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Vietnam: Where Is It Headed?
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13249 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1987 |
2,560 Words |
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Bui Anh Tuan
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Last December, the "unexpected" nomination of Nguyen Van Linh, 71, Saigon party boss, as general secretary of Vietnam's Communist Party made many Western hearts skip a beat. In terms of seniority and leadership qualities, a half-dozen high-ranking party officials were more qualified than Linh for the demanding job of supervising 1.3 million party members, commanding the third largest army in the world, and governing 62 million people - three-fourths of whom go to bed hungry every night.
But for insiders, that nomination was in the cards. As early as 1977, Linh's associates in Saigon, now renamed Ho Chi Minh City, knew that he was being groomed to fill the shoes of the then ailing party chief Le Duan.
Unlike his predecessors, Linh lacked grass-roots support. Also unlike them, he was no charismatic theoretician. His only forte was intelligence and security. He once helped the outlawed Indochina Communist Party infiltrate French colonial police. Later, "death squads" under his control kidnapped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of intellectuals, writers, and students who refused to toe President Ho Chi Minh's Marxist-Leninist line in 1946-49. During the Vietnam War, Linh was dispatched to the South to organize and direct military, political, and socioeconomic sabotage. For that unique expertise, Linh was subsequently rewarded with a slot on the prestigious Central Military Committee, which oversees the nation's military, intelligence, and security matters.
Linh was chosen for his position at a time when Vietnam's economy is going from bad to worse. Corruption is rampant, involving not only minor party cadres, but also the wives of prominent generals and cabinet ministers. Before World War II, the country exported rice and basic food crops. Now, 12 years after the much-touted "liberation from the dark forces of U.S. and puppet exploitation," it has to import 82 percent of its raw materials. Labor productivity is eight times lower than in Japan or South Korea. With a population 24 times larger, Vietnam is able to scrape together a gross domestic product smaller than that of Singapore, a tiny Southeast Asian republic of 2.6 million. Under the pro-U.S. Nguyen Van Thieu regime, a farmer could feed and clothe three to four members of his family. A recent study commissioned by authorities in Ho Chi Minh City admitted that they hope to attain 50 percent of that goal by the year 2000.
In all respects, the old guard has failed to deliver on its solemn promises for a better life.
Reformist or conformist?
When he succeeded General Secretary Le Duan, who died last July, Truong Chinh, 79, a representative of the old guard and once an admirer of Mao Tse-tung, immediately saw the handwriting on the wall. At about the same time, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a major foreign policy speech at Vladivostok, pledging to turn the Soviet Union into a full-fledged Asian-Pacific power and speed up reconciliation talks with China.
The Soviet Union's worldwide commitments - including Cuba, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Angola - and Gorbachev's perestroika (economic reconstruction) policy have put a drain on Soviet resources. Truong Chinh was summoned twice to the Kremlin where he was lectured on misuse of Soviet aid and the need for Hanoi to shoulder a
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