The Fight For Democracy in Vietnam

 In the politically active sections of the Vietnamese diaspora, there are often calls for “democracy” to be instituted in Vietnam. From Phạm Đoan Trang to the Viet Tan, many organizations proclaim “democracy” to be of the utmost necessity. And while it is true that Vietnam is not a democratic country, the “solutions” proposed by the above mentioned figures would not change anything.


The Viet Tan, also known as the The Reform Revolutionary Party of Vietnam, has a clear cut program and is popular with the bourgeoisie, so we shall use them as an example. Their program states they want a multi-party democracy. Specifically:


“Viet Tan holds that any political party, or individual, whether or not in power, may still contribute to the betterment of the nation and people through the activities and avenues of civil society.”


An interesting choice of policy. But it gets better (and by better we mean worse). On the subject of class struggle they say:


“Class struggle, the root cause of societal divisions, hatred among fellow countrymen, as well as all other forms of discrimination must cease. No individual or group of people may invoke any pretext to stand above everyone else.”


What drivel! Why do they think these are solutions? Well, luckily they are clear about this. They say:


“The dictatorial communist regime has been the cause of many national crises including widespread government corruption, wasting of national resources, and environmental destruction.”


Blatant misuse of the word “communist” aside, the Viet Tan fails to acknowledge that a multi-party state is also capable of being corrupt, wasting national resources, and destroying the environment. The United Kingdom, for example, checks all of those boxes. And yet they are a democracy with more parties than there are colors in the rainbow. The United States is at fault as well, despite being a multi-party democracy (even though their “corruption” is often whitewashed and ignored).


Principled communists will know that the root of these issues does not lie in lack of parties, but rather in capitalism. Capitalists would commit the most heinous of atrocities, and indeed they have, so long as it generated profit. And this holds true for Vietnam as well.


So far the democracy proposed has been bourgeois democracy. The real solution lies in proletarian democracy. What is proletarian democracy? Simply put, it is a democratic system created and based on the class of the proletariat. Modern democracy as we know it has been created and based on the class of the bourgeoisie. That is why we call it a bourgeois democracy, because it is a democracy built for the advancement, fulfillment, and benefit of the bourgeoisie.

The quintessential body of proletarian democracy is the workers council. Workers councils manifest the economic and political power of the working class. They create an authentically democratic and representative Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Here not a dictatorship in the sense of power being centred around an individual but around the whole of the masses, working towards their own goals, dictating their own future, which is a stepping stone to Communism. Unlike bourgeois Parliaments or Congresses, delegates for workers councils are given an imperative mandate by those they represent, a duty to follow which is the decision of the conscious proletariat. Should they fail their workers, they can be instantly recalled from duty, and replaced.


Below we will link three brief works, one from the Internationalist Communist Tendency, one by Anton Pannekoek and the other by Sylvia Pankhurst, which go into more detail concerning proletarian democracy. We highly recommend you read them to gain further insight.


If the Vietmamese proletariat truly want Communism, then they must implement a system of workers councils. However, this effort cannot be reduced to only Vietnam and done only through reform. The bourgeois state will only allow minimal changes, and is made to protect itself. A revolution on an international scale must break out to implement this system, so as to crush the international bourgeoisie and their running dogs! And thus, we are for a proletarian revolution in Vietnam, for an international revolution against the bourgeois exploiters, and for the establishment of proletarian democracy!


Additional Reading

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2020-10-02/their-democracy-and-ours

https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1936/councils.htm

http://libcom.org/library/constitution-british-soviets-points-communist-programme-sylvia-pankhurst

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