Viet Nam and the making of market-Leninism

Abstract

Authoritarian states are states in which dominant parties discourage or disallow organized political competition. By such a definition, Viet Nam under the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) has been consistently authoritarian. But an authoritarianism of what sort? The CPV's rule in the north (since the 1940s) and on a country-wide basis (since 1975) has been punctuated by major wars, the rise and demise of state-socialist institutions, hostile international blockades, protracted economic malaise and, most recently, the development of a market-Leninist regime in which markets and trade have propelled growth and improved living standards within the framework of democratic centralism. An historical sketch of authoritarianism under the CPV can shed light on significant changes in the forms and substance of authoritarianism in Viet Nam.

Keywords:

• Authoritarianism
• state-socialism
• market-Leninism
• political institutions
• Communist Party of Viet Nam
• Viet Nam

Acknowledgments

Jonathan London is Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Asian & International Studies, at the City University of Hong Kong and is Director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre's Viet Nam program.

Notes

1 The CPV, originally the Indochina Communist Party and then the Worker's Party (after 1951), was established between 3 and 7 February 1930, in Hong Kong (Smith 1998). It was renamed as the CPV in 1976.

2 To my knowledge, the term market-Leninism was first used by New York Times journalists Nicolas Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn, in their 1994 book China Wakes. I arrived at the term independently and have sought to specify its conceptual and practical meaning.

3 See Tai (1992), Marr (1981, 1995).

4 For example, the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League (Vit Nam Thanh Niên Cách Mnh Đng Chí Hi), established in the late 1920s, served as the secretive core leadership group of the CPV.

5 ‘The Vietnam People's Army under Doi Moi’ (1994) Pacific Strategic Paper no. 7, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

6 For a detailed account, see Marr (1981, 1995).

7 See Marr (1995).

8 For more on Viet Nam's politico-administrative hierarchies, see Porter (1993), Phong and Beresford (1998), Kerkvliet (2005).

9 Socialist ideology holds that under any mode of production, the dominant class has such a position.

10 As Kornai (1992) notes, ‘Such an ideology feeds into the cult of leadership that surrounds the man at the pinnacle of power, who is seen as “father of nation” and which justifies the centralization of power.’

11 For example, there was criticism of the costliness of military tactics, exemplified by the Tet Offensive, which is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of some 70,000 Viet Cong troops, including over 10,000 elite soldiers (Interview with a Vietnamese military official, January 2008, Radio France International). In Viet Nam and internationally, there was criticism of the CPV's targeted killing of civilians.

12 For example, in two bouts of anti-‘revisionism’ campaigns (in 1963–64 and in 1967–68), where more radical elements of the party sought to quash calls for moderation in land reforms (see Quinn-Judge 2004).

13 Acrimony with China, which had mounted since before 1975, led to expulsion of Hoàng Văn Hoan from the Politburo, marking only the second such instance in the CPV's history (see Quinn-Judge 2004).

14 For example, provinces had an incentive to minimize their revenues targets while maximizing actual revenues once the three-year targets had been set.

15 Trn Đ, July 1999.

16 For example the considerable degree of redistribution across regions as well as some aspects of some social policies (see London 2008).

17 The Decree was accompanied by other related laws and policies aimed at enhancing participatory democracy, including stipulations for regular meetings between local elected officials and citizens, declarations of assets by local officials, public posting of budget information, and reforms of mechanisms for complaints and denunciations: see MoET and UNDP–UNESCO (1992), Hai (1991), and UNDP Vietnam (2006).