by Vu Kim Chung
15-1-2001
An elderly Communist Party member urged his country's leadership to "untie and liberate" Vietnam by ditching socialism. In a stinging rebuke, Pham Ngoc Uyen, a 53-year veteran of the party, wrote to the country's rulers and said socialism, which Vietnam had adroitly used to help liberate the nation, had outlived its usefulness.
"Marxist-socialism is dead, long live Marxist-socialism!" Mr Uyen, 77, wrote. "In theory, socialist society is one of freedom, democracy and equality. But in reality, socialist society is shaped by totalitarianism with a monopolistic, corrupt and arrogant leadership." Mr Uyen, in a brief telephone interview, said the tracts were written for the ninth Communist Party Congress, expected to be held in March. It convenes every five years to set the economic and political course of the nation.
Communist Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, Vietnam's de facto leader, recently urged citizens to contribute to the process, but it was widely assumed that the elite 19-member Politburo and a handful of advisers would formulate all important decisions.
Mr Uyen said socialism had enjoyed its time and place in Vietnam but had now run its course and the country should move on.
"Together with nationalism, Marxist-socialism has successfully completed the primary historic task of liberating the nation," he wrote. "But after 1975, Marxist-socialism failed to help us solve the next crucial task of combating poverty and backwardness. Therefore, our people are silently abandoning it."
Mr Uyen said a new revolution - one of brains, not guns - was in store, but that Vietnam could only succeed in such a revolution if communism bowed out in favour of free markets.
"Once such a doctrine has become old-fashioned and no longer serves the benefits of the country, we should reconsider it and, if necessary, place it in a museum," he wrote.
Criticism of the system is not unheard of in Vietnam. But attacking the fundamental principles and ideology that the leaders say guided them to victory over French and American invaders is risky business. Mr Uyen's words echo the critiques of retired General Tran Do, the former party ideologue who in 1997 began blasting the leadership for maintaining what many Vietnamese have come to see as an impossible contradiction between a free-market economy and a socialist government. General Do raised hackles in Hanoi with a series of communiques calling for democracy, free elections and an end to state-run economics. He was expelled by the party in January 1999.
But Mr Uyen made a direct challenge to the notion that those who advocate abolishing socialism should be expelled.
"If so, the first to be expelled should be Ho Chi Minh himself," Mr Uyen said, noting that Ho, the revered revolutionary founder of modern Vietnam, considered Marxism-Leninism as a "handbook" for independence, not an end in itself. Other candidates for expulsion, he said, include today's top-ranked officials who are implementing economic reforms.
"That means they are skilfully, gradually abandoning socialism."
An official newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City in early January said city delegates would call on the party congress to relax a ban on members engaging in private enterprise. This would open the floodgates of money for these people because it would allow them to engage in corrupt activities such as cronyism much more freely and a manner not unlike in Thailand.