Despite his background as an geophysicist, Nguyen Thanh Giang is known inside and outside Vietnam for his political writings and protests on behalf of other dissidents being harassed by the Hanoi authorities. After his discourse Human Rights - The Vietnamese's Thousand-Year Aspiration was distributed in 1997, he was forced to early retirement from the Vietnam Geophysics Bureau. In March 1998, Nguyen Thanh Giang was arrested for possession of the banned collection of Bui Minh Quoc's poems, the Poetic Flashes in the Interrogation Room. Nguyen Thanh Giang went on a hunger strike to protest the Public Security's brutality and was released 4 days later.
Following is the first part of the translation of his latest writings -- a discussion on the entity called the "Vietnamese workers class". The article was written in September 1998 and has been widely circulated among the underground press since.
Reading the 1930 Political Discourse of the Indochinese Communist Party, one sees the following lines:
"In the opening phase, the revolution in Indochina will be one for private property rights and civil rights... Once the private property rights-and-civil rights revolution has succeeded and a workers-peasants government been established, the nation's industries will be developed, the proletarian organizations will be strengthened, and the balance of class power will tilt toward the proletarian side. Then the struggle will be deepened and widened so that the private property rights-and-civil rights revolution will advance to a proletarian revolution".
Despite its realization that the balance of class power would tilt toward the proletarian side only when the nation's industries have been developed, this document insists:
"In the private property rights-and-civil rights revolution, [both] the proletarian class and the peasants are the two main engines. The proletarians, however, must be in the leading position in order for the revolution to succeed".
At the Eighth Congress [of the Vietnamese Communist Party], despite its wishes to modernize the country to catch up with the world in the Information Era, the Party Secretary General Do Muoi continued to insist in his June 28, 1996 Political Report:
"[Our thinking need to] coalesce to one point: the Vietnamese Communist Party are the vanguards of the Vietnamese workers class", and "the common thread and most important thing to our Party at this time is to maintain and intensify the workers-class characteristics of our Party".
What, then, is the workers class ? Is the Vietnamese workers class the true entity that not only played a decisive role in advancing past revolutions in Vietnam but also is and will always be the best possible leaders of the Vietnamese people, who were described in 1428 (502 years before anyone claiming themselves leaders in the name of the workers) by Nguyen Trai as: "Despite rises and ebbs, good men always responded [to the calls of the country]" ?
1. The formation of the Vietnamese workers:
Since when has the Vietnamese workers class come into being ? Was there a workers class in Vietnam as defined by Marxism-Leninism ? If so, does that class still exist today? etc. These questions should have long been discussed seriously and scientifically, rather than being distorted under the pressure of the Leaders.
Since the Ly and Tran dynasties (in the 12th and 13th Century), industrial and handicraft workmanship in Vietnam has gotten more and more adept. Particularly when King Ly Thai To moved the capital to Thang Long, the nation's economy and culture took a significant leap. Industrial laborers and handicraft workers were gathered for the construction of pagodas, statues, bells, bridges, ships, etc. The ship building industry for both river and ocean transportation were highly evaluated by Dutch and Portuguese traders. In 1820, US Navy Colonel J. White visited Vietnam and observed: "Vietnamese are indeed very skillful shipbuilders. They accomplish a high degree of accuracy."
Based on historical accounts , such as those of Hong Duc Thien Chinh, Professor Phan Huy Le believes even during the monarchical time there existed the "old-styled workers", working for [wealthier] families. These hired hands were mentioned collectively in the King Court Civil Codes as "laborers and craftsmen". Also existed during this time were "miners". In 1831, near the end of the Le dynasty, about 1,000 miners worked at the gold mine Chien Dan in Quang Nam province. In 1833, 3,122 miners were hired for the gold mine Tien Kieu in Tuyen Quang province. By the time of King Tu Duc's reign, there were 124 active mines from Quang Nam province up to the northern borer. Among them were 3 gold mines, 29 iron, 14 silver, 9 copper, 7 zinc, 4 lead.
By December 19, 1946, the total number of workers in Northern and north Central Vietnam was 100,000. Among them were 25,000 employees of various French and foreign companies. There might be many more workers in the South but they were dispersed or converted into other lines of work by the time the [anti-colonist] war broke out. The War further dislocated workers as it became more intense in the later years.
In October, 1950, as a result of the success of the Border Campaign, 5 province capitals, 13 cities, and many areas along 750 km border were liberated along with a population of 350,000 people. With this addition, the total number of workers in the liberated zones increased to 346,000, mostly handicraft workers. The number of handicraft workers continued to escalate, especially in the ending years of the War, but the number of industrial workers (in defense-related industries and state-owned enterprises) remained very low, just about 10% of the total.
In that history, at what point did the Vietnamese workers class come into being?
[The communist theorist] Professor Tran Van Giau stated: "Even though there were only about 100,000 people that earned their living from selling their skilled labor [in Vietnam], we think the Vietnamese proletarians had become a class by the time the First World War started ... That was a 'class in itself', not a 'class for itself' yet". He further concluded: "When Nguyen Ai Quoc left home to find a way to rescue the country, the Vietnamese workers class began to form a 'class in itself'."
The writer of this article does not wish to argue with the accomplished Professor but remember that upon being asked about the birth of the workers class, Engels responded: "The workers class was born out of the Industrial Revolution". Before Marx and Engels, people were not aware of the proletarian class and misconstrued them as just lazy and ignorant people. As a result, they suffered from poverty, oppression, and exploitation in handicraft and industrial workplaces. They were grouped with gangsters and vagrants. The Vietnamese Communist Party's Proclamation, reprinted in 1988, clearly stated: "The proletarian class is the class of the modern hired workers, who have lost their own manufacturing capital and are forced to sell their labor for a living."
When did the Industrial Revolution take place in Vietnam?
How many modern hired workers were there and how did they form the class?
Had they really lost their own manufacturing capital and were forced to sell their labor; or were they just mostly peasants who left home in search of better lives in the cities?
2. The classification of the workers class in Vietnam:
The Indochinese Communist Party's Political Discourse asserted: "The Party are the vanguards of the proletarian class, with the Marxism-Leninism as its foundation. [The Party] represents the main and long term common interests of the entire proletarian class in Indochina. [The Party] leads the Indochinese proletarian class in the struggle to achieve the ultimate goal of the proletarians - the [implementation of] Communism". Meanwhile, Marxism-Leninism considers class theory and class struggle as its foundation. Without them, the doctrine would have no bases to stand on.
[In that around-the-circle reasoning,] what is the entity[, called the workers class,] that they have assigned all kinds of extraordinary characteristics to, really? And what does that say about the self-proclaimed mandate for its vanguards !
Maybe that is why they must maintain at all costs and by all means the existence of a workers class -- at least as long as Communism yet achieved. [They insist] this class is not only real but also among the most progressive in the international proletarian movement. Once the decision has been made on the existence of such class, they are now obliged to fill it with numbers, albeit virtual ones! From there, all kinds of new definitions were invented to blind some people, puzzle others, and make many smile silently.
As presented above, Marx and Engels had always defined the workers class as the community of industrial laborers, as the direct product of the industrial manufacturing process . The workers class was born and developed along with the major industries. Lenin himself said: "Workers are laborers in major industries"; and even more specifically, "In order to be considered a worker, he must have been hired as a regular laborer in a major industry for at least 10 years [before the Revolution] and has been working for 2 to 3 years [since the Revolution]."
How many workers in Vietnam met that standards?
Not until 1896 when the French government sent the new governor Paul Dumere to Indochina to intensify the exploitation of the colony that tens of thousands of people were drafted to work on the construction of the Huong River bridge (1900), the Long Bien bridge (1902), the railroad from Hanoi to Lang Son (1902), from Da Nang to Hue (1906), from Saigon to Nha Trang (1910), and from Hai Phong to Van Nam (1910), etc. Most of the laborers were peasants paying their yearly taxes in the form of public work. Among the 3500 laborers assigned to the building of railroads, there were only 100 skilled concrete workers.
By 1906, the entire country had about 90 factories. In the South, there were car repair facilities, soap making plants, food canning plants, ship building facilities, rice processing mills, printing houses, etc. In the North, there were wine distilleries, power generation plants, textile factories, cement plants, paper mills, leather processing plants, etc. In 1929, the entire Indochina had 220,000 hired hands working for various enterprises owned by French colonists. Most of them resided in Vietnam - 53,000 miners, 86,000 industrial and trades workers, and 81,000 plantation workers. Most of these workers were "brown-shirt" laborers who did simple yet heavy tasks. They were illiterate or had very low level of education. "Blue-shirt" workers, who had some degree of technical skills, were rare. The transfer of skills was impossible due to the high number of dead from overwork and malnutrition, to the constant turnover of laborers who fulfilled their tour of duties, and to a large number of escapees. In 1929 alone, 4302 workers ran away; 6,907 workers fulfilled their duties and returned home.
With such small number of workers, scattered and having low level of skills, someone began to think of counting public servants and teachers as workers. Professor Tran Van Giau presented this idea: "Among the first Communist Party members were hundreds of teachers. So when we talk about the workers class, we should not leave out the teachers" !?
Today, we have about 5,690,000 hired workers. Among them, 1,760,000 are working in the state-owned sector, a little less than one half of the 3,640,000 people working in the non-state-owned sector. 290,000 Vietnamese worked outside the country but 200,000 have returned. The number of workers in the heavy industries is insignificant. Since the 80's and particularly in recent years, the number of workers in the state-owned sector has decreased quickly. Furthermore, the inequality and differentiation among the ranks of the Vietnamese workers have developed extensively. In the state-owned or community-owned sectors, some workers belong to 100% state-owned factories while others to joint-ventures, partly owned by foreign investors. In the state-owned sector, some workers are allowed to own stocks of their companies, others are not. The numbers of stocks distributed to the workers are not equal either.
Besides the state-owned sector, the community-owned sector, and the joint-ventures, there are many other types of workers, such as those working for private companies, working outside the country, working for foreign-owned companies, working for technical or handicrafts co-ops, etc. In many enterprises, right next to the workers born and trained in our regime are those trained and worked for the once-adversary governments. [In recent years,] a great number of workers have left the state-owned sector for private business to improve their income. Many hold double jobs, as a factory worker and a holder of a secondary (sometimes primary) job such as peddling, providing services, breeding cattle, growing vegetable, weaving baskets, etc.
Given that fluid reality, it is impossible to classify any entity that is scientifically good enough to be called a class, no matter in philosophical, economic, or sociological terms.
[The need to justify the extra inclusion] required "new ideas", such as "Should we add to the workers class several million hired personnel in governmental and social offices. [After all,] they are, under the Party's leadership, applying the leading role of the workers class to the whole society", or "In a country led by the Party of the workers class, it is illogical not to include the state officials in the workers class", etc. Professor Van Tao rationalized the situation: "Intellectuals, scientists, and workers are all participating in the production of goods for society. They all have equal benefits and duties. They have equal positions in the social production system ( all have to pay taxes based on levels of income) ... [Therefore,] except for a small number of capitalists (as defined by the State, based on their capital and numbers of employees), all intellectuals, blue-collar workers, and white-collar workers in the industrial areas are considered members of the modern workers class". (Tear came to my eyes when I read these lines. I could never believe such an experienced scholar and researcher would really think so in his heart! Why, then, [did he say that]? How could the Vietnamese intellectuals [stoop so low]?)
Researcher Bui Dinh Don further elaborated Professor Van Tao's definition, "So, a section of the intellectuals, that directly involves in industrial labor and in the industrial production process to generate physical goods for society, is included in the workers class. Other scientists, other branches of the intelligentsia like social sciences, and all intellectuals that do not directly involve in manufacturing under the industrial process must not be called workers."
What are considered goods for society and who are considered the direct participators in the production of those goods? Would they be the people that design the engines or just those that tighten the bolts? Would they be the people that write a political program or just those that cut the paper to print the program?
[Let's look inside] a family with a grandfather being a Ph.D. and professor in sociology, a producer of many valuable proposals for social transformation; a father being an excellent artist; a mother being a mechanical engineer; and a son who unfortunately wasted his life with a wrong crowd and ended up being a steel press operator. Every night, two different classes sat around the dinner table. The grandfather and the father belong to the "allied" class, which is to be led. Between the remaining two members, that "progressive" son is a member of the top leading class!
Obviously, there has never been a workers class in Vietnam as defined by Marx and Lenin. Neither in the past nor in the present. In the future, the "economy of speed" will replace the "economy of scale". In other words, the method of large-scale production that was closely identified with an industrialized society will become obsolete. In its place will be the method of production that generate goods specifically to the customers' demands, in small quantities, for short periods of time, and requiring interchangeable labor skills. In that environment, the concept of workers class will further lose its meaning. Marx himself predicted: "The existence of a class is directly attached to a certain historical development phase of production". Further more, the awkward pairing [of the workers class with the Vietnamese situation] is just the result of the deliberate disregard of one of Karl Marx's own criteria: the deciding factor in distinguishing classes is the relationship between the parties in term of manufacturing capital [distribution].
(To be continued in our next issue)