Communist Review, Criticism of Vietnamese Government
- Artist/Author/Producer: Duong Hu Huong Vietnamese Government
- Confronting Bodies: Vietnamese Government
- Dates of action: April 16, 1991
- Location: Vietnam
- Description of the Art Work
- "Apparently accepting at face value the (Communist) party's call for
criticism and comments, the March issue of Communist Review (the party's
theoretical journal) published the views of six well-known intellectuals
who had been invited to participate in a seminar organised by the
magazine in January. According to the magazine, the participants strongly
criticised two draft documents prepared for the upcoming congress-a
political platform and an economic blueprint-and questioned whether
Marxism-Leninism was appropriate for resolving Vietnam's current economic
and political problems."
- Description of incident
- "...Party leaders reacted sharply to the Communist Review's article,
even though seminar participants say their strongest criticisms were not
reported. The central committee's culture and ideology department called
a meeting of print media editors, during which they were warned against
going too far in reporting the views of critics... "
Furthermore, "... Vietnamese officals say party leaders were so
angered by this article-along with two petitions from Vietnamese
ntellectuals published in Europe-that they ordered increased surveillance
of dissidents and requested other state-controlled media to launch a
campaign slamming the party's critics. At least one well known writer
(Duong Hu Huong) was arrested in mid-April for allegedely trying to send
documents criticing the government out of the country..."
Duong Hu Huong had quit the communist party the previous year and
began to sharply criticize the government. The overseas Vietnamese who was
carrying Duong Hu Huong's documents was detained by the government.
- Results of incident
- "... Communist Review appears to have fallen back into line in the face
of criticism. Its April issue contains an article by its editorial board
entitled "Some Things Need to be Discussed Again" which challenged the
views of (the editors of the controversial issue) as "not quite right!"
The article said that Marxism-Leninism was still the sole ideological
system," but insisted that it had 'historical limitations' and needed to
be "adjusted to fit the current situation in Vietnam.
The carrier of Duong Hu Huong's documents was still being detained
as of May 2, 1991."
Source: Murray Hiebert, Far Eastern Economic Review, "Higher Criticism," v 151 n
18, May 2, p 17-18