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Vietnam Mechanisms of Control
The VCP controls PAVN through an organizational and
motivational mechanism that can monitor, guide, influence, and if
necessary coerce. Its interest in the process is to ensure
ideological purity and to improve military efficiency. Party
cadres and members who are part of PAVN are charged with
imparting to the ranks the proper ideological spirit and are
responsible for ensuring good individual military performance. At
their command is a set of impressive institutional instruments
that promote loyalty and dedication to the party and work against
deviationism, personalism (selfishness), and other negative
phenomena. Essentially the effort is one of indoctrination, which
can be divided into three specific functions.
The first of these functions is "information-liaison group"
work and consists of discussion group meetings or lectures by
political officers, who shore up existing beliefs and behavioral
patterns and explain new party lines. The second is the kiem
thao (self-criticism) session, which has no counterpart in
noncommunist armies. Kiem thao requires "criticism and
self-criticism from below to expose and eliminate shortcomings in
work and to fight against a show of complacent well-being."
Rooted in group dynamics, it is aimed at harnessing peer
pressure. Thematic material in indoctrination sessions tends to
focus on whatever is of major concern to the leadership at the
moment (in 1987 it was the China threat). The kiem thao
weekly session usually lasts about two hours and requires the
individual to be constructively critical of himself, his peers,
and his superiors. As such it gives the leadership insights into
PAVN morale and provides a means of signaling present or
potential problems. It also acts as a release valve, a means of
reducing pressure, in circumstances for which no other remedy is
available.
The third is the "emulation movement," a party control
mechanism used in PAVN and in Vietnamese society at large. It was
borrowed from the Soviet Union and China and also has no
counterpart in noncommunist systems. The "emulation movement"
campaigns incite people to imitate standards established by the
party. Most are short-run mobilization efforts, although some are
semipermanent, having been in existence for a decade or more.
Each is designed to serve a specific purpose. In PAVN the
campaigns seek to heighten vigilance against spies and
counterrevolutionaries, reduce logistic expenditures, improve
weapon and vehicle maintenance, or increase the individual
soldier's sense of international solidarity. The "emulation
movement" in PAVN is viewed as "an essential means of advancing
the Revolution," which in practice means increasing unit
solidarity, increasing the sense of discipline in the individual
soldier, and improving military-civilian relations. The
institution that runs these campaigns is a vast enterprise that
requires the services of thousands of cadres who expend millions
of man-hours in labor.
All of these control devices are supervised by the PAVN
political officer, the figure who breathes life into the
abstraction of the party. The political officer has no exact
counterpart in noncommunist armies; some of his functions may be
performed by the chaplain, the troop information and education
officer or the special services officer in the armed forces of
other nations, but his role in some respects is far more tangibly
authoritative and significant. His duties are many and varied but
chiefly involve political indoctrination, personal-problem
solving, and maintenance of his unit's morale. He mobilizes the
emotions and will through intensive moralistic exhortation, and
he personalizes the impersonal party by representing the distant
Political Bureau to the individual soldier. He is a figure of
consequence who over the years has acquired a mystique of
legendary proportions.
Within PAVN, party control of a different type is exercised
through control of party membership. Party membership can be
granted, denied, suspended, or removed permanently. The success
or failure of a soldier's career is almost always determined by
his having gained or failed to gain party membership. Weeding out
of party members in PAVN takes place annually and averages about
1 percent of the total PAVN party membership, although in some
units it can run as high as 6 percent. At the same time,
intensive recruitment drives are held to induce soldiers to join
the party. Prior to 1987, party members constituted 5 percent of
PAVN; in 1987 the figure was between 10 and 20 percent.
Data as of December 1987
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