economic crisis undoubtedly represents a grave threat of social instability that would not be long in making itself felt on the political level. We have to oct, and fast." -- General Tran Van Don, Thieu's vice-prime ministor, in an interview published in the Paris daily Le Figaro, April 1, 1974.
Official Saigon declarations have come a long way from the optimism that characterized them just after the signing of the Paris accords on January 27, 1973. But despite the rosy military and political future General Tran Van Don predicts for the regime he represents, he cannot hide his anxiety.
Thieu knows that repressive measures alone will not keep him in power indefinitely. The industrial development of the reported this assertion by Soares, the Social Democratic leader: "I have complete confidence in the junta. " As for Cunhal, the leader of the Communist party, he declared, "The alliance between the people and the military is the essential condition for safeguarding democratic rights." (l'Humanité, the newspaper of the French Communist party, May 2.) In this context the role of the revolutionary Marxists of the Internationalist Communist League (Portuguese sympathizing organization of the Fourth International) will be decisive, both in relation to the workers movement, which is developing new instruments of struggle, and in relation to antimilitarist and anticolonialist octivity. Finally, should Mitterand be victorious in the French presidential elections, it is certain that the fall of Salazarism will open the way to an accelerated crisis in Spain and to a new stage in the socialist revolution on the iberian peninsula. We will return in greater detail to the situation in Portugal and the prospects for socialist revolution on the Iberian peninsula in the next issue of INPRECOR
-AU -- May 3 (1) Since the end of the 1960s, construction of military trucks, amphibious vehicles, and short-range tanks, as well as assembly of certain types of aircraft for the African wars, has been carried out mostly in Portugal. (2) Salgado Matos, "Os investimentos estrangeiros em Portugal, " Lisbon, 1973. (3) Rudel, "Le Portugal de Salazer." (4) See "Republica, * March, 1973. (5) "Polemica, " No. 4, 1973. 1 South Vietnomese cities under his control and the "green revolution" in the countryside were supposed to have allowed for a deeper consolidation of his regime. But that kind of capitalist development could only come about through an impetus from outside, a sort of Marshall Plan for Indochina combining financial aid from big banks and state powers with a moss of Western investment. And Saigon today is running up against the realistic pessimism of the business circles to which it has gone begging for aid. A SEVERE VERDICT
The verdict is in fact severe. For example, the fortnightly
Pacific Basin Reports, an employers' magazine published in Son Francisco, drily writes that "the economy of the areas controlled by Thieu is weak and getting weaker; the PRG is strong and getting stronger. Most potential investors, hitherto suspicious, are now in the process of abandoning one after the other any idea of investing in South Vietnam." For the British journal The Economist (March 9, 1974) "even under the most optimistic eventuality, South Vietnam's eco-
15
South vietnam nomic perspectives are bleak." The Economist is merely repeating the findings of a report published by the World Bank, which makes no secret of its sympathy for the puppet regime and openly counts on the January 27, 1973 accords not being applied. Beginning from the most favorable projections worked out by South Vietnamese economists -- which are hardly serious anyway -- the report concludes that the foreign aid
Saigon will need in 1980 will exceed by $100 million the aid that it will probably receive in 1974; and that in 1990
Saigon will still require an annual aid on the order of 5300 to $450 million. Even without taking account of the PRG's capacity for future octions, the World Bank concludes that a fantastic, long-term international effort will be necessary if Saigon is to avoid a potentially fatal crisis.
The Thieu regime's anxiety is understandable. In fact, the World Bank observes that since the signing of the Paris occords "aid has scarcely increased and has even declined in real value, because the costs of most of the imported products have gone up. " Nevertheless, the American government has spared no effort to drum up "multinational" aid for
Thieu's South Vietnam. U.S. imperialism neither wants nor is able to foot the bill for defending the "free world" in Indochina by itself. To understand the lack of success of this policy we must go back to the depth of the transformation of the South Vietnomese economy that the U.S. program would require and the weakness of the puppet regime's strategic position. Vietnamese society was profoundly transformed by the American intervention. At the beginning of the Indoching war, 90 percent of the Vietnamese population lived in the countryside; today, about half is concentrated in and around cities. This is the result of a systemmatic policy of "urbanization," of round-ups and deportations of the population, and of terror-bombing of the liberated zones. U.S. strategists have undoubtedly achieved some partial success with this policy in bringing a significant section of the population under their control and in transforming masses of peasants into dependent refugees subject to an intensive process of economic and ideological corruption. Nguyen Khac Vien, the editor of the series "Vietnomese Studies" published in Hanoi, estimated that in February 1973 this population "bound hand and foot to American aid" numbered 5 or 6 million people out of a total of 27 million inhabitants. And he stressed that this would be "one of the biggest difficulties" for the PRG. (Interview in Jeune Afrique, February 10, 1973) But in doing this, Washington has not succeeded in developing a real urban society. The national bourgeoisie never developed as a coherent class in Vietnam. French imperialism blocked its development. Worse, industrialization always remained very weak, whether it was tied to Vietnamese or to foreign capital, the former being a very small part of the total. In spite of the huge size of the American presence, U.5. companies (with the exception of the petroleum sector) never sought to implant themselves massively. What has arisen in the cities of South Vietnam is a thoroughly parasitic economy with a "lumpenbourgeoisic" recruited essentially from top officers and functionaries (as well as traffickers and smugglers) standing at its summit and a pauperized and uprooted population living mainly on handouts standing at its base. With the retreat of the U.S. expeditionary force this economy plunged into a deep crisis. The 500, 000 Gls had been spending about $400 million a year in South Vietnam and the American armed forces directly employed some 250, 000 16 persons. The dollars are still flowing in, but they are not directly affecting the lower-ranking people; they are absorbed by the commanders of the administration and the army and by the network of Chinese smugglers. Employees of U.S. bases, launderers, prostitutes, women "unofficially" serving
Gls, restauranteurs, and barmaids were all suddenly thrown out of work.
The American development plan aims at transforming a parasitic, largely artificial economy totally dependent on outside aid into a neocolonialist capitalist formation of the very time that a sharp internal crisis is opening up and the military-political situation of the Thieu regime promises to be bad in the medium term. The puppet army has not succeeded in seriously cutting into the liberated zones. The location of the liberated zones cuts into the puppet zones in decisive strategic areas (the Central Highlands) and agricultural areas (a large portion of the Meking Delta). Saigon seems to have generally lost the battle for rice. A new network of roads supplementing the Ho Chi Minh trail now crosses the liberated zones from north to south; a third road seems to be under construction linking the Central Highlands to the central coastal provinces (which would explain the intensity of the fighting in the Kontum area. The evalution of the situation in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand is unfavorable to Thieu. Specialized press organs frankly indicate the deeper reasons for the failure of the Americon international aid plan. Contrary to what general Tran Van Don claims, the political and militory stability of the puppet regime is for from as-
"Because of the war, the lack of guarantees, and the usual problems of bureaucracy and corruption, foreign investors are continuing to stand on the sidelines, " wrote the December 12, 1973 Wall Street Joumal. For the World Bank, "as far as Vietnam is concerned, there is a permanent problem of security because of which the World Bank has been unable to draw clear conclusions. " Even the French employers' magazine Entreprises, which has been waging a campaign in Thieu's favor ("Investments and business can do well in this part of the world, " wrote P. Drouin in Entreprises), has had to recognize that in South Vietnam the political and economic situation is delicate. ... Peace can be blown away at any moment. " (In the December 14, 1973 issue.) When it is token into account that even under the most favorable conditions (for capitalism, that is) South Vietnam could offer a solvent and profitable consumer market only after dozers of years -- again taking the "optimistic" forecasts as to Thie's future -- it is easy to see why industrialists, and even states, might think twice before committing THE ECONOMIC CRISIS The conditions the Saigon regime offers industrialists are nevertheless unusually favorable. Officially, French companies are allowed to send 90 percent of their profits back to France. The Fiscal advantages are immense. But investors have demanded financial guarantees from their governments. And the governments have refused. The major part of foreign investment in South Vietnam is composed of French capital. But most of these companies
aro functioning under a backward, pre-1954 technology. The Ha Tien cement factories have been considerably expanded; Citroen has built an assembly plant, and Isostat is in the process of setting up an electricity plant. But it looks like that will be all. As for the Japanese capitalists, they seem to have basically abandoned their projects, their confidence having evaporated. The "green revolution" in the countryside was supposed to win a section of the peasantry over to the regime by creating a layer of capitalist peasants and by aiding industrial development, It failed. First of all because the Saigon government did not manage to bring sufficient areas of the countryside under its control and because the investments needed to transform the agricultural system were insecure. Also because the landlords blocked the agrarion reform in a whole series of regions. And, finally, because the "green revolution" implied a modernization of agriculture that ran up against a double obstacle (taking account of the pressure of the NLF and the PRG): indebtedness and unemployment among the peasants. Industrial prices, especially the price of fertilizer, rose at dizzying speed. And wherever capitalist measures aimed at making agriculture a profit-making operation did develop, masses of peasants were driven from the land, adding to the glut of refugees crowding into the cities. Thus, the "green revolution, " which was supposed to expand the regime's social base, is threatening to erode it still further. Financial aid has also been insufficient. The French, Japanese, and West German governments have given loans and donations. Combined with the American aid, these contributions have amounted to enough emergency first aid to enable the Thieu regime to hold on. But Le Quang Vien, governor of the Bank of Vietnam, has recognized that "for the time being. American aid is allowing us to survive, but not to reconstruct" (Le Monde Diplomatique, January, 1974). "Defense" swallows up more than 50 percent of the total budget. Corruption is a generalized phenomenon. Worldwide price increases and the devaluation of the dollar are directly hitting of the value of this aid. The only measure that theoretically could permit the Saigon government to rebalance its financial resources would be a demobilizafion of a large part of the puppet army. But that would open the floodgates. Here the PRG's military pressure is decisive. Nor could the puppet regime tolerate the sudden increase in unemployment that would result. THE SOCIAL CRISIS As a result of the economic crisis, industrial production in the parts of South Vietnam under puppet control fell by 20 percent in 1973. The piaster was devalued twelve times. The inflation rate has reached 5 percent a month. The cost of living has risen 70 percent since January 1973. The salaries of soldiers and government employees have risen only 20 percent in the same period. Unemployment is spreading rapidly. The Paris daily Le Figoro, which favors the puppet regime, admits the existence of 200, 000 permanent unemployed (100, 000 of them in Saigon), not counting the underemployment of at least 500, 000 persons. (April 1, 1974 issue .) The World Bark itself odmitted that "the standard of living has fallen during the post two years." For the Wall Street Journal, "in nearly all areas the economy is not going as well today as it was two years ago. And nothing was going very well then. Real incomes and the standard of living are falling. Unemployment is growing. . .. Journalists have confirmed the views of the experts. In Le Figoro Francois Nivolon described the social situation in Saigon: "Hunger is a new phenomenon. ... In the center of the city, most of the trees have recently been stripped of their bark for as high as o man can reach. The bark is used by the poorest people to make the cooking fires they need in order to eat: lamp oil, the usual fuel for cooking fires, costs seven times as much as it did in January 1973. . There is no famine in Saigon, but the number who go hungry is rather large, and the number who are underfed is larger still." The average salary for an employee today is just enough to buy rice for his family. The crisis struck first of the refugees, the employees of the American "services," and the itinerant small merchants. Now it's hitting the soldiers and civil servants. All the predictions are now converging: "There is no hope of serious improvement for at least a year. The little (sic) Vietnamese people have been hardened and are resigned by atavism. Just the same, it's a long year. It is not certain that it will poss without the outbreak of the social crisis on which the 'other side' has visibly been counting. " (Francois Nivolon in the April 1, 1974 Le Figaro.) The possible discovery of off-shore oil deposits cannot resolve the present crisis. Even on this point, uncertainty about the regime's future is bearing down. All the more so in that the regions concerned are also claimed by China, which demonstrated its determination to assert it rights during the conflict over the Parcelle islands. And in any case, these investments would seem to be profitoble only in the medium term. The most recent "tour" to the United States and France mode by "Vice Prime Minister" General Tran Van Don seers to have bome little fruit. The American House of Representatives hes just rejected by a vote of 177 to 154 a proposal to increase 1974 U.S. military aid to Saigon by 274 million. THE WORKERS STRUGGLES Life in the liberated zones is undoubtedly very austere. But at least people eat when they are hungry. That fact alone is becoming a disintegrating factor for the base of the puppet regime. But the key question remairs that of developing an urban opposition. The zones under Saigon's control have experienced a not inconsiderable succession of struggles -especially workers struggles. During the months just after the signing of the Paris accords, many workers teach-ins were held to denounce the violation of the accords. This movement has been followed by the outbreak of a large number of struggles that, according to issue No. 235 of the NLF organ South Vietnam in Struggle, have involved thousands of workers in nearly all sectors (railroads, water and electrical works, gos and oil, port facilities, road and automotive transport, weaving, and the rubber industry). The most important of these struggles was probably that of the Saigon railwaymen in the Trung Bo center. In some cases, the workers have won their demands, as in private companies like Shell and Sicovina. It was in July 1973 that the most important mobilization
17
scuth vietnam against the new sales tax broke out. It began in the factories and spread to the neighborhoods and marketplaces. On July 13 a demonstration of more than 4, 000 workers and commercial employees marched on the Saigon Chamber of Commerce, "surrounding" Director General of Taxes Nguyen Hai Binh. Thieu's sales lax operation was a total failure. There were also struggles around trode-union rights. The Saigon federation of unions grouped together fiffeen unions and fought against a scab organization created by Tran Quoc Buu which organized -- without great success -- a "countercongress" of Vietnamese unions. Obviously, repression comes down on trade-union militants as well as others. On several occasions workers struggles won the reversal of illegal sentencings and freed the arrested unionists. But while struggles are going on, sometimes successfully. there seems to be great difficulty in developing the centralization required to move to a higher stage of struggle. Of the struggles oround economic demands, only the one against the sales tax achieved a very significant breadth and coordination. For a time ofter the signing of the Paris accords, the student movement acted as the political focal point for the urban opposition. Now, however, it does not seem to be playing this role. Not that the student struggles have stopped. On February 21, for example, some 2, 000 students at Hoa Hoo university (An Giang) leunched a hunger strike and stopped going to classes in order to demand reform of the university administration and the accounting of the rector's use of certain funds. But the extremely tough repression that hit the General Assocfation of Students, combined with the regime's policy of decentralizing the universities in order to break up large concentrations of students, hos prevented the student movement from continuing on the some level as before. The Buddhist movement, which could have taken up the slack, also seems to be rather divided today. THE POLITICAL CRISIS It will probably be up to the political opposition to centralize struggles in the future. This opposition has had trouble in getting organized, A study recently published by the
Vietnamese Community, a Catholic organization, counted 201,200 prisoners in Thieu's jails. In 1973, according to the PRG, 41,000 new arrests took place. Each block of houses is under the jurisdiction of police who must report the arrival of any unknown person. But the political crisis of the regime is manifesting itself nevertheless:
or corruption implicating military and official circles; and by the appearance of opposition political movements. Two of these, both claiming allegiance to the "third force, "
were founded recently.
On January 19 Thieu signed a constitutional amendment allowing him to run for president for a third time, In response, forty opposition members of parliament marched in the streets of Saigon. The "bloc of deputies struggling for peace and democratic rights" was then formed by fifty-five members of parliament. It works in collaboration with General Duong
Van Minh, who was part of the troika that overthrew Diem in October 1963 and who directs one of the rare nonclandes-
18 tine opposition press organs. This "bloc of deputies" is thus composed of elements who have been on integral part of the regime -The second opposition movement is composed of opposition personalities for the most part outside the regime. It is called the "movement for the implementation of the Paris accords." Among its leoders are the lawyer Nguyen Long (recently freed from a PRG zone despite his desire to remain in Saigon), the lawyer Tran Ngoc Lieng, the deputy Ho Ngoc Nhuam, the bonzes of the antigovemment faction of the An Quang Pagoda, and Madam Ngo Be Thanh, president of the "movement of women for the right to life," who was freed in Saigon after an intense solidarity campaign. The opposition within the third force is in a process of regroupment and remains up for grabs in a battle for leadership between the revolutionary forces and the pro-West opposition to the Thieu regime. The NLF has expressed its suspicion about the parliamentary opposition. In an interview granted to Le Monde during the Algiers Conference (and published in the September 21, 1973 issue), Nguyen Huu Tho, president of the NLF Exacutive Council, insisted on the necessity for defining the representatives of the third force as nondemocratic. On the other hand, the PRG has given clear support to the Movement for Implementation of the Paris Accords. Madam Ngo Ba Thanh especially has been presented as "one of the leaders of the third force in Saigon." She hos been holding many "unauthorized" meetings in Saigon. But the current action of all these opposition mavements is converging on the struggle to free the political prisoners. Hunger strikes are breaking out regularly, such as the one by 340 Buddhists in Chi Hoo prison, whose action has been going on for five weeks. General Minh has published declarations demanding the release of the prisoners. The Movement for the Implementation of the Paris Accords, along with R.P. Chantin's Committee for the Reform of the Prison System, hos taken a number of steps aimed at getting in contact with the prisoners. Several demonstrations have taken place in Saigon, notably to demand the release of the student leoder Huynh Tan Mam. It is most likely these questions of the political prisoners and democratic rights that will allow for the centralization of all the partial social movements into an active mass political opposition. Thieu's inability to wipe out all open opposition in spite of the measures he has resorted to (aimed at cleaning up his economic and social situation) make his regime one whose days are numbered. But for all that, the extreme difficulties that the Vietnamese revolution still Finds itself confronted with must not be underestimated. U.S. military intervention remains considerable. In 1973 South Vietnam spend threefourths as much on ammunition as it did in 1972, the year of the big PRG offensive. Six FSEs, one of the world's most modern planes, have just been sent to the Saigon army. Moreover, the decadence, social destructurization of the refugee population, and the poison spread around by "cultural" propaganda do not make the urban milieu easy to organize.
But the analysis of the economic and social crisis of the
Saigon regime sheds some light on one of the bases of the present strategy of the PRG and indicates the future road of the Vietnamese revolution.
- PIERRE ROUSSET-L
ASSAULT ON STALINISM
OCTOBER REVOLUTIOR the gulag archipeldge SOLZHENITSYN'S The