Vietnam ratifies Marxism-Leninism as socio-economic engine

[Che a chara]

http://english.pravda.ru/history/13-01-2011/116514-vietnam_ratifies_marxism_leninism-0/


13.01.2011

Written by Charly Morales Valido

Prensa Latina

http://english.pravda.ru/images/article/0/2/0/43020.jpeg

The 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) today endorsed Marxism-Leninism as the cornerstone of the economic renewal process started here 25 years ago.

During the solemn opening of the conclave, the top leadership of the country also appreciated the successful implementation of the ideology of Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam to apply the principles of Marx and Lenin.

Vietnam President Nguyen Minh Triet, highlighted the legacy of Uncle Ho, whom he defined as "a man of world culture, while a tireless fighter for national independence."

The president praised the millions of compatriots who were slaughtered over eight decades, to obtain, defend and uphold the sovereignty that allows the country to move towards socialism.

In this regard, Triet said that the country currently faces many challenges following the global financial crisis, but bet on the leadership of the CPV to make Vietnam an industrialized nation by 2020.

"The 11th Congress is a big responsibility to the people to face reality and tell the truth and pursue our transition to socialism," he said.

http://english.pravda.ru/images/article/0/2/2/43022.jpeg

Triet stressed the crucial role of the "Doi moi" (renovation) began in 1986, the increasing mobility of Vietnamese society, and called for the process to be perfected.

In the opening, 1,377 delegates took part, representing 3.6 million members of the CPV, as well as former members of its Central Committee and the group called heroic mothers, women who lost their children in the independence struggles.

The CPV holds its national congress every five years to draw up socio-economic strategies and choose the highest political and administrative leadership of the nation.

Vietnam has been successful in economic reforms while still maintaining the objectives, principles and viewpoints of socialism.

The building of a socialist-oriented market economy in Vietnam and the country's achievements over the past are valuable experiences that were praised by foreign reporters, as well as progress made in agriculture.




Translated from the Spanish version and appended by:

Lisa Karpova

Pravda.Ru

[RGacky3]

Officially China still maintains the "objectives principles and viewpoints" of "socialism".

[Che a chara]

http://www.cpv.org.vn/cpv/Modules/News_English/News_Detail_E.aspx?CN_ID=442893&CO_ID=30180


Congress delegates present wide range of issues

11:10 | 14/01/2011

http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Upload/News/2011/1/14111_ctqh%20DHXI.jpg

Delegates to the ongoing 11 th National Party Congress in Hanoi held a plenary session in the afternoon of Jan. 13 during which they heard a number of presentations.

The session was chaired by Politburo member, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong.

Ta Ngoc Tan, a Party Central Committee member, who is Editor-in-Chief of Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review), highlighted the persistent preservation and creative application of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts in the transitional period to socialism in Vietnam .

He attributed huge achievements of historical significance made in the country’s renewal process to the correct understanding of the scientific and revolutionary nature of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts and creative application of these mentoring documents in the reality of building socialism in the country.

Tan noted, “The course of implementing the renewal policy over the past 25 years has shown that the more our national construction and development advance, the more complicated and difficult issues we will face, which will place our country in new opportunities as well as new challenges”.

“These require us to assess our understanding again, apply creativity and supplement and develop Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thoughts in accordance with the new global context as well as specific conditions in the country,” Tan said.

Party Central Committee member, Huynh Dam, who is also President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, focused on promoting the national great unity to contribute to executing the 11 th Party Congress Resolution successfully.

Dam laid stress on the need for the Party to continue reviewing its leading methods and to strictly follow the principle of democratic consultation while working with the Vietnam Fatherland Front and other mass organisations, respecting the VFF’s self-reliance, giving support to its voluntary, active, and creative activities and listening sincerely to opinions contributed by the VFF and other mass organisations.

The Party must well perform its role as both the leader and a member of the VFF, Dam said.

Another presentation, about “boosting the development of a knowledge-based economy to make the country develop fast and sustainably”, was delivered by Vu Hong Khanh, from the delegation of the Ha Noi Party Committee.

Khanh spoke of problems emerged from an economic development model that lacks environmental protection and resolutely backed the 2011-2020 socio-economic development strategy which champions sustainable development as the top priority and a thorough demand.

Nguyen Van Dua from the delegation of the Ho Chi Minh Party Committee presented delegates with a proposal on five groups of policies and solutions to remodel development and restructure the national economy.

He pointed to the necessity of changing the thinking concerning the state’s economic management function by using a planning tool that fits the operation of the market mechanism, effective use of economic-financial policies to stimulate the internal restructuring process in economic sectors, as well as making State economic institutions be facilities to remedy and limit flaws of the market.

The delegates heard a host of presentations delivered by Party Central Committee members.

They included, “Ten year implementation of the 2001-10 socio-economic development strategy reviewed and lessons learnt to deploy the 2010-20 socio-economic development strategy” by Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc; “Environmental protection in the process of pushing up industrialisation and modernisation for fast and sustainable development” by Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen; “Building the Vietnam People’s Army revolutionary, regular, professional, and well-trained and gradually modernising it to defend the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the new circumstance” by Vice Director of the General Politics Department of the Vietnam People’s Army Ngo Xuan Lich; and “Enhancing and expanding the Communist Party of Vietnam’s relations with communist parties, left-wing parties, ruling parties and political parties in the world” by Head of the Party Central Committee’s External Relations Commission Hoang Binh Quan.

At the session, the delegates were informed that the 11 th National Party Congress had so far received 149 congratulatory messages from parties, organisations and friends all over the world.

[Che a chara]

Officially China still maintains the "objectives principles and viewpoints" of "socialism".

It's not much fun seeing these terms being butchered and revised as part of US imperialist collaboration :(

[ComradeMan]

Abolish private property and abandon the state model for territorial administration on a bottom-up localised level and allow anyonw who wants to live within the area and/or leave if they so choose--

[trivas7]

Officially China still maintains the "objectives principles and viewpoints" of "socialism".
This is what comes of a worldview whose contours are dialetical and whose political economy is premised on a labor theory of value.

[RGacky3]

This is what comes of a worldview whose contours are dialetical and whose political economy is premised on a labor theory of value.

What the hell are you talking about???

[Nolan]

If that's Marxism-Leninism you can call me fucking Rand.


What the hell are you talking about???

Don't have him explain. It'll ruin it.

[Che a chara]

Vietnamese Communist Party opens its arms to the capitalist elite

By Wasantha Rupasingha
10 February 2011

The 11th congress of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), held in Hanoi from January 12 to 19, decided to formally allow private business owners to join its membership. The move was aimed at boosting the country’s pro-business image by following similar steps taken by the party’s Chinese Stalinist counterpart in 2002.

About 1,377 bureaucratically-selected delegates, representing the interests of the state hierarchy and the grasping corporate elite, were at the congress. They voted for an expansion of a policy, adopted at the 2006 congress, to allow existing VCP members to run private businesses. By now allowing private entrepreneurs to join the VCP, the party is openly embracing the wealthy social layer created by Hanoi’s “market reform” policy since 1986.

Like the Chinese Communist Party, the VCP leadership has abandoned its lingering socialist pretences. Nguyen Duc Kien, a party delegate from Soc Trance province, told reporters that the VCP “is not necessarily for the working class only”. He explained: “We should appreciate a good businessman who can make money legally and create jobs for people at the same time.” Another delegate from Dong Nai province, which is an industrial zone near Ho Chi Minh City, declared: “It will help increase the confidence of foreign investors because they will see how we value the private sector.”

The private sector accounted for 81.5 percent of Vietnam’s industrial output in 2008, up from 50.4 percent in 1996. So-called equitisation has been widely implemented in the remaining state-owned enterprises, transforming them profit-making entities for share holders and VCP-appointed executives.

Vietnam’s business elite welcomed the VCP’s new policy. Vu Duy Hai, the chairman of Ho Chi Minh City-based trading company Vinacam Joint-Stock Co., who is also a CPV member, told Bloomberg that the new policy would justify the profitable exploitation of workers. “Calling that exploitation is not correct,” Vu insisted, “When they [workers] work for us, their lives improve.”

This so-called improvement of the lives of Vietnamese workers, many from impoverished peasant backgrounds, means nothing more than lifting them out of rural poverty into an urban life, where they toil in sweatshops with long hours and brutal conditions. The declaration that workers “work for us” reflects the reality that businessmen have become the real masters of the misnamed “Democratic Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.
The ranking of Vietnamese workers on Asia’s wage scale speaks volumes about the real status of the working class in the country. The average manufacturing wage in Vietnam is just $101 a month, less than half of China’s $217 and Thailand’s $231, two other major cheap labour platforms.

The celebratory mood of the VCP’s open embrace of the capitalist elite, however, was undermined by rising concerns that Vietnamese capitalism is heading into economic and social crises.

The consequence of market reform, according to the VCP’s congress resolution, has been an “increasing gap between the rich and the poor”. The resolution warned of “factors that may cause socio-political instability”. It acknowledged that “bureaucracy, corruption, waste, crime, social evils, moral and lifestyle degradation have still not been prevented”.

In order to prevent protests before the congress, the VCP regime launched a crackdown on bloggers and human rights activists, jailing 17 of them since October 2009. Last year, Hanoi also blocked social networking sites such as Facebook, fearing they could be used to “convey information” that opposed the state.

The VCP congress set an annual growth target of 7-7.5 percent for 2011-15, up from 6.78 percent last year. However, despite being an export-led economy, Vietnam recorded a trade deficit of $US13.24 billion last year. This seriously damaged confidence in the Vietnamese currency. Hanoi had devalued the dong three times since November 2009 in order to reduce the impact of the global economic crisis on its export sector.

The growing trade deficit led to a decline in foreign currency reserves from $24.2 billion in 2008 to $16.8 billion in 2009. The fiscal deficit rose to 7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, breaching the government’s target of 6.2 percent. The VCP’s aim to reduce the deficit to 4.5 percent by 2015 will involve further destruction of state-owned industries and services.

Vietnam’s public debt was estimated to account for 56.7 percent of GDP in 2010, an increase of 6.78 percentage points in a year. As a result of this blowout, the global credit ratings agencies have lowered the country’s ratings. The Fitch agency downgraded Vietnam’s credit rating from BB- to B+ in August 2010. Vietnam’s long-time foreign-currency rating is now B1 at Moody’s—four classes below investment grade.

Vietnam has become increasingly dependent on foreign investment. In 2008, overseas investors sank a record $11.5 billion into Vietnam. But in the wake of the global recession, foreign direct investment plummeted by 70 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the corresponding period of 2008.

Like elsewhere in the world, rising prices are now threatening to ignite struggles of workers and peasants in Vietnam, and have also added to the pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates, a move that will slow economic growth. In January, the official price index was 12.17 percent higher than the same month last year, outpacing the 11.75 percent inflation figure recorded in December.

By openly allowing capitalists to join the party, the VCP has reached the logical conclusion of Ho Chi Minh’s Stalinist perspective of a national road to socialism. In 1986, just a decade after the military victory over US imperialism in 1975, the VCP followed Mao’s heirs in China by undertaking a policy of “market reform” to transform the country into a source of cheap labour for the world’s major corporations, particularly American ones.

The VCP leaders normalised relations with Washington in 1995. They have moved even closer to the US in recent years, becoming Washington’s ally in its rivalry with China, particularly in the South China Sea. Last August, Vietnam held high-level military talks with the US for the first time and invited the nuclear-powered USS George Washington to visit the country.

Little more than 35 years after the Vietnam War, the country once again faces being a pawn in a conflict between the major powers. The VCP’s congress resolution forecast turmoil in relations between the “powerful nations” in the coming period. “Economic-trade competition and the fight for natural resources, energies, markets, technologies, capital resources, high-quality human resources among countries will become even more severe,” it warned. In particular, the great-power rivalry in South East Asia contained “many factors possibly leading to instabilities. More territorial, sea and island disputes will occur. New forces and intertwining interests will take shape.”

The congress re-elected Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, despite his mishandling of a major state-owned shipbuilding company, which almost collapsed with debts equal to 5 percent of Vietnam’s GDP. Dung’s approval of a major Chinese bauxite mine last year drew criticisms from the National Assembly for “selling out” the country. However, he is likely to work closely with the new general secretary, 67-year-old Nguyen Phu Trong, who is regarded as oriented toward China.

The VCP standing secretary, Truong Tan Sang, 61, who replaced the ailing Nguyen Minh Triet as the country’s president, on the other hand, has developed close relations with China’s rival, Japan. Moreover, Defence Minister Phung Quang Thanh stayed on. He had successfully lobby for major arms purchases from Russia, including six Kilo-class attack submarines to protect Vietnamese-controlled islands in the South China Sea against China.
In order to prepare the regime to suppress any eruption of the working class, the police representation in the most-powerful 14-member Politburo was increased from one to two. The opening up of the party to the capitalist elite, far from heralding a new age of stability for the Vietnamese ruling strata, will only deepen the social and political tensions in the country.

LINK: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/cpvc-f10.shtml?

Marxist-Leninism ? http://www.straferight.com/photopost/data/500/vomit-smiley-007.gif

[danyboy27]

my opinion is better explained by this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S2f76Kjx0c

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

I agree. Disrespecting the name of such a great and enduring political ideology as Marxism Leninism makes me want to puke too.

hahahaha

For real it's 2011 and the fact that vietnam is using the term Marxism Leninism refering to their country should be the story, not the fact that it might not be true to it's roots in....wait....trying to remember where Marxism Leninism came from....such a great ideology yet having trouble remembering where it was founded, can't seem to find anything on the map....oh well who cares.

[scarletghoul]

Thing is, there is still a shell of Marxism-Leninist theory, but used as a vehicle for a capitalist ghost. With the Marxist understanding of economics, and a disciplined Leninist party-state structure, Vietnamese capitalism is doing quite well for itself. We should of course condemn it, but to deny it has anything to do with marxism-leninism is wrong; it is a fascinating bastardisation.

[Tablo]

Industrialized by 2020! :ohmy:

Not sure if I think they can do it..

[danyboy27]

Industrialized by 2020! :ohmy:

Not sure if I think they can do it..

give them a fews more year of outsourcing and they will do it.

[Princess Luna]

You must pick up the pace my fellow workers because Comrade Wal-Mart is expecting these cheaply made shoes in 4 days and this sweatshop is already behind in it's work!

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Or this is what happens when Marxist Leninists just become incredibly corrupt. "Hey, Marx was right, businesses exploit labour for surplus value. Hey, we can make some money exploiting labour .... hmmm ...."

In theory, a corrupt Marxist-Leninist who understands the theoretical patterns and historical causes of socialist revolution would be the best suited to create a Capitalist society where revolution is less likely. They're the Marxist equivalent of Catholic priests who use the robes to get rich.

[RGacky3]

Leninism is dead anyway as an actual force in the world, in countries like Vietnam and the such its kind of like how the Queen is still the head of state in England, its just kind of a cute old time formality.

[Property Is Robbery]

LINK: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/cpvc-f10.shtml?

Marxist-Leninism ? http://www.straferight.com/photopost/data/500/vomit-smiley-007.gif
You beat me to posting the same link

[Dean]

This is what comes of a worldview
Ah yes, the idealist "ideas make the world" argument. What happened to individual self-interest?


whose contours are dialetical
Bizarre and unrelated. You're basically trolling, and I'm starting to think your rampant misspellings are evidence of your own ignorance of the topics at hand, rather than simple typos.


and whose political economy is premised on a labor theory of value.
Adam Smith might disagree with you on that one (as well as just about every capitalist economist up until Marx, when advanced economic analysis became unfashionable due to its conclusions).


Anyone whose been paying attention for the last few decades knows that Vietnam's economy is a petty-bourgeois nationalist system, but then nobody ever accused you of paying attention. The fact is that nations like China and Vietnam have a specific interest in appearing "pro-working class:" they have a massive supply of labor (which can translate into a burgeoning political threat) and a very high rate of production. The material fact of the Communist Party's exploitation does register in the labor of Vietnam, so these systems are bound to fail for precisely the same reason that capitalist systems in general do: shockingly, its material conditions, not childish quips about how certain propaganda has "magical" effects.

But you just picked up that Ayn Rand and realized that you don't, in fact, have to take world news and systems seriously to have a quaint, condescending attitude about them. Spend a few days reading the Financial Times and you'll learn a lot more is at stake in Vietnam than your childish hyperbole about how "dialectics and the LTV have ruined Vietnam." What a fucking joke.

[Bud Struggle]

Thing is, there is still a shell of Marxism-Leninist theory, but used as a vehicle for a capitalist ghost. With the Marxist understanding of economics, and a disciplined Leninist party-state structure, Vietnamese capitalism is doing quite well for itself. We should of course condemn it, but to deny it has anything to do with marxism-leninism is wrong; it is a fascinating bastardisation.

One wonders if this is the course of how Capitalism and Communism evolve. It makes for and exceptionally sleek and productive Capitalism. Vietnam could very well become if not fully at least partially industrialzed by 2020 and give peope a fairly decent standard of living.

But the price that's payed is no democracy.

[Dean]

One wonders if this is the course of how Capitalism and Communism evolve. It makes for and exceptionally sleek and productive Capitalism. Vietnam could very well become if not fully at least partially industrialzed by 2020 and give peope a fairly decent standard of living.

But the price that's payed is no democracy.

This is the way that "Communist" societies in developing nations have existed, and ultimately crumbled. What all of these authoritarian societies are individually destined for is "liberal democracy," with a few caveats:

1, extant industrial nations lose a significant source of cheap labor when the nation changes over, so there is resistance abroad and domestically by those who profit from the system. Cheap labor rates and liberal democratization lead to social unrest, which is what we're seeing in a lot of places right now.

2, the process takes place alongside the continued accumulation of wealth in the highest echelon of society, which lowers aggregate consumer demand (particularly the demand that calls for cheap, mass production) so that standard of living you mentioned is not really going to play out - particularly not in China, where the US federal reserve (and the rest of the financial system) has its boot firmly planted on the nation's neck.


There are a myriad of competing interests at play here, but the important ones that dictate production don't really fit into your model. China, for instance, is in the bizarre situation wherein redistribution of wealth actually would give people a higher standard of living immediately rather than later as a consequence of aggregate demand, because the capital stock is increasingly unused, and produced as an investment strategy to maintain the value of currency that investors have. The Yuan is undervalued, but apartment buildings are not - so businessmen buy up condos and shopping mall capital and neither use them nor rent them out. There are relative ghost towns in China as a consequence of this.

I'm not sure if that last situation is particularly relevant to Vietnam, but a lot of the production/political functions seen in China seem to be closely followed in Vietnam. Hell, it seems possible that the elite in those regimes actually modeled China's current system after Vietnam's, but I'm not familiar with the comparative time lines there.