practice in various provinces. In September 1979, the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee institutionalized the policy of khoan's, "fixed
1. See 'International Viewpoint' No. 12, August 1982: "Self-criticism at fifth congress of Vietnamese CP" by Pierre Rousset.
2. Quoted by Murray Herbert in the 'Far Eastern Economic Review' of January International Herald Tribune of December 1987 and by Keith B. Richburg in the 16, 1986
3. The quotations from the political resolution are translated from the version in French sent out over telex.
4. 'Graffiti,' Nos 25-26, AugustSeptember 1986, p. 3.
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congress
contracts" that favor family initiative the framework of the rural com.
the farmers agree to deliver a certain quantity of a given produce to the state at a set price and get the right to sell what they produce over that, either to the state at renegotiated prices or on the free market.] In 1981, the khoan policy was introduced into industry. Priority was given to light industry and agriculture, no longer to heavy industry.
These reforms opposition. They were delayed.
only in 1982 that the applied in agriculture throughout the country.
"quest for profit" element in family contracts) came in suddenly for denunciations. Tendency struggles have been intense in the party apparatus.
However, the new policy seems to be bearing fruit in production. Agricultural production, which averaged 13.3 million tons of cereals for the period 1976-80, came up to an average of 17 million tons during the following chronic and dramatic food deficit is being reduced.
In July 1985, the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee decided on a major reform of wages, prices and currency. This meant in particular abolishing the system of subsidies in kind - ration tickets - which were a heritage of the war period. Such payments were to be incorporated into money wages, and a growing autonomy was to be accorded to state enterprises.
The forced socialization of agriculture in the South was gradually dropped. Small private trading and crafts enjoyed the best conditions for development. New rights were given to the provinces of import and export, an area traditionally reserved for the national level.
Everything was thrown kilter by the September 1985 currency reform. This was a general changeover of the currency that was supposed to uncover hidden fortunes. Absurd in conception (it assumed a strict secrecy impossible to assure and an absence of corruption within the regime, where it is in fact rampant), it was also botched in application. The result was catastrophic - a general disorganization of exchange and a galloping inflation that reached 1,000 per cent in a year.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back. The economic and political effects of this currency reform were considerable. In the words of Dai Doan Ket, the journal of the Fatherland Front, these measures provoked "waves of questioning public opinion, upsetting confidence in the state's capacity for management. The entire population daily felt the negative effects. And a lot more time 8 error." (5)
A particularly long and stormy Central Committee plenum met from mid-May to June 9 to draw the balance sheet of the disaster. The "renovators," such as Vo Van Kiet, were apparently opposed to the execution of the currency reform. They strengthened their positions. On June 21, the government underwent a thoroughgoing reshuffle. Seven ministers were dismissed, including To Huu, the official poet, high priest of orthodoxy, deputy premier and father of the currency reform. Pioneer member of the VCP
It was in this context that the preparations for the Sixth Congress of the VCP rent into their active phase. The authority of a number of leaders collapsed, starting that of Le Duan, a pioneer member of the party and general secretary from 1960 to 1986. One of the party's principal ideologues in the collective leadership that ran the party after Ho Chi Minh's death in 1969, Le Duan had worked in the South for a long time before returning to Hanoi at the end of the
He played a decisive role in formulating the policy of resistance to the US aggression, he demonstrated great capacity for leadership and a real political crea
Discreet, but still endowed with an aura of prestige, at the start of the 1980s Le Duan was reputed to support the "renovators".
However, in the last years of his life, Le Duan suffered a stinging defeat on two fronts. On the level of practical leadership, the crisis of 1985-86 rebounded against him. On the level of basic conceptions, also took a beating, because he had been one of the VCP's main theoreticians of the transition to socialism. The attack underway on "dogmas,' is also a criticism of the heritage he represented. In his old age, he seemed to many to have become a visionary
Le Duan was reportedly ready to withdraw from the Political Bureau at this national congress. His death last July probably helped to accelerate the evolution in the relationship of forces within the apparatus.
For some months, Truong Chinh took Le Duan's place as secretary. For a long time, he was regarded as the ideological leader of the "orthodox" wing. On several occasions, he opposed the reforms. While not "pro-Chinese," he has solid Maoist education. Truong Chinh's party name means "Long March" (his real one is Dan Xuan Khu), ring to the one that Mao led in 1934.
He is the author of the book rhe Resistance Will Win, the Vietlamese version of the Chinese people's war conceptions. Above all, he bore responsibility for the 1956 agrarian which was carried out with the methods of the "mass campaigns" that Mao was so fond of and which Forward of the late 1950s.
However, in the most recent years Truong Chinh finally became convinced of the need for economic reforms. He has a reputation for saying what he thinks and not acting out of opportunism. His turn-about strengthened the authority of the "renovators" within the apparatus.
of the political resolution for the congress was completed in June 1986 by the Central Committee's propaganda commission. It aroused so many objections that it was rapidly put aside. The discussion took place around a document submitted in July by Truong Chinh. The latter talked about the need for "renovation," which has become a watch-
On October 19, 1986, in a speech to the Hanoi federal congress that was more radical than his July document, Truong Chinh denounced leadership "blunders," the "desire to develop a heavy industry on a scale far surpassing our real capacities," a "mechanics of management characterized by bureaucracy and a system of subsidies," as well as "infantile leftism."
"On the one hand, we have erred wanting to skip over stages, do too much, too quickly and on too grand a scale. On the other, once the mistakes have been made we have demonstrated conservatism and immobility, wanting to maintain the status quo, not having the courage or the will to correct our errors." (6)
Thus, the preparations for the VCP congress were marked by important shifts. Truong Chinh sup ported reforms, but in the economic field alone. On the other hand, Le seems to have taken his distance. A key figure for the party apparatus, a wieldor of considerable power, Le Due Tho, like Le Duan, supported reforms that were generally initiated in the South, where his brother, Mai Chi Tho, was the
5. 'Dai Doan Ket' of April 23, 1986, quoted Lambettini in "La crise de confiance, 'Sudestasie', No 42, JuneJuly 1986, p. 17.
6. Speech General Secretary Truong Chinh to the Hanoi federal congress, 'Nhan Dan, October 20, 1986, cited by Tran Minh in 'Doanket,' the journal of the Union des Vietnamiens del France, No. 386, December 1986, p. 19. International Viewpoint 26 January 1987
The leading bodies and their renewal
International Viewpoint 26 January 1987
The new political bureau:
at the Third
Central Committee
Congress of the VCP in 1960.
In 1975, holding the post of party secretary for Ho Chi Minh City, he came into the Political Bureau and the
Pham Hung; 3. Vo Chi Cong; 4. Do Muoi;
Vo Van Kiet; 6. Le Duc Anh; 7.
Thach; 9. Dong Sy Nguyen; 10. Tran Xuan Bach; 11. Nguyen Thanh Binh;
Nguyen Duc Tam; 8. Nguyen Co
Central Committee Secretariat. Def ending all the reforms in 1982, he was excluded from the PB and the Sec.
12. Doan Khue; 13.
Mai Chi Tho;
The old political bureau:
1. Le Duan (dead); 2. Truong Chinh (retired); 3. Pham Van Dong (retired);
Le Duc Tho (retired);
Le Duc Anh; 13. Nguyen Duc Tam, Alter-
Van Kiet; 11.
Do Muoi; 12.
nate member: 1. Nguyen Co Thach; 2. Dong Sy Nguyen;
The secretariat of the CC:
1. Nguyen Van Linh (recent member of the previous secretariat); 2. Nguyen
Duc Tam (member of the secretariat elected in 1982); 3.
(member of the secretariat elected in 1982);
member); 5. Tran Kien (member of the secretariat elected in 1982);
3. General Dam Quang tiati g 9. V Danh ho:
The following are all new members of the secretariat:
7. General Nguyen Quyet;
General Tran Quyet; 12. Tran Quoc Huong; 13. Pham
Nguyen Khan; 11.
The Duyet.
mayor of Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City.
the leadership's critical balance sheet. Recently, published a document that attracted a lot of attention, talking about an
"overall negative balance." (7)
Nonetheless, at this most recent congress Le Duc Tho lined up with
"orthodox"
against the vators." While recognizing the need for a "purification"
and a straightening out of the party, he probably fears deeper going challenges.
If the debates in the apparatus sharp and the stakes on the fundamental questions in the longer seems possible. This is leading
In April, Vo Chi Cong, a member of the Political Bureau, already raised this problem in analyzing in front of the
Hanoi cadres the delay with which the reforms were being put into practice:
"Because of the leadership and the directives, there is no analysis in depth, no realism, no respect for the ideas of subordinates, no synthesizing management that could develop what is good, repair the errors and create an infrastructure and an adequate management policy.
"Thus, we have allowed different points of view on economic management to coexist, and this has led us to discordant lines of action, which in turn have undermined the centralized management of the state and limited the autonomy and the creative power of the population and the Economic
Base Units.»
In Vo Chi Cong's words, management is neither centralist in character nor democratic, but a conof prolonging servatism that consists bureaucratic centralism. " (8)
Dảo Duy Xung Cach
Facing the crisis, the VCP congress registered an unprecedented decision - the simultaneous retirement of three historic leaders from the Political Bureau. They are now to be mere "advisors to the Central Committee." They were Truong Chinh (79 years old); Pham Van Dong (80 years old and very sick, who had been wanting to retire for a long time); and Le Duc Tho (76 years old). Shakeup on leading bodies
Three other Political Bureau members were not elected: General Van Tien Dung (reputed to be a corrupt careerist), Chu Huy Man (former political commissar of the army) and To Huu, who had already been disgovernment. comparison with the Political Bureau elected in 1982, therefore, the present one includes 7 quite new members out of a total of 13.
The Central Committee Secretariat has also undergone a thorough shakeup, with only three of the members elected in 1982 remaining. (See box) On the Central Committee, of 173 members elected at the Sixth Congress (including 49 candidate members), 80 are new.
Wage remains high. Nguyen Van Linh, the new general secretary, is 71. Born in 1915, his real name is Nguyen Van Cuc. He has also been known under the pseudonym Muoi Cuc. He joined in the struggle against French colonialism at a very young age. He was twice arrested and spent 10 years in prison. For 40 years he led the party organization in the Saigon region. He came into the retariat. In 1985, in an exceptional move, he was coopted back onto the Political Committee and later returned
Obviously, the composition of the Political Bureau reilects a balancing act. Pham Hung, the number two, 74 years old and minister of the interior, is seen as a leader of the "orthodox," as well as Do Muoi (number four in the Political Bureau's official hierar-
"renovators" supposed to be Nguyen Van Linh; Vo Van Kiet, 64 years old, the number five figure, chief of planning and linked with Linh in Ho Chi Minh City; and Nguyen Co Thach, in the eighth position, who was only a candidate member in the preceding Political weight of the cadres long engaged in the struggle in the South and the center-South, in particular during the American war - Mai Chi Tho, Le Duc Ahn, Vo Van Kiet, Vo Chi Cong, Pham Hung, Nguyen Van Linh - is notable. The recent reforms have often come from the South. However, the political lines of cleavage do not necessarily coincide with the party backgrounds of those concerned, as the case of Pham Hung shows on one side and that of Nguyen Co Thach on the other.
"renovators" once again strengthened their positions at this congress. But the simultaneous resig nations of Truong Chin Tho seem in the present context to be a compromise measure, contirmed by the fact that the reshufile expected in the government bodies has been postponed for several months. It is now expected after the election of a new national assembly.
It is only when the government reshuffles are announced that we will find out whether Vo Nguyen Giap, longstanding chief of staff of the army, will regain a notable place in the leadership. Dismissed from the Political Bureau, he was and remains a member of the Central Committee. An advocate of reforms, remains an outsider in the factional struggles. Having been shunted aside, he was not directly implicated in the recent failures, and is probably still respected by a part of the population.
In these last months, the debate
7. In "The urgent tasks in the work of building the party," "Tap Chi Cong San', May 1986.
8. 'Nhan Dan' of April 23, 1986, cited by J. Lambettini, op cit.
9
has focused on economic choices. In the political resolution, the stress was put on the three followtasks: increasing production of foodstuffs, essential consumer goods the VCP used the developing heavy industry, based on the development of light industry and agriculture. It was a doubleentry formula, leaving the way open for all sorts of concrete interpreta• tions. It has not been replaced by resolution tries to forestall any new stick-bending for the benefit of heavy industry "intensification of industrialization" is relegated to a "subsequent stage." For the coming period, the three "target programs" mentioned above "represent the essen-
1986-90" five-year plan. Consequently, they should "be assigned a great concentration of human and material resources in order to assure their execution."
three programs determine the orientation organizing the national economy in accordance with a rational structure, first of all a readjustment of the proreadjustment of the investment structure." Agriculture made the main front."
Otherwise, the resolution sticks to prudent and conservative It is necessary to omy of the economic base units,' encourage the development family economy, to utilize the positive aspect of the small-commodityproduction economy" "utilize the private capitalist economy (small capitalism) in some industries and trades, and at the same time to progressively transform them with the economic forms of capitalism."
It is necessary to eliminate private capitalist trade." In a general way, it is necessary to "assure that the state economy asserts its leading role, that, together with the collective economy, it occupies a decisive position in the national economy and dominates the other components of the economy."
It is clear that fundamentally the choice of orientations remains open, to be decided by a struggle that is not yet over. In fact, a traditional frame of reference has been chal. lenged, perhaps in a radical way, without, however, being replaced here and now with an alternative conception of transition.
It is probably significant that the political resolution calls for "the elaboration" by the new Central Committee "of a complete program 10 for the socialist revolution as a whole." It is necessary to "work out a strategy for socio-economic development and for scientific-technical development." Such a program is to be "presented to the Seventh Party Congress."
It definitely seems that a deepgoing debate over the economic tasks of transition is brewing in Vietnam, the successive failures from 1975 to today, but also stimulated by the re-evaluations underway in countries such as China and the USSR. It is symptomatic that Nguyen Van Linh is sometimes called a
" or a "Vietnamese Deng Relations with the USSR
The Sixth Congress did not discuss problems of Indochinese and international policy in any depth, at least not openly. It is difficult at this point to assess the consequences for Vietnam of the new policy the Gorbachev leadership is undertaking in Asia. It is evident that Soviet discontent and warnings about waste of the aid granted to Vietnam weighed directly in the preparations for this congress.
In August, Truong met Gorbachev in Moscow. In October, the Vietnamese leader publicly recognized that the "aid from brother countries" had been partially frittered away. Given its international isola-
Vietnam remains highly dependent on the USSR. The "renovators" have taken advantage of Moscow's discontent to press their argument that it is urgent to set a new course.
At the congress, the Soviet representative, Ligachev, an important member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, guaranteed the Vietnamese increased economic aid, which would amount to 12,000 or 13,000 million US dollars for the period 1986-90. The Gorbachev team seems to look not unon the wind blowing through the VCP.
The political resolution of this last offers no innovations comparison with the two preceeding ones on the question of the political
Nonetheless, transitional society, the struggle to out production, the fight against bureaucracy and the struggle for democracy are intimately linked.
Chinese precedent significant: the call for "the Fifth Modernization" (democracy). raised activists of the Democratic Movement as a condition for achieving the "Four Modernizations" -omic, scientific, technical and military - advocated by Deng Xiaoping.
The demand for democracy manifests itself in Vietnam, even in a press that remains an essentially controlled one. This is attested to by an article in the Saigon Giai Phong where the journalist Xuan Thu recounts the problems he had with censorship during and since the war.
In the face of the backlash provoked by the publication of a section criticizing the bureaucracy, his editor in-chief concluded, "From now on, let's criticize the people who piss in the street and we will have less problems." In Xuan Thu's view, "criticism and self-criticism [the usual modes of debate in Vietnam] cannot be isolated from democratization and the role of the press.
"The press has been a flatterer, written according to the wishes the top rather than those below. The time has come when the press must become a weapon for the party, a tribune for our people. A journalist has to be able to see the truth and tell it; the press has to be a means of control for society." (10)
How, in fact, can the people "play their role of collective master" (the VCP's traditional formula), if it does not have the right to be informed and to denounce the many corrupt cadres who are amassing personal abroad linked to organizations close to the regime are also in ferment. In Germany, for example, Nguyen An recently published an article in the magazine Dai Nuoc ("Our Country") that takes up the fundamental problem of the bureaucracy: "Virtue and vice do not spring from the innate character of human beings. If you think well about it, it is burfertile ground for the development of opportunism in all its forms." (11)
Thus, while it was not sparing of words about past errors, the congress was much vaguer about the positive steps to be taken and about basic changes of orientation in the future. Nonetheless, this Sixth Congress seems to mark an important turning point, a break in continuity in the history of Vietnamese communism, and to foreshadow a period of political conflict within the party and outside of it.
9. See the proceedings of the seminar organized in Amsterdam on June 4-6, 1982, by the Transnational Institute on the "problems relating to the evolution of the VCP's line and the relations between the party, state and the population", and the contribution by Pierre Rousset on this theme.
10. 'Saigon Giai Phong' of June 11, 1986, cited in 'Graffiti", No. 25-26, AugustSeptember 1986, pp. 10.
*Dai Nuoc, No. 49, June 1986, cited by Ha Cuong Nghi in | 'Chroniques Vietnamiennes,' No. 1, November 1986, p. 10. International Viewpoint 26 January 1987