Hanoi Names New Party Chief, Shuffles Politburo to Replace Longtime Leadership

Nguyen Van Linh took over Thursday as head of Vietnam’s troubled Communist Party, an apparent collective choice to succeed a half-century-old leadership clique.

Linh, 72, replaces Truong Chinh, 79, as general secretary, becoming the fourth man to head the party founded by the late Ho Chi Minh in 1930. His selection was announced at a pivotal party congress in Hanoi.

The choice of Linh, rumored for weeks, was made in the secret deliberations of the 14-man Politburo. It capped a dramatic withdrawal of the party’s revolutionary founders from active leadership of a country beaten down by a lifeless economy.

According to a Hanoi radio broadcast monitored here, the Politburo underwent a major shake-up, with six new members appointed. Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach rose to full membership in the top party body, and Defense Minister Van Tien Dung, commander of Hanoi’s final victory in the Vietnam War, was dropped, his fate uncertain.

‘Seething Movement’

The 1,129 congress delegates adopted a resolution calling jobs for the unemployed the “foremost task” of the party and demanding “a seething movement of revolutionary action throughout the country” of 60 million.

Truong Chinh resigned Wednesday as party leader and president and was joined by Premier Pham Van Dong, 80, and senior Politburo member Le Duc Tho, 75. The posts of premier and president were not immediately filled, and successors are expected to be named at the meeting of the National Assembly scheduled to follow the party congress.

The three old revolutionaries, along with Le Duan, who died last July, had formed the first rank of the party hierarchy under Ho for more than 50 years, leading Vietnam to independence in long and devastating wars against the colonial French, the occupying Japanese and the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies.

However, as Dong told American writer Stanley Karnow in 1981, “Waging a war is simple, but running a country is very difficult.”

Succeeded Ho in 1969

Duan took over the top party post on the death of Ho in 1969, and Chinh succeeded Duan in July.

Linh, the new leader of the 1.8-million-member party, has been described by some Vietnamese as a “small Gorbachev,” a man who can shake up the cadres and the bureaucracy. But as a collective choice, he may not have the independence of the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Chinh and Tho, patrons of the party’s conservative and reformist factions, respectively, have retired to positions as Central Committee “advisers” but will retain influence, analysts here suggested.

Bespectacled, Energetic

Linh, a slight, bespectacled, reportedly energetic man, is a northerner who made his name in the south. During the war against the American-backed Saigon regime, he was a party organizer. After the Communist victory in 1975 and the unification of Vietnam, he became the party leader in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon).

He is credited with supporting innovations that spurred the economy in the south, and at the last party congress in 1982, he was dropped from the Politburo, perhaps as a penalty for his reformist ways. He was reinstated last June and was named to the Central Committee Secretariat.

“Carrying out (economic) renovation is a matter of life and death,” Linh was quoted as telling a patriotic gathering recently.

Personal Life Hidden

As with all Vietnamese leaders, little is known of his personal life.

Linh’s major challenge will be the economy. Vietnam is one of the world’s poorest countries. Annual per capita income is less than $100, and consumers are beset by triple-digit inflation, shortages, shoddy goods and unemployment.

Chinh opened the congress Monday with a speech sharply criticizing the party and government apparatuses he headed for mismanagement of the economy. “We recognize the long-term necessity of the small production economy, existence of the private capitalist economy and petite bourgeoisie in a number of branches and trades,” he told the congress. “Bold renovations . . . especially economic thinking” are required, he declared.

According to analysts here in Bangkok, all Vietnamese factions now appear ready to push incentive systems to get the economy moving. A major hurdle remains, however, in the party structures within the factories. The guaranteed privileges of the party men are threatened by incentive programs.

Little change is expected in Hanoi’s foreign policy as the new leadership concentrates on economic matters. Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia with a 140,000-man army will continue, the analysts said, unless the Cambodian resistance is willing to agree to a settlement on Hanoi’s terms.

Hanoi-Peking Talks Urged

Yegor K. Ligachev, Soviet Politburo member and head of the official Kremlin delegation to the congress, called for talks between Hanoi and China, the main resistance backer, in the interest of Asian stability. None of the Vietnamese speeches, however, indicated any break on the Cambodian impasse.

(According to an Associated Press report from Hanoi, Ligachev also disclosed the level of Soviet economic aid to Vietnam. He put the planned figure for 1986-90 at 8 billion to 9 billion rubles, approximately $11.7 billion to $13.2 billion, or more than $2 billion a year, double current Western estimates. He said the aid involves grants, credits and barter trade but did not break it down. Soviet military aid, currently estimated by Western intelligence sources at $1 billion a year, is figured separately from economic aid.)

Average Age Comes Down

The Politburo changes will decrease the average age of the body, which was more than 70 years. In the provincial congresses that preceded the national party conclave, the new lineups were marked by moves to more youthful and better-educated members, according to analysts here.

The six men dropped from the Politburo were Chinh, Dong and Tho, all presumably voluntarily, and Defense Minister Dung, former Vice Premier To Huu and Gen. Chu Huy Man. Huu was sacked from his government job last summer, reportedly for failures in economic management.

According to the Radio Hanoi report, this is the new Politburo lineup:

Nguyen Van Linh, Pham Hung, Vo Chi Cong, Do Muoi, Vo Van Kiet, Le Duc Anh, Nguyen Duc Tam, Nguyen Co Thach, Dong Sy Nguyen, Tran Xuan Bach, Nguyen Thanh Binh, Doan Khue and Mai Chi Tho.

The alternate member is Dao Duy Tung.