A Profile of Ho Chi Minh Thought

 Our program talks of Ho Chi Minh Thought, the official ideology of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (C.P.V.), as being a “bourgeois current”. In this work we hope to expand and elaborate on what we mean by showing its development and principles.

Nationalism

Although Ho Chi Minh Thought was formalized in 1991, it’s development can be traced much farther back. Back to the very start of the Vietnamese Revolution, actually.  Specifically after the proclamation of the “Democratic Republic of Vietnam”, a bourgeois republic as we have covered. A faux-unity between the existing bourgeoisie and proletariat was necessary for its survival, especially as it was embroiled in bourgeois revolution. For this, Ho Chi Minh and his Việt Minh set out the goal of crushing existing class unity, and replacing it with a national unity. The fledgling Democratic Republic would fail if the proletariat identified who their class enemies were. 

With this objective in mind, Ho went about ordering the physical liquidation of all opposing forces, especially those with an internationalist, class-oriented outlook. While we are not Trotskyists and have our own set of issues with Trotskyism, their betrayal by the Việt Minh cannot go unnoticed. 

We are not saying this without substance, by the way. That would be childish.  The Trotskyists were involved in creating infrastructure for a future dictatorship of the proletariat. These activities were not even against the Việt Minh. They were against the occupying French and their British reinforcements. But the Stalinists would not tolerate it, and so crushed the Trotskyists.

This tendency towards national, rather than class, unity was evident even in Ho’s early journey into Socialism. In his work The Path Which Led Me To Leninism, Ho speaks of “colonial people” who must be freed via socialism. Who are these colonial people? Why not the just colonial proletariat? No doubt the bourgeoisie are part of this grouping. And it is not as though Ho is unfamiliar with classes. His report to the Communist International explicitly mentions the peasantry, and his Some Considerations on the Colonial Question explicitly mentions the proletariat. He has instead chosen to disregard the proletariat as the necessary revolutionary class, putting the whole of the Vietnamese people first. Thus the first plank of Ho Chi Minh Thought was laid down.

Militarism

The maintenance of the military of Vietnam is of supreme importance to the C.P.V., so much so that joining the military is mandatory for males! Articles 45 and 68 of the 2013 Constitution (current at time of writing) state:

Article 45

1. It is the sacred duty and the noble right of citizens to defend their Fatherland.

2. Citizens shall perform military service and participate in building a national defense of all the people.

Article 68

The State shall promote the People's patriotism and revolutionary heroism and educate the entire people in national defense and security; build the national defense and security industry; ensure proper equipment for the people's armed forces, and combine national defense and security with economic activities and vice versa; implement policies regarding military families; ensure the material and spiritual lives of the officers, soldiers, workers and employees consistent with the nature of the activities of the People's Army and People's Public Security force; and build powerful people's armed forces and unceasingly strengthen their national defense capability.

Making sure one's armies are refined is not itself a sin. However, not even the United States of America, the prime imperial power of the world, has policies like these in place. And it isn’t because these policies are socialist. In fact they are capitalist. And it is with these the bourgeoisie can: 

1. Reinforce nationalism, thus further mystifying and disrupting class solidarity.

2. Be ready to enforce the capitalist system via military power.

Capitalism

A policy of prime importance introduced by the C.P.V., a policy it attaches to Ho Chi Minh Thought, is that of the “Socialist-Oriented Market Economy”. What does that mean? We shall, again, let the constitution explain:

Article 51

1. The Vietnamese economy is a socialist-oriented market economy with varied forms of ownership and economic sectors; the state economy plays the leading role.

In effect it is capitalism. A “mixed-economy”sort of capitalism, as bourgeois economists would say, but capitalism nonetheless. Marx said one could summarize Communism as the abolition of private property. No such abolition happens here. On the contrary, this is an embrace of private property. There is simply no other way to put it. And the “leading role” played by the State makes no difference, either. The leading role in question is simply deciding what regulations to put in place. It is a policy hardly different from that of Sweden.

The only reasonable conclusion one can come to is that Ho Chi Minh Thought is, as we have said, a bourgeois current. It is a nationalist and capitalist beast that must be slain. And it is up to the proletariat to slay it. But this effort cannot be done in just Vietnam. The entirety of the international proletariat must rise up and revolt. Only when the whole capitalist system lies in tatters can real freedom and Communism be attained.