‘We will rebuild our land ten times more beautiful...’

Vietnam's victory congress

TORONTO William
Kashtan, general secretary of the
Communist Party of Canada spoke
ata public meeting on his return

- from attending the 4th Congress of

the Vietnam Workers’ Party in
Hanoi. Kashtan, who attended the
Congress ‘as a fraternal delegate
from the Communist Party of
Canada, in a Tribune interview
(Jan. 10) outlined several major
tasks set by the Congress.

At the Toronto meeting Jan. 16
the speaker described in detail the
long and difficult road leading to
the 4th Congress and the heroic
~ Victories won by the Vietnamese
People. He also informed the audi-
ence of the tasks set by the Con-
gress in the period of construction
ahead.

* kK

“The war against United States
aggression may drag out. Our
peoplé. may have to face many
new sacrifices of life and proper-

ty. Whatever happens we must
keep firm our resolve to fight the
U.S. aggressors to total victory.
Our mountains will always be;
our rivers will always. be; our
people will always bé.

“The American invaders de-
feated, we will rebuild our land
ten times more beautiful. No mat-
ter what difficulties and hardships
lie ahead, our people are sure to
win total victory. The U.S.
imperialists will certainly have to
quit. Our land will certainly be
unified. Our fellow countrymen in

' the South and. our people in» the
North will certainly be reunited
under one roof.

“‘A small nation will have
earned the signal honor of defeat-
ing through heroic struggle two
big imperialisms — French and
American — and of making a
worthy contribution to the world
national liberatign movement

This was Ho Chi Minh’s testa-
ment to the Vietnamese people
and they were guided by it. The
4th Congress was permeated with
that fact and you could feel the
enthusiasm, confidence and spirit
of the delegates.

This was a special type of Con-
gress, an historic Congress with a
Special stamp which made it diffe-
rent from other Congresses.

__ The First Congress established
the then Communist Party. At the
Second Congress, the aim was to
lead the war of resistance against
French colonialism to victory —
and they achieved this. The Third
Congress mapped out a course of
building socialism in the North,
liberating the South and achieving
National reunification, It was a
victory Congress and a Congress
for the socialist reconstruction of
Vietnam. The three features per-
Meated all the work of the Con-

» Sress.
_ The victory, of course, is of in-
temational consequence. It was
Not only a victory for Vietnam
and for the Vietnamese people. In
the report of Le Duan and the re-
Marks of Foreign Minister Phan
van Dong, the delegates were re-
Minded of the aim of U.S. im-
Perialism, It was to partition the
Country, to turn the South into a
New type of American colony and
Military base, to set up a defense
1€ to check socialism in South-

east Asia and create conditions to
crush the North, to encircle and
threaten other socialist countries.

The U.S. also wanted to show .

its ability to check the national
liberation movement and the ad-
vance of socialism anywhere in
the world. But, despite every-
thing it did, U.S. imperialism
failed in its objectives. This was
the greatest defeat in the history
of the United States. As the re-
ports emphasized, it has given
rise to an acute internal crisis in
the U.S. and laid bare the basic
weakness of capitalist society.

The defeat marked the irrever-
sible decline of U.S. imperialism.
The victory achieved by the Viet-
namese people has strengthened
the forces of peace, independence
and socialism in ‘Southeast Asia
itself and on a world scale. While
paying tribute to the heroism and
self-sacrifice of the Vietnamese
people in their war of liberation,
the Congress stressed that victory
was made possible because of the
changed balance of forces in the
world. As the report stated:
‘Notwithstanding the heroism of
the Vietnamese people, without
the solidarity support of the
socialist countries, of the interna-
tional working class movement,
of the peace forces. of the world,
their ability to stand up to U.S.
imperialism would be seriously
undermined.” —

The first feature, then, of the
Congress was its victory charac-
ter. The second main feature was
that, on the basis of the unification
of Vietnam it was possible for the
Vietnamese people to pool all
their resources and use the re-
sources to the maximum benefit
of the people.

The third main feature was that
it was a Congress of peaceful
socialist construction. Where
other congresses were faced with
the task of defeating the enemy,
this Congress was faced with the
task of construction and building
of a new society step by step and
transforming Vietnam into a
beautiful, modern society with
high standards and cultural de-
velopments to correspond with
this aim.

One should bear in mind as the
Report stressed that in undertak-
ing this objective Vietnam was
relatively-speaking a backward
agricultural country. It was a
semi-feudal colony. That is why
the Congress set the task of
eliminating backwardness and
building a healthy, prosperous
and happy life for the people. This
may seem to be a simple task, but
the following figure illustrates the
level of economic development of
Vietnam and the enormovs tasks
the people have to undertake:

The following cable was re-
ceived by William Kashtan,
. general secretary of the Com-
munist Party of Canada:

“On the occasion of the New
Year, | cordially convey to you
my best greetings.

“1 wish you good health and
many successes in 1977.”

Le Duan,

General Secretary, —

Central Committee,
Vietnamese Communist Party

Eighty percent of the work force
is manual labor. Almost every-
thing undertaken is the result of
the physical efforts of men, wo-
men and children, because of the
lack of sufficient machinery.

In the main, while there have
been advances, the main feature
of labor is manual labor. When
you go through the countryside,
as some of us did, you could see
the extent to which all the forces

of the people are involved in ag-.

riculture. Bullocks are used as
well as more modern methods of
production and_ transportation
which are developing and becom-
ing a major feature in the main
cities. Another feature we should
note is that in the main, industry
in Vietnam is small scale industry,
with its own specific characteris-
tics.

_ Within this setting the Con-
gress undertook to overcome
small scale production, by-pass
capitalist development, and go
over to large scale production. As
part of this objective the task is to
undertake socialist industrializa-
tion based on priority develop-
ment of heavy industry, and mod-
emization of agriculture. The aim
here is to expand agriculture,
forestry, fisheries; develop light
industry and food industry at the
same time as building heavy in-
dustry and engineering. The em-
phasis on engineering is under-
standable because the aim is to
develop heavy industry of a kind
that will re-inforce and bring ab-
out technological changes in ag-
riculture, forestry, fishery, — to
make the machinery available for
these industries, lighten the load
and increase productivity at the
same. time.

They have set themselves the
aim over the next 20 years of
transforming Vietnam from an ag-
rarian into an industrial-agrarian
country. Le Duan stated in his re-
port ‘‘we shall strive to complete
in the main the process of trans-
forming small scale production
into large scale production within
20 years’’. And it is within. this 20
year target that one should see the
five year plan agreed to at the
Congress. In its essence it is di-
rected to lay the material and
technical .base of socialism and
take one step further in improving
the material and cultural life of the
people in this framework.

So this Five Year Plan will have
a specific stamp to it. It will turn
Vietnam from a underdeveloped
economy into a prosperous land
with large-scale production and
eliminate the consequences of the
war and neo-colonialism. This of
course is a large objective.

They have set targets of an an-
nual growth rate of 14.5%, while
here in the capitalist world they
speak of growth rates of 5% then
4% or even 2%. The Vietnamese
annual national income will in-
crease from 13-14%. They speak
of an increase in worker's in-
comes of 30-35% and an increase
of the income of the peasants of
15-20% in this Five Year Plan.

So the aim is to begin the pro-
-cess of the transformation of the
economy going over to large scale
production, and taking the first
steps to raising the living stan-
dards of the people, raising the

Children greeting fraternal delegates in ‘Victory Hotel’ where the 4th

Congress of the Vietnamese Workers’ Party took place.

cultural level of the people, creat-
ing the necessary ammenities for
the people with respect to health,
education etc., with particular
emphasis on education to make
education available to every
youngster in Vietnam.

Delegates who spoke at the
Congress, felt optimistic about
this objective. What is the basis of
this optimism? First of all the cli-
mate of Vietnam means they can
grow several crops a year.

They have diverse natural re-
sources, energy and big power re-
sources. They have a heavy in-
dustry base and a light and food
industry. They have 3,200
kilometers of seacoast with vast
territorial waters. They have huge
amounts of fish, vast. forest lands
and they have experience in the
north of the building of a socialist
system of society.

And, as Le Duan said in his
report, ‘‘yes it’s true we have all
those resources, but the most im-
portant thing we have is people
who are prepared to build
socialism in Vietnam.’’ There are
22 million working people in Viet-
nam, half a million managerial,
technical and scientific cadres in
Vietnam, and one million skilled
workers.

This evoked tremendous
applause at the Congress because
it accorded with the reality.

The Congress did not close its
eyes to the tremendous task be-
fore it and the Vietnamese
people. They are confident how-
ever that they can realize the
targets set based on the continu-
ing and ever extending support of
the socialist countries, particu-
larly the USSR. The fraternal de-
legates from these countries em-
phasized not only that they stood
with Vietnam in its time of need;
they stand with her now in
socialist construction and in the
struggle for peace and security.
This pledge was equally made by
the fratemal delegates from the
capitalist countries.

Indeed this was another of the
main features of the Congress, its
strong internationalist position
and firm support of Marxism
Leninism and proletarian inter-
nationalism.

While not much was said at the
Congress about overcoming the
wounds of war, this nevertheless
is a continuing task and integrally
related with the task of rebuilding
the country. General Giap and
other leaders of the Party, have in

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 28, 1977—Page 7

discussions with them, expressed
deep appreciation of what had
been done in Canada by Cana-
dians from all walks of life in sup-
port of their just struggle. At the
same time they hoped such sup-
port would be continued and
widened in the form of medical
assistance, as well as in the form
of clothing for the mountain
people, directed to help over-
come the consequences of war.
They also expressed the hope that
trade, cultural and scientific rela-
tions would be developed bet-
ween Canada and Vietnam. I took
it on myself to say that progres-
sive and democratic Canadians
would indeed do everything hu-
manly possible to make
medicines, clothing and other
items available to the Vietnamese
people while pressing the Gov-
emment to undertake long term
low interest credits to Vietnam for
its reconstruction.

A united socialist Vietnam with
its 50 million people, the third
largest socialist country in the
world, has undertaken a tre-
mendous task. Backed by the
people everywhere, they will
achieve the aim of socialist con-
struction and at the same time
make a significant contribution to
the cause of peace, indepen-
dence, security and socialism in
South East Asia and in Asia as a
whole and to the revolutionary
cause of the peoples.

The following resolution
was passed unanimously at the
Jan. 16 public meeting in To-
ronto: :

‘*This meeting urges the new
Carter administration to with-
draw the veto that the Ford
administration used to keep
the Socialist Republic of Viet-
nam from taking its rightful
place in the United Nations.

“It also urges president Car-
ter to reverse the positions of
Ford that refused to carry out
the provisions of the Paris Ag-
reement — particularly making
available funds to assist in the

-reconstruction of the consequ-
ences of U.S. aggression.

“‘The meeting also urges
democratic-minded Canadians
and their organizations to press
the Canadian government to
give medical and technical as-
sistance to the new Republic
and to undertake similar efforts
themselves.”

t