ENEQUALITIES

ENEQUALITIES

By Van Nguyen

   Uncertainties are pervasive in every aspect in the social life of the people. It is self-evident in the corrupt practices in the conduct of public affairs of the officialdom. It is equally manifest in social inequalities, ills, and perils, a reflection of disdain for and disrespect to the population. As a result of ill-conceived economic reforms under the People’s Democracy (1975-1985), the economy worsened, leading to the retrogression in the lives of cadres, workers, and state employees. The magazine “Cong San” (The Communist), in March 1987, acknowledged that until December 1986, the real salary of workers and State employees only values at about 30% of that in October 1985. The Labor Company of Mines in Hon Gai, North Vietnam disclosed that the real salary of mine workers remained at 35% of that of 1985. The mineworker lived on a monthly salary of 3,139 dong.  Nevertheless, he was practically paid only 925 dong. He and his family could survive on meager diet from 7 to 10 days. The conditions of living of the intellectuals, im general, were much more deplorable. On the average, a mlddle level state employee was paid 600 dong monthly   It was less than the income of a soup vendor

    During June-August, 1986, 15,700 workers of the Company for Rubber Plantations in the Western High Plateaus quit jobs. The Sixth National Party Congress in December 1986 found it necessary to issue a stern warning against opportunism, individualism, corruption, and a desire for special prerogatives and privileges. A report to the congress urged the Party to intensify the class struggle to combat the corrupt practices that engaged those who "had lost class consciousness." Official efforts were heated to purify the corrupt ranks and file officials of the working class. However, they failed to combat the responsive chord. The proceedings of the Sixth Congress left the inescapable impression that the regime was barely surviving the struggle between socialism and capitalism and that an early emergence of a Communist class structure was unlikely.

    As ideally envisioned, the socialist sector was expected to provide 70 percent of household income, and the "household economy" or the privately controlled resources of the home were to make up the balance. In September 1986, cadres and workers were earning their living mainly through moonlighting and, according to some Vietnamese source, remained on "the state rolls only to preserve their political prestige and to receive some ration stamps and coupons." The source further disclosed that the society's lack of awareness of class struggle was reflected in the party's membership, among them only about 10 per cent were identified as from the working class (Cima, 1989: 112).

    Son Tra reported in the weekly “Tuoi Tre Chu Nhat” (The Youth Sunday”, November 2, 1990, how a weaver and her family survived under “doi moi” (renovation). “What are they going to do to survive?  The hard pressure for money burdens on her family. Her 18-year-old daughter, a weaver like her, ran away from home. The job is chancy. The factory is planning to lay off hundreds of workers, mostly women workers. “ No jobs! That is the most restless anxiety of thousands of most workers and craftsmen. Not only that. The production is slumbering. The living conditions under which Nguyen Thi Hoang Anh and her husband live are another example they got married a year ago.  Hey saved several ounces of gold and bought a loom. In the beginning, they earn a good living due to working on contract with a textile cooperative at Bay Hien, Saigon. The textile industry is then in abeyance. The business is dying. The businessman is bankrupt, and the contract worker’s business dies accordingly. Nguyen Thi Hoang Anh and her husband work for other weavers. They gain approximately 100,000 dong a month all day and night to support a family of five members, including 3 children; the oldest of them is not yet 5-year-old. “  

   Son Tra noted, in his account of the gap between the rich and the poor in Ho Chi Minh City, as follows: “While the poor people rake for every cent in heaps of garbage, a class of “mandarins of the revolution” indulges in luxurious living. Abuses of power pervade the officialdom, and injustices create anger and discontent, resulting in a serious problem. The occupation  of public estates of party members and cadres takes place in almost all big cities and townships even the center of Ho Chi Minh City where the fight against and the annihilation of corrupt practices is on the rise. Those slogans are mere catchwords for propaganda used to cover up illegal favors for protégés and screening them from crimes and mistakes.

   There is brazen truth linked to almost all rank and file officials of the Party and State. Many of them are not only allocated public facilities for habitation and leisure but also served by men-on-duty and public servants! These privileges have never been scrutinized in the searchlight of renovation as if public properties were reserved for the privileged class! The budget spent for this kind of luxury is really astounding.  If we rent a four-seat sedan plus a driver in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi for one day, we have to pay from 70,000 d0ng to 100,000 dong, depending on what the makes are. As regards house rentals, in business quarters such as Hang Dao Street tin Hanoi or Le Thanh Ton Street in Ho Chi Minh City, a businessman has to pay30, 000 per month for each square meter. Redesigning, we will see how colossal the State debt paid for all the allocations under the “bao can” (cadre’s protection policy) will be!

   There is, of course, no equality of wealth between the rich and the poor [even in a classless society as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam aspires to come up to!] However, no particular class is entitled to favors without the control of the society. Social objections will become increasingly intense as the commodity economy requires all citizens to familiarize themselves with the measurement of every ounce of raw materials, every minute of work, and every square meter of estates, facilities, and factories. The question is to open a bookkeeping account for national properties, the budget paid for each State agency and each state official in such a way that the people will be able to duly tolerate errors and mistakes. Every legal payment must be approved by the legislative body. The nominal salary should not be used as shield for an act of indecent conduct or a cover for an unjust allocation of public property or interests, and, worse still, for the protection of corrupt practices that are decaying the officialdom and breaking down the State (H. Son Tra, 1990).

      Le Ha Van depicted the utter misery the true “class of workers” in the Socialist country suffers under renovation. They are mostly homeless and do up garbage for living. They are commonly called garbage excavators.  Waste materials are like silver and gold to them. An old person is observantly working beside a rubbish-heap at Hoang Van Thu Park (Saigon). Her rheumy eyes which are used in place of a flash light are searching through the heap that has been dug up with fingers by a younger and stronger “excavators” who have come previously. A filthy smell expires. She says: “Waste paper is sold at 1’000 dong (approximately 10 cents) per kilogram, nylon bags may be sold at 1,500 dong, and paper bags and bottles can be sold only at 500 dong.”       

     “Excavators” are mostly young people. They are from suburban wards of Tan Binh Precinct and Hoc Mon District. That “army” work from midnight to dawn when luxurious Saigon restaurants are gradually transforming their plain figures into the picturesque scenes of neon signs and perfume. With a bicycle and two bamboo-latticed baskets or sacks, the garage gatherer rushes for garbage cans along the sidewalk, turns them upside down, gathers anything he could sell, and leaves for the “market place. Garbage gatherers are everywhere, in the center of Saigon, in Cho Lon (Saigon Chinatown), or Hang Xanh Street. Gia Dinh Township.

   Policy ambiguities and poor dissemination, sudden change in policy can mean that what is generally perceived as legal one day becomes illegal the next. Sometimes, it is not easy to change one’s situation as the new policy requires. The economic renovation has its setbacks. Getrud Winkie reported in the French magazine “Le Monde Diplomatique” in July 1995 that Vietnam’s economy is viable, but not everyone enjoys its achievements. There is an absence a social orientation in the economic development. It neglects other sectors of the country’s life, thus creating a distant detachment between the rich and the poor.

INSTABILITY

INSTABILITY

By Van Nguyen

     The fight for powers by underhand means between top leaders in the Politburo persisted in secret. It became increasingly tense at the outset of the Congress of the People’s Army of October 13, 1986. The prestige of General Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of Dien Bien Phu victory and his two close colleagues, General Chu Huy Man, commander-in-chief of the People’s Army and General Van Tien Dung, the general commander of Ho Chi Minh Campaign in the spring of 1975, was immersed in disfavor. Political maneuvers closed in on the military leaders after the doubtful deaths of three other outstanding generals, Hoang Van Thai, Le Trong Tan, and Dinh Duc Thien. Out of a hidden scheme instigated by Le Duc Tho, top leaders in the Politburo, Pham Van Dong, Pham Hung, and Vo Chi Cong, Party Secretary-general Truong Cinhh was forced to resign from position. 

     In the opening session of the internal Congress of the Communist Party on December 15, 1986, Nguyen Van Linh, the Committee Party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City was chosen Party Secretary-general for renovation by a unanimous vote. With the ascension of Nguyen Van Linh to powers, the Communist Party of Vietnam hastened a move from command economy to market economy.  As a consequence of burning failures of successive economic reforms for a decade-long People’s democracy, instability in the economic, social, and political life were still very much with the people of Vietnam, however.

 The Peasantry in the North

 In Thai Binh Province, well-known “the granary of rice North Vietnam,” people still labored under “doi moi” (renovation). There was no change in the life of the peasantry.  A three-generation family still lived under the same ancestral thatched-roof cottage. They had no other means for production but bare hands and rudimentary farm implements. Agricultural communes and cooperatives were dissolved, but everything was under the control of the commune.

Previously, under the agricultural communes and cooperatives system, the peasants worked for the agricultural cooperative and were paid for the labor they contributed to it. In principle, the better you contribute to it, the more interest you get from it. Contrarily, the peasants, in reality, were cleaned out shamelessly. A cooperative farmhand was given only 6 kilograms of rice over a month, nothing else but rice. He had no sick-leave. If he wanted a day off, a portion of his rice ration would be taken off. If he was absent from work, he would be interrogated and punished. His rice ration could be cut on charge absence from work without a reason. He committed the serious crime of sabotage against the policy for socialist production. The peasant labored as ever. He worked twelve months a year including communal works such as digging canals and damming a river. He was nevertheless paid for eight and a half months. The compensation was meager. A cooperative farm hand could only have nearly 50 kilogram s of rice for the whole six-month rice season. In times of drought and flood, the peasant went hungry without a doubt.

Renovation came but brought about even more evils. Taxes and fees accumulated. Peasants in the agricultural provinces like Thai Binh lived in penury. Crops yield could only afford even for three or four months yearly. Parents left homes for townships and cities to work on hire. Kids stayed home and took care of family matters. Misery plagued the countryside.  In the winter, kids didn’t even have shorts to resist the bitter cold. Every time, a visitor from the South came back to the home village, he or she usually brought with him or her bundles of old clothes collected from relatives and friends in the South and gave them to those poor children. An old piece of clothes was then worth several kilograms of rice. (Interview with Nguyen Thi Diep. VHRW. Novembe992)

    

In the beginning, the peasant seems to rejoice at the new policy, but he soon realizes that he is exploited even more cruelly than he had been. He is now reluctant and feels disheartened, being aware of the reality that he has to face new difficulties. As ever, the right to private ownership is a taboo subject. Land is state-administered. The peasant could rent it on contract. A family of 6 members, for example, could rent 7 “sao” (700m2). Under this new contract system, the peasant stands on his own, cultivating his fields and taking care of his crop. On the average, in a good season, a peasant cultivating 7 “sao” (700m2) can earn get 420 kilograms of rice. Under the commune cooperatives system, he is given 240 kilograms of rice. Under the new system, he can get the double amount. But, the situation isn't better. The peasant has to pay for everything, from seeds to manure. Before renovation, he works for the cooperative; he can be afforded commodities on state subsidies. Now, he has to buy them on market prices, which are often ten times higher. Before renovation, schooling for children was tuition-free. He doesn't even know if he will ever be courageous enough to continue working on the fields. Many peasants can't afford their children's tuition fees, which often cost almost all the crop of the family. They keep them home to work for the family. They need to survive first.

   Renovation depicts another somber picture. Begging in 1988, the agricultural cooperatives system was abolished as the first move towards the market economy.  A good story tells, as he believes that good times have come, a college student majoring in agriculture drops out of school, nurturing the idea that he possibly takes advantage of the new system to make good money. He goes back to his home village asking his parents to borrow money from relatives for him to rent a tractor. He hopes that once he has had the plough-machine at hand, every peasant in the region will ask him to plough the field—just for the sake of convenience. That will save time, labor, and money for the laborer. He will be there to gather money. To his distress, the peasants can’t afford to hire him. They are penniless. Moreover, they are accustomed to rudimentary mode of production. They still miserably depend on buffalo-drawn harrows and ploughs, and hand farming implements for cultivation.  (Thien Nhan, VNHRW, 7 (March 1992)).     

The Peasantry in the Center

 A peasant in Mo Duc District, Quang Ngai Province, told how he survived before and after the new agrarian reform: “After1986, the agricultural cooperatives system is abolished. Misery is still pervasive. The peasants and common people are in the same boat: They are equally miserable. The absolute majority of the people in his district are peasants. Before 1986, they worked for the agricultural commune but could not afford foods for their families. Three-fourths of the crop yield went to the state--practically local cadres and authorities. After 1986, the situation isn’t better. Adopting the path of market economy, the local authorities allocated 800 square meters of land to everyone who was 18 years old and older. On the average, the crop yield--the peasants usually grow rice--per rice season varied from 60 to 80 kgs per 800 square meters. Subtracting the expenses for the care of the land, there was only half of the crop yield left. The peasants nevertheless had to pay for all kinds of additional state contributions, from social relief services to military obligations --not to mention the tuition fees for their children. In addition, they had “the right" to pay the rent for the land they were allocated and taxes to the State. There was virtually nothing left after they had done all their "citizens' obligations"—from national defense to social welfare fees contributions.  

Propaganda is always instrumental to the policy of the State’. The Vietnamese people know that the Vietnamese Communist Party lies to them. It says the people are the "master of the country" but, in reality, they are only the slaves. They are like old and weak buffaloes laboring for the benefits of the state cadres and Communist party members. The people are "the master of the country" but the State is the true organizer that administers their lives and properties. The Vietnamese Communist Party is the true master who reserves the rights to the "leadership" of the people! Those plain lies camouflage hidden schemes that are contrary to reason and common sense. (Van Chuong, Interview with Dinh Phu: 11 VNHRW (July 1993)).

Warnings and threats are used as a means to an end to control not only the people but also party members and officials in the officialdom. They serve as the shields to cover up errors and mistakes. State policies are right, only the executors are at fault. To execute political intimidation, the Communist administration activates campaigns of propaganda to rectify their cadres' faux pas and corrupt practices. Those campaigns, in reality, are aimed not only to eliminate corrupt officials but also to monitor opposition from the masses to abort it right in the germinal stage. The repressive operations in the Center are a case in evidence. While the campaigns went on secretly in the provinces of Phu Khanh and Binh Tri Thien, they are carried out with hard measures in Thanh Hoa Province. Having failed to intimidate the peasants in the village of Ngoc Tho, district of Trieu Son, the local authorities suppressed with violence the villagers' opposition. Thirty district and province security policemen, armed with submachine guns and flanked by police-dogs, were given orders to assault the unarmed villagers (Thien Chuong, VNHRW: 1992: 4).

The Peasantry in the Mekong Delta

The demonstrations by the peasantry took place in many places in the provinces of the Mekong Delta during 1987-1988. The incidents were unknown to the West due to State mass media censorship   and the "Internal policy."  The developments were confirmed by well-informed sources in Ho Chi Minh City--high-ranking officials on mission in Paris and refugees from the provinces concerned. The first demonstration occurred at Mo Cay, a district in the province of Ben Tre, a hundred kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City. The district was well-known for its “Dong Khoi” (general uprising) on December 20, 1960, the date that well marked the precursory step toward "the War for the Liberation of South Vietnam." Two other demonstrations, also organized by the peasantry, took place after that, in April and May 1988. The second demonstration was directed by veteran fighters of the Front for Liberation of South Vietnam, and it was the bloodiest one. Armed with hatches, knives, and hoes, the protesters occupied the fields of the commune cooperatives. Their demands were the return of their private properties, direct evaluation of land policies, and the lowering of taxation on farming. Police forces were sent in to repress the demonstrations. Many peasants were seriously wounded. Among them was Ho Sinh, a veteran cadre, who was incarcerated later. 

The peasantry also organized two demonstrations in Ho Chi Minacity, which occurred on August 12, 1988 and November 9-10. 1988. According to the AFP, approximately 1.000 people participated in the protest. Hanoi had to satisfy some demands. Each cooperative member was then allocated a piece of land for his own use. One might think that would be a signal for the return to the old mode of individual land production in the South as previously. However, the land ever belongs to “the people” as prescribed by the constitutional law (Article 17 of the 1992 Constitution). The agrarian taxation is lowered. The lease term, according to the law on land, passed by the National Assembly on July 15, 1993, is fixed for 20 years for the rice-field and 50 years for the land used for multiphase growing. The lease is restorable. Each household has the right to exploit three hectares of rice-field at most. These half-way measures, however, did not satisfy the peasantry's legitimate demands. They wish to be given back the rights to private ownership and direct evaluation of the land.  

The provision 17 of 1992 Constitution and the new law on land, in truth, dispossess the ownership of private property circumscribed by a lease.  Someday it will be manipulated by the government for certain some reason, transforming the peasants into the true "State farmers." Deprived of his land legally and only allowed by the government for cultivation, the peasant and his family only survive at the mercy of the State. They suffer almost the same fate as their peers in the North did during the bloody agrarian reforms in 1955-1956. Even though lowered, the taxation remained high. The yield of crops was not sufficient enough to relieve them from making ends meet due to heavy costs of farming. Worse still, despite good harvests, quite a few peasants went bankrupt because the selling price of rice in the market (averaging from 750 dong per kilogram (with one dollar equals 10,000 dong) was still low. It is equal to or lowers than the cost of production. The peasant was no longer interested in implementing the yield of land simply the land did not belong to him. The limit of three hectares per household discouraged the old middle-category cultivators who had possessed more than three hectares. As a consequence, in the Mekong Delta where the population was sparse and labor force was in want, the peasants abandoned farming. (Lam Thanh Liem 1993, 4-5)

HARD TIMES

HARD TIMES

By Van Nguyen

 Having been vested the plenipotentiary powers in preserving the supremacy of the Communist Party, the Party’s leadership committed to commit serious errors and mistakes in recurrent phases of economic reforms. Failures were self-evident in the reversal of the reforms during 1983. The ill-conceived reforms programs lasted over eight years and gradually deepened in chaos. The regime then proceeded with greater caution for the next move. It delayed the collectivization of agricultural production; taking on a wait-and-see attitude and adopted a more relaxed foreign investment law. Beginning in the first months of 1983, Truong Chinh made frequent study visit tours at State agricultural farms and manufacturing enterprises in various provinces to complement his knowledge about the actual workings of the existing economic system. He came to realize that the economic realities in the South were radically different from the ideas and ideals he had conceived, ideologically and economically.

 Difficulties and Problems

In reality, right in the beginning, the economic reforms programs ran into serious difficulties and problems. Manual and technical labor resources were in want. Work conditions were harsh, especially for urban dwellers with no previous farming experience. Inferior production persisted, in spite of substantial State support, Worse still, living conditions were lamentable, and productivity was disappointing. Large numbers of farm-workers began to drift back to the cities--a move that entailed a considerable degree of economic insecurity. The economic programs were riddled with complications not only with increasingly serious difficulties in labor recruitment, but also in the management of the farm production programs itself. Difficulties and problems should then be solved at the roots:

In March 1983, the Vietnamese Communist Party convened its Fifth Party Congress to assess its achievements since 1976 and outline its major tasks for the second five-year economic plan 1980-1985. The congress was revealing with caution that it would fail if revolutionary optimism was no substitute for common sense. Thousands of large groups of youths, both male and female, were sent to collective farms laboring on irrigation works without wage. Thousands of collective manufacturing cooperatives where the workers worked in lamentable conditions and were underpaid by lowest wages or poor quantities of food rations were established in replacement of the old system of private factories to push forward the so-called socialist economy. Despite rigid socio-political controls and mass mobilization of labor force as such, the party still fell far short of its original expectations for socialist transition (Cima, 1989: 111)

     Although acknowledging difficulties and problems, the Congress still affirmed that the "Party's policies are absolutely correct; only the measures are at fault." The instantaneous economic difficulties, and problems, in the views of the Congress, were only the inevitable consequences of the thirty years of war and the destructive plots of the imperialists and their henchmen. In that regard, the Party “devises a number of undoing measures just like the ones committed in the Soviet NEP (New Economic Programs) under Lenin.” The Party changed attitude, calling on the capitalists to join in the joint business ventures to develop State capitalism. The zeal failed to take shape, nonetheless. The economy slid down, and it fell quickly in crisis.

     Controversy over the State policy between to top leaders cropped up during the VI Party Central Congress of July 3-10, 1984. Party Secretary-general Le Duan showed himself a consistent fighter for economic centralism. Main tasks were focused on developing heavy industry and pushing forward agriculture towards mass production. Plans should be made to create a central force for the economic management system. The primary objective was to foment an impetus force for goods production anal distribution, unifying State management and regulating merchandise, securities, and commodities. Most importantly, efforts should concentrate on fighting back the tendency to use the principles of market economy as criteria to evaluate the economic achievements of the State. Truong Chinh suggested, on his part, that the Party should look at the realities of the actual economic life of the country. State subsidies had for many years created a somber picture.  Bureaucracy and corruption spread alarmingly. Whether the Party liked it or not, it ought to acknowledge the existent realities of the market economy in which the whole society was living. A system of exceedingly low prices generated by subsidies only creates great damage to the interests of the nation and the worker.    

During the Party Central Congress VII of December19-17, 1984, Truong Chinh called for ban on the system of bureaucracy and State subsidies and prepared for a systemic instituted re-evaluation of “price-salary-money” to regularize the economy. Low salary, for instance, was compensated by reduction in the prices of provisions and commodities. Liberalism that ravaged the economic daily life of the nation and the worker was to be eliminated. Truong Chinh advocated a realistic approach: “It is necessary to confront the realities of the economic life and rectify errors and mistakes. Most catastrophic problems are the failed economic policies and practices, and especially, bureaucracy, the State subsidies system, and the economic liberalism that ravaged the daily life of the nation and the worker.

At the Party Central Congress of December 10-17, 1984, Truong Chinh advocated resolute ban on bureaucracy and the State subsidies.  As a result, in September 1985, Hanoi took a general census of private economic enterprises and changed currency, dispossessing the capital that was still in the hands of entrepreneurs and businessmen. The People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City selected Third Precinct as a pilot case for the census since there was a large number of small private manufacturing establishments and trade and business enterprises operating in it. However, the general census solved no problem that brought the economy to a standstill. To save the situation, Hanoi had to stop short its plans for socialist transformation and had to work headlong for a policy for economic renovation. This economic renovation, according to Hanoi's interpretation, was only a bypassing period. Its ultimate goal was to transform Vietnam into a Communist country. The general census of private property was postponed.

At the Dead End

 The projects that the Party leadership laid out for the Vietnamese economy met with insurmountable obstacles that tackled issues without solutions. These Maoist-style projects were grandiose but impractical and baseless. How could these projects be administered without financial resources and professional personnel?  Moreover, the cost for the projects would only add weight on the ever increasing inflation the country was facing. There should be a serious study at the highest level of the administration.  Experts close to Trumg Chinh, in particular, stressed the shortcomings of the policy and pointed out the urgent need of a breakthrough that could gradually ease economic production and stabilize the economic management.

    From April 1983 to November 1985, Truong Chinh made study tours around the country to test his “thoughts on reforms.” The counter-balance “price-salary-money” measure was considered the breakthrough for the stagnant national economy and poor management.  On September 3 1985, he signed into law the order providing the issuance and regulations for exchange of a new currency. A household was allowed to exchange the old currency at the maximum for 2,000 dong in the new currency; a single person or individual of a collective, 1,5000 dong each,  business household with  a license at high level, 5,000 dong each. Cash collected from peculation or by illegal business practices were confiscated and incorporated into national budget. The results were discouraging, nevertheless. A few days later, in a report to Truong Chinh, Vo Van Kirt acknowledged that the amount of money rested with the people was relatively minimal. Households with low income were large, giving us a somber picture of how hard the population was facing with the difficulties of economic life. Again, shortcomings persisted. Peculators had already had time to drain goods and commodities and dispersed their wealth abroad. Tragedy followed suit. Prices soared. Peculation reappeared, and galloping inflation started. 

     The disastrous currency and wage reforms of late 1985 remained the only aberration in this pattern of caution. Although there were rumors of possible sabotage, the cause was likely to be a severe lack of judgment by decision makers. Those questions included (a) the IMF and creditor nation anxious for reduction in inflammatory deficit financing to help control the burgeoning balance of trade deficit and ease the country’s debt problem; (b) the Soviet Union, anxious to create a more efficiency working economy in which the large quantities of Soviet development aid would be more effectively, and, last but not least; (c) those elements within the Party who were anxious about a revival of capitalist tendencies. These pressures were, to some extent, contradictory and the reforms (abolition of subsidies and currency reform) had different goals. But their combined effort was to create severe hardship for urban workers and shake popular confidence in the Party and government. The new Party leadership clearly hopes that a resumption of the more gradual reform process will restore that confidence (Huynh Kim Khanh, 152).    

    Cultivating Renovation

      The situation of the country became increasingly critical, socially, politically, and economically. The leadership of the Party was at the dead end: Renovation or Death. The Party Secretary-general Le Duan was at the loss. Premier hard-liners Pham Van Dong hung on to orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Chairman of the State Truong Chinh devoted himself to cultivating renovation. As before, he advocated renovation, making efforts to establish a theatrical base for thought reform, paving the way for renovation. He was elected to Party Secretary-general in replacement of Le Duan, who passed away on July 10, 1986. Favorable conditions were  on his side. On July 28, 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev, during a vast tour in the far east of USSSR, showed concern about Vietnam, saying he hoped to see the Vietnam-China frontiers to be a border of peace. In his statement at Vladivostok on July 31, 1986, he declared that the USSR Communist Party and the whole Soviet Union and Vietnam “completely understand that it is necessary to find solutions to the problems arising from life right inthe bosom of socialist systems.” 

For two consecutive visits to the Soviet Union, Party Secretary-general Truong Chinh met with Mikhail Gorbachev on August 12, and September 11, 1986. Thereupon, he made plans, preparing the guidelines for renovation. At the Patty Congress in Hanoi on October 19, 1986, he made his point, assuring with firmness that “with regard to other socialist countries, renovation is the solution for advancement forward to meet the demands of the time, to correspond to the just meds of the people and that are becoming increasingly a matter of urgency. Concerning the situation in our country, renovation is a vital demand and a matter of life and death. It equally arises from the demands of the situation in the country and reconciliation corresponding to the tendency of renovation of our time”