A U.S. Communist returns to Hanoi - Vietnam: united, building toward socialism

by Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the July 13, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

During a visit to Hanoi 24 years ago Jarvis Tyner, a young Communist leader, fled into a bomb shelter as U.S. B-52s carpet-bombed the city. He was one of four members of a solidarity delegation led by then Communist Party USA General Secretary, Gus Hall.

Last month, Tyner visited Vietnam again, this time as the fraternal delegate to the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Tyner is now the vice chair of the Communist Party USA and he rode down Hanoi's avenues in a limo with a motorcycle escort.

The city was festooned with crimson banners emblazoned with the hammer and sickle and with portraits of Ho Chi Minh, father of Vietnamese independence. For the first time since 1859 when the French subjugated the nation. Vietnam is independent, reunified and at peace.

Tyner said the memories flooded back on the drive into Hanoi. "We were under the bombs for three days and tens of thousands of women and children were evacuated from the city," Tyner said. "We saw the brutality of the war and the resistance of a great people who refused to submit to the terrorism of the U.S. government. This time there was a festive atmosphere along Hanoi's streets."

Tyner was greeted by Vietnam's Vice President, Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, the National Liberation Front's chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks. Tyner also had several meetings with Pham Van Tho, a member of the CPV Central Committee who had journeyed to Cleveland for the CPUSA's 26th Convention last march. Exhausted by his 26-hour trip, Tyner's hosts took him to a magnificent resort on Ha Long Bay to rest for two days before the Party Congress.

The main work of the Congress, Tyner said, was to review the results of the "Doi Moi" program adopted by Vietnam 10 years ago. Doi Moi translates as "renovation" and the most controversial element of the plan was opening Vietnam for foreign investment and permitting the appearance in Vietnam of a wealthy class of entrepreneurs.

Vietnam's economy, Tyner explained is divided into sectors - the publicly-owned socialist sector and the privately-owned sector which includes joint ventures with foreign corporations and cooperatives. Foreign corporations are investing heavily, with 26,000 firms applying for licenses and hundreds already building joint venture factories.

"All of this is designed to accelerate the industrialization of their economy," Tyner said, "to make Vietnam, in their own words, a modern, prosperous, civilized society."

He said the discussion by the more than 1,000 delegates at the four-day Congress took up both the strengths and weaknesses of the Doi Moi program. "It was an exciting, rich discussion. The overall assessment was that the Vietnamese economy under this program has shown remarkable growth and vitality. The industrial sector alone is growing at a 12 percent annual rate."

Vietnam, he said, has been forced to embrace this type of mixed economy "as a result of the decades of uninterrupted war and by the collapse of the Soviet Union."

Before Vietnam embraced the Doi Moi program, the nation's economy had been stagnating with unemployment, 800 percent annual inflation and even shortages of rice and other foodstuff.

"Vietnam was on its own. They knew they had to quickly increase their rate of economic growth and modernize their economy," Tyner said. "And to do that required an infusion of capital." It led to the decision to open the door for foreign investment.

Tyner cited a report by CPV General Secretary Do Muoi in which the Vietnamese leader declared, "We have to wage a struggle against the negative influences of capitalism - corruption, bribery, smuggling, manufacturing of faked goods. We had not realized the dual character of the market mechanism." The struggle must be to take advantage of its "dynamic aspects and limit its spontaneous, negative ones," the Vietnamese leader said.

Written into the CPV's constitution is a bar on membership for anyone who engages in exploitation. All firms that invest in Vietnam must agree to abide by Vietnam's labor code which includes the guaranteed right of union recognition.

Tyner visited the Orion-Hanel complex, a joint venture with a South Korean corporation, where 1,400 Vietnamese workers manufacture 1.6 million color and black and white TV tubes each year. "I spoke with the Korean manager who told me his company is very satisfied with the quality of the construction as well as the Vietnamese work force," Tyner said. "The average age of the workers was 20 years old. From the point of view of the Vietnamese, this joint venture gives them an opportunity to train a modern work force in electronics." Tyner also visited the Hoa Binh hydroelectric power station on the Red River built with the assistance of the Soviet Union.

The Vietnamese view these joint ventures as key to building the physical infrastructure of socialism as well as creating a large, well-trained and educated working class now only six percent of Vietnam's 74 million population and 16 percent of the workforce. There are 3.2 million trade union members. "What they are doing is building the industrial working class," Tyner said, "expanding that sector of the population. They describe Vietnam as 'in transition' to socialism."

There were 40 foreign delegations at the Congress and each delivered five minute greetings to the meeting that were televised to the nation. "The biggest applause of the day went to the most enthusiastic speaker. . .Jarvis Tyner, vice chairman of the American Communist Party," the New York Times reported in its Sunday, June 30 edition. Tyner was also interviewed by the Associated Press which sent out a story on his visit to Vietnam.

Tyner flew to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Even 21 years after the U.S. withdrawal, the wounds of war are not fully healed. He rode 60 miles outside the city to Cu Chi, a former NLF base camp where an entire army division - 10,000 soldiers--was hidden underground in a network of tunnels during the war.

"They had facilities for everything underground - sleeping, a dining room, an operating room where surgery was performed. This is the way they fought for 10 years."

Tyner also visited the Museum of War Vestige. On display was a flak jacket donated by one of the many American GIs who are now returning to Vietnam. "My hosts told me there are 300,000 Vietnamese missing in action," Tyner said. "There are 50,000 Vietnamese babies who were deformed from exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. Look around the countryside and you still see the land pockmarked with bomb craters."

Tyner warned, "We have to remember the terrible consequences of that war. It's clear the Pentagon is being bankrolled to keep open the option of another war like Vietnam. We have to say: 'No more Vietnams!' The Vietnamese now have full diplomatic relations with the U.S. They want 'most favored nation' trade status as well. They deserve it and we should fully support this demand."