Fatseas, Marea
Description
In 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam conducted a wide-ranging self-criticism
and criticism campaign. The stated objectives of the campaign were to improve the
performance of the Party generally, and of its members in particular. This thesis explores
the factors which led the Party to launch the campaign and examines the possible role of
the campaign in the context of the upcoming Sixth Party Congress.
A key hypothesis of the thesis is that the campaign was a product of, and a...[Show more] response
to, a legitimacy crisis. After reviewing the economic situation in Vietnam, the internal
challenges facing the Party organisation, and international developments, the author
concludes that the Party was, indeed, in crisis. The core of its difficulties lay in its failure
to adjust successfully to the economic reconstruction and development tasks of the
postwar period. The outcome of this failure was a loss of confidence amongst rank and
file Party members and the public in the Party's ability to govern the nation effectively.
The thesis shows that the self-criticism and criticism campaign was a vehicle for
organisational change and an attempt to restore public confidence. Specifically, research
evidence supports the proposition that the campaign was used to bring about significant
leadership changes in the Party. It also supports the contention that public involvement
in the campaign was encouraged, in part, to channel public hostility against individual
cadres and to divert attention from the failings of the regime as a whole.
Another key proposition of this thesis is that the campaign mediated an internal party
debate about the direction of economic reform, and that it was a forum for achieving a
compromise on the issue. Much of the debate on this particular question took place after
the release of the Party Central Committee's draft reports to the national congress. The
reports were debated at cadre conferences and at Party congresses at the grassroots,
district and province levels. Although this part of the campaign was conducted largely
behind closed doors, evidence was still found to support the hypothesis.
Finally, the self-criticism and criticism campaign is assessed in the light of
legitimation theories which hold that a regime experiencing a legitimacy crisis will
sometimes respond by changing the way it legitimates itself to its staff and the public.
The author finds evidence of such legitimation shifts in Vietnam in the period under
study.
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