Many people have raised the question of why Vietnam should continue maintaining the socialist regime while the former Soviet Union and many other countries have already abandoned it for a long time.

Apparently, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) exists and develops for the benefit of all classes, people and the entire nation. In pursuit of their revolutionary cause, Vietnamese people needed the CPV to move towards socialism. It is an inevitable and objective truth that has been testified over the past 76 years.

Before the CPV was founded, Vietnamese people, particularly the working class, were brutally exploited and oppressed by feudalists and French colonialists. All patriotic resistance movements from north to south were suppressed in a blood bath, for they did not have correct guidelines.

Absorbing Marxist-Leninism, President Ho Chi Minh found a path to national salvation, that is national independence in combination with socialism. He founded the CPV to guide and lead the Vietnamese people to wrest back national independence and reunification and build socialism. Class liberation and national liberation were two indispensable tasks. 

After the success of the national liberation revolution, Vietnamese people began to carry out the transitional period to socialism, implementing tasks of the socialist revolution. More than a half century, 20 years after the northern region was liberated, and more than 30 years after the national reunification, the process of building socialism in Vietnam has obtained the tremendous achievements of historical significance. After 20 years of implementing the Doi Moi (Renewal) process with constant creativity, the road to socialism in Vietnam has become clearer in terms of knowledge and reality.

If anyone is aware of socialism and the old socialist model (as they stated) in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, they cannot say that Vietnam follows such old models.

The fact is that when the socialist regime in the former Soviet Union and other socialist countries in East Europe collapsed, there were concerns within the Party and society about the road to socialism and the goal of the Vietnamese revolution. The biggest worry was that what and how would the Vietnamese revolution do to stand firm and overcome this serious challenge? What would the revolutionary fruits of the Vietnamese people under the leadership of the CPV in more than half a century be like? Could the CPV stand firm to protect itself and lead the people to build and defend the nation?

Against that background, having been armed with Marxist-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, tempered in the revolutionary struggle and closely united and connected with the people, the CPV still continued carrying out the Renewal process for the goal of national independence and socialism, to prove that socialism could be applied more accurately in society and more successfully achieved in the end.

The tremendous achievements of the Renewal process in the past 20 years are hard evidence to refute the ill-intention of opposition elements and hostile forces which want the CPV and people to abandon the path to socialism, and divide the close relations between the Party, State and people in the course of realising the goal of national independence and socialism.

Reality shows that “the achievements in concretising a suitable transitional period to socialism were not only invaluable assets of Vietnamese communists, but also a source of inspiration and trust for Communists and revolutions in the world”. (Alilov – Vietnam is the symbol of the 20^th century – Nhan Dan newspaper, September 20, 2000, page 5).

Whenever the CPV holds the national congress, opposition elements and opportunists, aided and abetted by hostile forces living overseas, demand that the CPV and people abandon the path to socialism. Despite different tones, they came up with sly and intricate ploys and arguments. However, instead of initiating a new socialist model, they stereotyped the model of western countries which they worshiped as democratic and free nations.

According to US scientist Armen Baydoyan, new liberalism has struck the centre and peripheral of societies. In a rich country like the US, approximately 32 million people have a life expectancy of below 60 years old; 40 million cannot access healthcare services; 45 million live under the poverty line, and 52 million are illiterate. Similarly, in rich Europe, up to 50 million people are poor and 18 million are jobless. According to the United Nations, about 80 million people, including 10 million in industrialised countries, suffered from malnutrition between 1999-2001. Consequently, peripheral countries are dispossessed of their rights to develop and maintain national cultures.

Meanwhile, at the centre of industrialised countries, owing to the privatisation of many public economic sectors, the number of people benefiting from Sate programmes became fewer, leading to social imbalances.

The scientist said despite “crocodile tears” from people worshipping the new liberalism, capitalism cannot create a fair and equitable society without putting an end to its existence. Therefore, when capitalists talk about the satisfaction of all basic needs of human being and settlement of eternal issues regarding humanitarianism is nothing, but hypocritical. That is why capitalism never and will never help another country to develop. (Political Theory Magazine, issued in March 2006, Page 85-86).

There is no doubt that advocates of democracy have capitalised on the gathering of public opinions on the Party’s draft political report to slander and demand the Party and people abandon the path to socialism. More scoundrelly, they aim to deny the leadership of the Party and the revolutionary fruits recorded by Vietnamese people under the leadership of the Party in the past 76 years.

Having experienced ups and downs in the past 76 years and taking into account the current situation, the Party has been leading the Vietnamese people to embark on the path to socialism for the lofty goal of building a rich people, a strong country and an equitable, democratic and civilised society. Any attempt to distract the Party from its chosen path to socialism will be doomed to failure.