Michael Karadjis
A wide-ranging public discussion in the lead up to the 10th congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) — held in Hanoi on April 18-25 and attended by 1176 delegates — focused on issues of corruption, calls for greater democracy and accountability, and whether to allow CPV members to operate capitalist businesses.
As is usual CPV practice, the drafts of the main reports were released several months prior to the congress to allow for public input. Tens of thousands of comments flooded in from around the country, were aired nightly on TV, printed daily in newspapers and posted on various internet discussion sites. Western media hyped this as "unprecedented", yet the process of pre-congress discussion was remarkably similar to that prior to the previous CPV congress.
The question of allowing some of the CPV's 3 million members to operate capitalist businesses and allowing capitalists to join the party was a major issue in the discussion.
The principle that the CPV could include people who operate some form of private business had previously been clarified by the CPV leadership in 2003. This was logical, particularly in an underdeveloped country like Vietnam, where the petty "household business" sector consists of many millions of people who cannot be classified as either workers or peasants.
However, there were two major issues of confusion. Firstly, the party statutes said that if members employed anyone, they could not engage in "exploitation". Yet while the owner of a small workshop employing a few people was hardly a capitalist, the Marxist concept of exploitation is not simply a reference to appalling treatment of workers by big business. Rather, it objectively describes the relationship involved in private waged employment in a market economy under which wage workers generate profits for employers through being paid less for their work than the value of the goods and services they produce.
The second problem was the unstated assumption that "business" referred to small business. Last year, the CPV central committee approved an amendment to the party's rules to add the words "without limitation in scale".
Debate over admitting capitalists
Voices were raised both in favour and against. Nguyen Duc Binh, former rector of the National Political Academy, wrote that if CPV members can become capitalists, the party should change its name. The capitalist class plays its role in the country's development, he argued, but the role of the CPV is to represent the interests of working people.
Others said party members should have this right because Vietnam's laws don't restrict the scale of capitalist businesses. The private sector is recognised as having a role in the current phase of development of the productive forces "in transition to socialism", but it creates uncertainty if the owners of such businesses are seen to have less legal rights than non-owners.
By allowing capitalists to become CPV members, it was argued, the party would have greater control over them. Party membership could help orient them to make greater contributions to poverty reduction and set standards for good payment and benefits for workers.
A more extreme argument, put by Hong Ha from the CPV's Theoretical Council, was that "it is a big waste not to make full use of party members' knowledge and capital" by allowing them to "develop the economy" as capitalists.
Some 10% of CPV members are industrial workers and 30-40% are peasants. The big majority of the population of 83 million are also peasants. Most of the rest of the party membership are intellectuals, salaried professionals and state and party officials.
Those in favour of the change claimed few capitalists would join, claiming that in China only 1.5% of Communist Party members are capitalists. The Chinese CP officially admitted big capitalists into its ranks in 2001, and adopted a new statute that the CP represents the "advanced productive forces, advanced culture and the entire nation", where the "advanced productive forces" are widely understood to mean the capitalist class, rather than the working class.
While the CPV has yet to release the final document as amended by the congress, it appears that the words "must not engage in exploitation" when party members employ people were removed, thus recognising the reality of capitalist businesses, and the words "where there will be no exploitation of human by human" were added to the definition of the CPV's socialist goal.
Other issues discussed prior to and at the congress revolved around corruption and greater accountability of party and state leaders. These issues were highlighted by the busting of an enormous corruption scandal just weeks before the congress.
The case involved leading officials in the transport ministry siphoning off US$7 million from Project Management Unit 18, which is responsible for utilising foreign loans for major infrastructure works. In January, the director of PMU18, Bui Tien Dung, was arrested for gambling $2.6 million of PMU18 funds on European football matches.
Veteran CPV leaders, including national hero General Vo Nguyen Giap, General Chu Huy Man, and the previous CPV general secretary, Lieutenant-General Le Kha Phieu, petitioned the police demanding a full investigation of corruption in the transport ministry even if it led to the highest levels.
Phieu called for a new Doi Moi (Renovation) of the country's political system similar to the economic Doi Moi Vietnam has carried out over the past 20 years.
Last month, deputy transport minister Nguyen Viet Tien was arrested for illicitly negotiating with foreign companies to inflate prices of equipment they supplied to Vietnam and taking a cut on the contracts. On May 4, transport minister Dao Dinh Binh was dismissed from his post by the National Assembly, the country's legislature.
Public input
Regarding the thousands of comments that flooded in from the public prior to the CPV congress, it was significant that "most of the comments involved ways to improve the party's leadership, rather than challenging its primacy or demanding a multi-party system", Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, observed in an article in the April 26 New York Times.
The Vietnamese media played a prominent role in keeping the heat on the corruption scandal. Western media reports also saw this as "unprecedented", yet the Vietnamese media have been playing this role since Phieu demanded the scalps of "giant rats, not little mice" back in 1999, bringing down the deputy prime minister in a land-sale scandal.
As at the ninth CPV congress, party leaders were frank at the 10th congress that corruption and ethical degradation have taken hold of "not a small part" of the party membership and leadership and are a mortal threat to the party.
"I don't see corruption here running totally out of control", Martin Gainsborough, a Vietnam specialist from Britain's Bristol University, told the May 5 International Herald Tribune. "Yes, corruption is endemic. But it is not as endemic as in some other places."
Corruption among government officials in Vietnam is caused by the kind of incentives inherent in operating a market economy, with growing commercialisation of economic activity and increasing social inequality.
These trends are facts of life for a small socialist-oriented country surrounded by world capitalism. However, whether this leads the country back to full-blown capitalism via corrupt accumulation of large private fortunes depends on the party publicly exposing and combating this cancer.
State-owned sector
The congress reaffirmed that, in the "'socialist-oriented market economy", the state-owned sector should play "the leading role". However, it also approved a stepping up of the conversion of state companies in areas "where the state does not need to keep 100%" into share companies, a process referred to in Vietnam as "equitisation".
Whether this increases the state's leadership in the economy, or increases the power of private shareholders over the state, remains to be seen.
A recent report claims Vietnam will "equitise" 1700 of the remaining 2700 state enterprises by 2010. However, the 2500 state enterprises equitised to date represent half the original number planned for equitisation, but account for only 10% of the asset value of state enterprises.
The 1000 enterprises that will remain in full state hands will be the most strategic firms in key areas. However, a number of larger corporations are scheduled for equitisation in the coming period, including Vietcombank, one of the leading state banks.
In addition, proceeds from equitising smaller state companies may be ploughed back into the more important ones, increasing the scale of state investment. The April 23 Financial Times noted that "Vietnam's maiden sovereign bond in October raised $750m", but complained that "Vietnam's leaders are pouring resources into state companies such as Vinashin, the shipbuilder, which was granted the entire proceeds of the bond".
Vietnam has maintained the fastest economic growth in South-East Asia since 1998, and reduced the proportion of its population living in poverty from 58% in 1993 to 22% in 2005, a record achievement. Its health and education indicators are equivalent to those of upper middle-income countries, despite having a per capita GDP on a par with such low-income countries as Bolivia, Ghana and Pakistan.
Those advocating that Vietnam go all the way with the market and capitalism ought to look around at the misery of the capitalist Third World.
The 10th CPV congress voted for 160 full and 21 alternate central committee members from lists of 207 and 46 nominated or self-nominated candidates. There was about a 50% turnover on the central committee.
Nong Duc Manh, widely seen as a consensus-maker between different tendencies, kept the post of CPV general secretary, despite a challenge from Nguyen Minh Triet, the party chief in Ho Chi Minh City. Triet, 64, looks likely to succeed Tran Duc Luong, 68, as the country's president, while another southerner, Nguyen Tan Dung, 56, is likely to replace Phan Van Khai, 71, as PM. The CPV central committee will discuss its nominations for these state offices at its meeting on May 28-29.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 24, 2006.
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