THE NORTHERNIZATION OF SOUTH VIETNAM
By Van Nguyen
The takeover of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975 is a military victory. The Privy Government of the South Vietnam is the leader, and the Army of the Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam is the liberator. Both elements are one of the three-party political compositions representing the people of the South “to decide the political future of South Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic election under international supervision (Article 9b, Agreement son Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam, January 27, 1973). North Vietnam or the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is the outsider, although both the Front and the Privy Government are only the instruments in its hands. Failure to stage a chain uprising leading to a change of political by a revolution as it happened in the North in August 1945, Hanoi faced an embroiling dilemma that cornered it at a death end. It fought hard for a solution. Following consecutive meetings of the Party leadership after the "liberation of the South" at the Conference for National Reunification was foreseen to take place
From
November 15-21, 1975 a North-South consultative conference convened at the
one-time Independence Palace. The delegation of the leadership of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam led by Patty Secretary-general Truong Chinh met
with Pham Hung, a politburo member of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the
South concurrently representative of the Committee Party of the Privy
Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. The conference came to the
agreement that the unification of the country was basically and ideologically
the heart of the edification of South Vietnam. The country must be unified in
accordance with the norms as predicated by the principles of the class struggle
and the dictatorship of the proletariat. All differences should be nullified in
the interests of the Revolution.
Nguyen
Huu Tho, Chairman of the Front of Liberation of South Vietnam resigned from his
position,’ On behalf of himself, he terminated the role of the Front, lauded
the achievements of the "Revolution," and repeated in high glee the slogan
“Vietnam is one country." The Privy
government and the Front for the Liberation of the South were dissolved accordingly.
There was no mention of the respect of the right to self-determination of the
people of the South provided by the International Agreements according to which
the Agreements promised to honor the civil and political rights of Vietnamese
people, with all citizens being equal and free to enjoy authentic democratic
freedom (Article 11, Agreements on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in
Vietnam). The Democratic Republic of Vietnam openly annulled the Agreements by
which it pledged to honor. The consultative conference between the Communists
for reunification of the country was practically a political formality
intending to blind public opinion. The world already knew that the Front for
the Liberalization of the South and the Privy Government of Republic of South
Vietnam were created but the Communist Party of Vietnam and a plaything in the
hands of Hanoi until the of the Vietnam War. The reunification or
"northernization" of the South had begun way before the
"liberation of the South" on April 30, 1975. The political normalization
in the South had been carried out as planned.
Plans
for political and economic pacification for the South were to be carried out.
The entire country should then move forward “fast and steadily towards socialism
‘as repeatedly prompted by Truong Chinh and fellow ideologues. It should be
transformed in every aspect. The political and economic life in the South
should be developed in accordance with new modes of life to catch up with the
socialist North, ideologically and culturally. The people of South were
necessarily re-educated, culturally, socially, and politically. All layers of
the population at all levels from the district to the hamlet were all to be reeducated to learn and
practice new “revolutionary” way of life Ordinary people, former personnel of
the administration and the military of the old regime, the comprador
bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, members of reactionary political parties land
followers of all religions were to
attend sessions or courses of thought reform to get to understand the vile
nature of imperialism, the crimes of treason committed by the American henchmen
against the Vietnamese people. Owing to revolution consciousness, they came to realize
the great achievements of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and particularly, the
glory of the "Revolution" in the work for liberation of the South
from the American imperialists and the PUPPET administration. Having had this sense
of magnanimity, they would get to understand the goals and policy of the "Revolution
“and get rid of all remnants of imperialism to move towards building a
prosperous socialist Vietnam.
Eradication of Remnants of Capitalism and Imperialist Bourgeoisie
In line with the principle of
class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat, Party leaders all agreed to
eradicate, first and foremost, all elements that they considered as the most
dangerous enemies of the class of workers and the people. Parallel to launching
operations of eradicating the remnants of the American imperialists, the
"revolutionary administration” executed political and administrative measures to transform the South in accordance
with ideological premises and by graded programs and plans of "national
unification." To mete out all possible "counter-revolutionary opposition,"
hundreds of thousand officers and officials of the administration and military
personnel of the old Republic of Vietnam were sent to concentration camps for re-education.
Most importantly, in building the "People's Democracy," the new regime,
first AND foremost, must devote itself to defeating within three years the
comprador capitalist bourgeoisie, ultimately erasing the one-time exploiting
class of the South.
The Transfer of the Rights to Private Property
Ownership
The
“People's ’Democracy” is essentially labeled for the transition period in the move
the South closer to the “socialist North.” integrating the “liberated South’
into the intricate political and
economic systems of administration already existent in the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam. It is practically the process of political and economic
normalization or simply “the northernization” of the South. On the economic plane, all systems, forms, and
vestiges of economy created or left by the imperialists, capitalists, and trade
and industry compradors must necessarily be eradicated. As long as they are in existence, the
“Revolution” will not achieve ultimate success. Therefore, right after the
takeover of South Vietnam, the new political regime found itself in face of a
society that was abysmally dissimilar in every aspect to the one under "the first Democratic Republic of
Southeast Asia." It is out of these differences that, in the
years that immediately followed 1975, theoreticians of the Communist Party of
Vietnam and State devoted themselves to activating inquiries into the
socio-political problems in the “newly-liberated”
regions. They would only be saved, in
the Marxist viewpoints, by the realization of a systematic transformation of
the society of South modeled on that of the North in the period following the
takeover of Hanoi in July 1954. This transformation consisted of evaluating,
extenuating, and delineating all means of productions and the production relationship
of the economy and all private social, cultural, educational, and religious
institutions that had existed in the South before April 30, 1975.
To
achieve their purposes, the Communists, first, carried out the appropriation of
properties of the bourgeoisie, landlords, and religions and then transferred
their rights to legal ownership to the working class and the peasantry. They
called this the transfer of private ownership of properties to the
people’s ownership of properties, achieving the objectives for "the People's Democracy."
They established priorities and criteria for the dispossession of private
properties, liquidating one by one the properties belonging to the comprador
bourgeoisie and remnants of the imperialists and capitalists in the South--the counter-revolutionary
elements—, and members of the religions were included. By dint of this coercive
nationalization of all private trade and industry properties--, business
enterprises, trade corporations, commercial establishments and cultural, educational,
and humanitarian institutions and facilities of the religions, and civil
organizations, the Communist administration believed they would gradually and
drastically eradicate both the supra- and infra- structures of the South, hence
the desperation of the deep-seated exploiting class in the South.
The elimination of imperialism and the
bourgeoisie began three months after the fall of Saigon. Modeling on Marxist-Leninist
principles and programs of socialist transformation applied in the North during the first years after the takeover of
Hanoi in 1974 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Military
Administration Council of Saigon issued a "Declaration of the Privy
Government of Republic of South
Vietnam," ordering the arrest of comprador bourgeois who it charged with crimes of having viciously
controlled the market with speculations,
Among them were the tycoons Luu Tu Dan,
Bui Van Lu, and Hoang Kim Quy. An uncountable number of owners of small trade
and industry were summoned to the headquarters of the Military Councils, put in
custody, or sent to reeducation camps.
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