THE COMMUNIST BLOC AFTER THE COLD WAR (III)

THE COMMUNIST BLOC AFTER THE COLD WAR (III)

By Van Nguyen

Vietnam

     After the April 1975 victory, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam sided with the Union of Soviet Republic, leaning on it politically and economically. It distanced itself from the People’s Republic of China, disregarding all its intentions of the latter in creating South Vietnam a non-aligned country, making it a buffer zone under China’s influence as North Vietnam had been in the Cold War.  The hidden scheme was aborted nip in the bud right after the takeover of Saigon with consistent programs for national unification policy, successive political and economic reforms, and plans for “northernization of South Vietnam” by the Communist Party of Vietnam. The rift between China and Vietnam ever deepened following the Chinese-backed military incursions of the Khmer troops into Vietnam from 1976 to 197 8.

On January 17, 1979, the military forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam swept off the last pockets of resistance of the Pol Pot’s troopers at the township of Ko Kong. These military efforts were only the first step of a decisive factor. The Vietnamese troopers had to additionally tale Phnom Penh, the Capital of Kampuchea and other provinces. On June 19, 1979, the military forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam defeated the Red Khmer troops and took the stronghold of Ko Kong Township. Impediments still lay ahead, The Khmer Rouge were defeated but were not disbanded.  Owing to tangible military aids from the People’s Republic of China, Khmer Rouge guerilla fought back with all tactics of a war of attrition. Beginning in the dry season of summer 1980, the Khmer Rouge launched fiercest counter-attacks. The Vietnam volunteer troops and Heng Samrin military armed forces suffered serious losses. Attacks and counter-attacks took place across the country. The armed forces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam lost their commanding position, especially after bloody battles with the Red Army divisions from China along the Sino-Vietnamese border provinces.

    In the rainy season of 1983, the infantry Division 4 under the command of General Pham Van Tra stationing in Ko Kong had to take on heavy shillings from Khmer Rouge heavy artillery from across the Thailand-Kampuchea borders. The Division 330 of the Vietnamese armed forces won the great battle in the dry season of 1984 but suffered great losses. One hundred and three officers and soldiers died in the battle field, and 400 others were wounded. Fierce seesaw battles ensued all through the dry season of 1984-1985. Fierce battles increased in quick succession from Phnom Penh to Konpong Cham. The troopers of the Kampuchea forces from then on assumed responsibility to defend the areas along the Thailand-Kampuchea frontiers. Beginning in 1987, the Vietnamese armed forces in Kampuchea became bogged down and fought on the defense until the end of the war.

     The invasion was drawing to an end. The war of attrition under the direction of Poll Pot that lasted ten years (1979-1989) paralyzed the armed forces of Vietnam on all fronts. Vietnam had to withdraw all its armed forces from Kampuchea following persistent international pressure. To all disadvantages on the military plane in all these years, Vietnam, was isolated either politically or economically and both by Western democratic and ASEAN countries. The United States, in particular, imposed the trade embargo.  In April 1989, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea symbolically began a process of renouncing communism by renaming itself the State of Kampuchea. By September 1989, the last of the occupying Vietnamese troops had to withdraw from Kampuchea. This intriguing war, in the last analysis, cost Vietnam not only deprived of the reputation of an “invincible army that had defeated the two mightiest imperialist armed forcesin the world” but also the invaluable human lives and immensurable material resources  

     Coincidentally, the collapse of Europe and disintegration of the Soviet Union created deep impact on the situation of the country, politically and economically. The year 1989 presented, indeed, what was to become the most eventful period in the Communist world since the 1940’s far more so even than 1956. At the beginning of the year, the Soviets completed their military withdrawal from Afghanistan: This was a highly significant symbol of the reversal of their earlier expansionism. Beginning in April 1989, Chinese students protested against the authorities and occupied Trainmen Square. In June 1989, many of those students still demonstrated in Beijing and were then victoriously massacred. However, none of the events in Communist Asia was as momentous as those occurring in Eastern Europe. The collapse of Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the USSR worsened and deeply influenced the political situation in Vietnam. The struggle for freedom and democracy and the economic reforms in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, the demands for political plurality, inside the country caused much anxiety to the Party leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

             

     Facing serious economic and political problems in perspective, the Party, on the one hand, tried to sooth dissidence among party members in the South by mediating compromise with the dissent faction and solacing the student ranges by apportioning them with higher food rations. It even loosened economic restrictions, relaxing to some extent small private business and preparing laws for foreign investment and international transactions. On the other hand, it hastily launched operations for repression against pro-political plurality and multi-parties elements and negating all forms of opposition in the Party and the masses. In September 1989, the Party Central Executive Committee held conference in Saigon and decided to take harsh measures in response to the state of emergency under any circumstance. The official daily Nhan Dan (The People), in a long article warned the masses and public opinion of what it called "the freedom in the manner of capitalism,” an allusion to the demands for political reform in Poland. It earnestly called for protection of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the role of leadership of the Party. At the Congress of the Central Party Committee in Saigon, Party Secretary-general Nguyen Van Linh feverishly heightened vigilance, appealing to all party members to be firmly loyal to socialism and protect party members from being trapped by deviations, especially the erroneous political premises of pluralism and political plurality. By a gesture of vigilance, in October 1989, he dissolved the Democratic Party and the Social Party, forcing their members to voluntarily end activities, although these two parties were only nominally affiliated organs to the Communist Party of Vietnam.  By the resolution of the Central Party Congress VI, March 1989, the Communist Party professedly rejected political pluralism. To cleanse “the enemy from within,” the Party dismissed Tran Xuan Bach from the Politburo for conflict over views with Party Secretary-general Nguyen Van Linh. The former Politburo member was charged with having committed serious violations on principles of organization and discipline of the Party, causing vile consequences.

Another thorn in the side ever persisted: the religions in their struggle for their cause for existence and religious freedoms. In reality, the collapse of Eastern Europe and disintegration of the USSR forced Vietnam to turn to the West to seek financial support and economic aids from it. The new circumstances also compelled it to reassess religious policy, promoting religious tolerance to meets international standards in exchange for support and aids as required by Western democracies. The Party leadership was at a loss as it was well aware of the pro-democracy role played by the Churches in Eastern Europe and wanted to avoid a similar Church-nurtured popular uprising in the country. As a matter of fact, following the takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, all religions were kept under close watch, although their activities were tied to strict rules and regulations .Large Buddhist congregation, the Roman Catholics, the Evangelicals, and the indigenous Caodaists and Hoa Hao Buddhists were all viewed as “ the inside enemies” by the State. By the time political developments for change in Eastern Europe and disintegration in the Soviet Union were at its climax, the Catholics were targeted with harsh repression. The mass arrest of the members of the Congregation of the Mother Coredemptrix in 1987 is a case in evidence. The Congregation was dissolved on charges of “subversion.”  All its main offices and facilities in Thu Duc District, Saigon, were confiscated. Father Dominic Tran Dinh Thu, founder of the Congregation and 40 priests were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. 

 Hanoi took notice of the role of Catholic Church in the democracy revolutions in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltics. It executed a two-pronged policy. On the one hand, it loosened its grips on the religions for some time, lest Vietnam would go the way as Eastern Europe did. The Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, which is regarded as “having had links with antirevolutionary and anti-communist imperialism,” was given keen watch. Strict rules and regulations on religious activities that limited when and where religious church activities could take place were mandatory. .Hope for a liberalizing trend was dim. There was no break in the ideology. The leaders held fast to the monopoly of power, persevering firm control in every aspect of the civil life, and religions were no exception. A Penal Code was promulgated. Under the law, there are no political or religious prisoners, There are only criminals. Anyone who violates the law is tried under this category. Priests and villains are treated in the same manner, being incarcerated in isolation in dark cells and doing forced labor as criminals indiscriminately.