Economic Reforms--The Failures (II)

Economic Reforms--The Failures (II)

By Van Nguyen

 In 1976, agricultural production achieved high output leveling rice production rose to 11..8 million tons.  The guideline for economic development for the first five-year plan (1976-1980) by the IV Party Congress foresaw that by 1980 agricultural production should provide as much as 21 million tons of rice. Nevertheless, State trade agencies could only purchase with force 11.6 million tons. Vietnam had to import 1, 57 million tons of provisions. The reforms, as viewed by the ideological architects of the regime, were designed to stimulate production, especially in those areas of the economy which were administered by State plans. Beginning in June 1978, agricultural products were conditioned by these plans were nevertheless limited in scope. There was reflection of a caution. In the South, the old society was still undergoing tremendous difficulties resulting from the trade and industry policy on the one hand and the unpopular measure of population relocation on the other. The nil--growth economy persisted. The population—the workers, the peasants the youth, both men and women, and the intellectuals—were disappointed with it. . Pessimism was felt among various levels of the administration. In the domain of agriculture, millions of people had participated in bringing hundreds of thousands more hectares of land under cultivation and building thousands of kilometers of roads for circulation or dredging thousands of kilometers canals and ditches for navigation. However, these changes were performed only through coercion rather than of volition. The Party initiated various policies aiming at eliminating the comprador capitalists as a class and doing away with all vestiges of feudal exploitation. These measures failed to exterminate the oils exploiting class. Rather, they gave impetus to the appearance of a new ruling class. They radically realigned an elite class and created a ruling machine that was controlled collectively by the putative vanguard of the working class--the party--and by the senior cadres of the party that were mostly from the North (Cima, 1989: 110).

 The economic development failed to achieve the purpose due to mismanagement and unpopular measures Approximately 1.8 million hectares of cultivated land were left abandoned, and 70% of agricultural machines and implements disposed from the comprador bourgeoisie were left unused in warehouses. Facing insurmountable difficulties, in the economy, in August 1978, the Vietnamese Communist leaders agreed upon a number of reforms in the economic system. They thus began a process of economic rejuvenation which they hoped to redress the economy., The five-year economic plan (1976-1980) that aimed to transform the South proved to be a failure. The industrialization of the nation in the areas of metallurgy, heavy construction, and agricultural collectivization planned by the Ministry of Planning, which was headed by Vice Prime Minister Le Thanh Nghi, declined.  Inexperienced and cupid high-ranking party members, usually blockhead political commissioners, executed unplanned practices, thus destroying the wealth of the country and the hopes of the people.  Political commissioners in the Dong Thap Muoi (Plain of Reeds) in the former Chuong Thien and Kien Phong provinces, for example, cunningly had poor peasants transformed moors into arable fields without  groundwork for irrigation. Thousands of labors and volunteers were sent to the area and worked for months, but the fields remained water-flogging. In addition, from the beginning, the new economic program ran into serious problems in recruiting labor (Van Duc. Let’s Overcome Fear. !993).

Work conditions and means of production in the fields were very harsh, especially for former urban dwellers with no previous farming experience. In spite of substantial state investment in the state farms, the remuneration to workers was low, and the living conditions were difficult, and productivity was disappointing. Large numbers of émigrés began to drift back to the cities--a move in itself entailed a considerable degree of economic insecurity. From the beginning, the new economic program ran into serious problems in recruiting labor.  Conditions were very harsh, especially for former urban dwellers with no previous farming experience. In spite of substantial state investment in the state farms, the remuneration to workers was low, living conditions were difficult, and productivity was meager. Large numbers of émigrés began to drift back to the cities--a move in itself entailed a considerable degree of economic insecurity.Another setback in the land betterment was the lack of responsibility and expertise of the cadres. The Tri An Dam on the upper Vam Co River failed to take shape due to mismanagement and corruption. Local political commissioners in the provinces adjacent to the highland ordered the inhabitants to clear productive forests and woods for the growing of manioc. Precious trees were felled and cut out then sold at any price, and the money went to the cupid authorities' pockets. The result was that productive forests and woods were gone, and the manioc never grew since the land was poorly treated and left uncultivated without attention. Rice fields in many other regions were, at times, left abandoned. The peasants were duped by empty promises and unplanned measures. They felt indignant; they were betrayed and exploited for the benefits of others.

The five-year economic plan (1976-1980) aimed to transform the South proved to be a failure. The industrialization in the area of metallurgy, heavy construction, and agricultural collectivization planned by the Ministry of Planning headed by Vice Prime Minister Le Thanh Nghi, fell into a decline. The national economy plunged in crisis the following years. Communist leaders in the South, particularly Vo Van Kiet, were blamed for deviations derailing the economy of the South from socialist economic centralism. In October 1980, the Party Committee of Ho Chi Minh held a congress, assessing the results of the five-year plan 1976-1980.  It then came up with determination to carry out the change of orientation of the Party Central Committee. In his speech to the congress on October 14, in the presence of Party Secretary –General Le Duan and, Vo Van Kiet, Secretary of Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee explained in concrete terms the shortcomings of an erroneous policy that, in their views, would  lead to chaos, and thus  annihilating the legitimate political  regime of  the people. In the North, the agrarian reforms, this time, also proved to be a failure. The peasants i n the provinces in the upper Tonkin Delta sold their land properties without state authorization, moved to the Northwestern highlands, cleared forests and woods for rice fields, and established permanent settlements. Hard measures were put into action but came to no result. Local authorities were resigned to inaction. Besides, those serious problems emerged beyond the Party’s prevision. Communist China withdrew its economic assistance as the war in Kampuchea escalated, and the brother country prepared to teach Vietnam a lesson. The economic life was deplorable

The predominant peasantry, which is approximately 80% of the population, is still exploited   mercilessly and lives in misery. “It could be argued that this situation was the inevitable consequence of a long and costly war and that, with peace; the victorious government could have been expected to give top priority to economic policies which improve living standards.  But, this did not happen. Instead, it became clear that the New Management System based on producer cooperatives was to be implemented in both North and South Vietnam. By late 1979, it appeared that NMS in North Vietnam had effectively collapsed; it had inhibited rather than assisted agricultural growth and the generation of an inevitable surplus. We simply do not have enough information to present a balance sheet on the impact of North Vietnamese agrarian policies up to 1980. While many government policies were clearly both inefficient and unpopular, it is likely that the estimated 250,000 cadres who poured out of state training institutes into the countryside in the 1960's and 1970's played an important role in introducing new ideas about technology, the economy, and society into a stagnant and oppressed rural sector further burdened with the consequences of a long and brutal war. In doing so, they may well have laid the foundations for a more dynamic and responsive agricultural sector in the 1990’s,” (FForde, 1989: 15).

  Reviewing the Vietnamese Communist Party's policies of land reforms, the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do had this to comment: “The policies for land collectivization throughout 20 years (1960-1980) had caused the country's economic exhaustion, the people’s extreme starvation --the rice production was insufficient for the population to subsist. Fearful of a popular uprising, the Vietnamese Communist Party had to change its policies, replacing the land collectivization systems with the land contracts systems to remedy the situation.  Because of its extremely heavy taxation on the products, the economic situation remained miserably unchanged --the people were still starving (Thuy Giao and Ngoc Phuong, 1995).

North Vietnamese agricultural output had been sustained because of the type of collective structures which had been established in the 1960’s in the North. The  neglect which the countryside had experienced the height of  the war had helped to paper over the cracks, so it was not  until peace was restored and the government made efforts to strengthen  the “socialist” character of the cooperatives that the real weaknesses of the system were freely exposed. What these weaknesses meant were that in the late 1970’s when the attempt to incorporate the South coincided with a series of poor agricultural seasons and renewed hostilities, this time with Pol Pot’s Cambodia and with China, the economy was unable to cope with the shocks. Instead of experiencing a downturn of a rising trend line of growth, the agricultural crisis of the late 1970’s precipitated a reversal of economic growth, which in the context of an economy as poor as Vietnam’s implied a renewal of the threat of famine for much of the northern population and called into question, for the time, popular confidence in the   leadership of the Communist Party

At the time of reunification of the country, the North Vietnamese economy had achieved a high level of socialism: most peasants were members of cooperative units and nearly all staple food production was carried out by the units; industry had also been incorporated into the socialist sector--modern industrial plants were owned by the State at the central or provincial level and handicrafts were run by cooperatives set up by districts or within agricultural cooperatives. But this socialization of ownership had not been accompanied by very effective forms of socialized productions powerful incentives existed in the way both industry and agriculture were organized for workers and peasants to transfer much of their productive effort to non-collective and non-state activities--either to legitimate black market variety. While some recognition of these problems had begun to emerge in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam by the end of the war; it was not yet widespread--the difficulties of managing a war-time economy and the availability of foreign aid divided attention from them. The program for transformation of the South thus took the establishment of the same intentions for granted. However, the reactions of Southerners to the imposition of the “north model” were a key element in bringing about a fundamental process of reform (Huynh Kim Khanh, p.140).