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Vietnam’s Red Army: a nightmare for the CPV |
Ðằng Vân
Point of View
Vietnam’s communist armed forces are, by nature, closer to the Chinese People’s Liberation army than the Soviet Red Army. The main reason is because of the similarities between Chinese and Vietnamese societies. Like all nations of the Far East, their cultures have been founded on the tradition of the Triple Religion of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. Both cultures are also founded on mores and conventions particular to agricultural peoples whose livelihood depends on tilling the soil as opposed to animal husbandry. Before the advent of modernization, more than 90% of both societies comprised peasants living off the land. The modern urban workers hardly existed as a significant class in the Marxist sense of the word in either society.
Members of both armies come from peasantries in villages with roots deep in their thousand year history. They love their rice paddocks, villages and rural traditions which form powerful foundations for true patriotism. With them as the salt of the earth, armies of the Far East, regardless of political affiliations or dynastic rivalries, have always been among the most valiant armies of the world.
But here the similarities end. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has been, since the Long March, not only the solid foundation of the Chinese Communist party (CCP), but more crucially, the sine-qua-non power base of its paramount leaders. By contrast, despite its undisputed national and international reputations, as the result of its various victories for the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the People’s Army of Vietnam has always been under the thumb of the secret police.
Mao Tse Tung had been, for many long years, chairman of the Military Commission of the CCP, before wresting absolute power from many rivals much more powerful within the party machine and secret service. There is no doubt that in China, the army is boss.
By contrast, there are creditable reports that in Vietnam, even Ho Chi Minh, when he was alive, had to defer to secret service leaders such as Le Duan, Le Duc Tho and Mai Chi Tho. These had been trained by Moscow and were given control of the secret police, therefore real leadership of the party and the army. It is thus no great surprise that numerous military leaders, who had been valiant in the battlefields, had fallen under the swords of secret police agents. No less than generalissimo Vo Nguyen Giap has been deprived of all power and influence, and relegated to the most ridiculous positions within the Communist administration. In world politics, there is no greater laughing stock than this so-called “aging hero of the Vietnam War of independence”: Vo Nguyen Giap.
Communist Vietnam’s armed forces are not called Vietnam’s Liberation Army in exactly the same way the Chinese call theirs. Neither is it called Vietnam’s Red Army like the Soviet’s. It is simply called Vietnam People’s Army. We could argue that in appearance, the CPV wants its army to be closer, if not identical, to the CCP. However, in substance, the way the CPV treats its army and generals is identical to the way the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) treated theirs. The most fitting illustrations could be reflected in the way Stalin purged the top ranks of the Red Army of the Soviet Union during World War II: like trash and without pity. Indeed, Vietnam People’s Army should appropriately be renamed Vietnam’s Red Army to remind its leaders of the humiliation bestowed upon it by the party’s secret police.
Such treatment of gun bearing men in uniforms can never go without serious consequences, evidently. In the final analysis, in the 1990’s, Boris Yeltsin (President of Russia) was able to pronounce the death of the Soviet Union, therefore the death of the CPSU, after the much humiliated generals of the Red Army of the Soviet Union had had enough, stood up and vowed to defend from now on, no longer the borders of the Soviet Union, but only the borders of Mother Russia. Gorbachev (President of the Soviet Union and of CPSU) was sent packing forthwith and the Soviet Union collapsed.
A recent omen has appeared in Vietnam. On 27 August 2007, Vietnam’s official Television VTV3 reported that State President Nguyen Minh Triet, during a working party with high ranking representatives of Vietnam People’s Army and police, affirmed that article 4 of the constitution guaranteeing permanent political power to the CPV must be maintained at any cost.
More to the point, in a message specifically directed to the Political Affairs Department of the People’s Army, he suggested that regardless of any suggestions to the contrary, the people’s army must remain loyal to the party and its adherence to article 4 of the constitution.
The obvious questions arising from such an extraordinary event are:
There is no doubt that there are interesting times ahead for CPV leaders. Vietnam’s Red Army may turn out to be a nightmare rather than the protector of the regime.
Ðằng Vân
2 September 2007