Vietnam´s Two Strategic Tasks: Building Socialism and Defending the Fatherland

Abstract

DOMESTIC POLITICS In March 1982 the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) held its Fifth National Congress, the second since unification. Under the terms of the Party statutes amended 1976, this Congress should have been convened no later than December 1981. In December 1980 the VCP's Central Committee's Ninth Plenum announced that the Fifth Congress would be held on schedule in the last quarter of 1981 There was even speculation that the congress would be held as early as September. The holding of a national party congress Vietnam is usually an event of great importance, given the infrequency of their meetings. In the past, such national gatherings have marked major watersheds the history of the VCP. The main business of a national congress is to approve a report drawn up by the Central Committee, assessing developments since the past congress and setting forth major guidelines for the future, to consider amendments to the party statutes and to elect a new national leadership. More recently, at the Third (1960) and Fourth (1976) National Party Congresses, an economic report has also been tabled. Draft documents drawn up by Party officials are debated within the Central Committee and, when approved, disseminated to lower levels for discussion and adoption. In the preparations for a national congress, each echelon of the party is required to convene a congress of delegates where draft documents to be presented to the national congress are discussed. Just prior to the national congress, each province-level party committee or its equivalent (such as party organs the military) convenes a congress of delegates to consolidate the recommendations of the lower echelons, to forward recommendations and resolutions to the central authorities, and to elect delegates to attend the national meeting. When these standard procedures were followed Vietnam, an intense internal debate developed over domestic policies and to a lesser extent over foreign policy issues. Many questions were involved, the most controversial of which was how to assess the successes and shortcomings of the previous five years, especially with respect to the economy. By 1981 Vietnamese society had experienced a series of hardships which its leaders admitted they had not foreseen: the conflict with Kampuchea, a war with China and a series of grave natural disasters which struck blows to agricultural production. These events served to exacerbate domestic difficulties. Vietnam lost the support and much aid from the non-communist world. Internally, Vietnamese society suffered, flooding the region with refugees and boat people. Vietnam's Second Five-Year Plan (1976-80), with its . grandiose economic targets and plans for massive population resettlement, collectivization of southern agriculture and socialist transformation of southern trade, had to be abandoned.1