Leaders Under Fire in Troubled Vietnam : Party Congress to Challenge Policies, Seek Economic Remedies

For nine months, an unprecedented siege of criticism has gripped Vietnam as the country prepares for a Communist Party congress that will challenge the aged, conservative leadership and seek remedies for the comatose economy.

Fingers have been pointed at the highest levels.

“It seems everybody has a bitch,” noted Douglas Pike, a UC Berkeley authority on Vietnam.

The country’s leaders have shown the way with candid criticism of the ruling apparatus. Truong Chinh, party chief and head of government, declared last month that officials had “committed serious shortcomings and mistakes in economic leadership.”

‘Seriously Squandered’

“The country’s latent potential as well as the great assistance of the Soviet Union . . . have been seriously squandered and face the danger of gradually being exhausted,” he said.

In May, shortly after the campaign began, longtime party leader Le Duc Tho was even rougher. Writing in the party monthly Communist Review, Tho accused unnamed party cadres of “corruption, bribery, smuggling and amassing riches.” Old cadres have been trying to cling to their desks, he charged, and there are “comrades in key positions . . . who do not listen to the opinions of the masses.”

About 45,000 party cadres have been detailed to run the criticism and self-criticism sessions, Pike said, adding that there has not been such vehemence in the country since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

The party congress in Hanoi, the first since 1982, is scheduled to begin Dec. 15. The leadership could draw back from major changes in the Politburo or economic policy, but the buildup suggests dramatic events.

Party to Offer Measures

On Nov. 27, the government news agency reported that the party Central Committee had unanimously adopted political and economic measures to be presented to the congress. Meanwhile, foreign affairs and other matters have been put aside.

“Everything else is in abeyance,” said Pike on a visit to Bangkok last month. “They’re trying to get their ducks in a row.”

Hanoi has been closed to outside journalists, but diplomats based there and Vietnam analysts in Bangkok say the economic debate appears to be intense.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, a key figure in regional diplomacy dealing with Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, said he anticipated no Vietnamese discussion on the issue until the congress is completed.

Economic Problems

Leadership changes are “almost inevitable,” he observed in a Jakarta interview late last month. And for now, he suggested, no Vietnamese leader would risk discussing Cambodia for fear of appearing “weak or compromising.”

More than 10 years after winning the war against the United States and its South Vietnamese allies, Hanoi remains unable to construct a viable economy and obtain improved living standards for the country’s 60 million people. The debate over policy reforms, over abandoning the failed Stalinist economic model, has become entwined in the problems of leadership.

Leaders tend to be judged by their economic policies--either “reformers,” those who advocate incentives in the system, or conservatives determined to lift production by ideological exhortation and orders, what Pike called the “praetorian approach, the sustained application of force.”

But the country is so destitute, he said, that the pre-congress debate at times “has risen above principle and deviated into truth.” What Pike called “faction-bashing” has given way, he declared, “to a genuine search for a solution.”

May Shun Experimentation

The problems may seem so forbidding that the party will choose to tough it out, endorsing no further experimentation and sticking with the old, revolutionary leaders, men now in their late 70s. No analysts suggest that the regime faces popular upheaval--at least not one that the military would not quickly put down.

But Pike and others anticipate some sort of change. Pike said that Chinh has been unusually active in appearances and speeches, and “seems to be a man running for something.” Chinh, 79, took over the top party post in July on the death of Le Duan, Ho Chi Minh’s successor.

Chinh’s age suggested then that he might be an interim choice, but he has no natural successor among his peers, and it is uncertain whether the party is prepared to move to the next level of leaders, themselves only about 10 years younger.

Two other members of the revolutionary pantheon, Le Duc Tho and Pham Van Dong, remain in the Politburo. Dong is a weak and ill man, and he may announce his retirement at the congress. Tho appears relatively vigorous at 76.

Potential Successors

The potential successors for the top party or government posts include:

-- Nguyen Van Linh, 71, identified as a reformer and hailed by some as a “small Gorbachev,” a man who might shake up the system.

-- Vo Chi Cong, 73, elevated last summer to vice premier to replace a man sacked for failures in economic management.

-- Vo Van Kiet, 64, a southerner identified as a strong reformist. No southerners have reached the party hierarchy.

Also mentioned as long shots for top posts are two men not so closely identified with economic matters: Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, wartime leader of the northern forces, and Pham Hung, the interior minister.

Whether any of these men could lift the dead weight of the economy is unclear. Vietnam could use a leader with charisma, one who could extract sacrifices from workers, cadres and bureaucrats, but the collective and conservative Vietnamese system does not encourage charismatic leaders.

Blunders Shake Confidence

In the past year, despite small gains in agriculture, the economy and public confidence have been rocked repeatedly by policy blunders. A change in the currency produced inflation, now estimated at 100% annually. An elimination of subsidies was partially rolled back when bureaucratic and military sectors grumbled.

Observers say that potential managers despair.

“They did an inventory,” Pike related. “They not only found they had stuff in warehouses they didn’t know about, they had warehouses they didn’t know about.”

“The recent economic crisis has further increased the clamor for change from the party,” wrote Murray Hiebert, another American Vietnam-watcher, who visited Hanoi last May.

“Everything in Vietnam is irregular,” he quoted a government official as saying. “The old is not yet gone, and the new has not yet been established.”