Le Hong Ha, born Le Van Quy in 1926 in Hanoi, surprised everyone in 1994 when this retired Deputy-Minister of Public Security and Head of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Internal Security Office joined another high-ranking Party official, Nguyen Trung Thanh, openly called on the Party to restored the honor of its victims, particularly those of the internal purge in the 1960s, popularly known as the "Case of Anti-Party Revisionists".
The Party leadership quickly condemned their petition. In December 1995, Le Hong Ha was arrested along with Ha Si Phu and Nguyen Kien Giang for having in their possession a Party's secret document, which, however, had been circulated for months outside Vietnam. In 1996, he was officially expelled from the Party.
Following is Le Hong Ha's first writing since his release from prison in August 1997. This article, written in Mid-1999, has been widely distributed among the underground press inside Vietnam.
Marxism, after all, is the product of Europe (Western Europe) in the 19th Century, based on two main features - the early period of capitalism and the first industrial revolution - and other philosophical achievements and limits inherited from the history of this area.
Philosophical schools of each area, of each country in the world, are the products of their corresponding history, economy, culture, ideology, and politics.
We, therefore, definitely cannot and must not consider Marxism as the absolute truth for the whole wide world or as the zenith of human intellect.
In general, Marxism bears both its greatness in analyzing and generalizing the thinking schools of Western Europe and its many limits in space and time. If we contrast Marxism against real life experience of the last 2 centuries, over all, the operation of the world from mid 19th Century to present did not justify Marx's observations and deductions.
The fallacies or fundamentally wrong deductions of Marxism are (albeit other correct points):
1. [That] using the analysis of just one period, particularly the primitive period, of capitalism, generalizing it as the essence of capitalism, and then predicting the tendency to extinction of capitalism based on that deduction is wrong.
2. The assertion that the historic mission of the workers class is to dig the grave for capitalism is wrong.
3. The prediction of fierce dichotomies between the have and the have-not, and between capitalists and proletarians within the capitalist societies is wrong.
4. The assertion on class struggle and the certainty of proletarian dictatorship as a general rule is wrong.
5. The reasoning on the five types of socio-economic systems and five modes of production is wrong.
6. The reasoning on the two socio-economic bases of the socialist revolution is wrong.
7. The assertion on the certainty and universality of revolutionary violence is wrong.
8. The reasoning on Surplus Value is wrong.
9. The reasoning on the obsoleteness of commodities in a socialist society is wrong.
10. The assertion that the necessary goal of the proletarian revolution is to "eliminate private ownership" is wrong.
11. The assertion that socialist state is the transitional phase for the whole world is wrong. ([Repeated] at Conference 81 for communist parties and international workers in 1957).
12. The reasoning on the principle of social goods distribution in a socialist society is wrong.
13. The reasoning of the 9 prevalent rules in countries that are building socialist regimes is wrong.
14. The self-restriction to just Capitalism and Socialism in developing society is wrong.
15. The assertion on the class-based government is wrong.
Serious study of Marxism leads to the following points:
- Marxism only reflects a number of aspects of social development. It is therefore a dangerous mistake to make it absolute, to consider it the highest peak [of human intellect] or the most scientific [doctrine].
- Marxism cannot be considered scientific because it does not have any real life verification.
- The three composite factors and the three origins of Marxism are all limited, imperfect despite many of their logical points. Blind worshiping of Marxism carries more harm than good. It could retard and sabotage the development of society.
- It is even more ill-advised to hold Marxism to the level of state religion and then scorn, exterminate, eliminate other religions, other systems of thought, other sociological reasoning. Doing so will bring nothing but disaster and divisiveness among our people, and impedance against social development.
In conclusion:
Marxism contains many valuable discoveries in the study of the capitalist society, the industrial revolution, the primitive period of the development of capitalist society in Europe in the 19th Century. Those are precious pearls, particularly for the critics of the entire heritage of western philosophy. However, the practices of embellishing Marxism, making it absolute, considering it the highest peak, the only truth, and the most scientific, turning it into state religion, holding Marxist principles as universal, unchangeable rules to be readily implemented in every country, are completely wrong and harmful to the development of many peoples.