5 Lewis Stem, "The Vietnamese Communist Party in 1986: Party Reform Initiatives in the Scramble towards Economic Revitalisation, and the Road to the Sixth National Congress," in Southeast Asian Affairs 1987 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1987), pp. 351-2.
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Plenum economic reforms of 1985 had not been implemented effectively because of resistance from middle-ranking cadres:
One of the things that led to serious mistakes in implementing the price-wage-currency policy is that the party did not give prompt and careful attention to changing personnel. It allowed people whose viewpoint and thinking was not in total agreement with the new policies of the party to undertake the task of implementing these resolutions.^
The supporters of the reforms pointed to the Soviet Union which had, in the previous year, taken steps to remove cadres opposed to the implementation of new Soviet Communist Party policies. They called for the Vietnamese Communist Party to do the same.6 7 Demands for the removal of cadres blocking the Party's economic reforms were particularly strong in the South and no doubt found expression through reformist Politburo members like Nguyen Van Linh whose political power base lay in the South. In this context of power struggle, the self-criticism and criticism campaign may have been a means for reformers in the regime to remove from Party and state positions cadres obstructing the reforms. Both sides of the debate, then, saw the need for personnel changes to bring about improvements in the Party's performance. The subsequent official encouragement of public criticism of corruption amongst existing cadres created a climate conducive to such changes.
The push for personnel changes can also be viewed as a logical response by an organisation to a rapidly changing economic, political and social environment. Most of the Party's cadres had joined the Party during the period of resistance against the French or the subsequent war against the Americans and the Republic of Vietnam. Loyalty and willingness to fight for the Party, and war-related skills had been the prerequisites for cadres at that stage. By the 1980s, the situation had changed and so the personnel requirements had also changed. In the new environment, where reconstruction and economic development were the priorities, the Party needed educated staff with more specialised skills, in particular, in economic management.
The imminence of a leadership succession in the Politburo due to the ageing of the leadership was another major challenge facing the Party at this time.8 In the process of leadership change, there must surely have been rivalry between potential successors and an attempt to influence those who might have a say in the selection. According to Myron Rush (see Introduction), the main agencies involved in decisions about leadership changes in communist states are the Politburo itself, the Central Committee, "subelites"
6 Saigon Giai Phong, 25 April 1986, p. 4 (JPRS -SEA-86-122, 23.7.86), p. 103.
7 Ibid. Also see: Saigon Giai Phong, 6 April 1986, pp. 1 and 4, (JPRS-SEA-86-099, 12.6.86), p. 78. 8 AFP Hong Kong, in English, 0816 gmt, 11 May 1986 (FBIS 14.5.86), p. K 1.
such as provincial leaders and technocrats, public sentiment, and the Soviet Union. We already know that the Soviet Union was placing pressure on Vietnam to improve its economic management, especially in relation to massive Soviet aid funds. This was one agency that the top leadership had to satisfy through leadership changes. The self- criticism and criticism campaign offered the Politburo, and contending groups within it, an opportunity to influence the other three agencies. By involving the public in the campaign, top leaders sought to appease public sentiment and to channel public opinion in a direction favourable to their interests. O f course, the conflicting interests and views alluded to above made the outcome of the public aspect of the campaign unpredictable. This was especially so in the case of the media role, as will be shown later in the chapter.
The leadership could apply pressure on members of the Central Committee and "subelites" by directing that they submit themselves to self-criticism and criticism and then using the results of this assessment as an input into the subsequent congress elections. It is significant in this regard that one of the stated objectives of the self-criticism and criticism campaign was to develop a personnel policy to "assist" in the selection of new Central Committee members at the Sixth Congress and of delegates to congresses at all levels. It is also relevant that the Party statutes require new provincial Party secretaries to be endorsed by the Central Committee. No doubt, those elected to the Central Committee would have to be approved by the Politburo. On the other hand, Central Committee m em bers and "subelites" could also exert influence upw ards by virtue of the constituencies they represented.
Thus, the self-criticism and criticism campaign appears to have been a response to three converging developments: a legitimacy crisis; the debate over the policy measures required to overcome the crisis; and the need for a smooth leadership succession. In all three cases, the question of Party performance, in particular the performance of individual cadres, became a focus for Party activities during the campaign, but for different reasons.
Why was a self-criticism and criticism campaign used as a medium for responding to these converging developments? Quite simply, self-criticism and criticism are considered the law o f development of the Vietnamese Communist Party, with roots going back to the earliest days of revolutionary struggle. In those early days, the Party relied on self- criticism and criticism to help prevent mistakes, to promote the continuous development of new strategies, and to maintain Party discipline and unity. These were matters of life and death for a clandestine party besieged by outside forces. Although the Party was now in government, it still turned to the tradition of self-criticism and criticism when it, or elements of it, faced great challenges. Unlike a clandestine revolutionary party, however,
a ruling Communist Party could launch self-criticism and criticism in the context of a co ordinated, mass campaign.
The Secretariat Directive on the Self-criticism and Criticism Campaign
On 11 March 1986, the Party Central Committee Secretariat issued Directive 79 which called for a self-criticism and criticism campaign to be held at all levels of the Party. The Secretariat was a tremendously powerful body in the Party. It basically managed the Party in between meetings of the Politburo and prepared agenda and other papers for meetings of both the Politburo and the Central Committee. Control over the Secretariat essentially m eant control over the whole Party organisation. Four out of the ten Secretariat members were Politburo members. At the time the self-criticism and criticism campaign was announced, these four were the General Secretary Le Duan, Le Due Tho, Vo Chi Cong, and Nguyen Due Tam. It is unlikely that Le Duan played a major role in guiding the initial stages of the campaign as he was very ill and undergoing treatment in M oscow.9 In determining the possible motives of the other three Politburo members in endorsing the self-criticism and criticism campaign, it may be instructive to look at their likely views on the policy debate described above. Having been involved in the implementation of economic reforms in the South in the late 1970s, Vo Chi Cong appears to have been positively disposed towards decentralisation and incentives-based policies.10 Leaders holding such views may have seen the campaign as an opportunity to consolidate support within the Party for such economic reforms and to counter resistance in middle ranks of the Party to the policies. On the other hand, a self-criticism and criticism cam paign would Ft in well with Le Due Tho's long-standing concern about the deteriorating perform ance o f the Party and his evident preference for organisational solutions to the Party's loss of legitimacy. While he had given up his position as head of the Party's Organisation Department in 1982, he reportedly retained two of that office’s most important responsibilities. One was to decide before each national congress who would be nominated to the Central Committee, and the other was to specify the job that each candidate would occupy, after carrying out an individual assessment and making sure that the candidate was acceptable to others in the leadership.* 11 This focus was evident in the stated objectives of the campaign, which are outlined below. As Le Due Tho's successor in the Organisation Department, Nguyen Due Tam could be expected to view organisational responses as a valid means of dealing with the Party's ills. It should be noted that Tam was Le Due Tho's cousin and it is open to speculation whether these two Politburo members used the campaign, in part, to achieve certain personal objectives. 9 Nayan Chanda, "Changing the Guard", Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 July 1986, p. 10.