Vietnamese Communist party was held in Hanoi December 14-20, 1976. It was the fourth congress in the forty-six year history of the party, or the fifth in fifty-one years if one counts the Thanh Nien, the organization that preceded the official founding of the Communist party. The event is thus of some importance, as were the previous congresses: 1929-30 (years symbolic of Vietnam's entry into the era of modern class struggle), 1935 (on the eve of the struggles during the period of the French Popular Front), 1951 shortly before the unleashing of the general counteroffensive against the French forces), and 1960 (beginnings of the second Indochina war). The congresses of the VCP have always been held during transitional periods in the history of the Vietnamese revolution. The latest congress is no exception to the rule. The socialist option The general resolution adopted by the fourth congress stresses the importance of the tum opened by the final victory over imperialism: "With the total victory of the patriotic resistance against the American aggression, the Vietnamese revolution entered a new stage, one in which the entire country is independent and reunified and is now accomplishing the united strategic task of carrying out the socialist revolution, of progressing rapidly, vigorously, and with certain steps toward socialism. " (Bulletin du Vietnam, French edition, No.9, January 1, 1977-) Many nominal changes accompanied this orientation. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam had already become клін рота, вт the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Workers party has been formally renamed the Communist party. The title of the theoretical organ of the CP has likewise changed, from Tap Chi Hoe Tap (journal of study) to Tap Chi Cong San (communist journal). The few ner "front" organizations have Fused. A congress held at 28
VIETNAM THE FOURTH CONGRESS OF THE V.C.P. by PIERRE ROUSSET the beginning of February attended by 500 delegates from the Front of the Fatherland (of the North), the National Liberation Front, and the Alliance of Democratic, National, and Peace Forces, as well as various southern personalities, decided to form asing le organization, the United National Front. More fundamentally, the orientation confirmed by the congress of the VCP heralds the deepening of the social and economic measures already initiated in the South with the liberation of Saigon. In his introductory report, Le Duan, first secretary of the Central Committee, summed these measures up in these terms: "The policy of our Party and State regarding the transformation of non-socialist relations of production is to immediately abolish the feudal ownership of land and abolish the vestiges of feudal exploitation; to immediately nationalize industrial and commercial enterprises of the comprador bourgeoisie, of the traitors and capita lists who have fled abroad; to use, restrict and transform private capitalist industry and commerce chiefly through the policy of setting up joint Stateprivate enterprises; to carry out agricultural co-operation in order to take agriculture step by step to large-scale socialist production; to transform handicrafts, chiefly by co-operation but also by other forms, to transform small trode chiefly by grodually shifting small traders to industrial, agricultural and handicraft production. "We must use every means to broaden the State sector of the economy rapidly (at the centre and in the localities), and to make it play an increasingly predominant role in production and distribution. " This and subsequent quotations from the report of Le Duan are faken from the English edition of Vietnam Courier, No. 55, New Series, December 1976) This predominance of the state sector has been completely achieved in the North, as may be seen in the following few figures: In 1975 some 77.1% of the value of agricultural pro-
duction and 95% of industrial production came from the "socialist sector" (state and collective). In the South, on the other hand, the commercial networks of the big comprodor bourgeoisle have been hit but not yet profoundly dismantled, and although 7, 000 industrial enterprises have begun activity again, 11,000 groupings of artisans were still functioning in Saigon at the end of 1976, which indicates the current Importance of this sector in the souther part of the country. The second five-year plan The Vietnamese leaders hope to see the country achieve "grand socialist production" within twenty years But it is the second five-year plan, for 1976-80, which sets forth the orientation of current policy in the economic sphere. The general line of development, defined in 1960 and further detailed in 1967, is maintained: "To this end, a thing of decisive importance is to create a modern industrial-agricultural economic structure, The basic way to create this structure is 'to give priority to a rational development of heavy industry on the basis of developing agriculture and light industry."" (Le Duan report.) This economic transformation requires "a complicated class struggle" which must assure the success of "the three revolutions: the revolution in the relations of production, the scientific and technical revolution, and the cultural and ideological revolution, of which the scientific and technical revolution is the keystone." Thus, the VCP's orientation in this domain differs rodically from that which long prevailed in China. The strategic priority of heavy industry, indispersable base for both "grand socialist production" and economic independence, and the key role of the technical and scientific modernization of the country were reaffirmed. But the balances of development adopted for coming years are equally far from those of the Stalinist period in the USSR. The urgency of an upturn in agriculture was the first factor to be felt. The country today is still unable to feed itself properly. If is probable that 1976 food production covered only about 30% of needs. Nutritional Insufficiency is painfully felt and reduces the productivity of labor. The problem is also political: With the end of the war the population aspires for better conditions. The redistribution of the national income will have to take account of this situation, even If many large-scale projects will have to be undertaken immediately, particularly through international aid. The USSR is constructing a very large dam on the Black River, a major tributary of the Red River; China is building a bridge ocross the same river, East Germany is aiding in the reconstruction of the city of Vinh. But the top priority is to take a "leap forward" in agriculture. Consequently, a large majority of available resources will have to be directed toward the rapid solution of problems of consumption. A total of 30% of all investments will flow into agriculture and 35% into industry. Of the latter, 60% will be devoted to heavy industry. The second five-year plan calls for average annual growth rates of about 15% for total production, 13-14% for the national income, 8-10% for the value of ogricultural production, and 16-18% for industrial production. Oil prospecting will continue and a state company will very probably be established to exploit the riches of the continental shelf. An agreement with the French firm Comex (Compagnie Maritime d'Expertise) has been signed for construction of the necessary logistical base at Vung Tau. Berliot will erect a bulldozer factory. A code on foreign investment is to be promulgated soon, the attempt being to attract foreign capital provided it does not exceed 49% in any given project. Restructuring Increasing agricultural production requires significant hydraulic projects, the generalized use of rapid germination seeds so as to allow three harvests a year, the sowing of varieties of rice that permit semidirect harvest and this avoid the harassing labor of replanting. But it will also entail a profound restructuring of agriculture, even in the North. In fact, the present village cooperatives cannot rationally introduce mechanization or correct planning of the use of the work force. New cooperatives, formed on a district scale, must be developed. The new cooperatives created through this fusion process should cover about 300-500 hectares each in the rice plain and more than 1,000 hectares each in the mountains. But this restructuring is meeting strong resistance, including among party members, for it attacks many long-standing positions by concentrating posts of responsibility, as well as the localism of village traditions, the unevenness of development among cooperatives, etc. The Vietnamese Communist party has thus long since launched a political campaign to assure the success of this measure, which it considers an indispensable stage in the modernization of the economy. The same is true in regard to the redeployment of the work force throughout the territory. Here the leadership of the party and state must deal with three orders of problems. Entire zones have been deserted in the South because of the war and the U.S. policy of "forced urbanization, " It is now necessary to repeople them and have them begin functioning again. Moreover, Vietnamese planners believe that under present circumstances none of the country's cities should exceed 1 million in population. Ho Chi Minh City (Formerly Saigon) in particular is unable to provide jobs for its population. It is therefore necessary to return a very large section of the "urbanized" population to the countryside and to gradually reoccupy all the cultivable land. There is another, more general, problem. Population density is very uneven in Vietnam, It stands at 700 inhabitants per square kilometer in the Red River delta in the North and may run as high as 1,000 in some areas
VIETNAM there. It falls to 25 inhabitants per square kilometer in the central high lands among the scattered Montagnard population. It is 300 persons per square kilometer in the Mekong delta and 150 in the easter provinces of the South, In the North a population migration had long been organized from the delta to the mountainous regions which could not be developed without this extra labor force. The current short-term objectives were presented to the National Assembly by Le Thanh Nghi, minister of planning. Some 1,200,000 people are to be shifted. Among them are 800,000 inhabitants of Ho Chi Minh City who are to return to the "agricultural belt" surrounding the city, the "new economic zones" that have been organized in the South, or their former villages where this is possible (9,000 of the 15,000 villages in the South were razed during the war). Some 150,000 people are to leave the overpopulated regions of the Red River delta for the mountainous zones of the North, the central highlands, and the eastern and western provinces of the South. It may be seen that no massive shift of population from south to north is planned, as some of the Western press had tried to suggest. These measures are supposed to contribute to partially reabsorbing unemployment, which had risen to 2,400, 000 working-age people by the end of 1976. The move toward redistribution of the population is not slated to stop there, but is ultimately to affect about 10 million of the country's 50 million people. The people, "collective master"? The objectives the Vietnamese leadership has set itself are thus very ambitious, although they are intended to be realistic. To become a reality they require the deep and lasting support of the population. The problem is therefore primarily polifical: how to assure this voluntary commitment? The active participation of the masses in the development of the society of transition to socialism requires that they feel genuinely responsible, in position to have their say over the major choices that condition their daily existence, to really exercise power, and to be, to use the Vietnamese formulation, the "collective master. " This is a central question, as was recognized in the general resolution adopted by the fourth congress of the VCP: "The first condition is to establish and ceaselessly strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat, to realize and ceaselessly develop the foiling people's right of collective mastery." Which is a political question if ever there was one, for, to quote the very words of Le Duan's report: "the creation of the regime of socialist collective mastery demands, first of all, that an adequate system of relationships between the Party, the State, and the masses be The leadership of the VCP has clearly manifested its concern about this question of relations between the party and the masses, launching a virulent campaign against the bureaucratic attitudes of too many cadres. A decline in the quality of CP members since the 30 victory has been noted, as well as a loosening of recruitment criteria. The leodership is consequently calling for moves to purge the party. Nguyen Duy Trinh, minister of foreign affairs, has explicitly said that party "members of low political and revolutionary awareness will be dismissed from the party. New members will be recruited." (International Herald Tribune, December 21, 1976.) At the same time, the state is prosecuting some codres guilty of embezzlement, such as Huynh Van Thom, president of the revolutionary committee of the fifth district of Ho Chi Minh City, sentenced to fifteen years in prison for corruption and abuse of powers. The preparation for the party congress also reflected this desire of the leadership to tighten up the links between the state and party apparatus and the masses. For the first time, in fact, the very long introductory report by Le Duan was widely distributed more than a month before the convening of the national congress. A discussion tribune, the function of which was essentially educational, was opened in the daily newspaper Nhan Dan. About 2,800 amendments were said to have been presented to the national congress after having been discussed through a pyramid of local and regional congresses. The press arficles and reports presented to the congress sometimes sounded a clearly self-critical note, such as that of Le Duan, in which, among other things, it was affirmed that "there are still many mistakes and shortcomings in our Party building. The biggest shortcoming is inadequate understanding - both in thinking and in practice - of the theory of building the Party now that in is providing State leadership. Thus, the holding of the fourth congress was an occasion to make an unprecedented effort to spread the leading ideas of the new orientation and to take the pulse of the mosses as well. Nevertheless, as usual, the real discussion on orientation took place only in the upper reaches of the party and the state. The congress, like the preparatory discussion, was not designed to present possible differing options of development. It had a primarily pedagogic function. More serious, since they cannot be explained away by the present difficult situation, were the statements of principle formulated by Le Duan in his report on the question of the conception of the state during the transition to socialism. Indeed, in the name of the party leadership he presented a substitutionist and paternalist analysis of the role of the party which prevents in advance the qualitative extension of socialist democracy: "Mastery in the political field is embodied in the mastery exercised by the working people with the worker-peasant alliance as the core through the socialist State and under the Party's leadership. " And: "The control mechanism (of the activities of state organs) consists of the self-controlling system of the
State machinery, and control by mass organizations and by the Party. Experience confirms that the external pressures exercised by the masses over a state apparatus in which they are not direct participants and the self-control of the cadres and the party through the vehicle of rectification campaigns have never sufficed to check the aggravation of bureaucratic phenomena in a lasting manner. Especially in a country facing the difficulties Vietnam faces. In this context, the creation of "popular inspection committees" in the North composed of workers who remain in the productive system cannot profoundly modify the situation by itself. In an article specially written in response to foreign criticism of the Vietnamese revolution, the author Nguyen Khac Vien pleads for understanding of the concrete situation of Vietnam. Freedom? Democracy? The bureaucratic danger? "We are the first, " he writes, "to accord the greatest importance to these capital questions of our epoch, and the Vietnamese leaders stress these problems on a more or less daily basis. A people that has accepted the most arduous sacrifices for its independence will not lightly cast away its freedom to don a iron yoke which, of this one may be certain, would be worse than neo-colonialism. Politically conscious Vietnamese — and they are, 1 believe, at least as numerous as in the Western democracies - have had occasion to reflect on these questions at length. . .. "Democracy in Vietnam was born in given historical conditions. ...Abstract humanism and a more or less conscious Europo-centrism have led to astonishment that the Vietnamese people have not chosen the model of Western bourgeois democracy. ...The Vietnamese people do not have a tradition of parliamentary democracy linked to a long period of capitalist development. That is a handicap, but this people has the advantage of being able to build its democracy at another level, on the basis of socialism. ...We have thus chosen a different formula. " ("Ecrire sur le Viétnam, Courier du Vietnam, No. 51, August 1976.) One may easily agree with Vien that bourgeois democracy is not an abstract model and that it must not be divorced from its class base. One may likewise agree that the political system that arose in North Vietnam in 1954, like that which is now being established hroughout the country's territory, should not be analyzed independent of the historical context which prevailed at the time of its formation. But in counterposing the "classical" bourgeois democratic model to the concrete form of the present Vietnamese workers state and in restricting the polemic to answering the upholders of "abstract humanism, " Vien dodges a fundamental debate, one which relates to the content of workers and socialist democracy. Are the bureaucratic deformations of the Vietnamese workers state, both social and political, primarily the product of history, underdevelopment, the effects of colonialism, the thirty years of devastating imperialist wars, and the delay of the revolution in the great industrial centers? Undoubtedly. But the impoct of the historical and objective factors on the course of the Vietnamese revolution makes clear consciousness of their limits even more necessary. The theory of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat upheld by the VCP, reaffirmed during its latest congress, on the contrary adapts to these deformations. The analysis of the specific political system of Vietnam remains complex, and it is probably true, as Vien stresses, that "the participation of a peasant on a cooperative in social and political life is richer than that of a free peasant" and that the Vietnamese worker is, on a daily basis, more closely associated with the life of the country than is the case with the worker in the bourgeois democracies, because of the Vietnamese workers' integration into a body of mass organizations. It is also true that this system often permits a general consensus to be reached. But the breakdown of the state system into the national administration, the local structures of state power, the popular organizations, and the "National Front" (as a purely political representation) prevents the direct intervention of the masses in national economic and political administration. In the absence of a soviet structure, the party is the only force able to articulate among these various components of the system. Here again, the situation of de facto monopoly occupied by the VCP feeds a monolithic conception of political and Intellectual life in the country, a conception which induced Le Duan to say, two years ago: "Any manifestafion contrary. ..to the line of the party runs against the position of the working class. To struggle mercilessly against these manifestations is to merge oneself with the position of the working class. We do not allow any other criterion when we speak of positions." (In "Quelques tâches actuelles, " Hanoi, 1974, p. 102.) There is no question of counterposing the ideal "mode!" of mass soviet socialist democracy to the harsh reality of the situation in Vietnam. The point is rather to gauge the dangers of an orientation which accommodates to and defends the substitutionist role of the communist party, and thus the bureaucratized structure of the state. There will be no lasting progress or struggle against the growth of bureaucratic phenomena without a conscious break with the conception of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat" that prevails in the VCP, a conception rooted both in the history of the country and in the international Stalinist movement. Tensions The preparation and holding of the fourth congress of the VCP was an occasion to recall the sharpness of the problem of bureaucracy. For Le Duan, "Loafing, embezzlement, bribe-taking, waste, irresponsibility, high-handedness, arrogance, and bureaucratic red tape must all be combatted, Practical measures must be taken to prevent State employees from becoming a privileged class. " And, "The voters' right to control and also to dismiss their elected representatives must be guaranteed.
21
VIETNAM The government and party leadership are in fact meeting a series of difficulties which make them very sensitive to the exasperation of the population at the bureaucratic arrogance of some cadres and at administrative footdragging. The weight of the war is not about to disappear. A figure symptomatic of the effort requested of the population: during the first half of 1976 some 570,000 bombs and mortars had to be defused in order to bring 26,000 hectares of land under cultivation. And while the entire apparatus of management and production that was directly linked to aiding the war effort apparently worked well, the rest of the economy on the contrary suffers grave administrative inadequacies. The Nhan Dan discussion tribune referred to these inadequacies on several occasions. An official of the Ministry of Machine Construction noted in one article that "we are mobilizing only about 40% of our production capacity. We are producing only 300 varieties of articles, whereas we stand in need of thousands. " A high functionary of the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed this estimate, stressing "the low rate of utilization of industrial capacity. " (L'Humanité, November 23, 1976.) It is obvious that the question of Saigon remains the most delicate one. Two major features of the second Indochina war exert their full weight in this city: the extent of the social upheaval provoked by American policy and the gravity of the sharp blows suffered by the ranks of southern revolufionaries because of the repression that lasted for several decodes. According to Washington's estimates, by 1975 the South Vietnamese population had become 65% "non-rural. " The Phoenix Plan (a project of selective extermination of cadres) officially cost the lives of 67,000 people, among them some of the best underground militants. The "strategic hamlets," the massive imprisonments, the establishment of a system of concentration camps, and the social destruction of Saigon made it extremely costly to keep the networks of urban resistance alive. According to some estimates, the Saigon VCP had only 1,500 members and 20,000 sympathizers as of April 1975, not counting many militants with whom contact had been lost and who rejoined the organization after the victory. The "re-education" policy of the VCP in regard to former members of the Saigon army and administration ¡Hustrates the strength of the regime as well as its real difficulties. In April 1975 the puppet military forces still numbered about a million soldiers and 200,000 policemen, not counting the administrative personnel who participated in the repression. The officer corpe, vanguard of the counterrevolution, included 70,000 members, 10,000 of them higher officers. The great nass of soldiers and policemen were released very rapidly and recovered their civil rights before the legislative elections of April 1976. The exactions in regard to the former collaborators and even former torturers were far milder than they were in France in 1945, for example. There was no "bloodbath"; in fast, the victory of the Vietnamese revolution was probably the least bloody in history, although the war was one 32 Editeur responsable: Rend Groslambeit, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 Bruxelles of the most costly. This capacity to avoid any policy of reprisals illustrates the solidity of the new revolufionary regime, as well as the political maturity of the population. But the bureaucratic-military caste that formed the backbone of the Thieu regime nonetheless represents a real danger. Because this caste is psychologically, politically, and professionally prepared to engage in actions of sabotage against the new regime. Because such "destabilization" actions are in fact already under way (illegal stockpiling of goods of basic necessity, massive printing of counterfeit money, etc.) and benfit what remains of the power of the comprador commercial bourgeoisie. Because the social base of the VCP in the Saigon region remains superficial. Under these conditions, it can be seen why the government was unable to extend its policy of "clemency" beyond certain limits. The figure of the number of people held in "re-education" camps is officially set at 50,000 (and not 200, 000300,000 as the Western press has written). Essentially, the inmates are former officers, high functionaries, and torturers. Moreover, in a statement dated June 9, 1976, the PRG explained that nobody would be kept under "re-education" more than three years after the date of his or her entry into the camp (generally July 1975), unless individually tried for war crimes committed in the past. Thus, there can be no question of associating with the statement of about ninety former members of the "humanitarian" wing of the U.S. antiwar movement who on December 29, 1976, denounced "violations of human rights" in Vietnam. Theodore Jacqueney, ex-specialist in pacification, is said to be not unconnected to this initiative; and some signers, such as Daniel and Philip Berrigan, have withdrawn their names from the document. In 1974 the Democratic Republic of Vietnam again reached the level of overall production that had previously been attained in 1965, the year the American bombing began. In 1975 the whole of the territory was liberated and the country reunified. The first revolufionary measures shook the old zones controlled by the American and Saigon forces. In 1976 the volume of grain production was more than 17% higher than it had been in 1975; as for industrial production, it hod grown more than 10%. Cultivated land area in the South rose 18% during the same year. The situation in Vietnam thus remains dynamic above all else, especially since the regional situation is also evolving, primarily in Thailand, The fourth congress of the VCP was also the occasion for the leadership to reassert its international orientation. Future articles in INPRECOR will return to these questions. With it 50 million inhabitants -sixteenth most populous country in the world and third largest of the workers states — Vietnam is in the process of becoming one of the key countries of Southeast Asia. February 4, 1977