VIETNAM COMMUNIST PARTY AT ITS 70th ANNIVERSARY
To celebrate its 70th Anniversary only a few days before the traditional Lunar New Year known to the world as Tet, the Communist regime held ceremonies with much fanfare all over the country, but people are preparing for the most important holiday with much less expenditure.
On February 2, 2000, the Vietnam Communist Party held meetings all over the country to mark its 70th founding anniversary. It was February 3, 1930, when the different Communist groups among the Vietnamese living in Indochina, South China and Thailand merged into the unified Indochina Communist Party. It changed the name to Vietnam Workers' Party in 1951 and since 1976, it has carried the current name Vietnam Communist Party.
This year, the anniversary was celebrated at a somewhat larger scale. The most important meeting was in Ba Dinh auditorium, Hanoi. Le Kha Phieu, general secretary of the party delivered a 5-page speech, which AP dubbed as "State-of-the-Party Address."
As usual, after boasting about the successes of the Vietnamese revolution under the leadership of the VCP in the past seven decades, he reiterated his party's major lines of pursuing the goals of national independence and socialism.
Responding indirectly to international criticism against Hanoi's horrible human rights records and religious intolerance as well as its dictatorship, Phieu said that "each nation has its own sacred sovereignty, particularly the right to define and persistently adhere to the nation's development path and lifestyle, turn down any interference from outside, and object to political hegemony." He also demanded respect for Vietnam's independence, territorial integrity, socialist regime and independent and free line.
In words rarely heard, Mr. Phieu admitted that his party had made mistakes in its cause and apologized on behalf of his party. He said that the VCP "pledged and required all its members to look at shortcomings and mistakes through self-criticism and criticism in order to resolutely correct them and get rid of corrupt and degraded elements."
He also said the party "would strengthen its working class nature, resolutely wipe out any vague political viewpoints, strengthen discipline in its contingent, and strictly observe the principle of centralized democracy for a really clean and strong party..."
His words remind many Vietnamese the common sarcasm of humorous party members: "When you do something wrong, admit it in self-criticism and as time goes by, you could commit another mistake."
Actually, during the last few decades, young people in Vietnam are less and less willing to become party members. Socialism and Communism have lost the ideological attraction since the late 1960s but the frustration has reached alarming levels recently. According to an official figure, there have been 114,000 new members admitted into the party in 1999.
The party does not give details about the motivation, but everybody in Vietnam know that most of them joined the party solely to secure their profitable positions in the ruling system or in state-run sector. Only a minority of them came from stanch Communist idealists' families whom the party could trust their fidelity are still enthusiastic about Marxist-Leninism.
In strong words directed at America and its Western allies, Phieu alleged, "After the Soviet Union and Eastern Socialist countries collapsed, the imperialists continue to seek ways to completely wipe out the remaining socialist countries and attack the movements for independence, democracy and social progress."
Phieu asserted that "The goals of the imperialists remain the same, but in new conditions and while impossible to act as in the 19th Century, they had to adjust and look for new ways to exist and progress."
This portion of his speech is not reported in the only English article covering the meeting, in party-run Nhan Dan newspaper (on line). And once again, the supreme leader of the regime, as every of his predecessors, blamed almost all problems on external adversary forces and on outcome of the long wars 1945-1975.
As if to challenge pressure from international donors, who demand further privatizing and appeal for political reform, Phieu asserted that "We are renovating, but we are determined not to change color. The difficulties and challenges will not force us to diverge from the path of socialism."
Phieu said the party sees "emphasis on the leading role" of state-sector and focusing on its consolidation as entirely appropriate, so that state economic sector could become an associating center, speed up other economic sectors, maintain stability in complicate situation, and implement socialist-oriented market economy.
To alleviate pressure for further equitization - privatization in Hanoi term -the party has been working hard to show that it did improve the efficiency and competitiveness of state-owned enterprises. How efficient they have become is not proved.
According to several news agencies, this Tet season sees a fall in spending power. Selling of consumer products, particularly those for Tet celebration, are only about 65 percent of goods on market stalls. The morose business atmosphere was lingering since early last year as an outcome of government inappropriate economic and business policies.
Meanwhile, the Communist regime is spending more money on organizing a variety of public entertainment events aimed at calming down disaffected young people. To satisfy the rebellious depraved young people without spending any money, local Communist authorities are simply overlooking prostitution, gambling, drugs... at some limit.
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