Vietnam´s Sixth Party Congress: An Overview

Abstract

In December 1986, Vietnam held its Sixth National Party Congress on schedule in accordance with party statutes. This is an important development, for it marks the regularisation of in Vietnam. Over the past 57 years, party congresses have been infrequent affairs with as many as sixteen years passing between them. The Sixth Congress is the third such party conclave to be held in ten years; the Fourth Congress was held in December 1976 and the Fifth Congress, in March/ April 1982. New patterns of politics are now discernable. Quite simply, Vietnam's top leaders are now being held accountable regularly for their policies. Secondly, the old guard has now virtually passed from the scene. Until the Sixth Congress, every Central Committee was dominated by members who had joined the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) in the 1930s. Now, not only are members of different generations being elected to the top decision-making body, but new sectoral groups are being given representation on the Central Committee as well. These political developments are occurring at a time when Vietnam is facing severe hardships on the economic front.1 Vietnam, with a population of 60 million, is the world's twelfth and the socialist community's third largest state. Vietnam is also one of the world's twenty poorest countries with a per capita income estimated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at US$160 (1985 estimate).2 Efforts to control the population growth rate have been only marginally successful. Recently, a projection by an international organization revealed that malnutrition is so wide spread that, on an average day, about sixty Vietnamese die of starvation.3 Infla tion in Vietnam is reported at anywhere between 100-1,000 per cent a year.4 Many sectors of Vietnam's economy are stagnant. There is also a serious shortage of basic consumer goods such as paper and medicine. Likewise, Vietnam's external economic relations are in a parlous state. Vietnam has huge imbalances with its largest trading partners. Over the years, Vietnam has accumulated vast debts not only to the Soviet Union (over 3 billion roubles) and other COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) mem bers, but also to thirty non-communist countries, banks, international organiza tions, and lending agencies (US$2.7 billion).5 Shortages, imbalances, poor planning, an inefficient state bureaucracy, and many other factors have not only kept living standards depressed, but have resulted in a severe crisis of confidence within the leadership itself. After thirty