Copyright by
Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong
2009
Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi by
Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong, B.A.
Thesis
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in Asian Studies The University of Texas at Austin
May 2009
Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi
Approved by Supervising Committee:
Abstract
Renewing Political Legitimacy: Pragmatic Reforms and Doi Moi
Nhu Quynh-Thuy Truong, M.A.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2009
Supervisors: Huaiyin Li & William Hurst
The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) first launched Doi Moi [Renovation] in 1986—
10 years after the VCP officially assumed power in 1976 of the Socialist Republics of Vietnam. As the VCP describes, Doi Moi is a comprehensive economic reform package with new
initiatives toward building ―a mixed economy‖ that introduces ―market mechanism with state management and a socialist orientation‖ to Vietnam‘s economy. With Doi Moi, pragmatism has
evidently taken center stage in place of dogmatic concerns for ideological correctness.
The thesis seeks to first examine the conditions and factors that gave impetus for the economic reforms in Vietnam. These conditions and factors are especially evident when they are
examined in a comparative context with the Soviet Union and China‘s experiences with similar
reforms as they are done here in the thesis. Moreover, the change of orientation from a centrally planned economy to market-oriented economy is reflected in Doi Moi‘s decentralization and
economic liberalization reforms as well as the VCP‘s opening up to international reintegration
and reconciliation with namely the United States.
From this examination, it is apparent that at the crux of the VCP‘s decision to pursue reforms and the Vietnamese people's support for reforms are fundamental considerations of self and political interests—the VCP's to stay in power and the people's to subsist and prosper. Whether reforms are socialist or capitalist—in form or in practice—are thus of lesser importance to the VCP and Vietnamese people than whether reforms work or do not work.
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Table of Contents
List of Tables ......................................................................................................... vi List of Figures....................................................................................................... vii List of Illustration ................................................................................................ viii Chapter One: Comparing Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union..........................1 Chapter Two: Impetus for Economic Reforms in Vietnam...................................10 Chapter Three: Economic Decentralization and Liberalization.............................24 Chapter Four: Opening Up and Its Paradox...........................................................32 Chapter Five: Conclusion ......................................................................................47 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................55 Vita ........................................................................................................................61
v
List of Tables
Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4:
Aims of Country ...............................................................................50 First choice of most important goal .................................................50 Confidence in Government ..............................................................51 Rating of Current Political System of Governing Country...............52
vi
List of Figures
- Figure 1:
- Growth rates for national income and industrial production in the USSR, 1975-
1990...................................................................................................29
vii
List of Illustration
Illustration 1: N ưꢀc My Co Trach Nhiêm
̣
Noi Lên Sꢁ Thât (The United States Duty to Speak
̣
- ̃
- ́
- ́
- ́
the Truth) ..........................................................................................41
viii
Chapter 1: Comparing Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union
Long before the introduction of Doi Moi, Gaige Kaifeng and Perestroika, Vietnam,
China and the Soviet Union had shared a common ideological orientation that directly shaped
each country‘s political and economic configurations. To provide the historical context for the
cross-country comparison in the rest of the thesis, this chapter discusses the early transmission of Marxist-Leninist doctrines as well as the historical connections and interstate relations among the three countries. With these common links, there were also evident differences in perspectives and national strategic interests that had often overshadowed the elements which they had shared.
- I.
- Common Ideological Foundation: Marxism-Leninism
At the core of Karl Marx's political ideas is his view of human history as a struggle for human fulfillment of incessant physiological and material needs, and, henceforth, the base upon which all other aspects of the rest of society and its economic and political superstructure rest. Accordingly, historical transitions occur as society becomes more progressively advanced in forms of interactions between raw materials and human labor or modes of production that thus create different productive relations, inequalities, and conflicts among groups and individuals.1 As Marx and Frederic Engels described, upon achieving socialism, ―when, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.‖2 Marx's ideas thus offered not only an attractive paradigm for explaining the dimensions of human society, politics, economics, and history, but also provided a solid grounding for the sowing of revolutionary hopes and promises.
1
Prior to becoming the Soviet Union, in Russia, Marx's ideas became the source of a new consciousness that fueled the Bolshevik revolutionary movement. In a speech made in November 7, 1917, Vldimir Ilich Ulianov, also known as Lenin, announced:
[The revolution's] significance is ... that we shall have a social movement, without the participation of the bourgeoisie of any kind. The oppressed masses will of themselves form a government. The old state machinery will be mashed into bits and in its place will be created a new machinery of government by the soviet organizations. From now on there is a new page in the history of Russia, and the present ... Russian revolution shall in the final result lead to the victory of socialism.3
The message in Lenin‘s speech adamantly placed Marxist thoughts at the forefront of the
revolutionary movement. For Lenin, the anticipated end goal was not only the toppling of tsarist Russia for a new Bolshevik-led regime, but a victory that was intended to challenge and fundamentally alter class structures, social relations and the very core of Russian society.
For China, Marxism was first widely unknown and irrelevant among Chinese. It wasn't until after the Bolshevik Revolution demonstrated the serious outcome of their ideas and actions and leading Chinese intellectuals such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu began writing and publishing on Marxism that Chinese began to pay special attention to Marxist ideas and the Soviet Union as a model example of how those ideas were put in practice. Arif Dirlik saw this change as a change in Chinese politics and intellectual attitudes toward the problems in China in the late 1920s and 1930s. Adopting a Marxist schematization of Chinese history, Dirlik wrote,
was both ―functional and eminently practical.‖4 As Dirlik further explained, ―To the generation
that came of age after 1911 and spearheaded the New Culture movement, what was most conspicuous was the failure of modern institutions in the Chinese environment ... They put blame squarely on Chinese social structure and its underlying values, in particular, the value system of Confucianism.‖5 In Marxism, however, Chinese intellectuals found a different understanding of
2
political change—political change as a function of social forces, not institutions—and henceforth a new approach to change for China.
Marxist ideas' foothold in Vietnamese society, on the other hand, was inseparable from
Lenin's later doctrines on international socialism and anti-imperialism. Lenin explained imperialism as essentially the last stage of capitalism in conquest of weaker nations for new markets and wealth, and that colonized nations and proletariats everywhere must rise up and unite against this intolerable oppression. 6 In promoting this view, Lenin had in effect increased the appeal of Marxist ideas by extending its applicability to other contexts and nations. As
Vietnam‘s nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh wrote, ―Lenin was the first to realize and assess the
full importance of drawing colonial peoples into the revolutionary movement.‖7 For this reason, Ho Chi Minh came to strongly believe that a socialist revolution with the Soviet Union's support
was Vietnam‘s only path to achieving national independence.8
Chronologically, of the three countries, the Soviet Communist Party (SVC) was the most established Communist Party that first emerged, followed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP)9. The historical contexts, factional struggles, and periods of revolutionary and civil war that underwent in each country varied case by case. However, overall, in each of the three cases, Marxist-Leninist doctrines did not take roots by chance or were embraced simply for their ideology. Part of the doctrines‘ greatest appeals was their functionality as alternative revolutionary strategies made suited to the needs of revolutionary factions seeking for effective approaches and viable solutions to the problems and conditions specific to their own nations and societies.
3
- II.
- Strategic Considerations: Chinese and Soviet Involvement in Vietnam (1954-
1975)
In Party‘s rhetoric, Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union ought to be linked arms to arms.
However, while ideology was often called upon by Vietnamese, Chinese and Soviet leaders as the bond that bound the people and interest of all three nations, Chinese and Soviet involvement
between 1954 and 1975 in Vietnam‘s national conflicts showed that the triangular relations
among the three Communist powers were constantly shifting. Ideological ties visibly waned in significance next to consciousness of strategic individual and national interests of power by each country.
After the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel in 1954, the Soviet Union had hoped to thwart a military outbreak by trying to convince Ho Chi Minh and the DRV to compromise and seek peace with a U.S.-backed Southern Vietnamese administration. As Marie Olsen explained, one of the reasons for the Soviet Union‘s initial policy toward Vietnam was directly tied to its
position as both ―a world' senior communist power‖ and as a co-chair with the United Kingdom
at the Geneva Conference in 1954.10 Moreover, after Joseph Stalin passed away in 1953, the Soviet Union under the new leadership of Nikita Khrushchev became more interested in ―peaceful coexistence‖ with capitalist states than hostile conflicts. After Khrushchev fell from power in 1964 at the outbreak of an escalated military confrontation between North and South of Vietnam, convinced that peace was no longer possible, the Soviet Union then began to generously supply the DRV with ample military and economic support.
Contrary to the Soviet Union, China‘s position and agenda for supporting Ho Chi Minh
and the DRV remained persistent during the course of conflicts. As Abul Kalam pointed out, the
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key motives for China were (1) to retain and advance influence over the areas and states along China's frontiers, (2) to diminish and, if possible, exclude French and American influences, (3) and to promote the theory and practice of Mao's doctrine of protracted war so as to create a friendly buffer along China's frontiers.11 Moreover, Mao Zedong also saw China‘s support for North Vietnam as a validation of its own rise to the world and socialist stage. As Xiaoming
Zhang stated, ―the center of world revolution had shifted to Beijing.‖12 These motives helped to
explain why China persistently stepped up its efforts to equip and train North Vietnamese forces since as early as 1958.
In addition, China's support of Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese administration could also be understood in the context of Sino-Soviet deteriorating relations at the time. After Stalin's death, Mao's own consciousness to free China from overdependence on the Soviet Union and sharp differences in perspectives between Mao and Soviet new leaders reached a boiling point in 1960. As a result, on July 18, 1960, the Soviet Union ordered a sudden and immediate withdrawal of all Soviet specialists from China.13 Vietnam then became like a playground for this Sino-Soviet rivalry over their influences on Vietnam.
Vietnamese Communist leaders were well aware of Soviet and Chinese motives for their support of the DRV. As Priscilla Roberts commented on a reflection by Luu Doan Huynh, a midlevel North Vietnamese cadre during the war, ―He clearly feels that on more than one occasion ... both great communist powers often consulted their own interests first and those of North Vietnam second.‖14 The schism in Sino-Soviet relations often placed Vietnamese Communist leaders in a difficult position where the DRV could not freely seek nor accept aid from one side without risking facing diplomatic backlash from the other. For Ho Chi Minh and the DRV, a cooperative and joint alliance with both China and the Soviet Union to support North Vietnam's
5
unification goal would have been the ideal. External aid from China and the Soviet Union was indisputably indispensable for their goals of developing North Vietnam as a Communist revolutionary base, then to expand, reclaim and ultimately unify Vietnam.
- III.
- Vietnam-China Relations
Among the three Communist powers, Vietnam and China have had a long history and ties that entail a more detailed discussion here. As Roberts observed, ―Persistence and pervasiveness of conflict in Sino-Vietnamese relations (between 1954 and 1975), reinforced two central truths: that the histories of these two countries were inextricably intertwined; and that the expressions of eternal ideological solidarity uniting Beijing and Hanoi loudly proclaimed during the Vietnam War masked a far more complex reality.‖15 Even while China had made conscious efforts to win over Ho Chi Minh and the DRV with its aid provision, their relations remained constrained by mutual skepticism and distrust.
A source of this skepticism and distrust is due to Vietnam and China‘s ―inextricably intertwined‖ history of more than a thousand years of Chinese annexation of Vietnam since 111 B.C. until 1428 A.D.16 The nature of Vietnam-China relations since could be understood as an
―asymmetric‖ relations. As Brantly Womack proposed, ―asymmetric‖ relations is composed of
two different sub-relations between A → systemic differences in interests and perceptions between the stronger and weaker sides of the relationship, A and are in constant but static tensions since neither side is likely or able to
B
and → A where, despite the disparities that create
B
B
eliminate the weaker power.17 The sustained condition or ―asymmetric normalcy‖ of this
relation, Womack concluded, is what differentiates the politics of asymmetry from temporary disequilibrium international relations theory where it is assumed that either the weaker or
6
stronger side will seek to balance the disparity by overcoming its vulnerability and dominating the other.18
Based on the theory of politics of asymmetry, Vietnam-China relations can be perceived
in different phases. In summary, Vietnam‘s (the DRV‘s) ―dependent‖ relation with China from
1950 to 1975 aid turned ―hostile‖ from 1975 to 1991 over political cross-fires over Vietnam‘s preferential ties with the Soviet Union, its policy toward ethnically Chinese-Vietnamese after 1975, its encroachment into Cambodia in 1978, and its territorial claim of offshore island groups near Hainan Island. After 1991, relations between Vietnam and China were formally
―normalized‖ for ―a [more] stable one based on the general expectation of mutual benefits.‖19
In today's context, while Vietnam and China have chosen similar paths of marketoriented reforms with Doi Moi and Gaige Kaifeng, both sides have remained watchful of one
another. On one hand, as Womack illustrated, ―In general, there is no country more similar to China than Vietnam, and there is no country more similar to Vietnam than China.‖20 On the other
hand, disparities of scale and capacities, historical conflicts, and sharp differences in perspectives have created an asymmetrical Vietnam-China relation where, despite their similarities, Vietnam would rather model its stock markets, per se, after New York or Tokyo than after Shanghai or Shenzen.21
- IV.
- Conclusion
As the chapter suggests, Marxism-Leninism as an ideology connected Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union only on a basic, theoretical level. This shared ideological grounding did not override the strategic individual and national interests considered by each power such as over the extent of their support of Ho Chi Minh and the DRV during the Vietnam War. It is not
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ideological blindness but careful observations and strategic calculation that determines their views of and interactions with one another.
1 Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory
(New York: New York University Press, 1999), 34-36
2 Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory
(New York: New York University Press, 1999), 34-36; Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (New York: International Publishers: 2001).
3
Quoted in, Theodore Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev?: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet System
(New York, NY: HarperCollins College Publishers 1993), 88-89.
4
Arif Dirlik, “Mirror to Revolution: Early Marxist Images of Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 23, no. 2
(1974): 194.
5
Dirlik, p. 222.
6
Von Laue, Why Lenin? Why Stalin? Why Gorbachev?, 88. Ho Chi Minh, “Lenin and the Colonial People,” Ho Chi Minh Selected Writings (1920-1969), Ho Chi Minh (Ha Noi,
7
Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 1994), 37.
8
France officially established a colonial regime in Vietnam in 1896 after a long conquest starting in Da Nang, Vietnam on August 31st, 1858. During colonization, Vietnam experienced drastic economic transformations that
fundamentally altered Vietnam’s societal structures and created a restless peasantry class accounted for over 90
percent of the Vietnamese population at the time. As the gap between Vietnamese peasants and landlords— proletariats and feudal capitalists—widened during French colonization, so did tensions among Vietnamese and their foreign rulers. See, Nguyen Khac Vien, Vietnam: A Long History (Hanoi: Vietnam: The Gioi Publishers, 2004), 384.
9
In June 1925, in Guangdong, Ho Chi Minh founded the first Vietnam's Revolutionary Youth Association (Hoi Viet Nam Cach Mang Thanh Nien). Their objectives were to transmit Marxism-Leninism into Vietnam and to readily train a generation of future Communist cadres. The Association functioned from then on as an active, mobilizing force in Vietnam. Soon after in March 1929, members of the Association set up cells for the first Communist Party in Ha Noi, Vietnam. The Communist Party of Indochina (Dong Duong Cong San Dang), the Communist Party of
Annam (An Nam Cong San Dang), and the Communist League of Indochina (Dong Duong Cong San Lien Doan) were
later established after 1925.
10
Marie Olsen, “Forging a New Relationship: The Soviet Union and Vietnam, 1955,” Behind the Bamboo Curtain:
China, Vietnam, and the World beyond Asia, Priscilla Roberts, ed. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press, 2006.)
11
Abul Kalam, The Communist Triangle Foreign Policy Interactions. (Dhaka: University Press, Ltd., 1987), 23.
Zhang Xiaoming, “Communist Powers Divided: China, the Soviet Union and the Vietnam War,” International
12
Perspectives on Vietnam, Lloyd C. Gardner and Ted Gittinger, eds. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2000.) 83.
