Still Going...

The case started in the 1960s, but three decades later it has not yet ended. The "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair--as one of the most serious internal purges of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) became known--still confronts the communist leadership today.

Thirty years later, victims of this witch hunt remain to be exonerated. More ominous for the leadership, high-level party members, including some figures responsible for the purge, have publicly called for an open trial. From these initial demands to reexamine an internal party affair and provide justice to wronged colleagues have mushroomed into challenges to the supra-legal status of the Party and demands for democratic reform. Finally, the original motive for the purge--preventing revisionism of Marxism-Leninism--raises a fundamental challenge to the Party's standing. After plunging the country through war and Stalinist central planning, the VCP has undertaken the ultimate revisionism (without admitting it) while still insisting on its infallibility and deservedness to rule Vietnam.

The origins of the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair trace back to 1956 when new Soviet leader Khrushchev denounced Stalin at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In his famous speech, Khrushchev attacked the cult of personality and the inevitability of conflict between communist and capitalist nations. Immediately afterwards, China, under Mao, labeled Kruschev's line "revisionist" and vehemently opposed the notion of peaceful coexistence.

The split in the communist world emerged within the VCP as a pro-China faction squared off against a pro-Soviet Union one. The main issue dividing the two sides was the Party's policy toward South Vietnam, whether there could be peaceful coexistence. In 1963, the pro-China faction emerged victorious following a key Central Committee plenum. The dominant political view, manifested in Resolution No. 9 of the Central Committee, advocated armed struggle against the South. The "war-hawk" camp was led by Party General-Secretary Le Duan and the head of the Party Organization Committee Le Duc Tho.

(Ho Chi Minh, as party chairman, was the titular leader, but exerted little influence on ideology. His motto was "be careful not to break the valuable vase while chasing the mouse.")

The war-hawk camp quickly dealt with the losing side. High officials such as Vu Dinh Huynh, one-time personal secretary to Ho Chi Minh, and Hoang Minh Chinh, director of the Marxist-Leninist Institute, were pushed out. In the military, Lt. General Dang Kim Giang and other top officers were also purged. The war-hawk camp was not content, however, with just dismissing from the ruling machinery elements opposed to the policy of war. It wanted to completely silence all dissent from within the party. Starting in 1967, Le Duc Tho, as head of the Party Organization Committee with control over internal Party affairs, gave the order to arrest thousands of party members and jail them without trial.

According to Hoang Minh Chinh in an interview given in April 1995 (which led to his most recent arrest and a year in jail): "One of my most serious crimes against the Republic, in their eyes, was to denounce that dictatorship is not a must on the path to socialism. In the 1960s, I tried to use this argument to deter them from using violence to liberate the South. I believed in Ghandi's policy not war."

The witch hunt extended down to mid-level officials and family members of the purged. For example, Vu Thu Hien, a staff member of a photography magazine, was imprisoned without trial from 1967 to 1976 mainly because his father, Vu Dinh Huynh, was a critic of Resolution No. 9 of the Central Committee. Following the war, most victims of the purge were released by the Party in celebration of the "1975 Victory." The dissidents were then put under surveillance by the security police or directly under house arrest.

In August 1993, the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair received significant attention inside and outside Vietnam when Hoang Minh Chinh issued an open letter addressed to party and government organs regarding the wrongful punishment meted out to him and other party officials in 1967. After Hoang Minh Chinh's letter, other victims began sending petitions to the Party Politburo demanding redress. These appeals came from now elderly party members or widows of the purged.

Nguyen Thi My, wife of the late Dang Kim Giang, wrote to Party leaders in March 1995: "We have seven children. After their father was condemned, each of them lived a sad drama. It was a 'three generation extermination' sentence....Mr. Nguyen Trung Thanh revealed to me the order by Le Duc Tho to keep our children from all universities, from Party membership, from studying abroad, from any managing positions....The accusations against Dang Kim Giang are false, exaggerative, and abusive of power in the name of the Party to harm people with different opinions....The 16 years of two arrests, series of prisons, house arrest, various punishments, expulsion, termination, house search, confiscation of properties, harassment, discrimination against the whole family are not stipulated under any systems, any laws. There have been no official documents about these matters. There were no trials and therefore, no defense, no appeal, no complaints. The detainment locations were kept secretive. Even names of prisoners were changed."

Party leaders have not responded to Nguyen Thi My or any of the other individuals who have sent petitions. Like Solzhenitsyn in Russia, these victims testify to communist repression and represent one reason why the affair cannot be forgotten. However, voices from a different corner represent an even greater challenge to the leadership. Driven by their conscience and some recently available information, former high-ranking officials in the security apparatus have emerged from retirement to express remorse for their past roles and to insist that the Party take responsibility for the affair.

Nguyen Trung Thanh, former head of the Party Security Bureau, was assigned by Le Duc Tho in 1963 to direct the investigation of the "anti-Party revisionists." In the early 1990s, after his retirement he spent a year researching the documents relating to the condemnation of the "revisionists." In December 1993, he sent an unsolicited report to the Party Politburo and Secretariat informing them that the evidence used to condemn the victims had been inaccurate. After receiving no reply from the Party for 14 months, on February 3, 1995, he wrote again to top party organs and distributed the letter to the media, creating a tremendous stir. Summoned to meet Party chief Do Muoi on March 22, 1995, Nguyen Trung Thanh offered his view: "No one but the Inspectorate and the court can condemn people. Even the Politburo does not have the power to condemn a citizen. The Politburo has no right to strip people of their citizen's rights....Under the State laws, opposing the Party is not a crime; and supporting revisionism is not a crime."

Le Hong Ha, who helped Nguyen Trung Thanh to re-investigate the accusations and served in the Party Security Bureau himself, stated in a July 18, 1995 letter to the Party Central Committee: "About my 'crime of revealing Party secrets', I wonder....what is the purpose of 'protecting those secrets' if not the cover-up of Party members' wrong doings?"

In July 1995, the Nguyen Trung Thanh and Le Hong Ha were expelled from the VCP. Nguyen Trung Thanh was put under close police surveillance while Le Hong Ha was sentenced in August 1996 to two years in prison. Nevertheless, pressure on the Party to accept its mistakes has increased with other dissident party members joining the call, including those not originally involved with the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair.

As their statements above show, the focus of the party dissidents has expanded beyond demanding exoneration for victims of the 1967 purge, to challenging the Politburo's power to condemn citizens and whether opposition to a policy of the Communist Party is a criminal offense against the state. The dissidents argue that the VCP should be accorded no special standing in society. This means that Article 4 of the Constitution, which gives the VCP a monopoly on power, should be abolished and that the Party must permit a legalistic, democratically elected government.

While the dissident Party members involved in the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair pose a legalistic challenge to the Party's power, the incident itself raises the ultimate challenge to the Party's standing.

In the 1960s, the VCP violently repressed as "revisionist" the viewpoint that nations can live and compete together peacefully and that regardless of social system can cooperate for mutual prosperity. It opted instead for war and, after the conquest of the South, for international isolation by its invasion of neighboring Cambodia. Although the VCP still operates under the Marxist-Leninist banner, it has adopted a stance today much more revisionist than that of most dissidents jailed without trial in 1967.

The dilemma for the VCP is thus: If its admits error in the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair then it concedes that its policies over the last three decades--so costly in Vietnamese lives and the economic opportunity foregone--were also wrong.

On the other hand, if the VCP continues to suppress the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair then it faces continued opposition from victims of the purge and conscientious party members. In addition, it will struggle to justify why the Communist Party deserves a monopoly on power when all the tenants of communism--class conflict, war with capitalism, no private economic enterprises--have been discredited and quietly jettisoned by the Party itself.

In conclusion, powerful dynamics--victims seeking redress, dissidents from within the Party, a challenge to the very legitimacy of the VCP--ensure that the "Revisionist, Anti-Party" affair continues to haunt the Communist Party. The case has not been hidden from view thanks to the courageous efforts by the victims of the purge and conscientious party members. It is vital that Hoang Minh Chinh, Nguyen Kien Giang, Vu Huy Cuong, Nguyen Trung Thanh, Le Hong Ha, and the many other dissidents continue to receive international support in their quest for a democratic and just Vietnam.

Index of issue 06/97

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