PANO – Hostile forces and political opportunists recently spread distorted information on the internet, saying that the Party and State reduced the frequency of mentioning “socialism” in official documents, and that this might lead to a fast change in ideology, which would then trigger a “reshuffle of the political institution.” In doing so, they aimed to cause doubts about the Party’s ideal and goals in the minds of the public, and undermined people’s trust in the Party’s leadership. But their propaganda campaign will certainly go bankrupt as their arguments are not convincing.

In fact, these hostile forces’ trick is not new. This time, they counted the frequency of the word “socialism” in recent documents of the Party and speeches of Party and State leaders and then decided that a “silent historic change” is taking place in Vietnam. They even suggest that the low frequency of the word “socialism” mentioned by Party and State leaders means that the upcoming 12th National Party Congress will make a big change in Vietnam’s politics.

To convince readers, they act as “politically independent observers” in their articles. But it is not very difficult for people to see subjective and hostile views as well as distorted and incomplete information in their articles. Nevertheless, they still hope that their articles would make people misunderstand the Party’s and State’s policies and viewpoint, and cause socio-political instability in the buildup to the 12th National Party Congress.

A corner of Hanoi. Photo: cafef.vn

In fact, many arguments in their articles display the writers’ ignorance about Vietnam’s situation and people. They should have read the first political credo of the Communist Party of Vietnam as well as referred to Resolutions of the National Party Congresses, Meetings of the Party Central Committee of the previous 11 terms, and documents in preparation for the 12th National Party Congress. All of these documents show that since the Party was founded, it has been striving for “prosperous people, strong country, democracy, civilization,” and that the Party has always been loyal to Marxism, Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s Thoughts – the most progressive ideology leading to complete liberation of human beings from man-by-man exploitation and suppression.

Some people foolishly consider that only capitalism can lead to prosperity and civilization. It must be said that these people are so short-sighted. In fact, the prosperity of capitalist countries is not evenly distributed to all people; but most wealth of such societies belongs to only a small group of big companies’ bosses and financiers. According to official statistics, several hundreds of billionaires hold some 50% of the world’s GDP. So it is not fair to say that all people of a powerful capitalist country are rich.

By the same token, capitalist countries cannot be considered civilized. Looking into social issues of capitalist countries, one can see a large number of social problems. These include racial discrimination, man-by-man exploitation, unequal social wealth distribution, crime rates and other social evils. Especially, the class conflict between the bosses and working people continues to increase in capitalist societies.

Meanwhile, other people prefer democratic socialism. They hail democratic socialism as the only path to national prosperity and civilization. But they should comprehend that democratic socialism founded in the late 19th century is not thoroughly revolutionary. Democratic socialists prefer to seek social equality and democracy via negotiations and parliamentary struggles as well as their reformist ideology and political opportunism. As a result, they follow capitalist governments, and become a reactionary force. For example, democratic socialists in European countries cast votes to pass their capitalist governments’ budgets to build up their armed forces that ignited the First World War in 1914. Another example is that democratic socialists sneaked in the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations; they then sabotaged the Communist Party’s organizations, ousted the Communist Party from the leading position in these countries, took power and directed the countries toward capitalism.

After the fall of the former Soviet Union, in the early 1990s several major Russian newspapers reported that the campaign conducted by “democratic activists” to sabotage the Communist Party and Soviet system did not aim for people’s happiness and the country’s development, but a dictatorship to appropriate public assets. Recently, the Secretary General of the United Socialist Party of Russia announced a “Declaration of Socialism” at a seminar participated in by Russian socialists. The declaration affirms that socialism is an inevitable historical system in human development history, and that socialism is the highest level of socio-economy.

When the Berlin Wall came down, many people held that democratic socialism was something new and advanced and democratic socialists in Eastern Europe were widely praised as heroes or/and pioneers. But looking into the former Eastern European socialist countries, including Russia, one should realize that the societies and economies bear the nature of capitalism. In other words, democratic socialism is in fact a copy of capitalism or democratic socialism is a new label of capitalism. Therefore there is no doubt, democratic socialists at home and overseas are political opportunists. Instead of doing something for the nation, they try to make use of some people’s gullibility to serve their own political interests.

In spite of their efforts, they are likely to fail. In fact, most of the Vietnamese people believe in the Party and strive for its ideals. No difficulty or challenge could prevent the Vietnamese people from building socialism in the country, because it is not only the Party’s goal but also the people’s choice and desire.

Written by Tran Van Kim

Translated by Thu Nguyen