VIETNAM, NEWS ANALYSIS, MAY 22, 1999.

The history of the Vietnam Communist Party includes several "internal cleansing" campaigns in 1947, 1953, 1977... Each took place when the party fell into a critical situation that required special actions to save it from annihilation or danger of losing its ruling power. The declaration of the 2-year political purge by the VCP top leader on Tuesday, May 18, 1999 once again started another unavoidable party cleansing campaign.

In the grand meeting to commemorate the VCP late leader Ho Chi Minh held in Hanoi, a two-year "regeneration drive" was launched.

According to Hanoi official news agency, Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu has called for the entire membership of the VCP to begin an "urgent" self-criticism campaign to "improve the Party's role in the Viet Nam revolution."

He said it was "a fundamental and necessary factor" as well as an "urgent measure" to get rid of degeneration within certain sectors of Party membership which threatened "the survival of the regime, national independence and security," Hanoi news agency reported.

In his speech on the occasion, Phieu acknowledged the fact that a number of more than two million VCP members had degenerated ideologically, politically and ethically as well as having decadent lifestyles. He claimed that the majority of his party members and cadres have been maintaining revolutionary ethics.

However, former Hanoi prime minister of 33 years, Mr. Pham Van Dong, who is at his early 90's and nearly blind but still a staunch Communist, showed much more concern. The retired prime minister said that a great number of party members are corrupt.

Mr. Dong warned party members that corruption and abuse of powers would be serious threats to the existence of the VCP. According to him, there are two more similarly serious threats brought about by hostile forces seeking to overthrow the Communist regime, and by people's poverty.

Dong added that many good-for-nothing people are in high positions in the party and government, holding all powers. They are ruining the party because they are concerning themselves only with personal power, money and personal interests.

He said the four threats, linked together, could be leading to another revolution against the existing regime in Hanoi.

Phieu admitted, "... if no proper measures are resorted to prevent this problem from spreading among the Party and State apparatus dangers will be imminent to deform the Party and threaten the survival of the regime as well as the national independence and security."

The self-criticism campaign was decided by the second meeting of the sixth plenum of the VCP Central Committee last summer.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the state-controlled media published articles supporting the cleansing campaign. One of them was an editorial on Quan Doi Nhan Dan daily (People's Army). The author

Mac Thuan - probably pseudonym of a top leader - asserts that the main threat is from inside the party.

He said revisionism was revived and there exists ideological and political betrayal not only in common members but also in high ranking officials. But he contended that the most dangerous threat to the survival of the party could be "opportunism" and its consequence, which is rightism.

Mac Thuan has his reasons to worry that such opportunism could be developing into a political tendency, attracting dissidents and become a rallying banner for opponents in a well organized group.

In the article, he asserts that the current economic reforms are the unique root of the situation. He expresses his regrets about the golden time of Stalinism in the 1950's and 1960's when political and military cadres enjoyed special privileges and held highest positions in society.

Many observers said that the campaign is conducted with great enthusiasm of the faithful Communist leaders. But its outcome is still a big question. There is only one certainty, that is the campaign will lead to brutal purge of party members who are against the current leadership.

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The 109th birthday of Communist leader Ho Chi Minh was celebrated this year in greater state, as a self-criticism campaign was launched.

As usual, VCP General Secretary Le Kha Phieu repeated the hackneyed eulogy: "President Ho was the leading genius of the Vietnamese people; the great teacher of the Party; the beloved father of the armed forces; the distinguished fighter of international communism and the international working class and the national liberation movement; and a world cultural activist."

Phieu quoted many Ho's sayings to support the "internal cleansing" campaign. Many Vietnamese people, however, lay the blame of the current critical situation on Ho himself.

The current critical situation in the VCP and in Vietnam is the direct consequences of the Communist class-struggle. Following Communist teachings, Ho and his subordinates have strengthened their party ruling power by awarding key jobs to rough-and-ready but loyal persons.

In his first days in power in late 1945, Ho himself selected party members for security offices, particularly chiefs of provincial public security agencies, including a notorious prison camp 5, well-known in North Vietnam for his brutality.

In the last decade, more Ho's true stories have been disclosed, the most grisly is the murder of his sex slave after she had had a son with him. Usually, the VCP party central committee would categorically denied such stories. But this time it has kept quiet since the reports by the two most reliable sources who had had close relations with Ho were published in the mid-1990s.

Ho Chi Minh's life is a very long story composed of a string of brazenly fabricated legends, unique in the history of Vietnam.

He is probably the only political leader whose birthdays were marked with lot of blood. In his birthdays during the Vietnam War, guerrillas celebrated the May 19 by increasing attacks against military and civilian targets all over South Vietnam.

They were killing unarmed persons whom they accused as "reactionaries." In many cases they blew up cross-country buses and other passenger vehicles with land mines to punish their owners for similar charges. Just to celebrate his birthday.

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