Speech delivered at the Expanded Conference of the Presiding Committee, Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, December 12-13, 1997 in Hanoi.

The issue of continuing the reform to push forward our country's social and economic development has been planned for more than ten years. In view of the transformations of the new situation, such issue is even more urgent. It requires a serious re-examination of what we have gone through in order to seek positive solutions for the next stage. I welcome the report prepared for the coming fourth Party Central Committee Conference by comrade Le Dang Doanh. He mentioned in a straightforward manner many fundamental issues of the current situation and provided a rather deep analysis. I hope that coming out of those analyses are real solutions to meet new demands for the national development. I would like to contribute the following thoughts in analyzing the situation and seeking solutions for the continuation of the reform.

We are living in an era of rapid and profound changes all over the world, and in all areas, economy, politics, and society. The transformation to a new economy in which information and intellect play an increasingly decisive role; the rapid transformation in the process of globalizing the market economy along with the increasingly fierce competition, which has originally grown out of the necessity of the most developed nations, has quickly made an impact on every country and engaged the whole world into a stream from which no country can avoid. In order to merge with that stream and to rise up, we understood that we had to reform our own thinking, welcome new knowledge and concepts about current issues, and learn the experiences from all sides to face the task of organizing the economy and society, etc. Reforming the economy by developing market and reforming the political system by gradually democratizing society, in principle, are considered the fundamental content of the reform and altogether aimed at maximizing every potential resource, labor, and intellect of all citizens to make the people prosper, the country strong, and the society just and civilized.

Since the end of the 80s, in confronting the need of getting the country out of the total crisis, the Party has accepted some reform initiatives, especially in the economy and simultaneously kept its authority to lead the reform. This had an impact on keeping the early stage of reform going in a relatively stable condition; the country came out of the crisis, the market economy has gradually been established, and life of a part of the population has clearly been improved.

However, the situation has quickly exposed a fundamental conflict. The necessity to fully develop a market economy in today's condition, which is full of challenges and fierce competition, requiring a complete reform, both in the economy and in politics, has conflicted with the monopolistic position of a communist Party. Though it had accepted some reform but the Party is still persistent in keeping the principles of proletarian dictatorship, class struggle, and the so-called Socialist orientation (this orientation has very often been explained arbitrarily. At times, to drum up popular support, it's described as just a tool to achieve citizens' prosperity and the nation's power ; but at the same time, in official documents, it's still claiming the important leadership of the state-owned economic sector, the building of a public-owned system, cooperative property, and one-party dictatorship).

Instead of pushing harder the process of self-renovation to meet the demands of developing the market economy and the democratization of the society, the Party, regrettably, in the name of maintaining political stability, has continued to consolidate its monopolistic leadership with the above principles. And as a result, the fundamental conflict mentioned above has not been resolved satisfactorily to the objective needs of the development. These needs were even further suppressed by the dictatorial authorities to protect the Party's exclusive right to the leadership. This has been the case since the Seventh Party Congress, and more clearly and absolutely in the Eighth Congress. The Party has continuously proclaimed its complete and absolute leadership of the government and society. The conflict that has been contained, suppressed and unresolved turned into an internal eroding force with various combinations of a chaotic market and an unlimited totalitarian dictatorship. That can be considered the main characteristic of our country's social and economic situation in recent years. It has created tremendous difficulties for the sustained development of the country.

The above situation has been showed in every aspect of life in our country in recent years. First of all, widespread corrupt practices, which destroy every modest achievement of the national development effort, have not been overcome by any means. A still weak but ironically half-closed and half-opened market does not serve as an incentive for business talents. Instead, it offers advantages to monopolistic forces to freely run their shady schemes amid political influences for sale. That is the core of the national corruption tragedy, illegal trade, widespread bribery. The more the government appeals to fight back corruption, the more serious the situation becomes. The corruption cases brought to trial had totally surprised people of the scale of the crime and also gave doubt about the (government's) ability to uproot the whole networks. Investigations of the corruption rings usually become obscure beyond a certain point.

On the economy, despite prior talks about a multi-sector economy, the Eighth Congress Program continued to mention it in a discriminatory way. In his speech, comrade Le Dang Doanh spoke clearly about the loss-making situation of the majority of the state-owned enterprises, and many other speakers also raised concerns about corruption and bribery at those enterprises. As the market economy with enterprises, banks, financial structures, etc. was accepted, those institutions should have been given full responsibilities and active roles to run their businesses according to the market structure. Instead, they have been managed and led by the subjective wishes of [political] leaders; and therefore, ineffectiveness, efficiency, and the creation of corruption and collapse are just the obvious result.

In a market economy, private enterprises are proclaimed all over the world as the most dynamic sector. Nowadays the privatization of state enterprises is carried out not only in former socialist countries but also in capitalist ones with large public sectors. More than that, in order to strengthen their competitive abilities in the current computerized, globalized economy, many states' leaders have been considering the leading position of the private enterprises as a guarantee for success. During the early stage of developing the market economy in our country, though private enterprises had just been established and in general, were still weak, they have contributed to the dynamics of the economy. However, facing the Party's indifferent and discriminatory attitude (there has been decrees that prohibit party members from participating in private enterprises) and hundreds of types of inconvenience caused by governmental agencies, much commitment and talents have been so quickly disappeared that, until this day, there has been almost no respectable businesspeople with long-term strategy to build anything valuable for the country's economy. In such an unsupportive condition, a natural thing for people to do is to invest only in short-term, quick-cash businesses, and sometimes to engage in deceitful deals and collude with bad elements in governmental agencies to seek profit.

We have to realize that whether or not our country is richer and stronger, whether the economy can create outstanding capabilities to compete in the [world] market, depend mainly on our ability to build strong and dynamic enterprises with energetic, committed, educated and creative businesspeople. Such individuals can hardly be coming from the state enterprises management, who, as public officials, must follow the bureaucratic style of the government's administrative machine. Private sector with its own distinctive characteristics, if truly encouraged to develop freely, will be the source to offer the country with such businesspeople. Moreover, encouraging the private sector, forming favorable conditions, legal protection, and providing necessary incentives to this component of the economy, especially in crucial industries, will also have an impact on attracting domestic resources for national development. That will keep these resources from being left idle or spent wastefully.

Another serious consequence of the prolonged monopoly of power is the clear decadence in ability, quality, and credibility of the governmental machine. The Party, or more exactly a small component that controls the Party, proclaims its total and absolute leadership over the State and society; devises detailed rules for the Party command system to send out guidelines to the National Assembly, the Government, the Court, the Inspectorate Institute, and also to grassroots organizations; thus in fact, transforms the whole government system into implementors of the decrees from a powerful component inside the Party. Democracy and laws are also turned into tools to carry out those decrees. Of course, in such condition, all talent, dedication, and personal strength are either turned useless or sliced thin to fit through the door to power. On every level, in every branch, there appears more and more individuals who live off the monopolistic structure with complete sets of characteristics: flattery, deceit, corruption, bureaucracy, arrogance, authoritarianism The effectiveness of the administrative machine has declined. More than that, many positive and sound government initiatives were even distorted and taken advantage of by insiders for personal gain, and thus are not carried out to completion. Citizens have been complaining about these abuses.

Since the Party completely controls the personnel department, the current system of selecting critical officials is, in essence, an arrangement within a restricted circle according to a certain pecking order of power. The whole nation is effectively standing on the sideline. As a result, quite a number of individuals suddenly climb up to leading, powerful positions. Beside trying to keep their chairs and climb higher, they do not have much of talent or commitment to do anything useful for the country.

I don't have the ambition to cover every aspect of the current process to develop the economy and society. At this Conference, many speakers have analyzed deeply many issues such as: the effectiveness of using foreign investment, the public debt situation, the method for decision-making in big investment projects without adequate information available, the slow improvement in education and science programs, increased social inequality, especially the extremely difficult life of the majority of farmers and workers , etc.. Of course, all of those difficult situations have their objective reasons in the facts that our country entered the reform period with the remaining consequences from the war and our economy had already been in a poor and backward state. The challenges of joining the regional and global economy were so severe. We had to participate while we had not yet acquired the ability to compete. Surely, nobody can deny that those difficulties are extremely substantial. However, what needs to be said here is that in confronting those objective difficulties and severe challenges, we still have not been able to mobilize all the potential in natural resources, labor, and the intellectual power of the entire people into the collective strength to bring the country forward. One fundamental reason [for that incapability] is the lack of a satisfactory solution for the opposing goals of developing a market economy and a democratic society, and the preservation of the Communist Party's monopolistic leadership.

The current era is undergoing profound transformations in the economy and society. In that transformation, the role of the government has also undergone many changes. The government is no longer a tool for class struggle but has to rise to the level of a government for all people. Its duty is to create an environment of legality and favorable conditions for all citizens to freely utilize their talents and knowledge in economic, cultural, and social activities; and to serve as a fair referee to moderate any conflict of interests between citizens. The government is no longer a ruling hand, much less a tool for a ruling Party.

In certain sense, the government must deal fairly with its citizens just like any other business enterprises. The products of the government -- decisions, policies, management and administrative measures, etc. -- have to be examined and rated for quality and effectiveness. If the benefit is too low compared to the expense then action must be taken. In this days and age, there should not exist any element that holds exclusive right to leadership, makes any products and people must accept, speaks in any ways and people have to obey as golden rules. In our country's current situation, it is no longer time for anyone to invoke the excuse of loyalty to impose an outdated ideology on the whole society; neither can one rely on past glory of the previous generation to assert the monopolistic position of a present generation who claim themselves successors; nor can one force all others to accept forever a path chosen at one time in the past.

Life in present time bears its present needs. People of the present time must find the solutions together in equality. The current needs are to continue deeper reforms in developing fully the market economy and a democratic society by accepting the market economy, eliminating subsidies for state-owned enterprises, treating members of all economic sectors equally, encouraging private enterprises, and providing favorable priorities for talented entrepreneurs who can create advantages for the national economy. From that base, we can mobilize considerable domestic resources in both capital and intellectual power.

A fundamental factor of the new economy on the global scale is information and intellect, therefore the liberalization of information exchange, strengthening education to uplift citizens' intellectual standard, bringing information and knowledge to everyone, and modernizing informational capabilities for existing manufacturing and service industries, and developing new manufacturing and services industries are opportunities to which we need to pay special attention. To fulfill those opportunities, the private sector with its mobility and flexibility is best fitted. To create a dynamic economy and society, let people decide how to run manufacturing, servicing, and retail businesses. The government only needs the ability to manage the macroeconomy to provide a safe and favorable environment .

The need for democracy in the political realm has also become extremely urgent. New ideas and thinking, which are valuable sources for supporting the creation of wealth and prosperity in the new age, if found opposite to the Party's lines, have all been prohibited. The modernization of society requires the fundamental democratic rights such as freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of voting and running for offices.

Regrettably, in the Eighth Party Congress Program as well as in recent policies, the Party has talked about the reform but never intended to reform itself in order to meet the above demands. It is also necessary to recognize the fact that with such a tightly-organized machine and the dictatorial force inherited from the past, the Party power machine today still has enough strength to contain the whole society while carrying out their half-baked reform in the name of safeguarding stability, avoiding deviation from the [Socialist] direction, preserving the leadership of the proletarian class, implementing the Socialist direction, etc.

Obviously, it has become useless and meaningless to talk about the socialist revolution, the leading role of the working class, the Party as the vanguard, etc.. In reality, in the society where the working class is called leaders, workers and farmers are still among the poorest and suffer the most; where callings are made to fight exploitation, the ones who deserve to be called exploiters today are mainly a large section of the Party's powerful officials.

It is necessary to state frankly that neither can our country be richer, nor can the life of our working people be better via class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, state-run economy, and sweet talks. Therefore, if the Party continues to consolidate its monopolistic leadership by its dictatorial force, the country can hardly move forward, and the danger of falling backward and crisis is inevitable. The only way out for the country at this time is the Party truly reforms itself thoroughly and open the way for the nation to push forth the reform in the above directions. The Party thorough renovation should include the reform of its goal, its theoretical and ideological bases, its methodology in organization, and especially its view of the Party position in society. There is no need to worry about the class characteristic and the vanguard role of the class. As explained above, those issues already became meaningless. What needs to be concerned about and to maintained is whether or not the Party continues to be the vanguard of the entire people in this historic transformation.

Even though I know the scope of the difficulty is enormous, as a citizen, I still hope that sooner or later, the Party, with much energy and intellect among its ranks, will truly carry out its historic reform, provide the condition for our country and our people to utilize every potential resource, energy, and knowledge to lift the fate of the nation quickly and to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with other nations into the new century.

Phan Dinh Dieu